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Public Forest Estate (England)

My right hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of woodland in the capital, which is something that the Labour Government sought to extend. Also, it is important that people living in cities have the enjoyment of woodlands and access to forests. How do the sales achieve that? What has happened to the Government's woodland strategy? What role can a broken-up forest play in carbon capture and storage? The answer is on page 51 of the closely-read impact assessment, which says:"““The co-ordinated approach to implementing adaptation measures across the public forest estate would be put at risk through large-scale changes in ownership.””" However, we need to step back from the Public Bodies Bill and the full sell-off and look at what is happening in England's forests right now. Ministers can sell off 15% of English woodland without any change to the law. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary says from a seated position that that is why we did it. I have already explained how much was sold under the Labour Government; I want now to come to what will be sold by him. In our 13 years in government, we sold just 4,000 hectares net, reinvesting the proceeds into forestry. The Secretary of State told the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in November that she and her Ministers had already factored in £74.5 million of sales under existing laws. However, she gave no guarantees that the money would flow back to the Forestry Commission. Indeed she was at pains to point out that"““it would be perfectly possible for us to use the proceeds from sales of these assets towards increasing the capital available for flood defences””." We need to step back a minute. She has cut the flood defence budget by 27% and wants to sell off our forests to make up the shortfall that she has imposed. That does not strike me as any way to run a Department.