2. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the value of trees to a healthy environment? OQ58230

Diolch. Trees provide a wide range of benefits, including carbon storage, biodiversity, flood alleviation and recreation. We have undertaken detailed evaluation of these benefits, including through the environmental and rural affairs modelling and monitoring programme's national forest evidence pack and work on natural capital accounts—sorry, that's hard to say: 'natural capital accounts'.

Thank you for that response.

I think we're all in principle in favour of planting a lot more trees, although, I must say, I have real concern about decisions taken by Welsh Government to buy good agricultural land to plant trees on. But that's not the focus of my question today; it's about protecting the trees we already have. In Holyhead, there's real anger about the plans that have been in place for a decade or so now to fell a large area of woodland at Penrhos, to make way for the construction of a leisure village. Now, the baseline area of outstanding natural beauty assessment report for that leisure development application itself tells us that Anglesey is one of the least wooded counties in the UK. But, at Penrhos, I think something like 27 acres of woodland is earmarked for felling, and it's in a much-loved area, a publicly used area, which will be lost. Does the Government consider it worth while to step in to protect trees, is it willing to take action to protect woodland, or is it just about buying up land to plant new ones?

So, that's quite a complicated set of issues, Rhun, although I appreciate the sentiment and agree with it. So, just on the criticism of land purchased by NRW, we do purchase small amounts of land across Wales, and have done for very many years, as substitute planting land, particularly where we have windfarm siting on the Welsh woodland estate, and so the acreage of trees that comes down for each of the pillars is replaced as part of that policy. If Members haven't had a chance to do so, I recently went up to Pen y Cymoedd, to have a look at what happened with the replanting around the turbines there, and the increase in biodiversity is quite startling. And it's great, because they had a baseline when they put the windfarm in, and what they've got now. So, over those five years, it's the first time we've actually had some proper baseline to see what's happened. You can see that the change in the planting, to biodiverse, broadleaf mixed woodland, away from monocultural Sitkas has made a really serious difference there. So, that's replacement land. It's been done for ages, it's not a binary issue of any sort. We make sure that we don't do it on the best agricultural land, of course, and it's a mixture of land that is often done in conjunction with some of the young farmers scheme, just to be clear. I did say in committee the other day that if any Member had evidence of a particular farm that they wanted us to look at that's been purchased by either the Welsh Government or NRW, to let us know, because I'm not aware of any. That doesn't mean to say we know everything, of course, so if you have information, please let us know.

Going back to Anglesey, two things have happened on Anglesey, Ynys Môn. The first is that we've commissioned work on the red squirrel issue, which I know has been brought up. I know that's not the issue you've just talked about, but we were discussing that not very long ago, and I think Darren Millar, amongst others, has also raised it. So, I've commissioned a piece of work to tell us how best to protect the habitat in the productive forests there. So, we've got that piece of work, which I'm expecting to have very shortly, to base it on. On Penrhos, that's rather more complicated, because it's a planning authority planning application issue. So, I can't comment on the individual aspects of that, because, obviously, I'm the planning Minister and I might end up with an appellate role there. But, generally, it's the local planning authority that has responsibility for both instituting its policies in its local development plan and then taking them forward. So, obviously, that's Ynys Môn council.

As we all know, trees are very important to tackling climate change. But with the Welsh Government's decision recently to purchase Gilestone Farm in my community, I think I just heard you, Minister, say you do not plant on productive land. So, I'd just like some assurances from yourself, and for the community in my constituency, that you do not intend to plant trees on Gilestone Farm, which is what you've just said.

Also, a second question: with big corporations buying up vast swathes of farmland in my constituency for carbon offsetting, there are big concerns that these corporations can access funding from the Welsh Government to plant these trees, so could I have some assurances from you that you're looking at this, to make sure that actual grants to plant trees are focused on genuine farm businesses that want to diversify and not to help big corporations meet their climate change targets? Diolch, Llywydd.

So, Gilestone Farm, as I know the Member knows perfectly well, has been bought as part of the economic development portfolio attempt to secure the future of the Green Man festival, one of the only independent festivals left in Europe. And it's nothing to do with NRW or tree creation. Of course, I cannot promise not to plant a single tree on the land of Gilestone Farm—that would be ridiculous.

In terms of directing the woodland creation schemes to active farmers, this is a matter that's been rehearsed in this Chamber a number of times. And, of course, we encourage applications from charities and third sector organisations, such as the Woodland Trust, some of whom have headquarters outside of Wales, to make applications to increase the coverage of our biodiverse forest. The people on the benches opposite go on at me a lot about climate change and biodiversity rescue. We cannot do that unless we change the way that we use our land. The climate change committee has been very clear what acreage of land needs to be covered by biodiverse forests in Wales, and we are following that balanced pathway.