Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 General Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin, I would like to remind Members to observe social distancing and to sit only in places that are marked. Our colleagues from Hansard would appreciate it if Members could send their speaking notes to [e-mail]

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021 (S.I. 2021, No. 158)

It is a pleasure to speak for Her Majesty’s Opposition on the first of two Statutory Instruments that I will speak to today. I must put on record that my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North would have liked to attend the Committee but cannot do so on account of current restrictions. He is passionate about peatland burning issues, and he wanted that to be on the record.

The regulations seek to prohibit a person burning any specified vegetation on areas of peat more than 40 cm deep in a site of special scientific interest—that is also a European site—unless an exception applies, or the burning is carried out under and in accordance with a licence issued by the Secretary of State.

A burning notice may be issued under regulation 6 if Natural England believes that specified vegetation is being burned in contravention of those regulations. Regulation 7 makes provision for a right to make representations to a person appointed by the Secretary of State if Natural England serves a burning notice on any person. That sounds very good on the face of it, but, as ever, it is about the detail with this Government, or should I say, the lack of detail.

I note that no impact assessment has been produced for the SI because Ministers have deemed that

“There is no, or no significant, impact”

on the private, voluntary or public sector foreseen. We shall see what happens in the time ahead.

I feel sure that the Minister will know that England contains around 355,000 hectares of upland deep peatland habitat, with a particular concentration of the habitat being found in the Pennines. Those high-value upland peat habitats are subject to rotational burning. That practice sees vegetation on the top of peat set alight at regular intervals to create better conditions for grouse rearing for the shooting industry.

Upland peat habitats are a significant carbon store and burning heather and grass within them releases carbon. Natural England has calculated—I pay tribute to all the staff of Natural England for their work in these difficult times, done without much direction and support from the Government—that around 260,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide are released every year from rotational burning on peat in England alone. Rotational burning also reduces the biodiversity value of upland peat habitats and affects water quality.

In January 2021, the Government announced the introduction of a partial ban on burning heather and grass on peatland, in recognition of the

“consensus that burning of vegetation on blanket bog is damaging to peatland formation and habitat condition”.

So the Government also say that it is an issue.

The Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021 were introduced as an SI to put that partial ban into law, but, as ever with the Government, we need to go further and do more. I know that this matter has been before the other place, and I know that many of the points raised then will be similar to the concerns that I am highlighting, but they are important, absolutely relevant, and need to restated. That is necessary mainly because the Government have made little progress, have not listened and do not seem to want to engage.

On the substance of the SI, my first concern relates to its limited scope. It only partially prohibits burning on designated sites. The regulations state that only sites that are in a SSSI, a special area of conservation or a special protection area can be considered as designated sites for the purposes of the regulations. The Wildlife and Countryside Link, in an example of its wonderful work, has estimated that 109,000 hectares of English upland peat meet those specifications out of a total of 355,000. In response to Link, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has suggested coverage is slightly higher at 142,000 hectares. Even so, significantly less than half of upland peat is covered by the regulations. In the same response, DEFRA also suggests that the amount of upland peat in England stands only at 230,000 hectares. However, that figure only covers upland peat that is on the biodiversity action plan, BAP, priority habitat list. Upland peat that is not on the BAP list is still precious and should not be burned. Natural England has confirmed that there are total of 355,000 hectares of upland peat in England. That is the figure that should be used.

In drawing the attention of the House to the SI, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee criticised DEFRA’s use of figures on upland peat and commented:

“The Department should have been clearer about the actual size of the areas covered by the ban and the peatlands currently subject to rotational burning as well as those areas where consent to burn has already been removed: the mix of percentages, hectares and other metrics and the use of different reference points, such as ‘protected blanket bog habitat’, ‘peatlands’ or ‘upland deep peat’ are a source of confusion and make it difficult to assess the extent and impact of the ban on unlicensed rotational burning.”

In fact, only a minority of upland peat in England will be covered by the regulations—60% of upland peat is excluded from the regulations as it is outside the specification for a designated site. That limited scope will hinder the effectiveness of the regulations. For the best climate and ecological result, all upland peat should be included in the ban. I could not be clearer than that. At the very least, a simple improvement would be to change the specification for designation to a site being in an SSSI, an SAC or SPI to widen the scope and increase the proportion of upland peatland protected by the ban. The SI does not go far enough and the world is watching what happens next.

