Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

One of the curiosities of being a Welshman debating this Bill is that the Bill is expressed almost entirely in terms of England and Natural England. Most but all of my experience comes from Wales. When I was MP for Pembrokeshire, I had one of the longest stretches of coastal path in the whole of the United Kingdom running in a great semicircle around my constituency. Therefore, I do know quite a lot about coast paths. For the first four years of my time as a Member of Parliament I lived in a house a few hundred yards back from the coast path and I and my children walked on it continually. Indeed, my children, who were very young at the time, used to suggest that perhaps we walked on it rather too often. I have only one thing on which I disagree with my noble friend on the Front Bench—that it should not be the sort of path that young people need to be accompanied on. I would want young people, or certainly children, to be accompanied on quite large stretches of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, which can be steep, narrow and quite hazardous in places. I entirely support the amendment that my noble friend Lady Byford proposed on safety. Again, I speak with some experience, having at one time even attempted to introduce a Private Member’s Bill, such was the problem of encampments of pretty undesirable characters taking place on a large scale in my constituency. In the Black Mountains and the Brecon Beacons National Park, we suffered from what are now called raves. There is a tendency nowadays, if there is access to an attractive part of the countryside that is reasonably remote, for it to act as a magnet to which people go and behave in a way that is often very undesirable. That is a very serious point. My main point in intervening is to express my incredulity at the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, who suggested that the word "safety" should be removed. I do not want to mollycoddle people; I agree that they have to be responsible on coast paths. But the fact of the matter is that anybody with responsibility for deciding where a path should be and how it should be maintained must have regard to safety. Coast paths get eroded, for example, and the actual path may have to be altered. The situation may arise in which the cliff face becomes friable or there is massive erosion. That is surely an issue that must be taken into account in the management of a coast path. Safety is a consideration that the authorities should take account of, but not to mollycoddle or create the park-like ambience suggested by my noble friend on the Front Bench in which everyone can amble along the path as if they were out in Battersea Park on a Sunday afternoon. Large stretches of some of the most beautiful coast paths in the country are not a bit like that. They need a little care and attention. People will not only find themselves on a narrow, steep, rocky, often slippery path, but they will be tempted—and there is no reason why they should not—to climb down at times over the grassy slopes and rocks to points just above the sea. I am only saying that the authorities should have safety in mind. I would be entirely opposed to the removal of the word "safety" from the Bill. I entirely support everything except on the point about accompanying children or young people that my noble friend made. I strongly support everything else that was said. Let us get the balance right.