Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, sadly we have got used to thinking that the present Government have little interest in, or concern for, the environment, the countryside and the people who live it, and the landscape in what is left of our green and pleasant land. A few days ago I saw a report that two government agencies, the Countryside Agency and English Nature, had denounced Mr Prescott’s plan to build half a million new houses in the south-east of England as ““environmental vandalism””. Under his plans, houses are to be built on flood plains and in environmentally sensitive locations. There are to be 67 new road schemes, concreting over much of the south and south-west. All this is against the background of a prolonged crisis in farming, when dairy farmers can no longer get a price for milk that covers their cost, supermarkets prefer to buy cheap Brazilian beef instead of high-quality British beef, and Deloitte’s annual survey of farm incomes says that the only rational response for farmers to present prices should be to get out of producing food. If farming as we know it is to remain unprofitable, the role of farmers in looking after the countryside will be lost, causing a huge deterioration of the countryside, which will be a devastating loss to each and every one of us. After all this, it was a rare pleasure to come across this Bill, and to find it contained so much that could be warmly welcomed. It was introduced with a persuasive speech by the Minister this afternoon. I was particularly glad to see that it has been welcomed by leading NGOs dedicated to the wildlife and the environment: Wildlife Link, of which I once had the honour to be chairman; the RSPB, on whose council I once sat; the Wildlife Trust, with which I am associated as president of one of the smallest of their trusts, that for Radnorshire; the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England; and a number of others. Natural England, despite its odd and not very satisfactory title, on which I agree with Lord Carter, needs to be a tough, effective force. If it is, it could be valuable. Defra is to be congratulated on arranging for the draft Bill to be scrutinised by a Commons committee, which produced an admirable, detailed report. I read it and the Government’s response, which accepted most of the committee’s recommendations, with much interest. Most of the environmental NGOs gave evidence to this committee, and I have read their latest briefing notes, which are helpful. There are still one or two unresolved points, though, on which the Commons committee and most NGOs are agreed but the Government are as yet unpersuaded. It is these points on which we should concentrate when we come to the Committee and Report stages. Looking at the Government’s response, I found that three of the principle recommendations—including one on the level of independence and one on flexible delivery—received a positive response from the Government, on pages 20 and 23. A number of important recommendations, however, received a negative response, particular those on conflict resolution, regarding what happens when environmental and other considerations—for example, access—come into conflict; on the question of a role for protecting the landscape; on quiet recreation; and on future environmental charging. Two of those points are important. Conflict resolution is desirable, but needs to be addressed only in the last resort. It should not come up every day. There are, however, situations in which there is no agreement between the environmental imperative and the economic—or, conceivably, social—argument on the other side. In those circumstances, it should be laid down in the Bill that the environmental consideration should prevail. On the question of protecting landscape, it has been pointed out that there is provision in the Bill for biodiversity to be protected but not landscape. If that is left in the Bill as such, it will send a signal to everyone outside that Parliament is less interested in the landscape than in biodiversity. That would be wrong and misleading. The arguments put forward by the committee and by a number of NGOs that the word ““protect”” should be used for landscape should be adopted primarily for that reason. On the question of quiet recreation, I have heard the Government’s arguments, which I understand, but I am sure that some other form of words could be devised, perhaps at the next stage, that would cover that point. There are one or two smaller points. It is, I think, important that there should be a duty in the Bill on the Secretary of State to deal with the question of non-native species that have a devastating effect on our own biodiversity; creatures such as the mink or the signal crayfish come to mind. It must be possible for the Government to take effective action to stop them coming in and spreading. The CPRE has also raised the question of the lack of any provision in the Bill for protecting and enhancing the extent and quality of the countryside, which it thinks is possibly an oversight in the drafting of the legislation. So it argues, and I think that it is right, that,"““the acknowledgement of the countryside as a source of open-air recreation in the Bill is matched with a recognition of the importance of retaining its extent and quality””." On rights of way, I agree very much with the points that have been made very powerfully in the House on the need for urgent action to stop the spread of BOATs by a recreational minority who are more interested in the challenge of driving 4x4s over soft ground on old green lanes than anything else, which is doing immense damage. I look forward eagerly to hearing what the Minister has to say about that. The noble Lord, Lord Haworth, spoke very eloquently about the issue and I agree with everything that he said. The need is for action to be taken quickly before things get out of hand. One of the factors that is really effective in preserving the landscape is land ownership. It is the most effective way in which the interests that we all have at heart can be protected. Perhaps the greatest single example of what has been done is the work of the National Trust in the Lake District, where the acquisition of land begun at the turn of the century by Canon Rawnsley and Beatrix Potter has now resulted in the trust owning or leasing nearly all the central area of fells and major valley heads, six of the main lakes and much of their shorelines—140,000 acres in all, with 87 farms, 15 of them bequeathed to the trust by Beatrix Potter. If it had not been for this magnificent effort by a private voluntary organisation, the Lake District would undoubtedly now be ruined by commercial development. Public bodies which own or manage land can very often do something effective in that degree. For example, the Wildlife Trusts has pointed out that the Prison Service has carried out surveys and produced its own biodiversity action plan because a lot of the land surrounding prisons has a wealth of wildlife. It has produced this biodiversity action plan with the help of English Nature and the Wildlife Trusts. That seems to me thoroughly commendable. There is obviously a need for the new organisation to work very closely with farmers and other land managers. That, I am sure, it will do.