Public Forest Estate (England)

Debate between Clive Efford and Mary Creagh

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

Different forests are already under different sorts of ownership—the public forest estate makes up 18% of England’s woodlands. The question is what the nation values and for what we are prepared to pay.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Oxleas wood in my constituency is a sight of special scientific interest and has a great deal of biodiversity. It is small wonder that those on the Government Benches understand nothing about biodiversity, because under the previous Tory Government we came together and fought to save Oxley woods from a six-lane motorway that they wanted to build. We did not succeed by buying the woods, but would it not be invidious if the only way to stop such development under this rotten coalition was people subscribing to buy them?

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend makes a very interesting point and brings us back to the question of money.

Who will pay to look after England’s forests? Page 17 of the consultation document has many warm words on the English woodland grant scheme. It says that any new owners could apply to create new woodlands and to care for existing ones. However, that document must be read in conjunction with a much more serious one—the impact assessment, page 39 of which states that payments under the woodland grant scheme

“may not be sufficient to secure the level of public goods currently provided on the PFE.”