HL Deb 16 November 1978 vol 396 cc818-40

3.39 p.m.

Lord STRABOLGI

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It is a short Bill with two quite distinct objectives, and I shall try not to detain your Lordships for long. The first, and very necessary, objective is to correct a deficiency in the powers of the Forestry Commissioners to provide grants or loans for forestry purposes. The second is to metricate imperial measures in the Forestry Act 1967, and to provide enabling powers to metricate those in other forestry legislation.

As regards the first of these objectives the Forestry Commissioners, since their establishment under the Forestry Act 1919, have had powers to make advances by way of grants or loans, or both, to persons in respect of the afforestation, including, of course, replanting, of land belonging to such persons. These powers were later subjected to the approval of the Treasury and subsequently consolidated in Section 4 of the Forestry Act 1967.

For many years, and certainly since before the Second World War, it had been generally assumed—although mistakenly, as it now transpires—that these financial powers were sufficiently widely drawn to include not only the planting or replanting of trees but also the management of the land for forestry purposes. Management in this context was held to include the planning stage of establishing a plantation, the preparatory work leading to planting or replanting, such as ploughing and fencing, and subsequent operations essential to the creation and maintenance of a satisfactory timber producing woodland.

As those of your Lordships who are foresters will know, these subsequent operations include protection of the plantations from fire, pests and diseases, the upkeep of fences and drains, fertilising and harvesting the timber, whether as thinnings or a final crop. With support from Governments of both persuasions and since 1951—subject, of course, to Treasury approval—the Commissioners have, over the years, introduced various schemes to encourage the rehabilitation of old woodlands and the planting of new areas.

Among the schemes introduced since the war and subsequently withdrawn were a scrub clearance grant and a thinning grant which was designed to help with the removal of unremunerative early thinnings in order to improve the crop. Both schemes, of course, provided help towards the cost of specific management operations.

Since 1948, however, the cornerstone of the grants structure has been the dedication scheme, under which woodland owners enter into long-term legal commitments in return for grants. Initially, there were two variations of the scheme: Basis 1 and Basis 2. These are no longer open to new applications, but there are still continuing commitments involving the payment of grants which are legally binding on the owners and the Commissioners.

Under Basis 1, owners receive 25 per cent. of their net approved annual expenditure, including expenditure on management, until the woodlands become self-supporting. Under Basis 2, owners receive a flat rate planting grant, and until 1958 they also received a maintenance grant for the first 15 years in the life of a plantation. In 1958, the maintenance grant was replaced by an annual management grant which has no specific time limit. Basis 2 remained more or less unchanged until 1972, when it was closed to new applications, in common with all the Commissioners' existing grant schemes. However, the bulk of grant-aided woodlands are still managed under the Basis 2 scheme. These cover an area of some 490,000 hectares and last year attracted management grants totalling about £720,000.

As your Lordships will know, Basis 3 of the dedication scheme was introduced in 1974. Initially financial assistance from the Commissioners under Basis 3 was limited to a planting grant, but the Government decided to authorise the introduction of an annual management grant payable from 1st October, 1977. At the same time, they introduced an improved small woods scheme and significantly raised the general level of grants.

I have tried to deal briefly with the history of these grant schemes to illustrate their scope to your Lordships and to show how, in good faith, and with the backing of successive Governments, the Commissioners have been exercising their powers, as they understood them, in the important task of helping to create a healthy forest industry in the private as well as in the public sector.

In connection with another matter, the Commissioners recently sought legal advice regarding the precise extent of their powers to give grants and loans under Section 4 of the 1967 Act. The best legal advice available was obtained, and this was to the effect that those powers do not, as had been assumed, cover assistance towards the management of a forest as distinct from its planting or replanting. Grants and loans provided by the Commissioners for management purposes both before and after the passing of the Forestry Act 1967 and including, of course, the new Basis 3 management grant introduced as recently as October last year, have thus lacked statutory authority.

In the meantime, grants continue to be paid, with Treasury agreement, and existing expenditure rests on the temporary authority of the Appropriation Act. But Clause 1 of the Bill seeks to redress this state of affairs by restating the Commissioners' powers to make grants and loans to include those made for management purposes. Clause 1 also clarifies the position with regard to the Commissioners' powers to assist lessees, in addition to the owners of land.

