My Lords, I rise to speak in favour Amendment 100, in the name of my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone, and Amendment 101 in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Teverson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. We regard both these amendments as important.
As I said in Committee, the Bill is woefully lacking in any reference to a tree strategy and the need to protect our existing woodland stock as well as to increase the percentage of England under tree cover. The only such reference in the Bill is to felling street trees, and although this is an important issue, the crucial importance of preserving our ancient woodland and the need to deliver the protection and expansion of trees in woodlands in the future is not recognised.
As noble Lords have said, a comprehensive strategy is important not just to enhance biodiversity but in order to play a crucial role in carbon capture and sequestration. This has been emphasised by the Committee on Climate Change, which has pointed out that the UK tree-planting effort has “consistently fallen below” the target needed to achieve net zero by 2050.
Of course, we recognise that the Government have produced a tree action plan, but it is non-statutory and lacks the clarity and targets to deliver the necessary transformation of our landscapes and to tackle climate change. This is why we believe that a tree strategy with statutory and interim targets should be in the Bill. It should include measures to guarantee the preservation of ancient woodland, an emphasis on broad-leaf native woodland and greater powers to protect trees from disease and pests by encouraging domestic nurseries to produce more resilient saplings. It should also recognise the importance of smaller woodlands in creating biodiverse nature corridors and enhancing public enjoyment at a local level—a point made by my noble friend Lord Whitty.
Although we welcome the Government’s commitment to planting 30,000 hectares a year by the end of this Parliament, the Minister will know all too well that non-statutory tree-planting targets have come and gone in the past, as the earlier promise to plant 11 million trees demonstrates. So, I hope that, when he responds, the Minister can explain why a statutory tree strategy is missing from the Bill when there are already a number of strategies for other parts of nature development in it.
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Meanwhile, my noble friend Lady Young has made an expert case for a new duty to protect ancient woodlands. As she said, they are some of our richest and most complex communities of biodiversity, both above and below ground. They are particularly adept at sequestrating carbon and have huge historical significance. As my noble friend said, they are irreplaceable. So I was shocked to hear from my noble friend in Committee, and again today, that at least 800 of these ancient woodlands are currently under threat from development, mostly housing, roads and railways.
While it is true that developers are discouraged from damaging ancient woodland under the National Planning Policy Framework, this has not provided the protection that these sites deserve, particularly in terms of the unique role they play in protecting and enhancing our biodiversity and habitats. I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that I feel he has his priorities wrong in this regard. This is not just about another housing development or road build; it is about the historical and unique nature of these woodlands, which we need to protect. As my noble friend Lady Young said, once you take up these ancient woodlands, they will take another 400 years to replace, so it is not a simple task of creating another development elsewhere.
We also agree with my noble friend that ancient woodlands are too precious and valuable to be disregarded. We believe that both these amendments deserve to be in the Bill, which is sadly lacking both a forward strategy for trees and a crucial protection for the unique and much-loved ancient woodlands that we have inherited and must protect for the future. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope that he will be able to address these concerns.