Grand Committee
(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Arrangement of Business
(1 year, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Beith) (LD)
My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Environmental Targets (Marine Protected Areas) Regulations 2022
(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Lord Benyon
That the Grand Committee do consider the Environmental Targets (Marine Protected Areas) Regulations 2022.
Relevant document: 25th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument).
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that the statutory instrument, which sets a target for the recovery of features in marine protected areas, be approved.
MPAs are one of the most important tools we have for protecting the wide range of precious and sensitive habitats and species in our waters. In England, we have established a comprehensive MPA network covering 40% of English waters. Establishing this network is an important step in achieving our goal of conserving our protected species and habitats. Now that they have been designated, we need to increase the protections for these valuable marine environments to help them recover, which is why we are setting this target.
The regulations create a legally binding target that requires at least 70% of protected features in MPAs to be in a favourable condition by 31 December 2042, with the remaining features to be in a recovering condition. This target will set, for the first time, a time-bound target for the recovery of protected features. Currently, only 44% of protected features in MPAs are assessed as being in a favourable condition.
Protected features include the different marine habitats and species, geological and geomorphological features and assemblages that are specified for protection within our MPAs. “Favourable condition” means that the features are in a good and healthy state and align with the conservation objectives of the relevant MPAs. We will assess “recovering condition” by checking whether damaging activities have been appropriately managed. This will identify exactly what rapid remedial action is required by regulators to ensure that our MPAs are being properly protected. Managing MPAs effectively and in line with their conservation objectives will secure the achievement of this target.
The purpose of this instrument is to set a time-bound target for protected features to reach a favourable condition and for the remaining features to be in a recovering condition. This instrument defines the relevant terminology, such as “favourable” and “recovering condition”. It sets a date for reporting the achievement of the target and lists all the features in MPAs subject to the target. It also sets a date by which the Secretary of State for Environment must report on whether the target is achieved and allows the Secretary of State to request advice from Natural England and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee relating to the target.
To achieve the target, the Marine Management Organisation and the Association of Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities are rolling out an ambitious programme to introduce necessary management measures in MPAs for the most damaging fishing activity, such as bottom trawling, by 2024. Fisheries by-laws have already been introduced in nearly 60% of England’s MPAs, challenging the criticism that MPAs are “paper parks”. By-laws are implemented following public consultation on a site-by-site basis. Once damaging activities have stopped, protected features will begin their recovery. For some of them this will be immediate, but some will take a very long time. Coral gardens, for example, can take decades to recover, which is why the 2042 date is appropriate.
In conclusion, the measures in these regulations are crucial for the improvement of our marine biodiversity. I hope noble Lords will support these measures and their objectives and approve these draft regulations. I beg to move.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, we welcome the target of 70% for the protection of marine protected areas by 2042. Given that the figure at the moment is 44%, 70% is a strong target. For us, the issue with this particular statutory instrument is the monitoring and how we will be clear that we are achieving these targets.
The original consultation said that protection would be monitored by additional reporting on the changes in individual feature conditions. That was then removed from the final targets that we have before us. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee asked about this and got a bit of a non-answer from the Minister as to why there was this change and the removal of the monitoring of the individual sites. However, I was very grateful that, at the Minister’s meeting with me and colleagues last week, the Bill team were very clear that individual monitoring had been removed because of cost. Ship-based monitoring is clearly a very costly matter. Therefore, the targets today will be monitored by checking the pressures and vulnerabilities of the marine protected areas in general, so there will not be on-ship monitoring.
That is a disappointment, first, because when the OEP last week reviewed how the Government have been doing on achieving their 25-year environment plan, there were a number of areas where the OEP could not assess the level of success because the monitoring was not strong enough. In this area, we are again at risk that the monitoring being set in place to see whether the targets will be met will not, because of the cost, be sufficient to see whether the laudable target will be met. The Minister will be aware of this concern. The EIP to be published at the end of the month is proposing to set interim targets for meeting all the environmental targets that are set. Can the Minister say whether there will be a review of whether the monitoring arrangements for marine protected areas will be sufficient to see whether the targets can be met? Targets without effective monitoring are frankly meaningless.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I apologise for being two minutes 34 seconds late. I was following the Whips’ Today’s Lists, which said 4.15 pm, so thank goodness I came early. Anyway, my apologies for being late.
Reading these targets, I believe that nobody in the Government understands the ocean. It is crucial to our well-being, and these targets are utterly insufficient. The report published last year by the APPG on the Ocean, which I recommend to the Minister and his colleagues, gave excellent advice. The chair of the APPG is a Conservative. It is a good report with masses of recommendations that the Government could take. I hope that the Minister has perhaps already read it and that his team have absorbed it—that would be wonderful—but, looking at these targets, I rather think they have not.
If this Government are going to refuse to stop or even slow down our use of fossil fuels, the ocean and the marine protected areas are crucial because, as we all know, they are a carbon sink that we cannot do without. It is always fine to talk about techno fixes, but let us face it: they do not yet exist. They are wonderful, and it will be great when they happen, but they are, at the moment, science fiction. All marine ecosystems are valuable. For example, seagrass is a wonderful gobbler-up of carbon, but we have depleted our areas of seagrass because of pollution and all sorts of other factors. However, our Link briefing points out that there is no central driver towards such marine habitats and there is insufficient monitoring. This goes against the joint fisheries statement and the marine spatial prioritisation programme, both of which talk about protecting and restoring habitats that store blue carbon. They include seagrasses, mangroves, salt marshes and even algae and macroalgae.
I thank Claire Evans of the National Oceanography Centre, who helpfully pointed out that there is a legislative target that is not being met. As a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UK failed to reach its target of restoring at least 15% of degraded ecosystems by 2020. It was adopted by the UK as part of target 2 of the EU’s biodiversity strategy, and the lack of progress is most pronounced in the marine and costal environment, where habitat degradation continues and restoration remains in its relative infancy. I recommend that the Government not only look at this report from the APPG for the Ocean but talk to the scientists, because they can probably direct the Government in the best way to do exactly what the Government say they want to do.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport
It has already been noted that marine protected areas provide a practical and significant contribution to the recovery and conservation of marine species and habitats. As has been pointed out, it is important to protect and conserve the marine environment and safeguard our natural heritage for future generations to enjoy.
