Lord Gascoigne:

Moved by Lord Gascoigne

60: After Clause 47, insert the following new Clause—“Guidance on planting along highways(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, issue guidance for developers, local planning authorities and other relevant parties on the planting of trees, shrubs, plants or grass alongside highways constructed as part of—(a) any new transport infrastructure;(b) any other development for which consent has been granted.(2) Guidance issued under this section must outline how licence conditions under section 142(5) of the Highways Act 1980 (licence to plant trees, shrubs, etc., in a highway) are to be applied and complied with in a way which—(a) is not unreasonably burdensome on applicants for licences, and(b) does not prevent or discourage the planting of trees, shrubs, plants or grass,and must provide model licence conditions, standard designs, and planting palettes.”Member's explanatory statementThis new Clause would require the Secretary of State to publish guidance on the planting of trees and other plants alongside new highways.

My Lords, yet again I have the two Chief Whips staring at me. I will be brief, but also, I hope, very cheery—this will be a cheery discussion.

This Amendment does as the description says: it would require that the Secretary of State publishes guidance for developers, local authorities and local planning authorities on the planting of trees and other greenery on the roads of new developments. While the Highways Act describes what a highway is, for the purposes of this discussion, and in my general view of how this amendment could work, it would be light-touch and hands-off. The crucial thing here is that guidance is issued, but it is those on the ground who would actually decide how to proceed or not.

I start with one fundamental point: with new developments we have the opportunity to look at putting in more trees, more nature and more biodiversity. I am sure the Minister will say in response that, in effect, although the Government support the thrust of what I am saying, legislation is unnecessary. As to my noble friend on my own front bench, I am sure that he will say that we do not need more rules from the state or more burdens. I want to pre-empt what they will say back to me and get the ball over the net first, to coin a phrase.

I start by setting the scene as to why this is required. I am conscious that there is a broad debate to be had about Part 3, but I am not going to open that Pandora’s box now—I can tell the Government Chief Whip that there is plenty of time for that, so there is no need to worry. For some initial context, since the 1970’s nature and wildlife have suffered significant decline; our woodlands face challenges, and street trees too have faced decline. Research from 2023 showed that 43% of neighbourhoods in England have less than 10% tree canopy cover, while 84% have less than 20% coverage. I am afraid to say that there is significant regional variation across England. This is not just about biodiversity and nature but the combined benefit that it brings to us too.

The Berkeley Group and Create Streets published a report noting the many benefits of greening up urban places, from tackling pollution to cooling surfaces, and that street trees and wider vegetation can lead to more careful driving and tend to reduce crime. There is an economic case too: people have a higher view of shops if there are trees nearby—an increase of about 30% —and so spend more. That is before we mention that greener places are better for mental health. The same study notes that there could even be broader economic value linked to greenery from tackling depression and higher house prices, for example.

I turn to the amendment. I want to be clear: I know that some developers are going beyond their obligations and putting biodiversity front and centre. For example, Barratt Redrow is working with groups such as the RSPB and the Tree and Design Action Group to make sure that trees and nature are supported in developments and ensuring planting success, to form opinion but also to share their experiences—and I know that others are doing it too. This amendment would ensure that that best practice and support and advice is offered across the board. Not all developers will be big and have the expertise at hand, nor the experience of what worked before and what did not—for example, on appropriate species or issues around tree roots.

For those who are more concerned about issues related to trees rather than the upside, the guidance would be clear on what is a street and what is a road, and therefore where trees are not appropriate, and what is expected through existing regulation and obligations. The guidance would set out other forms of green infrastructure, beyond trees, such as sustainable drainage or hedgerows, which are a habitat in themselves.

This leads me to a crucial point about why guidance is crucial. Last year, the University of Sheffield did a survey of nearly 6,000 houses across 42 new developments, and found that hedgerows were not being maintained in new developments. Indeed, some maintenance was seen to be destructive. In the same study, on trees specifically, there was a high rate of them not surviving beyond the initial planting. Some were planted in 30 degree heat, with only one watering—so the advice would cover long-term maintenance.

A regular appearance in this debate is the possible lack of expertise on the ground. Some local authorities, usually the bigger ones, may be better resourced. Here, again, the advice would help all planning authorities to provide clarity as to what the law says on regulations and health and safety.

