To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate he has made of the proportion of timber produced in England that is used for the manufacture of (a) paper, (b) chipboard and (c) other building materials. (148126)

Not all the information requested is available in the format requested and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

It is estimated that, in 2005, 277,000 green tonnes of timber harvested in England was used directly by integrated pulp and paper mills out of the UK total use of 714,000 green tonnes of UK roundwood. Use by the panel board industry, which includes chipboard, is only available as a UK total, which is 1.5 million green tonnes.

There are no statistics for wood's use as building materials, but in 2005 construction markets were reported to take 34 per cent. of all sawnwood from larger softwood sawmills in the UK (each producing more than 5,000 cubic metres of sawnwood). Within this UK total the larger softwood mills in England sold 23 per cent. for use in construction. Not all sawn timber produced in England came from logs harvested in England.