My Lords, wildfires are a natural phenomenon and an essential process in some ecosystems. Climate change is driving not only increasingly frequent periods of fire-supportive weather but changes in our vegetation that are probably making it more prone to fire. Wildfires are becoming a persistent and growing risk to life, property and the environment with the impact that they have on carbon emissions, wildlife, humans and their health, insurance, and air and water quality. However, there is no single definition of what constitutes a wildfire, although the National Fire Chiefs Council, the NFCC, has long argued for one. Do the Government agree that a single definition is now a necessity?
By April this year, the total area burned by wildfires in the UK was already higher for the year than any other year’s total over the last decade. As of 4 June, more than 137 square miles—almost the size of the Isle of Wight—had already been burned. It is very hard to put a price on wildfires, but the Moorland Association estimates that the cost this year is already more than £350 million. In addition, as with all fires, there are ongoing legacy costs, which are unquantifiable, such as bare land being eroded and the slowing re-establishment of vegetation and recovery of wildlife at a time when nature is in crisis.
About 90% of wildfires are caused by humans, either carelessly or deliberately. Increasing public awareness of wildfires is a logical next step following the good work of the UK fire danger rating system project and it needs addressing by the Government, local authorities and landowners.
The largest number of wildfire incidents are in major metropolitan areas, with the greatest threat to people, health and livelihoods being the rural-urban interface. Due to wildfires, in July 2022 the London Fire Brigade had its busiest day since World War II, with more than 40 houses and shops destroyed. Wherever fires occur, we are extremely grateful for the courage and dedication of the fire and rescue service—the FRS. A fire can affect many FRS stations. On 10 March this year, a wildfire started deliberately at Canford Heath required the attendance of 13 stations.
My Lords, it is a very great honour for me to be standing here today. I thank my noble friend Lord Caithness not only for proposing this debate but for his excellent speech. I agree with every word he said. I also thank my two noble friends who supported me at my introduction, my noble friends Lord Strathclyde and Lord McInnes of Kilwinning. To those two noble Lords, the doorkeepers—I am going to do it in reverse order—the Clerk of the Parliaments and, obviously, Black Rod and many others who have given me invaluable assistance and advice, I give my heartfelt thanks.
I think, before I turn to the substance of this debate, it is customary for me to say a few words about my background. I was born and bred in Galloway. I married Ann, a Galloway girl who was my childhood sweetheart, in 1987. We have three grown-up children, all nicely married, and we have three wonderful grandchildren. Between the early 1980s and 2017, I had an entrepreneurial business career, then, through a rush of blood to the head, at a day’s notice, I stood for Dumfries and Galloway, an SNP seat, in the 2017 general election. Five weeks later, I found myself on a train to Euston with a change of career, and I have not regretted a day of it.
On arrival in the Commons, I sat on the Treasury Select Committee, and after that I joined the Whips’ Office. Then in July 2019, I was appointed Secretary of State for Scotland, a role I held for five years and 10 reshuffles, which I think may be a record in its own right. Following my five years in the Scotland Office, I have many reflections on intergovernmental relations and the devolution settlement. During that time, I certainly put out a number of political wildfires, many of them started by my noble friend Lord Gove. However, I will return to those reflections at a future date.
Turning to the substance of this debate, as noted in my register of interest, I am the proud owner of some heathland and moorland in south-west Scotland and, consequently, this is a subject very close to my heart, because we all know that when accidental fires break out in areas of moorland with, as my noble friend Lord Caithness said, a large fuel burden, the consequences can be devastating for wildlife, biodiversity and the carbon release if that fire gets down into the peatland.
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Caithness on securing this important debate. It is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Jack and to congratulate him on an excellent and most informative maiden speech. We look forward to hearing from him on many occasions in future. Looking on the internet this morning, I was delighted to see that my noble friend is a former chairman of the River Annan board—another Scottish river on which I have failed miserably to connect with a fish. I declare my interest as a member of the National Farmers’ Union.
In its wildfire rapid response assessment, the United Nations Environment Programme emphasised the importance of auditing full wildfire costs and investing in planning, prevention and recovery—not just response. This is because the costs of wildfire mitigation and prevention are a fraction of those associated with suppression by the emergency services and the economic and environmental impacts of a wildfire. However, no such systematically collected data exists in the UK, and until the direct and indirect costs of wildfires are understood and recorded, their challenge to humanity will be dangerously overlooked.
