My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the many other noble Lords who spoke on these amendments. It seems that I spoke too soon when I said in the debate on the first group that a level of consensus seemed to be developing. The more we get into the details, the more divides begin to appear. Indeed, I started off with some certainty and now I have more questions than answers. I hope that, as we go through the Bill, some of my questions will be answered or dispelled. It is important that we get these issues out on the table, and some of those difficult issues to do with rights and responsibilities need to be addressed. Obviously, Committee is the right place to do that.
As president of the Friends of the South Downs and a former long-standing member of the Ramblers, I very much support greater public access to the countryside. For example, I am proud of Labour’s record on delivering the right to roam and our network of long-distance footpaths. I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who rightly raised disability access, that clearly a great deal more needs to be done to improve access to our countryside. As the president of the South Downs society, I have to say that many of the issues we have are about elderly people walking the paths who cannot climb the stiles or find it difficult to access some of the more difficult terrains and so on, which could easily be adjusted. It is not just about people with disabilities but about making sure there is public access for all.
We know the public can gain huge benefits from being in the open air and walking in the countryside. As many noble Lords have said, we have learned that very acutely during the recent Covid crisis, when people have been denied that access. The point made on the previous group by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, is important: fundamentally, this is about health and well-being, and we need to bear that in mind.
It is also important that public understanding of farming and nature is enhanced. I have seen some fantastic examples of school visits to farms that have really enthused young people for the first time about the importance of the countryside. We need to encourage those sorts of visits. That will clearly have the effect of persuading young people to respect the countryside more and will go some way to addressing some of the concerns that a number of noble Lords have raised—the noble Earl, Lord Devon, did so rather vividly—about some of the problems when young people do not respect the countryside: littering, fires, vandalism, fly-tipping and so on. At the same time as creating access, we need to create respect.
Supporting public access to the countryside and providing a better understanding of the environment are already in the financial assistance set out in Clause 1, so the issue we have here is what further wording we need in amendments, beyond those rights already spelt
out and the existing legal minimum. That is the challenge for us today: to make sure that if we make adjustments and additions, we get them in balance.
My noble friend Lord Clark of Windermere made an important point about access to forests. Until he explained it, I had not quite understood what some of those issues were, but it is important, particularly as we look to extend the planting of trees. It would be helpful if the Minister could address that question and explain the Government’s plans for giving us greater public access to forest areas.
The amendments we have been looking at also specify access to waterways. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, talked about those issues and the importance, for example, of canoeing and wild swimming. I do not doubt that all those activities should be encouraged, but I have a genuine question as to whether this falls within the original intention of the Bill, which was to support agriculture, food production and the environment. This might be something the Minister can shed some light on in his response.
On the other groups, we talked about the Bill’s connection with water, and I am still struggling to understand quite where the boundaries of that lie. For example, I had assumed that the references to “managing land or water” in Clause 1 were meant to address the impact of farming activities on the quality of adjoining water rather than encouraging a wider responsibility for recreation to take place on local rivers. That is an issue that a number of noble Lords raised, so we need to understand the interconnection between what is essential, what is voluntary and what are the real advantages to us of access to that water. That is a genuine question and I do not know the answer to it.
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I am slightly anxious that all of us who support greater public access will get our hopes up too high here. Of all the things that we are looking for—better facilities, better road access, better stiles and better gates—I wonder how many will come to fruition through this Bill. It would be interesting if the Minister, when he replies, could clarify whether any of the tests and trials are looking at the issue of public access. It would be useful for us to know whether the Government are taking it seriously at this initial stage. I am just a little worried that it will be a nice add-on at the end, with good words on the issue but that, when push comes to shove, it will not be something for which funding will actually be made available.
I am very much in favour of it, but we have to be realistic. We have to look at where there are other funds that can be accessed, perhaps more quickly than going through the ELMS process, which we know will take some time. Understanding what it means to have public access, understanding the best way to access appropriate funds, and understanding what practical changes we need to make to the Bill will be really important.
As ever, we come back to “balance”. Ultimately, we need to strike a balance between the interests of the farming community and the public and the environment.
It will work only if all aspects of our activities can benefit and thrive. I include that in the issue of public access, as I would access to food. They are all important and we need to get the balance right.
As we have all said, there is a limited budget. We will be fighting over that limited budget and we have to be responsible about how we do it. In the meantime, I beg to hear the response from the Minister.