Item 5 is a statement by the Deputy Minister for Climate Change on trees and timber. I call on the Deputy Minister for Climate Change, Lee Waters.

Diolch yn fawr. Let me begin by saying that trees are a good thing. We must protect the trees that we have, and plant 86 million more of them in Wales by the end of this decade, if we are to tackle the climate emergency. We need a step change in woodland creation, and a transformation in the way Welsh wood is used across our economy.

Over the past month, I have led an intensive deep-dive exercise to urgently identify the barriers preventing progress and actions to overcome them. I have been supported by a small taskforce made up of experts in these areas, and I want to thank each of them for the time they have committed, and their desire to drive change. I've also spoken with representatives of many groups with an interest, including farmers, foresters, non-governmental organisations, processors and house builders.

We're accepting the tree planting targets set by the UK Climate Change Committee. To reach net zero, we need to plant 43,000 hectares of new trees by 2030, rising to 180,000 hectares by 2050. To be clear, Dirprwy Llywydd, this will require a 15-fold increase in the number of trees we have planted in Wales this year. It'll only be possible through an alliance for change, involving many partners working together. So, today, I want to issue a call to arms for people to join us in delivering this essential change, and it starts with individuals and communities across Wales. For every newborn baby in Wales, we plant a new tree both in Wales and in Uganda. We've learnt some valuable lessons from our partnership with the people of Mbale that we now need to apply more broadly here.

Let's start with the message we deliver with the Size of Wales charity in Africa: trees are amazing. They save lives by keeping our air clean. Trees improve people's health; there is clear evidence of multiple benefits to our well-being from lower stress and blood pressure when around trees. I wish I was around them more often. Higher levels of physical activity, better mental health, greater levels of neighbourliness, lower crime levels too; trees are essential for tackling our nature emergency, helping improve biodiversity, and, of course, in tackling climate change, both by absorbing carbon, alleviating flooding and displacing carbon-intensive products like concrete in house building. And they can help us create more jobs too. Work has begun on implementing our manifesto commitment to develop a timber industrial strategy and create a stronger wood economy for Wales.

We want every family with a garden to plant more trees, and every school and community group to sign up to the Woodland Trust free tree scheme. We need to make it easier for communities to plant trees, and easier for them to interact with authorities. As a result of the deep-dive exercise, we have agreed that public bodies need to map the land they own and proactively identify where more trees can be planted.

It's vital that we work with, and learn from, the farmers and other landowners in Wales who will need to plant many of these trees. It was clear from our exercise that it's not just more advice we need, it's more engagement we need—genuine engagement; thousands of conversations with every farmer to see what suits their farm, to get them as part of the solution that we need to see. And demonstrate to them that planting trees can exist alongside other farming activities, both from a financial and a social perspective. The current grant regime acts against that, and that needs to change. As well as planting new woodlands, we also need to plant what is described as 'hedges and edges', such as trees along field boundaries, scattered trees, hedges and shelter belts—I've learned some new words, Dirprwy Lywydd, as part of this exercise. It's been a fascinating experience.

There are some excellent examples to learn from, including the Stump Up For Trees project near Abergavenny, which I visited yesterday, a project led by farmers in consensus with communities to plant trees on unproductive land and create new sources of income whilst protecting their communities for the longer term. We need more examples like these, so I am establishing a new working group to urgently consider models to attract investment in woodland creation, crucially, without disrupting existing communities and patterns of landownership. I am worried, Dirprwy Lywydd, by the trend of large areas of farmland being bought up by outside interests in an exercise in greenwash. This does not need to happen, as we've seen from Stump Up For Trees, and I want to take action to make sure that doesn't get out of hand.

Many of the trees currently planted in Wales are funded through our Glastir woodland creation scheme. In the past, funding through this scheme has been too inconsistent and the process for getting funding too complex and slow. I have wondered, at times, how we've managed to plant as many trees as we have, frankly. The taskforce has identified a number of actions to change this. We'll open a new window of the current scheme to ensure all of the £17 million we’ve allocated to tree planting is spent this year, and I have asked NRW to introduce immediate changes to speed up delivery, to lead an overhaul of the guidance we provide around tree planting, and focus instead on outreach to help people get things done and get things right at the start of a project.

