Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

This has been a welcome introduction to Part 9. I welcome the way in which the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, opened our debate on this important part of the Bill. I fully accept that the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, and the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, are about balance. As they suggested, as we debate the Bill, there will be lots of discussions about getting the balance right and about the issues of conservation, safety and landowners’ interests. Those are all relevant factors to our debate. However, I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, about the historic opportunity with which we are presented. There will clearly be many challenges to getting it right—to getting continuous access to land around the coast. We should be in no doubt about the attractiveness of the proposition to the many people who enjoy walking along our coast at the moment and the many more who I hope will take the opportunity to do so in the future; nor should we ignore the potential for tourism and local businesses to embrace the coastal access pathway. I hope to enhance their businesses as well. There is a great opportunity here. We want this to be done in the spirit of consensus. Natural England’s work with local authorities will be important in trying to get as much ownership as possible for the proposals. Of course there will be tensions. No doubt in a later group we will discuss appeals, and I understand the importance of those. At the start of our debates, noble Lords need to know that the Government are listening to the points they make. We want to get the balance right. Equally, we want to press on with developing the coastal access path. The potential is enormous. I understand that we make more than 70 million trips to the undeveloped coast each year—in other words, not the seaside towns. It is thought that walking is the single most popular activity along the coast. If we can improve access, more people will be encouraged to take part. Improving access will also give people the confidence and certainty that, wherever they arrive at the coast, other than where the land is excepted land, there will be clear, well managed access in either direction and they will be able to enjoy a rich and varied natural environment. The Bill enables the creation of a new right of access for people to walk round the majority of the English coast for the first time and a right of access to other coastal land such as beaches, dunes and cliff tops. It will also help local authorities that have already put so much work into providing immensely successful coastal paths. I was interested in the examples used by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, concerning the Wash in his particular part of the country. Most noble Lords referred to the south-west coast path. Anyone who has used it can see what a wonderful path it is but also how it works well when it links up at regular points with public transport, which, at least in the summer months, is regular; I am not so sure about the winter months. Local business people and farmers have also taken advantage of it. It is a model for what we would like to see in the rest of the country. I understand that work commissioned by Natural England found that people said that they would visit the coast more often if a clear path existed around the coast and if more access was available. We expect an additional 1.2 million extra visits to be made to the coast as a result of the new access. I hope that that is a modest expectation; I suspect that, as the path is developed, there will be many more additional visitors to the coast than that. In Clause 286, the Secretary of State and Natural England have been given a new duty to provide this improved public access. This is the starting point of our whole approach. Members of the Committee have talked about the need for balance, with which I agree. Our approach is flexible and, before the Secretary of State finally decides on the route, local people will have a say. To begin, Natural England will propose a series of long-distance routes around the coast of England under the power contained in the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, as amended by the Bill. Under the 1949 Act, Natural England is required to consult every national park authority, joint planning board, county council and county/district council through whose park or area the route passes. Members of the Committee may be aware that one problem with including lists in primary legislation is updating them because they become outdated. Therefore, we are amending the 1949 Act, updating it to further include all persons with a relevant interest in affected land, each local access forum, English Heritage, the Environment Agency and the Secretary of State responsible for defence and national security in the list of people that Natural England must consult. Natural England will also advertise its proposals, and anyone else with an interest can submit their views. That will be a fully consultative process. As I have said, the key to a successful route is for Natural England to draw on the knowledge of local people, including the access authority, who know best what is appropriate for their coastline. We will debate local authority involvement a little later, but Natural England is already working closely with coastal local authorities, which are helping with a review of current access to the coast, and it will continue to fully involve local authorities as far as possible. Once the report has been drawn up, landowners and certain other interests will have a right to make representations if they are not happy with the proposals. The Secretary of State will be obliged to consider these representations before deciding whether to approve Natural England’s proposals. I am, of course, aware that there are those who argue that we should have an appeal system as well. I have been in discussions with a number of noble Lords on that and have no doubt that we will come back to that point later. Coastal access will largely be delivered through the right of access in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, which provides a number of safeguards for landowners, including categories of land which are excluded from the right of access and the ability to restrict or exclude the right of access when required for land management or certain other purposes. I stress that, although in some places the route will use existing rights of way, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said earlier, no new rights of way will be automatically created as a result of the legislation. The new right of access in the Bill will be the CROW right, which is flexible to further changes in land use, including developments. In addition to the existing reduction in occupiers’ liability under CROW for natural features, we are extending this reduction in occupiers' liability to cover man-made features as well. Natural England will set out the approach that it will take in a coastal access scheme, which it will consult on, submit to the Secretary of State for approval and then publish. It has already published a draft scheme in order to give an indication of the kind of things that the scheme might cover. As the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, was right to mention, we have had recommendations from the EFRA committee and the Joint Committee. Following recommendations from the EFRA committee, we have made changes since the draft Bill so that Natural England must review the scheme from time to time, with at least one review completed within three years of the day that it was first approved. This is an essential safeguard for the kind of balance to which Members of the Committee have referred. So we have the scheme that sets the parameters in which Natural England will take forward proposals, and that is then subject to a review within three years of the day on which it was first approved. That will be very helpful, because it will enable a review in the light