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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Benyon on 8 June (HL Deb col 1151), what steps they are taking to ensure that private sector investment in the natural environment is carried out with "the proper social underpinning".

The Government has an ambitious target to raise at least £500m a year of private finance for nature’s recovery by 2027 and £1 billion by 2030. We are developing a number of tools to support that target, including standards and frameworks to ensure investments are robust and credible, as well as taking appropriate account of factors such as local community impacts. We intend to set out more detail on this work shortly, however in the interim there are several policies that aim to address this for current investments.

For example, the UK Woodland Carbon Code provides a robust, internationally recognised standard for investment in new woodland creation. The Woodland Carbon Code includes a requirement to adhere throughout the lifetime of projects to the social aspects of sustainable forest management set out in the UK Forestry Standard. This includes taking action to safeguard against negative social outcomes, as well as to manage for positive social outcomes. Furthermore, any large or commercial woodland creation projects would require an Environmental Impact Assessment which requires a public consultation.

Under our COP26 Presidency, the Government has supported action to raise standards for voluntary carbon markets. This includes the international Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative, which published its draft Code of Conduct on 7 June.