Comments policy

We encourage open, lively debate but the decision to publish comments on this site remains at the discretion of Defra. Comments that violate any of the following rules will not be published.

1. Personal identification

Anonymous comments will not be accepted. All comments submitted to this site must include your name and a genuine email address. Do not represent yourself as another person. By submitting a comment on this site, you agree to your name and comment (but not your email address) being made public. For more information on how your data will be treated see the terms of use.

2. Conduct and use of language

Comments should be civil and tasteful, and must not be malicious or designed to offend. Swear-words and profanity will not be accepted. No reference should be made to the personality of other participants nor should attacks be made on the basis of an individual’s race, religion, gender, nationality, sexuality or other personal characteristic.

3. Legal liability

You are legally responsible for what you write and post to this site. By submitting a comment you undertake to indemnify Defra against any liability arising from its publication, including but not limited to breach of confidentiality or copyright, libel, or any obscene, defamatory, seditious, blasphemous or other actionable statement you may make.

4. Advertising, spamming and research

No advertising or promotion is allowed except where it is for an event, publication or similar item that has direct relevance to the subject of discussion. Information about locating and sharing knowledge and expertise is welcomed, but within the specific discussion provided. Please don’t submit the same comment more than once to the same discussion.

5. Political propriety

This is a government website, and comments used for party political purposes will not be published.

6. Relevance and readability

Your comment should be within the scope of the topic under discussion. Please keep your comments short – we won’t generally publish articles longer than 500 words, or we may ask you to summarise it.

7. Moderation

All comments submitted by this site will be checked before they are published (pre-moderated) by relevant Defra policy officials.

Moderators will monitor the site between normal working hours Monday to Friday. We aim to approve comments as quickly as possible. The length of time it takes for your comment to appear will depend on the volume of comments we are receiving.

We do not censor participants’ opinions. All comments will be published unless they are in breach of the above rules. We will not ourselves edit any of your comments, but we may contact you to let you know why your comment has not been published, or to ask you to edit it in the light of the above rules.

8. Contact us

If you need help using this site you can contact us.