I am deeply concerned by the language used in the SI. The Minister will recall that throughout the Committee stage of the Environment Bill, or the ‘Missing in Action’ Bill that we like to call it, my hon. Friends the Members for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) regularly called the Government out on their weak language, loose interpretations and essentially disappointing lack of ambition. As I said then, and repeat now, language is very important. I am afraid that the terms of the SI are undermined by loosely worded exemptions and it has virtually nothing to say about enforcement.

As well as direct exemptions from the rules, regulation 4 gives the Secretary of State the power to grant a licence to permit burning in a designated site covered by the ban on any of the following grounds:

“for the purposes of conservation, enhancement or management of the natural environment for the benefit of present and future generations;

for the safety of any person;

to reduce the risk of wildfire; or

because the specified vegetation is inaccessible to mechanical cutting equipment and any other method of management is impracticable. ”

Those wide-ranging powers given to the Secretary of State mean that even in 40% of upland peat habitats covered by the regulations, the protection offered can be revoked by a licence.

The SI contains very little detail on the licensing processes and does not specify a standard of evidence that a licence application must meet to be successful. The absence of such detail risks leaving extensive loopholes that will enable continued burning in protected areas. I therefore join with many campaigners in calling for the swift provision of tightly worded further detail on how the licensing will be administered. Such detail should include requirements to meet a tight definition of inaccessibility, to provide evidenced support from the local fire authority for wildfire prevention burning, and to provide evidence support from Natural England for conservation burning in any licence application made on such grounds.

The SI, and its very evident weaknesses, undermine the Government’s advocacy for nature-based solutions to climate change. Indeed, the rotational burning season this year coincides with the UK’s hosting of the global climate conference COP26, which will see the Government championing nature-based solutions to climate change. In the words of the Minister’s departmental colleague, Lord Goldsmith,

“the UK will use our Presidency of COP26 to persuade other countries to put nature at the heart of their climate response”.

Warm words, but as things appear to be moving, they are empty words.

I am grateful to Link for the polling that it commissioned to gauge the views of people on rotational burning and upland peat. The results speak for themselves. They reveal that 60% of the British public want to see the Government’s peat burning ban extended to cover all peatland at risk of being burned, and only 3% oppose that. Some 56% of those polled also want a ban on the burning of all at-risk peatland in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Two thirds of people also want promises to protect peatland included in the UK pledges for COP26, and 67% want the Government to ensure our natural carbon stores, like peatlands, are healthy and capture as much carbon as possible.

Those results show that the public recognise the importance of upland peat and that they wish to see its potential as a nature-based solution to climate change realised, and they very clearly support a comprehensive burning ban. Why will the Minister and Department not listen to the people and act once and for all?

We are in the middle of a climate emergency and our people are crying out for real leadership. Labour stands ready to provide that leadership, as we have demonstrated every step of the way during our consideration of the Environment Bill, the Agriculture Bill and the Fisheries Bill. That stands in stark contrast to the Government, who speak but do not do. The regulations reflect their lazy and unimaginative approach, and it is simply not good enough. At the conclusion of the debate, I intend to test the will of the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Jones]

It was remiss of me not to say earlier that it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Dr Huq.

I thank the Minister for her contribution. She made some interesting points and is quite right that we can all agree that all peat is very important, and we need to take care of it. She mentioned that she wants the SI to strike the right balance, but I fear that the balance is still skewed. In common with many campaigners in communities across England, I remain unimpressed by the inadequate attempt to tackle the issue.

A shorter and neater way to describe where we are is as follows: the Government promised the House, stakeholders and the country an overarching strategy but they have yet to deliver it. Yes, the Minister spoke about the guidance to come, and we will hold the Government to account on that, but my job and that of campaigners, experts and stakeholders is to hold the Government accountable on every step of the way.

Two major weaknesses prevent the regulations from achieving their stated policy aims and objectives. To remind the Committee and those listening, the objective is to protect upland peat habitats from the impact of burning. As I said in my opening remarks, the limited scope of the SI renders it fundamentally flawed, which is compounded by the dangerously loosely worded exemptions. Like many stakeholders and experts who will have listened with dismay to the Minister’s response, I am unable to support a weak and ineffective set of regulations. The Opposition will oppose the SI.

Question put,