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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to ensure that hedgerows are central to Environmental Land Management Schemes, including the provision of funding to plant and restore hedgerows that enhance local landscape character.

Hedgerows and field boundaries are the very essence of our British countryside. They provide vital resources for mammals, birds, and insect species. Many are also important historical and cultural landscape features. Our new environmental land management schemes will fund the management of hedgerows, in recognition of their historical, cultural and environmental value to our countryside. Capital grants to support the planting and reinstatement of hedgerows are currently available via the Countryside Stewardship scheme.