Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Clark of Windermere]

47: Schedule 1, page 17, line 11, leave out “Regional advisory committees established under section 37(1)(b) of the Forestry Act 1967.”

[Lord Clark of Windermere]

I believe that with Amendment 47 we are also discussing a series of other amendments which relate to forestry issues. I shall carry on in the spirit of bonhomie which has engulfed the Benches in the House today but I must also say that I could not have foreseen such a situation arising a couple of weeks ago. The Government have made it very easy for us to be very positive because they have listened to what we have been trying to say—or at least I would like to think that they have been listening. The Minister has certainly been listening. I am not sure whether it was my arguments that persuaded him to move his position or whether it might have been the half-million people who signed the 38 Degrees referendum, or the 82 per cent of their own supporters who opposed their initiative, or the 86 per cent of the general public who opposed the Government’s proposals. If was not my arguments or any of those other possibilities perhaps it was the mass meetings.

What has been really encouraging over the past few months is the fact that the British people have spoken in a way that I cannot remember them speaking before. Across the country we have found protest groups—people—getting organised to fight the Government on this issue. Sometimes it has been just small groups of people with one local forest. In other cases—such as the Forest of Dean, the Lake District or Chopwell in the north-east—there have been very big demonstrations involving thousands of people, often in quite remote forests.

I think that the Government got the message, but I must say that they have caused a lot of trouble, offence and concern. Many workers in the Forestry Commission, whom I regard as some of the finest workers in this country, have been offended by some of the comments made by Mr Cameron. I am sure that he did not mean what he said, but he has caused great offence to them. The struggle in which we have been involved of late was justified in one of our local newspapers. The Cumberland News had a piece this weekend in which it held vox pops asking people what they thought about the Government's proposal for forestry. A woman said, “I am so relieved. My husband works in the forest. We have been worried sick. We have hardly slept. What a relief it is now”. It is that sort of hardship, that sort of worry, which could have been avoided if the Government had consulted instead of just rushing ahead with the proposals.

However, they have sat back and reassessed the position; and on 17 February, the Secretary of State honestly and openly announced three major retractions. I see that one name added to my amendment today is that of the Minister, and I am very grateful that he has added his weight to mine. I hope that, between us, we will carry the day. In the other place, the Secretary of State said that her announcement,

“will allow for more measured and rational debate”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/2/11; col. 1155.]

That implies that the government proposals had not been measured and had not been rational. They had not. As I said, the Government have now said that they were wrong, and I accept their words.

My specific amendment is about the regional advisory committees—not in themselves a great part of the scheme of things, but a useful part. I could never understand why the Government were so opposed to regional advisory committees. We looked at that when I was chair of the Forestry Commission. We examined everything, because I was determined to sweat the assets of the Forestry Commission. They belong to the public, so we must get value for money from those lands and those trees. We looked at everything, including the regional advisory committees, but at the end of the day, when we added it all up, we found that their net worth to the commission was far greater than the cost.

There are nine committees. The idea is that they allow the commissioners to have an entrée into thinking on a regional basis. We had devolved a lot of our policies from the national, England level down to the regions. In some cases, we had given money to the regions and said, “You may want to spend it differently in the north-east as opposed to the south-west”. In performing those functions, we really needed the regional advisory committees. I suggest that strategy of trying to engage with local people was the right thing to do and one reason why there was so much opposition to the government proposals of a few weeks ago. We got that right.

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[Lord Henley]

Decisions will be made as appropriate. The point is that the previous Government—I will mention the figures again—sold something of the order of 25,000 acres without any protection. I accept that they bought some back, but they did not buy back as much as 25,000 acres. One has to recognise the fact that not all the land that the Forestry Commission owns is appropriate to belong in the public estate. That is why the previous Government, among whom the noble Lord was such a wonderful ornament, sold off land, or instructed the noble Lord, Lord Clark, who is about to intervene, to sell it off, as he did.

[Lord Clark of Windermere]

I agree with the Minister that there come occasions when it is appropriate to sell a small part of the estate. However, the difference between us and the present Government is that, under us, all the moneys received from the sale of any forest land either was used to buy new forest land—sometimes at a greater cost, because it was in the urban areas—or went back into forestry. As I understand it, with this 15 per cent sell-off, the Government are using money from forestry for the Treasury or for Defra’s general budget.

[Lord Henley]

No decisions have been made about any of that whatever, but I remind the noble Lord that, although it might have been said that land was sold off purely to buy back other land, some of the proceeds were used to top up the running costs of the Forestry Commission. I am not sure that that is the right way to go about these things.

I want to get back to the 15 per cent, which was the last point made by the noble Lord. The Forestry Act requires that there should be a substantial forestry estate. The noble Lord will be familiar with the 1967 Act and all the previous Acts. That estate should be placed at the disposal of the Forestry Commission to manage. I will not go into all the legal advice that we have received from lawyers, as is the convention that the noble Lord will be fully aware of, but we do not consider that the sale of 15 per cent would undermine that statutory regime. That is where we are on that matter. I hope that I have explained where we are. I am grateful—

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[Lord Clark of Windermere]

My Lords, I appreciate that the Minister has been very generous with his time with me. However, in order to expedite matters later, I raise one point that he did not answer, which is quite critical. Is the 15 per cent cumulative, so to speak? When the 15 per cent has been got rid of, can this stand for 15 per cent on the next 100 per cent?

[Lord Henley]

That would depend on legal advice on one’s interpretation of the Forestry Act 1967. The noble Lord will be more familiar with that Act, and all previous legislation, than even I am. He will know that it imposes a duty that there should be a substantial forestry estate at the disposal of the Forestry Commission. It is a matter for interpretation as to what size that should be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, that is not the case. I am not sure that the advice which the noble Lord has received was necessarily—dare I put it this way—as accurate as it might have been. Anyway, the simple fact is that the Forestry Commission, along with others, will have to take its cut because of what we inherited.

I hope that I have dealt with all the points that have been put to me in the course of the debate. I appreciate the strength of feeling that had been held, and I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Clark, will now press his amendment. As I said, we will support it. I hope that the rest of the House will support it and that we can move on to other matters in the Bill.

[Lord Clark of Windermere]

I rise very briefly just to say that it is a very unusual experience to find that one of my co-signatories to an amendment is a government Minister and that I look forward to it happening more and more in the future. I say that in the spirit in which the amendment has been moved.

Both right reverend Prelates and all the other contributors to this debate have made the point that the general public’s feeling towards the forest has been quite uncanny. The general public really do not discriminate between 85 and 15 per cent and the Government will have to think very carefully about how the 15 per cent is handled. However, that is a matter for another day. We are talking now specifically about Amendment 47—so we are talking about the big society, localism and the regional and advisory committees.

Amendment 47 agreed.