Urban Trees: Protection

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Fay Jones.)

I am delighted to introduce this Adjournment debate and to highlight the need for better protections for mature trees in the UK. Organisations such as the Woodland Trust have been doing an excellent job of drawing attention to this issue for many years, and I thank them both for the work that they do in Parliament for the all-party parliamentary group for woods and trees, of which I am a member, and for their help with the debate. I also want to acknowledge the work of the councillors and council officers in my constituency and throughout the UK who look after our green spaces, and the local residents who care so passionately about the trees that are the green lungs of all our communities.

Across London, hundreds of thousands of trees line our streets, breathing life into busy and polluted neighbourhoods. Street trees have always been a vital part of urban communities. Not only do they provide a source of beauty, but we know that they bring major health benefits by cleaning our air, acting as a critical source of carbon capture and also as a defence against flooding. Research suggests that increasing access to green spaces could save the NHS more than £2 billion a year by reducing the incidence of conditions such as heart disease, stroke, and depression. Trees and woods also do wonders for our mental wellbeing, as was felt very keenly during the coronavirus pandemic. During lockdown, it was a joy to hear birdsong that would usually have been drowned out by the sound of car engines.

Yet many veteran trees in cities across the UK are at risk of being felled. The Government are not doing enough to protect them, which is hardly surprising as they are failing to meet their own tree planting targets—in 2019-20 they delivered under half their target of 5,000 hectares of new trees in England.

Many Members on both sides of the Chamber are concerned by the felling of mature trees in our communities. In my constituency there is a growing problem of street trees being cut down because they are implicated as a cause of building damage and subsidence. Tree roots do not need to be the definitive cause of subsidence—they need only be implicated for the owner to be liable for an insurance claim. Councils that own street trees are then responsible for the exorbitant cost of repair works to the damaged property, which can cost hundreds of thousands of pounds per property. Cash-strapped councils, such as my own, that own hundreds of trees at risk of insurance claims face bills running into the millions and are often left with little choice but to fell the tree.

Unfortunately, this is a particular problem in Hornsey and Wood Green, where the clay soil that most homes are built on has moved during the severe droughts and flooding we have experienced for the past few summers. With the climate crisis worsening, extreme weather events are set to become a regular feature of British summers. The law on foreseeability also means that areas such as the London Borough of Haringey, where shrinkable London clay is the underlying soil, must have proactive tree maintenance programmes for all trees whose roots may cause damage to buildings.

I commend the hon. Lady for securing this important debate. She outlines the importance of trees and some of the difficulties that people have with them. I want to give an example to encourage the hon. Lady. In Newtownards, the main town in my constituency, I have been involved with a planting scheme with children from Castle Gardens Primary School. There are six primary schools in the urban town of Newtownards, and they are all involved in tree planting. If we educate children early and tell them about the importance of trees, they will appreciate the point of trees and we will have a society that looks forward to trying to see how they can keep those trees.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I concur with him. At Highgate Primary School and Hornsey School for Girls, where I have been planting trees with the children, trees provide a wonderful message for future generations.

However, there are nuanced and complex issues around felling street trees. Each case needs to be studied on its own merits, but a one-size-fits-all approach to felling is not working and is damaging our environment. Haringey already has the second highest number of tree-related subsidence claims in Greater London. Since 2018, Haringey, a hard-pressed London borough council, has faced 245 tree-related subsidence claims and has paid more than £600,000 to insurance companies during that time. Understandably, my constituents are extremely upset by the number of street trees being felled. For local communities, who reap the many benefits that trees bring, those trees have an emotional value far beyond any price an insurance company could put on them. People are rightly calling into question whether insurance companies can justify their actions before exploring more sustainable options than removing a tree.

For example, I have recently received several emails from worried constituents in Bounds Green who are extremely upset about the proposed removal of a mature oak tree. At 200 years old, this beautiful oak could have another 800 years left. Despite being protected by a tree preservation order since 2010, it is at risk of being felled because of its proximity to a home that is more than 18 metres away. A single oak tree can support more than 2,300 species. As one local constituent has pointed out, when one mature tree is removed, an entire ecological network is disrupted and destroyed.

In her response, the Minister will likely point out that the Environment Act 2021 introduced a requirement for local authorities to consult the local community before felling street trees. While that is welcome, councils are still waiting for exact guidance on how to introduce the measure and, importantly, what resources will be made available to ensure that the community’s wishes are acted upon.

I thank the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) for raising this issue and I join her in commending and championing all who work to plant, care for and protect trees in our country, and also the 32,000-strong workforce in the timber and tree supply chain, because we need them and more if this Government are to achieve the target of 400 million more trees planted by 2050, which is about 250,000 hectares. To do that, we need to plant somewhere between 7,500 and 10,000 hectares every year. The hon. Lady referenced targets, and we are on course to meet our targets. Some 2,700 hectares of trees were planted last year, and the forecast certainly looks much improved on where we have been over the last few decades. That is a result of the Environment Act 2021, the environmental improvement plan and the legal target to increase tree canopy cover to 16.5%. But while we are doing quite well in England, I am afraid that in 2020 the Welsh Labour Government managed just 80 hectares, against their target of 2,000 hectares a year, so there is much work to do.

