TRUDY Harrison gave a speech on the importance of hedgerows at a Westminster Hall debate. 

The former Defra minister said that hedgerows provide real benefits to nature and help to contribute to the halting of nature’s decline.

Trudy commended Defra recognising the benefits of stone walls, because in areas such as Copeland, due to their importance for biodiversity, the windbreaks and shelters are also provided by hedgerows.

Mrs Harrison said: "Think about the hedgerows that have featured across our landscape for thousands of years, initially formed for windbreaks, as divisions and as shelters.

"To divide the land in such a cost-effective, long-living, bountiful, and beautiful way was a wonderful thing that our ancestors did.

"Grubbing up may have been Government policy many decades ago when the priority was to feed our nation in post-war Britain, but we have come a long way in appreciating that it was a bad idea to sacrifice hedgerows.

"I would argue that it was one of the worst environmental harms that our country has done to the countryside."