Forestry in England
Debate between Neil Parish and Antoinette Sandbach(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Neil Parish
Yes, my hon. Friend makes a very good point. It will also be about linking the woodland and the craft to a given area. We could do the same with types of wood and the crafts that come from them as we do with food, farming and types of cheeses. It is an interesting point. Linking it to planning is not necessarily the responsibility of the Minister today, but is something that I am sure the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government could look at.
Coming back to timber, we now have an opportunity to grow a number of types of trees. We also have an opportunity to advise farmers, landowners and those who want to plant trees on the varieties and species to plant. It is very difficult, and nobody can be blamed for this, but who would have known that we would be facing Chalara and ash dieback? We were not facing it a few years ago. In the south-west and in parts of Scotland, the larch has virtually all had to be cut down because of disease. As we move forward, it is going to be so important that we have the right types of trees so that it is right for recreation, the right scale, organisation and landscape of planting, and that we plant the trees that, hopefully, will be there for generations. That, in itself, will be a big challenge.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
I invite my hon. Friend to come up to my constituency where Delamere forest nurseries, which are part of the Forestry Commission, grow many different types of trees and look in particular at future climate change impacts and what species will be best to plant.
Neil Parish
If I can get the Whips to allow us to get as far as Vauxhall bridge before calling us back for a vote, I will definitely try to get up to my hon. Friend’s constituency. She is absolutely right. Naturally, we are looking for ash trees that will have a resistance to the dieback. Where I farm in Somerset we had elm trees completely destroyed by Dutch elm disease in the ’70s and ’80s, and we are yet to find an elm tree that is resistant to the beetle and to Dutch elm disease. Those sorts of things are so important so that we have our native trees as well as new trees that can be brought in.