Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much of the funding announced on 22 October 2026 for wildfire resilience will be spent on (a) firefighting response, equipment and aircraft, (b) peatland restoration and (c) reducing vegetation fuel loads.

Decisions on how resources are best deployed to meet their core functions, including wildfire resources, are a matter for each fire and rescue authority. This Government recognises that there is no “one size fits all” approach to wildfire risk management. Knowledge and expertise often must be tailored to specific landscapes, whilst techniques and methods used in all aspects of the wildfire risk cycle can be case specific.

Firefighters on the front line in England will be boosted by additional specialist wildfire teams and state of the art, wildfire-specific, light weight personal protective equipment, backed by up to £45million which was announced at the Wildfire Summit in October. The Ministry of Defence will support this with RAF Chinook helicopters and A400M aircraft will be equipped so they can fight fires and are ready, when requested, to help crews across the UK battle blazes on remote moorland, steep hillsides and other hard-to-reach terrain.

The Government is updating its capital offer through the environmental land management scheme to fund prevention measures, such as fire ponds, fire breaks, fuel management, grazing and scrub removal, enabling a more targeted, landscape-scale approach in high-risk areas. In addition, the Government has announced it will invest an additional £25 million in peatland restoration grants to improve wildfire resilience.

Land managers, landowners and farmers have an important role in reducing wildfire risk. That includes managing vegetation and fuel loads, planning for local risks and supporting detection, and helping with response and recovery where safe to do so. We are working with land managers to make our landscapes more resilient, including through peatland restoration and sustainable land management.