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Joan Ruddock
The report, which was of course independent, was never responded to by the Labour Government, for the obvious reason that there was an election. The report went to the Forestry Commission and there was no opportunity for us to respond, but I recommend it to the hon. Gentleman. It took a considerable amount of time—more than a year—and came up with a huge range of suggestions, and the underlying research, which was reported on, was very important. The issues that the hon. Gentleman mentions are in the report, and I will come on to say what I think was very important about the review.
Has the Minister read that report? I wonder whether he has read this:
“Public consultation and social research showed passionate engagement with the public forest estate…and most people saw it as relevant to their lives”,
or this, among the major recommendations:
“The public forest estate should remain large scale, widely distributed throughout England, have a flexible and varied cross-section of all types of woodland, be able to provide a significant volume of products, services, skills and experience, and remain under public control and accountability.”
I have to assume that the Minister did not read the report; otherwise, how could he and his colleagues have embarked on such a reckless policy of selling off the lot?
That brings me to future sales. I say immediately that some sales can be justified when holdings are small or distant from the main estate, and when they are degraded or appropriate for restoration to open land. Over the 13 years of Labour Government our policies resulted in the sale of 9,000 hectares and a consequent purchase of 5,000 hectares—a net change of 4,000 hectares over 13 years. The comprehensive spending review announced the sale of 10 times that amount—40,000 hectares over a mere four years—quite separate from the new legislation that had now been abandoned. This Tory-led Government have sold 1,748 hectares to date, but we have been told that no further sales will take place—awaiting new advice. Can the Minister tell us how the Government—not necessarily his Department—expect to find the £745 million that their forestry sales were expected to realise, or what percentage of the public forest estate he still expects to sell off over the next four years, albeit with his new potential safeguards?
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Joan Ruddock
If the Minister wishes to answer now rather than in his summation, of course I will give way.
Mr Paice
I can assure the right hon. Lady that I have a number of points to make when I wind up the debate, but I am slightly puzzled about where she got the figure of £745 million—the supposed gain from the sales—from, given that during the debate on this issue in the Chamber, the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Leicester South (Sir Peter Soulsby), said that there was nothing in it financially for the Government.
Joan Ruddock
I am simply citing the Government’s own ambitions, and there are substantial sums to be realised from sales. I cannot, off the top of my head, remember what the Government have raised from the 1,748 hectares sold off already, but it is certainly many millions. I would be delighted if the Minister answered my question in his response, and told us what was expected to be raised from the sales of the forestry lands—the 15%. Will he also indicate how the Government will make up that money if they do not go ahead with the sale of the 15%? They cannot have it both ways; either they plan to sell or they do not. If they plan to sell, I know—I have been a Minister myself—that the Minister will have a real estimate of the financial result of those sales.
I have another question for the Minister. In principle, does he rule in or rule out the sale of woodland in national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, community forests and sites of special scientific interest? Will he confirm that DEFRA still requires the Forestry Commission to cut its budget by 25% this year, with a potential loss of 400 jobs? Surely job losses of such magnitude undermine any recommendations that his new panel might make for the future of the Forestry Commission.
In the drafting of the terms and conditions of the independent panel, is any account being taken of the findings of Labour’s review of the public forest estate? The Minister frowns, but it was an independent review carried out by experts over 12 months and was available to his Government the moment they took office, and it appears that he did not even bother to read it before coming up with these madcap proposals. Referring to the review would be significant.
Critically, will the panel be allowed to consider continuing public ownership? The Minister frowns again, but the consultation that has just been cancelled prohibited continuing public ownership. The new panel’s terms of reference will be significant. The public believe that they have won a great battle now that the consultation and plans have been cancelled pending the findings of the independent review, but the panel’s terms of reference are critical to determining the future.
Sir Peter Soulsby
Or the lack of debates on forestry in the House over recent years. That is interesting because I think that it points not to a lack of interest in forestry, but to a belief, up until now, that the forests were in safe hands and it was not a matter about which Members needed to concern themselves. That was why it was so distressing and surprising when we heard the Government’s proposals to sell 40,000 hectares immediately. The hon. Member for Daventry cannot get away from it and the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) cannot suggest that we misinterpreted the Government’s intentions. As shown by the quotes earlier, the Government were clear about their intentions for the public forest estate. I quote the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
“We wish to proceed with very substantial disposal of public forest estate, which could go to the extent of all of it.”
