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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, of the target of 5,000 hectares of trees planted, what proportion were planted in (1) 2020, and (2) 2021; and what the delivery target will be for 2022.

The Government committed to trebling woodland creation rates to 30,000 hectares per year in the UK by the end of this Parliament. The Government aims to at least treble woodland creation in England over that time period to contribute to that target and will maintain new planting at least at this level from 2025 onwards.

After centuries of deforestation, tree cover in the UK reached its low point in 1924, with only 5% of the UK forested after the First World War. Now, after a century of effort, we have brought woodland cover back up to 13% of our land. The areas of new planting (woodland creation) taken from the Forestry Commission’s Forestry Statistics are shown below:

Since 2020-21 there are also quarterly interim reports (provisional statistics) on new planting of woodland published in the Forestry Commission Key Performance Indicators. In the first half of 2021-22 there were 856 hectares of new planting of woodland in England. We expect further trees to be planted throughout this tree planting season which ends in March 2022, and our projections show we are currently on the right trajectory to meet our commitments.

In England, we are boosting the existing £640 million Nature for Climate Fund with a further £124 million of new money, ensuring total spend of more than £750 million by 2025 on peat restoration, woodland creation and management - above and beyond what was promised in the manifesto.