EXTENT OF PROTECTION (Hansard, 7 May 1993)

§ Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cirencester and Tewksbury)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse)
With this, it will be convenient to take the following amendments:
No. 33, in clause 1, page 1, line 5, leave out 'where the conditions in subsection (2) below are satisfied'. No. 34, in clause I, page 1, line 12, leave out subsection (2).
No. 53, in clause 13, page 8, line 30, at end insert— '(7A) This Act only applies to a hedgerow if—

(a) it is on or adjacent to land used for agriculture or forestry or is on common land, protected land or a golf-course or racecourse, and

(b) either it is 20 metres or more in length or its continuity is broken at each end by a junction with another hedgerow.

(7B) Regulations may amend the length referred to in subsection (7A)(b) above'.

§ Mr. Clifton-Brown
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Bill was debated at great length in Committee, when we had four sittings and discussed it in detail. We are to discuss it further today. Amendment No. 5, which is extremely important, was debated in Committee and withdrawn. It is a great disappointment to all Conservative Members, who wish to ensure that the Bill is workable for those who have to implement it, that amendment No. 5, ensuring that agricultural needs are taken into account—surely, a primary need—has not been selected. I appeal to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to consider selecting that most important amendment, even at this late stage.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman may appeal, but he will not be successful.

§ Mr. Michael Jopling (Westmorland and Lonsdale)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should like to draw your attention, to another aspect of Madam Speaker's selection of amendments—amendment No. 15. At present, it is listed with amendment No. 42. While you may care for a few more minutes to consider the matter before giving your judgment, when you look carefully, you will see that it has been wrongly grouped with amendment No. 42. It falls more naturally with amendments Nos. 44 and 45, to which it relates. You may care to consider the matter for a few minutes as the debate proceeds and state later whether you agree. It would be for the convenience of the House if you could do so.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I shall give consideration to the matter and give my judgment in a few minutes.

§ The Minister for the Environment and Countryside (Mr. David Maclean)
Further to the point of order raised by 452 my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown), Mr. Deputy Speaker. If he can find some method—in order, of course—of obliquely referring to the problem, I might be able to give some helpful guidance.

§ Mr. Clifton-Brown
In view of what the Minister has said, may I renew my plea that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, should consider calling amendment No. 5 for us to debate at an appropriate moment?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I am afraid that I cannot give further consideration to that issue.

§ Mr. Clifton-Brown
When debating new clause 1 it is essential to discuss how we have arrived at this stage. We had some lengthy and detailed discussions of the Bill in Committee. It might be thought that the concept of hedgerows is a simple one and that to draft a Bill to preserve a hedgerow might be a relatively easy task. However, once we began to discuss the details of drafting such a Bill, we understood how complicated some of the aspects were—as we shall no doubt discover later today.
In Committee, we examined clause 6 in great detail, as it was almost unintelligible as drafted. I shall remind the House of what the original clause 6 was designed to achieve. The Bill provides for someone to notify the local authority if he or she wishes to remove a hedgerow on specified grounds. The local authority then has to decide within 28 days whether to issue a notice preventing removal of the hedgerow. Then there are the usual appeal procedures, after which an enforcement notice may be issued and people can appeal to the Secretary of State to have the notice revoked in whole or in part.
The amendment to clause 6 tabled in Committee was designed to impose de minimis requirements for hedgerow length. It sought to remove the cover provided by the Bill for all hedgerows under 20 m. The problem was that it was drafted in such a convoluted way that the Committee could not agree to it and decided to chuck it out, leaving us with the problem that the Bill now covers every single shrub in every field in the country.
We spent almost a whole sitting debating whether small bits of urban hedgerows should be brought within the scope of the Bill and we decided, given the burdens that that would impose on local authorities, that the Bill would become unworkable if we included those bits. If we include all hedgerows under 20 m the same will happen.

§ Mr. Peter Atkinson (Hexham)
Can my hon. Friend confirm that a minimum of 20 m is at least consistent? That was the very distance included in the report to the Department of Environment by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, as the minimum length of boundary to be classified as a hedge.

§ Mr. Clifton-Brown
Indeed. The new clause also specifies 20 m—a sensible length, and hedgerows less than 20 m should not be protected. If we start protecting tiny bits of hedgerow, the measure will become over-bureaucratic and an administrative nightmare for local authorities.

