Trees

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

Invasive non-native species like grey squirrels and muntjac deer are a clear threat to our native biodiversity. They cost the economy around £1.8 billion per year and they impact negatively on our trees and woodlands. The Forestry Commission provides advice on maintaining red squirrel habitats and managing grey squirrels, while the Roslin Institute is researching into ways to breed infertility into females. This would provide a more humane way of reducing their numbers. In addition, we support work by the UK Squirrel Accord in developing an oral contraceptive to reduce the grey squirrel population.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD) [V]]

My Lords, trees are essential to meeting the Government’s biodiversity and carbon targets. However, massive tree planting programmes have seen saplings being poorly planted and subsequently dying in large numbers. Can the Minister reassure us that the money to be put into the tree planting strategy will indeed deliver healthy adult trees in the future?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

I can absolutely reassure the noble Baroness that the purpose of the England tree strategy is to deliver trees for the long term. It would be regarded by us and by everyone else as a failure were we not to deliver larger mature trees in the future.