Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, Amendment No. 143 seeks to replace Clause 65(4) with a reworded clause the noble Baroness believes would serve the same purpose but be more human rights compliant. I have considered this issue at length. The noble Baroness will be aware that the clause has been significantly redrafted and is now very different from the first draft introduced in the other place. This new clause has been drafted specifically with human rights in mind. In that first draft there was concern among legal experts that the fact that a landowner’s access to land had to be ““reasonably necessary”” in order to benefit from the private right of way meant that those who had more than one entrance to their property would not be able to take advantage of it. That has already been addressed by the drafting of the current Clause 65(4). The clause as presently drafted also provides for the possibility of a plot of land being divided up for development. We are now clear, therefore, that Clause 65(4) is human rights compliant, and I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment. On the question of whether we can state that the private right in Clause 65(4) is equivalent to the public right, I say that Clause 65(4), as drafted, is intended to provide as closely as possible a like-for-like private right for the existing public right. I turn to Amendment No. 155, relating to the powers granted to national park authorities in Clause 70 to make TRO. The aim of the amendment is to ensure that no traffic regulation order made under these powers would limit access to land by persons with an interest in that land. Again, we have looked at this carefully, but we do not see any reason to change our view. It has been put to us that the statutory purposes of national park authorities—first, to conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of their areas; and secondly, to promote opportunities for the public understanding and enjoyment of the special qualities of their areas—might, at some point, lead to national park authorities paying less regard to the needs of landowners than, for example, local highway authorities. We do not share that fear.National park authorities have a duty when pursuing their statutory purposes to seek to foster the social and economic well-being of local communities. They are well used to doing so across the range of their responsibilities, which, after all, include carrying out the functions of the local planning authority. If we consider it correct to give the national park authorities powers to make traffic regulation orders, we should do so under the same terms as are applied by local highway authorities, and the existing safeguards will, of course, apply. This is the approach we usually adopt when entrusting powers to the national park authorities, and we believe that approach has proved to be well founded.