Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for going so carefully through the reasons why the Government have come forward with their amendment and I will try and do the same with ours, because obviously there was a disagreement over where these criteria for national parks should be. I have again listened carefully to what he has said, but we still have serious reservations and oppose his Amendment No. 131 in favour of our Amendment No. 132. At the beginning I would like to put on record—again—that we support national parks. There has been a view that perhaps we are a party that does not believe in or support national parks. The Minister is shaking his head. Quite rightly, he knows that is not true, but, in case anybody following this discussion later on should be in any doubt, I would like to clarify that before I start. I believe that in 1947 the Hobhouse report came before Parliament. Two years later, the 1949 Act was passed through the House. For whatever reason, the criteria it contained were not included on the face of the Bill. The Minister may want to comment on that. The fact that farmed and managed land has been included in our national parks without challenge is, in fact, a strength of the present arrangement as this has been done in a voluntary fashion. I turn now to my Amendments Nos. 132 and 170. Noble Lords will be aware of the substance of my first amendment on criteria for the designation of national parks. Amendment No. 170 goes very well with Amendment No. 132 as it is to do with the terminology ““natural beauty”” and probes the Government’s precise meaning of that phrase. I have to say I was disappointed in Committee; first, that we were not given the proper opportunity to debate the government amendment, which has changed subtly since then. Secondly, I was surprised to see that the crucial clause on the definition of natural beauty was moved, as the noble Lord has acknowledged today, by accident, without a proper debate, but is still to be included in the Bill. I believe it is only fair to put on record that the whole process of the debate on national parks has been a disgrace. We asked for a Committee session in lieu of the failure to have a proper debate on this topic in Committee, but I was told that this would not be tenable. This has left us in a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. As a consequence, if Amendment No. 131 is agreed to, Members in another place will not have debated the national park criteria at all. Our Amendment No. 132 is very clear. It seeks to clarify, once and for all, the criteria for the designation of national parks and to ensure that they are not widened by the latest suggestion from the Government. Amendment No. 170 backs that up by tightening the definition of natural beauty. In Committee, the Minister took care to state that when it comes to the designation of national parks:"““The intention, and the current practice, is that wildlife and cultural heritage considerations are factored into the natural beauty assessment rather than being free-standing tests in their own right””.—[Official Report, 27/2/06; col. 79.]" In which case, I wonder why the newly drafted criteria are quite so ambiguous, and further, why, when natural beauty is so central to the designation of national parks, it has a separate definition tucked away at the back of the Bill under miscellaneous provisions. I am glad that we now have the opportunity to debate these new measures fully. The approach to natural beauty during the debate and via amendments on this Bill has been confusing, to say the very least. The 1949 Act places reasons of ““natural beauty””, ““opportunities . . . for open-air recreation”” and the situation regarding ““centres of population”” on a level playing field. That is what has worked for the past 60 years or so, until the Meyrick case. Yet proposed new subsection (2A) in the Government’s amendment would expand that definition of natural beauty by allowing Natural England to consider ““wildlife and cultural heritage”” as part of that. The addition of ““wildlife”” is, at best, nominal. ““Natural beauty”” has already been extended to include flora and fauna in Section 114 of the Countryside Act 1968. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what he intends to achieve by including ““wildlife”” into a natural beauty clause. Likewise, ““cultural heritage”” has no clear meaning in the context of natural beauty. It is not defined anywhere else in this Bill. Clause 97 ensures that even if land is used for agriculture or woodlands or has an area whose flora, fauna or physiographical features are partly the product of a human intervention in the landscape, it could still be treated as being naturally beautiful. Even if it is not naturally beautiful—if, say, the designators are considering Anglo-Saxon burial grounds in the South Downs—it can still be treated as being an area of natural beauty. That land must simply not fall outside the criteria in Clause 97(a) to (c), and could, under existing proposals, be designated as a national park. If that is so, it is hard to imagine any of our countryside that would not come under any of those criteria. Our Amendment No. 170 seeks not only to tie in with the suggestion for clearer national park designation criteria, but to follow the legally tried-and-tested opinion of the judge in the Meyrick case, who stated that the current law requires the inclusion in the criteria of,"““a high degree of relative naturalness””." That is quite clear. The judge used the wording of the New Forest landscape assessor, who while acknowledging that none of our landscape was perfectly pristine, stated that the,"““terms of the Act must require a high degree of relative naturalness””." The proposed government amendment to the criteria would rewrite the legal basis for the designation of national parks. It is a change to the 60 year-old legislation, with little or no consultation. Indeed, I understand that the Council for National Parks, the Association of National Park Authorities and the Countryside Agency have been consulted, but surely the Minister and the Government must recognise that consultation must be wider than those three bodies, who stand to benefit most from the widening of the criteria—a question which has not been answered. A landscape no longer has to afford the differences at the present, as in the 1949 Act, but can be assessed on its future potential for recreation. I quote the Government’s amendment that seeks to,"““take into account the extent to which it is possible to promote opportunities””," to promote open-air recreation. That is not limited to the present. To take a case in point, the deadline for public objection to the designation of the South Downs as a national park was 1 March 2003. Now that the criteria may change, either way, will the Minister reassure the House that the objection process will be opened up again to enable the public to respond accordingly to the new terms? In the light of the pitfalls facing national parks at present, it seems odd that the Government are willing to rush into widening the designation. We heard on 3 February that the Lake District will sadly have to close its information centres owing to a shortfall in the funds and a lack of increase in the authority which it was expecting. There has also been a recent fund freezing for Exmoor National Park, and what is more, the future of the national park funding from the Environment Stewardship Schemes looks unpromising following the agreed cuts in the ERDP budget at the end of the last year. There are many other issues I could cover, but I hope I have laid out fairly clearly, for all noble Lords to understand, why we are bringing forward our amendment as opposed to accepting the Government’s amendments. I understand that the Minister has said that indeed they have the right to appeal and that has been granted, but I believe it is up to Parliament to make this decision. This subject is complex, both in the way that it comes up in legislation and the range of interests that are affected by national park land. Let me say as I close that it is our intention to preserve the very best of our landscapes by using both areas of outstanding natural beauty and national park status. That can be done by applying them in a way that gives due consideration to the relative qualities and needs of our landscape.