Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 30
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 ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Statutory biodiversity net gain (BNG) is an existing scheme requiring that developers’ planning applications avoid harm to biodiversity as much as possible and more than offset any harms with biodiversity improvements. In this way, BNG has a similar overall objective to that of the Nature Restoration Fund. Defra has overall responsibility for statutory BNG, and Natural England delivered and administered aspects of it on Defra’s behalf.82 Defra prioritised a quick launch of BNG, but has not achieved take-up targets for local authorities, who are the core delivery partners for the policy alongside Natural England.83 78 C&AG’s Report, paras 4.5 and 4.8 79 Q 78 80 Correspondence from Natural England, 13 February 2026 81 Q 78 82 C&AG’s Report, Implementing statutory biodiversity net gain, HC 729, 22 May 2024, para 6 83 C&AG’s Report, Implementing statutory biodiversity net gain, HC 729, 22 May 2024, paras 12 and 16-18 19
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).