§ Lady Olga Maitland (Sutton and Cheam)
In my urban constituency there are many little hedgerows around golf courses, behind parks and surrounding all sorts of public buildings. Surely they, too, deserve protection, even though they are not 20 m long?

§ Mr. Clifton-Brown
That backs up what I have been saying. In Committee, we decided that however worthy these small bits of hedgerow might be, bringing them within the scope of the Bill would wreck it, because it would become unworkable and over-bureaucratic. Local authorities would be swamped by thousands of inquiries about the hedges in people's gardens.
We must try to make the Bill workable, particularly for the agricultural community, on which the major burden will fall. My new clause is a simple way round the problem. It exempts all hedges under 20 m unless they form an H-type junction between two other hedgerows.
Amendments Nos. 33, 34 and especially No. 53 go a long way towards meeting my anxiety and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Ainsworth) for that. I submit, however, that new clause 1 is a far better way forward.

§ Mr. Peter Hardy (Wentworth)
I shall try to be brief, because brevity is necessary if the Bill is to be enacted. I strongly support the Bill although its promoter is aware that I regard it as inadequate. However, the situation in Britain is such that a Bill of this sort is desperately needed.
The Government have proclaimed their support for the Bill in recent months and have used it as evidence of the green commitment of the Conservative party. There is not much of a commitment in evidence today, as Member after Member is queuing up to stop the Bill becoming law. I trust that the Conservative party will shelve any claim to green virtue.
If the Bill is to have any chance at all, Conservative Members will have to withdraw their amendments or merely move them formally. If they do not do that but drag out the time of the House to prevent the Bill from becoming law, they will have added shame to the ignominy of their record on this matter over the past 15 years.
The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) says that his new clause is designed to allow the removal of 20 m hedgerows, but Conservative Members are trying to make sure that the Bill does not provide protection for any hedgerow. I will give one example of why the new clause is undesirable. Many short hedgerows would probably have been removed in the past 15 years or more if they did not serve a purpose, so extensive has the destruction of hedgerows been. If a 20 m hedgerow contained a rare species of flora or fauna there would be no opportunity to ensure its survival.
Some species of flora in our country can be numbered on the fingers of one hand, and if the last half dozen of a plant species is contained in a 20 m hedgerow, that species would eradicated because the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury does not think that any 20 m stretch of hedgerow is worth keeping.

§ Mr. Jopling
If the flora were as important as the hon. Gentleman suggests, it is more than likely that its habitat would be protected as a site of special scientific interest. That is a much more satisfactory way to preserve our heritage of flora. Flora and fauna as important as the hon. Gentleman describes would be better preserved by means of an SSSI than by rejecting the amendment.

§ Mr. Hardy
In an ideal world the right hon. Gentleman would be perfectly right, but has he not studied the number of sites of special interest that have been destroyed in recent decades? The number is well over 1,000, and probably over 2,000 or 3,000. Those who are interested in 454 conservation welcome the conferring of the status of SSSI on a specific habitat, but they have no confidence that under this Administration such habitats enjoy any protection at all. What the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have been about this morning is further evidence that while the Conservatives are in office, Britain's ecological inheritance is very much under threat.
I welcome the fact that the Government have supported the hon. Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Ainsworth) in his attempt to get this inadequate measure on to the statute book, but I deplore the tactics adopted by Conservative Members who have tabled amendment after amendment, all of them designed to do nothing other than to remove any meaning from hedgerow protection.

§ Mr. Peter Atkinson
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Hardy
No, I will not. The hon. Gentleman has wasted enough of my time this year already.
If Conservative Members wish to understand why the Conservative party is unpopular, they should consider the vast number of discreditable amendments that they have tabled. I sought hedgerow protection through the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 when it was being debated, but I was blocked by the Government. After that, I tabled a number of hedgerow Bills, the first of them in 1982. In 1982, the Government said that we did not need a hedgerow protection Bill because destruction had virtually stopped. Since then we have lost 100,000 miles of hedgerow and the Government have sat by year after year, watching.

