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

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential for using Grade 5 agricultural land for carbon capture.

Agriculture remains the largest land use in the UK, with an estimated 77% of the total area of the UK used for agricultural purposes, and therefore has substantial potential to contribute to the UK’s tree planting goals, by converting marginal or unproductive land into new woodland without taking good agricultural land out of use.

In the Government Food Strategy we committed to publish a Land Use Framework for England in 2023, which will help to inform how we manage trade-offs and tensions on the land. The Framework will support the delivery of resilient, multifunctional landscapes, which will be dependent on the local context and needs.