Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I, too, will not make a Second Reading speech, as that stage took place last year. I very much welcome the Opposition’s amendment that was tabled in the House of Commons and the fact that the Government have brought back a version of it that is legally sound. In practical terms, I do not think that it adds a great deal to the environmental protections that we already have and which I consider are strong enough. However, it is good to clarify those and to make sure that the Bill has a more balanced approach to fracking.

However, I thank my noble friend the Minister for having excluded geothermal energy from the amendment, because the issues around that are quite different from those around hydrocarbon fracking and it is appropriate that these amendments do not deal with that particular sector. That is important because at last, after much effort by many people, that industry is starting to show dividends. Geothermal heat, which is relatively low-level in terms of ground exploration, is starting up under the renewable heat incentive. We have two planning permissions in the south-west for potential geothermal electricity generation. It would be tragic if that process stalled after the 20 years or more that a number of us have campaigned to make this very practical renewable energy come through and contribute to the UK’s energy. Clearly, certain regimes will have to apply to that process as well. It is excellent that the change on trespass has allowed that industry to move ahead as that was a major barrier. Therefore, I very much welcome these amendments and hope that the House will not divide on the issue and will decide unanimously to move forward quickly so that both industries can move ahead.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to say a few words about the relationship between fracking and our ancient woodlands. Sadly, I fear that it is not really appreciated by everyone responsible for planning and building projects of all kinds just how precious our ancient woodlands are. Individual trees, if lost, can be replaced. It is true that there is a huge loss to its surroundings because it takes many years to replace a mature tree, but it can in time be replaced, as can avenues and shelter belts, however much they are missed initially. Indeed, some might argue that they are better off being replaced when they get to a certain stage.

Similarly, our forests are planted for their timber—technically a crop, albeit a long-term one. While they provide an excellent contribution to the environment over a period of years provided the right species are planted, they are routinely felled for timber and replanted.

Our ancient woodlands are centuries old. Thankfully, they have survived, largely by chance. They are precious in a unique way and are quite simply irreplaceable. It is essential that they are given very special treatment, which recognises their importance, the contribution they make to our environment, and the truth that once they have been destroyed, however clever we are, they can never be replaced.

Whatever the pros and cons on the subject of fracking, the simple existence of our ancient woodlands need not be a barrier, provided the companies concerned understand their importance and the public concern for them. I quote the Woodland Trust:

“While we believe that, as long as the geological fracturing activity associated with fracking takes place at great depths underground it is very unlikely to have a direct impact on any ancient woodland located above the fracturing sites, we do have concerns about the potential significant impacts resulting from the construction and operation of the drilling wells necessary to enable fracking to take place, and the associated infrastructure that may be put in place to access and transport shale gas/oil. We would therefore like to ensure that areas of ancient woodland are specifically protected so that licences may never be issued for fracking within or adjacent to these highly precious habitats”.

The Minister said that the protected areas have not yet been decided upon. I hope that she will think very carefully about our ancient woodlands. I urge her to indicate in her response, if she can, in the clearest possible terms that the Government accept that our ancient woodlands need very specific protection.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that these amendments do not do very much for the Bill. All these points were going to be covered anyway. I do not think that the process over the past two weeks has done politicians any good at all. It was a hurried amendment in the Commons and the Government, under Liberal pressure, gave way. We now have a cobbled together lot of amendments which did not give the other case a decent chance for discussion. If anybody reads last Monday’s Commons Hansard, it is not an impressive debate. We have not had a sensible opportunity here, although the whole framework of what we are discussing has been discussed ad nauseam in this House.

I would like to ask my noble friend, particularly about item 6 in column 1 regarding what will take place in other protected areas, how many miles of coal-mine tunnel are under protected areas in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty? Of course, we must remember that these would not have been allowed under this amendment: the fracking pipeline is only about 6 to 9 inches, whereas a coal-mine tunnel is considerably more.

My noble friend Lord Framlingham has just mentioned ancient woodland. Will marine nature reserves will be classified as protected areas? How many more restrictions will there be on the industry? My noble friend the Minister was absolutely right when she said that health and safety risks can be managed with best practices. We need to show those best practices for the rest of Europe to follow.

Returning to point 6, is this a precedent for future development? If you are not allowed to drill a 6 to 9-inch pipeline a thousand feet down, presumably the Government will not build HS2 which will go smack through the middle of the Chilterns, an area of outstanding natural beauty. There will be 11 kilometres of tunnels there. It will do considerably more damage than any whipstocking under an AONB from a small well. Presumably we will not have any more development. The Liberal party has closed the door on development in national parks and closed the door on the opportunity of growth. I think that a lot of people will use item 6 as a precedent in order to stop any future development at all.

