Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2025

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Earl of Caithness]

That this House regrets that the Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 increase the likelihood of wildfires in upland areas; risk the Fire and Rescue Service’s response capability; impact livelihoods, biodiversity, peatland protection, and human health and life; and fail to include a full impact assessment including on wider government priorities.

Relevant document: 38th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, for thousands of years, mankind has used fire to control vegetation. It is a sensible and practical process that also benefits nature. In this country, we tend to burn heather and grass in a prescribed manner and, if done correctly and under careful regulation, with practitioners trained in safe methods, only the vegetation and not the underlying soil is burnt.

The heather and grass burning regulations effectively mean that prescribed burning, or muirburn as we call it in Scotland, as a management tool for vegetation over some 676,000 hectares of predominantly moorland is banned in England. I believe that it will increase the likelihood of wildfires in upland areas, risk the fire and rescue services’ response capability and impact livelihoods, biodiversity, peatland protection, human health and life. No full impact assessment, including on wider government priorities, has been published.

If the vegetation is not controlled, it becomes older, woodier and denser, creating a bigger fuel load and making it more prone to intense, uncontrolled and indiscriminate wildfires, which always burn the underlying soil—if that is peat, the damage to this carbon-rich soil can be devastating. A recent study by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and the James Hutton Institute in Scotland found that

“96 % of the total wildfire area occurred outside moorlands managed by muirburn”,

suggesting that,

“may be due to fuel load reduction following muirburns”.

The National Fire Chiefs Council, in its consultation response to these regulations, expressed concerns that restricting prescribed burning would increase

“the risk of larger, more intense wildfires”,

by limiting the ability to reduce burnable fuel loads and create fire or fuel breaks. I agree with that. Alarmingly, it also went on:

“Further restricting land managers’ ability to use prescribed burning as a wildfire prevention tool could compromise FRS preparedness and response, increasing the danger to firefighters and the public”.


No Government should increase risk in this way.

In fighting wildfires, the FRS acknowledged that the expertise of landowners, gamekeepers and farmers is almost invaluable. At the recent Langdale forest fire, it was the local gamekeepers who provided the expertise for the risky operation of back-burning the vegetation to create a fire break. Without that, the fire would probably have crossed the A169, destroying Goathland village. If prescribed burning is stopped, the FRS will lose the benefit of the vital skills, local knowledge and equipment provided by grouse-shooting estates that are so vital to them.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, bringing their experience and knowledge to make it a very useful debate. It was wonderful to hear about Exmoor. It was very interesting to hear from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury, who mentioned Wennington, an extremely different part of the country, about 15 miles behind where the Minister is sitting now, where 18 houses were burned, leaving devastation to people’s property. It shows what an important subject this is.

I find it difficult to understand why Natural England listens so carefully to my noble friend Lord Leicester when it comes to his nature reserve at Holkham but does not listen to him when it comes to his expertise on moorland. My noble friend Lord Blencathra quite rightly wages war against disposable barbecues. I would just question one thing. He said that all wildfires are started by human stupidity. Most are, but some are started quite deliberately. The yobs go out and think it is fun to light a fire, and that it will not go very far, and they suddenly find it is out of control and they cannot do anything about it but scarper. It is the fire and rescue services and good locals who have to pick up the bill.

My noble friend Lord Roborough mentioned the Flow Country fire in 2019, which has special interest to me, as I was living up there at the time. The Minister also raised it. It is worth pointing out what my noble friend Lord Roborough said: that fire doubled Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions for the six days of burning. The Minister said that the fire was not so strong where wetting had taken place, which had helped. At the Langdale Forest fire, the fire was not so strong where rotational heather burning had taken place. Why is one good and one bad? It is a totally illogical position for the Government to take.

The Minister said how important peat was. We all knew that peat was very important long before Defra was even thought about. The Minister mentioned NEER155. I confirmed to the Minister that that took some scientific evidence but did not take any scientific evidence on the impact of not burning. It is a biased report and has been highly criticised by those who know.

The Minister said that there was no impact assessment because the costs were not going to be over £10 million. But hang on, the health costs of the Saddleworth Moor fire were £20 million by themselves. How can the Minister possibly say that these regulations, which are going to increase wildfires, are not worthy of an impact assessment?

I finish by thanking the Minister for what he said. He ended by talking about the consultation. I am not at all surprised by the result of the consultation. We can all devise questions to get the answer we want. That is what Defra did in this case. Given that it is Thursday afternoon and there is another piece of business, I will withdraw my Motion and, once again, thank all noble Lords for taking part.

Motion withdrawn.