Back on the 1st April my MP, Caroline Ansell sent up a written question to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The question was responded to by Rebecca Pow who is a DEFRA Minister and the MP for Taunton Deane. The question is very straight forward and yet the response seems very unclear. If this was the first time the current Government has not bothered to provide a clear answer, they could be treated as having made a minor mistake, but tragically this is one of many similar responses. I read loads of questions which MPs call for the Government to make a statement and sadly they rarely do. Given the Government demands responses from other agencies one wonders why they don’t have internal deadlines or plans for work to be carried out such as statements. As an alternative perhaps next time the Government asks for a defined response the people who are asked could give a vague response? The contribution above comes from James Surowiecki who is an American journalist. So back to the question which can be seen here and is headlined as “Environment Protection”.

Caroline: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his planned timetable is for publishing the Evidence Reports and Supplementary Evidence for each target proposal referred to in the Consultation on Environmental Targets, published on 16 March 2022.

Rebecca: The evidence reports and impact assessments to accompany the consultation are large and complex. They are undergoing final assurance and will be published shortly.