Forestry: Independent Panel Report

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Framlingham]

My Lords, I join the congratulations to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool on securing this debate about trees, which are so central to our national welfare. His panel’s recommendations are excellent, very timely, positive and forward looking. Like us all, I have a huge affection for trees. I founded and ran for many years my own forestry company and I was for some time president of the Arboricultural Association. It is hard to improve on the description of the value of trees given by the right reverend Prelate, although I shall try briefly.

It is hard to believe that trees fulfil so many functions. They take our waste carbon dioxide and give us their oxygen. They provide us with timber for so many uses, including construction, housing and flooring. They provide habitats for birds and insects. They alleviate flooding and stabilise land, to which reference has already been made. They help landscape towns and gardens. Most importantly of all, they are beautiful to behold.

The holy grail, the most important buzzword politically in these days of economic recession, is growth. Trees cannot by themselves solve our economic problems, but they can help a little because they grow. Trees have not heard about the AAA rating, the value of the pound, the national debt or the balance of payments. You plant a tree and, provided you take some care in doing it, it will grow year on year, increasing your investment both in timber and in pleasure. We have every reason in the world to plant more and to look after them.

I want to make just two points. My first point, which has already been touched on, is about the balance between public and privately owned trees, leaving aside the question of access, which I acknowledge has to be handled carefully. I am anxious that there should not be the idea in the mind of the public that one is more desirable than the other. While it clearly is helpful and desirable to have public and government involvement in the planting and maintenance of trees and woodland, I trust it also will always be acknowledged that private landowners planting and caring for their own trees on their own land will always have a huge investment in those trees financially and, more importantly, emotionally.

My second point is about the vexed question of chalara fraxinea, ash dieback, its possible disastrous effect on our landscape and what can be done to prevent similar outbreaks. I do not want to rehearse all the history of how we got to where we are. We are all waiting now to see what the new growing season will bring and then what action, if any, will prove necessary. My concern is how it got here from Europe and the fact that we are squandering the priceless asset of being an island nation in terms of our bio-security.

Since the Plant a Tree in ’73 campaign, the demand for trees has increased steadily. This has coincided with the globalisation of tree diseases as trees are routinely shipped around the world. As nurserymen have increasingly imported stock, the situation has been exacerbated by two other factors. First, to protect themselves against the last-minute cancellation of orders because of lack of funding or grant withdrawals many UK growers have used foreign suppliers as a kind of bank to draw on rather than growing the trees. Secondly, UK seed has been grown abroad and reimported as plants to preserve its UK provenance. This has resulted in the importation of trees on a massive scale: 500,000 ash trees alone on an annual basis. Oliver Rackham, a well-known botanist and ecologist, has written:

“It seems that any of the world’s plant diseases is at liberty to enter Britain provided it does so via some other European Union country. By the time the problem has been detected and the bureaucracy has clanked into action, it is too late. Once a tree disease has become established in a country, it is almost unknown for it to be controlled, let alone exterminated”.

It must be possible with the co-operation of all the organisations concerned and with the Government to devise a system that allows for the sensible forecasting of demand, by species, of the number of trees required nationally in the coming years. Without sacrificing the competitive tendering process, surely the nurserymen and the horticultural trade can be given the kind of firm commitment to numbers required that would allow them to expand and grow the trees that we are going to need in the years ahead. We could then be more self-sufficient and reduce our dependency on foreign imports. This would not eliminate the possibility of importing new diseases—only a complete ban would do that and we may have to consider that—but such a commitment would be an enormous step in the right direction, and I urge the Minister to give it the most serious consideration.

Perhaps I could give your Lordships’ House two illustrations. If you go to Christ’s College, Cambridge, and walk through its fantastically ornate and famous gate to the fellows’ garden you will see a mulberry tree under which John Milton is supposed to have sat as he composed Paradise Lost. You could not imagine a more idyllic situation. If you drove up to Wakefield and got the Home Office’s permission to go into the top-security prison there, you would go through a very severe-looking gate into a yard at the back. There is another mulberry tree, standing in the circular island in the middle of the yard. This used to be the exercise yard when the prison was for female inmates. They were allowed to exercise only around this island that contained the mulberry tree. They were not allowed to speak, so they had to mime. This of course is from where we get the mime: here we go round the mulberry bush on a cold and frosty morning.

These illustrations show the part that trees play in all our lives. We must look after the ancient ones because they have such wonderful history, like our own Catalpa trees in New Palace Yard., and we must plant new ones because trees play such an important part in our national life.