My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, and my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts for introducing these Motions, and all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I notice that the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, is in her place and did not contribute to this debate, but I take the opportunity to wish her a very happy birthday.
The Government are committed to increasing access to nature. The environmental improvement plan sets out an ambitious commitment, as pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for everyone to live within a 15-minute walk of green or blue space, and to reduce other barriers that prevent people accessing it. My Secretary of State feels very passionately about this whole debate and, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, got me and various others in, when I had responsibility for access at Defra, to drive forward an agenda that coalesced in the Agnew commission. A lot of fresh thinking is now taking place and breathing new life into that, and he is really committed.
This is part of a much wider debate, and I just want to put this on the record. We have nearly completed the 2,700-mile King Charles III England Coast Path, a product of the Marine and Coastal Access Act, which we firmly support and are proud to have delivered on
our watch. We are delivering a £9 million levelling up parks fund to improve green space in more than 100 disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the UK—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, raised—and delivering the £14.5 million Access for All programme to make access to green and blue spaces more inclusive. There are much wider issues around well-being, the social prescribing agenda and the success we have had through our farming and protected landscapes grant schemes, which have seen many new miles of footpaths in some of our most amazing landscapes.
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We want to see our reforms speed up the process for adding rights of way to the legal record for everyone to enjoy, and exceptions to the cut-off date will ensure that many valuable routes will be retained. We have discussed the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (Substitution of Cut-off Date Relating to Rights of Way) (England) Regulations 2023, which have extended the cut-off date for recording historical rights of way from 1 January 2026 to 1 January 2031. These regulations came into force on 17 November, following commencement of the cut-off date last month via the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (Commencement No. 16) Order 2023. This fulfilled the Government’s intention, which I set out on 18 May in response to my noble friend Lord Hodgson’s amendment to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. This means that on 1 January 2031, any rights of way that existed before 1949 and are not recorded on the definitive map will, with certain exceptions, be extinguished.
My noble friend Lord Hodgson has referred to the rights of way network as an important national asset—a number of noble Lords referred to it in a similar way—and in this he and I, and I am sure the whole House, are in full agreement. We have a fantastic rights of way network across England, with some 120,000 miles of footpaths, bridleways and byways, which play a vital role in supporting the nation’s health and well-being.
I will just comment on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale—there is nothing rapacious about him, and I am sure he is a very benevolent landowner. Like him, I have experience of providing public open space—in my case much closer to a large urban centre—and I understand how people want to access the countryside. We need to be much more flexible and provide points they can go to by public transport or in a car, where they can have a circular footpath, have different experiences, get in touch with nature and be made better in body and mind. I am absolutely committed to that agenda.
What we are talking about here is, in effect, the definitive map, which was introduced in 1949 to provide a legal record of rights of way, giving users and landowners alike certainty regarding the location and status of rights of way. The task of recording those pre-existing rights of way, so called historical rights of way, was considerable and is ongoing. The cut-off date was introduced by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, pointed out, to provide certainty for both rights of way users
and landowners. We are committed to reforming how we record historical rights of way on the definitive map, which will see this process become faster, less expensive, less confrontational and less bureaucratic. I totally accept my noble friend Lord Hodgson’s point, and I regret the Kafkaesque process he had to go through to create a diversion of a footpath that improved the walking experience for people. I hope we can improve this, and I hope to set out some aspects of how we seek to do that.
The present regulations address delays to these reforms caused by Covid-19 and will provide another five years to submit applications for recording historic rights of way. To turn to a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, we are aware of the significant backlog of applications and recognise that, even with the reformed procedures in place, it is unlikely that all cases will be concluded by the cut-off date. Although it is for local authorities to prioritise as appropriate, we are committed to ensuring that all valid applications submitted before the cut-off date will remain live until they are concluded. That answers a key point that I think the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made. We will also introduce exceptions covering certain other unrecorded historic rights of way, such as those in urban areas. These will ensure that key parts of our existing rights of way network are safeguarded.
On the issue of public consultation, which is another point that the noble Baroness raised, a five-year extension is the maximum permitted for most of England under the regulation-making powers. Therefore, a consultation on how long the extension should be would have served little purpose.
I turn to the noble Baroness’s point regarding the amount of time for scrutiny. Care was taken to ensure that the regulations were laid during the morning of 26 October, while this House was sitting. I accept that it is a moot point as the House was about to prorogue, but the process we are going through shows that Ministers can be brought to the Dispatch Box and held to account. That date was no discourtesy to this House, but it was intended to be placed while the House was sitting. I draw your Lordships’ attention to the report published by the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee on 9 November, which did not raise any concerns in this regard.
I turn to other points raised in this debate. There is a sense of urgency; I entirely accept the point my noble friend Lord Hodgson made. We want these measures to be carried forward as quickly as possible. I will come on to talk about some of those points further.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, raised a point about issues relating to county authorities. We think that implementing the same extension across England provides certainty for all parties. The exceptions will introduce safeguards from extinguishment for important routes. If we were to have different speeds for different types of local authority it would lead to great confusion.
A number of noble Lords asked how long it will take local authorities to get through the applications. That is obviously ultimately a matter for local authorities and how they are resourced. It is an important element
of local democracy, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said: English men and women feel very strongly about footpaths, and there is a strong democratic driver for local authorities to prioritise this. I recognise the other constraints that local authorities have on their spending, but we think the reforms we are committed to implementing will help speed up the process by making it faster and less expensive to resolve historic rights of way applications.
An impact assessment was not carried out because the present regulations will have no direct impact on how applications are made, or on how they are handled by local authorities or the Planning Inspectorate. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 sets out the existing procedures for applying for a definitive map modification order and these regulations will not change that. I again direct noble Lords to the report published by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee on 9 November, which agreed that a formal impact assessment was not required for these regulations.
We did not carry out a consultation because a five-year extension is the maximum permitted for most areas of England under the regulation-making powers, as I said. Implementing a five-year extension is a compromise between providing the certainty that the cut-off date will bring and recognising that more time is needed before the cut-off date takes effect. I believe this is a fair compromise. In my time as Minister responsible for this policy area at Defra I was assailed on both sides, by access campaigners and land management bodies. The feeling that I was in a pincer movement from both directions made me think that we were just possibly getting this right. I assure noble Lords that we intend to take forward that word “compromise”, which was mentioned a number of times and was an achievement of the stakeholder working group, which meets every month and is very important to us. On the polarities of the argument, you have an often-depicted angry farmer saying, “Get off my land”, and on the other side a rather extreme view that everyone should be able to go everywhere anytime they want. The rest of us—all of us in this House and most people in this country—sit in the middle. It is in all our interests that we see more access and more provision, and that we meaningfully tackle this problem.