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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to facilitate parliamentary scrutiny of the proposed long-term targets to be set under section 1 of the Environment Act 2021 before the statutory instruments to give those targets legal effect are laid in October 2022.

The interim and long-term targets due to be set under the Environment Act will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Long-term targets will be set in statutory instruments subject to the affirmative procedure and our first suite of targets will be brought forward by 31 October 2022. Both Houses of Parliament will have the opportunity to scrutinise, debate and vote on the details and ambition of these targets.

We will be carrying out a public consultation on proposed long-term targets in early 2022. We will write to the chairs of the appropriate Select Committees in both Houses to update them before this launches.

Interim targets for the first suite of long-term targets will be included in the updated Environmental Improvement Plan, which be laid before both Houses of Parliament for scrutiny in early 2023.