Contribution
In this group on the Forestry Commission’s actions and duties, I will speak briefly to my Amendment 88 and in support of Amendment 93, which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I support pretty much all of the amendments in this group. This has been an interesting conversation on not only the role and development of the Forestry Commission but its relationship with hosting energy, including what safeguards and protections need to happen as we go down that road and what our forests will look like in the future under climate change.
My amendment is designed to put in place some safeguards on the new powers granted to the appropriate forestry authorities for energy generation, transmission and storage on public forestry land. At the heart of all this is a balance between what we do to hit our climate and nature change duties and what we must do not to further damage our ecology and biodiversity. It is fine to make use of our forests for these things, but it must not have detrimental impacts. That is what I have tried to balance in my amendment.
The commission gains unprecedented powers to host and sell energy from renewable installations on land under its management. Yet, when I looked at Clause 28, there were no clear legal protections for most precious habitats. My worry is that, without such safeguards, we will see renewable energy infrastructure sited in ways that harm our ancient woodlands, our carbon rich peatlands and other priority habitats that the Government have a duty to protect, particularly under our 30 by 30 biodiversity targets.
I am looking for a reasonable balance between timber production and nature conservation. That reasonable balance is in the Bill, but what does it mean? It is not purely defined in the Bill, which was also a worry for me. In response to that, my amendment tries to take a pragmatic way forward. I note the issue raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Young and Lady Bennett, about the percentages. My amendment says that no more than 2% of all Forestry Commission land and no more than 5% of any individual site could be given to energy storage and development. I will go away and look at that. At the moment, there is no cap on that at all. Noble Lords may not agree with my percentages but putting a percentage in the amendment is a whole lot better than having no percentages in there at all; however, I will go away and look at whether there is another way in which that might be done.
This issue is particularly acute in our national parks and where our national parks and Forestry Commission land co-exist; in the New Forest, that is 47%, while, in Northumberland, it is 15%. These are treasured landscapes. Energy development must be proportionate, consistent with statutory park purposes, subject to democratic oversight, not impacting on leisure facilities and making sure that our national parks authorities have some say in and control over these things. These are important matters.
My amendment does not seek to reject the role of using Forestry Commission land to help with our energy; it just seeks to put some safeguards on that. I will go away and consider my amendment. This debate has been useful for me, and I will reflect on this, but there need to be more safeguards in the Bill—of that I am still certain. I would be very happy to work with the Minister between now and Report to see whether there are ways in which we could do that together; that would be welcome.
This has already been discussed in detail but, turning briefly to Amendment 93, I have supported the Private Member’s Bill brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, at every stage of its passage through the House. It is absolutely essential that we update our climate change legislation. In the last debate on his Bill, I said that it was the equivalent to the Government being the general and knowing what the military strategy was but failing to tell any of their own troops. The Government need to work with all these public bodies. These things are so pressing and so complicated. The Government are holding on to all this stuff and not passing the orders down and empowering others, including the public bodies. The Forestry Commission owns 5% of all public land. It needs a duty to enhance and meet our climate change and biodiversity targets; it is silly that it does not have that.
I am sorry. I am a little buoyed up having come through the Crown Estate Bill and the Great British Energy Bill, where we managed to work with Ministers and get such provisions added to the Bills. It is on my agenda to do that in this Bill; that makes sense. I would like to work with the Minister, but it is a minimum for me that a similar amendment to the ones in those Bills is added to this Bill. If the Government want to make use of forestry land for energy generation, that is fine, but with that comes some responsibilities; those responsibilities include that this duty should added.