Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have ratified the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in October 2010; and, if not, when they expect to do so.

The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing is implemented in the European Union through a directly applicable EU Regulation, which was agreed in April 2014. The EU Regulation will come into force in full 12 months after the Nagoya Protocol to allow time for the necessary implementation by the EU Member States. With the Protocol entering into force in October 2014, the UK Government is currently considering responses to its consultation on implementation and also awaiting publication by the European Commission of draft Implementing Acts to provide further detail on the EU Regulation. UK measures will be put in place to implement the EU Regulation and the Implementing Acts via Statutory Instrument (SI). Finalisation of both the EU Implementing Acts and the UK SI is expected by October 2015. The UK will be able to ratify the Nagoya Protocol once the UK SI is in place.