Forestry

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I do not think we are going to have one more, save that we will effectively split the management of the public forest estate away from what Forest Services does.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the Government’s commitment to keep the public forest estate in public ownership and I salute all those campaigning organisations that did a splendid job in changing the mind of the Government. Like my noble friend, I am concerned about the forest estate as it is now. Recently, Ministers have quietly cut 500 Forestry Commission staff and a quarter of the budget, and the admirable chair of the Forestry Commission has resigned. My noble friend quite rightly asked for an assurance from the Minister that there will be no further cuts in the staff of the Forestry Commission. Will the noble Lord answer that specific question?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, we recognise concerns about the future funding of the estate. However, we continue to face very challenging financial circumstances, requiring hard choices to be made across the whole public sector. The Forestry Commission and the public forest estate have had to bear their share of the cuts that we have had to make to bring public spending under control. Nevertheless, we want to ensure that the public forest estate can continue to provide a high level of public benefits. We are therefore carefully considering the estate’s financial needs for the long term. In particular, we want to place it on a secure financial footing for the future by enabling it to generate as much income as possible through its commercial activities without having to resort to unsustainable land sales to make ends meet.