The costs go far beyond the obvious direct costs of suppression by the fire services. Wildfires impact our health, close roads to traffic, impact schools and businesses, lead to the evacuation of residential areas, damage our infrastructure and homes, impact our water supplies and water quality, and release carbon and pollutants into the atmosphere while destroying crops and killing wildlife. If they occur on peatland, you can add to that list the loss of stored carbon accumulated over millennia.
All these costs are simply not recorded as a matter of course and are therefore not fully accounted for in the decision-making process. Individual assessments exist, such as the £21 million cost of the health impacts from the Saddleworth Moor wildfire of 2018, due to a 300% increase in PM2.5 levels; the £83.5 million insurance payout in 2022 due to farm fires; and the almost £2 million of publicly funded restoration costs lost in the 2018 wildfire on Saddleworth Moor.
My Lords, I am delighted—and surprised—to say that I agreed with a lot of what the noble Earl said in his opening speech. I congratulate him on bringing this topic here. He is absolutely right that wildfires are a natural phenomenon, but the current year is on track to be the worst on record. They used to be a rare occurrence but are becoming much more common. This is due to a combination of factors, including dry and windy weather conditions, abundant vegetation from damp winters, and, of course, the impact of climate change.
The Government need a plan—a strategy. They need practical solutions as well as some answers to practical questions. For example, are the fire services ready and able to deal with wildfires? Do they know the best way of doing it in each circumstance, including the urban/rural divide? Do they have the spare capacity if they need it?
The best way to strengthen our resilience to wildfires is to restore and strengthen our native ecosystems. The problem is that we have some inherent invested practices here in Britain that make it much more difficult to protect our own ecosystems, such as shooting. For example, we have had endless promises about stopping the use of lead bullets. They are highly poisonous and toxic to people, especially if you eat them in pheasants. We have to stop it—and we also have to stop the practice of pheasant shooting altogether. There should be no hunting in Britain; it is a selfish and senseless way of behaving.
For example, the millions of pheasant chicks imported into the UK every year have a detrimental effect on our native ecosystems, wrecking our wildlife as they out-compete native UK birds. Hawks are being shot by gamekeepers, and the chicks of the game birds are put into crowded battery-cage conditions then sent all across the UK to be shot.
My Lords, it is a great honour and privilege to have been chosen to join this House. I am deeply grateful for the support and kindness that I have received since I arrived. In particular, I thank my supporters, my noble friends Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Lady Finn. I also thank the staff of the House: Black Rod, Garter King of Arms and, in particular, the staff of the Library and the doorkeepers, who have given me invaluable assistance since I arrived.
I thank my noble friend Lord Caithness for introducing this debate. Like me, as he referred to earlier, he is a teuchter from Aberdeenshire. He spoke with considerable authority and expertise about a cause close to many of our hearts: making sure that our environment can be preserved and enhanced for future generations.
I come to this House having served an apprenticeship of 19 years in the other place, during which time I spent 13 years as a Minister. I regard this as inadequate preparation for joining this House because, during my time as a Minister, I learned that respect for your Lordships’ House was a precondition of achieving anything in politics. The collective expertise, across party and of no parties, which the House of Lords provides is a huge asset to our constitution; the voices raised and points made in this House undoubtedly enhance the quality of governance that the people of the United Kingdom enjoy.
I am very glad to be speaking in this debate, not just because my noble friend Lord Caithness has devoted time both in government and on the Back Benches to enhancing our environment but because the vital issue of ensuring that we, first, prevent and, secondly, mitigate the impact of wildfires goes to the heart of a series of environmental questions that we face.
In the speeches made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and my noble friend Lord Jack, we saw two apparently conflicting but, to my mind, overlapping points. The plea that I would like to make in this speech is a plea for understanding—understanding of the importance of making sure that our peatland and moorland landscapes are protected, but also understanding between what are sometimes seen as warring interests. Whether it is the Moorland Association, the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust or the many environmental NGOs that sometimes find themselves disagreeing just a little with one lobby or another, all have a shared interest in making sure that we hand on our environment, in what has become a very nature-depleted nation, in a better state to the next generation. That was my mission during my brief time as Environment Secretary. During my time in this House, I hope to work across parties to ensure that we enhance our natural environment, our built environment and the environment that we leave to the next generation.
