WATER SPACE AMENITY COMMISSION (Hansard, 17 July 1973)

§ Mr. Eldon Griffiths
I beg to move, That this House both agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
The amendment seeks to clarify the duties and powers of the Water Space Amenity Commission. It is designed both to meet some of the recommendations of the Select Committee on Sport and Leisure of the other place and to fulfil a promise that we made in Committee to consider the promotional rôle of the commission further. This we have done.

§ Mr. Denis Howell
This is an occasion when the Opposition do not agree with what the Government have done. We shall not divide the House, for obvious reasons. But we have always been opposed to the Water Space Amenity Commission. Since we debated this matter in Committee, my inquiries from the Sports Council and other bodies have produced the advice to me that they are no more enamoured of this provision than when it was first introduced.
Responsibility for the correct usage of water space should be with the water 427 authorities, the local authorities and the regional sports councils, and the Government have done that in the Bill. Therefore, it seems odd that yet another body is placed between those three agencies and the public desire for greater facilities.
We are not assisted by the words which the Minister has just used. He says that he is looking after the promotional rights of the commission. I suppose there could be an argument for having the commission but, if it is to go in for promotional activities, it will cut across what the regional water authorities, the local authorities and the sports councils should be doing, and that adds to our confusion.
We do not believe that the case for the commission has been made out. But we leave it there. No doubt time will tell whether the Minister is right or whether the bodies which doubt the logic of this proposal are right.

§ Mr. James Scott-Hopkins (Derbyshire, West)
I have certain anxieties about the Water Space Amenity Commission and what it will be doing concerning new reservoirs and recreational facilities upon them.
I have a particular constituency interest, as my hon. Friend knows only too well. I am anxious about what will happen if, for instance, local authorities recommend that these recreational facilities be kept to a minimum. Will the new commission be able to overrule them and advise my right hon. Friend that those facilities should be improved? There is a great deal of disquiet in countryside and rural areas where the new reservoirs are situated about the vast amount of disruption that the provision of recreational facilities will incur. I think that very few people object to new reservoirs, but they take a different attitude about the recreational facilities which will thereby be provided.
I am not clear what the Water Space Amenity Commission will do. I have read through the earlier proceedings and noted the controversy that arose in Committee and elsewhere. I am not convinced that this is the right way of going about the matter. There is a conflict of interest. My interest is that these recreational facilities should be reduced to the minimum required, not the maximum.

§ Mr. Spearing
I think it is right at this stage for me to follow the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) who, although for quite different reasons, has doubts about the Water Space Amenity Commission. The reason for the insertion of this body in the Bill was the thought originally that canals would be included. It was a safeguard, at least from the Government's point of view.
As I said to the Minister in Committee, this is a Whitehall placebo. The meaning of the phrase "water space", coined not by the Under-Secretary but somewhere in Whitehall, varies from place to place. The reservoir, the gravel pit and river, whilst technically being water space, are different kinds of water space.
In Committee we put down an amendment which would have required the Government to set up a Water Recreation Advisory Committee for each regional water authority. That would have had some merit, but alas, the Chairman did not see fit to select it. Those advisory committees would have fulfilled the function which the Minister wishes the Water Space Amenity Commission to fulfil. They would have been far better than the proposal we now have, because they would have been able to deal with local matters. The national organisations, some of which are listed in subsection (3A)(a), would have knowledge of local matters. The advisory committees which I suggested would have been preferable to this body, which very few people appear to want and whose powers seem to be very much in doubt.

§ Mr. Eldon Griffiths
With the permission of the House, perhaps I should say at once to my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) that the purposes of the Water Space Amenity Commission will be to have regard to the development of water recreation and amenity in the widest sense. I should include in that the bird watcher, the rambler and the other quiet pursuits of the countryside as well as those which on occasion can intrude on the quietness of rural areas. The advice of the commission will be extremely valuable because of the need to strike a balance here.
Referring to the point made by the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing), each of the regional water authorities 429 will have a member with specific responsibility for recreation and amenity. I have little doubt that he will set up a Section 6 committee to advise him, and in so doing he will have the assistance of the regional sports council, its excellent water resources committee and, indeed, local amenity and local authority advisers. It will be for the Water Space Amenity Commission to assist these recreation and amenity committees of the regional water authorities in every possible way.
There is no doubt that we have a massive turning towards water sports and recreation in this country. I very much welcome that because we are short of land. It is wise to use our water. I believe that the Water Space Amenity Commission, backed by the National Water Council, working in conjunction with the Sports Council and the Countryside Commission, with whose chairman I have discussed the matter, and under the effective leadership that I am sure we shall be able to find for it, will provide something that is needed and valued in this country.