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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many queries the Central Point of Expertise on Timber has received from (a) public sector bodies and (b) businesses in each of the last 10 years.

The Central Point of Expertise on Timber service closed on 31 March 2016. Defra does not hold complete information on how many queries the service received in the format requested.

The contractors advised that the number of queries had dropped over time. We hold some information from the final phase of the contract between 2012 and 2016, which illustrates this trend. The service received 257 queries between October 2012 and September 2013, 146 queries between October 2013 and September 2014, and 48 queries between October 15 and March 2016. These figures cover queries on timber, wood fuel and palm oil.

The government’s policy of buying timber and wood products only from legal and sustainable sources is well embedded within the key systems which govern our procurement, specifically the relevant government buying standards and the centralised procurement frameworks. Comprehensive online guidance is also provided.