Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of amending the Highways Act 1980 to increase roadside trees planting.

The Department does not have plans to amend the Highways Act 1980 on this particular topic. The Department does, however, encourage local highway authorities to recognise the contribution that trees make to the economic, social and environmental well-being of communities, while National Highways is, as part of its efforts to deliver on environmental goals and achieve Net Zero Targets, aiming to plant at least 3 million trees by 2030 (in addition to the trees planted as ‘essential mitigation’ for projects), to provide landscape and biodiversity benefits and help lock up carbon.