I could be cheeky and say to Mr Farquhar from Confor that it is quite unusual to find the private sector saying that it wants Government to keep all the money and not give it to the private sector. For a number of reasons, we have a challenge in relation to stakeholders’ perceptions of our funding activity in the private sector. If the Forestry Commission were to use all that funding to expand dramatically the amount of land in the national forest estate rather than planting trees elsewhere, we would run into the problems that we have encountered in the Ettrick valley with the WEAG process. There is seemingly a great degree of resistance to the Forestry Commission buying up farmland. That is one challenge.
We could have an alternative model where the state invests in increasing the amount of tree planting and increasing the number of hectares under forest cover by buying land and then funding the planting, but that model seems to be largely resisted by the private sector, particularly farmers.
We have reflected on the concerns from Confor and others about the intervention rates that are available to support planting. I know that our position is not universally liked, but we have moved to a position where we are looking at more of a balance between the incentives for planting commercial species and those for planting native broadleaf species. That is not to take any money away from native broadleaf. Largely speaking, we have parity in funding now, so if native broadleaf species are appropriate for the scheme—it may be that a conservation outcome is being sought rather than a commercial outcome—it is clearly still going to be possible to fund that.
We have brought up the level of funding for commercial species, recognising the potential drop-off in commercial timber supplies in about 30 or 40 years, given the problem that we had in the 1990s and early 2000s with a fall-off in planting. We have recognised that there is a need to produce a consistent supply of timber for a number of uses—including for the construction sector, clearly—but without taking anything away from the need to continue to plant significant numbers of native broadleaf trees for environmental reasons.
We are trying to get the balance right with limited funds. Obviously, some stakeholders wanted us to abolish forestry planting funding in its entirety, such was the resistance to increased tree cover and loss of agricultural land. We have resisted that request. We are keeping the level of funding flat in cash terms in the budget, which I appreciate will come under pressure. That is why it is important to make the point, as I did in response to the earlier question about the forthcoming spending review, that we need to look seriously at whether the amount of resource is going to deliver the 10,000-hectare target over the long term.
I accept that there is a challenge to do with bringing forward land from the private sector quickly—Mr Farquhar was right about that. If we can get the incentives right, it will be possible.
This is a choice for Parliament and society. Do we give funding to the Forestry Commission to expand its ownership of land and expand the national forest estate on behalf of ministers, or do we work with the private sector to deliver planting?
A lot more could be done with farmers. Agroforestry is interesting, and we could work with farmers to come up with schemes that are maybe slightly bigger than the schemes in which they have been involved in the past, and which are appropriate for commercial-scale extraction. We could work with the farming industry to emulate what is done on the continent, where farmers regard forestry as a long-term equity investment, for harvest at some time in the future.
There are lots of different models that we can use, but I accept the point that there is a challenge. The overarching point that I want to make is that it is not a simple challenge to address.