§ Mr. Clifton-Brown
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Hardy
No I will not give way, for the same reason that I would not give way to the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson). I am not often discourteous, but I am discourteous about hedgerows because I have every reason to be angry.
In 1987, I was on the council of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. I went to King's Cross station on the day that the RSPB celebrated its centenary to see a railway engine named Avocet to commemorate that anniversary. The guest speaker was the then Mrs. Thatcher, who made a speech in which she said that it was deeply regrettable that 130,000 miles of hedgerow had disappeared in Britain over the past three decades. She called for hedgerows to be protected. I left that gathering to come to the House to present yet another Bill on hedgerows. On the Friday of the following week, when I sought Second Reading for that Bill, the Government blocked it—on the orders of that right hon. Lady.
I had hoped that the Government had learnt some sense as some Ministers were saying, "Yes, we need to be green; we need to protect hedgerows." Hence, the hon. Member for Surrey, East was able to present his Bill when it was drawn near the top of the ballot and I understood that the Government would support it. However, they were not keen to encourage their Back Benchers to support it. I ask those hon. Members who are responsible for so many of the amendments to have some regard to the position of their Government and the efforts of their hon. Friend and to withdraw their amendments so that the Bill has a chance. If they do not do so, it will fall, we shall have to try again and small hedgerows—

§ Mr. Clifton-Brown
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) has made a disgraceful slur on Conservative Members, but he will not give way—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. It is up to the hon. Member making the speech whether he wishes to give way, and the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) knows that. That is not a point of order for me. It is an abuse of the procedures of the House.

§ Mr. Hardy
The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury delayed us a great deal in Committee and we listened to him with courtesy. I regret that the lack of time —time is an important factor—does not justify my giving way.
If the new clause is not withdrawn and if Conservative Members do not withdraw the rest of the amendments, or at least ensure that they are debated briefly, it will be not merely 20 m or shorter hedgerows which continue to be destroyed at an excessive pace, but all other hedgerows. I trust that they will not wish to bear the consequences of their irresponsibility, because it would be irresponsibility if they allowed the Bill to fall and more thousands of miles of hedgerows to go.

§ Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Hardy
No, for the reasons that I have already given. I want to be brief. I said that I would not delay the Bill, and I am conscious of the fact that the hon. Member for Surrey, East may be feeling restive about the scale of my support.
If Conservative Members wish to maintain any reputation for green concern, they should not continue along the route that they have so far adopted. The right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling), who has already referred to his osteopath, has a high reputation for the work that he did as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to secure environmentally sensitive area status. That was an important step. I am amazed that the reputation that he developed is being squandered by his support for amendments and new clauses designed to continue the damage and destruction of the rural and natural heritage of our land.

§ Mr. Jopling
I am extremely disappointed with the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy). He and I have had a good many associations over the years, including one particular association in defence, and I am sorry that he should have acted as he did.
The hon. Gentleman began his speech by saying that there was not very much time to deal with the Bill—we have only 76 minutes to deal with a lengthy Report stage —so to take 10 of those 76 minutes himself is a bit rich.
I declare an interest as I am a farmer and a member of both the National Farmers Union and the Country Landowners Association. The hon. Gentleman was kind enough to refer to my work in creating environmentally sensitive areas. Indeed, I was the first Minister to make public money available for the planting of new hedgerows. I am proud of that.
I declare my interest even more fully by informing the House that I have several miles of hedgerow on my farm. During the past year or two we have allowed most of the roadside hedgerow to grow upwards by several feet, as recommended by the conservation bodies, to encourage 456 wildlife in the hedges. The hon. Gentleman is most welcome to come to my farm and see what we have tried to do, both by making our hedgerow bigger and thicker and by encouraging wildlife through our conservation interest.
It is unfortunate that the hon. Gentleman has chosen to take the position that he has. I am all for preserving hedgerows and making them better as wildlife habitats, but we must try to be fair. All the amendments to which I have put my name have been recommended by the NFU and CLA, in an attempt to make the Bill a fair balance between the natural desire of the overwhelming majority of farmers and landowners to preserve our heritage and hedgerows and the necessity to protect the livelihoods of many thousands of people. It is strange that the hon. Gentleman wanted their views to be swept away in 76 minutes, which is a wholly inadequate time for sensible discussion on an important Bill.
The hon. Gentleman rejected both new clause 1 and amendment No. 53 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Ainsworth). In fact, I do not think that that amendment goes far enough and I hope that my hon. Friend will agree to withdraw it and also to accept new clause 1. We are attempting to make the Bill fair between those who wish to conserve and protect the countryside, and our hedgerows in particular, and those who see the countryside as their workshop and a means of livelihood for many thousands of people.