My Lords, it is a privilege to welcome the maiden speeches of my noble friends Lord Gove and Lord Jack of Courance. They have made extremely important contributions to the work of Conservative Governments over the last 10 to 15 years. It was a pleasure to work with my noble friend Lord Gove when I was the Chief Whip and he brought forward an important Education Bill. There is an old saying: once a Whip, always a Whip. Having been Conservative Chief Whip in this House, both in opposition and in government, I can fairly say that I will be very keenly watching my noble friends to see what their contributions to this House will be. I anticipate that they will keep us not only very interested but very well informed.
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Caithness on securing this short debate. He has made it clear: wildfires can harm people, property, ecosystems and the environment. The timing of his debate is particularly helpful, since it gives us the opportunity to follow up on questions raised in the Chamber a month ago which the Minister was not in a position to answer then. He courteously gave a commitment to follow up on the questions, so I would be grateful if he could assist by responding to two of them today.
His noble friend Lady Ritchie asked whether the Minister had had conversations with the devolved nations and regions about wildfire prevention and mitigation. He committed to conversations with his relevant counterparts in the devolved departments—he mentioned those in Northern Ireland in particular—to find out how the Government could do things more collaboratively. What progress has been made on that? My noble friend Lord McLoughlin asked whether the Government had considered banning disposable barbecues. The Minister said that my noble friend had made a strong argument and that he would take the issue away and reflect on it. What are the results of that?
My Lords, I often walk in the hills—I love them—and the heather, so I have frequently thought about this. In the old days, you would normally find firebreaks burned into them. The trouble is that there has been a big movement from a lot of people who do not really know much about the hills or heather, but because they did an environmental course somewhere, they reckon that all the carbon will be locked up in the peat below. However, the point about burning the heather in strips to get a firebreak is that it has to be of a sufficient width.
Two things have to be done. First, you do the burn in winter. It is a cool burn, and therefore does not burn the roots below and does not touch the peat—it must not, because you want these things to reshoot again. You then have a lot of tall rank heather in which birds can hide and, next to that, new, fresh and regenerated growth of young shoots and insect life on which the birds can feed. If a raptor comes over, it can then shoot inside the cover. That is how it works, and people have known it for years.
Interestingly enough, I was chatting to a gamekeeper on a moor who said something quite funny. Some people from the Environment Agency or somewhere had decided to come out to see the heather themselves and wanted a tour. He took them up and showed them some heather that they had burned two years earlier. There was some lovely growth, and they said, “God, this is just what we want. How can we get this? This is what we need”. He showed them the other part and asked, “Well, have you looked over here?” They said, “Oh God, that’s terrible. It’s all dark and rank, and there is no life under it at all”. What they were looking at was the effect of a proper heather burn. It encourages the wildlife and does not go down into the peat—that is the whole point.
The noble Lord, Lord Jack, mentioned the Mars bar test, which is famous because the burn would not melt one. If you put it just under the surface litter, you would see that the surface litter has not burned and nor has the Mars bar melted. That proves that it is not touching the peat. In contrast, a wildfire goes down into and burns up a lot of the peat; it will be a long time—possibly a century or two—before that is regenerated through normal peat growth.
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Caithness on bringing this debate forward. I also congratulate my noble friends Lord Jack and Lord Gove on their excellent maiden speeches. It was a particular joy to serve alongside them in Cabinet—I actually mean that—and I am sure that they will add enormously to the expertise in your Lordships’ House.
Noble Lords have highlighted their own experiences of wildfires domestically and of dealing with them, but I want to draw on an international example that I believe provides some learnings. A few years ago, I went to Seattle to attend a clean energy conference. We flew in overnight and, even from tens of thousands of feet in the air, as you looked out of the aircraft window, you could literally see the ground on fire down in Washington state below. At the time, terrible wildfires were raging across the state; as the plane drew lower, you could make out huge patches of forest on fire. I do not exaggerate when I say that it felt to me like looking into the jaws of hell. When we landed, we experienced the acrid smell generated by the wildfires and pollution; it hung like a heavy, choking cloak in the air.
