Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Official Report 442KB pdf

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Woodland Expansion Advisory Group (Report)

The final item on the agenda provides an opportunity for the committee to hear from the woodland expansion advisory group on its recently published report. I welcome our witnesses: David Howat and Jo Ellis, who are from Forestry Commission Scotland.

We have quite a lot of questions for you. You can give us your answers and if there is any need for any longer summing up we can perhaps leave that to the end.

We welcome the report. Can you give any reasons for there not being a more positive attitude to woodland creation in recent years?

I will first explain that we both worked for the secretariat to the woodland expansion advisory group. Dr Andrew Barbour, who was the chair of the advisory group, is very sorry that he could not make it along, but unfortunately he had an unchangeable commitment this morning.

I will answer your question about the different attitudes to woodland creation over the years. I have been at it in Scotland since the mid-1980s and it has been interesting to see how things have fluctuated. When I started there tended to be quite a strong interest in the implications of new woodland creation proposals for agricultural land. However, there was a policy switch in the late 1980s when there were food surpluses and so on across Europe. The rhetoric at that point was about bringing trees down on to better land. It is interesting that at that stage quite a lot of concern about woodland expansion moved to issues of conservation and landscaping, which is obviously a cause célèbre up in the flow country.

Since then, to try to address that, a lot of work has been done on the consultation processes that we go through with new planting proposals on the public forest estate and grant-aided planting proposals, and on issues such as environmental impact assessment.

I guess that the work of the woodland expansion advisory group was precipitated in particular by the fact that agriculture has gone through a cycle again and there is now more concern about issues such as food security. That means that, once again, concern is being expressed in The Scottish Farmer and at meetings of farmers about the potential implications of woodland expansion for food production. That precipitated the work of the group, although the group was broadly based so it took into account a wide range of land use interests.

The land use strategy picked up the concerns about woodland expansion. Proposal 7 of the strategy said that there should be closer identification of the types of land in Scotland that are suitable for woodland expansion and associated processes. In effect, that proposal in the strategy provided the brief for the woodland expansion advisory group, accepting that we cannot get quarts into pint pots and that it was a question of trying to do one’s best to achieve integration.

You have identified that the group took an inclusive approach and that it had to deal with diverse issues. Have you achieved a practical set of proposals that can be taken forward as soon as possible so that we achieve the extension of forestry and woodland planting?

I ask Jo Ellis to explain how the group set about its work and the consultation process, because that might provide the answer.

A group of people were brought together to represent a wide range of interests. They were chosen because they had a practical interest in the issue. As to whether the recommendations will be practically useful, Dr Andrew Barbour would never have let anything be done that was not strongly grounded in reality and practically based.

The group had seven meetings. Although the members brought a huge amount of expertise to the group, they recognised that they needed further input from an even broader group of interests. Therefore, the group held a consultation exercise—in fact, it was a call for views. Rather than produce something and ask for responses, the group asked people to express their views and to highlight suggestions as to how it could proceed. That was well subscribed, with about 140 people and organisations sending responses.

The group then held a series of public meetings around the country, which were well attended. One positive aspect of those meetings was that people from all the interest groups that are associated with forestry, from farmers to environmentalists and foresters of all kinds, came together. The process illustrated how the issues are different in different parts of the country—the meetings had a different focus as we went from Oban to Inverness to Newtown St Boswell’s.

We will now explore some of the issues in more detail, starting with targets.

The Government’s original hoped-for target when it began to focus on forestry was for 25 per cent coverage of Scotland by 2050. The group’s report suggests that the target should be changed to 100,000 hectares to be planted by 2022. What effect will that have on the percentage of woodland? How does that target differ from the Government’s 25 per cent target?

In the short term, it is much the same. In other words, if we do the arithmetic and translate the aspiration of 25 per cent coverage by the second half of the century into an annual target, we get back to 10,000 hectares a year. Therefore, the target of 100,000 hectares over 10 years is consistent with that 25 per cent target. The important difference is that, rather than say that we have a long-term target of 25 per cent woodland cover, which, frankly, was frightening a lot of people, the group has advised that it is more sensible to look ahead 10 years and say that the target should be an average increase in woodland cover of 10,000 hectares a year for that period. It also recommended a further review in seven or eight years’ time to look at the next 10 years. We should not be trying to plan too far ahead.

