Peatlands

Lord De Mauley Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord De Mauley) (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Greaves for giving me this opportunity to discuss the extremely important topic of peatlands, particularly since Friday marked the start of the International Year of Soils. As we have heard, peatlands are an essential resource and deliver much for the climate, environment and society. I have recently had a number of meetings on peatlands, and it is clear that there is strong support for action on peat from a wide range of organisations. This interest has led to a number of examples of landowners, conservationists, scientists, local communities and businesses being brought together, working together to deliver local solutions to peatland degradation.

Over the past few years, we have had significant successes in the protection of peat soil. There have been reductions in horticultural use, with the total volume of peat used in horticulture having decreased by almost 30% since 2011. I am pleased to see that the Defra family is nearly peat free, and that the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew continues to lead the way in using new alternatives and working with its supply chain to deliver high-quality plants without peat. There have been significant reductions in the amount of peat cut in the UK and, in many locations, peat extraction and milling operations have been brought to an end. One such location is Bolton Fell Moss, where Natural England has now commenced an ambitious programme to restore bog vegetation to the 400-hectare site. This site will complete our network of special areas of conservation for this habitat type, which is an important step forward.

The Committee for Climate Change suggested that we should improve,

“incentives for land-owners to invest in restoration”,

and we are doing just that. Defra has committed over £3 million to peat-related research between 2010 and 2015, improving our evidence base on issues including restoration, lowland peats, peatland-related greenhouse gas emissions and alternatives to horticultural peat. This will be used to inform future policy and to aid landowner guidance. However, of course, there is more we must do to strengthen the policy framework to enable further peatland conservation.

In 2013, through environmental stewardship covering around 98,000 hectares, we committed more than £30 million to management options for the maintenance and restoration of moorland habitats. A further £4 million was committed in capital grants for grip blocking. Support will continue to be provided under the new countryside stewardship scheme, a forward-looking measure seeking to maximise opportunities to deliver biodiversity, water quality and flooding benefits together.

Natural England is developing an operational plan for the strategic restoration of blanket bog, covering special areas of conservation and much of the uplands. The plan flows from work prompted by the uplands evidence review and recognises the need to ensure that this habitat is actively moved towards favourable conservation status.

The protection of our peatlands for future generations is not a challenge that the Government can meet on their own. We need to work with others, encouraging local communities and landowners to deliver the best land use and management for their peaty soils. There are examples of how such partnerships are already delivering results on the ground, such as the Dark Peak nature improvement area, and we should learn from and build on them.

We need to be innovative and explore new economic opportunities as new technologies and approaches become available. For example, some companies are already growing sphagnum moss as a wetland crop. There is ongoing research to explore the economic feasibility of that and other ways of using areas of lowland peat in a manner that both enhances habitats and protects farming livelihoods.

Three billion tonnes of carbon are locked up in UK peat. That makes peat the single biggest terrestrial carbon store in the country—even bigger than forests. By including wetlands in the UK greenhouse gas emissions inventory, peatland restoration will contribute to UK emissions targets. That will provide another incentive to invest in peatland restoration.

We are doing more work to put tangible figures on the benefits that peat delivers, and that will help us to make the business case for saving peat. The UK pilot peatland code is exploring how we can encourage funding from businesses to restore damaged peat bogs. If successful, it will provide standards and robust science to give businesses confidence that their financial contribution will make a measurable and verifiable difference to UK peatlands. That will help to mobilise private sector finance: investing in natural capital because it makes sense for the bottom line but delivering benefits for wider society. The pilot phase is scheduled to finish in July 2015, but early signs are promising. Water companies have been particularly responsive, due to the known improvement of water quality with healthy peat.

My noble friends Lord Greaves, Lady Parminter and Lord Lindsay, and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, asked a number of related questions about national peatland planning and how we compare to Scotland. The Natural Environment White Paper set out the Government’s ambition for the environment, including a commitment to sustainable management of all soils by 2030. Natural England is currently developing an operational strategy for upland peat to help to identify where progress has been made and where more work is needed. My officials and I work closely with our counterparts in the devolved Administrations, and I will consider whether we need to review the joint ministerial statement which commits our four Governments to work together on peatlands, including on the peatland code.

