Agriculture, Fisheries and the Rural Environment

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, on his amazingly wonderful valedictory speech. I found it a model of vigour and clarity. I doubt I could do that even today at a much younger age. I also congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, on obtaining this timely debate. He gave a very scholarly survey of things. I shall pick up on just one of them and talk about forestry. I should declare my interests as set out in the register of the House, particularly those in respect of agriculture.

Forestry is, I regret, slightly the poor relation in the rural economy. I note that the five-year planting target to 2020 was 11 million trees, or 2.2 million trees a year. Forestry Commission figures for the first two years of this pledge came out in August and showed that in the first two years, in the aggregate, just 2.28 million tress had been planted. We are travelling at half speed. But the Climate Change Act 2008 means that we cannot afford to do so. I remind the House that the Act makes it a duty to ensure that the net UK carbon account for all six of the Kyoto greenhouse gases for 2050 is at least 80% lower than the 1990 baseline. The largest component by far of the six gases is of course carbon dioxide, and planting trees is self-evidently an easy and natural way of balancing CO₂ emissions.

There are many causes of this slow speed of planting, but my own take is that they really fall into two categories. The first is that the forestry grant offers and the economics generally are simply not attractive to landowners. Secondly, there are the high risks associated with plant health, pests, squirrels—a particular interest of mine—and deer. Taking the first of these categories, I was of course delighted to read policy 39 of the Government’s new Clean Growth Strategy. We have already heard of policy 38, concerning future agricultural support, but policy 39 says:

“Establish a new network of forests in England including new woodland on farmland, and fund larger-scale woodland and forest creation, in support of our commitment to plant 11 million trees, and increase the amount of UK timber used in construction”.


Could the Minister expand on this admirable policy or tell us when we might expect to hear more?

In terms of the second of these categories, I hope the House is aware how much the Minister is doing to help. I visited the Animal and Plant Health Agency facility outside York again 10 days ago for a conference on all these matters. Ninety-nine people from all over the UK were there, and the full range of innovative and world-class research that the UK and especially APHA are undertaking was discussed. For me, in my role as chairman of the UK Squirrel Accord, it was especially heartening to hear of the great strides being made in the science of grey squirrel fertility control, which ultimately will protect our broad-leaf trees from ring-barking by this invasive alien species, which kills young trees. But as I said, that is just one strand of much of the research that is going on, and the Defra family should be warmly congratulated on its hard work in all areas of research. It would be heartening for all involved, in whatever capacity in these battles, to hear from the Minister about his own determination and resolution in these areas.

In closing, I want to cite Action Oak. This initiative was launched just 10 days or so ago in the River Room. It is a determined, UK-wide partnership of governmental, voluntary and private sector bodies working together to seek to address the multiple problems that face our iconic national tree species. For instance, they will get communication going together and commission common research. It is a wonderful partnership concept and a very commendable model. Could the Minister tell us whether this type of public/private partnership approach is one that he sees as useful in the wider context of the forestry and agricultural sector?