11:15

Do your targets and proposals take into account harvesting figures, in particular the quite considerable woodland reduction that is happening because of, for example, wind farms? My understanding is that compensatory planting is not keeping up with that deforestation. If that has not been taken into account, what is the net increase that you are looking at?

It is quite difficult to get absolutely accurate figures on woodland loss because they are partly associated with planning consents for wind farms and so on. However, we have done our best to bring the available information together and we think that over the past 10 years we have lost about 20,000 hectares or an average 2,000 hectares per year. Of course, those figures reflect an earlier era when fairly large areas of forest were cut down for wind farms; since then, the Government’s policies to control woodland removal have been introduced and are starting to bite. You are right that we cannot yet point our fingers at any compensatory planting but I note that, in the beginning, wind farm engineers felt that the easiest thing to do was to deck everything to reduce wind turbulence for the turbines. Because of the control of woodland removal policies, they are now taking a lot more care to minimise the amount of woodland loss as a result of wind farm development.

So your proposals and the figures that you have come up with do not assume a great deal of woodland loss.

Exactly.

Right.

Not all of the 20,000 hectares have been lost because of wind farms. About 30 or 40 per cent of that loss is down to habitat restoration—in other words, restoring open ground habitats from woodland.

I appreciate that and thank you for the clarification.

Going back to your targets, I note the obvious requirement—and indeed a requirement from the timber industry—for a certain percentage of what is to be planted to be commercial in nature. What species have you recommended should be planted to cover that percentage of commercial planting and what should that percentage be?

The Scottish forestry strategy and subsequent documents suggested that 60 per cent of planting be productive or commercial and 40 per cent what one might loosely call native woodland planting. In that respect, the group did two things, the first of which was to endorse that general approach. The reality, however, is that that is not happening on the ground; if anything, the percentages are the other way round—indeed, there is more of a gap—with something like 70 per cent native planting and 30 per cent productive or commercial planting.

Secondly, the group pointed out that it is not always helpful to have a clear, hard and fast distinction between commercial forest and native woodland and recognised, for example, that people should plant native woodland with an eye to producing timber at some stage. A classic example is native Scots pine woodlands where landowners have chosen to space stems at 2,000 per hectare in order to produce timber. We should also recognise that to ensure that we do not repeat past mistakes in so-called commercial planting we need well designed productive woodlands that not only produce timber but fit into the landscape, have biodiversity benefits and so forth. The group made it very clear that more work has to be done to get more productive woodland on the ground and that that should happen both through working with the industry and through ensuring that when we design the grant regimes for the next Scotland rural development programme we do our arithmetic so that there is no bias one way or the other.

I think that we will come to the SRDP later on.

I know that the private sector has real concerns about the amount of commercial planting that is taking place, so I am delighted to hear that you hope to reverse the current trend. I think that the commercial to native ratio is about 20:80 at the moment. I come from the south-west of Scotland and know that the timber industry’s sustainability is important.

Finally, you mentioned the land use strategy. Assuming that the targets that you suggest are adopted and agreed, will any alteration of the land use strategy be required?

The land use strategy expresses fairly high-level objectives, and what we are saying is consistent with it. It does not go to the stage of allocating different land for different uses.

I will ask about the background. Obviously, the private sector owns two thirds of our forests. It seems to me that, when there was a great burst of forest planting and growing, a quantity of it in the north was on land from which it is very difficult to harvest. Is there some of the forest footprint that will never be replanted?

There are certainly issues in certain areas where we accept that there are good reasons not to restock. The classic example is areas of the flow country in which trees are being cut down and there is no restocking. We have a policy regime in place that can potentially use environmental impact assessments where the landowner wants to deforest. I admit that we are fairly tight on that, because with Scottish objectives and international commitments on sustainable forest management, we do not want a deforestation free-for-all.

