The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee is to conduct an inquiry into the Government’s response to the Natural Capital Committee’s second “State of Natural Capital” report - and will hear from Professor Dieter Helm, chair of the NCC, as part of it.

In June the EAC also published a separate report on ‘Well-being’, which included an examination of the work of the NCC and recommended that the NCC be put a permanent footing and its proposal for a 25-year action plan be adopted by the Government.

The Government has now announced that the NCC’s remit will continue to September 2015 (a 6-month extension to its 3-year current term) -  i.e. post the General Election in May 2015.

The Government response, published in the form of a letter from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Elizabeth Truss, says the Government welcomes the advice provided in the NCC’s second report.

As a result of the NCC’s advice the response says the Government will now take further action to:

• Explore combining datasets from various sources to provide composite species and environmental indices that provide a clearer picture of the status of England’s natural capital.
• Work with the NCC and the research councils to coordinate research efforts on natural capital so they complement one another and have the greatest impact.
• Use the review scheduled for early 2015 to examine the possibility of accelerating the work by the Office of National Statistics to incorporate natural capital into the national accounts and ensure it is focussed on informing policy decisions.

The Minister’s letter says the Government will also now look forward to seeing further, more detailed proposals from the NCC - in particular in relation to:

• The relative importance of the risk factors threatening the sustainable use of natural capital; how to prioritise work to address these; and where to focus investments in natural capital assets so that resources are targeted where they can have greatest impact.
• Whether information is available at a sufficiently detailed level to: allow the identification of nationally important natural capital assets, the key owners and influencers of these assets, and the routes to enabling direct investment in these – and; to allow natural capital strategic priorities to be relevant to decision-makers and support national policies and plans.
• The integration of the evidence base on natural capital sustainability with that in other areas of economic appraisal so that decisions to address unsustainable use can be directed towards those that will deliver benefit to society relative to alternative actions.

The response says the Government  will now work with NCC in the run up to its final report to consider how they can be addressed with an aim to find practical steps that can be taken to improve the state of England’s natural capital.