Speeches by Wilson.

“The Minister has insisted that he does not want to get drawn into a wider war, but with the targeting of our civilians and bases and our economy being strangled, how much wider could the war get? Does he not recognise that Iran has been able to close off the strait of Hormuz as and when it wants to, using its proxies a…”

“You explained that, when you try to replace large trees with a mix of broadleaf, conifer and so on, the cost is much more expensive, and the returns will probably take longer to obtain. If we want to see the monoculture in many plantations at present replaced with much more mixed woodland, what are the economics of tha…”

“Mr Tubby, maybe I picked up wrongly when you were answering Chris’s questions. It seemed that you feared what would happen if development got too close to woodland sites. You outlined the difficulties of people using forest sites and the damage they could do with their animals, by walking or with fires and that kind of…”

“I suppose the easiest thing is to do what you have always done. If you have always grown fir trees or whatever, you will always keep on doing that. How is your message disseminated to those who we have been told will be clearing woodlands over the next five years, to ensure that we do not start another cycle of these m…”

“I do not share your optimism. I just look at my own constituency, where, even in Government-owned land, trees have been felled and already, four years on, the next batch of conifers are growing to my height almost. What needs to be done to break out of that cycle?”

“You have explained why it is difficult to have the continuous cover approach to harvesting trees. The preference seems to be—perhaps just because of how our trees are distributed at present—for total clearance. In an earlier submission, we heard—you might have, too—that one of the ways in which the environmental damage…”

“Professor Kirby, I think you mentioned that the biggest threat to woodland is either lack of management or over-management, and that if woodlands are to be preserved, they need appropriate management. Could you give the Committee some idea of what is meant by “appropriate management” of woodlands? Is the biggest impedi…”

“How much do you feel that adaptation is currently hardwired into Government decisions across Departments, especially when it comes to resource allocation?”

“Will that be cross-departmental?”

“I would have thought that adaptation measures would have been some of the most noticeable things for the public, yet I am not so sure that what the Government are doing on adaptation is actually appreciated and seen by the public. In the next national adaptation programme, do you think it would be helpful, and in fact …”

“Could you outline some of the major adaptation schemes or projects that the Department is following on this? We hear time and again of flooding schemes that were promised and not delivered, and so on, which would indicate that either the leadership or the financial commitment is not there. Could you outline some of the…”

“The main thrust of Government policy at present appears, at least to the public, to be dealing with climate change through mitigation and reducing carbon dioxide, while many members of the public are concerned about the immediate impacts of changes in the climate and are looking for adaptations that can be made to try …”

“Since a large amount of horticultural peat is produced in Northern Ireland, it is a devolved issue. What discussions have you had with devolved Administrations on the ban? Secondly, if it is not UK-wide, does that have implications for the internal market and for the effectiveness of the ban?”

“Currently, you do not measure the number of peatlands, and you do not have a record of the peatland areas that are disrupted as a result of building onshore wind farms. Secondly, you do not have any calculation of CO2 release from the building of those farms. Thirdly, you are considering but have not yet made a decisio…”

“Given that one of the reasons for allowing disruption of important habitats is the CO2 reductions, should it not be a compulsory part of any planning application that an assessment is done of the disruption to the landscape and the likely outcomes in terms of CO2 emissions as a result of that disruption?”

“One of the ironies we heard about during the evidence session we had on this issue is that, on the one hand, wind farms are being built in order to reduce CO2 emissions in energy production, and on the other hand, there is massive disruption of peatlands. I have seen in my own constituency three metres of peat being st…”

“Given the importance of peatlands in your departmental objectives, would it not be something that should automatically be recorded, so at least you know the impact it is having on these important protected habitats?”

“Does your Department keep any records of, for example, the number of deep peat or peatland sites that are being taken over for wind farms? Is there any assessment of the impact of a wind farm being built on those sites?”

“Last week, we heard about the state of peatlands across the United Kingdom. I think the figure we were given was that 80% of them were degraded in some way or another. One of the most recent concerns is the building of wind farms on upland peat areas. Obviously, it was a good target because they are upland areas, plent…”

“You are not ruling out deep peat sites, even though they have been shown to have huge benefits in flood attenuation, et cetera. Are you saying that, when it comes to the location of wind farms, the last word is really the Government’s renewables policy rather than the protection of important habitats and resources, fro…”