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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of modernising the Forestry Act 1967 to support nature recovery and ecological targets.

Defra has no immediate plans to make changes to the Forestry Act 1967. We will continue to review whether making changes to the Act could help to meet our wider objectives. Any changes to the Act would require primary legislation. Government already has a substantial suite of statutory duties and policy commitments driving nature recovery, including legally binding targets under the Environment Act 2021.