Tropical Forest Forever Facility

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I very much welcome the noble Baroness to her new position on the Front Bench opposite, and I hope we will have constructive discussions in the future. She underlines the question of the different priorities that are ahead of us at the moment in terms of where to put money at particular junctures. I must admit that I am not a habitual reader of the Times, so the noble Baroness is one step ahead of me there, but I will have a good look at that letter. What she says underlines that at the moment this country has a huge number of sometimes not always well-anticipated demands on our funding—nuclear is one of them, and obviously defence is another—and that clearly has an effect on where you put money at particular points, however much your heart tells you that you would like to do so.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned earlier the tree planting that has been going on in the United Kingdom. Is he aware that the biggest threat to those trees reaching maturity and helping with the net-zero calculation is the grey squirrel? Can he give signs of the Government’s determination to deal with the grey squirrel problem and the main research in fertility control going on at the government laboratories at the Animal and Plant Health Agency?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I am not sure I can give the noble Earl the assurance that the Government will go out and shoot large numbers of grey squirrels in the near future. I accept that squirrels, deer and other similar animals are probably the biggest threat to what we plant as a woodland plantation and whether it actually gets to maturity in 50 years so that it can make its impact on reafforestation and carbon emissions reduction. That is one reason why the UK is concentrating its woodland afforestation and forest development efforts on managed plantation woodlands, so that the best protection is available within those woodlands from the sort of predation that the noble Earl mentions as a barrier to the development of mature woodlands and forests.