The government has been quizzed in the Commons on EU timber procurement policy and whether its own procurment rules are being followed by recipients of government grants and lottery funding.
Joan Walley, Labour MP for Stoke on Trent North, asked the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what impact a new draft EU public procurement directive will have on the ability of the EU governments to ensure that all “timber [publically] procured is from legal and sustainable sources”.
According to the Hansard report, secretary of state for Trade and Industry Patricia Hewitt replied that the new EU procurement proposals include provision for taking into account: “green production processes, eco-label criteria and environmental management systems”.
“These should enable contracting authorities to be clear about their ability to specify, in a non-discriminatory way, that timber and timber-related products should be obtained from legal and sustainable sources,” said Ms Hewitt.
She added that the government is currently “considering its approach to the procurement of sustainable and legal timber in the light of the proposed new directive”.
Ms Walley went on to ask the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) what action it has taken to ensure that recipients of grants for construction, restoration and refurbishment projects follow government policy on timber procurement.
Replying DCMS minister Dr Glynn Howells said that the department “actively encourages all of its non-Departmental public bodies (NDPBs) to take account principles of sustainable development in making grants”.
“We are also currently consulting Lottery (Lotto) distributors on ways to link funding, projects and sustainable development and are mapping the environmental practices of all our NDPBs with the intention of issuing further specific guidance.”
