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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to protect ancient woodlands that will be affected by the HS2 development.

HS2 is an exceptionally important infrastructure project, and there are significant compensation packages in place to mitigate for the unavoidable loss of 39.2 hectares resulting from HS2.

HS2 is using a combination of approaches to compensate for the ancient woodlands lost during construction, including soil translocation from affected ancient woodlands to other woodlands to improve their biodiversity, restoring existing ancient woodland and planting new woodland.

The HS2 Woodland Fund is the compensation strategy for ancient woodland loss, with £5 million provided for HS2 Phase 1. This has been made available to fund projects that will help support woodland creation, as well as restore and enhance woodland on private land or in partnership with multiple landowners. This fund is overseen by the Forestry Commission. £1.6 million of this fund has already been committed, supporting around 121 hectares of new native woodland creation and the restoration of 174 hectares of plantations within ancient woodland sites. £2 million more has been provisionally allocated for Phase 2a.