Public Forest Estate (England)

Andrew George Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance, because we live in an age of transparency and that is what community groups have every right to expect.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Further to the point about a consultation, would my right hon. Friend care to reassure the House that the Public Bodies Bill seeks to establish enabling powers, rather than duties, and that that will fundamentally enshrine the opportunities proposed in the consultation, not force things through?

[Mrs Spelman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, because it is important to note that when we published the consultation document on 27 January it was accompanied by a written ministerial statement. If Members would like to read it in conjunction with the consultation document, they will find an assurance on this point. We will introduce a general duty for Ministers

“to have regard to the maintenance of public benefits when exercising”

the forestry-related powers and the powers in the Public Bodies Bill. [Interruption.] I am sure that Labour Members would be interested to know what those additional powers of protection are, as they have been making a lot of noise about this.

Secondly, the statement mentions

“exempting the most iconic heritage forests from the full range of options so that”

they

“could only be transferred to a charitable organisation or remain in public ownership”. —[Official Report, 27 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 17WS.]

That is far more protection than currently exists. If the Labour party would stop holding up the business in the other place, we might get those amendments on the statute book.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I read a document—“Operational Efficiency Programme: Asset Portfolio”, which was published by the previous Government just months before the election—and discovered, on page 54, an explicit reference to the case for the “long-term lease” of the public forestry estate. What about this document—the “Operational Efficiency Programme: final report”? It states clearly that “greater commercial benefit” could be obtained from the public forest estate. And what about this document—“A Strategy for England’s Trees, Woods and Forests”—published by none other than the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) when he was the Environment Secretary? It makes the case for local communities actively participating in the ownership and management of the public forest estate. Does that not lay completely bare the hypocrisy of the position now being taken by the Opposition? Their synthetic outrage cannot disguise the fact that they already had the public forest estate well and truly in their sights, so let us have no more of this self-righteous indignation.