of experience from the first period of operation. Natural England must also publish a report of each review, and in line with the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I have tabled an amendment requiring the Secretary of State to lay a copy of the approved scheme before Parliament. On the issues of balance and conservation, let me make it clear that the proposals coming from Natural England must be sustainable. In order to achieve that, it must take full account of the social, economic and environmental considerations. Clause 287 makes it clear that the interests of the public must be weighed against those of landowners and others with a relevant interest in affected land. On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, wildlife and the environment must be taken into account, as must both manmade and natural heritage. The scheme will set out how Natural England will approach this task. The noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, tempted me to talk about devolution, but she herself clearly answered the point: I am sure that Scotland will welcome walkers going over the borders if they are able to do so. That may depend on a number of other matters that we shall shortly discuss, including ferries, but as far as Wales is concerned we have made provision in Clause 300 to enable the National Assembly for Wales to make an assembly measure or measures in relation to coastal access in Wales. We know that the Welsh Assembly Government are also committed to improving public access to the coast of Wales. I come now to the group of amendments. The current provisions of Clause 286 place a duty on the Secretary of State and Natural England to secure two objectives. The first is that there is a long-distance route or routes for the whole of the English coast that is accessible to the public for journeys on foot and, if appropriate, by ferry. The second objective is that there is associated with the route or routes a wider margin of recreational land available to the public on foot for enjoyment in conjunction with the route. Both those aims gained broad support from the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill. We intend to achieve those objectives in stages—which answers one of the first points raised in the amendments, particularly the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. It means that where a stretch of coastal route is completed and the Secretary of State approves Natural England’s coastal access report, the public will have access to that individual stretch on a day appointed by order after a preparation period during which the route itself will be established. That will enable early access to new stretches of the route. I should have referred earlier to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, about how we have chosen to amend the CROW Act, and indeed the 1949 Act, rather than starting with a clean slate and proposing new legislation. I often wonder what my noble friend Lord Whitty would have said if he had had to deal with coastal access when the CROW Bill was going through your Lordships’ House. There are certain advantages to using existing legislation, because that combines the creation of long-distance paths with the provision of associated coastal marginal land that is available to the public for open-air recreation. The structures and mechanisms necessary for establishing a route and open-air recreation over it are already set out in the 1949 and 2000 Acts. I know that going through this is not so easy for your Lordships because it seeks to amend other legislation, and that that is difficult. I also realise that noble Lords will ask me how we will ensure that the public understand all this. We shall need to take up those challenges. However, there is logic to the way in which we have drafted the legislation to amend other pieces of legislation. A number of points have been made. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, is concerned that there is no definition of "coastal margin" in the Bill. That is simply because it has to be tailored, in consultation with local interests such as access authorities and landowners, to meet local circumstances. Having discretion here allows us to ensure that a balanced approach can be taken. There is no specified width for the margin. In some places, it would be only about four metres plus the foreshore, but in others it would take in beaches, headlands, dunes and cliffs, so the width will be decided taking local circumstances into account. However, there will be parliamentary scrutiny as we intend that a Section 3A order under the CROW Act will specify descriptions of coastal margin. Land covered by buildings is excepted land under paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 to the CROW Act. Land covered by the Military Lands Act is also excepted. There is a series of excepted land categories which we will no doubt debate. The noble Baroness asked what that meant with regard to the path. As with the coastal margin, it will depend on what is decided locally. In some cases, it will be possible to have a path that seeks to skirt round the land; in other cases, that might not be so easy. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, referred to notices warning people not to go into areas where the military may be firing guns. One might think that that is a bit of a no-brainer but providing information to the public will be very important. We shall debate signposts and maps. A lot of work will have to be done to educate the public, landowners and others about people’s rights and to provide information on good practice. I understand that the noble Baroness’s amendment with the 85 per cent figure is a probing one. At the moment, we think that 30 per cent of the coast has no access at all, which means that 70 per cent has access. However, it is fragmented. Often there are gaps in access so it is not possible to make a continuous journey. In other places the access may be very constrained; for example, a footpath might be right against the cliff edge, which does not provide a good quality coastal experience. I do not like the 85 per cent figure proposed by the noble Baroness because I think that it is arbitrary. However, I am not in a position to say what the figure should be. As I said, 8 per cent of the coast is developed, is MoD land or is excepted in some way. As we have discussed, in some cases it may be possible to circuit that 8 per cent. Therefore, we should be ambitious in this regard. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, suggested, we should desire, and aim to realise, a coastal access path which really does go round almost all our coast. However, there will be challenges along the way, and a need for flexibility and discretion. The fact that we have the ability to develop separate paths, and to open up some paths before the whole network is complete, gives us great flexibility. The noble Baroness also raised the question of highways, and whether Natural England would become almost a highways authority, responsible for linking highways to the path. This is where our friends the local authorities come into play. Where they are willing to act, we wish them to be fully involved in planning and consulting on new access. They have powers to create new routes to the coast. I have already referred to the south-west coast path, which is an excellent example. That would be the responsibility of the local authority. The point made by noble Lords that local authorities have a big responsibility for doing preparatory work on behalf of Natural England is the answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Byford. The more local authorities are involved and the more interest they have, the more likely it is that they will want to ensure that there is appropriate access from the highway to the coastal path; and the more likely it is also that they will wish to encourage public transport operators to ensure that there is a decent service available to enable people, where it would not be easy for them to walk the whole path, to get access to it at regular intervals.