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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what financial support her Department plans to provide to (a) local authorities and (b) other agencies to help tackle ash dieback.

The Occupiers’ Liability Act imposes a duty of care on landowners to manage their tree stock. Council budgets for the care and management of trees on their land are determined by individual Local Authorities, but Defra provides grants such as the Local Authority Treescapes Fund, to support the restoration of landscapes degraded by ash dieback. Since 2021, this scheme has provided nearly £8m to 153 Local Authorities to plant trees outside of woodlands across 77 projects in England, and the scheme will be reopening for new applications imminently. For private landowners, grants are routinely available under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme and the tree health pilot to help manage dangerous ash alongside roads, carry out ecological surveys and restock with other species.

Government has produced a range of guidance to help landowners manage their ash, including an Ash Dieback Toolkit for Local Authorities which has been downloaded nearly 20,000 times.