Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans to open the next round of the Green Recovery Challenge Fund for applications.

The £80 million Green Recovery Challenge Fund (GCRF) formed part of the Government's green economic recovery, jobs and skills package. Through its funding of 159 projects across England, the Fund has supported environmental charities and their partners to recover, restore nature, tackle climate change and connect people with the natural environment. There are no plans at present for future rounds of GRCF.

We are, however, boosting the existing £640 million Nature for Climate Fund with a further £124 million of new money, ensuring total spend of more than £750 million by 2025 on peat restoration, woodland creation and management - above and beyond what was promised in the 2019 manifesto.

In addition, we are introducing three schemes that reward farmers and land managers for the delivery of environmental benefits: the Sustainable Farming Incentive; Local Nature Recovery; and Landscape Recovery. These schemes will pay for sustainable farming practices, improving animal health and welfare, reducing carbon emissions, creating and preserving habitat, and making landscape-scale environmental changes. This is an important step towards achieving our 25 Year Environment Plan ambitions and our net zero goal.