Ancient Forests (Hansard, 10 July 1991)

§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to designate areas of ancient forest within the United Kingdom in connection with the arrangements of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation for declaring World Heritage Sites; to make provision for the conservation and regeneration of such areas of ancient forest; and for connected purposes. The Bill asusumes an added urgency with the statement this morning in Edinburgh by an old friend of my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), who has done me the courtesy of being present, and myself, Professor Sir Frederick Holliday. He stated: Last Thursday, I saw Mr. Trippier and asked him to seek a new Chairman for the JNCC. I outlined to him my reasons for believing that I could best serve the interests of nature conservation in Britain by vacating the post of independent Chairman. I urged that my going be used as an opportunity for the three Departments of State concerned to review:

(a) the role of the JNCC following EPA and SNH legislation;

(b) the way in which Governments expected to see the role discharged;

(c) the administrative and financial framework deemed appropriate for the associated tasks.

I said that I would make this short statement today. After discussion I agreed to add a further sentence to say that the Minister intended to let my proposal lie upon the table until he consulted further. Whilst I remained of the same mind, I agreed to Mr. Trippier's suggestion. I also agreed not to elaborate further at this stage. When the independent chairman of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, a distinguished marine biologist, lately vice-chancellor of the university of Durham, and much else resigns, on a matter of principle, Ministers should take notice that something is wrong.
My Bill is really the "For Pity's Sake, Please Do Something About Mar Lodge Before It Is Too Late Bill" or the "We Hope That The Environment Secretary Will Put Into Practice What He So Eloquently Expressed on 5 March 1980 Bill". Mar Lodge gives him a litmus test opportunity to do so. In an Adjournment debate, quoting the right hon. Gentleman in extenso—the general case has never been more eloquently put—the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) said: we give special protection to particularly important sites of … nature conservation or special scientific interest … we … need to consider decisions too from an international as well as a national standpoint."—[Official Report, 19 June 1991; Vol. 193, c. 437.] Exactly. If we in Britain cannot ourselves protect Mar Lodge and the remnants of the Caledonian forest on the southern Cairngorms, we had better belt up about telling Governments in Brasilia, Kinshasa or Kuala Lumpur how they should go about protecting their rain forests.
I address myself to the Department of the Environment because, frankly, I despair of the Scottish Office. This, incidentally, is the explanation for any English hon. Member vexed at being kept out of his bed on Monday night until the Government Chief Whip had to move the closure—incidentally, that action is almost unprecedented in respect of a Lords amendment—and why there is a need for an Ancient Forests Bill.
In the debate on 19 June, the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland agreed with the international importance of the Mar Lodge estate, but expressed Her Majesty's Government's view that private ownership, with a 969 management agreement, is, in general, the best approach to the management of Scotland's natural heritage. The Minister expected that, by management agreements, the objectives of conservation could be combined with the interests of the taxpayer. The recent Glenlochay case does not support that conclusion.
In the Glenlochay case, Mr. John Cameron bought the estate in 1986 for about £570,000, knowing full well of the existing sites of special scientific interest and aware that a recent proposal for afforestation affecting the SSSIs had been refused by the Forestry Commission on the advice of the Nature Conservancy Council. Shortly after purchase, Mr. Cameron submitted a claim for about £1 million for "profit forgone", which my colleagues know is the cost of a management agreement under section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Indeed, the hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) will know exactly what we are getting at, because the hon. Gentleman—faithful Sir Hector—could not, at 2.30 in the morning, bring himself to vote for his own Government, because he knew and cared something about it. That is the extent to which the Government are wrong.
The NCC opposed Mr. Cameron's forestry and agricultural proposals that affected the SSSIs. Finally, after a land tribunal decision, Mr. Cameron was awarded a cool £555,000, which, with added interest and costs, will set the taxpayer back by close to £1 million.
In the light of the Glenlochay experience, it would clearly have been far cheaper to acquire the estate for the nation outright. Albeit that there have been changes purporting to plug the loopholes in forestry taxation and compensation, the fact remains that many other practices can command huge sums in compensation. Mr. Cameron was within the law—just—but it is an abuse of the system.
Mar Lodge provides a valid parallel. Regrettably, management agreements with a variety of private owners, geared to the supposed interests of the taxpayer, have failed to conserve the Caledonian forest's natural character and simply will not meet either the conservation requirements or the demands of the taxpayer, which cannot be open-ended.
Like many of my colleagues, I believe that the compulsory purchase of Mar Lodge on behalf of the nation is now called for and that the world property market, with its vagaries, is no way to protect Mar Lodge or our living treasures.
That is not a maverick view. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) will well recollect that Dr. Martin Holdgate, who was the late Tony Crosland's favourite adviser and is now the director general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, has written to the Secretary of State suggesting the purchase of Mar-Lodge for conservation purposes, and that it be run by SNH. As my hon. Friend the member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) knows, when Dr. Holdgate suggests that, it is not a maverick view.
970 I cannot discuss motives, although I personally would give the Minister, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) the benefit of the doubt that the original motive was not deceit, but what has happened since is deceit, because the position has been made far worse as a result of that infamous clause 11 being inserted at the last minute in the House of Lords.
I shall tell the Minister the story in potted form. There was a row over the flow country and a bad press conference. The present Secretary of State for Transport then thought that he could kill two birds with one stone—that he could appease the Scots at little cost and extend the domain of the Scottish Office. Therefore, there was an agreement with the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley). Then, after the House had given something totally different a Second Reading—and after we had spent many hours in Committee on a totally different proposition—at the 11 th hour and the 59th minute, clause 11 was inserted.
That clause might have been bombed out by the House of Commons Public Bill Office. It is extremely doubtful whether the Lords should have accepted it, because it fundamentally altered the nature of the Bill. It was sneaked into the Lords, and even Lord Patrick Gibson, who is only the ex-chairman of the National Trust, knew nothing about it. A cosy little circle in the Lords got together and, against the advice of Lord Cranbrook, who is the Government's own head of the English Nature Conservancy Council—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. Will the hon. Gentleman please bring his speech to a close?

§ Mr. Dalyell
Finally, the Government should reflect on this matter and, in the light of what happened this morning, with the resignation of Sir Frederick Holliday, should put the whole thing on ice and go back to the drawing board.