Christmas Adjournment

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that observation with which I agree. He is right to emphasise the general frustration and uncertainty felt by those who run post offices in areas that have not yet been subject to the process and who have been waiting for a long time to see what will happen to them. That is regrettable. The Minister probably knows my constituency and its terrain better than most, because she attended Lady Manners school in Bakewell—a fine school. Let me therefore raise with her another issue that is causing a great deal of concern. We have a fantastic community bus service that operates in Bakewell and Ashbourne. It is vital, in rural and spread-out communities that do not necessarily have the access to public transport that is available in urban areas, that community buses, which provide a first-class service to people in remote villages, are not put at risk as a result of the Government's scheme to extend free travel to all pensioners as from next April. I accept that the Government would not want that to happen, but that could be the unintended consequence of the legislation for community transport. I have written to the Secretary of State for Transport, and I hope that she can reassure me that my worries are groundless. On 3 December 1997, I had an Adjournment debate in the House on the issue of Blackdale quarry. On 24 October 2006, I had a further Adjournment debate on the same issue in Westminster Hall, when I raised with the relevant Minister the problem that we were having with Blackdale quarry on Longstone Edge. That is an area of outstanding natural beauty in the Peak District national park, which is visited by more than 20 million visitors every year—far more than the millennium dome ever got, yet it receives far less money than the dome cost even to maintain after it had closed. One of the problems has been uncertainty about certain regulations. Last October, the Minister assured me, as he came to the end of his description of one of the problems:"““That is the Catch-22 we are in.""The situation is clearly unsatisfactory, but the Department for Communities and Local Government, which is responsible for mineral legislation, fully appreciates that. It is preparing to consult on new regulations which, among other things, would provide a sanction—exactly what the right hon. Gentleman inquired about—to ensure that outstanding environmental information is provided and new conditions can finally be determined.””—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 24 October 2006; Vol. 450, c. 404WH.]" Although we were promised that consultation more than a year ago, nothing has happened. The Secretary of State said to me in a recent letter that the process had stalled. At the same time, a large amount of money is being spent by the Peak District national park on taking all this through various inquiries, with two High Court cases so far and another one planned next year. In fact, this case has been going on for more than 10 years. The amount of public money that has been expended over that period on this one particular site is astronomical, let alone the annoyance felt locally about the determination of the site. Although we have a planning Bill before the House at the moment, it in no way helps in this current situation. The Government seem to want to push forward, understandably in certain cases, to ensure that we get speedier planning determinations. This planning case, which has been going on for more than 10 years already, shows no sign of coming to a conclusion. Therefore, I urge the Secretary of State to ensure that the consultation on that particular area of legislation is brought to a conclusion very quickly. Another example of where we are still waiting for the Government after they have promised to act is off-road regulations. The whole subject is a nightmare. The latest news from the Green Lanes environment action group is that the enforcement authorities—the police, county councils and national parks—are hindered because they have been expecting the publication of DEFRA's guidance version 5 for many months. It has not yet emerged. That is another example of where delays in regulations and in the Government deciding the right way forward are costing money and inconveniencing people, with all the associated problems.