HC Deb 30 July 1981 vol 9 cc1252-8
Mr. King

I beg to move amendment No. 220, in page 35, line 16, after 'beauty', insert 'or amenity'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: Government amendments Nos. 221, 155 and 156.

Amendment No. 72, in clause 39, page 37, line 23, leave out 'after consulting with the Secretary of State', and insert 'with the provision that if the objection is not withdrawn the application shall be determined by the Ministers'.

Amendment No. 145, in page 37, line 23, at end insert— '(c) where the relevant authority recommend that a farmer shall carry out an operation in a manner involving greater expenditure the farmer shall be compensated by a grant equal to the difference between the cost of the two operations in addition to the grant payable for the operation he proposed to carry out'. Government amendment No. 157.

Amendment No. 142, in page 37, line 25, after 'Park', insert 'or Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.'.

Government amendments Nos. 158 to 161.

Mr. King

These amendments relate to the proposals that we have made under what are called the Sandford amendments and new clause 39. Amendment No. 220 is a technical amendment adding the words "or amenity" to bring clauses 37 and 39 into line. Amendment No. 221 is also a technical amendment. Amendment No. 155 puts the Secretary of State for Scotland under the same duty as the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, which I am sure will please the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) as it is in response to the undertaking that we gave in Committee, which was still under consideration by my right hon. Friend at that time.

Amendments Nos. 156,157 and 161 extend to Scotland the provisions of clause 39(2) and (3) in respect of the proposed operations on land in national parks—although there are no national parks in Scotland—and other areas specified by the Minister. It is a technical point that is covered by the: amendment.

I shall not comment on amendment No. 142 at this stage. Amendment No. 158 is technical, Amendments Nos. 159 and 160 are consequential on new clause 33. I shall not comment on amendments Nos. 72 or 145.

Mr. Dalyell

It would be churlish of me not to acknowledge what the Government have done in relation to Scottish legislation. I thank them for that.

The success or failure of the Bill will depend considerably on the amount of money that can be made available to the NCC. I believe that at the end of the day we shall have to consider the kind of planning that was outlined in an earlier debate by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester. Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman). It is wrong to pay people considerable sums of public money not to do certain things. Having said that, and given the parameters of the Bill, it is obviously of the greatest importance that the NCC has the funds available to cope with many of the problems that will doubtless confront it.

I am not at all happy about the concept of the super-SSSI, nor am I happy about the three-month period. Perhaps it should be much longer. But at least a start has been made, and at least monitoring can now take place. I give the undertaking that some of us will be extremely industrious in our efforts to monitor what has taken place.

I hope that this is a success. If the Bill works—at present, I say that against my better judgment—so much the better. Nevertheless, it will be monitored.

Time hastens on, and I am conscious that part HI has been under-discussed. A number of outside interests that have shown concern about the Bill have been disappointed at the attitude of some hon. Members who have not gone for the Sandford proposal lock, stock and barrel as it emerged from the other place. They wanted Sandford in a pristine state, but the proposition as it emerged from the other place would involve the regeneration of our rural economy. That may be a desirable and estimable end, but some of us think that it is unrealistic to use this Bill to resuscitate the rural economy. Other parliamentary vehicles can be used to do that.

One argument that weighed heavily with us was that the funds would be spread out with a watering-can effect if Sandford, as it emerged from the Lords, was accepted. We register the disappointment of the Council for National Parks and the Council for the Protection of Rural England, but at no stage have we agreed with them that the Bill should be used as a vehicle to introduce what they want. The use of Ministry and European horticulture and agriculture development funds for wildlife and conservation is a step forward. It is in that spirit that I support amendment No. 72, which deals with the two Ministers mentioned in clause 39. In doing so, I strongly support my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) and others who will expand on this matter.

Mr. Hardy

My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) has expressed our concern and I hope that the Minister will look favourably on amendment No. 72. If he does not, the House should divide on the amendment, because it is important.

The new clause restores the principle of widening Ministry of Agriculture grants, which was established by the original Sandford amendment. The clause addresses itself adequately to all the points raised by the Sandford amendment, except the most crucial—the extension of the Ministry's grants system to incorporate the objectives of conservation and other schemes of benefit to the rural economy.

The Minister has not properly responded to the fact that the fundamental principle on which Sandford rested was that grants should be available to farmers for a wider variety of purposes, including conservation and recreation schemes, farm-based tourism and craft industries and other schemes of benefit to rural communities.

The overriding emphasis remains on agricultural productivity. That emphasis currently pervades the Ministry of Agriculture's grants system and it is one of the major reasons for the destruction of the character of Britain's national parks, including the ploughing of moorland, the drainage of wetlands and the reduction in farm labour.

The social, economic and environmental problems of our upland areas, especially in the national parks, are such that a comprehensive strategy must be adopted to achieve the revitalisation of conservation objectives.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir M. Kimball) made an important speech and suggested that there would be a marked advance if the Ministry of Agriculture changed its grant arrangements from a system of headage payments to a system of acreage payments. The cost would be no greater, but substantial good would result from such a change and I am sorry that the Minister did not pursue that suggestion.

