My Lords, my noble friend’s two amendments are very interesting. Starting with Amendment 140, I thought that I knew what the public good was, having produced amendments which I thought were centred around it, such as public access and how you support that access and make it more readily available to those with disabilities and so on. However, when I read this amendment, I thought, “Ah, someone else put that at a priority level; that makes it a public good.” It is in the Bill, but is it as high a public good as something else? What happens if it starts to compete, which it will, with other activities? For instance, if you want to encourage a certain animal or plant somewhere and a path goes through it, which changes? On that fundamental level, getting some idea about how the assessments are made is important.
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This is probably the start of a discussion that will run over several Bills, but if the Minister replies now, at least we will then know what we are disagreeing with and be taking a step forward. It is very important to find that out here. What is the Government’s starting point on this? How does it relate to various things? The process by which we establish that, if there is any doubt, will become very important as we go forward.
On the next amendment, the noble Lord mentioned one large landowner stopping a scheme. I have met many a small landowner who would stop anything that interferes with his life as it currently exists, so the net might need to be spread a little wider. We are going down because everybody assumes that the way they live is of value. The vast majority have strived to get to where they are, so they will at best be wary of change. Getting some definition of when you are making a change like that, how it will affect you and where the Government must push and say “No, it is going to happen” is something that we need. These are very important amendments in the subject that they deal with, because if we do not have the definition and terms—I thought that I did and, clearly, I do not—then we must find them. Otherwise, this will run into trouble and only serve to annoy us.