§ Mr. Peter Atkinson
I want to rebut some of the comments that the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) directed at me and some of my hon. Friends. First, I declare an interest as I am a member of both the Country Landowners Association and the British Field Sports Society. We place a high regard on hedgerows as an important reservoir for game conservation. It is important that the Bill should be seen to be fair. My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Ainsworth) thought, no doubt, that this would be a simple matter, but it has turned out to be a very complicated matter because the British countryside is complicated and throws up many different problems which nobody envisaged when the Bill began its passage through Parliament.

§ Mr. Gill
As my hon. Friend said, these are very complicated matters. I have suggested to him in the past that when we legislate, the effect of the legislation that we pass is often the very opposite of that which was intended. He may be interested in the contents of an unsolicited letter that I have received from one of my constituents who, among other things, says: I have embarked on a 2–3 years hedge planting programme—There could be no greater disincentive for me to complete what I already have in mind or even extend my existing programme than the prospect of a conservationist or bureaucrat cashing in on my efforts".

§ Mr. Atkinson
I agree with my hon. Friend. That is one of the problems with legislation of this kind. It persuades people, farmers in particular who have planted new hedges, that they will, as it were, be set in stone for ever and that no regard will be paid in future to the agricultural requirements of the farm.

§ Mr. Peter Ainsworth (Surrey, East)
I can assure my hon. Friend that I never thought for one moment that this would be a simple matter. It is a complex matter. I agree with those hon. Members who have said as much.
457 However, that does not mean that this matter cannot be dealt with expeditiously, a point which I hope the House will bear in mind today. Can my hon. Friend tell me precisely what the points that he is addressing have to do with new clause 1?

§ Mr. Atkinson
I shall endeavour to be brief, but I thought that I ought to rebut some of the accusations that have been made. New clause 1 is about simplicity and clarity. That is what we are aiming for in the new clause. I do not intend to detain the House for much longer, but I want to rebut the criticisms of the hon. Member for Wentworth.
The whole debate has been clouded by lack of clarity—by people and pressure groups outside the House who have used the Bill as a method of embarking upon a campaign of farmer bashing. That is why the Bill is such a sensitive issue, a point which is highlighted in the publicity for the Bill. There have been allegations, repeated today by the hon. Member for Wentworth, that many miles of hedgerows have disappeared.
If the hon. Gentleman had taken the trouble to read the report of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology which was prepared for the Department of the Environment, he would have seen that it talks about the number of hedgerows that have been lost. When the institute talks about hedgerows having been lost, that does not mean that they have been grubbed up and wiped away. All it means is that there has been a change in the management regime for those hedgerows.
We know from the classifications in the report of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology that the classification of a "hedgerow" is one that is stockproof to sheep. If a farmer no longer keeps sheep and grows cereals, as many of them now do, there is no need for his hedgerows to be stockproof to sheep. They grow out and become more "gappy". Under the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology's classification, that does not amount to a hedgerow. Nevertheless, it is an important and valuable landscape feature in the countryside. It is not lost.

§ Mr. Peter Ainsworth
I am still slightly lost as to how this point relates to new clause 1. If my hon. Friend is interested in clarity, will he confirm that the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology figures suggest that some 12,300 miles of hedgerows were lost between 1984 and 1990, which amounts to an average of 2,000 miles every year, and that since the Bill was first introduced some 660 miles of hedgerows have been lost?
That equates roughly to the distance between London and John o' Groats. Would my hon. Friend like to comment on the ITE statistics?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I have been rather lenient with hon. Members on both sides of the House who have spoken so far although they have been going wide of the new clause. If we can return to the new clause, it would help the debate.

