Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2025

Earl of Leicester Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on bringing this extremely important matter to your Lordships’ attention, and I support his Motion. I declare my interest as a member of the GWCT, the BASC and the Countryside Alliance.

As my noble friend has alluded to, 2025 has seen almost 48,000 hectares of the UK burned by wildfires. That is seven times the average area burned between 2006 and 2024, and more than twice the area burned in 2022. This represents the new fire norm, whereby our changing climate is driving increasingly frequent periods of fire-supportive weather. While the majority of this hectarage was in semi-natural habitats, I want to highlight the risk that wildfire is posing at the rural-urban interface.

Development of the rural-urban interface is putting more assets and people at risk, either directly through loss of life and property, or indirectly via impacts on health and vital infrastructure. The Government are now talking about the possibility of housing developments being built on grey-belt land, which is bound to further exacerbate the problems.

The Wennington wildfire in July 2022 destroyed more than 18 houses and their residents’ possessions, as well as 12 stables, five cars and six garages. Fortunately, there was no loss of life. Such risks are not limited to London. The Ordnance Survey has estimated that over 1.8 million homes sit within the first 100 metres of urban-rural edges. As the agency states, these transition areas

“are where fuel and ignition sources, and the potential for high human and economic impact converge”.

The need to create and manage fuel breaks applies as much at the rural-urban interface as it does on our peatlands. The difference is that, on our peatlands, there are expert land managers and gamekeepers whose knowledge is vital to both preventing and fighting wildfires.

The peatlands of the Peak District and the Staffordshire Moorlands—where I live— are close to the urban conurbations of Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester and Sheffield, where experience already proves that wildfires can threaten homes and affect the health of local populations. The Saddleworth Moor wildfire of 2018, which was close to the Greater Manchester conurbation, resulted in 50 homes and 150 people being evacuated; and 4.5 million people up 80 kilometres away were exposed to very high concentrations of ppm 2.5 for longer than the World Health Organization’s 24-hour guideline, causing an estimated £21 million in extra health costs.

While the debate over how we protect our peatlands becomes mired in the broader ideological debate over grouse shooting—I no longer shoot, so do not have an interest in that—the very real threat of wildfire to these precious ecosystems, and to the health and infrastructure of our communities and the role of prescribed burning in addressing these risks, is being relegated to a mere sideshow. If the Government are not prepared to accept the practical experience of land managers—the experts—then surely they should take note of the National Fire Chiefs Council’s response to the consultation on these regulatory changes. This expressed concern that policy decisions are not aligned with the need to manage wildfire risk and that increasing the restrictions on a land manager’s ability to use prescribed burning for wildfire prevention would have implications for the ability of the fire and rescue services to respond to a wildfire, thereby increasing the danger to firefighters and the public. I sincerely hope that the licensing process is able to facilitate this need.

[The Earl of Leicester (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Caithness for securing this regret Motion debate on heather and grass burning restrictions as laid out in the Government’s statutory instrument; I support it wholeheartedly. Like the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, I declare my interests: my membership of GWCT, BASC and Countryside Alliance. I also declare an interest relevant to today’s debate: I own and my team manage, under licence from Natural England as a Section 35 approved body, the Holkham National Nature Reserve in North Norfolk. It is the largest and arguably the most important NNR in the country. Indeed, in the years following our resumption of management of the NNR from Natural England, I received three letters from senior Natural England executives congratulating us on the excellent management of the reserve, and in particular on our interventions and the resulting outcomes. We have a team of land managers very experienced in nature conservation, forestry and nature-friendly farming, so although we do not have a current need to burn heather and grass in Norfolk, we are aware of its benefits.

I too have spent a good deal of time in the uplands, in the north of England and Scotland, speaking to practitioners of these practices, and I am well versed in the multifarious benefits preventive burning provides in protecting against wildfires, and the biodiversity benefits it provides. I am incredibly disappointed by the content of the Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2025. In fact, by the time I finished reading them my blood was boiling, such was the litany of at best contentious assertions.

For a start, I am stunned that no government impact assessment was carried out, as

“no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen”.

That is a very bold assertion. I hope to demonstrate—as will other noble Lords—how wrong that is, and that the whole premise of this SI is deeply flawed and has already been found to be incorrect following the damage inflicted by two huge wildfires in the uplands this summer. The impact on forestry and biodiversity, and in terms of deep peat carbon loss, has been immeasurable. For the moment—until we are subject to even greater and more dangerous fires—the impact on communities, who, mercifully, were not hit with loss of property or life, has been less. The document also states that the purpose of the SI is to protect 676,628 hectares of peatland habitat by preventing further damage from burning—an increase of 246,000 hectares, as prescribed by the 2020 regulations of the same name.