This is not immediately clear from the present wording of Section 4 of the 1967 Act, although in practice the Commissioners have, with the benefit of legal advice, been able in England and Wales to grant aid lessees directly, and in Scotland by appropriate legal arrangements. What this clause does, in effect, is to confirm the power already possessed by the Commissioners to aid lessees direct in England and Wales and it brings their powers in Scotland on to a similar footing, thus simplifying the administrative procedures for aiding lessees of land in Scotland.

Clause 2 provides for the substitution of metric for imperial units of measurement in the Forestry Act 1967 and for powers to enable the Forestry Commissioners, by regulations, to amend other existing forestry legislation.

It is important to bear in mind, I suggest, that the Forestry Commission went metric in 1971 and that the practice of using metric measurements is now widely established in the forestry industry and in the timber trade. The changes to the Forestry Act 1967 are essentially technical in nature and have been fully accepted by the Home Grown Timber Advisory Committee—representing, of course, all sectors of the forestry industry, including the home timber trade—and individually by organisations representing woodland owners, the timber trade and other relevant interests.

All but one of the changes affect the felling licensing provisions in Section 9 of the Act. The felling licensing procedures are currently conducted in imperial terms because the Act is in that form, but this is no longer consistent with general usage. The metric measurements being substituted for the existing imperial measurements correspond as closely as possible to those contained in the Forestry Act 1967, given the need to accord with correct mensuration conventions in forestry.

What the amendments will be doing will be to change the system of measurement, not the end result. In no case will the size or volume of trees subject to felling licences be altered, except by more than a very marginal extent. And, as I mentioned earlier, the changes proposed have been fully discussed with and accepted by the appropriate representative organisations for the forestry industry and for the home timber trade.

The other forestry legislation referred to in Clause 2(2) to (5) is concerned with the New Forest and the Forest of Dean, both of which, of course, as your Lord-ships know, are administered by the Forestry Commissioners. The desired amendments were not included in the Bill itself for reasons of hybridity and therefore it is intended that the Commissioners shall be given power to make regulations to achieve the amendments. The aim will be to substitute the nearest metric equivalents for the present imperial measurements, subject to minor rounding off and to consultation with the interests concerned. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(Lord Strabolgi.)

3.51 p.m.

Lord SANDYS

My Lords, before opening my remarks I should declare an interest as a beneficiary because I operate a small dedication scheme in Worcestershire and have done so for the past fourteen years. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for giving me advance information on this Bill because, of course, when we listened to the gracious Speech it was not apparent that we were going to have so rapidly in front of your Lordships' House the Forestry Bill which has been explained to us this afternoon. I should further like to thank the noble Lord for forwarding notes on the clauses to those concerned with this Bill, which has been most helpful. The Bill covers a relatively small part of the 1967 Forestry Act. We must remember, of course, that the 1967 Act was a consolidation Act and when it came before your Lordships in that year there were almost no amendments, other than technical ones, to the substance.

Bringing this Bill before your Lordships gives us the opportunity to table a number of Amendments and it is a significant time in the life of the establishment of the Forestry Commission. Your Lord ships will recollect that it was many years ago, in 1916, that the Acland Committee was set up under the Committee of Reconstruction to look into the position of forestry in this country, and the words which ring down the years from page 62 of the Acland Report bear quoting again. They are these: There must be a central authority steadily working out a consistent and uniform policy, not representing any one part of the United Kingdom more than another but having the duty of seeing a great national task is developed in whatever parts of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland the conditions are found to be suitable". The efforts of the Acland Committee led to the establishment of the Forestry Commission, as the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has told us, in 1919 and so next year will be the 60th anniversary of that important body. So it gives us an opportunity to look at the activities of the Forestry Commission and also the legislative structure under which the Forestry Commission works. We are grateful to the Government for finding the defect which they have remedied in Clause 1 of the Bill, and, further, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for advising the House that a holding operation is in hand so that grants and other activities will in no way be prejudiced by the discovery of the Law Officers.

