The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on bringing this extremely important matter to your Lordships’ attention, and I support his Motion. I declare my interest as a member of the GWCT, the BASC and the Countryside Alliance. As my noble friend has alluded to, 2025 has seen almost 48,000 hectares of the UK burned by wildfires. That is seven times the average area burned between 2006 and 2024, and more than twice the area burned in 2022. This represents the new fire norm, whereby our changing climate is driving increasingly frequent periods of fire-supportive weather. While the majority of this hectarage was in semi-natural habitats, I want to highlight the risk that wildfire is posing at the rural-urban interface. Development of the rural-urban interface is putting more assets and people at risk, either directly through loss of life and property, or indirectly via impacts on health and vital infrastructure. The Government are now talking about the possibility of housing developments being built on grey-belt land, which is bound to further exacerbate the problems. The Wennington wildfire in July 2022 destroyed more than 18 houses and their residents’ possessions, as well as 12 stables, five cars and six garages. Fortunately, there was no loss of life. Such risks are not limited to London. The Ordnance Survey has estimated that over 1.8 million homes sit within the first 100 metres of urban-rural edges. As the agency states, these transition areas “are where fuel and ignition sources, and the potential for high human and economic impact converge”. The need to create and manage fuel breaks applies as much at the rural-urban interface as it does on our peatlands. The difference is that, on our peatlands, there are expert land managers and gamekeepers whose knowledge is vital to both preventing and fighting wildfires. The peatlands of the Peak District and the Staffordshire Moorlands—where I live— are close to the urban conurbations of Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester and Sheffield, where experience already proves that wildfires can threaten homes and affect the health of local populations. The Saddleworth Moor wildfire of 2018, which was close to the Greater Manchester conurbation, resulted in 50 homes and 150 people being evacuated; and 4.5 million people up 80 kilometres away were exposed to very high concentrations of ppm 2.5 for longer than the World Health Organization’s 24-hour guideline, causing an estimated £21 million in extra health costs. While the debate over how we protect our peatlands becomes mired in the broader ideological debate over grouse shooting—I no longer shoot, so do not have an interest in that—the very real threat of wildfire to these precious ecosystems, and to the health and infrastructure of our communities and the role of prescribed burning in addressing these risks, is being relegated to a mere sideshow. If the Government are not prepared to accept the practical experience of land managers—the experts—then surely they should take note of the National Fire Chiefs Council’s response to the consultation on these regulatory changes. This expressed concern that policy decisions are not aligned with the need to manage wildfire risk and that increasing the restrictions on a land manager’s ability to use prescribed burning for wildfire prevention would have implications for the ability of the fire and rescue services to respond to a wildfire, thereby increasing the danger to firefighters and the public. I sincerely hope that the licensing process is able to facilitate this need.