Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021.
09:25 Ruth Jones (Labour)
The SI, and its very evident weaknesses, undermine the Government’s advocacy for nature-based solutions to climate change. Indeed, the rotational burning season this year coincides with the UK’s hosting of the global climate conference COP26, which will see the Government championing nature-based solutions to climate change. In the words of the Minister’s departmental colleague, Lord Goldsmith,
“the UK will use our Presidency of COP26 to persuade other countries to put nature at the heart of their climate response”.
I am grateful to Link for the polling that it commissioned to gauge the views of people on rotational burning and upland peat. The results speak for themselves. They reveal that 60% of the British public want to see the Government’s peat burning ban extended to cover all peatland at risk of being burned, and only 3% oppose that. Some 56% of those polled also want a ban on the burning of all at-risk peatland in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Two thirds of people also want promises to protect peatland included in the UK pledges for COP26, and 67% want the Government to ensure our natural carbon stores, like peatlands, are healthy and capture as much carbon as possible.
Those results show that the public recognise the importance of upland peat and that they wish to see its potential as a nature-based solution to climate change realised, and they very clearly support a comprehensive burning ban. Why will the Minister and Department not listen to the people and act once and for all?
We are in the middle of a climate emergency and our people are crying out for real leadership. Labour stands ready to provide that leadership, as we have demonstrated every step of the way during our consideration of the Environment Bill, the Agriculture Bill and the Fisheries Bill. That stands in stark contrast to the Government, who speak but do not do. The regulations reflect their lazy and unimaginative approach, and it is simply not good enough. At the conclusion of the debate, I intend to test the will of the Committee.
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09:36 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
The restoration of England’s peatlands is a priority for the Government and the regulations will help us to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and to protect valuable habitats and the biodiversity within. Blanket bog is a fragile peatland habitat of international importance. The UK has 30% of the world’s blanket bog, so we hold a large proportion of that very important habitat.
England’s peatlands overall store around 580 million tonnes of carbon, but they emit about 11 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per year. Therefore, restoring our peatlands is a crucial part of addressing climate change and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
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