Again, I return to the crucial point that this would not be onerous. It would not be an additional burden—anything but. It would explicitly advise how it is possible, in the least burdensome way. Ultimately, though, it would be up to the developer and the planning authority. Through this amendment, we would simply advise. It could even be done via email or online, in an effort to save the trees.

I take this opportunity to pay tribute, as I always do, to my noble friend Lord Moylan on my own Front Bench. He said that he was not able to support his noble friend wholeheartedly—well, this is his opportunity. Not long ago, he handed over to me the orb and sceptre of power of the chairmanship of the Built Environment Committee. I led a recent debate in the Moses Room on the back of a report which the then committee, under the fine chairmanship of my noble friend, did on the high street. I quote from that report:

“More green space and an improved public realm alone cannot restore the prospects of a high street, but they should be a key consideration in any proposed regeneration programme”.

It is a delight, in speaking to this amendment, to have not just my noble friend on the Front Bench but the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, responding on behalf of the Government. It takes me back to the halcyon days of City Hall. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, will agree that they certainly were halcyon days under the previous mayor—I apologise to the Chief Whip. Back then, the Minister was running TfL, which has thousands of street trees on its road network, and the mayor, who TfL supported, delivered many more thousands of street trees. We did that along with partners, but also with local authorities and businesses, to improve local environments, help improve air quality and cool areas, and, ultimately, brighten areas up. It was not imposed; it was bottom-up, because people wanted trees in their areas.

I said at Second Reading that we do not need to have nature over housing or housing over nature. The idea that one needs to lose for the other to win is a false choice that many—I ask the Chief Whip to forgive me, I am afraid to say—even in my own party of late, seem to be making. This, and the wider debate, seems to be orchestrated as growth versus nature. If people would engage and talk to the many developers who are doing this, they would find that people out there want it, along with people like me who want us to build but to build more nature as well.

Of late, we hear people reaching for a magical, mythical potion or a radical solution, in the hope that that fixes things, or for quick publicity that becomes paper around your fish and chips the next day. A simple tweet saying “Down with the nimbys” is not a solution. Here is an amendment which seeks to tackle the real issues at stake. It would support development and put nature in, and it would be positive, practical and lift the vision. It would be simple, costless and effective, and help to deliver what is in the NPFF. It seeks to work with the environmental improvement plan and would be part of biodiversity net gain. It would put in more nature and help developers and local authorities. This amendment does not seek to retrofit what we have built already or to change the past. It looks to the future and seeks to build communities that people want to live in. I beg to move.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the evident enthusiasm of the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, and I thank him for moving this Amendment.

With an amendment with the headline of planting trees next to new roads, I have to begin by pointing out that, if you are talking about highways and so on, we should not be building new roads. All too often, we are destroying wonderful pieces of nature. I am thinking of standing beside a wonderful oak tree, which would have been a sapling when Elizabeth I was on the Throne, that was threatened by the Norwich link road, Western Link. Luckily, it appears to have been saved by barbastelle bats. Sometimes the bats do win.

Nonetheless, I very much support this amendment, and the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, has made the case for it strongly. I declare an interest, as we are talking about old times, as one of those campaigning to save Sheffield’s trees, which helped to highlight to the nation the benefits of street trees and how important they are to human health and well-being. That is what we are talking about here, as well as biodiversity and nature.

Given the time, I will say just one other thing. I think the noble Lord alluded to this, but it is worth stressing that when we think about trees and other plantings, we think that it is good for the trees, but it is absolutely crucial for other wildlife. We should be ensuring that roads are, as much as they can possibly be, wildlife corridors. Birds are the obvious thing to think about here, but many noble Lords will be aware of the phrase “insectageddon”. The populations at the base of our food web have been collapsing, and plantings beside roads and in urban areas should provide some sort of refuge and restoration here.

I referred previously to the fact that we are not meeting the legal target to reverse the decline in nature by 2030, which of course is in the Environment Act. I will just say one final thing. Noble Lords might be thinking that I am getting fairly small with insects, but I also want to focus on the importance of a rich microbial and fungal world. Just yesterday, the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks produced some really important work pointing out that very few fungal biodiversity hotspots are in protected areas, and we need to have a healthy environment. We need to think about all elements of life in the web in which all our bodies actually live. This is just a small step, but I think it is a very sensible and practical one.