That is clear. People were not making it up. People did not misunderstand it. Those words meant what they—
Sir Peter Soulsby
They could mean nothing other than that. There could be a wholesale sell-off. The outcry was totally predictable to everybody other than the Minister and his colleagues. They tried to dismiss that as scaremongering, and in the run-up to the 2 February debate, they said that they were doing it for the money. Perhaps the Minister will explain some of the figures behind the proposals and say what he now believes the net proceeds would have been. They tried to justify the sale in that way, and when that fell apart, they tried to justify it in terms of the big society. But that fell apart and, as we heard again from Government Members, they invented the spurious explanation that it was about trying to resolve a conflict of interest within the organisation of the Forestry Commission. It was somehow inappropriate for the Forestry Commission to be both the operator and the regulator, and it was incapable of doing something that it has done successfully for many decades.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)
I have attended many debates in Westminster Hall, which is normally a place for relatively non-controversial issues to be raised and discussed in a calm manner by hon. Members from all parties. I am afraid I cannot say that of today. The opening speech by the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) repeated many of the myths and nonsenses that we have heard during previous discussions and questions about forestry. It was not the serious contribution to the future of the Forestry Commission that my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) referred to and urged upon us.
I will address some of the key issues and respond where I can to the questions raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) rightly pointed out that part of the public concern arose from the Public Bodies Bill. One can look back and say that the cart was put before the horse, but because we believed that changes to the Forestry Commission were necessary and we were conscious of the constraints of the legislation, we decided to put the provision into what appeared to be a suitable vehicle to permit us to make those changes. I am the first to recognise that, together with the remarks I made to which the hon. Member for Leicester South (Sir Peter Soulsby) referred—I am not withdrawing those remarks, but they were back in October—that allowed people to become concerned. As it happened, that concern was unnecessary, but it allowed a number of myths to gain credence.
In the communication to which the hon. Gentleman referred, I used the word “disposal” carefully. I did not use the word “sale” because, as will be observed, the consultation document often implied disposal but not sale. Part of the absurd nonsense from the right hon. Lady included the figure of £745 million, which I suspect she took from the Forestry Commission’s annual report. That is actually the book value of all the public forestry estate, prior to any discounts for the preservation of access and other public interests. It includes the book value of the New Forest and the Forest of Dean, and we made it clear that for both of those the disposal was to be free—gratis—had it gone through. The right hon. Lady’s figures were absurd; the concept of disposal included a free handover to a charitable trust.
Joan Ruddock
I am more than happy to be corrected. Perhaps the Minister will let us know the estimate for the amount of money that would be raised by the disposals of which he speaks.
Mr Paice
As the right hon. Lady knows, the consultation document contained a lot of variability, particularly about what might be called the middle strata of woodlands and forests—not heritage but not the main commercial areas—where there was a range of options. The income from that is not easy to estimate, but we published an impact assessment as required, and the figures are in the public domain. I repeat: the primary objective of the proposition was not simply to raise cash. I will return in a moment to the issue of ongoing sales.
The right hon. Lady referred to the 0.5 million people who expressed concern about this matter. I cannot help but observe that she took a lot less notice of the 0.5 million people who opposed a ban on fox hunting and whom she treated with disdain.
Mr Paice
Quite. As we have said, and as the Secretary of State said in the House, we recognised that public concern was raised dramatically, and that it was a pointless exercise to continue with the consultation in that environment. Therefore, we have withdrawn it and I do not propose to waste more time discussing what was or was not in the consultation document. That would not be constructive.
The issue was raised of the ongoing sales, or the 15% of the Forestry Commission estate that is in the spending review for the next four years. It is estimated that we would have raised £100 million from the sale of up to 15% of the forestry estate in England. The hon. Member for Leicester South asked what is happening to that, and as the Secretary of State made clear, we have suspended that process. No parcels of land or forests will be offered for sale until the panel—to which I will refer later—has reported and made recommendations regarding the protection of public interests. At the moment, there is no direct financial consequence. The £100 million, although placed in our spending review, was not allocated to any heads of expenditure. Therefore, other than a short-term cash-flow issue, there are no direct consequences of deferring those sales. I hope that explanation has clarified the issue.
A point was made about sales by previous Governments. Again, that makes me doubt the right hon. Lady’s—the hon. Lady’s—
Mr Paice
My apologies. It makes me doubt the right hon. Lady’s commitment to the whole picture. On her website, she has been on about how much land the previous Conservative Government and the Forestry Commission sold. Of course, she omits to point out that most of that was in Scotland, because under that previous Government the Forestry Commission was one body, so in comparison with what happened under the Labour Government, who were selling only in England after devolution, the figures look dramatically different. She also omitted to mention, although one of my hon. Friends did mention it, that under the previous Government tree planting fell to an all-time low. The rate halved under the Government of whom she was so proud to be a member.
