The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
My Lords, I start with a brief comment on the length of the debate. We are limited to one hour, but that is, as my noble friend Lord Caithness said, entirely a matter for the Opposition. A request was put in that this debate could be held on some other occasion in what is referred to as “government time”. I am not so sure that there is such a thing as government time in this House, but I am sure that the usual channels will discuss this in due course.
I go back to the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool when talking about his ABC of accessibility, biodiversity and conservation. Those three are very important, but we should add others. The first and most important one to remember is that the public forest estate, which covers some 18 per cent of English woodland, is there to produce timber. That was what it was set up for back in 1918, 1919 or whenever. Timber is its primary role, but it has the other duties of accessibility, biodiversity and conservation as well. It also has a very important role against climate change as a storer of carbon, as my noble friend Lord Eden mentioned. That, again, is a role that we should remember.
To return to the question of accessibility raised by the right reverend Prelate, one should underline—and I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, for doing so—that there are competing demands in the whole accessibility question. This point came up in our debate on Monday on these matters, when the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, raised the question of motorsports. The noble Lord is a former Member for a Birmingham seat, so he has a great interest in motorsports, which make use of the public forest estate—it is very important to them. Within accessibility, we have competing demands from those who want to work, those who want to ride and those who want to drive, whether in motor or horse-drawn vehicles. All of those compete with each other and cannot use the land at the same time, and all of them compete in biodiversity and conservation. All these things cannot go together, so very difficult decisions have to be made. That is something that we will take into account in any decision.
A lot has been said in the previous six months about the future of the public forest estate, but a lot of that has been based, dare I say it, on speculation rather than fact. I say that having listened to some of the speeches today, in particular to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Clark. Although he never seeks to mislead the House, he talked about selling off the entire forestry estate, which was never set out by us. What we set out in our consultation document, which has since been withdrawn, was very different indeed. It might have helped if the noble Lord had read that and studied it in detail. I refer back to the same point made by the noble Lord, Lord May, who was one of the signatories of that great letter that we received—or which came to the papers. I think the noble Lord will find that he signed that letter before our consultation document came out that has since been withdrawn. As my right honourable friend announced on 17 February—so we have now moved on—we have ended that consultation on the public forest estate and withdrawn the forestry clauses from the Public Bodies Bill. So we can now have a rational debate, and I hope that it will not be based on misinformation, or whatever.
I accept, as the noble Lord, Lord Clark, put it, that the past few months have demonstrated just how much people care about the forests of England and the rest of the country. The noble Lord referred to half a million people responding to these things and signing petitions. It is probably worth reminding him that much the same happened on the subject of hunting under the previous Government. I am not sure that the previous Government took much notice of that, but I seem to remember that the previous Prime Minister, when he wrote his memoirs, recognised that that might have been one of his great mistakes. Half a million here, half a million there—pretty soon we are talking about big numbers.
As the noble Lord said, we are now setting up an independent panel on forestry that will consider the whole future direction of policy for England's woods and forests. I can assure the House that it will seek to consult and advise broadly. It will go out and discuss these matters with as many people as possible. It will want to engage with as many people as possible who have already come in and consulted our department. I do not want to go into all the details of who will be on the panel because I discussed that the other day, but I will mention again that, first and most importantly, it will be independent. Secondly, it will have an independent chairman and I hope that fairly shortly—whatever that might mean—we will be able to announce the chairman of that panel and advise both Houses who will be the other members.
The other point I wish to make, again as I stressed on Monday, is that although we want to keep that panel fairly small and ensure that as many interests are represented as possible, we hope that all those on the panel are there for their own individual expertise and knowledge, and not as representatives. We do not want them there as delegates of particular bodies, but to provide their expertise and knowledge. We hope that they will cover as wide a range as possible. Because it is independent, we hope that the panel will go out and discuss with as many different bodies as possible their concerns and views. It will be open to that panel, being independent, to set up its own sub-committees to bring in other people. As I made clear on Monday, we have already had a large number of different people coming into the department to say they would like to be on the panel or that they would like X or Y to be on it. It is a matter for us to appoint that panel, but it is then for the panel to look at these things carefully.
