John Stevenson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Stevenson on 2014-04-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the Rural Development Programme for Forestry will announce its amount of funding and how it is to be used.

George Eustice

We announced on 19 December 2013 that we will be investing over £3.5 billion in rural development schemes up to 2020, of which over £3 billion will be spent on improving the environment.

Our responses to the consultation on implementing the new Common Agricultural Policy in England published on 19 December 2013 and 26 February 2014 provide further information on how rural development funding will be used. These are available at:

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/common-agricultural-policy-reform-implementation-in-england

We also announced on 9 January 2014 that as part of the new Rural Development Programme we intend to offer tree planting grants in 2015 in advance of new environmental land management agreements coming into effect in January 2016.

The new Rural Development Programme that we will submit to the European Commission shortly will confirm the amount of spending on forestry measures.

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