On funding, on which my noble friends Lady Parminter and Lord Greaves, and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, commented, I can confirm that support for moorland and peatland habitat management will indeed continue to be provided under the new countryside stewardship scheme. The new scheme will be more targeted, aiming to identify the options which should be prioritised in agreements with farmers and other land managers to deliver the right action in the right place.

My noble friends Lord Greaves and Lord Lindsay asked about the future of the peatland code. We will continue to support the code’s initiatives to encourage private businesses. Our objectives for the remainder of the pilot phase will be to seek out opportunities to promote the code and attract indications of interest and firm offers from potential private sector sponsors.

We recently held an event with the IUCN for a number of business contacts, run by the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment, to seek feedback on the code’s operation and to raise awareness of it in the business community—indeed, to improve the code’s offer to businesses. We are in discussion with the IUCN, the UK peatland programme, the devolved Administrations and others on the possibility of future projects across the UK, building on what the peatland programme has achieved over the past four years.

My noble friend Lord Greaves and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, referred to the burning of moors. Natural England is in the process of reviewing its guidance on burning and blanket bog restoration as part of a broader refreshment of its guidance, working closely with all interested parties and reflecting work undertaken by the Best Practice Burning Group.

My noble friend Lord Lindsay spoke about the role of private owners. The partnerships we already have in the UK are a novel mechanism for delivering results, but we recognise the need to engage a wider audience. Successful engagement depends on a strong evidence base with improved interpretation and dissemination, hence the commitment of over £3 million to peat-related research between 2010 and 2015. All involved will need to use this evidence to engage with landowners and local communities and make restoration decisions around which services are most important for them.

My noble friend Lady Parminter spoke of the inclusion of wetlands in greenhouse gas emission inventories. Including peatland carbon fluxes in the GHG emission inventories will reinforce the value of restoration and contribute to UK emissions targets. Three billion tonnes of carbon are locked up in UK peat, making it the single largest terrestrial carbon store in the UK. As of 2011, damaged UK peatlands are releasing about 3.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, which is equal to the average emissions of about 660,000 UK houses. Restoration would stop this and eventually lead to slow carbon sequestration once the peatland was back to actively forming condition in many years’ time.

The difficulties in including GHG emission reductions from peatland restoration were due to a lack of an approved international methodology for calculating emission removals from peatland restoration. The methodology now exists, but it still requires significant further work to make it operational in this country. The Department of Energy and Climate Change is leading on this work. The peatland code will provide guidance on quantifying climate and other benefits. To reinforce the value of the sponsoring of restoration, it may also be possible to count these benefits in corporate carbon accounts in future.

My noble friend also asked about Ecosystems Markets Task Force recommendations. The recommendation for carbon reduction through nature resulted in the pilot peatland code, which of course we continue to support. Other recommendations such as using nature to enhance resilience and soft flood defences also have the potential to be addressed by peatlands, but the evidence is limited and needs further work.

My noble friend Lord Cavendish raised a number of issues. Much of what he said needs to be heard, and I propose to send a copy of Hansard for this debate to the chairman of Natural England. My noble friend asked in particular about progress on the bonfire of the quangos. There are now around a third fewer quangos than there were in 2010. We have abolished at least 185 and merged more than 165 into fewer than 70. Over £2 billion has been saved cumulatively since 2010 through reforming and abolishing public bodies, and we are on track to reach the forecast £2.6 billion saving ahead of schedule.

My noble friend Lord Courtown spoke about the use of peat in horticulture. UK sales of peat for horticultural use fell from 2.8 million to 2.2 million tonnes between 2011 and 2012, and the total volume of peat use in horticulture has decreased by almost 30%. The Sustainable Growing Media Task Force report published in 2013 sets out where our resources will be focused over the next few years to assist in the transition to sustainable growing media and reduced peat use.

The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, asked what estimate the Government have made of the costs that could be avoided if the water storage and purification services provided by upland peat were restored. There is an estimated overall benefit of £2 billion over 30 years from restoring 200,000 hectares of uplands, due to carbon sequestration, biodiversity and other ecosystem services such as water storage and purification.

Although the scale of the challenge both financially and on the ground is daunting, the size of the prize is great. We have had some successes but I recognise that there is more to do. By building on the wide support for this important ecosystem and the good practice that is demonstrated in so many places across the United Kingdom, I have great hopes that it is a challenge that we will be able to meet.