National Tree Strategy

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and thank you for such kind words at the beginning. It is always nice to be considered esteemed.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on his brilliant speech. Many of the points he raised are relevant to my constituency in Totnes and south Devon. I am sure there are many issues on which we shall be able to work together. It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson). If wisdom grew on trees, he would surely be a bush.

My constituency is incredible fortunate. In the north it has a national park in the form of Dartmoor, and in the south there is a large area of outstanding natural beauty. We are incredibly privileged that it is so well looked after and cultivated by charities and local government organisations, to ensure that tourists and residents alike are able to benefit from it, in every shape and form. The important point is that it is in demand. People want more, not less. They do not want development to ride over their green spaces, and to see those beautiful hills, moorlands and peat bogs ruined by too many properties sprouting up left, right and centre. It is the same in our cities and towns, where our urban parks and our royal parks have been a safeguard and sanctuary for many people over the course of this year.

It is important to recognise the relationship that we all have with our green spaces and how we might cultivate them in future years. The Government have taken some appropriate steps over the past weeks and months. The England tree strategy consultation, which has had over 20,000 submissions and is due to report back in the spring, is incredibly welcome.

In the course of my remarks, I will recommend how we can incentivise and drive demand, in order to plant more trees, create more green spaces and encourage biodiversity. Under the 25-year environment plan, £5.7 million has been made available to plant 1.8 million trees by 2025. In my constituency, Moor Trees has benefited from that to the tune of almost half a million pounds. Moor Trees is a local organisation, based just outside Totnes, that has planted 145,000 trees since its establishment—100% of which are native species—restoring 88 sites and relying on thousands of volunteers. The money that is being given to them does not just lead to the planting of more trees; it leads to the creation of new jobs and the establishment of new sites, where we can green and improve biodiversity in every shape and form.

It is important to understand the value and benefit that the Agriculture Act 2020 and the Fisheries Act 2020 will have in creating and restoring our countryside and our coastline. We will be able to sequester more carbon, to ensure that there is sustainability on land and at sea, and that we can do well by our farmers and fishermen. That is certainly something on which I know the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) would agree with me. All of these are elements that give us the chance and the opportunity to improve the productivity of our land and to ensure that those who do not live on it, but come on holidays or as visitors to the UK, can benefit from the beauty of what we have.

On carbon sequestration, we know that trees are an extremely effective way to sequester carbon but grassland goes with that too. By looking at new and innovative techniques, such as regenerative agriculture and no-till farming, we can help to marry up farming and tree planting as effective tools for lowering the emissions that are created by derelict countryside or out-of-date techniques.

We are all stewards of the land. The conversation that has been had today in this Chamber is not a new one. In fact, Disraeli spoke of the Disraeli feudal principle that we are all stewards of the land to pass it on to the next generation. We are making exactly the same important point today—that we must pass on our land to future generations in a better state than we received it. Many people across my constituency feel extremely strongly about that.

In the time that I have, I want to ask the Government to consider a few things to improve the level of tree planting, bearing in mind that the consultation is coming and that, I am sure, many of these submissions have been put forward. There must be an incentivisation programme for people to plant trees, whether they are a large landholder, a farmer or a small landholder of an allotment or a hedgerow. Whatever it may be, we must find a way to do that.

The use of common land, and what it can be used for, has been routinely overlooked. The historical right to graze on common land is no longer utilised in many cases. Can the Government look at a programme in which people are incentivised to plant trees and to restore common land to what it was before? How might we engage with those who do that?

The point has been well made by the National Farmers Union that taxation must never get in the way of those who are trying to plant trees. Agricultural property relief or business property relief may not be available to those who take away their land from farming and put it to tree planting. Would the Minister be kind enough to respond as to how we might get around that issue?

I also ask the Government to consider a volunteer programme. There is significant concern about our green spaces, and significant engagement on the issue, so will the Government work with hon. Members on both sides of the House to create a volunteer programme to ramp up tree planting and get people more engaged with local organisations, such as Moor Trees, in other hon. Members’ constituencies? There is an appetite for that. If we can do something like that, we will be able to meet, and go beyond, the target of 70,000 trees a year. In fact, if we recognise that we want 12% more of our country to be covered by trees by 2060, that would be a suitable way to do it.

I am very proud to be the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds champion for the cirl bunting. Quite why I am deserving of being a champion for the cirl bunting, I do not know, but I spend many happy moments walking the south-west coastal path in south Devon looking for it. I have yet to see it, but it is there; I have been told that I may have been looking at the wrong bird, which is a slight problem.

There is an important point to make about biodiversity. We know that if we improve our hedgerows and trees, we can improve biodiversity, which has been hit incredibly hard over the past 40 to 50 years. Let us use this opportunity to make sure that we are cultivating biodiversity by using natural species of trees and plants, to help to regrow and recultivate that wildlife.

Our green spaces must be maintained, whether in urban centres or in the rural countryside—that point was brilliantly made by the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg). The Minister has been a champion of the issue. I look forward to seeing what happens in the Environment Bill when it comes back before the House. I hope that she will work with us all to shape this opportunity to plant more trees and embody the opportunity to give future generations more green jspaces.