Environment: Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty

My Lords, it also blights the economy and investment plans for the future. It blights all kinds of plans for the area. It blights the quality of life for everybody, whether they live in the countryside or the towns or whether they live or work there. It is no service to the community that it takes so long. I am not making the case that positive decisions should be pushed through. I am simply saying that delaying the decision is a disbenefit to people in all walks of life. As I say, I cannot say much more about it . I think that I have said enough. I will not go over Defra’s budgets; they are well known. I make my own modest contribution. Yesterday, in going to address a major international conference on the CAP, I used a London number 24 bus. I did not charge Defra for the journey because I used my bus pass. We are making contributions. I banned Christmas cards from Defra Ministers when I arrived there and they are now done electronically. Those are not tokens. We simply had a look at what we were doing, bearing in mind that we had to make cuts to our agencies and difficult decisions had to be made. However, the decisions on the budgets for the areas of outstanding beauty will be made as soon as possible. A well-rehearsed speech has been drafted for me on the assumption that certain points would be made but I think it would be better if I tried to pick up some of the points that speakers made and then go back to my notes if needed. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, was right to say that he been asked to raise a little noise on behalf of the areas of outstanding natural beauty, and I think that he has done that. I can assure him that the message has been heard loud and clear in the department. The noble Lord specifically raised one point. As the common agricultural policy changes, Pillar 1 direct payments will go, sometime between 2015 and 2020. The key will be to get as much of the money as possible into Pillar 2 for rural development and the wider rural economy. Of course, there are those who will say that we should cut the size of the CAP budget anyway and put it back into the central kitty. The UK Government’s central objective is to transfer that money to Pillar 2 for rural development programmes. We want to make sure that it is done in such a way that we do not suffer. The UK suffers in this, as those experts here will know, because of our rural development programmes in the past. There is a possibility there. Much of the £3 billion expenditure over seven years that we have announced—I cannot put a figure on the precise amount—is essentially for rural development. Therefore, it will touch on areas of outstanding natural beauty. I always go back to page 44 of the Communities Plan, published in 2003 by John Prescott, which set out the land mass of England. Seven per cent of it is covered by the national parks, to which the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, referred. Thirteen per cent of it is green belt. Sixteen per cent of it comprises areas of outstanding natural beauty. All those plots of land are separate. The national parks are separate from the areas of outstanding natural beauty; they are both separate from the green belt. Added together, they cover 36 per cent of England. It is reckoned that urban England covers 12 per cent. That gives us about 48 per cent of England. It leaves 52 per cent for everything else. It is argued that there is not enough room for housing. As the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said, as long as that housing is built carefully and sensitively, and the land managed properly, there is plenty of land still to protect the beauty of our environment. The green belt does not qualify as an area of outstanding natural beauty. A lot of it is rubbish land, as I have said before, because it is a collar around the urban area. It is not the most beautiful land, but it is there to stop the sprawl. Nevertheless, as I said, areas of outstanding natural beauty cover 16 per cent of England and are separate from the national parks. So there is quite an area there. The Lake District would qualify in anyone’s definition as an area of outstanding natural beauty. I shall not go into the administrative differences, which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, fully understands. I declare an interest as having had for more than 20 years a one-week timeshare in the Lake District. I use it every year and get up there as often as possible, even on Defra business—I shall be there during the Recess, visiting farms in Cumbria. I met the hunt trailers last year. I know that the noble Lord is one of their presidents. I had seen hunt-trailing last summer but did not know what it was. It was only when I met the hunt trailers just before Christmas to discuss the difficulties they were having because of the foot-and-mouth restrictions that I realised what I had been watching at one of the shows that I had gone to. We are in the process of reforming the hill farm allowance. I fully accept that hill farmers, particularly sheep farmers, have been more damaged by foot and mouth than probably any other sector of farmers. I hope that when the hill farm allowance is remodified, most if not all the money can be kept in those areas. Hill farmers look after the landscape. The first people to complain if it goes to wilderness will be the 16 million visitors to the Lake District from the cities. They will say, ““Well, we’ve lost it all. It’s all gone to scrub. Why’s that?””. The response will be: ““Well, we’ve lost the farmers. We didn’t look after them. You didn’t use the sheep and we decided not to subsidise them any more. We forgot that, if we want to manage that landscape, it will cost a fortune if it is not done by farmers living there””. Therefore, that is an issue, and I fully take on board what the noble Lord said. The noble Lord, Lord Plumb, said that he would not be present. We had a very pleasant day. It was a Friday, not a Saturday. I well remember it: it was about three years ago. I also went, as the noble Lord said, to the annual meeting of the conservation board just a year ago. We got the message there about there being no budget yet and the damage that it has caused. I agree that a board of 40 members seems quite preposterous. Fifteen are sent by the Secretary of State; 17 are sent by the local authorities; then there is a string of others. You cannot have effective management that way. That is where there is a problem. Each local authority wants its champion but there are difficulties in managing with such large boards. