NEW FOREST BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 5 May 1949)

§ THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a Third Time.

§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU
My Lords, I intervene for a very short time to-day, but I can tot let this moment pass without saying that. I am sure we are all very pleased that this Bill has so far gone through satisfactorily. I am sure that all sides of the House will admit that the Bill has been greatly improved since the Second Reading. I would like to claim, most emphatically, that all those improvements have been due to the New Forest verderers and commoners. Ever since one and half years ago, when the Report came out, all attempts at improvement and any opposition which the New Forest organisations have put up have been called by some people traditional, outrageous and almost impertinent. I think everybody will agree that this Bill has been improved, and I am sure there has been no loss of face on the part of the Government. I can say that it has cost the New Forest £3,000 to do so. That seems unnecessarily costly. Much could have been agreed before this Bill came before us. That is all past, and I think the Forest as a whole can look forward to better and smoother administration in the future.

§ LORD ROBINSON
My Lords, the few remarks I have to make upon the Bill will make no great demands upon the time and attention of your Lordships, but there are one or two points I would like to make. I desire to express my regret that I, the person who has had a great deal to do with this Bill from its inception until the present time, was not able to be in my place on the Second Reading and to support the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who made such an excellent state-man on that occasion. Unfortunately, I was abroad, and an extension of my work on Government account made it impossible for me by two days to return in time for the debate. However, I did 375 attempt to make amends for that omission by going through the ordeal of appearing before the Select Committee.
May I add my appreciation to that expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, of the masterful way in which the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, and his colleagues dealt with the Bill in Committee? I agree that it has been considerably amended and improved, and I imagine that that is a statement which not all promoters of Bills make about the work of a Committee.
I would like to deal with one point which has been touched upon, indirectly perhaps, by the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, on the question of the preparation for this Bill which has run the people of the New Forest (to say nothing of the Forestry Commission) into considerable expenditure. It has been suggested to me—and I have read in the Press—that the preparation was inadequate. Now that is not the case. Right from the time when the Baker Committee reported, there were consultations, first, as to the Report itself, and secondly, as to what should go into the Bill. There were consultations with all the local interests on the draft clauses and on various subsidiary matters. When I went abroad in July, I felt happy in the position that the Bill would be unopposed. My consultations were continued by the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, and I had hoped that the Bill would in fact be unopposed. However, that was not to be, and whether for the reasons already stated or for other reasons—some of which might have been attributable, perhaps, to the Forestry Commission, although I am very modest on that point—the Bill has emerged a better Bill than might have been anticipated.
I wish to make one final point, and that is that so far as lies within the power of the Forestry Commission and my own powers, so long as I may be associated with them, it will be our determination to try to make a success of it. I invite all those of like mind to co-operate with us to that end, and to try to end the interminable discussions which are held. The New Forest is rather like an abandoned field which has not been cultivated for many years. So soon as the soil is stirred up, up springs gorse in all directions; and there is no more 376 prickly subject to deal with than gorse, unless it be the New Forest itself.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
My Lords, perhaps I may add one word. There is a motto in the county from which I come, and in which the noble Earl recently resided, that, "Kissing is out of favour when the gorse is out of bloom." We hope that now the Bill has gone through the meticulous examination that it has received in this House, we shall see more amicable arrangements and relationships between the Forestry Commission and the verderers than perhaps have obtained in the past.

§ THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON
My Lords, it is exceedingly gratifying to me, and to the Government generally, that this Bill, which started on a rather controversial plane, has, after passing through winds and storms, finally reached harbour, and that we have reconciled conflicting opinions which have been very strongly held. From the first, His Majesty's Government realised that this was a most difficult problem but one which had to be tackled very soon. I should like to say how much we were indebted to the compilers of the Baker Report, which was a most comprehensive Report on the New Forest. It enabled us to make a start on tackling this problem. As both Lord Montagu and Lord Robinson have pointed out, the House can congratulate themselves on having improved the Bill considerably since it reached us. Finally, I would like to emphasise that we always had in mind not only the preserving of the legitimate interests in the New Forest, but also the preservation of what is a great national heritage.