Tree Planting

(asked on 12th July 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will take steps to ensure that the England Tree Strategy maximises the use of domestically grown British trees and minimise reliance on imports.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 15th July 2021

We are committed to increasing tree planting across the UK to 30,000 hectares per year by the end of this parliament. We published our ambitious England Trees Action Plan on the 18th May which sets out our plans to at least treble tree planting rates in England in support of this, using more than £500 million from the Nature for Climate Fund.

Planting and establishing more domestic trees will play an important role in supporting the green economy, levelling up rural areas and creating thousands of new jobs. Using UK grown timber can reduce our carbon footprint from imports and reduce emissions by replacing carbon-intensive materials.

We committed in the Clean Growth Strategy and the 25 Year Environment Plan to increase the use of timber in construction, identifying it as key measure in encouraging commercial forestry. Our England Trees Action Plan includes measures to encourage both supply and demand for UK grown timber, including a new Forestry Innovation Fund which will provide financial support to develop innovative timber products, the use of procurement policies to increase public demand for sustainably sourced timber and increase the safe use of timber in construction.

Through the England Trees Action Plan, we are also working to increase tree production in our domestic nursery sector through targeted activities supported by the Nature for Climate Fund. This will build on current facilities and explore innovative ideas and technologies to improve production capacity. This is necessary to create a resilient, healthy, and genetically diverse planting stock, which is ready for our future climate in the UK. This should encourage further development of domestically grown trees and minimise the reliance on tree imports.

Reticulating Splines