Burning of Peat Moorlands

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB) [V]]

Does the Minister think it wise to allow heather to grow tall and become an unbroken fire hazard in dry summers? Summer hill fires can burn for months and destroy millions of tonnes of our peat. Does he also think it wise to curtail the rotational management of heather, which provides seeds and green shoots for our highly threatened curlews, lapwings, merlin, plover and dunlin et cetera? While burning heather in March, when the peat is sodden from winter rains and therefore completely safe from harm, may not be perfect, would it not be wise to find an alternative form of heather management before doing away with the tried-and-tested system we have?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I refer the noble Lord to an earlier answer I gave on wildfire risk, which he has raised again. I do not think anyone is proposing simply allowing the heather to continue growing uncontrolled. The alternative to burning is obviously cutting. The department has been looking closely at what the additional burden would be on business were cutting to be generalised. The total figure that the department has come up with is £500,000 per year for the sector. That is based on information provided to us by landowners and managers.