From next year, we will introduce an improved scheme to support woodland creation, with stand-alone funding to allow people to plan new woodland so we create a pipeline of projects that are ready to plant when the money becomes available. I want many of the areas supported by these schemes to form part of the national forest, to create a network of high-quality areas of woodland across Wales. We also need to do more to support people to create new woodlands or make improvements to existing woodlands to meet the standards of the national forest. Later this week, we'll open the woodland investment grant to allow people to apply for this support. 

Eighty per cent of the timber used in the UK is imported, and only 4 per cent of the 1.5 million tonnes of harvested timber is processed to be used as construction-grade timber in Wales. So there's a real opportunity for timber processors and manufacturers in Wales to contribute to this wood economy, creating new jobs in rural Wales as well as building an innovative supply chain for high value added, longer life uses. We should be spending less of our attention on producing pallets, and more of our attention on using that wood to build Welsh homes that capture and keep carbon. That will require co-ordination across the supply chain. So, I've another new working group to urgently consider the content of a new timber industrial strategy for Wales. We need to create added value right throughout the chain, and there's much we can learn from the Republic of Ireland in this.

We have published this afternoon, Dirprwy Lywydd, a list of the 39 actions the taskforce has agreed, alongside the written statement. We now need to keep up the momentum. I will close, if I may, with a comment made during one of our meetings by Mark McKenna from the Down to Earth project. He said, in reflecting on one of our conversations, 'The solutions are there. We need to invest and we need to plan'. And we intend to. Diolch. 

Conservative spokesperson, Janet Finch-Saunders.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. In the year to March 2020, whilst 200 hectares of new woodland was planted in Northern Ireland, 2,330 in England, and 10,860 in Scotland, Wales only managed to plant 80 hectares. So bad is this failure that the Welsh Government have done what they've done in other areas—they've actually reduced the planting target from 5,000 to 2,000 hectares per year. Such a chopped target could see the Welsh Government's approach to tree plantation easily compared to the deforestation we read about in the literary classic The Lord of the Rings—The Two Towers. In fact, Welsh Labour could be compared to Ents, discussing problems for a long time before taking action. To be truly ambitious, Deputy Minister, you would be looking to restore the 5,000 hectares per year goal.

Forestry is classified in our own CCRA3 report as 'more action needed'. So, will you act on the recommendation for an assessment of management options for pests and diseases that have become resistant to current pesticides and further explore management initiatives that can enhance resilience, such as diversification? The report also identifies opportunities for the expansion of existing established species, such as the Douglas fir and sycamore, and for fast-growing species that are selected for bioenergy sources. So, will you identify where those opportunities are via the mapping exercise that our public bodies will now be undertaking? 

One third of the around 309,000 hectares of woodland in Wales are found on agricultural land, yet yesterday you stated that the vast majority of new woodland will not be planted by the Welsh Government but by the communities—the farmers and other landowners across Wales. It's a bit rich for you to be claiming credit when you're actually reducing the targets. I'm also perplexed as to why your taskforce excluded NFU Cymru, FUW and the Countryside Alliance. Can you clarify whether you are going to work with them and include them in the new working group considering models to attract investment in woodland creation? 

Deputy Llywydd, the Glastir woodland creation scheme has been overly complex and difficult for farmers to engage with. So, how confident are you, Deputy Minister, that the changes you are introducing will simplify the scheme, and will you ensure that farmers are properly rewarded for the establishment and management of trees and their farms? There are numerous reports of private investors buying vast areas of farmland to plant with trees, usually from out of the area, and that's where we do agree with your statement. We've got to actually take this in mind. So, will you clarify what steps will be incorporated in the new fast-tracked NRW approval process to safeguard these valuable open habitats from inappropriate plantation and ensure that support is only given to our real active farmers here in Wales?

