§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Sainsbury.]
1.39 am§ Sir Humphrey Atkins (Spelthorne)I had hoped that this debate would come on earlier, not just because it is now late, but because the conservation of the countryside, of which all of us who live in these islands are so proud and which all of us love so much, deserves a much longer time for discussion than art Adjournment debate at this hour.
Nevertheless, I intend in the time available to outline a few areas of particular concern. I hope to hear the Government's thinking and plans from my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary. I thank him for being here to reply to the debate. It is most appropriate that he should be here because, although several Government Departments have responsibility in this area — I can think of at least six, including the Treasury, which one must always include—his Department, the Department of the Environment, is in the lead. I shall return to that matter of co-ordination of Government activity.
The main area of concern is simply stated. Year after year more of our countryside disappears or is changed out of all recognition. It disappears because of the ever-increasing size of our towns and villages—new towns are created where none existed and housing developments creep relentlessly outwards from existing towns. It also disappears because of the pressure of industry —factories, warehouses, power stations, reservoirs and so on — and communications, most notably motorways and the developments associated with the increasing size of airports. The countryside is changed by new and improved methods of agriculture, spurred on by that most basic of human requirements—the need to have enough to eat.
It is small wonder that a multiplicity of voluntary societies and associations have sprung up and are still springing up, all dedicated to the same objective—the conservation or preservation of what countryside we have left. I shall not mention them by name because if I mention one I should mention them all, and there are so many that time does not permit me to do so. I shall refer to only two bodies, for both of which my hon. Friend's Department has responsibility because their members are appointed and funds provided by his Secretary of State. Before I do so, I should like to pay a compliment to the Secretary of State. He gets few enough compliments these days, but this one is certainly due to him.
Last summer my right hon. Friend issued a draft circular giving the Government's view of the future of the green belts surrounding London and our great conurbations. It caused much alarm because it appeared that the Government's resolve to maintain the integrity of those green belts was weakening. A considerable public outcry ensued and representations poured in to my right hon. Friend from many people outside and, of course, from the Select Committee on the Environment. He not only listened but acted by revising his thinking and issuing, only three weeks ago, a new circular that is much firmer and has, I believe, allayed many of the fears that were previously expressed. I hope that my hon. Friend will pass on my compliments to the Secretary of State.
The Nature Conservancy Council is one of the two bodies that I have in mind. It has many responsibilities, 1365 but the ones mostly in the news at the moment are its responsibilities in connection with the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. I know very well that it would be out of order for me to make any reference in an Adjournment debate to an amendment of that Act—even though we know that it has been spoken about—so I do not propose to do so, but there are two questions that I should like to ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State.
The management agreements for the protection of the sites of special scientific interest, with which the Nature Conservancy Council is charged to deal, are expensive. I believe that my hon. Friend answered a question quite recently giving a figure. But how expensive it will be in the future is a matter of considerable concern. Recently, Dr. Bill Adams of the World Wildlife Fund published a pamphlet in which he said that the management agreements could cost as much as £42 million a year. The figure given by my hon. Friend recently in the House was about £320,000. There is a great divergence here, and it is a matter of concern and worry to many of us, because £42 million a year is a sum that nobody in this House believes that the Government will give. I should like to hear my hon. Friend's thinking about the cost of administering that part of the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
I should like to know whether my hon. Friend believes that it will be possible to fund extra staff for the Nature Conservancy Council, because another of the complaints is that it is taking a long time to do its work and, understandably, it is believed that it is a matter of staff time.
I have another question concerning the Nature Conservancy Council. I wonder whether the concentration of sites of special scientific interest will allow for the protection of the wider countryside. It has been suggested that there is a danger that the SSSIs may become isolated islands in a sea of laissez-faire where nothing else matters. Obviously, I hope that it will not happen, but there is one danger which has been mentioned recently in a report of the only voluntary body that I shall mention—the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. In a recent report the society said that most of the United Kingdom's upland birds depend on land which is not safeguarded by designation as sites of special scientific interest. That is a worry, and I should like to hear what my hon. Friend thinks about this anxiety which has been expressed by a number of people.
