Land (Public Access) (Hansard, 30 January 1998)

§ Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle)

I am grateful to have the opportunity to raise an issue of great concern and importance to millions of people who enjoy our countryside. Today, as we approach the millennium, hundreds of thousands of acres of some of the nation's most beautiful countryside are, in effect, out of bounds to most people.

We live in a densely populated country. Here in London, we are all crushed together, 4,500 people to the square kilometre. Out there, we are fortunate still to have unspoilt rural areas all around us where we can breathe freely, but we do not have a right of access to them. They are Britain's no-go areas—vast tracts of land where access is denied to the many by the few. Individuals may hold the legal title, but really the land is owned by us all.

The demand to walk over open country goes back decades to the days of the mass trespasses and has enormous resonance in the Labour movement. For many of us, it is unfinished business. We want a legal right of access over uncultivated land. There must be restrictions to protect the landscape. Nesting birds and delicate habitats must be protected. No one wants literally to trample roughshod over land that must be safeguarded, but it is unacceptable to deny the public access to land solely because of its ownership. That is no longer a sufficient reason.

In my constituency in north-east Lancashire, we are very fortunate. Immediately to the north-east, we have the Yorkshire Dales national park. To the west is the Trough of Bowland, much of which is owned by His Grace the Duke of Westminster; 90 per cent. of the land that he owns is out of bounds to the general public. To the east, straddling the county boundary, is the looming bulk of Boulsworth hill and open country beyond it right across to Haworth and Brontë country—open moorland as far as the eye can see, but out of bounds.

Last year, in high summer, Lord Savile graciously allowed my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment to walk over his moorland estate on the Lancashire-Yorkshire border. I was with him, along with lots of people from the Ramblers Association including its chair, Kate Ashbrook, and about 20 others. It was a memorable day. It was gloriously sunny with a clear blue sky. The air was as fresh as could be. The next day, the signs went back up: "Private" and "No Access".

The plain fact is that many landowners do not want people walking over their land. They think that it is a grotesque intrusion and fear a legal right of access. With the election of the Labour Government last May, things changed slightly. The Country Landowners Association began to smile at us. It was all sweet reason. It said that the solution was voluntary access agreements. They have never worked in the past and are unlikely to in future. Despite the new face presented to the world, too often the mask slips and we can see 697 all the old prejudices shining through in their glory. I have a million examples, but I will cite only one or two recent ones.

Three weeks ago in the Farmers Guardian, the Country Landowners Association's spokesman in the east midlands said that the right to roam

would apply to everyone, including the minority of vandals, sheep stealers, badger baiters, horse slashers, illegal hare coursers, poaching gangs, birds' egg thieves and those responsible for a rising tide of crime in rural areas, many of them forced out of the towns and cities by improved policing and surveillance techniques. The regional secretary of Country Landowners Shire Counties, Betty Bowes, is quoted in the Coventry Evening Telegraph as saying: The right to roam is effectively the nationalisation of land use. But a right to roam cannot just be a right for ramblers to roam. We don't want all and sundry roaming over our land, especially not criminals, drug pushers and vandals. People like Betty Bowes think that the rest of us carry anthrax spores on our boots and shoes. How dare we walk over land that belongs to others, infecting it in that way?

Closer to home, the CLA regional secretary for the north-west told the ramblers' Bowland access committee last year: I wish to emphasise that it is utterly out of the question for the Country Landowners Association to contemplate interfering with or in any other way attempting to influence decisions made by individual landowners, be they CLA members or not, on matters specifically concerned with their own land. There we have it. The policy of the CLA nationally is to press for voluntary access agreements and to say that a general right to roam would cost £2 billion—a preposterous figure.

Set against such primeval attitudes, the voluntary approach simply will not work, which is why Labour in opposition made clear commitments to legislate for a legally enforceable right of access. I shall not weary the House by listing all of them, but about half the present Cabinet spoke out clearly and unequivocally on this issue. My right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and the Secretary of State for Health made unequivocal pledges on behalf of the Labour party. Indeed, I may have been present when, in 1995, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, then shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, said: On behalf of the Labour party, I make this promise. The next Labour Government will give people a right to roam. It will make the right to roam a legal reality. We will change the law to give people that right. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), now Prime Minister, told the ramblers by letter on 10 October 1995: A Labour Government will give the people the 'right to roam' which will be coupled with a duty to respect crops, livestock and valuable habitats. The Labour manifesto—about which we hear so much these days, as it is of symbolic and practical importance—promised

greater freedom for people to explore our open countryside". In view of all those clear, unequivocal pledges, I was greatly concerned to read the report in The Independent on 18 January under the headline: Labour caves in to rich over your right to roam". 698 It was a mischievous article, written by Geoffrey Lean, the environment correspondent. I do not believe it for one moment. The first paragraph states: Tony Blair is personally blocking one of Labour's most frequently repeated and deeply felt promises—to give everyone a legal right to walk freely in open countryside. That is rubbish—I know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would not do such a thing. However, that report and other reports like it have set the cat among the pigeons.

The ramblers—200,000 of them—are worried that the consultation paper, which has been constantly delayed, will propose a solution of voluntary access agreements, which, as I said, do not work and are unacceptable. Any solution based on voluntary access agreements is unacceptable. That is because the voluntary approach depends on the initiative and good will of individual landowners, and many of those individual landowners want to pull up the drawbridge and keep the hoi polloi away from their land.

The Country Landowners Association sent out a briefing last week as soon as it found out that I had secured today's Adjournment debate; 24 hours later, I received my copy. Again, it returned to the voluntary approach and cited the Access 2000 scheme. I do not believe the briefing for a moment, but it said that the voluntary approach was more practicable, cheaper and more workable than the legislative approach. There is no evidence for that assertion.