This “protection” is a complete misnomer, because these restrictions will not protect these nature-rich habitats. Some 7,000 land managers have already contributed to the rewetting of the moorland in their management by blocking up drains as required by Natural England. That work did not stop the wildfires.

The claim that preventive burning dries up the moors is specious and not based on good science. Professor Andreas Heinemeyer of the Stockholm Environment Institute at York University is the most knowledgeable academic in the sphere of moorland management. His research into grouse-moor cool-burning’s impact on ecosystem services and aspects around alternative mowing, or no management at all, as advocated by this SI, has been broadly ignored. Has the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Katz, ever visited the uplands in February and March to witness how this preventive cool-burning takes place?

--- Later in debate ---

Several noble Lords raised issues around the scientific evidence that these regulations are based on or that has been taken into account. In particular, the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, mentioned the evidence of Andreas Heinemeyer. I reassure the noble Earl that his research was included in Natural England’s recently published evidence review, which I referred to earlier—NEER155. Although there has been much debate in this area, the strength of the collective evidence shows that burning contributes to peatland degradation by negatively impacting its hydrology and species balance. This compromises its ability to deliver the multiple environmental benefits that it can provide when in a healthy, functioning state.

[The Earl of Leicester (Con)]

Professor Heinemeyer’s research shows that there is actually a higher water table where controlled burning takes place, which is contrary to what the Minister just said.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I appreciate that intervention and may address some of that in my answers. I believe that this also relates to the Mars bar test, which was a new phenomenon to me, but we will come to that.

The noble Earls, Lord Caithness and Lord Lytton, talked about the timing of this SI. It is worth saying that the legislation has been laid to come into force in time for the 2025-26 burn season, to ensure a greater level of protection for England’s valuable peatlands at the earliest opportunity. To allow sufficient time for comprehensive public consultation and a comprehensive analysis of responses, it has not been possible to lay the SI sooner.

This leads on to the consultation itself, which many noble Lords, including the noble Earls, Lord Caithness and Lord Shrewsbury, raised. I want to be clear that the consultation was open for eight weeks, from 31 March to 25 May earlier this year. It received 1,861 responses, mostly from the public but also from academics and bodies such as the NFCC. The response demonstrated broad support for expanding protections to all upland peatlands in less favoured areas and lowering the peat depth threshold from 40 centimetres to 30 centimetres. Indeed, most respondents opposed burning due to concerns about climate change, biodiversity, and loss of air and water quality. There was backing for mandatory fire training and improved licensing processes. I wish to make it clear that a minority of respondents were opposed to the proposals, citing, as many noble Lords have today, concerns of increased wildfire risk from higher fuel loads of vegetation that cannot be managed through burning.

The noble Earl, Lord Leicester, asked if I had visited the uplands in February and March. Sadly, I have to tell him that I have not. Maybe one of the noble Earls who contributed to the debate might wish to issue an invite—I am sure that it would be a very pleasant trip. On the serious point he was making, upland peatland habitats are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of burning. While winter burns tend to affect mainly surface vegetation rather than peat itself, rotational burning makes it difficult to restore blanket bog to its natural hydrology. He mentioned the Mars bar test, which we contend does not take into account the long-term impacts of burning, which encourages new heather growth. Heather’s deep roots dry out peat and form woody flammable material, which increases long-term vulnerability to wildfires.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, mentioned disposable barbecues. While I will not be tempted to go down the road of bans, as he did, we must recognise the importance of good public education, which was at the heart of his contribution. Clearly, a significant cause of wildfires is ignorant, foolhardy behaviour by people who should know better. The Government recognise that good communication can shape public behaviour and decrease the chances of wildfires starting. We took lessons from the devastation we saw during the 2022 wildfire season. That is why we worked across departments to increase the prominence of wildfire messaging to the public. This has included developing government social media messaging around periods of high wildfire risk and including wildfire as part of the Cabinet Office’s newly developed resilience websites.

I am glad to be able to tell the noble Lord that officials are exploring other ways we can expand the use of our well-established Fire Kills campaign to deliver targeted messages and resources to the public. The benefit of utilising Fire Kills is the partnership approach with local fire and rescue services, with all activities and resources designed to best support their local prevention delivery. I hope that provides him with some assurance that we absolutely understand the risk of the use of disposable barbecues and other materials that can inadvertently cause fire. We will take action to ensure that the public are educated on it.

I hope I have answered most of the questions. I have possibly missed one out from the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, on SFIs. He will know that SFIs now have more than 39,000 multiyear live agreements and are not only delivering sustainable food production and natural recovery for today and the years ahead but putting money back into farmers’ pockets. I am not sure I have any more detail on that to hand, which he requested, so I will write to him. I will be very happy to undertake to write to him also on the questions that he began his contribution with on the carbon code.

Having said all that—and having probably taken more time to answer noble Lords’ questions than was warranted—I ask the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, to withdraw his regret Motion.