In most walks of life, changing your mind or even back-tracking according to circumstances is seen as being pragmatic and logical, but not in politics. Here it’s always been regarded as a weakness and, since Margaret Thatcher’s thunderous “this lady’s not for turning”, it’s been the cardinal political sin. In fact, it almost seems politicians would prefer to be shot down sticking to their guns, than change course or compromise.
So, not surprisingly, scorn and opprobrium are being heaped on the government generally and agriculture and food (and forestry) minister Jim Paice in particular for their change of tack on keeping illegal timber out of the UK.
“Coalition drops green pledges on timber” trumpeted the headline in The Guardian. The paper went on to accuse the government of “reneging” on its commitment to make it a criminal offence to bring timber into the UK, or even possess it, if it’s proven illegally-felled in the country of origin. Green campaigners, it said, view such legislation as vital to curb illegal logging, which it claimed results in 650,000km² of deforestation a year, against the still alarming, but somewhat more modest WWF total deforestation figure of 150,000m².
Green Party MP Caroline Lucas described the government’s change of tack as “disappointing” and said it had “fallen at the first hurdle” in its aspiration to be the greenest in history. “Deforestation is a key driver of climate change,” she said, “and they have flunked this first test.”
It is true that the UK government has backed away from legislation like the US Lacey Act, which would have made it an offence to import illegal wood via another EU country and for anyone else in the supply chain to trade in it. But Mr Paice provides a reasoned, rational explanation for that. The government, he points out, is still 100% behind new European-wide legislation, due for implementation in 2012. This will make it an offence for anyone to bring illegal timber into the EU as a whole, or in the words of the regulation, to place timber or timber products onto the EU market for the first time.
According to Mr Paice, this should stop illegal timber coming into the UK through the EU and leave customs authorities here to focus on making our borders secure against material from elsewhere.
Loading additional UK laws on top of the EU’s, he said, would be “duplicative”. Not only that, it would risk making UK companies less competitive, burdening them with additional monitoring and policing procedures that counterparts elsewhere in Europe would not have to worry about.
“In these difficult Financial Times, we need to focus on principles of better regulation and must be wary of creating a disadvantage in our timber trade’s efforts to act as world leaders in the procurement of legal timber,” he said.
The Timber Trade Federation was among those originally backing Lacey-style supply-chain-wide legislation. But it says it is comfortable with the government’s stance. As chief executive John White points out, the EU legislation goes further than many of those pushing for anti-illegal timber measures could have hoped just a few years back.
Defra also points out that, if the new EU law doesn’t do the job, it can always change direction again and introduce additional controls.
This seems perfectly in tune with our new era of more flexible coalition and consensus government which, according to latest opinion polls, most people regard as a refreshing change.