Forecasts project softwood availability in Wales will decline from a standing volume of 2 million cu m in 2016 to just 1.5 million by 2041. So, can you give the Chamber greater clarity as to how you will address the significant concerns raised by the commercial forestry sector that the low planting and restocking rates will reduce the future supply of commercial timber? NRW, we all know, is seriously understaffed and underresourced, so have you assessed the impact of selling up to 30 per cent of their timber through alternatives to the current model focused on sale for the highest financial value? Dependent on the number being recruited, the woodland officers could actually be made lengthsmen, as they could have a key role in keeping drainage infrastructure clear, too. 

Finally, I am deeply concerned that high-density housing areas contain only 1 per cent of Wales's urban tree cover. According to 'Prosperity for All: A Low Carbon Wales', you have an ambition to increase tree canopy cover and create woodlands near towns and cities—not much mention of that here today. So, what progress has there been since the publication of that report in March 2019? 

Deputy Minister, we all want more trees, but we want more action and fewer words. Thank you. Diolch. 

Thank you very much. It's always difficult, I know, for opposition spokespeople who have to write a contribution in advance of a Minister setting out what's happening, and it's a shame that much of what she accused me of had been addressed in my statement. She does remind me a little bit of the old saying that some people refuse to take 'yes' for an answer.

You criticised me for not setting a target of 5,000 when I had said that we are accepting the Climate Change Committee's target on tree planting, which is 5,000. So, that is an anxiety I can put to bed. Indeed, I'm happy to go through with her—. I don't have the time today to go through everything she said, but I don't think there's much—[Interruption.] If she'd not heckle me, I'd do my best to answer her questions; it's very distracting. I don't think there's anything that she said in that statement that is going to be a problem for us. I think the taskforce has addressed all of those issues, and we certainly have tried. 

As for shifting responsibility away from the Welsh Government by saying this needs to be an alliance for change—I think that's to completely misunderstand and misrepresent what we're saying and what we're trying to achieve. This has to be a whole-system approach. Absolutely the Welsh Government has got a significant role to play, and that's why we've set out the changes to the grant criteria, the greater risk appetite we're prepared to take—[Interruption.]

Let the Deputy Minister answer the questions, please. 

I'm answering your questions as patiently as I can and going through one at a time. I could have been far more brutal in my response, frankly, Janet Finch-Saunders. I'm trying to be kind to you, but you are making it hard.

As opposed to excluding the unions, we've not excluded the unions. This was a very sharply focused taskforce. This was not a representative body with all the stakeholders. The NFU and NRW have fed into the land management report of the forestry enterprises which form the basis of our analysis. I met separately as part of a round-table with the NFU and the FUW and Coed Cymru who worked very closely with and played an integral part of the taskforce. So, I know it's easy just to tick boxes so everyone is kept happy; that wasn't the purpose of this exercise: its purpose was some sharp interrogation of the facts and focus on action to shift it and I think we've done that and I think we've—once you've had time to reflect and be a little more generous, you might accept that we've made some progress here.

As for the NRW being understaffed, there isn't an organisation in Wales that cannot make a case for having more staff. We're all struggling with capacity. That is one of the consequences of austerity, and she needs to understand the consequences of her own party's actions on that. But one thing that's become clear on this: there are 81 staff in NRW currently spending their time processing and approving woodland plans. We're going to free them up, so instead of a bureaucratic exercise which slows things down, we are freeing them up to play a role to help get more trees planted and that's something NRW have welcomed.

As for urban tree cover, that's very much part of our plans. I said we want every family to plant a tree; I also said we want all public bodies to identify land that is available and to proactively work with communities to get trees planted everywhere we can. So, I do think if you drop the oppositional tone and focus on the content, we actually agree on pretty much everything.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Delyth Jewell.

