Hedgerows: Legal Protection

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair for this fascinating debate, Ms Elliott.

We have our differences, but here we are obviously all true hedgerow lovers, having all got up to get here for the 9.30 am debate on hedgerows. All of us present can be proud of the hedgerows in our area, as well as our stone walls and the other beautiful and iconic features of our landscapes. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) for securing this important debate. She is passionate about hedges and has done a great deal of work with the CPRE, whose information I have read; I know that a number of other Members present are also hedgerow champions with the CPRE. Of course, I also thank the former nature Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), for all she has done on hedgerows. She has shared a great deal of knowledge with us this morning.

I grew up on a Somerset farm, and hedgerows are something that was ingrained in me, which is why I have been working very hard in the Department to ensure that we have the full understanding of hedgerows. We have great officials working on this as well; the Department does recognise the importance of this issue.

The farm I grew up on was mixed livestock: we had dairy and arable rotations and so forth. My father, Michael Pow, who very sadly died just over a year ago, was a great planter of hedgerows. Wherever he went out in the Land Rover—I was very often with him, because we were constantly moving cattle from field to field—he would carry bits of baler string, which he would put round trees and hedges to mark them so that the hedge cutter left them and they would not get cut. We now have wonderful standard trees growing out of the hedges on the farm. My father was way ahead of his time in that he cut the hedges only every other year, to leave one side to grow, which is what we are advising farmers to do now, decades on! When I go home to the farm, it is just a burgeoning froth of blossom of hawthorn, as someone mentioned, blackthorn and all the other wonderful blossoms. The National Trust runs a wonderful occasion— I do not know whether it is a day or a week—to recognise blossoms in the hedgerows. They are so valuable to wildlife.

Members really do not have to tell me how important hedgerows are, because I absolutely recognise that. The Government recognise that too. Many colleagues have mentioned the benefits we get from hedges: they provide habitats and wildlife corridors; they are great for holding the soil and stopping water run-off; they are wonderful habitats for our pollinators to shelter and hibernate in; and of course they sequester carbon. Interestingly, hedgerows were not planted for those reasons; started off as boundaries to keep our livestock in, but they have morphed into this wonderful feature that brings so many more benefits. They are so important to our landscape. They have also become important as we adapt to climate change, because they are part of our net zero commitment. They store carbon, and they are really valuable for that.

It is for all those compelling reasons that our environment improvement plan is supporting farmers to create and restore 30,000 miles of hedgerows by 2037, and 45,000 miles by 2050. That will enable all of those multiple benefits to be multiplied even more. We have calculated how much carbon can be sequestered by all those hedges, and we have the figure for 2037. It is interesting that my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon mentioned that her own Liberal Democrat council has failed its net zero target on hedges. It should probably look to its hedges and to see what it could do to get there. My hon. Friend is right: hedges can make a real difference on that agenda.

I will run through the strong legal protections for hedges that we have in law already. The Hedgerows Regulations 1997 prohibit the removal of most countryside hedgerows, or parts of them, without first seeking approval from the local planning authority. Important hedgerows with wildlife, landscape, historical or archaeological value cannot and must not be removed, and local authorities have powers to act should anybody break the law. Also, all wild birds, their eggs and their nests are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which prohibits killing, injuring or taking wild birds or taking or damaging their eggs and nests. Taken together, those legal protections safeguard most countryside hedgerows and farmland birds.

However, as we leave the EU’s common agricultural policy and move to our new and, I would say, better system for paying for environmental benefits, we have considered whether we need additional protections to manage hedgerows in law. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon mentioned, we ran a consultation last summer asking stakeholders how best to protect hedgerows through effective, proportionate regulation as we leave behind the EU’s cross-compliance system, with which the Labour party is still very much aligned. The response to that consultation should not be a surprise to anybody here, because it showed how much members of the public and farmers share our love for English hedgerows. We received almost 9,000 responses—a huge amount. It will be published imminently—the shadow Minister asked about that—but the information in it has already been looked at and used to inform the recent rise in SFI payments.