§ Mr. Atkinson
Would you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, give me a second's more latitude to reply to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, East? He failed to understand or to hear what I said. The hedges are not lost, but simply moved to a different category. If my hon.
458 Friend finishes reading the report and looks at paragraph 24, he will see that only 9.5 per cent. of hedges in that period were lost and that most of those were lost to urban development and to road building. The loss was not the responsibility of farmers, who have continued to plant more hedges.

§ Mr. Chris Smith (Islington, South and Finsbury)
Will the hon. Gentleman accept that the ITE report shows that over that period, the 12,300 miles to which his hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Ainsworth) referred were lost due to removal—not to neglect, to different management or to the creation of gaps? In addition, 37,100 miles were lost due to neglect. His hon. Friend was talking of the deliberate removal of hedgerows—the problem that the Bill seeks to redress.

§ Mr. Atkinson
At the risk of trying your patience further, Mr. Deputy Speaker—I shall endeavour not to —may I reply to the point made by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith)? Neglect does not necessarily remove a valuable landscape feature. It simply means that a hedge is no longer kept to the standard of being stockproof for sheep. The fact that it can have gaps and that trees can grow enhances the value of the landscape. If the hon. Gentleman took the trouble to talk to people from organisations such as the Game Conservancy and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, he would be told that wildlife benefits from a variety of natural features. Those organisations do not want all the hedges to be neatly clipped and stockproof for sheep; they want a variety of features. I urge the House to support the new clause because it seeks clarity in at least specifying what is a hedgerow.

§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)
I am dumbfounded. I understood that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, among others, very much wanted the Bill. Being acrimonious serves no purpose, but I have one point to make to the Minister. There is a general impression among interested people—there are a heck of a lot of those—that a new Member, the hon. Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Ainsworth), has made a serious, competent and good-hearted attempt to introduce hedgerow legislation. For the past few months, I and many others have been under the impression that the Bill would have a safe passage, that debates would be no more than a formality and that the Bill had the Government's backing. Ministers give the impression on the airwaves that the Bill will be passed and I have even heard some of them take credit for the Bill. They say that of course they will do something about hedgerows. It is shameful that, after the efforts of the hon. Member for Surrey, East and others, the Bill will obviously not reach the statute book.
I intend to raise two issues on the new clause, the first of which is the question of very short hedgerows by the roadside. I quote my friend Dr. David Long of the botanic gardens in Edinburgh who says: Hedgerows are not only still being grubbed out in southern Scotland—but are being insidiously killed by salt-spray (eg A68 south of Edinburgh) and over-zealously pruned to the extent that their value as shelter and food for birds is severely restricted. Polluters do not pay! When hedges are destroyed by car-accidents (also many places on A68) they are rarely restored, unlike walls. There are many short hedgerows in this country. Are we saying that they are not worth keeping?
459 There is a strong argument for doing something about short hedgerows and for using the set-aside scheme to build up set-aside areas on the verges of many of our busier roads which we insist on salting.
Secondly, could we consider the question of hedges measuring less than 20 m in areas affected by opencast coal mining? I have a specific example in mind—the current cause celebre involving Bridge castle near Westfield, in my constituency. It is proposed that, over 82 weeks, some very beautiful countryside—the lungs of the small steel town of Armadale—should be dug up, along with the hedges and beech trees growing on it, so that tens of thousands of tonnes of coal can be mined.
Two issues arise from that. First, should opencast mining be allowed when it involves the destruction of hedges, some of them very old? Secondly, what is the country thinking of in allowing opencast mining in such areas, when we are at our wits' end trying to decide what to do with our deep-mined coal?
I hope that, as a former Scottish Whip, the Minister will bring the matter to the attention of the Scottish Office. It is not that West Lothian district council is either unwise or ill hearted; it is very likely to give permission, but I understand why. It is nothing to do with the council's judgment about hedges. Nearly all its members—incidentally, it is not Labour controlled—say that they are against the proposal. Why, then, do they think that they may allow it? The answer is simple: legal fees. Because of Government guidelines, the proposition strongly favours the developers. If the developers appeal, legal costs may well be awarded against the council—and lawyers do not come cheap; five or even six figures may be involved.
If hedges measuring less than 20 m are to be protected from the consequences of opencast mining, it must be done through a Bill such as this. Given the legal set-up, the fees involved and local authorities' presumption that they may have to pay costs, such hedges cannot be protected in any other way. I feel passionately about the matter, and I hope that the Minister will contact the Scottish Office on Monday morning.