Thank you, Deputy Llywydd, and thank you, Minister, for the statement. I welcome the Government’s ambition in this area and I agree that trees are incredible. It's so important that Wales has a wood economy that safeguards trees, expands the numbers of forests in the country and creates jobs and building material that will be part of our economic recovery. It's clear that we will need significant investment in workforce skills and also in tree-planting technology. Thousands of jobs could be created and there would be great benefits to our communities as a result of that. Can I ask, therefore, for more detail on how the Welsh Government will invest in the skills that will be needed to reach these targets, and will the Welsh Government encourage new entrants into this industry through apprenticeships? It would be good to have some detail on that and a rough timetable if at all possible. And could you give us some detail on how you would invest in the necessary technology for these ambitious schemes?

In turning now to farmland, an issue that's already been raised this afternoon, we know how important it is to plant trees in a way that is effectively targeted—that we need the right trees in the right places for the right reasons. And these plans need to include people who understand the land, including farmers. You've already referred, Minister, to evidence that does cause concern about whole farms being bought up by large multinationals in order to plant trees, and it's come to our attention that Glastir funding could be used to aid such schemes. I know that this has already been raised in Janet Finch-Saunders's contribution, but I'd also like to put on record how important it will be to support rural communities to do what is necessary, so that they can help to reach these targets. So, what will you do to work with our communities and with our farmers on that?

And in turning, finally, to urban tree planting, there are clear benefits from planting trees in urban areas and villages, including improvements in air quality, noise reduction and temperature control, and many of these factors have positive impacts on the mental health, psychology and well-being of residents too.

Now, can you—? And this is my final question: will the Welsh Government provide some more detail on how you will take advantage, as much as possible, of urban tree planting, including the necessary diversity in terms of the types of trees that you plant? And what will you do to address the threats to urban trees? Thank you.

Thank you very much for that series of comments and questions. In terms of your last point, on the threat to urban trees, I'd said very clearly at the very beginning that we need to protect the trees that we have. Now, that doesn't mean that in every circumstance every tree can be preserved. One of the points that struck me during this exercise is that we have lost our relationship with our woodlands, and I think a healthy relationship and understanding of woodlands understands that trees need to be cut down sometimes. That's often why we grow them, if we replant them, and obviously it needs to be done on a case-by-case basis, but we shouldn't shy away from the fact that sometimes trees need to be felled. I don't think a healthy understanding of a woodland economy would preclude that. There are competing visions at times between these dappled woodlands with shafts of light hitting the forest floor and sometimes the contrast with an industrial view of woodlands, and there is room for both, and both require different approaches.

There is absolutely potential for job creation, as I say, right through the value chain. At the moment we have a collection of sawmills that have a business model that serves them fairly well, and don't really have a great incentive to disrupt that. I think we need to play a more active role in disrupting that as a Government, and make sure that the demand is there and the supply is there for those businesses to be able to take risks and invest in their own capital equipment and invest in their own workforce. To be fair, when I met them they were very much up for that, and they are definitely part of the solution. I think there's far greater plurality we can introduce into the system as we start to create a different environment. An example was given by Woodknowledge Wales—we're currently putting roughly 70,000 UPVC windows into landfill every year with funding from public bodies for new windows. There's a demand there for timber-framed windows if we take a co-ordinated approach here, and over time that creates business confidence and, of course, a need for more trees. So, this is all linked.

You ask for more detail on the way that we invest in skills and technology and I'm afraid I'm not able to give you that at the moment, but there's very much an intention to start developing plans to do that, and hopefully to keep the taskforce going and to expand it to make sure that we have the right people together. That was what I found so instructive about this: we had the people involved in implementing this around the table with the people with expertise, who are explicitly empowered to challenge, and through an intensive process of working together, systematically identifying barriers and coming up with solutions. We've come up with 49 recommendations that will really make a difference. I think that's a very healthy process that needs to continue.

In terms of Glastir funding being used to allow inward investors, if you like, to come in and buy farms, what I found really instructive about the Stump Up for Trees model is that here we have a Welsh farming-led group of people who have got control and ownership locally but are drawing in money through carbon credits from external bodies. So we have, and we're going to have, an increased demand for carbon offset, and rather than just standing back and letting the market fill that void, and having more Welsh farms bought up by bodies from outside of Wales, I think we need to actually step in here and facilitate this relationship where that money can be used through carbon credits, but you lever that money into communities so the ownership and control stays local.

