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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the response by Lord Callanan on 14 December (HL Deb, col 1410), what specific steps they are taking to meet their tree planting target for (1) 2020, (2) 2021, and (3) any future years.

We committed in our manifesto to increasing planting across the UK to 30,000 hectares per year by 2025 and are exploring whether longer-term statutory targets for trees in England would be appropriate.

To achieve this, we announced a £640 million Nature for Climate Fund to increase planting in England over this parliament and will publish a new England Tree Strategy in spring.

This year we kick-started efforts through:

• £12.1 million investment in expanding England's ten Community Forests;
• £2.5 million from the Shared Outcomes Fund for research pilots to grow trees outside of woodlands;
• £1.4 million of planting along rivers through the Environment Agency;
• Over 84,000 trees planted in towns and cities by the second round of the £10 million Urban Tree Challenge Fund;
• Support from the £40 million Green Recovery Challenge Fund for a range of charity projects to protect and plant trees.