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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the report by the Climate Change Committee Sixth Carbon Budget, published on 9 December 2020, what plans they have to plant 440,000 hectares of mixed woodland by 2035.

We are considering the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) advice ahead of setting the sixth carbon budget in legislation this summer. It is right that we take time to consider the recommendations carefully and in full. We have committed to increase planting across the UK to 30,000 hectares per year by 2025 – in line with CCC advice. We are also considering whether setting longer-term statutory targets for trees in England would be appropriate. To help meet our commitments we announced a £640 million Nature for Climate Fund to increase planting in England over this parliament and will publish a new England tree strategy in the spring.