I met some of the politicians and officials in the state government who were tasked with tackling these wildfires. They told me that, over the years, the fires have become more frequent and ferocious. One of the key learnings was effective preparedness: investing in equipment such as bulldozers and excavators; fitting aircraft with infra-red sensors and fire-mapping technology; recruiting more firefighters; sharing their learnings with other states prone to wildfires; and having in place equipment-sharing agreements with those states as well.
Of course, the wildfires that we experience in the UK are generally not as severe as those in North America—at least, so far—but, as we have heard in this debate, their frequency is on the rise and climate change is making things worse. I welcome the Government’s continued commitment to climate action more generally and to sticking with the aim of achieving net zero by 2050. I also welcome the Climate Change Committee’s progress report on adaptation from earlier this year, which called on the Government to create and implement a cross-departmental strategy with external shareholders in order to identify and mitigate the risks of wildfires.
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This increased operational demand comes when firefighter numbers are down 25% since 2008. The ever-growing costs must be absorbed through core budgets that are already under strain, and there is no dedicated funding for wildfire response. All this, together with a lack of definition, is hindering long-term investment and the prediction, mitigation, control and recording of wildfires and their impact. I ask the Minister: do we really need another major catastrophe before the Government act and the NFCC’s sensible requests are addressed?
I was brought up on the heather hills in Aberdeenshire, so I wish to focus on heath-land and moorland fires, but in England. I have taken part in controlled burns and have helped fight wildfires. I have been fortunate to see and hear the biodiversity that is noticeably abundant on managed, as opposed to unmanaged, moorland.
A key determinant to any fire is the quantity and type of combustible materials available for burning. This influences fire behaviour and severity and is known as fuel load. The NFCC and private landowners agree that, the larger the proportion of the fuel load that is unmanaged, the bigger the fire and the higher the risk of damage. This is the very thing we all wish to prevent; thus, land management is critical. The FRS states that a flame length of over 11 feet puts people at risk—remember that the flame length on Saddleworth Moor was over 50 feet.
Recently, in the Peak District, due to the terrain, weather conditions and flame length, the FRS withdrew from fires and decided to let them burn themselves out. Why are the FRS volunteers and biodiversity being put at risk like this? The answer is that land managers are being directed by the Government through Natural England—NE—to manage land in such a way that it increases the fuel load.
There is a significant difference between a controlled burn and a wildfire. Controlled fire burns only the surface, not the underlying vegetation or root systems. Furthermore, the latest science shows that, over a 10-year period, controlled fires sequester more carbon than they release. NE used approved controlled burning on Dorset heath-land to restore habitat but, ironically, it is firmly against it on moorland, even though it does not burn the peat. Instead, NE demands the wetting of moorland, but wet moors still burn.
Indonesia is the only country in the world that has tried rewetting at scale and studied its effect on wildfire. Rewetting reduced the number of extreme fire events by 40% and only slightly shrank the area affected by fire by 5%. Of course, rewetting will help in some places but certainly not all. For instance, due to topography, 30% of the Peak District cannot be rewetted. The England Peat Action Plan identified the lack of scientific knowledge around the impacts of changing land managing practices. As a result, IDEAL UK FIRE is researching this, with a report due in 2027. Can the Minister tell your Lordships why Defra has undertaken a hurried eight-week consultation on further restrictions on traditional winter burning before this important report is received and studied? Does the Minister agree that no decision should be taken until we have the science available?
NE looks at facts from a single-issue viewpoint, is wedded to one form of fuel load control and ignored the latest scientific evidence. Its ill-informed evidence review—NEER155—has compromised Defra’s responsibility in the wildfire framework for England and, doubtless, the review of the EIP. I wrote to the CEO of NE in April, asking for an urgent meeting to discuss all this. It is a sorry saga to recount but, briefly, she has not responded to me, and my requests for a meeting have been ignored. That is unacceptable, especially from the Government’s advisers.
I conclude that NE is not fit for purpose. I am not at all surprised that there is a fundamental breakdown in trust with landowners to whom it dictates. Its behaviour is putting humans, our environment and nature at greater risk. Can the Minister tell us why NE is allowed to give instructions to landowners when it has no statutory responsibility for wildfires and, contrary to his recent letter to me, does not employ a single person with specialist knowledge? What action will he take to improve NE’s performance?
