Barry Gardiner MP has been sacked as the prime minister’s special envoy for forestry after he joined calls for a leadership challenge to Gordon Brown.
Mr Gardiner, the former minister for biodiversity, landscape and rural affairs, was appointed to the special envoy position last summer.
He upset the timber industry in one of his first outings as special envoy when he told a Chatham House illegal logging and stakeholder conference that the trade was “sick” for using concerns for indigenous peoples as a reason to oppose the government’s updated procurement policy.
Mr Gardiner currently has a private member’s bill tabled that calls for the trading of illegally harvested timber to be made illegal, with recommended sentences of up to five years in prison and a £100,000 fine for traders caught knowingly selling the products in the UK.