Until we consider the panel's advice, as my right honourable friend made clear, we have suspended the planned sale of 15 per cent of the public forest estates. Some sales have gone ahead since we came into government last year—they were sales that had already been agreed by the previous Government, as the noble Lord, Lord Clark, and others know full well. No decisions on the ones that we have suspended will be made until we have heard the views of the panel.
I want to make it quite clear that we have been perfectly free to sell a certain amount of forestry land. It has always been sold. The previous Administration, as I made clear and I reminded the noble Lord, Lord Clark, sold some 25,000 acres over the course of their time in office. I should remind the House that they sold it without any safeguards at all other than those that were available under the CROW Act. We will make sure that what we sell in future, should we sell anything post the panel's advice, will have appropriate protections where necessary.
The 1967 Act allows that. The Act requires the Secretary of State to maintain a considerable land bank for the use of forestry. Currently, the Secretary of State owns some 258,000 hectares—approximately 550,000 or 600,000 acres—making her the largest landowner in England. That is a pretty large forestry estate. Under the Act, she is obliged to maintain what is described as a large land bank that is a substantial part of the forestry resources in England.
We know that forestry resources in England under the current arrangement amount to approximately 18 per cent of what there is. At what point the land bank would cease to be “considerable”, having sold off 15 per cent, would obviously be a matter for interpretation of the Act. Lawyers would describe what that amounted to as a question of fact and degree. I have written to the noble Lord, Lord Clark, about that. No doubt in due course we can debate what the appropriate amount would be. Our judgment of the Act is that with the sale of 15 per cent of the estate, the Secretary of State would continue to own a considerable land bank. I remind the House that all sales have been suspended as we await the outcome of the panel.
On the Forestry Commission itself, I particularly note what my noble friend Lord Caithness said about its possible conflict of roles—the fact that it is, as it were, like the Bank of England also running a high street bank. There are conflicts. The panel will also consider the role of the commission in supporting and enhancing the delivery of forestry policy. I state for the record that the Forestry Commission, under the noble Lord, Lord Clark, and others, has done a valuable job since it was created in 1919. I appreciate that the noble Lord was not involved then; a whole host of different commissioners and chairmen have done that job.
We also accept that in the Forestry Commission we have a wealth of professional knowledge and experience of forestry matters. We all hold it in high regard, and it will be important in facing the challenges of forestry diseases. The noble Lord and others will remember that only the other day we dealt with the question of sudden oak disease—more properly called Phytophthora ramorum—and the dangers that it is creating in the forestry estate, both public and private. We welcome all the expertise that we have in the Forestry Commission but also in other Defra bodies, such as Fera, and all the work that they are doing to deal with those challenges.
On the questions raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, I also accept that the Forestry Commission is facing challenges, as are all other parts of government and all other parts of what I might refer to as the Defra family, as a result of the cuts that we have had to make as a result of the position that we inherited from the party opposite when we came into government. There is no point the noble Baroness shaking her head, because she knows that if her party had still been in government, it would be having to make reductions in public expenditure to deal with the deficit that we face.
The Forestry Commission is in the middle of a serious retrenchment, but we still think that it can do its job. It is in the middle of a period of major staff consultation as a result of the spending review. In that consultation, it will discuss matters with the trade unions, deal with their responses and formulate the next steps, which will then be presented to staff. Until the outcome of that consultation is known, I cannot give any more detailed information.
I return to the panel and what it will be discussing, because that is important. A number of subjects have been raised in the course of today's debate, but the panel might want to consider other matters. We want to consider the challenge of increasing our woodland cover. We all know how small our woodland cover is and how little it has increased over the past 10 or so years—despite the fact that it was increasing before that—and how large the woodland cover in some of our fellow European countries is.
We also want to consider our ancient woodlands; I was grateful for what the noble Lord, Lord May, and my noble kinsman Lord Eden said about their importance and the importance of biodiversity. We also want to consider how access and recreation opportunities can be provided, but I remind the House how important it is that we look at the competing demands of access and recreation against biodiversity and timber production. All those matters must be considered appropriate.
I end by reassuring the House that the Government are committed to a sustainable future for our woods and forests. Now is the time and opportunity to look at how to do this and to tap into the obvious enthusiasm that we have discovered and which the noble Lord, Lord Clark, mentioned, and the love of our forests, which many have expressed. I look forward to seeing the views of the independent panel in due course.