Forestry in England

Antoinette Sandbach Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish]

Yes, my hon. Friend makes a very good point. It will also be about linking the woodland and the craft to a given area. We could do the same with types of wood and the crafts that come from them as we do with food, farming and types of cheeses. It is an interesting point. Linking it to planning is not necessarily the responsibility of the Minister today, but is something that I am sure the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government could look at.

Coming back to timber, we now have an opportunity to grow a number of types of trees. We also have an opportunity to advise farmers, landowners and those who want to plant trees on the varieties and species to plant. It is very difficult, and nobody can be blamed for this, but who would have known that we would be facing Chalara and ash dieback? We were not facing it a few years ago. In the south-west and in parts of Scotland, the larch has virtually all had to be cut down because of disease. As we move forward, it is going to be so important that we have the right types of trees so that it is right for recreation, the right scale, organisation and landscape of planting, and that we plant the trees that, hopefully, will be there for generations. That, in itself, will be a big challenge.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

I invite my hon. Friend to come up to my constituency where Delamere forest nurseries, which are part of the Forestry Commission, grow many different types of trees and look in particular at future climate change impacts and what species will be best to plant.

[Neil Parish]

If I can get the Whips to allow us to get as far as Vauxhall bridge before calling us back for a vote, I will definitely try to get up to my hon. Friend’s constituency. She is absolutely right. Naturally, we are looking for ash trees that will have a resistance to the dieback. Where I farm in Somerset we had elm trees completely destroyed by Dutch elm disease in the ’70s and ’80s, and we are yet to find an elm tree that is resistant to the beetle and to Dutch elm disease. Those sorts of things are so important so that we have our native trees as well as new trees that can be brought in.

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[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Before I begin, I point Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) for securing this debate and for his work and that of the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on the Committee during the writing of the report. I know that my hon. Friend has taken a long-term interest in such matters across his career, both in the House and beforehand. That kind of long-termism is what I would like to talk about.

One thing that comes across time and again in the Select Committee report is that the sector needs long-term decisions taken very far in advance, purely and simply because it takes 40 years or more to grow a tree. When one considers that length of time, one sees the disincentives for landowners to plant, because they do not get a return on what they plant for 40 years. That is the main issue that the Minister faces in encouraging landowners to plant. I am pleased to see the Minister back in her place, because continuity helps long-term thinking, as is evident in the 25-year environment plan that was launched today.

I have briefly spoken about Delamere Forest already, which is in my constituency. It has 750,000 visitors a year and is described as the “green lungs” of the north—that is, until the new northern woodland, an initiative that I am delighted about, gets built. The forest contains several sites of special scientific interest. Its nursery grows a wide variety of trees that help research into the resilience of forests, particularly to the threat of climate change, and provides for all the Forestry Commission planting across England. It is a huge asset to my constituency and to the country. I invite the Minister to come to visit the forest and see the fantastic work that takes place there.

When it comes to enhancing the forests, I welcome the Government’s ambitious targets for the medium and long term. Planting 11 million trees by the end of this Parliament will be a step forward in the stewardship of our natural heritage. Likewise, the longer term aspiration of increasing woodland cover from 10% to 12% by 2060 is rightly ambitious, but I ask the Minister to commit to that as a target, not as an aspiration—perhaps she will deal with that in her response. Like the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge, I am concerned that we will not meet that goal.

The Government need to encourage the private sector to step up and plant more, which means giving long-term assistance to landowners. In the 25-year environment plan, I am pleased to see ideas of measuring the extent to which carbon can be locked up in our trees and of encouraging the building industry to use UK-grown timber. Hopefully, they would mean that wood would not be burnt for biomass, carbon would be locked up and recycled wood would be used to renovate buildings. It would be a future win if the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government were to look at using better, British timber in building, which would create a good market for UK-grown produce.

In the 25-year environment plan, I am also pleased to see that the Government are looking at a forest carbon guarantee scheme. I am keen to hear more about that from the Minister. If the kind of woodland management that my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton described is to happen, we will need an annual payment to cover its costs. The reality is that thinning out trees or dealing with trees that are blown over by massive storms hitting the UK is expensive—there is often a net cost to the landowner—and does not provide a return.

If we are serious about forestry planting in this country at the required scale, I encourage the Minister to look at an easy-to-access grant scheme. The Government are asking landowners to plant in situations where they could, for example, rent out that land to other farmers for arable farming or stock grazing. Farmers will need some sort of incentive to encourage them to plant trees there.

I want a diverse landscape in the UK. I want our native species to be planted, but I also want commercial species such as Sitka spruce and Douglas fir to be planted as resources that can be used for highly efficient buildings. There are very good building designs in Scandinavia and elsewhere that use wood, are highly energy efficient and are quick to build because they can be pre-fabricated. That is failing in the UK at the moment because the banks are failing to recognise the long-term durability of houses built using wood. If the Minister works with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to get some sort of certification scheme going, we can have a virtuous circle in the UK that works to the benefit of our constituents and the environment.

We import 80% of our timber—a shocking statistic. I encourage the Minister to take forward some of the ideas that have been published today in the 25-year environment plan and to work across Departments to see how we can encourage that virtuous circle of planting that will bring all the benefits that my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton spoke of. In the meantime, I extend my invitation to visit the wonderful forest of Delamere to all hon. Members present.

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[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Davies. I thank the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), for introducing the debate. If nothing else, it gets Lord David Clark off my back. When I was on the Committee he spent a lot of time asking why we never debated forestry. I had to explain to him that I was a limited voice on a much bigger Committee, but it is good that the Committee has discussed it, and that the hon. Gentleman has managed to arrange today’s debate for the same day as the announcement of the 25-year environment plan. If only I had that much authority, I would not be where I am today.

