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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 2 November 2022 to Question 73124 on Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Public Expenditure, for what reason each grant allocation was not spent in full.

Defra and the Forestry Commission have worked fast to launch the new grant schemes in time for the 2021-22 planting season. The expenditures reflect the hectarage of trees planted and for which a claim has been submitted in that financial year. The area of trees planted is updated at quarterly intervals and published as official statistics in the Forestry Commission Key Performance Indicators, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/forestry-commission-corporate-plan-performance-indicators.

Projects that were planted during the winter 2021-22 but did not submit claims in time to meet the end of financial year reporting deadline, will be reported in the financial year 2022-23.