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1.42 pm
Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon) (Lab): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill is interesting. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner), who has done sterling work on the topic. Indeed, the Bill is a carbon copy of the Bill that he promoted.
Every year the world cuts down enough trees to cover an area the size of Portugal. In 25 countries, forests have effectively disappeared. In a further 29, less than a tenth of their forest cover remains. Such deforestation exacts a terrible toll on the natural environment and accounts for around 18 per cent. of all greenhouse gas emissions globally—more than trains, cars and planes combined. Illegal logging costs timber-producing economies worldwide $10 billion a year. It causes untold environmental damage, promotes corruption, undermines the rule of law, funds armed conflict, harms sustainable development and threatens wildlife. All this happens in some of the world’s poorest countries.
The UK is the world’s fourth largest net importer of wood products. Central Government Departments are estimated to purchase some 20 per cent. of all timber bought in the UK. This figure rises to 40 per cent. when local authorities and other Government bodies are included. We can raise the standards of public sector procurement, and by doing so play a significant role in raising standards generally. I am pleased that the Government have decided that from 1 April 2009, only timber from independently verified legal and sustainable sources or from a licensed forest law enforcement, governance and trade—FLEGT—partner will be used on the Government estate, but we must do more.
In October last year the European Commission presented a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council laying down obligations on operators who place timber and timber products on the market. There are significant problems with the proposal. It focuses on the first time that timber and timber products are made available on the Community market, regardless of their origin, by determining the obligations of those operators who place timber and timber products on the Community market.
The proposal is based on the due diligence principle and requires the operators covered by it to apply a system, due diligence, to minimise the risk of placing illegally harvested timber and timber products on the Community market. The proposed measures aim to contribute to global efforts to fight illegal logging by deterring operators from placing on the Community market timber and timber products without a reasonable assurance of their legality. They also provide consumers with the certainty that by buying timber and timber products they do not contribute to the problem of illegal logging and associated trade. Legality is defined on the basis of the legislation of the country of harvest, applicable to forest management, timber harvesting and timber trade. Timber and timber projects covered by a FLEGT licence or a convention on international trade in endangered species permit are considered to have been legally harvested.
Chatham House produced an impact assessment of three scenarios based on proposals of the EU Commission. The first scenario was on the basis of an operator’s self-declaration, which seems to be where it is going, without third-party audit. That is obviously the least robust scenario. The second scenario is an elevated version of the systems used by trade associations that have responsible purchasing policies, combined with the mode of operation of the UK central point of expertise on timber. The third scenario is the strongest one. It includes third-party auditing, and verified third-party legal material is the minimum requirement, whether domestically grown or not. That is the most robust scenario when it comes to due diligence.
Is due diligence enough? My Bill will go further than that by introducing new criminal offences. I believe that I am in line with the wider view, particularly expressed by non-governmental organisations, in this respect.
EU timber traders will have to set up a due diligence system to minimise the risk of illegally harvested timber being placed on the European market under the proposals, but those fall short of making it a criminal offence to market illegal timber, and green groups have criticised the draft EU proposals as too weak to stop the material sold on the European market. The proposals published by the Commission do not ban illegally sourced timber from entering the EU market. Instead, the proposed regulation intends to minimise the risk of illegally harvested timber being sold in Europe.
About 27 million cu m of illegal timber enter the EU each year, according to the WWF. The Commission puts the figure at 16 million cu m, but both agree with estimates that just under a fifth of timber imported into the EU is harvested illegally. The EU says that almost half of logging is in vulnerable regions—the Amazon basin, central Africa, south-east Asia, the Russian Federation, and some of the Baltic states. That causes enormous environmental damage and loss of biodiversity, and distorts the market.
We have also seen a very slow pace in the FLEGT licensing system, where licensed countries can attest that timber exports have been harvested according to national rules. Up to October 2008, just five countries—Malaysia, Indonesia, Cameroon, Congo and Ghana—had begun negotiating such an agreement with the EU. Ghana was the only one licensed under the scheme in September 2008. The pace of negotiations were such that the Council, the European Parliament and the then French presidency repeatedly asked the Commission to put forward further proposals without delay.
The proposals are disappointing and the green groups have been lobbying for a proposal that would effectively close the EU market to illegally harvested timber.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Huw Irranca-Davies): My hon. Friend makes a valid point on the use of the FLEGT arrangements, but does he agree that while it is frustrating that only three countries have joined up, the process whereby 10 or 11 additional countries are engaged in coming on board with FLEGT, tortuous and difficult though it is, means that we are starting to get something of a cultural change? Secondly, it is not only a matter of achieving the legality of timber sources through FLEGT, we then need to create genuine sustainability within those communities, for the good of their indigenous peoples.
