Source · Select Committees · Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 10
10
Deferred
Paragraph: 39
Mandate Government Buying Standards for all large public sector bodies and annual compliance reporting.
Recommendation
We recommend that each Government Buying Standard be made mandatory for all large public sector bodies, including the NHS, the Armed Forces and HM Prison Service, as it currently is for UK Government departments and their partner organisations. Annual reporting on compliance against public procurement policies should also be mandatory for these large public bodies: the annual reporting should in each case indicate the proportion of overall goods procured which have been sourced from UK producers.
Government Response Summary
The government deflects the recommendation regarding making Government Buying Standards mandatory and requiring annual compliance reporting for public sector bodies, instead detailing its existing and developing supply-side interventions and international funding programmes aimed at sustainable forest risk commodity supply chains.
Paragraph Reference:
39
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
We agree that transforming global FRC supply chains involves interventions on both the ‘supply side’ and ‘demand side’; we aim to improve the incentives and capacity of producers to act sustainably while directing consumers to source sustainable commodities through regulatory requirements and market incentives. On the supply side, the UK government continues to work with both businesses and smallholder farmers to improve sustainable practices and encourage forest-friendly business. The Investments in Forests and Sustainable Land Use (IFSLU) programme supports the development of new business models which provide jobs and livelihoods while protecting and restoring forests. The programme is implemented through a set of complementary interventions including Partnerships for Forests (P4F), which provides grant funding and technical assistance to catalyse investment into sustainable agriculture and forest management. To date, P4F has mobilised £1 billion in private investment into forests, brought 4.1m hectares of land under sustainable management and benefitted over 250,000 people. At COP28, the UK announced the launch of Phase 2 of the IFSLU programme, which will extend the programme until 2033 and provide an additional £500 million in funding. IFSLU2 is expected to leverage an additional £2 billion of private investment for forests and will increase the scale of support provided to smallholder farmers. 2 Navigating the false dichotomy between legality and zero deforestation, Forest Trends, 2022: https://www. forest-trends.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Navigating-the-False-Dichotomy-Between-Legality-and-Zero- Deforestation.pdf The UK’s Mobilising Finance for Forests programme is working to increase private investment in activities that create value from standing forests and/or incorporate forest protection and restoration into sustainable agricultural commodity production. This programme is complementary to P4F, targeting larger and more mature opportunities that will mobilise investment into sustainable land-use at scale. Other policy measures are focused on improving the enabling conditions for forest-friendly production, trade and investment. The Forest Governance, Markets and Climate (FGMC) programme supports action on FRCs through strengthening forest governance, developing tools which support transparency and accountability (such as Global Forest Watch and Trase) and helping governments adapt to meet new international market requirements. Phase 2 of the FGMC programme, providing an additional £500 million over 10 years, is currently in development. The UK also established the Just Rural Transition (JRT) to assist countries to realign their agricultural policies to support the livelihoods of smallholder farmers while protecting the forests that support their resilience to climate change. Through programme funding to the World Bank, countries are receiving support to repurpose agricultural subsidies, while the JRT secretariat is helping to engage other stakeholders – particularly farmers’ organisations – in this agenda.