Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

The hon. Gentleman is right. It may well be that the number of applications for individual routes is nearer to 2,000—we simply do not know. I said in jest that it is all the Minister’s fault, but I suppose that it is partly mine. I did not ask him the right question, so he did not ask the Highways Authority the right question. I am happy to share the responsibility, but I will not go further than that. The other interesting piece of information that came out of the Minister’s survey—this is directly relevant to the point made by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann)—is that there are tremendous variations around the country. The problem is concentrated on certain counties, including the Minister’s own county, where there is a particular issue with a large number of applications. Several highway authorities reported few or no applications, so the situation is very patchy. When we debated this before, I was not aware—the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) may have been—that trail riders were offering a ““byway bonus”” for applications. The Trail Riders Fellowship said:"““For every Byway claimed by YOU the TRF will give the applicant £10.00""If that application is successful then the TRF will give the applicant £250.””" That partly explains the surge in numbers. The question is what was done about the large number of applications. The Government’s original intention, clearly based on the expectation that they would all have to be resolved, was that commencement would be in a year or so. I remember that the Minister was concerned to give time for all that to take place. We persuaded him, following advice that we received, that it could be brought back to the date on which the legislation was enacted. The debate in the other House has concerned making the date even earlier. I was never persuaded by the arguments that we should seek to eliminate all the outstanding applications. I took the view that those made prior to the Government’s consultation in December 2003 were made in good faith and that they should be allowed to proceed under the rules that then pertained. I felt that December 2003 was the right date to go for, and that was the subject of amendments in the other place. I am happy to endorse the comments made by the hon. Member for Sherwood about the Minister’s willingness to discuss the issue. It became clear in those discussions that the Government were advised that they could not accept such an early date. I am sorry that they could not do that, and we might continue to wish to dispute it, but nevertheless I face the reality. What we have achieved through the mutual pressure from both sides of the House is the bringing back of the date from a year or so hence to January 2005. That makes a great deal of difference to the number of applications that will be dealt with under the existing rules. All bar 700 or so applications—those going up to January—will be dealt with under the old rules. The rest will be dealt with under the new criteria, which means that use of a byway by a vehicle, whether it is a Roman chariot or anything else from some distant point in history, would not be a basis for a claim for a byway open to all traffic.