When MPAs are designed as a network and supported by wider environment management measures, they promote the recovery and conservation of ecosystem structure and function. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has published its thoughts on the Government’s various latest targets. It noted that it is
“not convinced by the Department’s explanation of the delay”.
Further, it expressed its
“regret that the original Explanatory Memoranda … did not mention or explain Defra’s failure to meet the deadline.”
It also pointed to an emerging pattern of delay from Defra, noting in paragraph 29 that
“the Environmental Principles Policy Statement, which was laid before Parliament for scrutiny in draft form in May 2021, still has not been laid in its final form.”
This pattern of delay was the subject of a Question asked by my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock on our first day back after the Christmas Recess.
The target for at least 70% of protected features in marine protected areas to be “in favourable condition” by 2042 is welcome. However, as has already been noted, the updated proposals for monitoring progress towards meeting this target fall short, focusing on contributors to favourable condition rather than on measuring favourable condition itself. Defra also needs to clarify how the target will align with the existing good environmental status targets set under the UK marine strategy.
Furthermore, marine policy documents, including the joint fisheries statement and the marine spatial prioritisation programme, frequently reference the need to protect and restore marine habitats that store carbon, known as blue carbon. However, there is no central driver towards this goal and no mechanism to measure progress towards it. A blue-carbon target would provide this central impetus, complementing the MPA target to build resilience against climate change and deliver ocean recovery.
The committee further notes that an overwhelming majority—91%—of consultation respondents called for “increased ambition” or an accelerated timescale for achieving the target, yet the headline target is unchanged since the consultation. Does the Minister believe that we could exceed 70% in practice, or is that the very best we can hope for?
Paragraph 10.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that the department has
“removed the reference to ‘additional reporting on changes in individual feature condition’ from the target that we consulted on”,
instead committing to publishing the percentage of features “in recovering condition.”
No rationale is offered for this. Can the Minister offer one or instead commit to writing to me with more detail?
Paragraph 10.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum notes that the target
“is predicated on implementing management measures to halt or manage damaging activities”.
When will the department bring forward more information about these measures? Will they feature in the upcoming environmental improvement plan, or will we have to wait for other documents? When might any other documents be made available? In theory, five-year interim targets will help us to move from the current 44% to the intended 70%, but what will happen if early reviews demonstrate that we are behind the intended pace?
Finally, can the Minister talk about what other resources or powers the department may have to ensure that the process stays on track?
Lord Benyon (Con)
I thank noble Lords for their contributions to today’s debate, and I will endeavour to respond to them. Our target for MPAs will transform our marine biodiversity; I absolutely know that to be true. For the first time, it sets a deadline for the recovery of protected features in MPAs. The target reinforces the statutory obligations of our regulators to manage our MPAs and, through it, we will continuously monitor our MPAs, ensuring that regulators intervene and manage pressures on behalf of our most precious species and habitats.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I do not doubt the Minister’s intentions. I do not even doubt his expertise in this area, but the fact is that science moves on. You need constant updates about what is happening. That is where I feel that the Government might be missing out—that they are not having talks with marine scientists and biologists. This is behind the times; it is already old-fashioned.
Lord Benyon (Con)
The noble Baroness is absolutely right, which leads me on to my next point. I was not boasting, because I certainly do not know as much as some of the academics with whom I have worked over the years. However, since I wrote my report—it was published only 18 months ago—the understanding of blue carbon has moved on considerably. She will be pleased to know that a number of the marine protected areas that we have designated contain seagrass. In other areas such as maerl beds and kelp, there is enormous potential to lock up and sequester more blue carbon. She is right that our oceans have enormous potential to add to our abilities to achieve our net-zero ambitions. We need to weaponise the oceans to help us to achieve that.
Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)
I am absolutely certain that this Minister knows more about the oceans than I do, and I am grateful for his patience in allowing a new Member to intervene in a way that I understand might not be conventional, but I have a single question about the report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Its report highlights the additional targets that did not appear in the Explanatory Memorandum. One target is to reduce by 50% the length of waters polluted by
“arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, nickel and zinc from abandoned metal mines”.
I have a personal interest in this with regard to the Cornish coast-line where, as the Minister knows, there is consideration of new lithium mines and, perhaps because of rising commodity prices, bringing abandoned tin mines back into mining. How could emissions from new mines be baselined? Will they be included in these targets? That is obviously quite a big consideration for the people of Cornwall.
Lord Benyon (Con)
Absolutely. I welcome the noble Lord to these proceedings and thank him for his interest in these matters. We debated these targets yesterday on waterways, under the same provision in the Environment Act. One of the four areas in which we are setting ourselves testing targets is on waste from metal mines. Some of the pollutants going into our rivers and thereby into our seas come from mines that ceased production before 1900. Nevertheless, there is a serious problem and there are now means by which you can detect the point source of pollutants. We have set ourselves a taxing target to try to tackle this.
The noble Lord is absolutely right about new mining. As commodity prices change around the world, there is a likelihood that certain areas that were considered redundant from mining in the UK might suddenly become viable. He mentioned tin in the south-west. If a new mine is to be opened, a strict area of regulation requires it to prove to the Environment Agency in the main sense, but other agencies as well, that it is not adding to the problem and is not impeding our ability to hit our target for mines and metals. I hope that reassures him, but there will be many other opportunities to raise these concerns as we go forward.
I will just tackle one or two other issues. This is part of a commitment that we have made, both nationally and internationally, to protect 30% of our oceans by 2030. We seek to do that in a way that stands the test of international oversight, because these should not be paper parks. We have not rolled out management measures as fast as we should, because the EU had to allow us to do this in the past, when other countries in the EU might have had arrangements for their fishers to fish these waters. We are now in a position to move this forward, and the welcome news that we are preventing bottom trawling in areas such as Dogger Bank is just part of this.
I hope I avoid the need to write to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, but, if I fail to satisfy her, I am happy to do that. As she says, the management measures will be in place by 2024. These documents will be publicly available and they have to be clearly understood by all stakeholders.
We have great ambitions for marine energy as well as for other forms of marine activity including carbon capture and storage, which may yet be a few years away; but all this needs to be understood as we talk about the great spatial squeeze of our oceans. When you look at an ocean you think there are miles of it and plenty of room for everyone, but when you look at a map you see what is going on—which areas are favoured by fishermen, which areas will see the rollout of marine energy, which are covered in a cat’s cradle of cables that cross our ocean bed. We have to make sure that marine protection has its full place.