We need a system under which farmers can apply for grants to serve not only agricultural objectives but the objectives that the Minister claims to acknowledge. The Government should be prepared to extend the role of the advisory service to cover social, economic and environmental objectives. If the Government are prepared to promote that change, it would surely be logical for them to accept that there should be a similar extension of the agricultural capital grants system to provide money for environmental and socio-economic projects. If the Government do not accept that, they can scarcely claim to have retained both the spirit and the purpose of the Sandford amendment.

Perhaps the most significant amendment in the group is No. 72.

Mr. King

Has the hon. Gentleman been quoting from a document or has he been stating his own views?

Mr. Hardy

I have been referring to notes in a brief, but I was not quoting them word for word.

Mr. King

I do not complain about that, but would the hon. Gentleman care to say who holds those views?

Mr. Hardy

I shall certainly do that at the end of my speech. I had planned to do so in any case.

Amendment No. 72 would strengthen the position of the Minister and his colleagues in the Department of the Environment. He will be aware that throughout our consideration of the Bill we have consistently sought to strengthen his Department against the Ministry of Agriculture. Indeed, perhaps we have served an enormously useful purpose over the past three or four months in raising the status of the Department. At the start of the Bill's progress it seemed that the Department was well down the pecking order and slavishly obeyed every diktat from the Ministry of Agriculture.

The Opposition have made an enormous contribution to saving the face of the Department of the Environment. Amendment No. 72 seeks to maintain that service. We seek to continue to strengthen the Department of the Environment in its dealings with the unimaginative Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The Secretary of State should have a greater capacity to be involved. At the moment, the county planning authorities and the Nature Conservancy Council receive prior notification from fanners. If those organisations object, there is an opportunity for them to discuss the scheme and to seek modifications. If they maintain their objections, the final decision on whether the grant is awarded rests solely with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. That causes the Opposition a great deal of concern.

9.45 pm

The Secretary of State for the Environment presented the Bill on Second Reading in the best possible manner. I intervened to refer to a press notice issued a day or two earlier by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I referred to what was stated in the press notice by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who is, perhaps, the Minister who will make the decisions. This is one of the reasons for our concern, suspicion and anxiety. The Minister stated emphatically that there was no natural beauty in the British Isles.

The Secretary of State for the Environment did not let down or betray his colleague. The right hon. Gentleman revealed a solidarity that may be commendable. However, the statement by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was appalling. It justifies Opposition Members saying that Ministers of that kind operating in Departments of that kind should not be allowed sole responsibility in decision-making.

With the evidence strongly on our side, I think that our case is incontrovertible. Amendment No. 72 ensures that Ministers in the Department of the Environment have an input in a matter that is so relevant to the environment. If we are to protect the landscape and to serve the socio-economic features of our rural heritage, about which the Minister spoke movingly in Committee, I do not believe that the Government can deny the logic of the case that underlies amendment No. 72. Consultation may help. Given the opinions of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and our experience of the attitudes of that Ministry over the last few years and its insistence, despite the powerful arguments advanced by the hon. Member for Gainsborough, it seems to me that our case that the Department of the Environment should be involved and not merely consulted is overwhelming.

The Minister received considerable applause from many organisations and individuals when he moved from the initial attitude taken in response to Sandford when the Bill came to this House. The Minister will forfeit the respect of those individuals and organisations if he does not take advantage of our efforts and make a stand on behalf of, and in the name of, his own Department. The organisations involved are serious organisations. I have been referring to documents produced by the Council for National Parks and the Council for the Protection of Rural England, but I believe that every single environmental and conservation organisation will endorse my remarks. It is essential that there should be a balance. That balance cannot be maintained if decisions are left to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and its Parliamentary Secretary.

I hope that the Minister will stand firm for his Department and perhaps maintain the pecking order that may have improved over the last few months. It is in the interests of the countryside that the Department of the Environment should not be ignored in decision-making. For that reason, amendment No. 72 seems a good amendment. I trust that it will be accepted.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) said in favour of amendment No. 72 and hope that the Government will accept it. However, grouped with it are two others, amendment Nos. 142 and 145, to which I want briefly to speak.

Amendment No. 142 deals with areas of outstanding natural beauty. Those of us who welcome the Government's proposals to implement the Sandford amendment argue strongly that it should apply not only to national parks but also to areas of outstanding natural beauty. I hope that we shall reach the stage where those who farm in national parks or in areas of outstanding natural beauty can see positive advantages in the form of assistance which they get from the Government for being in those areas. In other words, I should like to see them getting some compensation because they are looking after for the country one of its major amenities. If they are doing that, it is important that they get help in areas of outstanding natural beauty as well as in the national parks. I hope, therefore, that the Government will accept amendment No. 142.

