Commons Hansard

Commons Hansard

Tuesday 8 Feb 2005

8 Feb 2005 : Column 1474

Tree Protection

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Gillian Merron.]

7.46pm

Mr. David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab): It is a delight— I hope that the Minister agrees—to debate British trees. After all, they have been providing us humans with food, fuel, shelter, building materials, places of recreation and beauty in our landscape for millennia. Indeed, our quality of life is enhanced by the existence of trees, which absorb greenhouses gases that otherwise cause harm to us and our environment. Trees give us shade. They block out noise. They conserve biodiversity, as habitats for numerous animal and plant species. They aid the economy—timber and tourism, with visits to see trees, most immediately come to mind—and in my view, they make us happier.

Hon. Members can see a glorious row of trees close to the House in New Palace Yard. They can see an ancient hawthorn and a rare black poplar in Green park, and they can see the famous Elfin oak in a gilded cage in Kensington gardens. My constituency contains examples of the brilliance of trees—I am sure that those of many hon. Members are the same—and many contexts in which trees are valuable to our history. The Royal Oak public house is in Bishop's woods in my constituency. Many pubs in the country have that name, but the one in my constituency is within a mile or two of the very oak where it is alleged that Charles II hid after his disastrous defeat at Worcester.

Trees are valuable to our heritage. My constituency contains parts of the wonderful Cannock Chase, which was once a great royal hunting forest but is today owned by the county council. It is a mass of sites of special scientific interest, an area of outstanding natural beauty and a special area of conservation for its heathland. Trees are valuable to our habitats. What a delight it was for me the day that I stood in Shugborough estate, viewing a lime tree that was home to enormous numbers of wasps. I assure the Minister that I watched from a safe distance. Trees are also valuable to housing—something that applies across the country. I refer in particular to urban areas: trees add to the delight of parks, grass verges alongside roads and housing estates.

I want to discuss the polices that we should implement to value and protect all kinds of trees and about the contribution that my hon. Friend the Minister can make in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Let me start with the brilliant reforms that we have had to the common agricultural policy since June 2003. It is great to see that woodland and trees are recognised for the part that they play in farmed landscapes. We have a glorious toolkit: the cross-compliance conditions, the entry level and the high-level schemes for the forest stewardship and woodland grant schemes. For goodness' sake, let us ensure that we use all those schemes to improve the country's trees; for example, by buffering important woodland sites from surrounding intensive land use.

The Department has other tools, such as its biodiversity strategy, which covers the conditions that are set to maintain the condition of SSSIs and the number of agri-environment schemes to manage land. Another of the Department's tools is the plant diversity challenge, otherwise known as the UK's response to the global strategy for plant conservation. The target on the sustainable management of plant products is relevant to that.

Training, skills and information services are a crucial tool for the Department. I believe that it is possible to fire the public's imagination and inspire people to work, including as volunteers, with trees. From my constituency experiences, I know that there would be a positive public response. When residents living near the ancient Fullmoor wood thought that it was under threat from works proposed by the Forestry Commission, they organised a huge campaign, which included public demonstrations and contact with their Member of Parliament. I praise publicly the response of the Forestry Commission because, through its openness and transparency, it resolved problems and soothed anxieties. It now has a positive partnership with the residents.

I shall cite a further positive example from my constituency. In the run-up to the millennium, all the residents of the village of Derrington got together to plant a millennium wood, which now stands as a fine tribute for centuries to come. It was a delight for me to join the residents one day in planting those trees, which they now tend to attentively.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister can make a contribution to all trees. I know that that is not my hon. Friend the Minister's Department, but I am sure that he can assist me. The current system of tree preservation orders is inadequate. There are explicit exceptions to their power. Trees that are dead, dying or dangerous are not protected. The removal of a tree can be authorised by an Act of Parliament—I suppose that the measures on high hedges in the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003would provide for that. An existing tree preservation order can be overridden by granting new planning permission for development. On top of all that, there is the obvious exception that a council may give permission to lop a protected tree, or even to cut it down.

In addition to those exceptions, there are obvious weaknesses and loopholes in the system. For example, only a fine can be imposed for breaking a tree preservation order and destroying a valuable tree. During my time as a councillor in Stafford, I knew of a developer who deliberately cut down protected trees and stood the fine because the profit on the houses that he subsequently built was miles greater than the fines.

Tony Cunningham (Workington) (Lab): Last Friday, my office received a phone call from a distraught villager of Clifton, which is just outside Workington, who asked me to make a visit. A large site was completely devastated because a developer had chopped just about every tree in it down. He had not received planning permission from the council and, indeed, the inspector had said that he should not get planning permission because the landscape and the trees, and especially the red squirrels that inhabited the trees, were too important. The developer destroyed all the trees either out of spite, or because he planned to put in a further planning application at a future date. The planning authority says that it is finding it difficult to prosecute the developer because he owned the trees and the land. Surely that example supports my hon. Friend's point.

Mr. Kidney: My hon. Friend is right, and I trust that he works hard to do his best to overcome such problems.

That takes me on to the second aspect of the weaknesses and loopholes in the system. Local authorities do not always enforce existing tree preservation orders. There can be a conundrum about whether accidental damage was caused during development, but local authorities often face other problems. I know from my casework of an allegation that a developer deliberately knocked down trees that were subject to tree preservation orders so that he could make way for houses.