I wish to refer your Lordships briefly to Clause 2 because metrication is a matter which has concerned successive British Governments from as long ago as the year 1802 when, at the Treaty of Amiens, Monsieur Talleyrand proposed that Britain should adopt the metric system. Your Lordships will be aware that at that stage the Government declined the offer. Met-trication has so largely entered into our lives that it would be surprising now if there were a move to resist this clause in the Bill. However, at various levels at which one has discussed this matter with others it is quite apparent that there is a generation gap. While the younger generation are perfectly conversant with the calculator and conversion table and have been operating them for a number of years, it is also true that some of their older partners in the business are rather more reluctant to do so. So it is current practice in many forestry firms to operate a double system with conversion between the two for the advantage of those who are not very happy about metric measure. I am glad to see that no fixed date is appended to this, which no doubt will be brought in by order at a suitable time. Nevertheless, your Lordships will be aware that since February 1971 this has been the practice of the Forestry Commission, and that the Government wish to proceed now with the much wider application I think may be given a cautious welcome.

I do not wish to extend my remarks further, other than to say to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, that we shall be addressing ourselves to a number of Amendments and in particular we wish to consider, among other matters, the question of Section 3(2) of the Forestry Act 1967. Under that section the Commissioners may undertake the management or supervision, on any such terms as they think fit and any such terms to be agreed on, of any woods or forest. We have in mind the terms under which they do so and the question nowadays of the function of the Forestry Commission so far as its particular policy is concerned.

Since 1958 the Forestry Commission has abandoned the original intention of the strategic forestry reserve and has concentrated a little more readily on the environmental aspect of plantings in the United Kingdom. I suggest that it may be beneficial at a later stage to table a number of probing Amendments to examine the state of the law under Section 3 of the Forestry Act, and we may be moving an Amendment in that direction because of one particular factor. It is this. Under current practice in the forests operated by the Forestry Commission in the United Kingdom, there is a rate of planting of softwood of approximately 97 per cent. with approximately 3 per cent. of hardwoods. This is due to very strong pressure which is no doubt exerted by the Treasury on the Forestry Commission to make sure that it operates economically, and one cannot disagree with that. Nevertheless, there are strong environmental factors at work here, and were it possible to write in some statutory provision for greater regard to be paid to the Countryside Act so far as the management of the forests is concerned, to the environmental benefit, I think it would be an interesting point and would be for the public benefit. I think it has been said by one Frenchman, Voltaire, that "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien". Though one would not disagree at times with that very eminent Frenchman, it should always be our aim to ensure that the best is obtained for forestry.

4 p.m.

Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE

My Lords, I would agree that we do want the best in forestry; I very much agree with the noble Lord. However, I think that this Bill is worthy but very inadequate. I am very surprised, in view of the fact that the Government have been looking for worthy but non-controversial Bills, that they have not extended the scope of it considerably. We are getting forestry on the cheap in this country and it has been one of the most successful public ventures ever launched. Here, I must declare an interest as I, too, have received some grants for small woodlands; I have no interest in the Forestry Commission, though small connections.

The total forestry vote last year, 1977, was £30 million and they did not take up £3 million, so that we had a net cost to the Exchequer of £27 million to promote the welfare of something in the region of 4½ million acres of forest in this country, which are almost equally divided between private and public forest. In fact, the share of grants which went to the private sector was in the region of £1½ million; that was about the figure that went in grants-in-aid to the private sector, with over 2 million acres, which I understand, working it out quickly as one of the younger generation, is something under 1 million hectares. These grants to the private sector are a very large incentive to afforest to rich men who have a tax problem. It is a splendid thing, as I have said before, to encourage rich men to put their money into trees instead of spending it on yachts or overdressed or underdressed young women; it is an excellent motivation for Government policy. But the fiscal incentive does not really apply to a great many people, and this is where I think the Government are going wrong.

The Commission has long been in favour of integration with farming, and there has not been nearly enough of it. In fact there has been a great amount of friction, particularly with private forestry in certain areas of south-west Scotland. It has been thought that land has been bought and planted without regard to any form of integration and without regard to the long-term interests of the area and its ecology. I think everyone is very much aware of this. However, it is enormously difficult for a sheep farmer or a highland farmer to put up the capital to plant 100 acres of trees, which in most cases such a farmer could do with great profit to the shelter of his stock and indeed to the shelter of the grass around. To do that requires a great deal of capital, or he will have to wait a very long time.