There is another point about timber production in Scotland that I should have raised in answering Mr Fergusson’s question. A new production forecast of softwood availability has just been published for Scotland, which shows that the potential timber for harvesting in Scotland will continue to be on the increase over the next 25 years. That is good news. That is potential softwood availability based on what is growing on the ground.

We will also need to look at access, which the convener raised. We have just put together a committee, which is chaired by our non-executive commissioner, Hamish Macleod of BSW Timber Group, to look at softwood availability and accessibility issues with members of the industry to take a view on what the real timber availability for industry is likely to be. However, as I said, the forecast looks pretty good.

We will look forward to hearing about that.

The Woodland Trust and the Forestry Commission are engaging with the Ministry of Defence and local authorities to try to identify unused parcels of land that could be leased for tree planting. In my constituency, Royal Marines Condor recently entered into an arrangement with the Woodland Trust to plant 50,000 native trees across 95 acres as part of the diamond woods project, which will, I think, take in 20 locations across Scotland, all told. How successful are such efforts proving to be? To what extent might they contribute to hitting the targets? Will their contribution be over and above the targets?

The short answer is that they all contribute to meeting the targets in an important way. You referred to Woodland Trust Scotland initiatives, but there are other initiatives—for example, by the Borders Forest Trust. In loose terms, we talk about publicly owned forests and private forests, but private forests include a wide range of different types of activity and increasingly include activities by communities and voluntary bodies.

What is your awareness of the responsiveness of the MOD and local authorities in general to such approaches?

I have not had any contact with the MOD in Scotland, but I understand that more of the Woodland Trust work with the MOD is south of the border. However, I am not entirely sure about that—I may be wrong.

Quite a lot of good working with local authorities tends to go on. That is particularly relevant in the central Scotland green network area, although I am not saying that it does not happen in other parts of Scotland. In that area, we have 19 local authorities that are trying to create green networks across central Scotland.

In general policy terms, it is important that we work closely with local authorities on what is in local development plans and on individual projects. For example, the Forestry Commission recently leased from a local authority land that is in the Cuningar loop in the heart of Glasgow, so we will undertake a woodland restoration project there on former local authority land.

I will finish the questions on targets. What involvement did the Scottish Government have in finalising the report?

I am sorry, convener—perhaps I should have mentioned at the beginning that I hope that the Scottish Government will respond shortly to the group’s report.

Annabelle Ewing will pick up stakeholder buy-in and sectoral impacts.

A lot of work has gone into the report. The committee was aware that there were many views, which could be termed competing, about land use and forestation. You have managed to arrive at the report—all credit to you for that.

Given all the competing and diverse interests of those who were involved in the advisory group, I hope—and it would be useful to have it confirmed—that the report reflects the balanced conclusion of all parties involved, such that it provides at least in principle a way forward that brings everybody together. I hope that we can address the competing interests in a measured and balanced way, rather than going back to having constant discussions. I am interested in your views on that.

As you can see, the group had a broad-ranging membership. It included the president of the National Farmers Union Scotland and representatives from the National Sheep Association and the forestry industry. All the group’s members were happy to sign up to the report.

Some of the tensions to which you refer were reflected round the table at the group’s early meetings. However, I think that Jo Ellis would agree that it was interesting to see how we managed to bring people together as the group did its work, although that is not shown in the printed words.

I agree absolutely. The group provided a great opportunity for people to have full and frank discussions and to air their views. It is positive that, at the end, we have produced a report to which everybody can sign up.

We cannot pretend that, as a result of the work, we will have total sweetness and light on every planting application in the future, but we hope that we can put in place processes that will minimise some of the tensions that gave rise to the group’s work.

It is interesting that you mention such tensions, because I was planning to ask about them next. Where do you expect tensions to arise? In your analysis of types of land for tree planting, the report says that, in the worst-case scenario, using some land could

“cause a 2% reduction in livestock numbers.”

What can be done to address the tensions? If livestock land was reduced, that would be of concern to livestock farmers. Where do you see the process going? The report is just the start of the process, although it is important.

