Environment: Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, for calling to the attention of your Lordships’ House a subject that is of ever-increasing importance in the scheme of things, indeed of importance in making sure that a decent scheme of things continues. There is now a realisation across the planet that it is not only our home but our responsibility. The planet used to control us; now, increasingly, we control the planet, and we have to face up to that. Those of us who are concerned for the future of our country and for the generations to come have a historically unprecedented duty to keep the earth habitable and somewhere worth living. This is to be done in several ways, one of which is the preservation of areas of outstanding natural beauty. The grand overview given by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, releases me to talk exclusively about the Lake District. It was one of the first great leisure and environmental landscapes uncovered anywhere in the world and as such is more than 200 years old. In its origins and its continued existence, it is an example and the pathfinder for much of the world. It is a useful and mature example of what we need to preserve and keep. Although comparatively small on the surface of the globe, the Lake District, with its unique and magnificent landscape that was scanned by our third greatest poet, Wordsworth, celebrated by our greatest literary critic, Coleridge, and our greatest art critic John Ruskin, backgrounded by our greatest children’s author Beatrix Potter, painted magnificently by our greatest painter, Turner, and many other distinguished painters up to and including Julian Cooper today, is essentially what environmental importance and outstanding natural beauty are about. Into this small area pour 16 million day visitors each year, who support 44,000 jobs and, in effect, sustain the area. The core workforce in the Lake District sustains the visitors who sustain the Lake District. That symbiosis is crucial. The environment includes those whose livelihood makes it the destination of several increasingly urgent contemporary demands. I shall give a few more, rather more colourful, statistics. There are 33 lakes—only one is called a lake, which is a Trivial Pursuit puzzle for your Lordships—hundreds of rivers, scores of waterfalls, several of which are celebrated in immortal verse, more than 400 fells—Norse for ““mountains””—a unique gondola on Coniston and bus boats on Derwent Water and other lakes. There are the highly successful Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, a music festival in the south lakes, the wonderful toy train up Eskdale, one of the world centres of poetic scholarship around Dove Cottage in Grasmere, the famous pencil museum in Keswick, the bird sanctuaries, the ospreys, the celebrated Lowther driving trials, the agricultural shows, the unique hound trailing tradition and the anorak centre of the world. There is so much, but as the pressure grows, more sustenance is needed, which is why, for instance, the Lowther Castle and Gardens project is so important to the north of the county. I look forward to the day when we can walk around every lake as now it is promised we can walk around the coastline of this country. As in all national and natural environments of outstanding beauty, we increasingly need to keep up with the diverse demands of the visitors. For more than two centuries this extraordinary and complex environment has been fought for by philanthropic and far-sighted men and women. It is dependent on and maintained by the people who live there: their work, their sports and their habits, by those who live in it most of the year and keep it real and grounded, not a park, but a place. I sometimes wonder, idly, I suppose, why, given the billions that we allow in negative tax to the City of London and the billions we spend on sustaining projects and on mountains—fells—of legislation that appear to leak away without issue, we seem to lack the knack of looking properly after our core cultures. I am not speaking here of the arts and the sciences, although their proper sustenance might merit another debate in your Lordships' House; I am talking about what should be our inviolable staples. For example, why are our fishermen not being helped in their overwhelmingly overregulated world? Are we not an island? More pertinently for this debate, why are hill farmers not better appreciated in the Lake District? It is they who anchor it in work that keeps its landscape, its character and its characteristics. Dr Johnson said, ““Keep your friendships in good repair””. Like all your Lordships, I think that we have to keep our environment in good repair, especially those areas miraculously preserved, such as the Lake District, which is the second biggest visitor attraction in this country next to London. That means looking after those whose daily occupation makes it acceptable for those 16 million visitors. That is my key point. The environment is basically in the hands of those who work there, and they and their jobs are as important as the landscape. I believe that that applies everywhere. Without a real infrastructure, an area of outstanding natural beauty can become a Disneyland and lose vital integrity. The infrastructure needs careful attention. There is no lack of interest from those who are committed to the Lake District and those who use it. For instance, volunteers turn up by the hundred to put holding stones onto well worn paths up well worn walks. It is an area of outstanding national good manners, but good practice and good manners should be underpinned by good laws and good husbandry. It need not be emphasised in your Lordships' House that fresh air, exercise, the refreshment of landscape, the testing of physical limits by way of fell walking or, for the brave, rock climbing, and, above all, the opportunity to enjoy imagination in nature, become more and more valuable as the world becomes more and more citified and dissociated from roots dug in over millions of years. The bigger the cities grow, the more we need the country. That is where we came from and to which we need viscerally, at least from time to time, to return. It is a fight to preserve the Lake District and other such areas. For instance, at the moment, the Lake District is threatened by too many wind farms. There are other threats where, as always, some private greed or public folly assails public welfare. Many fear that there is a real danger that this kingdom of outstanding natural beauty will be eroded. It is at present well run, but with something like this, we cannot be too careful. The momentum of the times looks forward to independence. Scotland, Wales and even England are sometimes mentioned. If the Lake District is threatened, I suggest that it makes a bid for independence. After all, it is bigger than Monaco. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, at election time, there was a man called Mr Brownrigg. He liked to stand for Parliament. He would go into a field in Wigton, a town in which I was brought up, at a time when fields came right into the middle of market towns, and shoot bullets in the air from his gun to call up a crowd, with some success. With three or four other boys, I went to hear his uncompromising rant in the dialect. We heckled—at a distance from the gun. Those were the days of serious politics. His central policy statement was that we should build a wall around Cumbria. As an enthusiastic 10 year-old, I was a convert. Now, once again, I think that that might well be a way to hold fast the Lake District in an uncertain future, if constructive help is not fast coming from Whitehall and other coffers. We could build a wall around the Lake District. We are good at walls in Cumbria. We have a massive chunk of the Roman wall. The Lake District is netted all over with amazing dry stone walling—miles and miles of it—one of the most beautiful features of the landscape. We could wall everyone out with ease. We could charge our 16 million visitors a pound or two a head and provide a basis for our treasury. We could welcome back nuclear energy and develop it every bit as well as France, our new best friend, which gets 80 per cent of its energy from nuclear. We in Cumbria have the sites and the expertise. Above all, we have water—the 33 lakes and innumerable rivers. We endure it. We should benefit from it. The Lake District should profit from it. As oil is to Scotland, diamonds and gold to South Africa, and gas to Russia, water could be to Cumbria—a flowing mine. As the world hots up, by way of water we could guard and preserve what is a unique environmental jewel in these islands and beyond. It might be worth the attempt. I think that we should get preparations under way just in case we need to help ourselves. In the mean time, we should encourage those who can enrich the environment to move forward. The times and, I suspect, the people in this country are on their side and well understand and cherish the importance of such areas for themselves and their future.