Select committee: Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 19
Second Report - The UK's footprint on global biodiversity
Published 30 Sep 2021
Paragraph 75
Environmental Audit Committee Biodiversity and Ecosystems All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
To further improve the state of biodiversity in the Overseas Territories, we recommend that gaps in their protection be rectified. Namely, we recommend that: a) Ministers assure and set out the long-term funding plan for the Blue Belt Programme. In response to this report the Government should set out the programme’s long- term timetable, budget, and status following the Government’s 2021 Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. b) Ministers review the environmental funding gap implications for the Overseas Territories following the UK leaving the EU. In response to this report Ministers should set out how the UK could fund landscape scale environmental projects with the potential for transformative biodiversity restoration. c) In the Government’s response to this report, Ministers should evaluate the feasibility of an environmental research portal for Overseas Territories. d) Ministers should consider opportunities to use increasing global aerial surveillance capabilities from high altitude or space to monitor the Blue Belt Programme.
From: Environmental Audit Committee, Second Report - The UK's footprint on global biodiversity (HC 674), paragraph 75, 30 September 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 1 February 2022 (deadline 30 November 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response sets out domestic and international action on biodiversity, agreeing with some recommendations, such as support for a more ambitious species goal, while disagreeing with others.
- On a footprint target, the government says it will not consider setting one "until it can be certain that it would be supported by a robust evidence base" and avoids unintended consequences. It anticipates the new overseas-impact indicator will appear in the next (2022) framework update.
- On taxation, it agrees it is important to consider environmental impacts of relevant tax changes, but says it does "not agree with the Committee's specific recommendation" to assess every change, citing practicality and cost.
- On forest-risk commodities, it points to Environment Act due diligence rules on illegally occupied land and to other disclosure measures, rather than a wider ban covering the finance sector.
- On public procurement, it has "committed to a consultation on strengthening the GBSF in early 2022", and says it will take the Committee's recommendation on clear definitions into account in a review.