There is a reverse side of the coin when considering tree preservation orders. Let us be fair to the owners of trees that are subject to such orders. I know from my casework about article 5 certificates, which allow local authorities to refuse permission to carry out work on trees, even for safety reasons. An article 5 certificate can be issued on a tree that is subject to an order made before 1999. The certificate absolves them from any responsibility for anything that goes wrong afterwards. That is clearly unfair. I note from my correspondence with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister that the Government have a long-standing policy of ending that unfairness. I therefore ask the Minister, when will we end that injustice? While we wait to end it, can we not give local authorities guidance requiring them not to rely on article 5 certificates?

I also ask the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to help local authorities rebuild their expertise in dealing with trees. Several local authorities have lost their ability to employ tree officers, because of previous financial restrictions, and although elected representatives are very willing to do more to help on the subject, they often lack the experience and expertise in officer support to do so.

I want to say something about ancient trees and ancient woodland in particular. It is estimated that the total area of ancient woodland in England is 334,000 hectares. Woodlands have some protection; felling licences are a good example, and there are designations such as SSSIs and special areas of conservation. I like to think that the UK has a special responsibility to look after ancient trees based on the fact that about 80 per cent. of north Europe's ancient trees are in Britain.

Obviously, tree preservation orders do not protect ancient trees. I say obviously because one of the exceptions to the order is that the tree is dead, dying or dangerous. Of course lots of ancient trees are dead or dying. There is an anonymous saying that an oak tree grows for 300 years, rests for 300 years and spends 300 years gracefully declining. The very fact that they are elderly and declining requires us to protect them.

I alert the Minister to the sometimes outrageous outcome of calling an old tree dangerous. I should like to give an example with a happy ending. The Redmire oak of North Yorkshire is said to be more than 500 years old. The Methodist preacher John Wesley was said to have preached under it in the 18th century. Despite the support of the parish council, there were increasing health and safety concerns about the tree. Although it is protected by a tree preservation order, the district council thought that it was helpless to save it because it was nearly dead. Yet, with a grant of just £200 from Yorkshire Water, the tree was protected and able to stand and continue to live. It is outrageous that an ancient tree could be lost for want of £200-worth of investment just because we do not have a robust system of protection. I suggest that the tree preservation order, which presently effectively excludes such trees, ought to be changed so that it explicitly protects them—perhaps with the new designation of an historic tree.

Although I was quick to praise the common agricultural policy reforms, I fear that in the case of ancient trees the CAP slightly misses the target. There is a welcome recognition of the value of ancient trees in the good agricultural environmental condition—GAEC—but, as I understand it, that covers felling licences, which relate to woodlands, and tree preservation orders. As I have just explained, tree preservation orders are not helpful to ancient trees. Will the Minister consider whether more needs to be done to ensure that ancient trees are covered by the CAP policy reforms that we have achieved. I accept that it is incredibly important to encourage the planting today of trees that will become the ancient trees of future generations. That is an important area of attention for the money from CAP reforms.

On the issue of planning law and protection for ancient trees, I refer briefly to what is to become planning policy statement 9. We currently have planning policy guidance note 9 on nature conservation, but that is soon to be PPS9 and entitled "Biodiversity and geological conservation".

Paragraph 10 represents a great step forward for ancient trees. It states:

"Aged or veteran trees found outside ancient woodland are also particularly valuable for biodiversity. Planning authorities should encourage the conservation of such trees as part of development proposals."

That is excellent. Paragraph 10 continues:

"Ancient woodland is a valuable biodiversity resource both for the diversity of species and for its longevity as woodland. Once lost it cannot be recreated. Local planning authorities should identify any areas of ancient woodland in their areas that do not have statutory protection (e.g. as an SSSI)."

All of that marks a welcome shift in policy, but it ends with a caveat to its requirements—

"unless the need for, and benefits of, the development in that location outweigh the loss of the woodland habitat."

Does the Minister accept that there is no need for that caveat? After all, the planning system requires planners to take all material considerations into account when dealing with an application. The point of the paragraph is to protect ancient woods and trees. I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that the caveat should be lost from the final text of PPS9.

At last week's meeting of the all-party group on conservation and wildlife, which I have the privilege to chair, we received a joint presentation from the Woodland Trust and the Ancient Tree Forum, in which there was strong interest from Members of both Houses. They showed us two new website projects. The first, at www.ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk, involves mapping all the ancient trees in the country. The second, at www.woodsunderthreat.info, is excellent: not only does it show any interested member of the public where there are trees and woods under threat from harmful development, but local residents concerned about their ancient trees can mail in information about trees under threat, which can be added to the project. I ask my hon. Friend whether there is any chance of DEFRA joining friends such as the Forestry Commission in funding the projects, which I believe contribute toward meeting the biodiversity strategy indicators and the plant diversity challenge targets by which his Department abides.

At last week's meeting, I was delighted to be able to introduce as one of our speakers the world-famous author Bill Bryson—the Minister will know of his great commitment to Britain and Britain's heritage. He described ancient trees and woods as important markers of our cultural heritage and spoke of the "scandalous" loss of ancient trees and woodland. He also made a comparison with historic buildings, saying that while there is protection for historic buildings, there is certainly no protection for historic trees. I urge the Minister to take action to protect our trees for today's and future generations in the same way as we protect our historic buildings. I believe that that would be an extremely popular cause and that a Minister and a Government who took such positive action would be widely acclaimed.