Financial problems at Department for Environment?

The hardline message is contained in a letter from Defra to national parks, setting out their funding.

"It's possible that Defra's budget may be reopened at any stage of the spending review period if necessary in order to meet the Government's deficit reduction plans.

"Whilst acknowledging the uncertainty this creates, it is important that you are alert to the risk that we may be required to seek further savings during the spending review period".

I found this in a letter to the Northumberland national park.

That comes after Caroline Spelman told the Efra committee that the coalition had already agreed to sell 15% of state-owned woodland - and that could raise £100m

Here is the key exchange:

Committe member Neil Parish: "My final point on this one is that you've announced that you intend to make savings relating to property, and there's talk of what you can sell in the way of forest and other property.

"What agreement have you reached with the Treasury over whether Defra keeps the money or whether it goes back into the Treasury's coffers?

Mrs Spelman: "A very important feature of our settlement with the Treasury, which I tried to emphasise right at the beginning, was that as an early settler and as a securer of significant capital funding from the bidding process, the Treasury agreed to us retaining entirely the proceeds from sales of our assets.

"That was not just for 100%, but if we managed to sell those assets at a higher level than we originally budgeted for, we may keep up to 120% of those assets. Now, we've put a figure into our budget of £100 million.

"That is largely made up of the planned sequential sales of the forestry estate, which have gone on since, as far as I can tell, the beginning of time, including in each of the years of the last Government.

"The projected figure contained within our budget continues that trend. It is not exclusively forestry-we have other assets, property assets, which as a result of the savings that we're making we may be able to relinquish.

"As with all these things, and learning very much from the warnings of the Father of the House about being careful when to sell these assets, we will of course look for the right time and the right way to do that, in order to maximise the return.

"In fact we're incentivised to do that by the fact the Treasury has agreed we can keep 120% of the proceeds.

"There are very strict rules within Government, and obviously they apply to the Department, that the sales of assets, the capital, can only be used for capital.

I'm sure the Chair would be interested to know, because of her interest in flooding, that it would be perfectly possible for us to use the proceeds from sales of these assets towards increasing the capital available for flood defences, for example. We have that assurance from the Treasury and it is very valuable to us.