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth mentioned the Isle of Wight. I plead guilty to never having visited. I was talking earlier to two friends in Guildford who were going to visit the Hindhead Tunnel this afternoon, so it seems to be well under construction although I fully accept that it has been very slow. He also makes a valid point about resources and the way the money is dealt with, and he referred to the cuts in funding. There are choices but no decisions or announcements have been made. I realise there are rumours and that this debate is timely. Natural England’s board will get a copy of the debate, as will Defra officials. The overall budget has been set but the individual breakdown has not been made available or any final decisions made. The right reverend Prelate also raised issues relating to the proposed national park. I can only say that we anticipate that a decision about the park will be taken by January 2008, so there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. I fully accept what the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, said. He made a case for making these areas vibrant because if they are not, they will die. They must not be put in aspic; there has to be a vibrancy of work and play. We have to be sensitive to planning matters but we do not want villages to simply die as businesses leave and new ones are not allowed in. So we need good, vibrant, sustainable areas in those parts of our countryside. I cannot answer all the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Bridges. He certainly gave us a history lesson. I declare an interest only in the sense that I am a member of the RSPB—and the noble Lord is right: Defra does not want to go to war with the RSPB. For the first time in my life I walked the strip of land between the river and the sea at Orford Ness in the Easter Recess last year. I fully accept that people in London have no idea of these areas of outstanding natural beauty, of which the noble Lord gave examples. In a way, it is salutary that local authorities are making decisions about these designated areas and they do not appreciate that they are in them. You do not see a sign like you do when you go into the national parks because it is a matter for the local authority. Local authority signs are up on the roads but AONB signs do not appear in that way. The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, may have been personally complimentary but he was also quite nasty. He does not like my department or any of our agencies. It is not true that the Environment Agency has written off the whole of our coastline. That is somewhat of an exaggeration. I do not know all the details but there are proposals in that part of the world to give up some of the land back to the sea. I will seek to write to him and make sure that he receives up-to-date information on this. He asked a specific question about PPS 7 and Section 85 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act. They will not be diminished by the Planning Bill; I can give him positive assurance on that. The Environment Agency works 100 or more years ahead. In terms of coastal defences and flood plains, they make estimates for a long term ahead. Part of the discussion about the Thames Barrier is predicated on looking a quite long term ahead. The noble Lord made the point about aircraft, as did others. If the aircraft stack up over the water, you could argue for putting the airport in the water. That is not an argument that the Government are putting forward. I do not think I can get into that. I shall be on the A30 myself in about 48 hours, so I shall be part of the generation of the noise the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, referred to. I think he is right about the noise. In the old days when Dunlop was a proper company they produced a road surface which was better for braking and drainage and, above all, a lot quieter because it was for use on the urban motorways. There is no difficulty in encouraging tourists. I am not going to say that this is a matter for another government department because, as the debate has shown, by definition virtually every government department is involved in what we are dealing with here. There is no difficulty with tourism. I am happy to make inquiries about that, but I have not been made aware that the areas of outstanding natural beauty are suffering particularly as a result of tourism. The noble Lord made a point about the funding of the rural community councils. There is also the Rural Services Network, a 250-strong organisation that recently sent Defra a document. I apologise that it got buried under my files on the Climate Change Bill. Nevertheless, there is a case to be made. A lot of the small organisations are run by volunteers, as has been said, and can make a much better contribution than a plan from Whitehall can. They can also be better value for money. Great schemes of mega-billions do not always get down to where we need them. Another issue that was raised, although I think it is accepted, is the difference between the national parks and the areas of outstanding natural beauty. We fund them differently. The national parks are virtually quasi local authorities. There is a big difference between them in that the national parks have planning powers, which is a substantial change to the way in which they are administered. There are some 40 areas of outstanding natural beauty. I do not know how many local authorities are involved in those 40 areas; I should have asked, but I did not. The noble Lord, Lord Plumb, told us that there are 17 areas of outstanding natural beauty in the Cotswolds, so the numbers are enormous. It may be that greater numbers of areas of outstanding natural beauty being in fairly small local authorities with smaller capacities does not give them a loud voice. That may be a difficulty; I do not know. A good many local authorities in this country will have an area of outstanding natural beauty, or part of it, in their area, and I do not know whether some local authorities give them more importance than others. The noble Lord, Lord Bridges, asked about decision-making. I am reminded that back in 2005, the then Minister, Alun Michael, issued a note to departments to ensure that they took account of areas of outstanding natural beauty in their decisions. As it is 2008, and as I have been reminded that we are coming to the end of a period of this Government—those are not my words but another Peer’s; he is very optimistic—I will take the opportunity to see whether we can reissue Alun Michael’s salutary reminder to other departments to ensure that they take account of the areas of outstanding natural beauty in their decision-making. I mentioned PPS 7. I cannot get into the question of the stacking of aircraft, which is a matter for the Civil Aviation Authority and the Department for Transport. I often wonder why we still fly to Paris and Brussels, but I have said that before. On the other hand, ruling out cheap flights is not an answer. It may be a slip of the noble Lord’s tongue, but having only expensive flights is not a message that any Government would want to give to their population. We must deal with the question much more sensitively than that. I have probably covered a good deal of the issues without coming to the first paragraph of my speech. I will trawl those that I think I have not covered to ensure that I cover them all. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Renton, again on securing the debate and on the way in which he introduced the subject. It is always a pleasure to congratulate someone who has had a big influence on legislation. Today was a fitting tribute to that.