That is absolutely right. As I said, there has been a cycle. Twenty or 30 years ago, people took the agricultural implications of woodland expansion seriously. However, because of food surpluses and all the rest of it, people moved on to worrying about conservation landscaping.

I hope that one outcome of the work will be that the agricultural implications of woodland expansion proposals are again considered seriously. Wherever possible, we should look for win-wins on shelter and in the detailed decisions on the ground. When some agricultural production is to be lost, we should look to minimise that. That will be looked at in the detailed consideration of individual proposals.

11:30

At the more strategic level of, for example, local authorities’ forest and woodland strategies, the group made a recommendation on sub-regional analysis. In making that recommendation—number 4—the group was trying to refine the current approach, which identifies in crude terms certain parts of different local authority areas as preferred for forestry expansion. That approach may be fine today, but if there is a lot of woodland expansion in those areas over the next three or four years, woodland cover of 22 per cent could suddenly rise to 25 per cent and people could see it possibly rising to 30 per cent. We want to set a threshold or limit for woodland expansion that recognises that there is a dynamic. Just because an area is preferred for woodland expansion does not mean that it should go from, say, 20 per cent woodland cover to 80 per cent.

That is helpful. The timber industry is obviously important for Scotland, but we must allow all industries to breathe and develop. The report states that, because of current issues,

“around 46% of Scotland’s land is largely unavailable for woodland creation”.

Do you envisage the issues that preclude that land from being available changing at any point? Is there at least the possibility of changes to whatever the current obstacles are to using the huge tracts of land in Scotland that are unavailable in that regard?

In some cases, it is straightforward unsuitability because the land is the top of a mountain or something like that. However, within the 60 per cent, about 20 per cent is the so-called designated areas, which Jo Ellis can speak about.

Annabelle Ewing referred to work that we did to underpin the group’s considerations. The group wanted to ensure that it focused on areas that are most likely to have woodland expansion. It took out all the bits that are least likely to have woodland expansion, which is what the 46 per cent refers to. There are things that could change in that, such as the presumption against planting large areas of woodland on prime agricultural land, but most of that land will not be the focus of woodland expansion.

The next area that the group looked at comprises the 20 per cent of Scotland’s land that is under various sorts of designation. The WEAG did not focus too much on that land and it was largely not in consideration, but Scottish Natural Heritage explained that there are significant opportunities in some areas of that designated land, particularly for native woodland creation and well-designed productive woodlands. So, even though our analysis excluded some two thirds of Scotland’s land from our consideration, we accepted that there were still opportunities within that; it is just that that is not the main focus of woodland creation.

Thank you. Where does MOD land fall within this discussion? Is it part of the 46 per cent of Scottish land that is not available for woodland planting? Is it part of the designated 20 per cent?

The report was on land capability and constraints such as peat; it was not on ownership. We were not saying that the bit that has most potential can therefore have woodland all over it; it was just about what bit to focus on.

We are now looking at integrated land use strategy and cross-cutting issues.

Jo Ellis referred to peat. How do we ensure that forestry dovetails or integrates with other land use demands such as peatland restoration, which has the potential to make a huge contribution to tackling emissions? How do we achieve the appropriate balance?

We must first get the best scientific evidence. As trees grow they sequester carbon, but peat is an important carbon store. We have taken the best available advice from the scientists as to where the balance lies between planting on peat and not planting on it and leaving it as peat.

In crude terms, what we have come up with for new planting is what we call the 0.5m rule—in other words, if the peat depth is less than 0.5m, the land is potentially available for tree planting, whereas if the peat depth is greater than 0.5m, it is probably better left as peat. The situation becomes slightly more complicated when we are dealing with existing forests that have been planted on deep peat, because that involves considering the extent to which it is possible to restore the peat habitat or whether the damage has already been done. We are currently working on how to refine the guidance in relation to restocking.

I note from a recent written answer that I got from the Minister for Environment and Climate Change on the amount of electricity production in the forest estate that

“some 402MW of wind and hydro capacity is already generating electricity, 429MW is under construction, 156MW has obtained planning consent but construction has not commenced yet while some 215MW capacity is in the planning system.”—[Official Report, Written Answers, 19 September 2012; S4W-09426.]

