Forestry Commission

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, those who expect a rational debate on this, as the noble Lord, Lord Clark, has mentioned, will be totally disappointed that we are limited to two minutes, which was the decision of the Labour Party. The recent debate on forestry has neither been measured nor rational, which is in large part due to the Forestry Commission itself.

I ask my noble friend Lord Henley to justify the role of the Forestry Commission today. It is funded by the taxpayer and has always made a loss. With its huge inbuilt advantages, it competes with the private sector for land in the production and sale of trees and timber yet, at the same time, it totally controls what the private sector can do, often through its overbureaucratic and costly regulations. The private sector must have an approved management plan to plant and manage woodlands in order to obtain grants from the Forestry Commission, which are often delayed. That only adds insult to injury for the private sector.

I recall that when we privatised water my late friend Nicholas Ridley, Lord Ridley of Liddesdale, made the bold decision to break up the river management authority organisation and separate the regulator from the producer. I hope that my noble friend will be equally bold in looking at the Forestry Commission. Who, for instance, would support the idea that the Bank of England should not only be the Bank of England but should run high street banks? Why is the Forestry Commission any different? It is not. It is acknowledged by everybody that we need to plant more trees in the UK but there is no way that those trees will be planted by the private sector unless it can be assured that it can produce managed, sustainable woodland at a profitable price. With the present structure of the Forestry Commission, that will not happen.