§ Lord Glentoranasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the announcement made by Michael Meacher, Minister for the Environment, that they will "examine how best we can combat illegal logging, including export and procurement practices", and "implement a progressive programme of work to improve current purchasing practice for timber and timber products" (HC Deb, 28 July 2000, col. 947W), what action has been taken to fulfil this undertaking. [HL1007]
§ Lord WhittyCentral government departments and their agencies have been instructed to actively seek to purchase their timber from sustainable and legal sources and to report their activities to Green Ministers.
An interdepartmental working group is monitoring progress made by departments. This group recently commissioned a scoping study to examine the scale of timber purchases across central government and will produce guidance on verifying claims made by supplies for the source of their timber products. The Government have promoted their timber procurement policy to the wider public sector at conferences and seminars.
At an international level, our focus has been on forest governance and corruption; these issues often impede the utilisation of forest resources and sustainable development. The UK was instrumental in organising a ministerial conference in Indonesia this year to address forest law enforcement and governance in East Asia. This produced the real prospect of bilateral agreements to secure more effective controls. A similar conference is planned to address the same issues in Africa next year.