The most important thing I took away from doing my report was the marine environment’s ability to recover quickly. I talked rather depressingly about areas such as coral gardens—which explains our date of 2042—but other areas will recover very quickly. Highly protected marine areas around the world see an extraordinary abundance of biodiversity very quickly if protection is done in the right way. Of course, that needs the support of everyone concerned. In those areas that we saw around the world, their greatest supporters were the fishermen—because the biomass that spills out of them into neighbouring areas of the sea, which they can exploit, is immense if things are done correctly.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, talked about how the statutory deadline of 31 October 2022 for laying these target SIs was missed. In March 2022, the Government launched their consultation on targets relating to the Environment Act, determined to leave our environment in a better state than we found it. It included around 800 pages published following three years of developing the scientific and economic evidence. The consultation closed on 27 June. We received over 180,000 responses, which all needed to be analysed and carefully considered. The volume of material and the significant public response indicated that we would not be able to publish targets by 31 October last year as required. The Secretary of State reassured the other place and all interested parties that we would continue to work at pace to lay draft statutory instruments as soon as practicable. We are now at that point.
The noble Baroness also asked about good environmental status. The Government are already required to work towards good environmental status through our UK marine strategy. This is UK-wide, whereas the targets under the Environment Act are England-only. A UK-wide target makes much more sense for good environmental status given the dynamic nature of the marine environment. Regulators already have legal responsibilities to protect MPAs. The target to achieve a favourable condition by 2042 is based on halting damaging activities by 2024.
The final suite of targets is stretching. To deliver them will require a shared endeavour across the whole of government and all of society. We consider the evidence carefully. In some cases, it is not technically or practically possible to go further. In others, higher targets would involve significant restrictions and costs on businesses and people’s lives, which we do not think would be right to impose at this time. However, the Environment Act requires future Governments to report regularly on progress. If, as time progresses and technology evolves, there is evidence to show that we should be more ambitious, we can increase those ambitions.
MPAs are one of the most important tools we have for protecting the wide range of precious and sensitive habitats and species in our waters. The instrument will ensure that we greatly increase the number of protected features in a favourable condition. The MPA target will focus the efforts of our regulators to manage pressures, and sets a path for the recovery of the diverse habitats and species that live in our MPAs. I hope that I have addressed the issues raised and that the Committee will approve this instrument.
Environmental Targets (Residual Waste) (England) Regulations 2022
(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Lord Benyon
That the Grand Committee do consider the Environmental Targets (Residual Waste) (England) Regulations 2022.
Relevant document: 25th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument).
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)
My Lords, we want to make more of our precious resources. As it is, we produce too much waste. Recycling rates for households have stagnated at around 45% for many years, and although we have made significant strides towards reducing our reliance on landfill, we lose far too many valuable materials to incineration.
The purpose of this instrument is to reduce dramatically the amount of these valuable materials we bury or burn. There are several ways to achieve this. We want to reduce waste being produced in the first place, and we can do this by making products last longer, designing them for repair and, of course, in the case of food, driving less wasteful practices. We must also redouble our efforts to maximise what we recycle so that materials can be used again and again in the productive economy.
We will embark on our target pathway by delivering on our commitments to implement the collection and packaging reforms. These include introducing consistent household and business recycling collections in England, extended producer responsibility for packaging and a deposit return scheme for drinks containers, for which we announced the next steps last Friday. Such measures reduce the pressure we place on our precious environment in what we extract, manufacture and then treat as waste.
It is an Environment Act requirement to set in secondary legislation at least one target in the priority area of resource efficiency and waste reduction. Five years ago, the 25-year environment plan committed to work towards the elimination of avoidable waste by 2050. This instrument puts us on the pathway to delivering this commitment by reducing the amount of waste we produce and facilitating more recycling. It enshrines in legislation our commitment to deliver our highly ambitious resources and waste strategy. The core purpose of the strategy is to maximise the value of our resources and minimise the environmental impact of our waste.
I turn now to the details of the instrument. It places a requirement on government to halve the amount of residual waste we produce to 287 kilograms per capita by 2042. This is a fall from the 574 kilograms per capita measured in 2019. We define residual waste as waste that originated in England that is sent to landfill, put through incineration, used in energy recovery in the UK or sent overseas for energy recovery.
We exclude major mineral wastes from our targets, such as concrete, bricks, sand and soil. They are largely inert when treated as waste. We exclude them to focus attention on materials where the environmental impact per tonne of waste treatment is greatest, such as landfilling biodegradable materials or incinerating plastic.
Our target takes a holistic perspective of waste, incorporating a broad range of materials, including plastics. This approach guards against the risk that a target could be reached simply by switching from one material to another environmentally harmful material type. Our target ensures that waste is reduced overall.
We recognise from the consultation a desire to see an additional target that reduces material resource use and improves productivity. We have actively researched this and made large strides forward in our knowledge, but the Secretary of State cannot yet set a long-term target in this area and be satisfied that it is achievable, which the Environment Act requires. We will continue in our efforts to make progress here, working closely with our colleagues in BEIS.
In conclusion, this target to halve residual waste is a crucial legal mechanism to drive materials up the waste hierarchy so we make the best and most productive use of them. It is ambitious. It enshrines in legislation our ambitions in the 25-year environment plan to minimise waste and ensures that we deliver our resources and waste strategy commitments. I beg to move.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I thank my noble friend for presenting the SI and the updated targets this afternoon; they are very helpful indeed. I am just trying to get my head around the government policy.
I accept that I am not completely up to date but, at the time when I left as the MP for Thirsk and Malton, we were selling quite a lot of waste to Holland and paying for it to be transported there. It was waste from North Yorkshire and the City of York, which, as my noble friend said, is the hardest waste to get rid of because it is often timber, window frames and all the itemised materials that he stated. It seemed a huge waste of resource. One reason we did that was because the landfill sites in North Yorkshire were already either full or about to become full.
