Debate contribution: Tree Protection Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Jonathan Buckley on 21 September 2026.

MLA

Mr Jonathan Buckley

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

21 September 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Tree Protection Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5742535

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Member for her intervention. It is an important point, which I will come on to in my contribution. This is about the management of stakeholders and dealing with realities. I do not know of anybody who, where it could be facilitated, would not be in favour of protecting ancient, historic trees in our landscape. That is particularly the case for farmers who are custodians of the land and often go out of their way to ensure the protection of said trees. I will come on to that point. That brings me to the financial implications. The Bill's explanatory and financial memorandum (EFM) acknowledges that additional costs would arise from new regulatory processes, staff training, applications and appeals, monitoring and enforcement. It acknowledges that some councils may require additional staff or external expertise. That is a critical point when discussing draft legislation on this matter. I know Members who represent council areas. Dealing with staff costs and staff time is a significant issue. Our councils are already under significant financial pressure, so I want to know — I do not believe it can be stated today — how much the Bill would cost.

I am tempted to say to the Member, "Great minds think alike". I am sitting in the company of two former Infrastructure Committee Chairs who know well some of the issues that I intend to raise. It is not because we are anti-tree — certainly not; I want to make that clear — but because we have to be practical and considerate about what legislative change means for the operational capacity of local government, which already faces significant challenges. The Member is right.

I thank the Bill sponsor. I get the sense that there could be quite a number of puns throughout the debates on this Bill. When I looked extensively at some private Members' Bills, and I will not get into those because they are not for debate today, I was always concerned about their subjective language. Whilst "modest" can mean one thing to one person, it might mean a very different thing to somebody else. I am not surprised that the consultation suggested such high support, even beyond modest costs, but that is probably people asking theoretically, "What is 'modest'?". I can guarantee you that that will not be the case if councils are inundated with a huge financial burden, which, ultimately, will affect rates bills that are printed on paper that was probably harvested from trees somewhere else. It is important to bear in mind, however, that although people may want to see protection in what they deem to be a modest way, that cannot leave councils unable to operate the provisions. Whatever form of Bill we end up with, it must be enforceable and costed. How many additional staff will be required? How much specialist expertise will councils need? Most importantly, where will that money come from? The Bill sponsor spoke to the Committee about using fines from TPO breaches to offset some of those costs, but how much revenue is generated from TPO breaches each year? I would guess that it is not a huge amount. The Member might have that data. I will give way to the Member.

539 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 16:36 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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