Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 12
Third Report - Tree planting
Published 21 Mar 2022
Paragraph 79
Addressed to Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Tree Planting and Woodlands All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The lack of a sufficiently large skilled workforce is a key barrier to England’s tree planting ambitions. Addressing this requires a well-funded and planned workforce and skills strategy. Defra and the Forestry Commission are working to address the issue, but work is in the early stages and looks unlikely to deliver the immediate improvement needed, particularly in woodland creation roles that need to increase by over 75%. We recommend that Defra commit to a target of bringing at least an extra three hundred new people into woodland creation roles by 2025. Defra should create a dedicated taskforce with membership from the Department for Education, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Forestry Commission and training providers, including land-based agricultural colleges, to agree and deliver a clear plan to meet this target. This taskforce should report back to us on its progress by October 2022.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Third Report - Tree planting (HC 356), paragraph 79, 21 March 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 20 June 2022 (deadline 21 May 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government 'welcomes the recommendations' in the Committee's report and says that in many cases it 'has already taken action, or is planning action' to address them.
- On annual targets, it sets a planned England planting profile rising from 2,500 hectares in 2021/22 to 7,500 hectares in 2024/25, which it says is back loaded to allow new grants to become embedded.
- On the Tenancy Working Group, it says "We agree with the recommendation" and has included tree planting by tenant farmers within the group's remit.
- On Wykeham nursery, it gives no commitment to review the closure. It says the decision was "carefully considered" and will not affect tree planting ambitions, and that the site is available to lease by competitive tender.
- On seasonal worker visas, it says 30,000 visas will be available in 2022, to be kept under review with potential to increase by 10,000 "if necessary". It says a nine-month visa "runs counter to the scheme being seasonal only".