Labour unveils plans to create ten new national parks and plant two billion trees

Jeremy Corbyn promises to spend £3.7bn on planting programme and restoring natural habitats

A Labour government would create ten new national parks across England and plant two billion trees by 2040, Jeremy Corbyn has announced.

The Labour leader said his party would spend £3.7bn on the plan, which would be funded by borrowing as part of the party's £250bn "Green Transformation Fund".

Candidates for new national parks would include the Malvern Hills, Chiltern Hills, Lincolnshire Wolds, the North and South Pennines, coastal Suffolk and Dorset, the Cotswolds and Wessex. They would join the existing ten protected parks.

The charity Friends of the Earth said Labour's tree-planting pledge was "by far the most ambitious" of all the parties' promises on the subject. The Liberal Democrats have pledged to plant 60 million trees a year, equating to 1.2 billion by 2040, while the Tories have pledged half that.

Mr Corbyn will unveil the plans when he launches Labour's "plan for nature" in Southampton on Wednesday.

Under the proposals, the criteria for becoming a national park would include factors such as environmental degradation, potential for carbon sequestration and biodiversity net gain.

Labour claimed the move would help create 20,000 of the one million green jobs it has promised as part of a "green industrial revolution".

The party said £1.2bn of the £3.7bn funding would be spent on restoring natural habitats, while a further £2.5bn would go towards tree planting.

Mr Corbyn is expected to warn that the 12 December general election is the "last chance" to tackle the climate emergency.

He will say: “This election is our last chance to tackle the climate and environment emergency. Labour is on your side and on the side of the environment.

“We’ll expand and restore our habitats and plant trees so that we can create natural solutions to bring down emissions and allow our wildlife to flourish.

“Labour created the first national parks, and we'll create ten more, giving people the access to the green spaces so vital for our collective wellbeing and mental health.”

Responding to the announcement, Friends of the Earth tree campaigner Guy Shrubsole said: "This is by far the most ambitious tree-planting pledge we've seen from a political party.

"Tree cover in the UK needs to double as part of the fight against climate breakdown and this means adding three billion new trees, and fast.

"If sustained, Labour's promised tree-planting rates would achieve this by 2050. While parties have been racing to make bigger trees pledges, it's crucial to remember that trees will only help fix the climate crisis if emissions cuts happen at the same time."