The reason we exported the waste to Holland was because there was a ready market there for—what is the terminology? My noble friend referred to incineration, which is, of course, a red rag to a bull for many areas of Britain because they think of chimneys and smoke coming out of them. In fact, I am a big proponent of energy from waste. It seems to fall between two stools. My understanding of the Energy Security Bill going through Parliament at the moment is that the Government are looking favourably on energy heat networks; perhaps the old-fashioned term is “energy from waste”. Why are we not recognising energy from waste or energy heat networks as a form whereby we create two streams: we dispose of waste that is difficult to get rid of, as my noble friend said, and create an energy strand? Is that something the Government would look favourably on?
With those few remarks, I approve of this statutory instrument.
Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)
My Lords, I hope that I am conducting myself in a way that is considered normal, if I can describe it as that. It is back to mineral extraction for the Minister. He said that the mineral waste extraction target was removed from these targets on the grounds that it is largely inert. In essence, my concern is for export-led growth and security of supply. It seems to me that this country has an opportunity in areas such as electric automotive to be a world leader, which is why the market is looking at mineral extraction for lithium and at reopening mines.
I have read the response that the department is still trying to work out the best way to assess a baseline, but it seems to me that if we are going to extract minerals, we need some kind of public buy-in in that process. A proper baseline and some kind of reassurance on its measurement seems pretty urgent to me. In its response to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Defra said that it was still considering the evidence and how best to present that information. Perhaps the Minister could suggest how he might approach that, given the concerns raised in the various submissions to that committee. Can he give some reassurance to those communities that are considering whether to support people who seek to extract minerals in their community?
Baroness Parminter (LD)
I thank the Minister for his introduction of this statutory instrument. I hope that I am not taking him out of context, but I would dispute one thing he said which was that we take a holistic view on waste. This statutory instrument shows that by excluding the vast majority of waste produced in England—that is waste from demolition, construction and excavation, to which the noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred—the Government do not exactly have a holistic view of waste. Although we may quibble with the explanation given in the Explanatory Memorandum that the reason for that exclusion is in order
“to focus on reducing waste that is more environmentally harmful”,
I think all of us would agree that there is significant harm from much of that waste. There is much waste in the construction area, but I will come back to that.
This SI focuses on what I would call consumer waste. As the Minister was good enough to outline, it needs to focus on consumer waste because, as an OEP report last week showed, the targets for such waste have deteriorated since 2018. The Minister referred to the fact that we have stalled on recycling; we are actually sending more waste to incineration now than we were in 2018.
So we need a renewed focus; one hopes that these targets will provide that because they need to. The Minister referred to the welcome provisions in the Environment Act to encourage more uniform collection via municipal authorities around the country. That is an essential step if we are to make progress on consumer waste but, over the past couple of years, we have not seen anything near significant progress on extended producer responsibility. He mentioned the fact that the deposit return scheme announcement was made on Friday, but it will not happen until 2025 whereas it is coming into effect in Scotland this year. Equally, it excludes glass.
We need a sense of urgency, given the need to move on waste; it is an area where we would like to put a rocket under Defra to get it moving forward. We hear that there may be a refreshed resources and waste strategy document later this year. We do not need another strategy; we just need a bit more action in this space.
I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, is in her place. When our committee looked at how to mobilise people to take the action needed for climate and environment, the responses we received from the various departments on how to improve people’s contribution to the waste targets were one of their weakest areas. We had the Secretary of State before us talking about the success of the plastic bag levy; that is great but it happened back in the coalition days. I hope that these targets will give the department a sense of pace and urgency to encourage it to get a move on. Otherwise, if it carries on with its mantra of going with the grain of consumer choice, we will not make the progress that we need.
Finally, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised, construction and demolition waste are excluded. The consultation said that it
“is also a high priority and we are not overlooking this.”
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee picked this up, in response to which the department said that it was considering a separate target. I note that the Minister mentioned discussions with BEIS, which are to be commended. Might he be prepared to say a bit more about that today, including whether it will be part of the refreshed resources and waste strategy later this year? Or are we going to have to wait a bit longer? As I say, I do not think we have the time for that.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
We supported the passage of the Environment Act although, during that process, we expressed concern that, if key targets were not included in the legislation, it could lead to the Government downgrading their ambition. The targets in the various SIs are significantly less ambitious than many would like, suggesting that our fears were correct. As noted by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and my noble friend Lord Watson, the waste reduction target omits major mineral waste from construction, demolition and excavation activities—the majority of waste produced in England. This omission must be rectified if the target is to deliver on its aim of incentivising a circular economy.
The waste reduction aimed for—a 50% reduction on 2019 levels—is not aligned with either the scale of the problem or the potential to reduce resource use, as well as minimising waste and increasing recycling. A 50% reduction on 2019 levels is relatively unambitious. The department does not have the strongest track record in delivering the transition to a circular economy. I am afraid that England has lagged behind other countries in the UK in bringing new schemes on stream, as highlighted by the significant delays to and the watering down of the Government’s deposit return scheme. Scotland has its own scheme, which will launch ahead of Defra’s, and Wales is set to launch its scheme in October 2025. The Explanatory Memorandum notes the Government’s resources and waste strategy, which aims to increase municipal recycling rates to an overall level of 65% and lower the volume of waste going to landfill.
We have seen slippage in performance across much of the UK, although I am proud to say that Wales has outperformed the other UK nations. The recent results from Newport City Council, where I was the leader before joining your Lordships’ House, show a 10% increase in Newport’s recycling performance over a year. Newport is not only the best-performing authority in Wales in terms of recycling but the best-performing city in the whole of the UK. It continues to work hard to meet the Welsh Government’s target of a 70% recycling rate by 2025.
Lord Benyon (Con)
I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this debate. The residual waste reduction target put forward in this instrument meets the requirements under the Environment Act to set a target in the areas of resource efficiency and waste reduction. As the Act requires, the Secretary of State has sought appropriate advice from independent experts and is satisfied that this target can be met. I remind noble Lords that satisfaction that the target can be met is absolutely a key requirement. Secretaries of State and their Ministers cannot just come before a committee such as this to seek a good headline or try to cut the Opposition off at the knees by having unbelievably high targets. They have to be targets that can be achieved.
I note in particular the opinion of the Office for Environmental Protection, which commends this target for its ambition and agrees with the decision to exclude major mineral wastes from it; I will come on to talk more about that in a minute. Although the data is not robust enough to set a separate target to reduce major mineral wastes at this stage, we are continuing to look at what is needed to advance the evidence around major mineral wastes and how they can be reduced. This will allow us to assess whether it would be appropriate for a separate target to reduce major mineral waste to be set in the future. The target to reduce residual waste, excluding major mineral wastes, will focus on where the environmental impacts per tonne of waste are greatest. By meeting the target, we will deliver the environmental benefits of reducing waste.
