Meeting of the Parliament 20 March 2018
Amendment 30 seeks to extend the bill’s proposed statutory duty to promote sustainable forest management from ministers to other public bodies. The duty that is placed on ministers is a positive step, but we have an opportunity to go further and in doing so to implement recommendation 65 in the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee’s stage 1 report on the bill. That recommendation stated:
“The Committee recognises the benefits of sustainable forest management and agrees with those who suggested in evidence that there would be advantage in extending the duty. It therefore recommends that the Scottish Government gives consideration to extending the duty to promote sustainable forest management to all relevant public bodies.”
I am unsure why the Scottish Government said, in its response to that report, that it would consider that recommendation carefully but has not yet done so. We have an opportunity today to implement the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee’s unanimous recommendation and, by doing so, to help mainstream forestry and ensure a wider regard for issues affecting the sector.
Forestry impacts on and is impacted by a wide range of other policy areas. Extending the duty to all public bodies would reflect that and promote an integrated approach. Let me be clear—amendment 30 would not place unreasonable demands on public bodies. As the wording states carefully, the requirement would apply only
“so far as is consistent with the proper exercise of”
their functions.
The Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 places a similar duty on public bodies in relation to biodiversity. Indeed, the wording in that act is the same as the wording in my amendment. That duty has been effective in advancing biodiversity and, critically, it has not undermined the ability of the affected bodies to operate. It would be bizarre and lacking in credibility for the Scottish Government to support such a duty in the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 and then to claim that it is either unworkable or undesirable for the same duty to be contained in the bill.
I move amendment 30 and urge members to support it.