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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department are taking to ensure that the restoration of ancient woodland through agri-environment schemes is accessible to small landowners.

Woodlands as small as 0.5ha are now eligible for the Countryside Stewardship supplements “Manage and restore Plantations on Ancient Woodland Sites (PAWs)” and “Manage native woodland including Ancient Semi-Natural Woodlands”, ensuring support is available to landowners and managers of smaller ancient woodlands.

In 2025, we also updated our Countryside Stewardship offer by simplifying our baseline Woodland Improvement grant.

These steps will help to bring more of our smaller ancient woodlands into restoration and management.