I should have started—I apologise to the Committee —by declaring an interest. I had forgotten that my family has interests in former gravel extractions, which were filled by inert building material waste and have since been reopened. Those materials have been exploited to produce material for the building industry. That is an example of where there is a market for better reuse; it means that minerals are not being dug out of the ground but recycled.
My noble friend Lady McIntosh asked about exports of waste. The Government have fulfilled their obligations as a party to the United Nations Basel Convention and introduced controls which mean that shipments of Y48 plastic waste from Great Britain require the prior approval of the regulators in the country of destination as well as the relevant British regulator. Our proposal to ban exports of plastic waste, particularly to non-OECD countries, will go further than the EU’s ban as it will not be limited to just one category of plastic waste.
My noble friend referred to energy from waste and said that a lot of waste companies have become energy companies. It must be said that this is still an emitting activity but, obviously, it is much better for the waste to go to that use than to landfill. Crucially, the waste hierarchy ranks options for waste management from best to worst in terms of environmental impacts and moving to a circular economy. It is both a guide to sustainable waste management and a legal requirement, enshrined in law through the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011. Priority goes to preventing the creation of waste in the first place, followed by preparing waste for reuse, recycling and then recovery. Disposal—in landfill, for example—is regarded as the worst option.
Burning valuable resources loses them to the economy forever. For example, although our reliance on landfill has fallen over time to just 8% for all local authority-collected waste, our waste from household recycling rates have stagnated at about 45%, as I said earlier. This is because residual waste is simply being diverted to energy from waste. Our target ensures that we get waste up the waste hierarchy through reduce, reuse and recycle, and cuts the amount of residual waste we produce.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, raised Newport; I see her Newport and raise her West Berkshire, where, when I was the leader of the opposition eons ago, a paltry amount was recycled—I think 15%. The excellent management of that local authority has seen that rise much higher than the national average, to nearly 60%, and it has just introduced a food recycling scheme which will take it above 70%—so there are good examples. The noble Baroness is absolutely right to raise the point that, very often, these matters cannot be run from the Secretary of State’s desk. There is a cultural issue in how we use waste, encourage people not to throw litter and tackle our sense of place and belief in community, protecting it from the worst ravages of a disposal society. There is a job to do locally, and local government is best placed to lead it. There are some fantastic examples as well as some laggards that we must get to move better and faster.
We have full confidence in the final suite of targets, which represents a robust analysis that has already been undertaken. The Environment Act established a robust legal framework to deliver environmental benefits and hold Governments—both now and in future—to account in delivering them.
Our record on the environment is strong: we have created or restored the equivalent of 364,000 football pitches of new habitat; restricted single-use plastics such as straws, stirrers and cotton buds; and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, cut the use of supermarket plastic bags by 97%. We have reduced waste sector emissions by nearly 40%, protected 1.5 million square miles of ocean and are leading international action to protect the environment as co-chair of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People and chair of the Global Ocean Alliance. I mention that because it is worth reminding ourselves that we sometimes get things right.
I hope I have covered all the points about major mineral wastes. These are inert materials from construction, demolition and excavation activity. Waste from critical raw materials is in scope of the targets for waste electricals. It is very important that they are not just seen as something we can bury alongside other waste. We want to make sure that we are tackling the reuse value that lies within them.
This target is ambitious yet achievable, with the planned collection and packaging reforms getting us roughly half way towards our target. A wide suite of policies is available to meet the remaining reduction required. These policy levers will be the decision of future Governments. Together with other government commitments, such as eliminating avoidable waste and doubling resource productivity by 2050, the target will drive down the amount of waste produced. This target, alongside the suite of Environment Act targets, will ensure that we meet our commitment to leave the environment in a better state than we found it.
Environmental Targets (Woodland and Trees Outside Woodland) (England) Regulations 2022
(1 year, 10 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Benyon
That the Grand Committee do consider the Environmental Targets (Woodland and Trees Outside Woodland) (England) Regulations 2022.
Relevant document: 25th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument).
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)
My Lords, trees and woodlands have a huge role to play in tackling climate change and recovering nature. They capture and lock away carbon, provide important habitats for thousands of species and offer nature-based solutions to challenges such as managing flood risk and improving mental and physical health. We know how important it is to plant more trees, but over the past two decades planting rates in England have declined. To reverse this trend, we have set out our ambition to increase tree and woodland cover from 14.5% to 16.5% of land area by 2050.
As a first step, we made a commitment in our manifesto to increase annual planting across the UK to 30,000 hectares by the end of this Parliament. In the England Trees Action Plan, we set out our ambition to treble woodland creation in England as our contribution to this, as well as our plan to achieve it. As a result, we are seeing planting rates rise. We must continue on this trajectory if we are to realise all the benefits for people, nature and climate that trees and woodlands bring. This instrument makes clear the necessary commitment to planting and nurturing our trees and ensures that trees remain a priority in the future.
I should have started by referring noble Lords to my interests as set out in the register. I apologise again for doing that late.
I turn to the details of this instrument. The regulations we have laid create a legally binding target to increase the combined canopy cover of woodlands and trees outside woodlands in England to 16.5% by 31 December 2050. Achieving this target would see both annual tree planting rates and total tree cover exceed historic highs. The action we are taking now through the England Trees Action Plan, supported by £675 million from the Nature for Climate Fund, will set us on the right path to achieving these new heights of ambition. We want to create a diverse treescape to draw on the unique benefits that different trees and woodlands can provide. Almost all trees and woodlands will contribute to meeting the target, including trees in woodlands, hedgerows, orchards, fields, towns and cities.
The Forestry Commission will monitor progress against the target. Using innovative tools such as remote sensing, we will be able to report accurately on not just woodlands but individual trees, down to those in gardens and on streets. This target is ambitious, deliverable and critical if we are to meet the joint challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. I commend these draft regulations to the Committee.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interest as chairman of the Woodland Trust and thank the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument. I almost did not speak as I was speechless with amazement at this target. The woodland canopy cover target is the only one that has gone down rather than increased as a result of the Government’s post-consultation considerations. This instrument would slash the previous tree targets increase by a third from what was originally consulted on—and that is without any further discussion or impact assessment.