Where does all that leave us? We have a new Labour Government with an enormous majority that will never be bigger. We have a mandate from the people and we have a policy, which has a deep resonance going back to the 1930s, of opening up the land to the people. What we have is a determination to legislate and we should now get on and do it.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Angela Eagle)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) and I am grateful to him for the opportunity that he has afforded the House to discuss this subject, which is one to which many people attach great importance. As he said, the subject has a long history and a deep resonance in our country. Many people hold strong views about it; it therefore attracts lively and, if some of the phrases that my hon. Friend used in his speech have passed others' lips, sometimes offensive debate.

My hon. Friend's address demonstrates his knowledge and interest in access issues and his commitment to them. I am grateful to him for setting out his views so clearly and I hope that I shall be able to outline the Government's position in equally cogent terms.

While there may be arguments about how best to provide access to the countryside, I would hope that most of us—clearly, from what my hon. Friend has said, not all of us—are agreed about the value of such access. The Government's position in the manifesto, and the support that we subsequently gained at the general election, support that.

Walking in the countryside brings tremendous benefits to people's well-being—physically, spiritually and mentally. It offers the chance for people to enjoy 699 healthy exercise while experiencing the wonders of our countryside, its landscape, its wildlife and its history. The countryside is an invaluable national recreational resource. Now, more than ever, people need to be able to escape from the stresses and strains of everyday life.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of maintaining and enhancing opportunities for access to the countryside in terms of the benefits that this most popular form of recreation brings to millions of people. It is therefore right that we should wish to ensure that people have the opportunity to benefit from access to parts of our most beautiful countryside.

As my hon. Friend said, our manifesto makes it clear that we wish to promote greater freedom for people to explore our open countryside. My hon. Friend rightly reminded us that that is something to which the Labour party has long been committed. We shall honour that commitment. It was a Labour Government who, under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, gave local planning authorities and landowners some means to provide public access to open country for quiet enjoyment. It is fair to say that the achievements gained from that Act in terms of promoting greater access did not live up to the optimism of the immediate post-war years. But we have much to celebrate in the Act, particularly the national parks.

The reason we need greater freedom to open countryside is clear. Although some use has been made of existing access provisions, generally, they have not been implemented sufficiently widely. There is also confusion about the de facto access that has grown up in some areas.

Some people argue that, given this country's extensive rights-of-way network, we do not need to extend access over open countryside. However, rights of way do not cater for every demand for access to the countryside. Some people seek a different experience in more open country and there should be opportunities for them to do so. Others are excluded from open land because there are no existing rights of way and no other provision for access. That is why we are intent on issuing a consultation paper setting out our proposal for extending access opportunities in open countryside.

I realise that many organisations and individuals are keen to know when we shall issue our consultation paper, and I know that my hon. Friend will understand that our proposals raise several important issues, which must be considered carefully within Government. However, I am happy to assure him that the Government intend to issue the paper as soon as possible.

My hon. Friend will also understand that I cannot tell the House yet what the consultation paper will say. What I am able to do, and wish to do, is to take the opportunity to explode a few myths about what our commitment to greater access is—or, perhaps more accurately, is not—about. It is not about allowing people to trample over farmers' crops or land, or through people's back gardens. It is not about sheep stealers, horse slashers, drug dealers and any other number of the parade of villains that some members of the Country Landowners Association appear to be talking about.

I must say, having listened to my hon. Friend, that the Country Landowners Association does its argument no good by making such ludicrous exaggerations and 700 offensive and insulting caricatures of those who wish to make use of access. If we are to have a debate about this, we must respect one another' s positions, not resort to caricature or insult.

Access is not about giving people unrestricted rights to do what they like. It is certainly not a charter for rural crime. Our commitment is about giving people greater access to open countryside for their quiet enjoyment and relaxation. It is about balancing the rights and responsibilities of those benefiting from greater access, and of those affected by it.

For example, it is vital to reconcile the interests of walkers with those whose livelihoods may depend on open countryside. Visitors who use and enjoy the countryside must recognise the rights and needs of those going about their daily business. Our commitment is about balancing the need to promote greater access with the need to conserve and protect our landscape, wildlife and archaeological legacies.

Providing greater access to open countryside is not an attack on the countryside, as some would have us believe. It is not about town versus country. Just as many people living in towns and cities wish to explore the countryside surrounding them, so do rural dwellers. Providing greater access may bring more custom for businesses that supply facilities and refreshments in rural areas.

The benefits of greater access will be widespread. Visiting the country is the most popular out-of-home leisure pursuit, and walking is by far the most popular activity in the countryside. Nearly half of all adults regularly go for a walk of two miles or more. Of course, we wish to improve access for other groups, and we shall consider carefully any proposals for achieving that, but our consultation paper will be aimed primarily at benefiting the millions who go walking.

More generally, the Government will be open to views and suggestions about the best way of securing our aim of greater access. Experience does not suggest that it will be very costly, but we shall carefully consider the financial implications. The key requirement is that, whatever approach is chosen, it must deliver substantially greater access in a practical and cost-effective way, which is of lasting benefit to the people of this nation.

We need a system that not only extends access, but creates greater certainty and understanding of areas that are subject to access. For example, large areas are covered by de facto or other forms of access arrangements, yet information about that is not always readily available, and often there is confusion about the extent and nature of rights and responsibilities.

We shall need to consider carefully the results of the consultation exercise, including arguments for and against the voluntary approach. We shall give both the voluntary and statutory route to greater access proper consideration, but the principle of greater access is not open to argument. With the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle, I hope to reach the stage when we issue the consultation paper and the stage when we can move to put into effect the principle in which we both believe.