Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

It is always a pleasure to put on my walking boots. I stood as a candidate for Bassetlaw in the 1992 general election, and I am familiar with the Attenborough reserve and the excellent work being done there. I will be very happy to visit it. I have encountered huge enthusiasm for the nature improvement areas. There have been 76 bids for NIAs. Although only 12 of them have been successful, I am confident that many of the others will go ahead anyway.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

At the previous DEFRA Question Time the Minister, the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Mr Paice), said that

“there never was any intention to dispose of the whole public forest estate.”—[Official Report, 19 January 2012; Vol. 538, c. 870.]

Yet in evidence to the Lords Committee inquiry in 2010 he stated that

“we wish to proceed with…very substantial disposal of public forest estate, which could go to the extent of all of it.”

Will the Minister now once and for all come clean about the Government’s original intention, and is his confusion on this issue the reason the forestry brief has now been taken off him?

[Mr Paice]

I am happy to confirm that the final proposals we made to the House—the only ones that matter—did not include total disposal. The hon. Lady knows full well the contents of the consultation, and they did not include total disposal. In fact, it could be argued that the amount that would have been disposed would have been much less than that, as there would have been considerable leasehold. Turning to the question of the forestry portfolio, first, this year I will be far busier with common agricultural policy negotiations and, secondly, my noble Friend Lord Taylor has now joined the team, and he has special knowledge of the horticultural sector and plant and tree disease, which is very topical at present.