Most of the consultation respondents said that 17.5%, the original target, was unsatisfactory because it was too low. Even if you discount all the respondents who were linked to campaigns, there were still 900 respondents who, off their own bat, said the same. Almost more important than the disappointment of a target that has become less ambitious is the fact that it is no longer aligned with the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation on the forestation rates necessary to achieve a 1.5 degrees temperature rise and the net-zero strategy. In the committee’s view, that needed 18% canopy cover by 2050, and Chris Skidmore’s review of the net-zero strategy re-endorsed the role of trees.
This reduction in the target was not endorsed by Defra’s own expert group, which felt that 17.5% was the right target to try to achieve. It is made worse by another tweak since the original consultation—or at least the way the consultation has worked out—which is that the proportion of conifer woodland incorporated in the target has gone up while the proportion of native broadleaf has gone down. This means that, up to 2050, 30% of the new woodland in England will be conifers rather than the 20% consulted on. Currently, the proportion of conifers in the mix is 14%, so that is a doubling of the current rate of conifer planting as a proportion.
This will have a major impact on both biodiversity and climate change. Irrespective of the claims made by the timber industry, on the basis of the current science, coniferous woodlands provide less return for wildlife and, in the longer term, for carbon. Conversely, native woodlands support a quarter of the UK’s priority species, are more resilient to disease as a result of the diversity of tree species and spend a longer time in the soil, which means more carbon sequestered not only in the wood but in the soil ecosystems.
I can only speculate on why the Government are proposing this diminished target. I beg the Minister’s forgiveness as I am going to paraphrase the Government’s response to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Basically, it is this: we are not hitting the current planting target so we will reduce the statutory target to make it easier to meet it. It is rather a major cop-out; the Government have been completely open about that. They are saying, “We are reducing the target because our planting rates are not currently achieving the levels that we said they should”.
The lack of ambition to come up to the mark and this deleterious switch in the conifer-broadleaf proportions also make me sniff the breeze and smell the work of the Forestry Commission somewhere in this, perhaps overly influenced by the forestry industry. The Forestry Commission is supposed to be for all woodlands but, increasingly and worryingly, it is reverting to its name, beating the drum for the forestry industry and commercial industry rather than for woodlands of all types and the many benefits that come from more diverse woodlands with respect to biodiversity, carbon, access, health, water and soil protection, et cetera. Although the forestry industry is right to say that the UK needs to be more self-sufficient in timber, that should not be a zero-sum game at the expense of native woodland benefits for biodiversity and carbon.
Let us return to the Government’s view that, as they have not delivered the targets so far, they will reduce them to make it easier. What should be happening is keeping the 17.5% target and stepping up to the challenge. There are things that could easily be done to achieve this: first, clearer incentives in the ELMs scheme for farmers with longer-term security for their plans for their land to encourage them to plant trees, indulge in agroforestry, create shelter belts, undertake water protection, replant hedgerows that have disappeared and fill in the gaps in existing hedgerows.
Secondly, we need changes in the rules for tenant farmers, as outlined in the Rock report, because tenant farmers are not in a position to make commitments to planting trees at the moment.
Thirdly, we need a sensible land use framework to indicate how the land can accommodate the trees and where. I was delighted to see Chris Skidmore endorse the fact that we need such a framework and that it needs to include the planning system, not just Defra issues.
Fourthly, we need a lot more urban tree planting and measures to support local authorities and developers in this. Local authorities are up for it. They are taking up the measures already on offer from Defra but much more can be done. They have lots of land that is small-scale, close to people, helps with urban air quality, helps with health—including mental health—and absolutely should be capitalised on for both biodiversity and carbon.
Fifthly, we need to simplify the Forestry Commission process of enabling trees to be planted and make it more efficient. I was at the commission’s celebration bunfight in this House last year. When an opportunity for questions was given, everyone duffed up the commission and complained about how bureaucratic, slow, unhelpful and useless it was. It was really quite sad because we need it to be powerful, helpful and effective. It needs better procedures.
Lastly, I hope that Defra is not resiling from ambitious targets for fear of the wrath of the Office for Environmental Protection if it fails. I know that the office is giving Defra a hard time at the moment on the lateness of the targets and environmental principles, and that there is all to go for in the 31 January deadline for the environment improvement plan, but it would be a sad outcome if having a tough new regulator resulted in everybody becoming very cautious in making commitments.
I want to finish by asking the Minister some questions. Some are real and some, as he will no doubt detect, are a bit facetious. First, what are the real reasons for reducing the targets? Are any of my surmises right? Secondly, in Defra’s response to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, it talked about the first review of the targets. When will we see that first review begin? Tomorrow, I hope. Will the review assess what measures could be introduced to deliver enhanced targets with more sense of urgency? Lastly, does the Minister believe that an ambitious target honestly striven for but marginally missed is better than complacent targets that do not give leadership and signal that climate change and biodiversity do not really matter?
I shall now be speechless with rage.
Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)
My Lords, of the three instruments that we have discussed today, this is the one that gives me the most concern, for many of the reasons just outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. The context of this is that every environmental scientist and data scientist on every continent says that, if we are to reduce global warming and get below the 1.5 degree figure, we need to extract more CO2 from the atmosphere. The only way we can realistically do that is by planting something in the region of a trillion trees. The UK has a tiny but significant role to play in that.
I have known the Minister long enough to know that, although the dignity of office means that he must respect the collective decisions of the Government, he will be personally hurting inside at this reduction in what was in itself a fairly limited target. Today, he has told us that the Government must set realistic targets. A realistic target with political leadership intent could be 17.5% canopy cover. It requires leadership and resource.
We are in very difficult times but, I have to say, what this represents is not just a cut in ambition but a withdrawal. In my view, this is a resource-led instrument, and one that we cannot afford. The planet cannot afford it. Future generations cannot afford it. I think I know the Civil Service well enough to realise that there is a potential get-out clause or caveat where, while explaining in its response to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
“that a canopy cover target of 16.5% is the most ambitious that can currently be set whilst still being realistically achievable”—
I think it is achievable but it will require leadership and resource—Defra says this:
“The first review of environmental targets will be an opportunity to consider whether the level can be realistically increased”.