My noble friend Lord Tanlaw has promulgated a scheme, which he has put up to the Forestry Commission and published in various agricultural papers, whereby a hill farmer could borrow over 25 years up to half the value of the marketable crop, which appears to be a fairly safe borrow. It would be a very good use for public money to have a scheme such as this to encourage the planting of trees in co-operation with agriculture. With the money we are spending, the country is apparently getting an overall return of more than 3 per cent. over the years. We are not getting the full value because the private sector—and by that I mean the practical private sector engaged in agriculture—cannot, in spite of the grants, afford to put up the capital over such a long term. I am sure the Government should look at this. I know that we cannot move an Amendment of this sort in this House, but I hope it is not too late for the Government to look at it.

I should like to spend a little time on the question of the Forestry Commission carrying out its remit to provide amenity. Again, we spend very little money on this. The total grant taken up from the Government, and it is included in the £27 million, was £2.7 million last year. The nearest calculation that can be made is that 24 million people in Britain visited and enjoyed in one way or another the forests of Britain last year, which means that they are getting the amenity for little over £1 a head. I am sure this is excellent value and I think it should be carried a great deal further; it would be a very good use for public money. We are spending a lot of money now on the provision of temporary jobs to provide employment for people leaving school. I am sure that for the Forestry Commission to increase its amenity work would be worth every penny we put into it. I think the Government should look very closely at that.

We are doing some marvellous things, opening roads and walks. One thing in particular that struck me as very interesting and very humane was the opening of five or six smooth paths through the forests for the benefit of disabled people. For a body which is doing as well as this for the citizens, both commercially and in the provision of amenity, I do think we are not putting up enough money. It would be better spent than some of the money which has gone to people who have fallen asleep on their jobs. A forest pathway would be a better use of Government money, or anybody's money than that. I should also like to see the provision of amenity with a great deal more money for the planting of deciduous trees, but I understand that the noble Lord, who knows much more about it, is going to take up that particular point.

There is one other thing I should like to see the Forestry Commission involved in. I have been reading a Civic Trust book on urban wasteland, and it is quite extraordinary. The figure it gives is that in Britain there are a quarter of a million acres of urban wasteland. I know a lot of this is temporary and will be used for housing and—perhaps better—for allotments, but there must be large areas which could very profitably be used for afforestation to take some of the edge off the lurid and appalling wastes of ground that we have in our urban areas. To do this, I think the Forestry Commission might have the remit not only to give grants but actually to look after the trees. So, while commending the Bill in a small way, I hope the Government might look at extending it and using their imagination to promote forestry for the good of the country a great deal further than in this Bill.

Lord RITCHIE-CALDER

My Lords, the noble Lord said that 24 million people enjoyed the forest amenities. Did he mean that or did he mean 2 million? His figure does not tally with the £1 a head.

Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE

My Lords, £27 million was the net figure of the grant to the Foresty Commission. If you take 24 million people, it works out at a little more than £1 a head.

4.9 p.m.

Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD

My Lords, I hope the Government are feeling encouraged by the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, is not getting any severe criticism from this side of the House. He will not get it from me either. I am prepared to add my very few words of welcome to this Bill, for one or two reasons which have already been mentioned and I shall just repeat them very rapidly. It does give opportunities for private foresters to improve their planting and their work in forestry and it does give grant aid to both landlord and tenant. I am sure that is the right principle and I do not think anybody would be opposed to that.

Obviously, it is necessary, with the change to the metric system throughout the country, that forestry should also make this change and that we should deal in the metric system. I cannot say that I am very good at it, but no doubt one can learn even at my great age! Therefore, I shall do my best to understand and to deal with the metric system in forestry. I am also very glad that, in drawing up this small Bill, the Government have contacted the various forestry societies, discussed the matter with them and received their approval. I am sure that that is also very valuable because there are a great many interests involved and it is important that they should all be consulted and that the Government should take their advice.

Living as I do in the middle of a large forest area, there is only one plea that I should like to make, namely—that before any more marginal and hill land is taken away from agriculture, there should be a careful assessment made as to what is the best use for that land; whether it should be used for the rearing of cattle and sheep, which we can all eat—and we are urged by Her Majesty's Government and everyone else to increase our production off the land—or for trees which, although of great importance, cannot be eaten. Therefore, I believe that there is something to be said for considering, in certain areas anyway—and I would certainly put forward very strongly the area in which I live—that one should not always think that marginal and hill land is best used for trees. If we are to grow more food from our own resources, a great deal of the hill land and marginal land in many parts of Scotland, and, I imagine, in Wales and in the North of England also, can still produce a great deal of food for the general population. My plea to the Minister and the Forestry Commission is that before they embark upon very large developments of more forestry, so eliminating agriculture, this matter should be considered.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie that we can receive a tremendous amount of assistance in hill areas by planting shelter belts and small amounts of trees in connection with agricultural production and I would strongly recommend that. I have tried I to do it myself in a humble way and it has undoubtedly been of great assistance. I That is a matter which the Forestry Commission and the Ministry of Agriculture should consider. It is good advice and I believe that it would be well supported by farmers. In fact, I think that co-operation between forestry and agriculture is something which has been long in coming but is now very much talked about and is being carried out. However, it has taken too long and there has been too much damage done to agriculture by widespread and indiscriminate planting rather than combining agriculture and forestry.