Urban trees, which is what this debate is all about, are certainly an asset to any community. The hon. Member set out clearly how trees benefit our communities and our physical and mental wellbeing. They create healthier communities and cool our communities; and as she said, the thousands of species supported by an ancient tree are indeed incredibly special and must be protected, so I hope I can answer some of her questions. We also know that the right tree in the right place can sequester carbon, manage flood risk, improve air quality, provide shade and support biodiversity, and of course they are incredibly beautiful.

Trees are at the forefront of the Government’s plans to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, bending the curve on biodiversity loss and creating more jobs. That is exactly why we introduced the target to increase tree cover to 16.5% by 2050. Urban trees are already an important part of our plan to meet that target and will absolutely continue to be. Through technical guidance on tree planting and protection, and also tree planting grants, which we have on offer through the nature for climate fund, more and more trees are being planted in urban areas. Over 850,000 trees have been planted in urban areas. We have also introduced a new duty on local authorities to consult the public before felling street trees. The hon. Member is keen to know the timescale for that; I can confirm that we are seeking to commence the duty this year. We are currently developing appropriate guidance for the new duty to consult, which will be in place by the end of 2023.

The Minister always comes to the Chamber with positivity, and it is always a pleasure to hear her speak. She mentions Scotland and Wales, but has she had any contact with the Northern Ireland Assembly? We want to be part of this project.

I will ensure that I reach out to my counterpart in Northern Ireland. I am sure those conversations are happening at official level, but I will endeavour to have them at ministerial level. I will respond to the hon. Gentleman and I thank him for his intervention. With England and Northern Ireland being such close neighbours, we must work together, although this matter is devolved, to ensure plant biosecurity across the UK.

Our ambitions outlined in the England trees action plan are supported by the nature for climate fund’s tree programme, and they make it even easier to plant trees. Never before has so much Government money gone into planting and protecting trees. We are also supporting local authorities, which we see as a vital part of the programme to achieve 16.5% tree canopy cover in England.

In December 2022 we launched the tree and woodland strategy toolkit, which provides step-by-step guidance to local authorities on developing an effective tree and woodland strategy in order to realise the multiple benefits, as we have heard this evening, that trees can deliver to their communities.

Like the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, I have heard from schoolchildren. I think we all visit primary schools on our constituency Fridays, and I never cease to be surprised and delighted by the enthusiasm of schoolchildren who are embarking on eco-projects or forest schools, and they all certainly value the benefit of trees. That is perhaps supported by a wonderful recent BBC documentary where Sir David Attenborough reinforced the need to look after nature.

The urban tree challenge fund has planted 155,000 trees to date and is now open for applications all year round. The fund provides 80% of the standard costs of the planting of and caring for trees in deprived urban and peri-urban areas. Another fund, the local authority treescapes fund, is open to local authorities and it is also open all year round. It is there to restore tree cover impacted by disease, habitat degradation or ageing tree stock in urban and peri-urban areas. So far, 77 local authorities have been successful in the two rounds of the fund, but I encourage all Members to challenge local authorities that are not one of the 77 to look into the fund on the Forestry Commission website and consider making an application.

I thank the Minister for her full response. Sometimes a Minister just gives a sentence and that is the end of the debate, so I appreciate the detail she is giving. Perhaps an official could write to me about which of the programmes she has cited a London borough could be eligible for. I am very aware that some of the schemes she has mentioned will be more relevant for applications from outside London. If she could arrange that, it would really help. Will she also outline whether any extra resource is available for a couple of extra officers for a large borough such as Haringey, which has nearly 300,000 people and £1 billion in turnover? Given the current economic picture, it is hard for a large London borough to take officers from other areas and put them into this important area of work. Obviously, councils are very hard-pressed at the moment, as she is aware, as she also represents a very poor part of the country.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention, not least for the length of it, as it has allowed me to get some clarification for her from my officials in the Box. I am delighted to tell her that all the funds that I have listed are eligible in the way that she mentioned. I urge the hon. Lady to work with her local authority and to consider using the local authority toolkit that we provided last December to maximise the benefits of tree planting.

In closing, I thank everybody involved in this area, including nurseries, tree planters, protectors, maintenance, and the 32,000-strong workforce, which will grow. I am particularly grateful to those who are developing strategies and roadmaps for timber use. I hope that we see many more buildings in our communities made out of wood. It is a little known, often forgotten, or insufficiently considered fact that building with wood—timber construction—is also an incredibly important way to reduce our carbon footprint and achieve net zero while producing beautiful homes. I think we all have fine examples of beautiful timber being used in construction.

Urban trees are an essential part of the urban infrastructure. Never before has that been more important to me than the day that we hit temperatures of over 40° in the centre of London. In Westminster, walking along Millbank, I appreciated the shade that those beautiful plane trees provided. I wish to thank the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to wax lyrical about our tree-mendous policies. This is why we have given tree planting historic importance, both through financial and policy support, as trees are a fundamental part—I would say the best part—of the Government’s pledge to leave our planet in a better condition than when we inherited it.