My Lords, I really appreciate this Amendment being tabled and the manner and the style in which it was presented. I welcome the noble Lord’s comments and speeches in this space.

Amendment 60 requires guidance around the planting of trees on highways to be issued within six months of the Act coming into force. As the noble Lord said, this does not require great expense. We feel that it is a helpful, useful measure. I absolutely agree with the noble Lord that this is not about development versus nature. Actually, we need both, and both need to be conjoined and considered together, because we, as people who live in the new developments, who need to thrive and not just survive, need these things to work. They are better for all of us. They reduce health inequalities, they make us happier and healthier, and they make our lives more pleasant.

One example came to my mind on this: the work that was done on the upgrade to the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon, which opened in 2020. As part of the upgrade programme, 850,000 saplings were planted by the Highways Agency. Unfortunately, it was done in extreme heat and in poor soils, as a result of which three-quarters of the trees—roughly half a million—that the Highways Agency planted died. They are being replanted, at a cost of £2.9 million, which raises an issue about how we replant nature. Again, I do not want to go into Part 3, but there are obviously issues with trying to replicate nature or move nature from one place to another, and this is a very stark example of that.

Going beyond that, local communities really got involved in this area and I want to thank them, because people went out and planted trees themselves, cared for and nurtured them, and did a great job in trying to put right some of the mess. Some of the trees that were planted were the wrong types of trees; they did not have enough soil around them, so they dried out; the soil they were planted in was bad; the saplings were too young—generally it was not very well done and the trees that were planted were not cared for and nurtured. What tends to happen is that there is a concentration on numbers—it is a numbers game. Every party had a tree-planting commitment in its manifesto—“My tree-planting commitment is bigger than yours”—and that is not what we need. We need trees to be cared for and nurtured.

I suggest politely to the Government that they should focus not on numbers planted but the numbers in five years’ time. How many trees, five years after the planting, actually survive and are counted? If there are not enough, more planting should be done. Trees are really important. This is a valuable opportunity for the Government to look at the strategies and for us to have a broader look at how we do this. So I really welcome this amendment.

My Lords, I very much support my noble friend’s Amendment and the speeches that have been made. Getting good guidance published makes a lot of difference. There are always reasons why a local developer or authority will not do what is best. One can hope that a big authority would have good practices; our big local authority has decided to mow all its wildflower verges in the middle of June—sigh.

If there is a level of expectation, which is fairly universal, as to what sort of environment we should be creating—encouraging things that take a bit of effort, such as hedgerows, and, importantly, places that will be good for insects, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said—it would be immensely helpful to have it in guidance. Lots of people can write and contribute to really excellent guidance. This is not impossible to do. To have it there, to set the bar high and to show people how it can be done would make a great difference and help a whole range of places I have seen that are quite unnecessarily denuded of wildlife. We want our young people to grow up in nature—to really appreciate it, understand it and have it around them. Making that happen will take a bit of effort from us.

My Lords, I am at risk of losing my carefully nurtured reputation as an environmentalist and a nature lover. This Amendment was beautifully presented by my noble friend Lord Gascoigne, but perhaps somewhat extravagantly. We were told that having more trees would improve driving. Does anybody believe that? Just think what experiment you would have to conduct to be able to prove it.

Not every tree is as attractive as you might think. Right across the road from my front door, there is a mulberry tree. Most of the year it is survivable, but at the moment it is absolutely fatal. It is dropping its half-formed mulberries on the pavement, causing danger in every direction, as well as being terribly ugly. The householder was out today with a hose trying to sweep it off the pavement, I assume because he was worried about liability. Just around the corner we have some very fine plane trees in Queen’s Gate that must be 150 years old. They are aggressively pollarded. Why? It is because they suck so much water out of the clay that they cause subsidence in the houses adjacent. As it is the council’s liability if the street trees pull the houses down, to protect itself it pollards them aggressively to reduce water demand.

There is a right place for trees. Bedford Park in west London, built as a semi-rural extension, would look ridiculous without trees and of course must have them, but other fine Italianate terraces looking like palazzos are made ridiculous if you plant the odd sapling in the carriageway because you cannot fit it on the footway due to the voids under the pavement built to house coal. Everything must be judged very finely and at local level.