That makes up about twice as much capacity as is likely to be scoped in the future.

A different approach must now be being taken. I take it that thought is being given to making available rivers as well as keyhole areas of forestry for renewable energy schemes. Is it the case that a cross-cutting element of such schemes is that a lot of community benefit could come out of them, which is not mentioned by people who talk about wind farms being sited on forestry land?

That is right, convener. At a very early stage in the work of the group, it asked about the potential loss of woodlands to wind farms. All the papers were put on the website, including a paper on that. For the reasons that we discussed earlier, a certain amount of woodland may be lost, but that will be dealt with, essentially, by compensatory planting.

Moving away from the work of the group to the Forestry Commission’s approach to renewable energy development, you are quite right: there is a target of producing 2GW of electricity from the national forest estate by 2020. That covers wind and hydro development. We put a lot of effort into developing ways to provide community benefits from such developments on the national forest estate. Those benefits can be provided in three ways. We are saying to developers who do wind farms or hydro schemes that, at the very least, they must offer a community benefit of £5,000 per megawatt. For a 20MW scheme, that translates to £100,000 a year, which is a not inconsiderable amount.

In addition, an option is being built in to require developers to provide communities with a shareholding in their developments, if they want it. At the same time, in areas that are not being used by developers, we are using the national forest land scheme to open up the national forest estate to communities that are interested in taking forward hydro or wind schemes—it often tends to be hydro schemes that they want to do. Communities can come to us and take forward a community scheme.

A few days ago, I was at a meeting with the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and Community Energy Scotland, at which we thrashed through some of the issues to do with how we set a fair rent for communities. On one hand, we want to encourage the community endeavour but, on the other hand, under Scottish public finance rules and all the rest of it, we need to ensure that we get fair value for the taxpayer. We are working through those issues with community bodies to ensure that we can have a streamlined approach for communities that want to develop projects on the national forest estate.

We would certainly like to hear more about that in due course, as it develops.

The next question will come from Margaret McDougall—pardon me; it will come from Angus MacDonald. I cannot read my own writing.

Thank you, convener. My question is, I hope, worth waiting for.

The report proposes better involvement of local stakeholders through regional forestry forums. As we know, we already have a multitude of regional bodies such as area advisory groups for water management and regional project assessment committees for the Scotland rural development programme. How do you see those regional bodies best working together? Would it not be better, from the point of view of decluttering the area, if they were combined with the proposed regional forestry forums?

We are always open to suggestions for streamlining. At the moment, the regional forestry forums have a very different job from the RPACs in that the RPACs have a narrow remit under the Scotland rural development programme to make decisions on which projects to give money to under the rural priorities. The regional forestry forums have evolved out of what we used to run, which were called regional advisory committees, and typically meet three or four times a year according to the five regions into which we divide Scotland. They include people from a wide range of backgrounds including communities, local authorities and environmental organisations. The group suggests that there should be strong agricultural representation on the forums as well.

The commission has always found the advice that it gets from the regional forestry forums or regional advisory committees incredibly useful as a local sounding board on issues. I was with the Highland forum up in the far north in August, and it talked about woodland expansion and the effect on agricultural land in Caithness. The south-west Scotland forum may be discussing water issues. We find it incredibly useful to get advice from the experts on the regional forestry forums. However, as you say, if there were a better, more joined-up way to provide that advice, we would be open to it.

In the meantime, you would advocate the retention of stand-alone regional forestry forums.

Yes.

Thank you.

Good morning. The report recognises that there are a number of cross-cutting areas in which improvements might be realised through increasing woodland cover—for example, biodiversity, climate change and water quality. To what extent do you expect woodland planting to 2022 to contribute to other environmental targets?

We are doing some interesting work on the water environment by targeting woodland creation where there are real opportunities to make a difference to diffuse pollution. We are targeting woodland creation to the specific areas where it can make a difference. Even the 100,000 hectares of woodland expansion between now and 2022 can make a huge difference if it is targeted at the right places and done in the right way with the right kind of woodlands.

Has that been modelled and quantified?

