Previous Section Index Home Page Woodlands 7. What action he is taking to increase woodland cover. We give grants for planting more than 5,000 hectares of new woodland in England each year and the Forestry Commission is also planting new woods in the national forest and the community forests. Those initiatives and others, such as challenge funds, are targeted to meet our priorities and programmes for forestry as set out in our England forestry strategy. Is my hon.
Larger forests have a wider range of benefits and are much more cost-effective.
That fact has been identified by the Forestry Commission and the forestry forum that has been set up as part of the English forestry strategy. I pay tribute to all the organisations that have joined the forum, which represents the private, the public and the voluntary sectors. It has had a tremendous input into forestry policy. It is committed to increasing forest cover in England, and I am glad to say that we have a budget that will increase spending on forestry by 50 per cent. The Minister will be aware that trees take a long time to grow and so a woodland takes some years to achieve.