My Lords, I warmly endorse this amendment and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for introducing it. Across the whole history of legislation, I am afraid there is far too much evidence that codes and the like, without statutory authority, become useless in time. We have to remember—and we all pay tribute to the present Minister—that once new legislation is there, we are not necessarily going to be dealing with people like the current Minister. We cannot be certain who we will be dealing with. The current Minister is determined, and I am sure she means every word she says, that these things will be used to ensure what we all treasure about the parks, and so on. However, when she is gone, who will there
be? I suggest to her that there are people with whom she must deal at the moment in her own Government who do not see it quite as she does. They have quite different thoughts about what this wonderful land might be used for. It is therefore really important to give the codes statutory authority.
As a vice-president of the Campaign for National Parks and as a patron of the Friends of the Lake District, I might say that the people who are, with their quality and commitment, turning concern into practical reality in all that they do to further the parks and the rest are deeply disturbed at the dangers that are there. They are not questioning the current Minister’s good intent but asking, “Where are the guarantees that these things that are being said in good will will actually be there for all to observe in future?”. Is this going to be another of those occasions on which we satisfy our own public profile by saying, “Well, we have this code”, or do we really mean what the code says? If we really mean it, let us for goodness’ sake make certain that it has the authority of the law behind it. This amendment is very important indeed.