HC Deb 05 May 1994 vol 242 cc832-3
9. Mr. Robathan

To ask the Minister of Agriculture,Fisheries and Food what progress she has made on reaching a conclusion on the future of woodlands owned by the Forestry Commission in England; and if she will make a statement.

Mr. Jack

The report of the Forestry Review Group was submitted to Ministers on 28 February. We are now considering the report carefully and will make an announcement in due course.

Mr. Robathan

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer. Current Forestry Commission policy takes due account of landscape protection, nature conservation and broad-leaved planting. Many of my constituents in Blaby are concerned that any future plans arising from decisions of the Forestry Review Group should take due account of those issues and especially of the so-called freedom to roam and of access to forests. Will my hon. Friend please reassure my constituents on those matters?

Mr. Jack

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning that matter on behalf of his constituents, who enjoy opportunities to roam freely, as he said, in the existing forest environment. We asked the Forestry Review Group to consider that specific issue and have received about 3,600 individual representations, all emphasising people's anxieties about this important matter. Ministers now considering that report will bear fully in mind the representations of my hon. Friend and others.

Mr. Patrick Thompson

Is my hon. Friend aware of representations that we are receiving from our constituents —and, in my case, people living in Norfolk—about access to Forestry Commission woodlands? Will he reassure my constituents and others who are genuinely worried about that matter?

Mr. Jack

I can certainly underline what I have just said in reply to the question put to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan)—that this has been one of the central issues that the Forestry Review Group has considered. In addition to the 3,600 individual representations, about 600 organisations have made representations, many of them emphasising their anxieties about the central issue to which my hon. Friend referred. I can say to him unequivocally that the importance of the point is lost neither on the Forestry Review Group nor on Ministers, who are considering it.

Dr. Strang

But surely the Minister understands that hundreds of thousands of people in this country enjoy walking and cycling—indeed, they enjoy doing all sorts of things in our state forests. Surely he also understands that when a state forest is privatised, public access is restricted or totally prohibited. Whether it is in relation to forestry, railways or local government services, is the Minister aware that the vast majority of the people of the country are fed up with privatisation, and that that is only one reason why so many of them will vote against the Conservative party today?

Mr. Jack

The hon. Gentleman's question shows that he definitely cannot see the woods for the trees. I shall not comment on what he and his hon. Friends may be doing in the woods, but I repeat that Ministers are considering the conclusions to be reached from the results of the work of the Forestry Review Group. He will know that, in cases where forest land has been sold, a safeguard to access already exists in the form of access agreements reached with local authorities before the sale of that land. Sadly, the opportunities have not been taken up as widely as they might have been. Whatever the results of the review may be—and those results have not yet been decided—those mechanisms exist to protect the important rights of access for the enjoyment of our citizenry.

I think that when members of the public reflect on the broad-based, full exercise that we are conducting in considering forestry arrangements, they will consider supporting us through the ballot box this afternoon.