It is a highly regrettable situation. My hon. Friends and I have absolutely no argument with the absolute necessary of Natural England fulfilling its statutory objectives—we gave it those legal responsibilities, and they must be fulfilled and enacted—but that can be achieved only in partnership with those who live and work in the area. That means building a positive relationship of trust and confidence. It means achieving, if at all possible, consensus.
My hon. Friends the Members for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter) and for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) and I wrote to the Secretary of State and to my right hon. Friend the Minister. As our letter said, we strongly believe that Natural England on its own in Dartmoor will not be able to achieve the kind of relationship, partnership, co-operation and consensus that will lead to a way forward for the future. We all know that the sites of special scientific interest on Dartmoor are in an unfavourable condition. The farmers know that the moor needs to be brought towards a favourable condition. We can argue, as I said I would avoid, about the causes of that. Many say it is because of overgrazing. It is perfectly true that in the ’80s and ’90s the policies of the
European Union, which paid farmers to intensify their livestock numbers because they paid headage subsidies, undoubtedly overgrazed the moor. Many farmers and experts would argue that since that time the dramatic reduction in stocking numbers on Dartmoor, which has been happening since the late 1990s, has caused problems with the consequential burgeoning of molinia purple moor grass, but I do not want to get into that debate today; I want to focus the Government’s mind on how we are to move forward for the future.