Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, as the noble Baroness said, Amendment No. 12 is similar to an amendment that she tabled on Report, which sought to place limitations on the new traffic regulation order-making powers given to national park authorities by Clause 72. The aim is to ensure that that these powers could not be used to unreasonably restrict access to land by persons with an interest in that land. I have explained that we have given the matter careful consideration, but we have not changed our view. I recognise that there is concern that the statutory purposes of national park authorities might at some point lead to those authorities paying less regard to the needs of landowners than local highway authorities would. I do not share that view. 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 used to doing so across the range of their responsibilities, which—after all—include carrying out the functions of the local planning authority. In any case, local highway authorities, when making decisions about any matter that might affect a national park, are also required to have regard to the national park statutory purposes. Therefore, 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 they are applied by local highway authorities, and the existing safeguards will apply. That is the approach that we usually adopt when entrusting powers to the national park authorities and so far it has proved well founded. I want to reassure the noble Baroness and the House that Clause 72 provides for the modification of the national park authorities’ TRO-making power, through regulations under subsection (3) of the new section of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. But I do not envisage that such regulations will be needed to protect access to land by those with an interest in that land. I hope that that is a slightly fuller explanation than was given last time, and I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.