§ Mr. Peter Ainsworth
The House may be relieved to learn that I do not intend to deal with all the wide-ranging points that have been made.
The hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) mentioned Government support. The Department of the Environment has provided invaluable help, and its annual report contains a public statement of its support for the Bill. I pay tribute to the work of its officials, and to the assistance of my hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment and Countryside.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the attitude of Conservative Members. I believe that an overwhelming number of hon. Members on both sides of the House support the Bill. I know that a small minority do not; as is becoming clear today, it is a fact of parliamentary procedure—albeit, perhaps, a strange one—that a small minority of Members can damage private Members' Bills, but no one outside the House should be under any illusion about the commitment of the majority of Conservative Members to such legislation. I am also aware of the enormous support that the measures command in the country at large.
With reference to what my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) said, I have a letter from a number of groups interested in countryside matters, 460 including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Royal Society for Nature Conservation, representing in total a membership of 2 million. The letter, which the RSPB has signed, states: We believe that the Hedgerows Bill is workable and fair. It would provide sound legislation to protect important hedgerows. It is a vitally important piece of legislation, which will contribute much to the protection of the countryside.

§ Mr. Peter Atkinson
Let me clarify what I said. I apologise if I implied that the RSPB was against the Bill. I realise that it supports the Bill. I merely said that it believed that variety of habitat was important to wildlife.

§ Mr. Ainsworth
My hon. Friend was urging hon. Members to listen to what the RSPB had said: I am merely suggesting that he might do the same.
I have considerable sympathy with the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friends. The House will be aware of the dilemma that I have faced throughout our proceedings. The hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) thinks that the proposal does not go too far while other hon. Members, whose views have been well represented in our discussions, take the opposite view. I hope that we are steering a middle course. I have sympathy with the points that have been made.
I undertook in Committee to replace clause 6 with a simpler form of words that would still exempt hedgerows which, by virtue of their size and scale, could be regarded as de minimis. Amendment No. 53 is the result of that undertaking. It would have exactly the same effect as new clause 1. My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) said that his new clause I was better than the amendment, but did not attempt to say why. I think that the amendment is better because it is more concise in that it does not require the addition of a clause to the Bill and is tidier in the sense that it ensures that the description of the scope of the Bill will be entirely contained in clause 13. It also ensures that the Secretary of State has the power to change, by way of regulation, the specified length of 20 m, which I hope hon. Members will think is a help. I urge the House to accept the amendment and not new clause 1.

§ Mr. Chris Smith
We strongly support the Bill. I hoped at the start of today's proceedings that we might by now have been sending it on its way to the other place and that it would reach the statute book. The Opposition chose not to table any amendments on Report because we wanted the Bill to be considered expeditiously. We debated the Bill at length in Committee and felt that that debate had been sufficient.
The hon. Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Ainsworth) has bent over backwards throughout to meet the concerns expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. That is why we are happy to accept amendment No. 53 and the associated proposals. We proposed amendments of our own in Committee. It is no secret that we believe that the Bill does not go far enough. None the less, it is the best compromise that could be achieved. The amendments of the hon. Member for Surrey, East reinstate the de minimis 20 m provision which was broadly agreed by both sides in Committee.
Even if we accept those amendments and make more rapid progress on other amendments, I fear that it is the intention of some Conservative Members to ensure that the Bill is talked out today. I hope that in the final 30 minutes available for debate today they will think again 461 about that, because some 40 miles of hedgerow disappear every week. That is a precious habitat and a crucial part of our landscape. The Bill will go a considerable way towards protecting some of that precious inheritance.
I hope that Conservative Members will not seek, for a variety of reasons best known to them, to ensure that the Bill does not reach the statute book. If they do that, they will have a very heavy conscience to bear in the coming months and years.

§ Mr. Clifton-Brown
It was interesting to hear allegations from the Opposition Front Bench and from Opposition Members that we are deliberately trying to talk the Bill out when Opposition Members have spoken for 17 of the 46 minutes that we have spent debating the Bill. We should bear that in mind.