My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in the discussion of this amendment. I am delighted that I degrouped it from the group that we discussed on Tuesday because it was well worth a discussion in its own right.
Let me first say to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker—I am delighted to see him back with us—that I am not against access. As I said on Tuesday, access to the countryside was essential in getting better after my accident. I was on footpaths in a wheelchair and then on crutches and on sticks, so I am a great believer in public access. What I am trying to balance is the right for us to go to the countryside and get all the benefit from it and what is going to happen to people’s livelihoods and property.
We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, of some of the problems that she faced. The Minister’s reply was “Well, they’re criminal offences anyway”, but they are not being enforced. Rural crime is rising, and there is great concern among those in rural areas that they are being left out. There are not enough police to go around, and the police are too busy to take rural crime seriously. There is a fundamental problem here that the Government need to address. I hope that the Minister will take this a lot more seriously than she appeared to do when she replied.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, said that there is going to be no fly-tipping on footpaths. Let me draw his attention to the Defra statistics. In the 12 months up to March 2019, fly-tipping on footpaths and bridleways rose from 164,000 cases to 187,000 cases. That is a substantial increase. Footpaths and bridleways cannot be ignored in this problem. If there is a place that people can fly-tip or drop litter, they will do so. As the statistics from the Royal Parks show, one in five people is prepared to do that. Yes, we are talking about a minority, but it is a minority that can cause severe damage and impinge on people’s livelihoods.
This comes back to enforcement, and I hope that the Minister will spare time between now and the next stage to meet me to discuss this. I think the Government’s intention is right and that their hearts are in the right place, but action is not going with it. I am very frightened, as, indeed, are a great number of farmers, that the provisions of the Bill are not going to help. Yes, they want public access, and I am against farmers who do not give that access and embrace it enthusiastically, but it is only fair that the balance is set out in a better way than it is at the moment.
I thank the Minister for her reply. I hope she will write to me on the questions that she did not answer, such as about what has happened to the fire severity index, and a number of other questions that I posed to her. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.