Member

I will make just a very final, final point. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, asserted that this harvesting is bad for biodiversity; she and I are always on the same side when it comes to biodiversity, and I feel extremely apologetic in having to make a counterclaim. One of the things done by the independent advisory board that I chair was to commission a systematic review of the impacts on biodiversity of biomass harvesting in the south-eastern United States. In fact, there are two studies: we commissioned one and another was carried out independently by scientists at Oxford University, led by my noble friend Lady Willis of Summertown. Both reviews concluded that, far from having a negative effect on biodiversity, the thinning process has either a neutral or even perhaps a slightly positive effect on biodiversity—so, again, one must not jump to simple conclusions.