Mr. Dismore: I would not disagree with any of my hon. Friend’s comments, but it is a matter not of either/or, but both. There is nothing wrong with the due diligence process based on FLEGT or otherwise, but we need to go further. It has been suggested that it would be impossible to make criminal sanctions work, yet a prohibition on trade in illegally logged wood products was passed in the United States in May 2009 in an amendment to the Lacey Act.
Barry Gardiner (Brent, North) (Lab): My hon. Friend is coming on to the Lacey Act and the way of stopping the circumvention. The essential point is that FLEGT is a good bilateral licensing scheme to ensure that any timber coming from a FLEGT voluntary partnership agreement country will be accepted as legal within the EU, but that does not stop circumvention—leakage—to other countries. They can then turn that timber into tables, and it enters the EU in another manner. We need a Lacey-style Act, as my hon. Friend said, precisely to stop that circumvention.
Mr. Dismore: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his helpful intervention.
In October last year, United States officials outlined how their new scheme was to be implemented, and since April there has been a requirement to declare the origin of species for plants, timber and solid wood products, such as tables, to coincide with a web-based declaration system. Regulations governing furniture and paper will be phased in over a two-year period. The Environmental Investigation Agency, a non-governmental organisation, described the move as
“a historic breakthrough for international efforts to control deforestation”.
Wearing my human rights hat, I should say that there is an important human rights dimension to the issue, too. I shall not go into it in detail, but the Committee that I chair, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, is conducting an inquiry into business and human rights. We have looked at issues, for example, relating to the operation of the extractive industries in the developing world, and forestry is one example of how such industries can have a significant impact on the developing world and, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, on indigenous people in particular. Human rights must be protected, and one means of doing so is by overcoming the problem of illegal logging.
Illegal logging is a criminal activity that undermines Government systems worldwide, destroys ecosystems, contributes to carbon emissions, harms poor and rural economies and forces UK businesses and workers to compete with inappropriately low-cost forest products made from illegally sourced timber. It directly costs the UK economy millions of pounds per year in depressed prices and unfair competition in the timber industry. By introducing simple yet effective legislation, the Government would be taking a major step towards fulfilling their long-standing commitment to tackle illegal logging; and, by supporting the Bill, they would send to world markets a strong signal that wood products harvested illegally will no longer be acceptable in Britain.
My Bill is straightforward: it simply makes it a criminal offence if anyone
“sells, or offers for sale, any wood that has been harvested, sold, taken or possessed illegally in the country from which the wood was originally harvested, or...attempts to commit”
I do not propose to go through the Bill in detail, because we are short of time and other Members wish to contribute to the debate. Clearly, we also want to leave plenty of time for my hon. Friend to reply, so that, if necessary, there will be time to vote before 2.30 pm.
1.52 pm
Mr. Rob Wilson (Reading, East) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on successfully introducing this private Member’s Bill, which I understand originated with the hon. Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner) as a ten-minute Bill last year. We are all aware of the difficulties in introducing such legislation, and all successful attempts are to be commended. However, I note that, according to today’s Order Paper, the hon. Member for Hendon has been successful four times in introducing private Member’s Bills. Perhaps he will let me know how he manages it.
Although this is a new area of interest to me, the hon. Member for Brent, North has long taken an interest in it, and he has an impressive back catalogue of achievements: he was the Prime Minister’s special envoy for forestry; he previously had responsibility at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for biodiversity, landscape and rural affairs; and, as I have said, he last year introduced a ten-minute Bill, which Opposition Members supported and sponsored. The Bill aimed to make it an offence for any importer or distributor to sell or distribute in the United Kingdom any wood harvested, manufactured or otherwise dealt with illegally in the country from which the wood originated.
Introducing the Bill, the hon. Gentleman made a number of important points that are worth recalling. He said that 18 per cent. of all the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change come from deforestation; that figure was recently repeated by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Only if we put together all the power stations in the world—coal fired, nuclear and those using all the other electricity-producing technologies—would we have a sector that contributed more to global warming than does the loss of trees.
The hon. Gentleman also said that the World Bank estimates that the trade in illegal timber amounts to $15 billion each year. The UK is the fourth largest consumer market of imported tropical timber, yet only a fraction of the timber that we import can be said with any certainty to have been legally sourced and harvested in its country of origin. Illegal logging not only destroys forest ecosystems and contributes to carbon emissions, but directly harms some of the poorest people on the planet—those in the indigenous forest-dwelling communities whose very livelihoods depend on the forest.
In this country, we declare our support for the millennium development goals, yet in the UK it is not an offence to trade for commercial gain timber that we know to have been harvested illegally in its country of origin. If we were dealing with private property, such as stolen antiques or works of art, there would be no question but that
those importing or selling such artefacts would be regarded as criminals and dealt with according to the full force of the law. However, in the UK, companies that habitually trade in stolen timber have committed no crime and broken no law.
