Forest sell-off: Cameron promises to listen to all sides

PM tells Commons other organisations could manage Britain's woodlands better than Forestry Commission

David Cameron has told MPs he would "listen to all the arguments" in a consultation over hotly contested proposals to change the ownership of 258,000 hectares of state-owned woodland but No 10 played down prospects of a major U-turn.

At prime minister's questions, speaking after research showed the plans could cost the taxpayer money, Cameron said: "Of course I'm listening to all of the arguments that are being put on this issue. But I would ask, is it the case that there are organisations like the Woodland Trust, like the National Trust, who could do a better job than the Forestry Commission? I believe there are."

His spokeswoman said later that he had some doubts about how the policy had been presented, but he fundamentally liked the package.

There has been fierce opposition to the plans, and Cameron's parliamentary private secretary, Desmond Swayne, wrote on his blog that while he did not think the policy was as bad as it had been portrayed, greater sensitivities to local areas were needed. He said the plan had "unleashed a torrent of hostile emails. It is as if the government was planning to sell and fell every tree in the land in order to adulterate the people's strawberry jam with wooden pips."

Cameron suggested that the Forestry Commission, which today announced at least 400 jobs are to go in England and Scotland, was compromised by being both the regulator and the major producer of wood in England, an argument put forward by the environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, on Monday. "We want a system which is better for access and habitat and for natural England," he said.

The government was embarrassed before PMQs as its own documents showed that the coalition is expected to lose money in the sell-off. A joint Department for Environment Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) and Forestry Commission study showed that the government can expect disposing ! of the l and to cost 679m over 20 years, but the benefits will only be 655m.

The cost-benefit study says the government would lose substantial income from the sale of timber and recreation licences, and would have to pay millions of pounds in compensation and redundancies. In addition, charities and other groups taking on the management of woodland will have to be given financial incentives.

The prime minister is also criticised by one of his own new intake of MPs, writing in the Guardian today, over plans to cut 350m of funding from family and civil law, diminishing the pot of legal aid. Helen Grant, MP for Maidstone and the Weald, who is a trained lawyer, writes: "For some of our most vulnerable people, it is the only sword and shield in their armoury."


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