The other body to which I want to refer is the Countryside Commission. In particular, I refer to its excellent report, issued in March of this year, entitled, "A Better Future for the Uplands". I know that my hon. Friend will agree that it was a thoroughly thoughtful, detailed and constructive document, and that its recommendations are worth the most careful consideration. It has been very well received over a wide area, and the Government's response is awaited with keen interest. I do not suppose for one moment that my hon. Friend is in a position to give the Government's response here tonight, but I very much hope that he will give an indication of the Government's thinking.
One of the points made very strongly by the report is that all the interests in the countryside — landscape, recreation, agriculture, prosperous rural communities, 1366 forestry, roads, buildings and all the rest—are in the end indivisible. That, of course, applies not just to the uplands but to the whole country. There is an urgent need for the Departments concerned—the Department of the Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Offices and, of course, the Treasury — to establish a system under which they can examine the problems of the conservation of our countryside as one problem, not as separate problems. For a long time there has been a need for concerted action to preserve the countryside of which we are all so proud, and I hope that this evening my hon. Friend the Minister will tell me that that is in his mind, and the mind of his Department and the Government, and that they are taking steps to bring it about.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. William Waldegrave)I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Sir H. Atkins) for giving me the opportunity, after such a thoughtful speech, to give some of the Government's thinking on these important issues before the House rises for the summer recess. I am also grateful for the way in which my right hon. Friend described some of the principal problems and issues, and some of the problems of the institutions that are sponsored by my and other Departments.
My right hon. Friend will agree that the Conservative party has a long and honourable record in this area. The word "Conservative" in the name of our party is rightly applicable to the affection with which many Conservative Members regard the countryside, in which so many of our members have their roots. I was most grateful for my right hon. Friend's kind words about my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in relation to green belts, and I shall pass on his remarks. My right hon. Friend is right to say that the Government have re-emphasised with the new circulars the continuity that we intend to exist in the preservation of green belts. The draft circulars that were issued last summer were replaced by further drafts issued for comment in February 1984, and were—as my right hon. Friend said—favourably received. Since then the subjects have been considered by the Select Committee on the Environment, and the Department's response to the Select Committee's report included a revision of those drafts; the circulars were issued on 4 July.
The new green belt circular reaffirms the Government's commitment to green belt policy as originally set out in the 1950s, and reproduces Ministry of Housing and Local Government circulars 42/55 and 50/57, which were the classic guide. It recognises the main functions of green belts as, first, checking the unrestricted sprawl of built-up areas; secondly, as safeguarding the surrounding countryside from further encroachment; and, thirdly, as recognising the role of green belt policy in relation to urban renewal.
The intention is to achieve a long-term continuity of approach. Accordingly, the new circular stresses that once the general extent of a green belt has been approved as part of the structure plan for an area, it should be altered only in exceptional circumstances, and it emphasises the need to look as far ahead as can be seen when proposing boundaries.
The Select Committee made several valuable recommendations on the treatment of derelict land, 1367 especially on the urban fringe. The circular now includes advice to ensure that the mere fact that land has become derelict should not be accepted as a reason for amending approved or adopted green belt boundaries or for allowing development in the green belt, although dereliction may be a relevant factor when considering what land should be included in a green belt when boundaries are first defined. As the circular states, the overall aim should be to develop and maintain a positive approach to land-use management, which makes adequate provision for necessary development and ensures that the green belt serves its proper purpose.
In the more general issues of conservation, the centre piece of our policy is the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, to which my right hon. Friend referred, which represented a major initiative. It was the first substantial piece of countryside legislation to be introduced in more than a decade, and it represents an honest attempt to address a wide range of difficult, and undoubtedly contentious, issues. It is worth pointing out the fact that our predecessors did not contemplate such a broad legislative package. The previous Conservative Administration, and especially my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), deserve great credit for carrying through that Act.