The idea here is that the source of wisdom on this should be a civil servant in MHCLG, producing guidance which includes, to my horror,

“standard designs, and planting palettes”.

What will that produce? It will be one ash, one poplar and one oak sapling—box ticked and that is the developer done. You will have the same trees planted in the same configuration in half the developments in the country. There are people who can produce guidance on trees, and I would encourage them to do so. There is a professional body representing local authority arboriculturists. People who really work with trees, know trees and have great affection for them have a great sensitivity to what is appropriate to plant in a particular location. Guidance from that source might be very sensible and valuable. I would encourage that, but not, I hope, box-ticking.

Let us have trees in the right places and remember that they are good in some places but bad in others. Let us have variety in the right place and perhaps fewer mulberry trees overhanging the footway, but let us not bureaucratise this with guidance from the ministry with little drawings.

I should declare that for the past year or so I have been working with the Horticultural Trades Association, which represents environmental horticulturists under the Industry and Parliament Trust scheme. The industry is very keen to improve the quality of planting. We have talked about housing, but I do not know if the noble Lord has seen, for example, the planting near warehouses or commercial estates. Far too often, there are one or two exotic species which have no value at all for wildlife. The Government could of course work with the industry and those experts to produce the guidance, so it would not just be them; it would be a co-operative effort.

That would be an indispensable approach, if this were to go ahead, but we are fundamentally forgetting local authorities and local planning departments in this. The arboriculturists to whom the noble Baroness refers are exactly the sort of people who should be involved and are the right source of information for this—more so than the Government. If the Government are to be involved, it should be at a very considerable distance from the whole process, offering encouragement, advice and light support rather than providing the guidance itself. Otherwise, I welcome everything else that my noble friend said and I am very happy to have a further discussion with him in due course.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, for tabling this Amendment. The Chief Whip on our side is no longer present, but I can hear him saying, “Get on with it”, so I shall.

I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this discussion. The Government agree that planting schemes can mitigate the environmental impacts of new highways and make existing ones more pleasant. However, this amendment is not necessary as there is already relevant guidance on this matter, produced by a number of relevant stakeholders, that local highway authorities and others should have regard to. This includes the well-managed highways infrastructure code of practice, which provides guidance for local authorities on managing highway networks; the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges; the Manual for Streets; and local authorities’ own street adoption and street works guidance documents. Some local authorities go further and encourage local residents to look after street trees—including my own. When I am not in the Chamber until late at night, I am nurturing a small but growing tree in my locality by taking it a bucket of water every so often, and it will be a pleasure to do so this evening when we finish.

Planning applications for highway development under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 are already subject to mandatory biodiversity net gain, and we are currently consulting on the application of biodiversity net gain for nationally significant infrastructure projects, with the aim of mitigating any environmental impact. Requiring additional or new guidance would be an administrative burden and could merely duplicate the guidance that already exists, so I kindly ask the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, to withdraw his amendment.

I am grateful to the Minister and everyone who participated in the debate; it started on a high then slowly descended. I have said many times in this Chamber that I massively respect the Minister, but I think he mentioned about five different sets of rules or guidance, and that is precisely why there should be some clear documentation that sets out the different issues and how to tackle them.

I am grateful to my own Back Benches, the Greens and the Lib Dems for their comments and support. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised the perfect point that this is also about wildlife, which is often accused or neglected, and the fact that we have the 2030 targets, which we should aim for and this can play a part in that.

I am conscious of the time, but there are various things I could say to my dear and good noble friend Lord Moylan. I will take him up on the offer to engage with him. I will make three very quick points. First, while trees do not improve your driving, it is a fact that having trees on streets slows down drivers in urban areas; someone made that observation in mainland Europe, where, sadly, they have more trees than we do. It therefore improves driving, even if it does not improve the quality of the driver.

Secondly, my noble friend mentioned the issues with his mulberry bushes. That is exactly why there should be guidance on new development—that is its purpose.

Finally, I was googling frantically what sort of tree my noble friend Lord Moylan could be. I cannot quite put my finger on it, but one that I found was the great white oak. I am told that it is big and majestic in many ways, but it is also quite stubborn. I say respectfully to my noble friend: please, let us have this journey; I will come and help him clean up his mulberry bush.

For now, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment 60 withdrawn.

Amendments 61 and 62 not moved.