Can the Minister give some comfort to colleagues here by saying that, if one can be found, there could be a cross-party way for us to work dextrously and quickly to increase that target significantly to 17.5%, perhaps more, after we decide on this instrument today? Can we work together to see whether the parties can come to a solution on this?
Lord Roborough (Con)
I thank my noble friend for the targets that he has outlined today. Before I go on, I should apologise in advance; this is one of my first times standing up so I am sure I will make many errors. I declare my interests in developing new forestry plantations and managing forestry, as well as in carbon offsets, so I have a little experience in this area.
In some ways, I want to echo what has come before me but with a different emphasis. I want the Government to continue to work on these targets by addressing the practicalities of what it takes to plant a new forest. Look at our neighbours in Europe. France has 31% woodland cover. Germany has 33%. They are at a similar stage of economic development to us and have similar climates. The UK’s figure should be much higher, but there are many barriers to getting it higher that need to be addressed. I am not convinced about setting targets; I think that the work needs to be on removing the obstacles to developing new forestry—everything from the invasive grey squirrel, which attacks many of our native broadleafs in an early stage of their development, to the cumbersome and restrictive planning process that places undue weight on perhaps poor quality archaeology as an obstacle to planting new ground. We must also develop carrots for the industry and landowners by encouraging more green finance involvement in developing new forests.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Young, I think that we need to work on the basis of some of the recommendations from the Rock review on how landlords and tenants can engage constructively on freeing up more land for planting forestry.
I want to speak up in favour of conifers. One of the tests for developing new forestry plantation is the economic or agricultural impact assessment, which looks at the employment opportunities. If we take land that currently supports low-intensity agricultural practices and put it into forestry, we need to be sure that we are not costing jobs or the economy. Conifers play a critical role in construction in this country. We currently import most of our construction timber, and it is essential that we plant plenty of conifers.
In summary, I would like the Government to continue working on how we can plant more acres and hectares than the current targets incorporate.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, with his expertise in this field, and other campaigners with significant expertise. It adds to the calibre of the debate. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Young, I think that this is the SI where I have most concern about the paucity of the targets. I also found it very interesting just how much support there was for increasing the level of ambition, yet the Government have gone down from what they originally proposed.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his introduction to this statutory instrument and declare an interest as London’s deputy mayor with responsibility for resilience. As it happens, I also used to work for my noble friend Lady Young; where I agree with her, it is because she is right, which she generally was when I worked for her.
It is right that the Government are setting legally binding targets for woodland cover and trees outside woodland. I think we can all agree that increasing woodland and trees is vital to this country’s future in the context of climate change. The commitment in this statutory instrument reflects the duty and acute need for active stewardship of our natural environment for future generations in relation to the duties under the Climate Change Act and the country’s target on net zero.
It is disappointing, as has been a key element of today’s discussion, that the proposed target has been reduced.. As my noble friend Lady Young said, this suggests complacency. In response to the previous SI, the Minister made a point about satisfaction that the targets set can be met. Nobody wants unreachable targets, as they become meaningless if everybody knows that they are unreachable, but we need them to be ambitious and not merely guaranteed to be met and ticked off as achieved.
We on these Benches support the principle of afforestation, for the purposes of both carbon sequestration and social, health and well-being benefits. Last summer, we saw significant harm and excess deaths as a result of the heatwave. Trees can play an important part in reducing the urban heat island effect. I agree with many of the concerns raised in the debate; I note the suggestion around the proposed planning framework and echo my noble friend Lady Young’s point that urban tree planting has considerable benefits, as seen in London. The noble Lord, Lord Roborough, noted the significantly higher levels of woodland and tree coverage in Germany and France. In these circumstances, we should definitely aim our targets a bit higher.
I have a few further points and a number of questions to which it would be useful to have responses from the Minister. The Woodland Trust estimates that
“We need to at least quadruple the current rate of woodland creation and increase the proportion of UK-grown native species to help tackle the effects of climate change and give nature a fighting chance of recovery.”
The key question for me is whether the Minister is confident that the targets the Government are putting in place are sufficient to meet this challenge. I note, as others have, that he has rejected the notion that the target should be 17.5%, which itself was insufficient, and arrived at 16.5% as the higher option was considered unfeasible. This is a considerably lower level of ambition than was first proposed and is lower than that proposed by the consultation responses, as was noted, although the Minister said that it is deliverable. This is a concern. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, that it would be good to understand the reasons and rationale behind this and be reassured that it is not merely because the Minister is confident that the lower target can be met.
My understanding is that the current regulatory regime does not require landowners to plant trees to meet the tree canopy and woodland cover target, but that the target is dependent on substantial landowner behaviour change. How are the Government planning to influence landowners to do this and how will they measure whether this behaviour change is happening? Some more detail on what interim targets will be put in place would be helpful, noting that this is a long-term target towards 2050. How will these targets be monitored effectively? At what point would the Minister consider mandating or incentivising change from landowners, rather than assuming that it will happen?
There is broad agreement that we need to ensure that we increase the cover of native trees, but I note that UK and Irish nurseries cannot currently supply sufficient numbers to meet the targets. What are the Government doing to ensure that UK and Irish nurseries can supply more native trees in future and how will they ensure that we do not overrely on coniferous woodland, to the detriment of nature and climate, in the effort to meet this target?
Clearly, monitoring progress will be key to ensuring that this target succeeds. What safeguards are the Government putting in place to ensure that the data collected allows for ongoing analysis? I appreciate that the Minister described quite a complex process in his introductory remarks, so a little more detail would be helpful.
Before concluding, I am unclear why this comes under the levelling-up agenda—it is obviously the theme of the week—as alluded to in Defra’s impact assessment. It appears to have been suggested simply because a reasonable proportion of the trees might be planted in the north-east. I can assume only that this relates to jobs, but there is information in some of the documents provided indicating that these may not be new jobs; they may just be changed jobs. However, if this relates to jobs, what are the Government doing to ensure that the skills pipeline supports the target, in relation to the skills required in both nurseries and forestry?
I will end on that point, but I am keen to stress that the target included in this statutory instrument cannot be a mere paper target. Through this discussion, we have understood that this is not a particularly ambitious target, so it must have the resources and commitment of this and future Governments to drive it through. I hope that we become more, rather than less, ambitious in future and I seek the Minister’s assurance that the Government truly understand and are committed to increasing woodland and tree cover.