While on landowners, let us recall that landowners in England voluntarily spend millions each year on moorland management and promoting biodiversity. In parts of Scotland and parts of Italy and Spain, this is no longer so, with well-documented negative environmental consequences. If landowners withdraw their good will, it will fall to the taxpayer to fund and support biodiversity, and the FRS will have no help and local expertise when the fire occurs.
Many of your Lordships will have received the Wildlife Trust’s brief for this debate. Before it was circulated widely, I managed to get an inaccurate reference to an NE report corrected. I also told TWT that where the ignition source was known it represented less than 7% of upland fires. Significantly, it did not amend its brief further to reflect that fact. Are Ministers aware that not only do some NGOs wilfully confuse controlled burns and wildfires but they are sending out briefs that are more emotionally and politically based than science and fact based?
I thank all noble Lords who are speaking in this debate. I look forward to hearing from my noble friend Lord Gove, another Aberdeenshire loon, but nae from the hills, and my noble friend Lord Jack of Courance, in whose former constituency I spent many of my farming days. I am delighted that they have chosen to make their maiden speeches in this important debate. Wildfires are a current and very real threat to us and our environment that climate change will only exacerbate. We all need to do more to rise to the challenge, but we need a more concerted lead from the Government based on further and better scientific evidence advice than they have recently received.
However, it is a common misconception that muirburn is peat burning. It is not. Muirburn is a cold fire. Your Lordships can go online and watch videos of cold fires going across Mars bars that have been laid in the heather and not damaging them or harming them in any shape or form. That is the point. It is a cold burn. These cold fires preserve the peat. They have the dual purpose of preventing wildfires and creating a mosaic of biodiversity that is quite exceptional.
In conclusion, prevention is the best solution to wildfires, and that comes through land management. That means government taking a sensible approach in terms of rules and regulations and not burdening land managers with unnecessary bureaucracy. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to make these observations, and I look forward to playing my part in the work of your Lordships’ House in future.
By bringing these diffuse sources together, the Moorland Association has estimated that, to date, wildfires have cost the UK more than £350 million in 2025, as my noble friend Lord Caithness said—the same amount of money that the Government committed in 2020 to help heavy industry reduce carbon emissions. These costs are a potential avoided loss if wildfire policy is focused on mitigation through managing the fuel load.
I must point out that moorland management, including controlled and specific moor burn carried out by highly trained and skilled gamekeepers, plays a vital role in the prevention and control of wildfires, as was seriously demonstrated in my area of the Peak District earlier this year. That fact needs to be noted and appreciated by Natural England and others.
It is inherent in our country that people like nature. I know that Labour does not entirely get the concept of nature, but it is important to support and strengthen it. It is obvious that we must act to preserve our peatlands and woodlands without deliberately contributing to their deterioration; the Government must adopt very effective strategies.
I point out that, in this debate of 12 speakers, we have four Earls and only two women; it strikes me that this is quite typical of your Lordships’ House. How we will miss our Earls.
During the Whitsun Recess, I spent a family holiday on the south coast at Camber Sands. I noticed that Rother District Council had installed signs at the entrances to paths leading through the dunes to the beach banning both fires and barbecues—not just disposable barbecues but all of them. Does the Minister agree that it is vital to promote public awareness of the dangers of lighting fires or barbecues both in the countryside and at the seaside? Has he met representatives of local authorities to encourage a co-ordinated approach to these dangers?
What is being touted at the moment is completely the wrong way round, because of the lack of understanding from dogmatic people who say, “It is just about trying to shoot grouse”. It is not; it is also about maintaining the countryside, the heather and the hills.
The people who have lived and worked there for generations know what they are doing. It is about time someone listened to and took advice from them, rather than from some expert who has done a brief environmental course and borrowed a pair of green wellies to do a farm walk then writes lots of stuff about this. What they need to do is read the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s work on these sorts of things because it is a charity that does its research regardless of fear or favour; basically, I recommend it to those who are trying to control these things.
I believe that this strategy should include an international component, with UK specialist wildfire experts learning and sharing effective mitigation actions, as well as training jointly with their counterparts in other nations, so that we can help each other when needed. That is currently happening across some jurisdictions. I also think that we need a national wildfire-fighting equipment asset register to allow for more effective sharing of resources across the country when they are needed. I look forward to the Minister’s feedback on these suggestions.