We are analysing all the data. There was overwhelming support from farmers and non-farmers alike for maintaining our legal protections. The support and enthusiasm for good hedgerow management shown in the responses from the farming community—from both individual farmers and the industry—show how much hedgerows are valued.

We have to trust farmers to do the right thing. There have been one or two damning comments today about farmers wanting to rip out hedgerows, spray all over them or plough right up to them, should there be a tiny window in which the protections are slightly different from what they were under the EU system. I live among farmers; that is how I grew up, and my husband was an agricultural auctioneer. We have to trust them. As has been said, they are the custodians of the countryside. It is disingenuous to suggest that the farming community will go out and spray, or plough right up to, hedgerows after they have created these wonderful buffers with burgeoning wildlife.

[Tim Farron]

The Minister is talking to a straw man. I do not think anybody here has said what she suggests. A number of us have said that if farmers are pushed into a situation where they have no other source of income, they will make decisions that they do not want to, but nobody has said any of the things that she mentioned.

[Rebecca Pow]

We have to be careful. There is a suggestion that what I said might happen if there is a gap. I certainly got that impression from one or two comments, but that may not be how the hon. Gentleman understood them, and his point is on the record.

We recognise the importance of the legal protections in place to prevent any of the concerns that I outlined. We do not want any of those things to happen. Those concerns come from both stakeholders and farmers. I want to make it very clear that, as a result, we will seek to regulate to maintain hedgerow protections as a matter of priority, when parliamentary time allows. That is the rabbit that I am pulling out of the hat today. I hope that will be welcome news, because I think we all agree that this is a priority. We want to make sure that regulation is fair and proportionate to farmers. That has been very clear in all our consultations. We want to get the support of farmers, and we want them to comply with the law where they have to; but we want to work with them, not against them.

The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke) mentioned that advice is important. Advice is critical, so that farmers know what they have to do. There must be guidance that ensures that they can protect hedgerows, and we should reserve sanctions for the most serious offences. On many occasions when I have been out and about, particularly in farming areas and protected landscapes where designated advisers were working with farmers, I have seen how useful it is for farmers to have someone to talk to. I met an adviser recently in the Kent downs area of outstanding natural beauty—now called a national landscape—who was an ecologist. She said that meeting and chatting with farmers was the best way to encourage them to sign up to the levels and different options in the SFI. It can seem a bit scary, or feel like there is too much paperwork, but we have simplified the whole scheme; we have listened to our farmers on that point.

There was a bit of negativity from the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome about the increased payment levels that we have just given for hedgerows. I thought she might have welcomed that. Although they have all gone up, we need to remember that farmers can apply for lots of different levels. It is not just one sum; they can get a sum for recording the hedgerow, a sum for managing it and so on—there are various amounts that will add up, given all the other things they can apply for in the SFI. The idea is that cumulatively the scheme will be attractive; we really want farmers to understand that and apply.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I loved the Minister’s reference to “burgeoning froth”. I think it could be her epitaph, frankly, because this is burgeoning froth. Will she tell us how many people, of the 80,000-plus who were protected through cross-compliance, have picked up on SFI and are receiving it as we speak?

[Rebecca Pow]

That is a good point. First, let us look at what is happening in our other schemes; this is not just about SFI. We have seen a huge appetite for our country- side stewardship schemes. There are now 49,000 miles of hedgerow that have one or both sides managed under the countryside stewardship or environmental stewardship options; and famers have already signed up for 2,300 agreements, including 5,474 hedgerow actions.

Lots of farmers have opted to do a number of actions through the SFI. Remember that this is a new scheme; farmers are rolling off their countryside stewardship schemes on to the new scheme, which is expanding every day. The best thing to do is to be positive and encouraging, rather than negative and damning. I think the former nature Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland, would agree that we need to be positive about what is going on. This is a new, positive scheme. Please encourage farmers to apply for it, because the money and the options are there. We want our farmers and land managers to make the most of their hedgerows, and we support them in taking actions such as assessing and recording hedgerow condition, rotational cutting, and even leaving some hedgerows uncut altogether, which is obviously great for our nature and wildlife, and for those frothing, burgeoning hedgerows full of blackthorn and hawthorn. As I have said, farmers and land managers created or restored 8,450 miles of hedgerow through countryside stewardship capital grants, which is a great addition to our reaching our targets.