On the water environment, we are looking at the Tay catchment and mapping the areas where woodland creation can make the most difference. That is a pilot and it is moving further. We also have maps of forest habitat networks, which show where it would be best for us to create native woodlands to expand and connect existing native woodlands to make the biggest difference. If we create the right woodland in the right place, even a small area can make a big difference. We are trying to ensure that the woodland goes in the right places and makes a big difference.

Good morning to you both. My question is for Jo Ellis. In your capacity as the land use and climate change policy officer for the Forestry Commission Scotland, can you comment on recommendation 16 and the carbon calculator? How could that be used? There are often quite a lot of challenges for laypeople in trying to quantify the carbon footprint associated with farming or schools, for instance.

There was quite a lot of stakeholder comment and comment in the group that the carbon argument is starting to turn farmers on to woodland creation, and they are starting to see it as something that can help their holding’s carbon footprint. Initiatives such as the farming for a better climate initiative are bringing that kind of thing to the fore and helping farmers to realise how they can reduce their carbon impact.

The group felt that people need to know what difference woodland planting will make to their carbon footprint, and a carbon calculator is a way to find that out. Some carbon calculators have been developed for English situations and are being trialled in England, and the woodland carbon code is being used to calculate the carbon benefits of woodland creation. The challenge now is to ensure that we can bring together those ideas to produce a carbon calculator that anyone can use to see what difference the woodland will make to their holding’s carbon balance.

11:45

Thank you, that is helpful. I will ask you more broadly about resilience to climate change and to the pests that affect trees. I heard last week of a new disease that has prompted serious concerns in relation to pine forests. Can you comment on those issues?

The woodland expansion advisory group recognises that we need to design new planting to be resilient to future changes, and pests and diseases are a huge part of that. The Forestry Commission is looking at ways of communicating the need to diversify the types of trees that are planted, and the need for people to plan their forestry to be suitable not only for conditions now but for possible conditions in the future by choosing species that will last.

We have larger programmes that are looking at rapid responses to pests and diseases; David Howat may want to say more about those.

We have serious concerns at present about a number of pests and diseases. For example, dothistroma—or red band needle blight—is attacking pine trees such as the lodgepole pine and the Corsican pine. There are worries about the possible impact on native pine, and one or two such outbreaks have been confirmed. Phytophthora ramorum is attacking larch trees, rhododendron, blaeberry and so on, largely in the south-west and Argyllshire.

We have just had the first confirmed outbreak in Scotland of ash dieback on some new planting just to the south of the Kilpatrick hills. We have serious concerns, which are associated partly with climate change and partly with—people are fairly clear about this—the development of the single European market and the increased trade in plant material. For example—although this was news to me—seed of ash is collected in Britain, taken to the continent to be grown in nurseries and then brought back to Britain as seedlings, which provides another pathway for the introduction of pests and diseases. That is an extremely high priority for us and we are working with researchers to ensure that we take a joined-up approach in the Scottish Government to do all that we can to tackle those problems.

I was hoping that Claudia Beamish was going to spell out what that pine needle disease was called, but I am sure that the Official Report will do so.

I could not possibly come up with the Latin spelling.

Margaret McDougall will kick off our questions on funding issues.

As we all know, the CAP is being reviewed. The woodland expansion advisory group recommends that forestry should be included in the greening measures of the new CAP and that annual payments should be retained when farmers convert land to forestry. How can annual payments to some converted agricultural land be justified if they will not be continued for existing forestry that requires on-going management?

At present, the payments for woodland grants fall into two categories. There are woodland creation grants, which are payments for the planting of trees and initial maintenance such as weeding operations to ensure that the trees grow. Slightly separate from that are the annual payments that are made to farmers under what is called the farmland premium to compensate them for the loss of agricultural income. If a farmer plants woodland on a piece of land, there are costs involved in planting and looking after that woodland, and they are not getting any agricultural production from the land.

The idea of the annual payments is to provide an element of compensation for the loss of agricultural value from the land, and the advisory group’s rationale was to ensure that those annual payments are maintained in the future. The annual payments have been around for 20 years or more, but the current draft of the European rural development regulation suggests that they should be dropped. The group recommends that whatever can be done to persuade Europe to keep the provision for the payments in future should be done.