I would also support the plea which has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, and many others, for environmental consideration by the Forestry Commission. It is quite true that in recent years this has been very much considered, and I should like to pay a tribute to one of the chairmen of the Forestry Commission, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, who has particularly studied this matter and who made the Forestry Commission take a number of actions to improve the environmental I work of the Commission. That is most important. I also agree that it is an excellent thing when the general public can, by wandering through them, finding picnic centres and so on, take advantage of the Commission lands and the forests which have been planted. All that is excellent and I am sure that it should be continued and enlarged.

Therefore, with a few words of warning that I do not want to see more trees planted, certainly in the Border areas where there are thousands and thousands of acres of trees, I believe that the Bill must be supported. In my view it, is a good Bill.

4.15 p.m.

Lord GLENKINGLAS

My Lords, I think that probably I also should declare an interest, although it is not really a very direct one, because I do not own any land or indeed a single tree. However, I have taken a great deal of care to give the family estates to my children and I am still extremely interested in their development both for farming and for forestry. Therefore the interest is there, in a sense, and I suppose that if I live long enough my children may be able to afford to give me an occasional dram when they cut down the trees, but that will be a long time hence.

I have also spent a great deal of my life trying to improve the feeling in agriculture about forestry and the feeling among foresters about agriculture. It was a battle of considerable ferocity which continues right up to this day, but I am glad to say with a great deal more understanding on both sides than when I first joined in that battle with my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel, who was Minister of State for Scotland at that time nearly half a century ago, which is perhaps exaggerating a little.

I agree profoundly with what my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood has said about taking the best land for growing trees; it should be used intelligently for the balance between farming and forestry. I spent almost all my life until three or four years ago fighting what has in the end turned out to be rather a losing battle to keep more sheep and cattle on a hill, the rainfall on which is measured in feet—about 12½ feet a year. Those are not my figures but those of the hydro-electric board which happens to have three hydroelectric schemes on the same farm. It is perfectly clear that that particular piece of land was designed by God very much more for the growing of trees than for the growing of sheep. The wool Board refused to give me washed wool prices although certainly the wool was much better washed on my hill than in most other areas. On the other hand, we have on the lower slopes, the tallest tree in Britain which is not altogether surprising considering the mildness of the climate and the considerable "precipitation"—which is what I think some people call it—which descends on it each year. Therefore, I have in the past few years, with the help of other people, been spending more time and more of their money on planting trees than I had hoped to do originally because I had hoped that the sheep would grow mackintosh coats, which they did not!

However, leaving that matter, I wish to take the opportunity to make one or two comments which have already been touched upon by some of the speakers. First, I should like to urge that more is done by both private individuals and the Forestry Commission to produce a bigger quantity of broad-leaved trees to mix with our forestry plantations. About three weeks ago I had the good fortune to be motoring through Jedburgh and over Carter Bar at the time of probably the peak of the autumn colours. I very nearly caused an accident because it was so staggeringly beautiful coming out of Jedburgh and the hill which many of your Lordships will know on the left-hand side if one is travelling South was such an incredible mixture of yellows, reds and greens that it was most striking. Obviously one cannot do it everywhere, but in almost all the areas where the large coniferous forests can be grown—and they are obviously the most profitable to go grow—one can plant patches of what I should like to call old-fashioned broad-leaved trees which give the maximum amount of colour and variation in both the spring and autumn. I know that several people, including a noble Lord who is not present today—have been experimenting with new types of broad-leaved trees such as the nothofagus and on the West Coast we are now growing, perhaps surprisingly, rather a lot of eucalyptus trees. However, although they give variety they will not in any way give the colour and the change of scenery which the oaks, beeches, sycamores, birches and trees of that sort can provide.

