Part 6: Nature and Biodiversity Section 107: Information to be provided by the Secretary of State
This section introduces a new duty on the Secretary of State to make available certain information to the responsible authority to assist with the production of the LNRS.
	Subsection (1) requires the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a national habitat map for England.
	Subsection (2) specifies that the national habitat map must contain:
national conservation sites; and
other areas that the Secretary of State considers to be of particular importance for biodiversity.
	The term "national conservation sites" is defined in section 108(3). Information on these sites is held by central government. Other areas of particular importance for biodiversity might include locations of scarce habitats or habitats upon which scarce species depend outside of existing protected sites.
	Subsection (3) allows for the Secretary of State to review and republish the national habitat map from time to time. The distribution of different habitat types can be expected to change over time, and it is anticipated that technology, such as satellite imaging, may present new options for habitat mapping. Publication of an updated national habitat map may potentially trigger a responsible authority to review and republish its LNRS, as provided for in section 105(3).
	Subsections (4) and (5) require the Secretary of State to inform the responsible authority of any areas in the authority’s strategy area that the Secretary of State considers could both:
be of greater importance for biodiversity, or where the recovery or enhancement of biodiversity could contribute to other environmental benefits; and
contribute to establishing a network of areas for recovery and enhancement of biodiversity across England as a whole.
	This provision is similar to that in section 106(3)(c), which specifies that such areas are a required component of local habitat maps. Whilst the intention is that the large majority of such "biodiversity opportunities" are identified locally by the responsible authority through an open collaborative approach, subsections (4) and (5) are intended to also allow the Secretary of State to propose national priorities for an area. This might theoretically include future landscape-scale biodiversity projects.
	Similarly to section 106(3)(c)(ii), subsection (5)(a) allows for the opportunities identified by the Secretary of State to consider other environmental benefits alongside recovering and enhancing biodiversity. Thus, areas might include those identified for other environmental reasons that could also have a biodiversity benefit, such as forestry creation.
	The requirement at subsection (5)(b) that the Secretary of State should consider that the areas identified could contribute to establishing a network of areas for recovery and enhancement of biodiversity reflects the intention that LNRSs should not exist in isolation but should aggregate together. The government has recognised the need for coordinated action to address biodiversity decline through, amongst other policies, the commitment to create a national nature recovery network in the 25 Year Environment Plan (which this Act will make the first statutory environmental improvement plan). The information provided by the Secretary of State under this provision is intended to help individual responsible authorities develop LNRSs that can form the basis of an England-wide network for the recovery and enhancement of biodiversity.
	Subsection (6) extends the duty on the Secretary of State to provide the responsible authority with information to anything else that the Secretary of State holds that the Secretary of State considers would assist in the preparation of an LNRS. Examples of such information might include other mapped information, like climate change assessments, soils, geology or topography that the Secretary of State considers might help the responsible authority assess the potential of a location for recovering biodiversity.