§ Dr. CableTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the regulatory impact of the UK regime for administering the Habitats Directive. [138553]
§ Mr. BradshawThe Habitats Directive is principally transposed into UK law by regulations which came into force in 1994 and 1995. Since then no overall assessment has been made. Nature conservation is a devolved matter and therefore any assessment in Scotland, North Ireland and Wales will be a matter for the relevant administrations. In England, assessments are carried out before candidate Special Areas of Conservation are submitted to the European Commission under Article 4 of the Directive. My Department has also published Regulatory Impact Assessments on recently proposed draft amendments to the regulations in England, and on draft regulations to implement the Directive in the offshore zone.