§ 23. Mr. LordTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress is being made in the planting and regeneration of lowland woodlands in England; and if he will make a statement.
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§ 41. Mr. MossTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what are the latest figures on the number of farmers applying to join the farm woodland scheme.
§ Mr. MacGregorBy 31 January 1989, some 650 farmers throughout the United Kingdom had applied to plant a total of about 4,600 hectares of woodland under the farm woodland scheme. This is an encouraging start. A substantial proportion of the proposed planting will be with broadleaves. Although final figures are not yet available applications to the Ministry indicate that broadleaved planting may account for around 75 per cent. of the area planted across the country as a whole.
Most applications already submitted should be approved in time for planting to go ahead this season. Although it is unlikely that any further applications received from now on will obtain approval for planting this spring, I would encourage any interested farmers to start making plans and preparing applications for next year.
More generally, we are seeing the success of our broadleaves policy with broadleaved trees being incrasingly used for the creation of new woods and the regeneration of older woodland. Most new planting in England will be in the lowlands in future.