This is an important milestone and an important piece of work by the Committee. Government Members can be critical of the Government, and I will also make some points in that respect, but today’s debate is largely consensual, because we all love trees and want more trees. The only question is how we get them. Sadly, we do not always simply get more trees—some are cut down, which causes all sorts of problems. I have a great many friends in Stroud who seem to spend a lot of their time sitting in trees that they do not want cut down, but that is Stroud, and they are the people I represent. I therefore have an interest in how trees have grown and been saved, and sometimes not been saved.

Today’s debate is marked by the interests of a number of bodies. I will declare my own interests: I am a member of both the National Trust, which has a great many trees in Stroud, and the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, which also has trees. I am indebted to the Woodland Trust, which also has trees in Stroud, and Confor, which does a marvellous job in making sure that the all-party parliamentary group on forestry—it is good to see the group’s chair, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies), here—functions very efficiently and effectively. I dare say, That is why we are discussing trees today.

I owe much of my knowledge of forestry to a dear late friend, John Workman, who, by any stretch of the imagination, would be described as a forester. He was such a good advocate of forestry that he bequeathed all his woodlands—he was a single gentleman—to the National Trust. The Ebworth Estate—I do not know whether hon. Members know Stroud—is a wonderful centre. The woodlands around are crucial to the way in which Stroud, as a constituency, lives, breathes and functions. His dream was always that there would be a ring of trees all the way around the centre of Stroud, so that people could walk round without ever leaving the woodland. That has not quite come to pass, because there are certain private woodland owners who have not yet agreed to full access. I say to the Minister that it would be interesting to see how the new structure of farm payments will encourage woodland owners, with sensibility, to make sure that there is proper access, so that people can walk round and get the benefits of that.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I am always interested in calls for access, because one of the big problems is the spread of disease. Phytophthora ramorum spores can very easily be spread on people’s boots, so if someone walks in a forestry that has phytophthora in it—most of the Forestry Commission wood in Wales does—other woodland could be infected. Will the hon. Gentleman comment on how he would deal with the question of access versus disease?

[Dr Drew]

When speaking of access, I used the word “sensibility”. People cannot be allowed to walk wherever they want—that has to be recognised—but there is a lot of evidence that the right to roam, within reason, has been less destructive than some people would allege, and I think that we can move forward on that.

We have had very good contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) and for Ipswich (Sandy Martin), from the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), and from the hon. Members for Brecon and Radnorshire and for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), as well as a short contribution from the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh). Although hon. Members from the Scottish National party are largely interested in Scotland, it is good that we recognise that this is a genuine United Kingdom debate. We should welcome that, and learn from what they are doing right in Scotland, because we all have to plant more trees.

To be slightly critical of today’s environment plan— I have only just got a copy of it, but perhaps the Minister can explain this to me—the first bit says:

“We will also work with industry and support Grown in Britain to increase the amount of home grown timber used in England in construction, creating a conveyor belt of locked-in carbon in our homes and buildings”.

I am not quite sure what that means. If the Minister can tell me what “locked-in carbon” neutrality is, I would be very pleased to be disabused.

In the few minutes I have left, I will concentrate on three areas, some of which have been highlighted already. I want Minister to understand where there is a need for more detail, both in the response to the Select Committee report and in the 25-year environment plan. First, there is the issue of how we get to 12% by 2060, which is not clearly spelled out in either the response or the 25-year environment plan. We need detail about how that will be achieved. There is a lot on aspiration, but much less on the detail. Those with knowledge of the industry are more than a little sceptical about where the detail will come from.

Secondly, there is the issue of woodland management and how we protect our ancient woodlands, which a number of hon. Members highlighted. We need to lay down clearly what the criteria are for the planning system. I am aware that that is not the Minister’s responsibility, but she will have to talk to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government about areas where we are protecting woodlands, which means that they cannot be developed.

A particular interest of mine is how forestry relates to climate change. Again, I have not had the opportunity to read the 25-year plan in detail, but I am a bit worried that the approach to carbon capture and to using woodlands as part of how we deal with climate change is not as clearly spelled out as it could and should be. It would be useful if the Minister can say something about how management, protection and growing more trees will be achieved.

Finally, as the Chair of the Select Committee intimated, the grant system is more than a little messy. The way that countryside stewardship approaches woodlands is dated. There are a number of other grant schemes, which I have never really understood—I am not an expert in this field—but I talk to people who have an interest in how they might be persuaded to grow more trees. As has been made clear, we are not just talking about the new northern forest, much as it is welcome—I suppose the northern forest will be alongside the new northern powerhouse, but it could be around it. This is not just about the big answers, but about the small copses and areas around the market towns where I live. We have got to give landowners, including housing developers, the opportunity to come up with innovative schemes.

I want to mention two other people in passing, because they are apposite to this debate. John Parker, who happens to be a constituent of mine, is the head of trees at Transport for London, and has taught me a few things about how we need to look at tree surgery, which we have not touched on, and the way in which we maintain urban trees as well as trees in the countryside. That is very interesting, because we must not see urban trees as negligible. They are part of the solution, so we need more trees in the urban setting. Chris Uttley has been leading a project to try to keep the water upstream so we have less flooding in towns such as Stroud, and part of that is about the sensitive planting of trees. Those people are important to me locally, and they have part of the solution for dealing with climate change and flooding, and maintaining our natural environment alongside our built environment. I look forward to hearing from the Minister, who is going to provide all the detail now she is back in office.