Peatland Restoration

Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the benefits of peatland restoration for flood resilience and nature recovery.

My Lords, peatland restoration provides multiple benefits. It improves flood resilience by slowing water leaving the uplands and significantly reducing peak flows. Peatlands make up the UK’s largest extent of semi-natural habitat, so action to restore them makes an important contribution to delivering biodiversity targets. In the environmental improvement plan, this Government committed to restoring 40,000 hectares of peatland by 2030. To help to achieve this, we will extend our peatland grant scheme by a further year.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his reply. My understanding is that so far we have restored a quarter of a million hectares, against a target of 2 million hectares by 2040. That is only 10%. As the noble Lord says, it is crucial that we do this, to keep water higher up in the catchment area for biodiversity and for carbon storage. What plan do the Government have to enable degraded peatlands to be restored? Will that plan be produced in conjunction with the devolved powers? How are the Government proposing to engage with people in communities that regularly use peatland for farming and other purposes? I declare an interest because my forebear Bishops of Norwich largely controlled the digging of peat that created the Norfolk Broads.

I thank the right reverend Prelate for his questions and for claiming that inherited responsibility. He is absolutely right about the importance of peatlands. They have been referred to as the UK’s rainforest. They store vast amounts of carbon, regulate water flow and support biodiversity. Restoration is currently funded through the national peatland grant scheme, which we have extended for an additional year, as I said. Following this, restoration will primarily be supported through environmental land management schemes such as Landscape Recovery and Countryside Stewardship, which are expected to bring at least 35,000 hectares of peatland into restoration by 2050. We expect that to happen under the most recent round of the Landscape Recovery scheme.

The Government regularly speak to a wide range of stakeholders including those involved in peatland restoration, such as wildlife trusts, national parks, the horticultural sector, landowners and farmers, as well as our partners in local, regional and other national Governments. By 2030, we will invest £85 million to restore and manage our peatlands, which will include support for water infrastructure, peatland restoration and the trials of farming on higher water tables.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply to the right reverend Prelate and to the right reverend Prelate for referencing his diocese’s historic interests in the Norfolk Broads. I had the privilege of serving on the original Standing Committee to set up the Broads Authority. That was taken through, incidentally, by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. Is the Minister aware that the Broads Peat Partnership is doing a great deal of work to restore these habitats? Will he make sure that his department works with the Broads Authority carefully on this project? Is he satisfied that the Broads Authority is striking the right balance between commercial interests, such as boating and navigation, and protecting the natural environment?

The noble Lord is right to single out the importance of the broads and the wider lowland agricultural peatlands. They are responsible for 88% of all emissions from England’s peatlands. We are working with all our partner organisations, including the Broads Authority, to support the restoration of peatlands, be they lowland or upland. Over the next four years, for the lowlands, Defra will fund water infrastructure facilitation grants and wetter farming trials, which will enable farmers and land managers to make changes to their water management and undertake more sustainable actions on peat. We will continue to work with them to ensure that they get that balance right between their more high-profile activities, such as supporting tourism, and that essential activity on lowland peatlands.

My Lords, does the Minister agree with the widespread public concern that peat for horticulture continues to degrade our vital peatlands? Can he update the House on the Government’s response to the Horticultural Peat (Prohibition of Sale) Bill tabled by my Liberal Democrat colleague Sarah Dyke MP? Can he explain the delay on this, given that it was in the Government’s manifesto and was already a broken promise by the Conservative Government?

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that this is a very important issue. I am sure that she has read in detail our environmental improvement plan that was published at the end of last year. This was set out as one of our key actions on peatland and peatland restoration. The Government are committed to protecting these nature-rich habitats, including peat bogs, and we plan to legislate for a ban on the sale of peat and peat container products when parliamentary time allows. I am afraid that I am not going to predict what will be in any forthcoming King’s Speech, but this is a priority for this Government.

My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of the Galloway Fisheries Trust and chairman of the Fleet District Salmon Fishery Board. The single biggest cause of peatland destruction has been the historic indiscriminate planting of non-native conifers on peatlands. About 18% of UK peatland has been destroyed in that way. While new planting on deep peat is rightly no longer allowed, the position of replanting after felling is not so clear. Can the noble Lord assure me that replanting of conifer woodland on peatland will not be allowed and that the peatland will be restored after felling?

The noble Lord is absolutely right about the action that has been taken in previous years that has degraded our peatland, including, as he said, the planting of conifers. I will have to write to him on some of the detail on that, but I want to be clear that we see the importance of restoring peatland to its natural state. That way we create a virtuous circle—wet peatlands that are both good for water management but also good for climate change.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his responses so far. Further to the question from across the House on a ban on the sale of peat for horticultural purposes, could I encourage the Minister to talk to his ministerial colleagues to ensure that such legislation is in the forthcoming King’s Speech? Could I also encourage him to talk to Ministers in the devolved Administrations about such a ban in order to protect our precious landscape, which has been scarred for quite a number of years?

I thank my noble friend for her persistence in pursuing this important matter. She is asking me to undertake a lot of conversations; I like having a chat, so I will see what I can do. I cannot make any commitments about the forthcoming King’s Speech, but I just underline what I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. This is a clear priority for this Government. We have put it in our environmental improvement plan. We understand its importance and, as she said, it is also important that we work with the devolved Governments, so that when we ban something it is banned completely. It will happen, but when parliamentary time allows.

My Lords, the United Kingdom peatlands hold over 3 billion tonnes of carbon. I welcome the Government’s commitment to continue funding the Conservative Government’s innovative £50 million England Peat Action Plan, since the benefits of peatland restoration are significant and multiple. While the Peatland Code is a valuable source of revenue to incentivise this work, based on reducing carbon emissions, it is not enough in many parts of England. Will the Minister go back and press Defra to encourage greater private sector investment in the other goods provided by restoration, for example from the water and insurance sectors? Crucially, does he share the concerns of many organisations that the environmental delivery plans, the EDPs, in the UK’s Planning and Infrastructure Act, risk damaging nature-based markets by allowing developers to bypass legal obligations for on-site protection and just pay into a general centralised fund instead?

The noble Lord is absolutely right in drawing our attention to the Peatland Code and the work of other organisations and he is right in saying that private finance will be vital if we are to meet our peatland restoration objectives. It is important that peatland projects are able to make the most of new revenue streams, including carbon finance. We are acting in a number of different ways as a Government to ensure peatland restoration. A key constraint on restoration delivery is the size of the sector, which is why we are launching a new sector capacity grant of over £1 million in the summer, which will provide funding for training, skills and equipment. In terms of development, peatland policy works alongside planning systems, rather than prohibiting development. It guides developers to design schemes that avoid unnecessary peat loss and manage water tables safely.

My Lords, last year we had a record number of wildfires, including in our peatlands and moorlands. I take this opportunity to ask the Minister if he could update the House on progress on the Government’s wildfire strategy and action plan, which is now overdue. If the Minister does not know the answer, perhaps he could write to me.

I will have to write to the noble Earl to update him on the wildfire plan strategy, but I would say that, just at the end of last year, the House debated and passed updated regulations around the burning of peatland, heather land and moorland, which is obviously an important aspect. I can tell him that over 675,000 hectares of peatland are now protected under those regulations; fewer than 2,000 hectares were burned last year.