Obviously, we are aware of the pressure on the Act. We are continuing to monitor its workings closely. We recognise, for example, that problems have arisen from the notification of sites of special scientific interest, and are currently considering ways in which the procedures in this part of the Act might be strengthened. We have also made it clear that we shall review the compensation arrangements under the Act when there has been an adequate opportunity to assess how they are working in practice. I am aware that the terms of those arrangements, and the principle behind them, are a source of criticism in some quarters.
As to the terms of payment, we recognise that there is a considerable number of agreements building up which have been negotiated in accordance with the guidance which we issued at the end of February last year. Undoubtedly some of these will, if concluded, prove expensive, though it is worth emphasising that the majority involve only relatively small sums. For example in the financial year just ended the Countryside Commission paid grant of less than £60,000 towards the first-year costs of six management agreements concluded by national park authorities from the special fund which we made available for that purpose.
We have provided similar funding arrangements for the current year, and although it is too early to offer any reasonable estimate of the likely demand, the latest information is that the parks are currently negotiating some 40 further agreements at an approximate annual cost of about £85,000.
It is in the lowland areas where the bills are liable to be greater, for obvious reasons. Many sites of special scientific interest exist in lowland areas where the land is intrinsically more fertile and so capable of sustaining a higher level of farm profitability. Since the Act was passed over a 100 sites, covering about 9,155 hectares, have been safeguarded by management agreements concluded by the Nature Conservancy Council. More than 500 agreements, covering about 55,000 hectares, are currently being negotiated at an estimated cost of about £1.4 million in annual payments and an additional £1.4 million in capital 1368 sums and arrears. I think the point which emerges is that while no one would deny that the making of management agreements does cost money, it is not accurate to claim, as some of our more vigorous critics have done, that the costs of implementing the Act are either out of control, or that they are not commensurate with our policy objective of monitoring the most important habitats and the most valuable landscape.
In that respect my right hon. Friend raised the question of NCC funding. The council's grant-in-aid for 1984–85 has been fixed at £15.6 million, which includes £1.25 million for the consolidation of the NCC's new headquarters in Peterborough. That represents a significant increase in real terms in the resources made available to the NCC since implementation of the Wildlife and Countryside Act. I am pleased to announce tonight the addition of an extra £2.55 million for this year for the NCC's work in safeguarding sites.
We are now considering very carefully the NCC's new strategy document "Nature Conservation in Great Britain". This paints a vivid picture of what has been happening to our wildlife heritage and spells out what we need to do to conserve and rebuild that heritage. It is an important contribution to the general public debate and we are looking at the long-term resource requirements it poses in the context of the council's corporate plan. That will include the question of staffing which my right hon. Friend mentioned, though I cannot give any further commitments tonight.
Not all attention in the lowlands is focused on SSSIs. The House will be well aware of problems in the Norfolk broads, where the issues are those of landscape rather than habitat conservation. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will forgive me for letting the House know the latest position, and our proposals for helping the Broads authority. First, the authority has reached holding agreements with four of those concerned in the Halvergate area for a period of a year with the aid of 75 per cent. grant from the Countryside Commission. The authority decided not to offer an agreement with full compensation to a fifth farmer in respect of about 90 acres of land near Halvergate which is bordered by a railway line and other ploughed land. That was its decision, as the local planning authority.
In a further case the authority was faced with the unfortunate situation where it seemed that a proposal to drain and plough might proceed before any agreement could be reached. The authority submitted for confirmation by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, a direction under article 4 of the Town and Country General Development Order revoking the planning permission conferrd by class VI of the order for engineering operations. My right hon. Friend responded quickly. He recognised that time was needed for consideration of the issues involved, and to allow the possibility of agreement being reached, made his own article 4 direction but limited its duration to one year. The Broads authority is now negotiating with the farmer concerned, and I believe that there is some hope of a satisfactory outcome.