I have a few minutes left to cover some other points. The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) made a good point about skills. We obviously need skills; we are aware of that and have a green jobs taskforce, with which I am involved. Through a lot of our tree strategy and action plan to plant trees, we have a big focus on skills, training and apprenticeships, including Forestry Commission apprenticeships; new funding of £4.5 million from the nature for climate fund was put towards this issue. Last year, 1,000 people undertook training in skills connected with trees, which inevitably includes skills connected with hedgerows. That is really ramping up. Those people will be out there, working together, and able to help and advise on schemes.

[Trudy Harrison]

There has been an awful lot of good discussion about the importance of farming, but could I draw the Minister’s attention to the importance of encouraging gardeners? There are 30 million or so gardens and gardeners in the country already bringing benefits, but they could do even more to plant and protect hedgerows in those gardens. She recently visited RHS Wisley, which I have also visited. I was blown away by the knowledge of Professor Alistair Griffiths there, who talked about the physical and mental benefits of horticulture. I would also like to draw attention to the work of the Horticultural Trades Association and the all-party parliamentary group on gardening and horticulture in this area.

[Rebecca Pow]

That gives me a great opportunity to talk about gardening; I used to be a gardening presenter and journalist. In my garden, I garden for wildlife. My hon. Friend makes such a good point. Our gardens in this country equate to a million hectares of land. Think how important that is as a wildlife habitat. I urge everyone to look after nature in their gardens and plant those trees. They should also take part in the big garden birdwatch, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon.

The shadow Minister was somewhat damning about nature, but we have a plan for nature. I cannot work out what Labour’s plan for nature would be. It is all very well to keep saying that Labour will integrate its approach, but we do not know where its £28 billion, which keeps being bandied about, is coming from. We have a plan, which started with the Environment Act 2021 and the targets set in it, and includes the environmental improvement plan, which has been so well referenced by colleagues. That is a plan with a framework and targets. Without targets, there is nothing to aim at. The targets inform the policies.

Intense work continues at DEFRA on the biodiversity targets. We have to gather all the evidence on insects, birds and plants. That is an ongoing enormous task that is ever-changing, but we are doing that, day in, day out, to inform our policies. Where we need to tweak polices—for example, if we need to up the SFI payments for a certain sector that is not delivering enough for nature while also producing food—we will be able to do so. That is the beauty of this system. Nobody else has a system like this; it is globally leading. It is very complicated, because it involves nature and is ever-changing. It is not as easy as, for example, dealing with emissions from industry. A bit of credit for that would be welcomed. People out there need to understand that we are on the side of nature, and we genuinely think we could hit the target of halting the decline of species, if we got everything lined up in the right place, and had the positivity of parliamentarians behind us.

There was a quick reference to Dame Glenys Stacey’s report. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon that since that review, our work on regulation has responded to many challenges. There has been a huge amount of work on how we make farming regulation clearer, fairer and more effective—issues to which she referred. The Government have not published a formal response to Dame Glenys’s report. However, in both the agricultural transition plan published in 2020 and the recent update published this month, we outline our vision for a regulatory system that helps the vast majority of farmers who want to and try to do the right thing, and supports them when things go wrong.

We have already made a lot of improvements to the regulatory system—improvements that farmers genuinely wanted. We have had a lot of engagement with farmers, stakeholders and the National Farmers Union in particular. The improvements include: reducing unfair penalties for farmers’ minor errors, which is something that annoyed them about the CAP system—I am sure that the shadow Minister would agree; removing duplication of standards to make the system clearer for farmers; reducing administrative burdens and paperwork; and implementing a more preventive approach to monitoring and enforcement.

There is a huge amount of synergy in the room on the issue of hedgerows, which I think we all agree are very important. The Government are committed to introducing protections for hedgerows when parliamentary time permits. For me, they are a priority. I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon, who is a great champion for hedgerows and will remain so.