How can forestry be integrated into CAP greening measures?

This relates to pillar 1 of CAP’s two pillars. At the moment, we have rules for good agricultural and environmental condition and other measures for what is called cross-compliance. As you know, there has been a lot of discussion about the greening of pillar 1 but the group felt that it would make sense to recognise the value of, say, hedgerow trees in a good agricultural and environmental condition requirement. It was very keen that forestry should not be seen solely in narrow terms; indeed, it wanted the full spectrum from hedgerow trees to large-scale forests to be considered and, in this case, it was merely seeking some relatively small-scale tree opportunities with regard to pillar 1 greening.

If a farmer decided to give over 7 per cent of a field to a small woodland to provide shelter for livestock, should that be counted as part of the greening?

It would make sense in terms of achieving forestry policy objectives. I realise that an awful lot of wider political issues are involved in the greening of CAP but, to answer your narrow question in a narrow forestry sense, I think that such a move would be quite good news.

I point out that some of us think that greening should come under pillar 2, not pillar 1, but I accept that that is a wider debate and not for this occasion.

The committee has spent a great deal of time examining CAP reform—after all, it will be crucial, particularly with regard to the new SRDP—and will be examining it even more. A real concern relates to the fact, now accepted by most people, that agreement by 2014 is unlikely, and we are now having to think about what will happen in 2014 and 2015. Given that there is nothing left in the SRDP budget for woodland planting, which means that new SRDP-supported plantings are already in hiatus, what representations has the advisory group been able to make on the importance of having a bridging arrangement in place if there is no agreement in 2014?

As you have suggested, the group was very keen to ensure that whatever could be done about the transition between the current SRDP and the next should be done. Indeed, one important recommendation was that the planning grant be continued because if, as a result of European things and other issues outwith our control, we find ourselves with a gap we want to avoid the position we found ourselves in at the beginning of the current SRDP when we had to go back to base level. If that happens, the whole thing grinds to a halt and the machinery has to be cranked up again to get woodland creation going.

It would be good to use mechanisms such as the planning grant to encourage people to carry on preparing proposals for schemes. Even though they will not be 100 per cent sure what will be in the next SRDP, they can be at least reasonably confident that it will contain forestry measures and encouraging them to keep on preparing schemes will ensure that in January 2015, or whenever the next SRDP opens, we are not back at square one but have a pile of reasonably well-worked-out applications that can go into the system fairly quickly.

Do you have evidence that people are looking at all that? Moreover, is the continuation of the current SRDP into the new one a satisfactory move for forestry or do we need to take a different look at how the programme encourages woodland planting if we are to meet the targets that you have set?

We had a big hiatus between the closing of the Scottish forestry grants scheme and the SRDP, which was a big change. Clearly, some things can be improved in the SRDP, in terms of the administrative process and the grant rates issue that we spoke about earlier. The next SRDP gives us the opportunity to improve those things.

Personally, I think that rather than tearing up the SRDP and trying to start again, we should build on what we have. Hopefully, by building on what we have we can maintain some continuity so that we do not have the same hiatus as last time.

I absolutely agree with what you say, but the time to be negotiating for all that is now, rather than waiting until we are presented with something. Is that discussion taking place? I am not asking you to give away any secrets, although please feel free to do so if you want to.

Yes, that discussion is taking place.

That is a comfort; thank you.

The report is wide ranging and has 24 recommendations. I will pick out only some of them, the convener will be happy to hear. To start with, I was interested in the statement under the “Context” heading:

“There is a deep cultural divide between forestry and farming”.

Can we ever resolve that divide?

“Ever” is a big word. We can take steps to try and break down that divide. One of the report’s recommendations was to do more in the area of higher and further education. One of the reflections of that historical divide between forestry and agriculture is that we have the likes of the Scottish Agricultural College and we have the University of Edinburgh, where I did forestry—the agricultural students were 200yd up the road from us and we hardly ever saw them, apart from for social reasons.