As your Lordships know only too well, we have lost an enormous amount of beauty in our country through elm disease. I think that it is our duty, both as private people and as Forestry Commissioners, to try to replace as much as possible in our days so that our grandchildren—because they will be the first people to benefit—will reap the benefit in their time. I mention this only because it is connected rather directly with the way in which grants are offered for planting of broad-leafed trees. There is no one—not even the youngest person in your Lordships' House—who would have the faintest hope of getting any recognisable amount of money at all out of planting broad-leafed trees. If we want people to do this for the future, then as a country we must pay them rather more than we are offering them today; I know that we offer more for conifers.

My second point, which is not altogether unconnected with that, is that in Scotland without any doubt the most beautiful of the conifers is the Scots pine. Under a rather curious system—it is certainly a sign of some good sense—the Forestry Commission has made extra grants for the planting of Scots pines, but only in certain rather curiously selected areas which are believed to be areas where some elements of the old Caledonian Forest once existed. I am not an arboricultural historian, but I am prepared to bet that the Caledonian Forest extended much more widely than the areas for which the Commission is prepared to give this extra money.

There are two good reasons for doing it and for making more grants for this purpose. As I say, the first is that the amenity value is very great—they are extremely beautiful trees. The second—and this is purely my experience because I am glad to say we have a fair number of large, old Scots pines—is that however serious the gales seem to be round about, these splendid trees remain firmly anchored where they are. The spruces and the larches blow down, but the Scots pines remain splendidly and sturdily there. Therefore, I suspect that it would be good policy if, in its thinking about grants, the Commission was to pay some attention to this, to see whether my experience is genuine, and make grants for planting Scots pines round other plantations in suitable are as—not just in the old Caledonian Forest area—in order to create not only the extra amenity but also the extra protection against wind.

Lastly—and I do not want to make a long speech—I think that all one can say about metrication if one is in my age group is to thank the Almighty that someone has invented very small pocket calculators; so that not only can one have a calculator at home when there are forms to fill in but one can put a calculator into a briefcase or, if one is pushed, into a pocket so that if one has to fill in forms in other places, one has a reasonable chance of getting the answer right, provided that the battery is not running down.

4.26 p.m.

Lord TAYLOR of GRYFE

My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships' House for my name not appearing on the list of speakers, but I did advise Ministers that I proposed to speak in this debate. I must also declare an interest because for some years I was Chairman of the Forestry Commission—one of the QUANGOS, I suppose. I am now chairman of a private forestry group. I am delighted that this rather simple Bill gives noble Lords the opportunity to discuss some of the broader issues of forestry policy. I hope that when the Amendments are duly submitted they will extend the area of interest in forestry and that we may have an extended debate. Inevitably when forestry is discussed there are, of course, the usual prejudices and complaints. I think that we all deplore the passing of the handsome hardwoods, particularly those that suffered from Dutch elm disease. But if we look at forestry in this country we see that our forests are now substantially manmade, and that 97 per cent. of total forestry planting is in Scotland.

The land on which the forests are planted tends to be of a nature that will support softwoods more readily than hardwoods. This does not mean, of course, that all foresters—both private and State—are unmindful of their amenity responsibilities. I think it was true that when the Forestry Commission was set up it planted conifers furiously in all parts of the country without a great deal of concern for the amenity in its time. Nowadays some of these forests are maturing and becoming more obvious. But if we look at more recent plantings, in both State and private forestry, we see that there is a very deep concern for the impact of tree planting on the appearance of the countryside. I think that as the forests mature, so also will these endeavours be reflected.

It is true that the forestry industry has been concerned about encouraging hard-wood planting. Of course, the trouble is that if you start planting hardwoods there is no return for a century, whereas you get an immediate thinning income from planting softwoods. However, there is an increased planting grant to encourage people who are prepared to plant hard-woods. Of course, people say that forestry is a way of attracting rich men, who are in a high tax bracket, to plant trees; and why not? When we consider the incentives that are offered to other industries to keep them alive one way or another, it is a good thing if we can encourage people to take a 3 per cent. annual return instead of playing the market or investing in gilts, if it will be of long-term advantage to the nation. This is a very critical issue. It has been said—and I shall not go over the whole forestry argument again—that we spend more than £2 billion per annum on importing timber and timber products. Sometimes when we are pinning medals on people for export performance, we might also pin a few on those who are saving on imports. To that extent forestry has a major contribution to make.