It is worth mentioning that not only was there cross-party support for the hon. Gentleman’s ten-minute Bill; it was also supported by the Timber Trade Federation, the Environmental Investigation Agency, James Latham Ltd, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Global Witness and the Born Free Foundation. That shows why today’s private Member’s Bill is so important.
The European Commission recently decided not to make it illegal to import illegally harvested timber into Europe. That distinguishes the EU from the USA, which recently passed amendments to the Lacey Act making it illegal for a person or company to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire or purchase timber or timber products illegally taken, harvested, possessed, transported, sold or exported.
Huw Irranca-Davies: The hon. Gentleman is making a very good contribution to this welcome debate. The Lacey Act takes a principled approach of complete prohibition. However, what is important is not only the symbolic value of what is put on the statute book in the UK, the European Union or elsewhere; provisions also have to be workable and enforceable, and they have to be able to be monitored and delivered. Far be it from me as a legislator to say that we should ever introduce legislation that could not satisfy those requirements, regardless of any symbolic value. We must watch what happens with the Lacey Act and see whether it delivers on a big promise.
Mr. Wilson: The Minister makes a telling point; it is important that legislation should be workable and enforceable.
Barry Gardiner: The hon. Gentleman may be aware that last year a representative of the US customs appeared before Chatham House. He said that the amendments to the Lacey Act, introduced at the beginning of that year, were already working effectively and that prosecutions under it had already been secured.
Mr. Wilson: That helps to answer the Minister’s point. From the information that I have received, it seems that the Lacey Act is workable and enforceable. I shall say a bit more about that in a few moments.
Instead of prohibition, the EU has introduced a proposed regulation under which operators have to exercise
“due diligence to minimise the risk of placing illegally harvested timber and timber products on the market.”
That has been rightly and widely attacked as lacking teeth. The EU has given two reasons why it believes that prohibiting the placement of illegal timber on the market is not feasible, and both are pertinent to proving illegality in a third country. The first is:
“The enforcement authorities in Member States would need to establish the offence on the basis of foreign laws through investigations beyond their jurisdiction and European courts would be compelled to rule on the legality of timber products harvested elsewhere. Europe is generally reluctant to act beyond its jurisdiction or to
pass judgement on other countries’ legal frameworks unless there is an immediate threat to the well-being of its population, such as in the case of food safety or terrorism.”
“Obtaining the necessary proof that a specific batch of timber was harvested at a certain time and place in contravention of applicable legislation in the country of harvest is deemed to be a difficult if not, in many cases, impossible task. It is not always possible for traders to know how to avoid being implicated in illegal activities and this would create uncertainty and would not bring meaningful changes in the timber sector. Practical difficulties and political implications would limit its application to very few high profile cases, thereby undermining its effectiveness in meeting its objectives.”
Huw Irranca-Davies: This is a very good debate. Does the hon. Gentleman think that it is right to have a system that does the job, can be shown to be workable and does not place undue or disproportionate burdens on sectors of industry in the UK and elsewhere, but that can be enforced and sends the right signal? What are his thoughts on the EU approach and where the right balance lies?
Mr. Wilson: If the Minister will be patient, I shall come to that. I certainly agree that the system should do the job but not place unworkable burdens on the sector.
Assessing whether a timber trader has exercised due diligence is inherently subjective and requires a burden of proof. According to Global Witness:
“Unless being caught in possession of illegal timber is treated as de facto proof of a failure to comply, this legislation is very unlikely to provide a deterrent to the determined illegal operator”.
Moreover, if the USA is capable of establishing an offence, there seems no reason why member states should not be able to do so.
The Government’s response to the EU proposal was contained in a recent written statement. They said:
“The Agriculture Commissioner introduced a proposed regulation requiring those placing timber on the market to ensure that the timber has been legally logged. The UK welcomed the regulation but said that effective enforcement was very important. In particular, the UK and the Netherlands urged quick progress to be made in negotiating the proposal before the European Parliament was dissolved.”—[ Official Report, 13 November 2008; Vol. 482, c. 65WS.]
In March this year, the Secretary of State called for tougher European laws to tackle illegal logging. He would like to make it an offence to import illegally produced timber into the EU, and he stated:
“Illegal logging causes untold environmental damage, it harms communities and it threatens wildlife. If we import timber without ensuring that it is legally sourced, then we are contributing to these problems.
We in the UK have a responsibility to act. Government departments are estimated to account for one fifth of all timber bought in the UK—and this rises to two fifths if you include local authorities and other government bodies.
So from 1 April we’re changing the way we buy timber. It is a message to the rest of Europe that we are ready to lead on this issue—and we want to do more.
We want to strengthen the welcome steps that the EU is taking to exclude illegal timber from our markets. Making it an offence to import it would send a clear message to the market that such activity was no longer acceptable.
We need to bring an end to this pernicious trade. Illegal timber should be just that—illegal.”
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