I hope that addresses as many of the points as I can in the time available. Happy to follow up.

I welcome the Welsh Government's statement. I requested a statement on trees a few weeks ago, and thankfully we've now got one. Can I also say how much I welcome the tone of the Minister's statement? We need a lot more trees to meet our climate change needs, to reduce flooding risk and to protect biodiversity. But we need to involve the public. If everyone with a garden planted one tree, that would be over one million trees. We need councils to plant trees in parks and on the roadside—we've lost far too many roadside trees—and they need to be planted in large numbers. If we can enthuse communities to plant trees on land that still bears industrial scars, as we saw in the lower Swansea Valley in the 1970s, it can transform an area completely.

I have two questions. There were schemes in the 1970s of 'Plant a Tree in '73' and 'Plant One More in '74'. They were very successful. Can this be repeated in 2023 and 2024? And has the Minister reached the same conclusion I have that we need a forestry commission, and whilst it can share back-office functions with NRW, it will need to stand alone, promoting, monitoring and managing forestry? 

Thank you very much, and that's an inspired idea of, 'Plant a tree in 2023 and another in 2024'. I will shamelessly take that off you, I think, Mike Hedges—I think that's brilliant. I will take that away and work up something. Thank you very, very much; that's an excellent suggestion.

In terms of a forestry commission-type body, perhaps I was too coded in my response, but I did say looking at the Irish example that we will need to learn from a body that adds value across the whole supply chain. They not only have far higher rates of tree planting than we do, but they've got a much better system for monetising that, and using it for economic advantage and generating local wealth from it. And I think we need to look at that, too. 

One of the things I think we need to think about—and I didn't want to do this in this short, sharp exercise, because we can't be flippant about it—but to look at where the best set of functions lie in this, and whether NRW is the right body. I think we have set them up to stumble and fail sometimes by asking them to be both the regulator and the promoter, and I think that is extremely difficult for any body to do. As I say, they're often criticised for how slow and bureaucratic it is, but they are doing things we've asked them to do, and part of what this function through this exercise is is to take some of that off them, to make it easier for them so that they're not always getting it in the neck, but to put their effort into doing things that are going to help, which is what they want to do, to be fair. But I think there is an open question about what is the right body to do that co-ordinating function. It may not be NRW, but I want to reach that conclusion thoughtfully and patiently. 

I'd like to thank the Minister for the statement today. I agree wholeheartedly with the ambitious plans. We need to plant more trees to combat climate change and reduce the chances of more extreme weather conditions, like the rainfall that led to the flooding in February 2020. In October 2020, NRW completed their land estate management review and produced 10 key recommendations to change their current approach, as well as more specific recommendations following the floods in Pentre. Will the Minister please provide an update on how NRW have actioned each of the 10 recommendations following the review, as well as the recommendations following the flooding event in Pentre? I'm happy to receive a written answer from the Minister at a later date. 

Perhaps I can give Buffy Williams points for trying to turn this into a discussion of the situation of flooding in Pentre. I'm afraid that's not something we explicitly looked at. I'd be happy to write on an update of how NRW are getting on with that review. But I would say what this exercise has highlighted is the important role of tree planting in alleviating and preventing flooding, and that is a really important part of the plans that we need to develop. So, that helps with what we know is already baked into the system of more frequent and tumultuous weather. 

Can I welcome the statement today? I'm a major tree enthusiast like you, and I think it's absolutely wonderful that there's this national ambitious target that is now being set. Can I thank the Welsh Government as well for the grants that it made available through Keep Wales Tidy and the Woodland Trust for the planting of a tiny forest in Kinmel Bay in my constituency, which has spurred the local community on to plant community orchards and trees on grass verges? It's the sort of chain reaction, I think, that the Welsh Government might be looking for. 

