Tree Planting

Baroness Redfern Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

This is a priority area for Defra, a department that I belong to. Yes, we are seeing increasing numbers of threats to our native trees. The whole country is aware of ash dieback and we expect a very large number of our ash trees to be infected and die. The good news is that they will not all die; we expect up to 5% of those trees to have a natural tolerance, so the UK Government are funding research into future breeding programmes for tolerant trees. We are also conducting the world’s largest screening trials and will plant the first of the tolerant trees this year. That is just part of our biosecurity focus in Defra and our plans to stave off the threat of tree diseases from this country.

[Baroness Redfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, with the UK having one of the lowest levels of woodland cover of any European country, and as the England tree strategy consultation closes next week, will there be extra support for widening the eligibility criteria for the woodland creation grants as a bonus to the Government’s commitment to increase planting to 30,000 hectares a year by 2025?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

We will use the outcome of the consultation—it is a genuine consultation; we know we need to hear from stakeholders across the country—to guide the manner in which we deploy the Nature for Climate Fund and ensure that it runs, in an effective manner, alongside existing sources of funding for new woodland. But given that we will be using public money, we want to achieve the biggest possible return. That means using those funds and the wider programme to deliver for biodiversity, people and climate change. Our strong default will be for mixed native woodlands and, in some cases, facilitating natural regeneration of land. It is incumbent on us, using public money, to get the biggest bang for our buck.