Hedgerows: Legal Protection

Trudy Harrison Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), because I know from prior experience as the DEFRA Minister responsible for nature that she really is a hedgerow hero. She was persistent and effective in implementing increased recognition across DEFRA of the importance of hedgerows. That was certainly recognised by Ministers, including my good friend the Minister for Nature, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), and the Farming Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer), and by all the officials working for DEFRA, and by Natural England and the Forestry Commission.

I am delighted that we published the environmental improvement plan on 31 January 2023 because it really recognised, across 277 pages, what we are doing to halt the decline of nature by 2030 and increase its abundance thereafter. Hedgerows most certainly featured in that, and the revised standards earlier this year featured not just their planting and protection, but their management and assessment and the earthy banks on which they grow. I commend DEFRA for recognising the benefits of stone walls, because in areas such as mine in Copeland, across the Lake District and throughout Cumbria, stone walls are incredibly important for biodiversity and provide the windbreaks and shelters also provided by hedgerows. I am really pleased that DEFRA has recognised that they are more than just something for our much-appreciated tourists to enjoy. They are more than the cultural landscape: they actually provide a real benefit for nature and will help to contribute to the halting of nature’s decline, which is so important.

Think about the hedgerows that have featured across our landscape for thousands of years, initially formed for windbreaks, as divisions and as shelters. To divide the land in such a cost-effective, long-living, bountiful and beautiful way was a wonderful thing that our ancestors did. Grubbing up may have been Government policy many decades ago when the priority was to feed our nation in post-war Britain, but we have come a long way in appreciating that it was a bad idea to sacrifice hedgerows. I would argue that it was one of the worst environmental harms that our country has done to the countryside.

It is right to have an emphasis on farms and farmers, because on our relatively small island, which is densely populated, about 70% of our land is agricultural—is farmed land, so if we are truly to see the benefits that we need for biodiversity, it is right that ELMS and that £2.4 billion investment from Government prioritises farmed land. We are catching up, because the environmental improvement plan introduced that commitment to the planting of more hedgerows, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon set out, and the increased protections. I look forward to confirmation of that.

The new and improved standards will take us a long way, and there are now fantastic examples of farmers coming together. I give a particular shout-out to my farmers in the West Lakeland Community Interest Company, consisting of 50 or so farmers who have come together because they recognise that they can play a key part, predominantly in the Wasdale and Ennerdale area of west Cumbria, which is a truly outstanding landscape—Britain’s best view and Britain’s best farmers.

The farmers in the CIC recognise that working together, featuring more hedgerows and looking after the water quality in the area will not just be of benefit to nature and our environment, but make good business sense for them. The reason they see the business opportunities is that, across DEFRA, we have recognised the benefits of nature-based policies. One that I will reference now is biodiversity net gain. In early February, I hope, biodiversity net gain will be coming out for large developers, and for other developers thereafter. That will drive further appreciation of hedgerows—of not taking them out in the first place; of ensuring that they are protected during development, in that two-year window; and of putting hedgerows back in, because the credits for hedgerow planting are considerable.

I also draw the House’s attention to the benefits of gardeners and the role that gardening can play to increase hedgerows. To replace a fence with a hedgerow will go far in carbon sequestering, in cooling and in air quality. Hedgerows also offer a fantastic benefit for pollution capture, in particular in urban areas where about 10% of hedgerows are found. Hedgerows are of course bountiful —we can all forage from and enjoy them, and wildlife can forage and enjoy the shelter that hedgerows bring—and let us not forget their benefits in preventing soil erosion, as hedgerows will prevent flooding because their roots dig deep into the ground. The reason that hedgerows are so fantastic, however, is that they are often mixed, and that is where the benefits of gardening are as well.

A garden is a diverse landscape, which encourages multiple different plants and different layers to grow at different rates—but it is managed. The act of gardening, similar to farming, means that a garden is managed. Studies, especially those from the Royal Horticultural Society centre, RHS Wisley, now show that the benefits of our 30 million gardeners getting behind nature are absolutely phenomenal. We all know about the benefits of carbon sequestering, and if we are to fulfil our commitment of achieving net zero by 2050, gardeners will play a key role.

To conclude, I will talk about the benefits to physical and mental health from hedgerows. As the third most obese country in Europe, we have a way to go to improve our nation’s health. About 25 limbs are amputated every day as a result of diabetes, and at the height of the pandemic, on one of the worst days for hospital admissions, 4,500 people were admitted to hospital on one day; but every day, on average, 3,000 people are admitted to our hospitals due to obesity-related issues. To go for a walk along a hedgerow—I cannot imagine a nicer way to spend the day.

As we dare to dream that spring is on the way, and as the hedgerows start to get colour and liven up, we can look forward to the bird nesting season. We absolutely need to protect our hedgerows. Most importantly, we can look forward to the sights and sounds that we find in our hedgerows, and find an excuse to go for a walk and enjoy the great outdoors, which is the most wonderful thing about this country. It is absolutely essential if we are going to tackle the obesity crisis and all of the many preventable diseases that are caused by having a less active Britain.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.