Amendment No. 145 highlights what is still one of the major problems with the so-called Sandford amendment. Most of the money available for carrying out the amendment will be made available by a statutory instrument of 1980, No. 1298, the agriculture and horticulture development regulations. That statutory instrument is very much dependent on EEC regulations, but it sets out the amounts of the grants which will be available to farmers to carry out all sorts of activities.

I suggest that in many ways it is the weighting of those grants which decides whether we are going for conservation or for the destruction of the countryside. Looking through the weighting of those grants, we find that in many areas which tend to be destructive the grants are rather more favourable than they are in areas which are much more oriented towards conservation.

A fanner in one of the less favoured areas, which tend to be the national park areas, can get up to 50 per cent. of the cost of clearing or reclaiming land, subsoiling, burning heather or grass or making muirburn, levelling or grading ground, including the filling in of ditches or ponds, removal of tree roots, boulders or other obstructions to cultivation, and bracken control. However, certain other activities which may be much more oriented to conservation qualify for an amount of grant which is much less.

When we look at the detail, however, we see that very often the farmer is forced to do what is cheapest and may be of least value in conserving the appearance of the countryside. Perhaps I may give an example. In many areas, sadly, old stone walls have got into almost total disrepair. If a farmer wishes to make a field boundary effective again, he can apply for a grant, and he will get 50 per cent. of the cost of putting up a wire fence close to the line of the wall. However, that does nothing to conserve the appearance of the countryside. It would be far more attractive if he could be persuaded to have the wall rebuilt or to rebuild it himself. He can get 50 per cent. of the cost of rebuilding it, of course, but he has still to find far more money himself—in other words, 50 per cent. of the cost of replacing the wall rather than 50 per cent. of the cost of putting up a wire fence. For the farmer the two are just about as effective for stock control purposes. But, in terms of conservation of the amenity of the area, if traditionally there has been a stone wall there it is far better for it to be replaced.

Amendment No. 145 proposes that if we ask the farmer to engage in the dearer of the two activities because it is good for the amenity of the area, he should be compensated. He should not just be able to get the grant for doing it. He should get assistance to compensate him for the difference between the cheapest method and what is best for the amenity. I could give the House many other examples from the instrument which governs this.

There is a problem because, as I understand it, a meeting of EEC Agriculture Ministers could suddenly decide that these agriculture/horticulture regulations can be redrawn. I hope that the Minister will assure us that in redrawing the regulations, or in changing the percentage grants, either in general or in the less favoured areas, British Ministers will ensure that the whole question of conservation is taken into account in the grants that are made, and that the grant does not become more and more favourable when it is merely for food production and possibly to the destruction of amenity rather than when it is for the purpose of conserving the countryside.

Mr. Marks

It would be churlish not to admit that the Government have come a long way to meet our point of view since Second Reading. I admit, too, that the Minister is in charge of a Bill which has long-term consequences during a difficult period of public expenditure and restraint, particularly on the matters about which we are concerned. Nevertheless, in the amendments we are seeking to ensure that the environmental point of view is put forward up to the very last stage of the grants.

The Sandford amendment, which is now clause 39, contained the brilliant idea of using the very thing that created the problem—Ministry of Agriculture grants towards clearing moorland and making it arable—and using that system of grants to defend the environment as well. Early on, the Government were chary about supporting that idea. We realise that the Government have come a long way, but amendment No. 72, in particular, would give further support to the Department of the Environment in its tussles with the Ministry of Agriculture. It could be said that we do not trust the Minister of Agriculture, and I admit that.

On amendment No. 142, it has already been said that it is more than 20 years since we had a new national park, and that suggests that many of the ideas put forward in this connection should be applied to the areas of outstanding natural beauty as well as to the national parks themselves.

Amendment No. 145 is surely worthy of acceptance, and I am sure that it would be supported by hon. Members who represent fanners' interests. If we expect farmers not only to profit from so-called improvements to their land but to perform environmental tasks such as building new walls and maintaining them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) suggested, the amendment will help in that regard. I therefore hope that the amendment will be accepted.

Mr. King

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks), who put the subject back into its proper context, and that is the major advance that has been made by the Government. There were moments in the speeches of the hon. Members for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) and Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) when it seemed that somehow we had failed to achieve a significant breakthrough in this connection. I therefore thank the hon. Member for Gorton for his comments, which were much more in keeping with the generous comments of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell) on the important step forward that we have made.

In connection with amendment No. 142, I understand why hon, Members wish to extend the provisions of the clause immediately to AONBs. We agreed that they should be extended to include national parks. We have gone further than Sandford. The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) spoke about the pressure to accept Sandford lock, stock and barrel. In fact, Sandford did not go as far as we are going in this respect. The hon. Gentleman may wish to point out to one or two of the organisations which are perhaps sticking the needle into him that Sandford referred only to national parks and such other areas as might be specified.

We have already specified SSSIs in new clause 31. National parks and SSSIs are now included. There is the power to specify other areas. I cannot accept AONBs at this stage. There are complications. There are no arrangements to require notification by farmers to the planning authority.

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.