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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what they estimate the cost to be of creating 30,000 hectares of woodland per year; and whether sufficient money has been allocated to meet these costs.

We are committed to increasing tree planting across the UK to 30,000 hectares per year by the end of this parliament. We published our ambitious England Trees Action Plan on 18 May which sets out our plans to at least treble tree planting rates in England in support of this, using more than £500 million from the Nature for Climate Fund.

In the recently published Net Zero Strategy, we also announced we will boost the Nature for Climate Fund with a further £124 million of new money, ensuring total spend of more than £750 million by 2025 on peat restoration, woodland creation and management - above and beyond what was promised in the manifesto.

Each hectare of woodland created has different costs depending on the condition of the site, the woodland design, location, and scale. On average, it is estimated that to plant and establish a hectare of woodland it costs landowners approximately £9,500-£12,500/ha, although some more complex delivery mechanisms may have higher associated costs.

We will continue to proactively monitor tree planting rates and take-up of grant schemes throughout this Parliament to ensure that funding allocated is both sufficient and maximizes the amount of woodland created and brought into effective management. Our goals can only be met through greater investment by the private sector in woodland creation and this means our grant offers will act to stimulate private investment, such as through payments for carbon captured by woodlands and building new markets for ecosystem services.