Of course, it is sensible that we should make good use of our land resource. In this country it is very limited. Local authorities have the responsibility for land resource planning agreements in which forestry, agricultural and amenity interests should play their part in order to ensure that we take full advantage of good land use planning, including integration of agriculture and forestry. The old idea that agriculture and forestry are antagonistic claimants for land cannot be supported in so far as many agricultural areas have been improved by shelter belt planting and by integration of woodlands on the land.

However, I hope that when Ministers are considering and when we are debating this further, we shall give consideration to the fact that there are vast areas of land in Scotland in particular, but also in other parts of the country, that are now lying unproductive. There is a case to be made for further investment in woodlands. In 1976 planting in Scotland fell by one-third as against the amount in 1973–74. In the same year planting fell by 57 per cent. in the United Kingdom, in a period when we require more timber and require to make our land more productive and to save imports. I do not have the latest figures of acquisition; I can only deduce them from the activities of my company, but I am sure that land acquisition for forestry in this country is declining rapidly instead of growing. If your acquisition programme is declining your land bank falls and your ultimate planting programme is diminished. I am quite sure that today we are not meeting the objectives of forestry development and planting that were set for the Forestry Commission and for private industry some five or 10 years ago. This is very serious and I hope that this situation will be looked at. We must get more land on the market. We must make it productive. I hope that this matter will be considered.

I must say, too, that in the private sector we are frequently frustrated by the delays. There are now so many interests to be consulted one way and another in this and in other industries in the clearance for dedication. There is a bureaucratic difficulty that ought to be given attention. I strongly support the Bill now before your Lordships' House, and I hope that it will give rise to further encouragement of the development of this industry.

4.31 p.m.

Lord STRABOLGI

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords and to my noble friend for the welcome that they have given to this Bill. The debate has ranged far more widely than the somewhat narrow confines of the Bill, but of course this is an important subject and I am glad that your Lordships have raised these various matters, which I think has brought forth a most interesting debate. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, speaking for the Opposition, for what he said, and also for giving me notice of Amendments that he will be raising at a later stage.

The noble Lord spoke about the role of the Forestry Commission. As regards its structure and its dual role as the forestry authority and manager of the State forestry enterprise, I know that this point has been raised from time to time. While I do not doubt that these views are sincerely held there is much to be said for Ministers being advised by those who have first-hand knowledge of the industry in the widest sense, including research, which is such an important feature of both public and private forestry. I am sure that the influence and impartiality of the Commission as forestry authority tends to be underrated because the advice it offers is necessarily confidential. But I suggest that this is a matter we can return to at a later stage.

The noble Lord, Lord Sandys, also spoke about metrication. I agree with him about some of the difficulties involved with this. It is, in a way, a generation problem. I have much sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Glenkinglas, said in this connection. I think we all increasingly need our pocket calculators. The noble Lord, Lord Sandys, pointed out that Talleyrand, during the Treaty of Amiens, recommended metrication to the British Government, but that nothing was done. In other words, I think they must have followed another of Talleyrand's dicta, which is n'ayez pas trop de zèle (do not have too much zeal), because, as the noble Lord rightly said, it is only in the last decade that we have really begun to change over to metrication, long after our European partners. The noble Lord asked when the Act would come into force. I think that this will be in two months from the date it is passed; thus the metrication of the provisions of Section 9 of the Forestry Act 1967 will apply from that date.

I am grateful too to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, for what he said. I was interested in what he told us about the integration of forestry and farming, and about the potential for greater integration between these two sectors. The Government fully accept the desirability of achieving the most effective inter-relationship between these two major users of rural land, and would be willing to give consideration to any proposals to promote schemes to this end, whether in the private or in the public sector. There have been practical limitations in the past both of finance and of suitable sites which have made progress difficult.

As many noble Lords will be aware, however, it is planned to set up a working group under the chairmanship of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland which will include private sector interest groups and the Forestry Commission to explore means of encouraging planting by owner-occupier farmers and to examine the economics of small-scale planting, with particular reference to the benefits woodlands might provide for agriculture.

