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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure the adequacy of funding for natural climate solutions in relation to natural carbon sequestration.

The Government recognises the importance of nature-based carbon sequestration and our ambitious 25 Year Environment Plan committed to leave the environment in a better state than we found it. Mitigating and adapting to climate change is essential if we are to meet this goal and the Government is taking action to deliver on this.

Tree planting is one of the main contributors to nature-based carbon sequestration and the Government supports this in a number of ways, including the manifesto commitment to plant 11 million trees by 2022. We also have a long term aspiration to increase woodland cover from 10% to 12%. Additionally, in the Autumn Budget the Chancellor announced £50 million to help support the planting of new woodlands through the Woodland Carbon Guarantee.

In relation to soil carbon sequestration and protection of existing soil carbon stores, our focus is on peatland restoration, both through Government funding and supporting private sector initiatives. For example, we are currently spending £10 million on four large scale peatland restoration projects across England.

Under the new Environmental Land Management Scheme we will pay land managers public money for public goods, which includes mitigation of climate change. This could be delivered through land managers sequestering carbon by, for example, peatland restoration and tree planting.