This piece is an extract from our A View from the Forest (previously Forestry Features) newsletter, which is emailed out at 4PM every Wednesday with a round-up of the week's top stories. 

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AN entire week has now passed since Rachel Reeves strode up to a podium and delivered her first Budget as Chancellor – sparking the fallout that soon followed.

By now, you'll know the headline news concerned national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, and inheritance tax, the last of which has dominated the agenda, with some going so far as saying it could spell the end of farming in the UK. (No one in the mainstream has, you won't have failed to notice, acknowledged that commercial woodlands have also lost their 100 per cent inheritance tax-free status.)

Putting all of this to one side, there were several key announcements from the Labour Chancellor that could – emphasis on could – be beneficial to forestry in the long term if some joined-up thinking is applied.

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One of the big winners was housing, with billions set aside to end homelessness and help 350,000 homes decarbonise, while a further £3 bn was pledged to boost the supply of homes and support small house builders.

This is where forestry could come in.

Forestry is, in its most pure commercial sense, about the production of what? A sustainable product that is ripe for modern-day, net-zero conscious homes. That's certainly something that was leapt on by industry leaders in the wake of Ms Reeves' statement.

While he was critical of a lack of new funding for the sector, Christopher Williams, chief executive officer, Royal Forestry Society, said: "More positively, the new administration’s commitment to new housing, described in the Autumn statement, should provide a much-needed stimulus to the domestic timber market which is welcome.

"Forestry can provide the building blocks to a revitalised and sustainable economy. It can help us meet net-zero targets, help replace less sustainable materials with wood, provide vital habitats for wildlife and spaces for people to enjoy.

"We hope the Government will help unlock this potential by working closely with the forestry sector in the coming years."

And that's key. There is an industry here that is desperate to be part of this net-zero house-building agenda. It just has to be given the tools.