Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 8
74th Report - Environmental regulation
Published 25 Mar 2026
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Environmental regulation All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Both the regulators and Defra consider the complexity of the legislation under which they operate to be a barrier to improvement.13 The Environment Agency told us that tackling some of the obsolete legislation is a way to it to unblock some of the difficult problems it experiences.14 It described how its frontline staff try to reconcile a whole range of different conflicting agendas which it finds challenging. Natural England told us the legislation can feel restrictive or narrow and be a constraint.15
From: Public Accounts Committee, 74th Report - Environmental regulation (HC 1687), 25 March 2026
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 1 June 2026 (deadline 25 May 2026).