Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, I wonder if I should be hiding. I do not understand all that I have heard. I can understand certain aspects, but not other factual aspects. What I find absolutely fascinating is that the figures being bandied around do not agree. There must be some form of agreement somewhere along the line and I hope the Minister will be able to address this. The motorised byway users have been portrayed as opportunists in both Houses. It has been implied that they are villains, attempting to add new byways throughout the countryside and overloading the resources of local government. I think it is necessary to paint a slightly different picture. The CROW Act recognised that the definitive maps are inaccurate, and it laid down a requirement for them to be corrected by 2026. That was, in effect, a request by the Government for claims for modification orders to be submitted over that period. In some areas, groups of responsible users have got together and carried out extensive research. That takes many years to complete, but the noble Baroness says 2003. We all know that it is not possible to claim a new byway. The ROW being claimed are existing routes, already in use, that have never been correctly recorded due to the inaction of highway authorities who have, with Government knowledge, avoided their clear duty under the Highways Act to correct the DMs. We have heard about certain areas in Derbyshire. The Peak Rights of Way Initiative objectively researched its area and discovered that while there are only three BOATs on the DM, there should in fact be about 120. Is that right? I do not know. There has not been a tidal wave of more than 2,000 claims. There are currently about 1,000 claims on the books of Highways Agency, of which about half were already in existence before these proposals. The Countryside Agency has estimated that at least 20,000 claims will be necessary to correct the DMs. Again, I do not know. Clearly, with the proposals in the Bill, claimed byways will become restricted byways instead of BOATs. However the claims—that is the estimated 20,000 claims—will still be necessary. A senior Defra official has stated:"““We anticipate that in future all document based applications that would have been for BOATs will instead be for restricted byways. Therefore it is likely that the numbers of Definitive Map Modification Orders (DMMO) for restricted byways will be broadly the same as they would have been for BOATs””." These facts paint a very different picture, and the noble Baroness is being slightly unfair on responsible people who have simply done what the Government asked them to do.