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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they are making in implementing their manifesto commitment to plant 11 million trees, and how such progress will be monitored and reported.

Between the beginning of April and the end of December 2015, around 495,000 trees were planted in newly created woodlands across the country, assisted by funding from the Rural Development Programme in England.

Further planting figures for January to March 2016 are due to be published on 26 April.

The area of woodland planted is published as one of Forestry Commission England’s headline indicators and is updated four times a year. Tree numbers are monitored through Countryside Stewardship administrative records and made available to the Programme Monitoring Committee of the Rural Development Programme.