Public Forest Estate (England)

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leech]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I endorse this as a proper consultation, and I hope that everyone who has an interest in this issue will participate in it and put their views clearly on the record.

I will never support the sell-off or leasing of woodland if I think that it will be detrimental to the long-term sustainability of the woodland and its biodiversity, and will threaten the access that people have enjoyed over a long period. What better safeguards will Minister’s introduce to protect the land and access to it compared with those that we already have? These forests will outlive all of us in this Chamber today and the public want to know how long these safeguards will be in place. Can I be assured that, whichever organisation might take on the running of a public forest, these safeguards will remain in place for not only our lifetime, but centuries to come?

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I have received more than 400 comments about these proposals, so I am keen for the consultation exercise to go ahead. I am thinking of holding a meeting in my constituency to meet all 400 contributors, because this is important. I wish to raise the following questions: first, can I be absolutely sure that communities—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Mr Carmichael, I have tried to tell everybody recently that we want short interventions, because we want to get as many people in as possible. Indeed, people who are speaking do not have to take the full six minutes or interventions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

At the end of the classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life”, the James Stewart character is taken back to see what would have happened to his home town, Bedford Falls, if he had never lived. He discovers that it would have been cheapened, commercialised and degraded. Indeed, even its name would have been changed to Pottersville after the greedy grasping capitalist who was the villain of the film. I know that no one would wish to see any such fate befall the New Forest, but there is huge concern in my constituency that steps may be taken in that sort of direction.

I had an early start this morning. I had to go to the New Forest and get back in time for the debate, because I was attending the funeral of my constituent and friend, Mr Mike Gilling. Mike was the sort of person who, by anyone’s definition of a society, big or not, put into it far more than he took out of it. It was therefore not surprising that there was a wide spectrum of mourners at that funeral, representing a good cross-section of the people of Hythe, which is on the edge of the New Forest. Did any of them come up to me after the funeral and say, “Julian, I really think you should be supporting these proposals that the Government are putting forward for the New Forest”? Not one. Did anyone come up to me and say, “Julian, I do hope you’re going to speak out against these proposals this afternoon in the debate”? Quite a few.

I did not just go by an, as it were, self-selecting sample like that. Nor did I just go by the self-selecting sample of people who have written a sheaf of letters to me, even though the balance is still dozens on one side of the argument and not yet a single letter—the Whips Office had better get cracking and find someone in my constituency so that I cannot say this again—in favour of the Government’s proposals. No, I am afraid it is all anti.

I did not rely even on those two samples, the small one and the larger one via the correspondence. I also spoke to one of the most senior figures in the New Forest, who has all the expertise that I freely confess I lack. What he said to me was that everybody in the New Forest who is involved in its administration in various types, capacities and dimensions is in a state of deep shock; that the status quo is unanimously preferred; and that, if there is a consultation, we had better hope that it is a genuine one, because then, on the basis of the sampling that I am seeing so far, there will be an overwhelming series of representations against what is proposed.

[Neil Carmichael]

What I would like to know is what will happen to multi-purpose woods—those which are commercial, heritage and used for recreation.

[Dr Lewis]

My hon. Friend will find that I am coming to that very point. There are two models according to which the New Forest can be run. There is the old model, with many sources of power intermixing, interacting and influencing each other, and there is the overarching model, with some authority in place to which everything else is subservient. My dear and hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne) was right when he said that we stood shoulder to shoulder to battle against the national park authority being imposed on us, because we felt that that was an overarching model rather than an interacting model of different organisations.

That is where I fear my Front-Bench team has lost its way. It is not as if the Forestry Commission has, or ever has had, overall control. The Forestry Commission is one of a number of bodies in this universe, along with the verderers, the New Forest Commoners Defence Association, and voluntary bodies such as the New Forest Association, all of which have to work together and persuade each other before they can go forward. The Forestry Commission is not just about commerce or timber; it is also about conservation and disease control.