Work can be done to take advantage of the opportunity that is provided by the merger of the SAC with the other land-based colleges. We can see what we can do to encourage the development of more integrated courses—for example, students who are essentially agricultural students could learn more about forestry and the opportunities for woodlands on farms. One of the group’s clear recommendations was that we should be using such opportunities to help break down those barriers.

The report also said:

“Those who want to plant woodlands feel that ‘the system’ is not helping them to achieve this.”

Recommendation 3 in the report is about the types of land for tree planting. We all drive around this country and see fields lying empty or disused land or land that is unused because a building has been knocked down. Should we try to develop more planting around areas of towns and along strips, or even along motorways, in order to increase our woodland planting?

Yes. An important priority in the work of the central Scotland green network is to see what can be done on vacant and derelict land, for example, and on other areas in and around towns. The Forestry Commission has been running the woodlands in and around towns initiative for four or five years. The idea of that is to do exactly what you describe—to look for opportunities to create areas of woodland, often quite small, in and around towns. They are small, but critically they are near where people live, so rather than having nice woodlands 200 miles away, people have nice woodlands within 10 minutes’ walking distance.

Interestingly, a piece of work has just been commissioned by the NHS national institute for health research, which is doing objective, evidence-based monitoring of the psychological benefits of having those woods in and around towns.

If the convener will bear with me, I have another question. Recommendation 7 is about grant rates. Do planters or businessmen or estates still get tax breaks with regard to the planting of new woods?

In general terms, that was done away with in 1988. There are still certain wrinkles with the tax system, for example in relation to inheritance tax relief for commercial woodlands and things like that, so I would not say that there is no tax interaction. However, what hit the headlines with the flow country and so on came to an end in 1988.

Finally, with regard to recommendations 16 and 17, which I find very interesting, there is the idea of a carbon calculator. Recommendation 16 states:

“Forestry Commission Scotland should produce a simple to use ‘carbon ready-reckoner’ which allows land managers to identify whether – and by how much – woodland creation could help to reduce their land management carbon footprint.”

Is that work under way?

Did we perhaps hear that question earlier?

I know that I am touching on some of the previous points, but I wanted to emphasise that question.

We will build on work that is already under way to do that.

Annabelle Ewing has a final tidying-up question.

I want to return to the SRDP and the objectives stated in the report to encourage greater integration between woodland planting and farming interests. You state in the discussion of recommendation 10 that

“Single Farm Payment eligibility criteria for grazed woodland should also be changed to help achieve”

greater integration, and that

“Forestry Commission Scotland should ensure that suitable technical guidance and support is available”

to that end. What do you have concretely in mind, with respect to such support? Is it the case that support is currently available? If it is not and something new is needed, what will it be? If it is currently available, what will be different about it, going forward?

12:00

In essence, the problem is one that Andrew Barbour—the group’s chair—had a particular case of on his own farm. He had some woodland that he wanted to use for grazing, as it would have made good sheltered grazing for his cattle. In crude terms, you could say that the rules say that land is either in agricultural or forestry use. Using the woodland for the agricultural purpose of sheltered grazing would have made sense, but he was worried that he would lose the agricultural grants for the land. There is quite a complicated interaction between agricultural grants and forestry grants that the group is keen to try to sort out.

Do you think that that has been officially pinpointed as an issue and therefore do you hope that—particularly looking at the operation of the SRDP—it will be a key element in trying to find a solution?

Yes. It comes back to what we talked about earlier about breaking down the barriers between agriculture and forestry. The group basically wants to make the rules friendlier for those who want to take sensible, integrated approaches. If someone has a little bit of open woodland and it would make sense to use it for grazing, we would like there not to be a grant regime that gets in the way of that.

That suitably takes us round quite a lot of the issues that have been raised today. We are very pleased to have been able to look at the WEAG’s report and we will try to get some updates on it in due course. I thank the witnesses for their evidence this morning—it has probably educated a lot of us a good deal.

The committee’s next meeting is on 3 October, when we will take round-table evidence from stakeholders on the budget and receive a private informal briefing from Marine Scotland.

Meeting closed at 12:03.