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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the likely rate of tree-planting in England in (a) 2016 and (b) 2017.

The Forestry Commission has reported, as an Official Statistic, that 522 hectares of woodland, equivalent to 798,000 trees, was planted through Government-funded incentives to the end of June 2016. All agreements for schemes with planting planned for 2017 are currently being processed and have yet to be signed, meaning that no forecast of tree numbers can yet be provided. However, the Forestry Commission estimates that the likely rate of new woodland planting will increase in the remainder of 2016 and 2017.