There is, however, once concern that I have, and that is about felling. I know that someone else has already raised this—Delyth Jewell—earlier, but the Forestry Act 1967 in England and Wales does not currently allow local authorities to refuse tree felling licences to protect local wildlife populations such as the red squirrel, for which I'm the species champion. The Scottish Government has actually changed the law to enable licences to be refused for that purpose. Can I urge the Welsh Government to look at whether a similar change in the law might be possible here in Wales in order to protect not just red squirrels, but any other important wildlife across Wales that could be threatened as a result of felling operations? 

Thank you for that constructive intervention, and I've called Darren Millar many things in my time, but never a major tree enthusiast. So, that's one to add to the list. I think he rightly points that there are policy tensions and sometimes absurd and unintended consequences, and he gives a very good example there. So, I would be very happy to look at that, because I think it is a problem.

I welcome the Minister's wholehearted commitment to this cause and the ambition and determination is clear to see on this. I'd urge the Minister to move as swiftly as he can with increasing tree coverage in our towns and cities. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of having green spaces near to your homes. Trees provide shade, reduce street temperatures, absorb carbon dioxide, filter air pollution, improve drainage and mitigate floods, and provide habitat for wildlife and plants. Tree-lined streets should not be something only seen in the suburbs, but must be encouraged in the most densely populated areas of our towns and cities. So, could the Minister go into a little bit more detail about his plans to ensure this happens? And encouraging planting of hedgerows in our urban areas is also important, whether around our homes or schools, so could the Minister say how this will fit into the strategy as well?

A national call to arms and encouraging everyone to get involved is an excellent idea and something that has been successful before, as Mike Hedges has already mentioned. Many trees that were planted in Caerleon in my constituency during the 1970s were done during the 'Plant a Tree in '73' and 'Plant Some More in '74'—

Can the Member come to a conclusion now, please?

Yes. I'd caution that it has to be the right tree in the right place, along with the hedgerows—maybe it's 'Plant a Yew in '22'. Whatever the title or native species, I'd urge the Minister to keep up the momentum on this. We must see this plan turn into a reality.

Thank you very much. I completely agree with all the points that she made. I think the pandemic has shown us the connection to nature that taking an interest in your garden and planting trees can have, and I've certainly seen it in the case of my own garden.

If we are going to meet the challenge of climate change, as we've discussed in this Chamber in recent weeks, we need to significantly change things. And I think, done properly, getting people to plant more trees themselves can really start that journey of understanding a relationship with nature and the actions that each of us need to take in our own front yard and back yard as part of a broader set of behaviour change movements, and that is very much my intention.

We've announced some things today, and I hope that we'll be able to announce some more as the months go by.

And finally, Joyce Watson.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm really pleased that you've delivered this statement today, and it's very clear that you are determined to drive this forward. And I think that you've identified together the issues that are in the way, and that is making life easier to achieve this, and I think that is fantastic.

Because we're limited in time, I want to talk around the hedges and edges part of your statement, because they are vital for habitat. What we all see, very often, when there's a housing development, is all the hedges and edges ripped out and all the ground cleared, and then something put back in its way. So, could I ask you to speak with the other Minister in charge of planning for development, so that maybe we could incorporate some of those ancient hedgerows within the urban development without having to destroy what is there in the way? Thank you.

Thank you. As I said when discussing transport, we need to make the right thing to do the easy thing to do, and I think that applies right across the behaviour change challenges for tackling climate change. I think the hedges and edges concept, which was brought to my attention by the Woodland Trust, who have done some really good work on this, is a really important one, because there is a journey to go on with some farmers who see this agenda as threatening to their way of farming, and that's why we need to have conversations with each of them to see what suits their land. And they all can identify bits of land where they'd be perfectly comfortable with having hedges and edges covered by trees, and I think that's a really important beginning for them on the behaviour change journey of how they farm as well. 

In terms of the specific point of ancient hedgerows, I don't know enough about that to give you an intelligent answer, so, if you don't mind, I'll go away, think about it, talk to some cleverer people, and get back to you.

Thank you, Deputy Minister.

And can I thank both Ministers for their succinct and brief answers that allowed me to call many Members to be able to ask their questions? I'm sure Members will go away over the summer and practise their timing on some of them as well.