The noble Lord also mentioned the state of the private sector. Of course the rate of planting by the private sector over the past two decades has been far from constant, reaching a peak in the early 1970s to be followed by a short, sharp fall over the last three or four years. While there were many reasons for this decrease in planting, particularly the world economic recession and a loss of confidence in investment generally, private woodland owners felt that the tax and grant incentives were not enough to encourage investment in forestry. Following the interdepartmental review of forestry taxation and grants set up by my right honourable friends, the Government an anounced last year substantial increases in grants as well as some adjustments to the taxation treatment of woodlands.

I concede that it is too early to say with complete certainty whether these measures will have the desired effect of restoring the confidence of private owners, but there are already encouraging signs in this direction and the Government are watching this carefully and sympathetically. The Forestry Commission is aware of the suggestions put forward by the noble Lord regarding special assistance for owner occupiers who do not enjoy fiscal benefits to the full, and I am sure it will be bearing these suggestions in mind in the context of the future reviews of grants.

The noble Lord, Lord Mackie, mentioned the question of the environment. One of the important aims of the Government's present forestry policy is to harmonise forestry to the best possible advantage with the environment. This applies not only to the operation of the Forestry Commission but private wood-land owners' proposals for grant aid are also judged against this criterion. So far as the Commission is concerned it has for many years taken great care to achieve the best possible landscaping effect in its planting following the advice of its landscape consultants and its own landscape architects. The Commission accepts that this entails some reduction in the maximum financial return.

One must include in this the conservation measures followed by the Commission and the wide-ranging recreational facilities it has built up over the years, many of which, such as forest walks and picnic sites—mentioned by the noble Lord and also by the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandys—cannot be expected to give a commercial return. As a measure of the popularity of the Commission's forests with the public, noble Lords may be interested to know that it has been estimated that there were some 24 million visits paid to the Commission's land in 1977.

I was grateful too for what the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot, said and the welcome she gave to the Bill. Referring to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Glenkinglas, I congratulate him on having the tallest tree in Britain. Several noble Lords, and the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot, spoke about the clearance of land for forestry. Noble Lords will know that for many years informal consultative procedures have been followed by the Forestry Commission in respect of its own forestry plans. These procedures were extended in 1974 to proposals put forward by private woodland owners under the Commission's grant schemes, under which some 97 per cent. of private planting is carried out. In effect, grants are paid in respect of such planting only if it takes account of legitimate land use and amenity considerations, which I am sure noble Lords will agree is only right and proper.

The noble Lord, Lord Glenkinglas, spoke about the Forestry Commission's broadleaved policy and said there should be more encouragement for planting of that kind. The Forestry Commission is sometimes criticised for not planting more of these broadleaved hardwood trees. It is true that broadleaves form only about 7 per cent. of the Commission's total area of plantations, but this is a reflection of the emphasis placed on the Commission's objectives by successive Governments against the background that some 96 per cent. of timber used in Britain is in the form of softwoods.

Moreover, virtually all the land the Commission is able to acquire for planting is too acid or exposed to grow broadleaves successfully for timber production. Nevertheless, the Commission recognises the importance of maintaining the wood-land character. It has over 50,000 hectares, or 125,000 acres, of broadleaves and careful attention is paid to amenity not only by planting or replanting broad leaves in suitable sites but also, in certain cases, by lengthening the life span of crops and retaining single trees, clumps or larger areas during felling operations.

My noble friend Lord Taylor of Gryfe spoke about imports and referred to our heavy dependence on imported wood and wood products and the desirability of reducing this by a greater expansion of forestry in this country. Certainly any increase in the production of British timber will have a corresponding effect on the level of imports, and higher production from the present forest estate over the next two decades should, despite an expected increase in demand, reduce our dependence on imported wood from the present 92 per cent. to about 86 per cent. This import-saving role of British forestry has understandably been advanced—and was advanced again by my noble friend today—as justification for a continuing and increased expansion of afforestation.

The extent to which this would be feasible, however, will depend on a number of factors, not least of which will be the amount of suitable land which will come on the market and can be released from agriculture without undue detriment to food production. The review recently initiated by the Forestry Commissioners on the wood production outlook in Britain, which they have circulated as a consultative document, will serve as an important starting point for further consideration of this matter.

I hope I have answered most of the points raised by your Lordships. I am grateful for the various matters that have been raised; I know that careful attention will be paid to them in the Department and by the Forestry Commission, and I look forward to the next stage of the Bill. My Lords, I beg to move that it be now read a second time.

On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.