Rural Affairs and Islands Committee 10 December 2025 [Draft]
I will touch on some of Mercedes Villalba’s amendments. I am sympathetic to amendment 13, regarding urban areas, but my understanding is that, through the Scottish planning system, tree planting is a big part of any new development. I would like to see that progress, so I look forward to hearing from the cabinet secretary in that regard.
Amendment 80 would require the removal of tree seed outside new woodland. Seed can spread beyond the area that is being planted by wind and other means, so it is impractical to try to regulate that activity in such a way. It would be better to ask Scottish Forestry to work with the sector to establish what the issue is and the actions that can be undertaken.
My main concern is with amendment 88, which is, if I understand it correctly, about the removal of financial assistance for “exotic conifer species”. That would include Sitka spruce, which is an incredibly important species for Scotland. Amendment 88 would result in the loss of thousands of jobs in the coming years and make Scotland reliant on timber imports. I do not think that any of us really wants that, given the potential biodiversity consequences for other parts of the world.
The timber market is dominated by softwood from conifers, and Scotland’s only native conifer is the Scots pine, which can be grown commercially only in limited sites in the east of Scotland. The amendment would also completely undermine the role that woodland creation can play in sequestering carbon for Scotland’s 2045 net zero target, as only fast-growing conifers will sequester carbon in that time.
Amendment 88 also ignores NatureScot’s evidence that those forests are one of only a few habitats that have shown improvement in biodiversity this century and that they provide a home for many iconic species, such as the red squirrel and the white-tailed eagle.