Sir Roger Gale

Sir Roger Gale

Conservative — Herne Bay and Sandwich

Speaking in the House of Commons on 30 April 2025

Debate

Global Deforestation

Contribution

The hon. Lady makes an unassailable point. This should not be happening. Drax is felling trees in the southern states of the United States—in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana—and throughout Canada on an unimaginable scale. The people at Drax claim that they are using pulp wood from “thinnings that help to open up the forest canopy and get light onto the forest floor”. Oh no they are not! They are engaged in scorched-earth forestry. They are felling acres and acres of woodland in the southern United States and Canada, and that is not acceptable. And it is being subsidised by the British Government. Worse still, the health of the local populations in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi is being directly and adversely affected by Drax’s practices. Drax has lied—there is no other word for it—to secure its contracts and licences. I shall do my damnedest to ensure that the renewal of those licences is contested in every way. I urge the Minister to go back to her Government, particularly the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, to expose the myth that is Drax, and to insist that we must find viable alternatives—not tomorrow, but now.

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