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Forestry Commission (Northumberland)

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) on securing the last Adjournment debate of this part of the parliamentary Session. This matter is close to his heart and important to his constituency, but, as he rightly said, it is of much greater significance, as we have witnessed over the past few weeks. As my right hon. Friend rightly reminded us, his constituency and the county of Northumberland even more so are hugely important to the public forestry estate. His constituency, despite not containing Kielder, is within the top 10 by public forest estate land area, which makes it very important. He rightly referred to many issues beyond pure forestry, such as forestry employment and jobs, and rural housing. He knows as well as I do that the world has moved on and that the idea of big estates, whether private or public, for workers in any industry has long since disappeared. Nevertheless, forestry workers and the forestry industry are important in rural areas. I have always understood the statistics, which he gave, that compare forestry with hill farming, which preceded the planting of many forests. I and the Department recognise that Kielder and most forests in northern England are primarily commercial. As my right hon. Friend said, they are more akin to some Scottish forests. Nevertheless, as we have witnessed over the past few weeks, there is significant public concern about their future. However, I do not wish to repeat all the issues that were raised in the initial consultation and before it. We have taken a step back and have appointed the independent panel, to which my right hon. Friend referred. The panel will advise us on the future direction of forestry and woodland policy in England. It has already had its first meeting. To partly answer his question about forestry workers, the chairman of the panel said yesterday in a brief statement after its first meeting that it is determined to get around the country and to meet everybody who has an interest in these matters, including forestry employees and those who campaigned in various ways in the run-up to the formation of the panel. As my right hon. Friend said, there is the separate issue of the planned disposal of 15% of the public forest estate, which we had planned to do during the spending period from this financial year to 2014-15. I stress that that has been suspended, not cancelled. As he rightly said, those figures were part of the overall DEFRA budget, although most of the money was not allocated because we did not have it. Nevertheless, some of it was to be used by the Forestry Commission. I will come back to that point. My right hon. Friend asked how the redundancies will be funded. I will come back to this in more detail, but it is relevant at this point. They will be funded by DEFRA's modernisation fund, and were not planned to be funded from the forest sales. Obviously, there will be an effect on cash flow, because we intend to resume the sales after the panel has reported on how we can protect public interests. That is a cash-flow issue for the Forestry Commission, which we are working closely with it to minimise. Obviously, the panel will have to recognise the constraints and competing demands on public expenditure in this spending review period and beyond. That brings us to the current situation, which my right hon. Friend rightly distinguished from the future of the public forestry estate. Clearly, we have to reduce the structural deficit. We have said that that is the No. 1 Government priority, and with the two notable exceptions of the national health service and the Department for International Development, everybody is having to take their fair share. The Forestry Commission, along with DEFRA and all our other arm's length bodies, has to work in that tough fiscal environment, which means unprecedented savings. The Forestry Commission's budget in England will reduce by 25% over the next four years, and I stress that in addition, we expect Forest Enterprise to reduce to zero the current reliance on the sale of assets for some £8 million a year of income. My right hon. Friend referred to the sales carried out by previous Governments, and in the past several years capital has been sold to fund revenue. That practice is completely wrong. It has been the selling-off of forests simply to fill a gap in Forestry Commission finances, and it has to stop by the end of this spending review period. To achieve those changes, the Forestry Commission in England will need to undertake significant restructuring and the downsizing of its programmes, at the same time as taking on a number of new challenges. The commission's focus will be much more on protecting and improving the woodland resource and encouraging woodland expansion. That will be delivered through promoting a competitive, thriving and resilient forestry sector, and through the empowerment, engagement and involvement of many local communities in the big society. May I pick up my right hon. Friend's point about disease? Ever since I took responsibility for the matter, I have been extremely concerned by the march of a number of diseases, particularly Phytophthora ramorum, which fortunately I do not think has reached Northumberland, but which has devastated forests in the south-west. I do not want to say too much, because the commission has not yet consulted on the matter, but I can assure him that we are doing our very best to maintain research into such diseases. Although I cannot say that there will be no reduction in spending on forestry research, the key tree health and disease programmes will be protected. That is very important if we are to get on top of diseases that could have a devastating effect, and not just on non-native species—we know that some of them are in oaks, as well.