Lord Benyon (Con)
I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this debate. The Environment Act 2021 grants these Houses the power to make targets that tackle the challenges facing our environment today. This target does exactly that. To achieve the tree and woodland canopy cover target, we will need not just action from the Government, but effort across the country from the private sector, NGOs, and people up and down this country. I know many of us have fond memories of planting trees as a child. I am old enough to remember “Plant a Tree in 73” and being furiously dragged by my father to plant a tree, which died last year because of ash dieback, not because of my lack of skill in looking after it.
We want this target to be relevant to future generations. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, manages rage in a way that I need to channel at times. If her calm demeanour conceals rage, she has incredible self-control.
Let us look back at history. We have doubled woodland cover since 1924, but that is no reason to be complacent. As has been pointed out, it is a fraction of what exists in other countries, in which, I have to say, there are many fewer people. In 1086, when data collection was maybe a little vaguer, it was 15%, so our ambition is to take it to record highs. It is not just the Government saying, “Go there and plant a tree.” We can do that on publicly owned land, and we are in conversations with other departments that own a lot of land. The Government can contribute to this by directly increasing planting on land such as Ministry of Defence training grounds, but we are trying to encourage private sector businesses to plant more trees. That means a combination of incentives, regulations and conditionality on various things, and it is a complex ambition to achieve when you do not have direct control.
The noble Baroness talked about this as if was the only tool in the box. Through environmental land management, the opportunities of green finance, as pointed out by my noble friend Lord Roborough, could change quite dramatically in coming years. One of the greatest disincentives for land managers to plant trees is that they receive around £85 an acre from the EU for just farming it. Now with the shift towards environmentally incentivised schemes, some areas of a field will be uneconomic to get a piece of expensive tackle into and in order to use diesel, plough points, sprays, fertilisers and all the other paraphernalia of agricultural production. It is in those areas that we see great potential. We have a specific scheme in riparian planting and in a number of other areas, some of which will not come into these statistics, such as hedgerows—some areas of agroforestry do—and short-rotation coppice, which is a key part of our delivery to hit our carbon budget 6, and I will come on to talk about that in a minute.
I love the Woodland Trust. I think it has an important part to play in delivering these statistics. Apart from anything else, it has lots of money and is able to buy land and plant trees, but what I cannot understand about the Woodland Trust, and I have had this discussion with the noble Baroness before, is its fixation with native species. It is really not a very good long-term resilience policy because, with climate change and the prevalence of tree diseases approaching these shores that I see every day in my job, to be totally obsessed with just a few species of broadleaf trees is incomprehensible.
Therefore, I totally defend our 70/30 target—that is, 70% broadleaf and 30% species such as those that lock up carbon. For example, more carbon is retained by a softwood tree rather than being burned into the atmosphere, so it is better for that carbon to continue to remain in structures, such as roof beams, and other areas of our economy. We need ever more diversity of trees. I am excited by what foresters are doing all around the country, where I see new species. I am intensely proud of some of the trees that I have seen planted on land for which I have had responsibility, and where I have done this for other landowners.
Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)
I feel grateful to the Minister for giving me one last roll of the dice. Could I make my offer to him again? I am absolutely convinced that he is across this, but I am prepared to do everything I can in my party to join his nascent squirrel execution pledge. If we could work together afterwards, we are likely to agree this or would at least restate or work towards the case for 17.5% politically, in what I think could be an agreement across the main parties’ manifestos for the next period. There may be at least an opportunity to review those targets prior to the 2028 review, as currently addressed in this set of arrangements.
Lord Benyon (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that helpful and honest appraisal about where we want to get to. I want the highest possible ambition. We are setting targets that we think we can achieve within the current framework. Farming is going through a massive transition. I have spoken about the need for a land-use framework for the future and, as the next few crucial years go by, the kinds of incentives and encouragement will become more apparent, as will our success or otherwise. The private sector green finance that my noble friend Lord Roborough was talking about is already seeing tree planting, to the criticism of some people. This could be hugely effective in exceeding our target. I am certainly happy to work cross-party to achieve that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, asked me a number of questions, not least about nursery capacity, importantly. We have launched the nature for climate fund, which is spending £750 million on trees and peat-land restoration over this Parliament. It has seen progress on not just tree planting but building long-term capacity within the sector. We will commit around £28 million of this fund to projects to support the domestic seed and sapling supply sectors.
Other questions were put by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who correctly set this within the context of the Government’s net-zero ambitions. They are not just ambitions but comply with the Climate Change Act. The Climate Change Committee is very clear about where we are and how we can get on track with the sixth carbon budget. I can tell her that, as part of the Government’s response, we are looking across the range of Defra’s responsibilities and to recent court cases. We want to make sure that we are not only saying the right thing and that something is deliverable but backing this by real fact.
This makes for difficult choices, because we want our relatively small country to continue to be able to feed itself and for it to be secure that that production is sustainable. We can achieve this. I have seen that from the scale of the farm to now talking about it for the nation. It takes courage to make those decisions and to argue them with sectors that may be very suspicious about what they mean for them and their businesses, so we must do it in the right way.
I take the key point about skills. We are training people to manage a different kind of environment. That might be about producing more energy crops or managing more wilder spaces. In terms of nature and its recovery, it is certainly about having more people working in forestry. That is why I am pleased that the Forestry Commission training scheme is now up and running, and that more foresters are being taken on and trained. Actually, it is not just for the Forestry Commission to do this; it is for local authorities and the private sector, as well.
The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, asked me some questions about the targets, which I hope I have answered. So far, the Government have trebled planting rates to 7,000 hectares a year. This is the first step to hitting the target. I have talked about nursery capacity. Our £270 million farming innovation programme is seeing money going into a variety of different things, including skills and improving the market for timber products. This is very different from growing a crop of wheat, where you can have a discussion with your bank manager because you know you are producing something that may vary by 15% up or down every year, depending on the weather. You need to take a much longer-term view with trees, but there is business to be had in forestry and we want to make sure it is successful. We can really enhance our forestry targets if people realise that there is a future in it.
These targets, as part of the suite of Environment Act targets, will drive action to deliver our commitment to leave the environment in a better state than we found it. I commend these draft regulations to the Committee.