4. Will the Minister provide an update on the Welsh Government's tree-planting schemes? OQ58043

We must plant 43,000 hectares of new woodland by 2030 if we are to meet UK Climate Change Committee's balanced pathway to get us to net zero. We have opened a new woodland creation planning scheme to support land managers in developing plans to plant trees, and new schemes to support the planting of new woodland will be opened later this year. 

It's been six months since you unveiled plans to grant a tree for every household in Wales. In the intervening months, there's been scant detail on this, and I have been inundated with queries from my constituents asking how they can get hold of their trees for planting. So, Deputy Minister, how and when do you plan to inform households on how they can get hold of their trees and how do you plan to maximise the uptake of the scheme?

Well, I think that's rather a daft question, if you don't mind me saying so, because there was plenty of information when we launched the scheme earlier this year. We made very clear that there would be an initial stage. We really wanted to do something in the last financial year, not wait until this financial year, so we had a soft launch where we had a final six different regional hubs open to begin the process, in partnership with the Woodland Trust. But we made clear right from the very beginning—and if the Member takes the trouble to Google this, I'm sure he'll find information—that we would have a fuller launch later this year for the October planting season. We intend to have in the order of 25 different regional hubs where people will be able to come along and collect their free tree.

It is going to be, by definition, a modest but important measure in terms of reaching our target of some 86 million trees. Giving every individual household a tree is an important symbolic gesture to raise people's awareness of the benefits of tree planting, but that's not going to meet our target. We have a comprehensive package of measures to meet that target, and I'm delighted that in the Senedd gallery today are members of the tree deep dive who worked very closely with me, and continue to work closely, on implementing a whole package of measures we identified to break down barriers to meet our target. I think the tree giveaway campaign is a really important initiative, and we'll be seeing more of it in the autumn. 

Deputy Minister, just to assist you, you're right: already 5,000 trees have been given away as part of the scheme—5,000 in March; 200,000 are due to be given away in November. However, might I suggest that a rapid review of the terms and conditions to the programme operated by the Woodland Trust is undertaken to ensure that as many trees as possible are distributed this autumn and beyond. Because I have to say that the terms and conditions are rather restrictive and prohibit, for example, third parties collecting trees. That means that, if you have a community where there's a management company, where everybody's agreed to create a community hub, as is the case in one community here in Clwyd South, every single person at the moment would have to drive to one of the regional hubs. So, as part of any sort of review and relaxation, might I suggest that we utilise school estates for the distribution of them, and also, perhaps, not limit households to just one tree either.

Thank you for that supplementary. It's certainly not the intention of the scheme to constrain people who want to plant trees. It's my understanding that the terms and conditions don't do that, and I'd be keen to hear more from you about your particular example to see what might have gone wrong there. In fact, we built into the design of the scheme the ability for the Woodland Trust to deliver to people who are unable to get to a hub, and I certainly want to use schools and other community groups to aggregate demand, if they can use schools as mini distribution centres to pass on trees to families. I certainly want to explore that. 

We do need look at the logistics of this. It's a very complex scheme, but we have a limited budget for it, so we have to be pragmatic about what can be done. But I certainly want there to be a permissive approach taken so that we can get as many trees in the ground as possible. And I'd really welcome hearing more about the problems your constituents had.