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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to support (a) wetland restoration, (b) tree planting and (c) other nature-based solutions to mitigate (i) flood and (ii) heat risks.

Nature-based solutions offer sustainable approaches to environmental challenges, delivering benefits for nature, communities, water security, water quality, and flood resilience, including measures such as tree planting and wetland restoration. The Environment Agency’s (EA) position statement (published in July 2025) reinforces the Government’s commitment to working with natural processes alongside traditional infrastructure. The EA is funding 35 projects to test Natural Flood Management (NFM) approaches, now being mainstreamed through flood funding reform, with a commitment to invest 3% of the programme in NFM, rising to 4%.

The Government has set a legal target to restore or create over 500,000 hectares of a range of wildlife-rich habitat outside protected sites by 2042 in England. As of March 2026, since 30 January 2023, action to create or restore approximately 8,300 hectares of wetland habitat has been reported to be underway in England.

We are investing £1 billion in tree planting and support to the forestry sector over this parliament including our England Woodland Creation Offer which provides financial support for tree planting, and investing £300m in standalone NFM schemes by 2036.