Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the UKCEH and a lowland farmer. No one is trying to burn peat. Fire prevention in peat is, in fact, an objective of a cool burn. On a managed burn, the fire skims across the vegetation, not affecting the winter sodden peat. Cool burns happen every 15 to 25 years, creating a mosaic of localised firebreaks and habitats for golden plover, grouse, curlew, black cocks, ptarmigan, lapwing et cetera —all incredibly important species.

Where the cool burn is recent, chicks scratch at seeds and invertebrates encouraged by the burn, then regrowing heather, mosses and sedges provide more seeds and crane flies. Adjacent to that, you have mature heather providing weather protection for all. However, one thing to avoid is miles of two-foot-high leggy heather, in which biodiversity is limited and summer fires can explode.

Meanwhile, the research is pretty contradictory. In spite of the biodiversity benefits, you get a release of carbon in a cool burn, but some believe that this is neutralised by reinvigorated growth over the following seasons. Others say that, over the years, there has been a gradual loss of carbon. More long-term research is needed. Meanwhile, is the alternative of mowed heather better for biodiversity and firebreaks or not? Again, research is needed. Most importantly, we need more accurate data on the current condition of all our upland peatlands as a template for the future—namely, how extensive they are, how deep and what sort of condition they are in. Every site will be different.

One thing is sure: one out-of-control summer fire, where the peat itself burns for days, is more damaging to our environment and climate than anything else we can do. We must not let that happen by producing simple answers to a complex problem.