5. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Climate Change: Trees and Timber

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:58 pm on 13 July 2021.

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Photo of Darren Millar Darren Millar Conservative 4:58, 13 July 2021

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?