That is something of the background to the current position. But the Government have acted on a wider front and tonight I can announce some further measures aimed at helping the conservation of the broads. First, my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food have decided to apply section 41 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act to the executive areas of the Broads authority, subject to the 1369 satisfactory outcome of public consultation. If section 41 is applied it would be accompanied by a requirement for farmers to consult the Broads authority about farm developments for which they wish to claim capital grant. If grant were to be refused in individual cases because of the authority's objections, the farmers concerned would be entitled to the offer of a management agreement.
Secondly, we have also warmly welcomed the Countryside Commission's report on its review of the Broads authority and have endorsed, in principle, its finding that it would be desirable to establish a special statutory authority by means of private legislation. To that end, we have authorised the Countryside Commission to pay grant to Norfolk county council towards the costs of preparation of a Bill, which I understand that the council proposes to deposit in the 1985–86 Session. We have reserved judgment, however, on the proposal to provide in the Bill for the new authority to have certain powers to control navigation.
As it is clear that it will be some years before the new authority can be appointed, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has authorised the Countryside Commission to continue to grant-aid the adminitrative expenditure of the present Boards Authority in the interim. Grant will remain at the rate of 50 per cent. However, and this is the third part of the Norfolk Broads package that I am announcing tonight, we have agreed that the Commission may pay 75 per cent. grants to the authority in respect of the cost of any management agreements that it may enter into, so extending the present authorisation at this rate that, to date has applied only in the Halvergate area. This brings the support for management agreements in the Broads into line with that provided in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty.
We have also been studying the report of the working group that we established earlier this year to consider alternative means of conserving the landscape of the broads. One possibility that has been canvassed is an experimental scheme to be administered by the Countryside Commission and designed to support grazing in the marshes. Among other things, it would involve the making of livestock headage payments to farmers who participated. This is an interesting proposal and one to which we have given careful thought. For the present, however, we have decided to defer further consideration while we await the outcome of a new initiative that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture proposes to take in Brussels in the context of the negotiations on the draft EC regulation on agricultural structures which consolidates and revises previous directives relating to the modernisation of farming and aid for the less favoured areas.
This initiative is perhaps in the longer-term the most important of all the new items on my list of positive new steps that the Government are taking. Perhaps I may describe it a little more fully. My right hon. Friend may be aware of the recent House of Lords Select Committee report on Agriculture and the Environment which was debated in the other place earlier this week. My noble Friend the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, outlined the Government's position during the debate. He pointed out that we have already put 1370 forward some amendments to the draft regulation designed to make it more responsive to environmental concerns, but he was also able to announce a major new initiative.
The Government recognised, said my noble Friend, as did the Select Committee, that some of the conservation-ally sensitive areas of our countryside did not fall within the ambit of the less favoured areas directive. In consequence, as foreshadowed by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture at the last meeting of the Agriculture Council, the noble Lord announced that the Government had decided to seek a more general provision in the draft regulations. This is a major step. It represents the Government's belief that we need a completely new title in the regulation, conveying powers which would enable us in environmentally sensitive areas to encourage farming practices which are consonant with conservation. The Government will straight away discuss with the. Commission how best to give effect to this idea which would herald a new policy for balancing agriculture and conservation objectives, in the way to which my right hon. Friend was referring. We need to have greater coordination between the different parts of policy. If achieved, it would not, of course, be a solution to all the problems, but it would be a most valuable step forward, and one for which many of the voluntary bodies, such as the CPRE and other makes of Wildlife Link, have long been passing.
Of course, as my noble Friend pointed out, amendments of this nature may not be initially acceptable to all other member states. We certainly believe we need to be able to designate areas outside the less favoured areas as conservationally sensitive and within those areas to be able to make payments and impose conditions to ensure that agriculture is carried on in a way which is consistent with conservation objectives. That is our intention and that is what we shall try to negotiate.