Much has been said about the fact that the public forest estate comprises just 18% of all woods and forests in England. We should not in any way ignore that statistic. It is clear that many people were confused about how much of the forestry in this country was owned or rented by the Forestry Commission. It is just 18%. Although the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford and other hon. Members have been, by implication, quite damning of the 69% that is held in private hands—the rest is in other forms of public or community ownership—we do not see with that 69% all the disasters that we were told would befall public land if it went into the private sector. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) rightly pointed out, people cannot fell trees in this country without a felling licence, and almost certainly they will have to replant. Indeed, since I have been the Minister responsible, I have had to intervene on a few occasions to enforce the replanting requirements to ensure that that happens. Therefore, suggestions of massive deforestation are completely absurd and take us away from the serious debate that others want to address.
Let me deal with some of the specific questions that I was asked. I will not disclose anything about the content of the panel, because the Secretary of State will announce in due course who will serve on the panel and what its terms of reference will be. I can emphasise, though, that the status quo—the hon. Member for Leicester South asked about this—is of course an option. If the panel recommends that, clearly it is entitled to do so. To rule it out would be nonsensical. If the panel recommends change, the issue of public consultation comes back into play, so there will be plenty of time. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) said that if the panel concludes in favour of anything other than the status quo, we will not have listened to the public. I say to him that we will consult the public about any changes if the panel recommends them. I do not want to prejudge what the outcome of the panel will be.
The hon. Member for Leicester South asked how we would guarantee independence. The chairman will be appointed and will be completely independent; indeed, all the members will be. We are not filling the panel with civil servants or anything like that. It will be completely independent. It will be for the members to decide how they operate, but I cannot see why they should not have public meetings if that seems appropriate.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the 25% cut, and other hon. Members have raised that. All Opposition Members should be well aware that they managed to leave this country in desperate straits and we have had to take very tough decisions on public expenditure. All DEFRA’s arm’s length bodies have had to take a 25% cut, just as core DEFRA has had to. That is tough, and I feel for all the people who may find themselves losing jobs or not being able to get a job because the job has disappeared as a result. However, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made clear, the deficit must come first—we must deal with it. I will not apologise—indeed, it should be for those on the Opposition Benches to apologise—for the fact that we have had to make those reductions. The details of how they will be made in this area are a matter for the Forestry Commission. It has made its proposals, which are out for consultation. It would be wrong of me to discuss them in public while that consultation is going on.
A number of other points were raised. I shall try to encapsulate some of them but, most importantly, I want to make the point that, contrary to the impression that the Opposition have tried to give, the Government feel very strongly about forestry. Perhaps I should have said, like other hon. Members, that I have the grand total of 1 hectare of woodland on my own little property. Like others, I planted it myself 20 years ago under a woodland grant scheme, although that has long since expired, and I am proud to spend a lot of time in it managing it. I passionately believe in the importance of forestry. What I do not believe is that the status quo is automatically always the best way forward. It is right that we should reconsider how the Forestry Commission operates, and the panel will advise us on whether there should be changes.
It is worth pointing out that the Forestry Commission’s commercial arm makes a margin of just £1 million on its commercial activities. That is substantially offset by the understandable costs of recreation, amenity, biodiversity and the other services that the commission provides, as a number of hon. Members rightly identified. That means that there is a massive overall cost to the taxpayer. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury said, in the past the commission has made that up by selling off assets on an annual basis, and it has been selling those assets without the protection for public access, rights of way and all the other things that Opposition Members now preach to us about. Those things were not protected, so Opposition Members are not in a good position to criticise us.
We hope that the panel will consider all aspects of the public forest estate. As I said, the Secretary of State will publish details of the proposed membership and the terms of reference of the panel shortly. We look forward to the conclusions that it comes to. I can assure the House that the present Government’s genuine commitment to forestry in this country—public, private and community—is real and as strong as it has ever been.
The truth of what I have just said is underlined by the fact that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury said, the National Forest was brought in by a Conservative Government, who did a tremendous amount of work in developing forestry in the former coal mining areas of the midlands. That is a great place for everyone to visit. The real point to make, though, is that virtually none of it is on state-owned land. Planting has been incentivised on private and community-owned land, not public land bought by the Forestry Commission. Therefore, we can have a vibrant, strong forest in this country, with access and with all the necessary protection for biodiversity. Whether the state needs to be involved not only in owning it but in managing and running it is now a matter for the panel, the details of which we will announce shortly.
Sir Peter Soulsby
I understand the Minister’s reluctance to give the names of those who might serve on the panel, but surely he will accept that it is important that those who have spoken out so strongly on behalf of woodlands and forests have their voice heard on that panel. Will he at this stage agree to ensure that on that panel are members of the public and local campaign groups who have been speaking so vehemently on behalf of our forests?
Mr Paice
I am sorry, but I will not be drawn on the membership of the panel because once I give way on one aspect of who might be on the panel, I will be drawn into discussing everything. The Secretary of State will make the announcement shortly. I hope that we can then go forward with the seriousness of approach that my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire mentioned so wisely in his contribution.