Select committee: Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 23
1st Report – The role of natural capital in the UK's green economy
Published 7 May 2025
Environmental Audit Committee The role of natural capital in the green economy [revived] All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Government should also ensure that on-site gains have sufficient transparency and scrutiny of delivery—through sufficient funding of local authorities to deliver checks, and provision to local authorities of the capacity to undertake enforcement action—with a commitment to reforming the delivery of on-site gains if widespread non-compliance is detected. We recommend that Ministers now commit to reviewing the effectiveness of on-site delivery of BNG at the end of the third BNG reporting year in February 2027, and to issuing the report of the review by the end of May 2027. (Recommendation, Paragraph 124)
From: Environmental Audit Committee, 1st Report – The role of natural capital in the UK's green economy (HC 501), 7 May 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 22 July 2025 (deadline 7 July 2025).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government thanks the Committee for its report and sets out, recommendation by recommendation, where it agrees, declines or will take further work, with several commitments to publish in 2025 and later.
- On the Committee's call for a report to the House on agricultural property relief, the government "does not agree" it should report within three months of the end of 2026-27. It cites a long data lag and says it will monitor reforms "in the normal way".
- On Biodiversity Net Gain, the government says it "continues to support BNG policy". It has launched two consultations, and BNG will be introduced for NSIPs "from May 2026".
- On an on-site BNG register, the government states that it does "not currently have plans to develop" one, noting that an off-site register already exists.
- On timings, it plans to publish 30by30 guidance and an action plan "later in 2025", and says the Land Use Framework "will be published later this year". Details on allocating BNG credit income will follow "in due course".