There are other areas of activity as well. My right hon. Friend has made the point that we need to think about the countryside as a whole, not just SSSIs and designated areas. That is true, although clearly the safeguarding of the more important and vulnerable areas must be high on our list of priorities. In the Wildlife and Countryside Act, we have provided a power for all local planning authorities to make management agreements for conservation. Such expenditure would be eligible for support from the Countryside Commission, whose importance we have recognised by giving it independent status. A good deal of work generally is undertaken in the countryside with the aid of grant from the Commission. During 1983–84 for example, it paid grant of over £1.4 million towards amenity tree planting and woodland management. That was out of a total of £8 million that the Commission paid in grants to the private sector and public bodies throughout England and Wales in that year.
The Commission also spent a further £1.25 million on Groundwork Northwest during 1983–84. That is a major intitiative in restoring the countryside on the fringe of large towns. Charitable trusts have been established with the support of the Countryside Commission in a number of areas. The trusts are stimulating and co-ordinating the work of local authorities, private and voluntary bodies and individuals. They have proved so successful that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced on 13 July his support for the formation of a Groundwork Foundation to take on the task of establishing independent trusts throughout the country.
1371 The Countryside Commission was also responsible for the useful report "A Better Future for the Uplands", to which my right hon. Friend referred, published earlier this year. We welcomed this report at the time as an important step in trying to find consistent interlocking remedies to the problems of one important part of the rural scene. We intend to respond in due course to the Commission's initiative — I hope in the autumn. There are a considerable number of recommendations which we must consider carefully.
The NCC is at present intensively active, which is why we have made available the additional funds that I have been able to announce tonight. There are now more than 190 national nature reserves. The designation of these areas has made important contributions to the creation of conditions in which ospreys, white tailed eagles, avocets and ruffs have returned to the United Kingdom. Eagles are again breeding in the north-west of England and sea eagles have been re-established in Scotland.
The latest nature reserve to be established by the NCC is, indeed, in the Broads area. It has recently acquired some 177 acres at Ludham Marshes in the Broads for the purpose of establishing a national nature reserve. It is only in this area that the rare and important Norfolk Aeshna dragonfly occurs.
The NCC helped by the RSPB has also done invaluable work in highlighting the damaging effects of pesticides, and action stemming from that has been crucial in the recovery of many of our finest birds of prey.
The NCC is also increasingly monitoring loss and damage to SSSIs, and that is important. The results will provide a reliable base on which to plan the future and to see what improvements may be needed.
The voluntary bodies do tremendous work in this area. We have an army of volunteers amounting to about 3 million people, and we assist and encourage this valuable contribution through grants made by the NCC, which in 1982–83 amounted to about £360,000. In other words, they are supported directly by my Department.
These NCC grants supported the purchase of the about 900 hectares of land for nature reserves, and represented a continuing expansion in the grant aid available to voluntary bodies.
1372 I must also pay tribute to the growing role played by the industrial and commercial world in sponsoring conservation. The partnership between the NCC, the World Wildlife Fund and the Government has already led to an encouraging number of successful schemes illustrated in the Government's booklet on conservation and business sponsorship, which we published last year.
From what I have said I hope that it is clear that the Government are fully alert to the pressures which face our countryside today. But we do not share the pessimistic view of some critics that the only way forward is by detailed regulation and control. As a Government we firmly believe that control of all kinds, together with the bureaucracy on which they must depend, should be kept to an essential minimum.
However, that is not our only reason for being sceptical of those who think that compulsion represents the only satisfactory kind of Government action. The fact is that we cannot make progress unless we maintain the confidence and good will of those farmers and land owners who take the lead in conservation. Many now do so, for example, through involvement in fanning and wildlife advisory groups.
This movement represents a splendid effort, starting from modest beginnings but increasingly spreading throughout the country. It shows how the needs of agriculture and conservation can be reconciled at the grass roots level, just as my right hon. Friends the Minister of Agriculture and Secretary of State seek to reconcile and integrate those interests at the highest level of policy.
Our policies are designed to carry that integration forward. and I believe that the broad approach which we have adopted offers the best way to make progress in this complicated area.
I hope that I have been able to show my right hon. Friend that he has been timely in raising this subject, in that we have a number of new initiatives to announce and I am grateful to him for introducing this short debate.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at nine minutes past Two o' clock.