§ Lord Renton of Mount HarryMy Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Perhaps I may start by reminding noble Lords of my interest as chairman of the Sussex Downs Conservation Board, in succession to the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, whom I am delighted to see in his place. I should also like to thank Mr. Ollard, from the Public Bills Office; John Godfrey and Paul Amis, from West Sussex County Council; Ray Woolmore and Lynette Leeson, from the Countryside Agency, and our Sussex Downs officer, Martin Beaton, for the great help that they have given me in the preparation of this Bill. The hard work has been theirs. The errors of omission and commission have been mine.
Bill Bryson, in his well-received book on his last walking tour round England, wrote of his movement out of Broadway, that lovely town in the Cotswolds, on to the Cotswold Way. He wrote as follows:
The view from the top over the broad Vale of Evesham was, as always from such points, sensational—gently undulating trapezoids of farmland rolling off to a haze of distant wooded hills. Britain still has more landscape that looks like an illustration from a children's story book than any other country I know—a remarkable achievement in such a densely crowded and industrially minded little island … It is easy to forget, in a landscape so timeless and fetching, so companionably rooted to an ancient past, how easily it is lost. The panorama before me incorporated electricity pylons, scattered housing estates and the distant sunny glints of cash and carry warehouses".Those sentences are in a sense a paradigm of the difficulties as regards some AONBs today, where necessary social and economic growth has to run parallel with necessary conservation.The rationale for this Bill is that the national parks Act of 1949 designated areas of outstanding natural beauty but it left no one responsible for their management or funding. Consequently, over the past 50 years voluntary ad hoc bodies have sprung up which are concerned, and properly so, with their local AONB. Of those, we, the Sussex Downs board, are probably the 538 most formal: a joint committee formed seven years ago by the local authorities and the Countryside Commission. Our original brief was for six years. Thanks to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, that was extended for another three. But even in that time our funding from the Countryside Commission was reduced and that of the local authorities was held at the old level. The board of which I am chairman will expire in April 2001.
Such short-term voluntary arrangements cannot be suitable for the positive and constructive development of landscape management. Working as we do with local farmers, for example, to remove 50 year-old scrub from a chalk escarpment, help them return it to grass, re-introduce South Downs sheep, get an ESA grant in the process, and perhaps a stewardship grant for access, requires a long-term view, a long-term plan and long-term funding.
I came to the conclusion that the present legislation was inadequate. I decided to introduce a Bill that confirmed the landscape qualities of national parks and AONBs as equivalent and that the policies for their protection against inappropriate development were in place. I have built on clauses drafted by the Countryside Agency which it placed before government more than a year ago. So far—and I know that the noble Baroness who is to reply will bear this in mind—neither we nor the agency have received any positive response. We had a promise, first, of a reply "very soon"; then a reply of "soon"; and my most recent letter from Mr. Meacher, the Environment Minister—a friendly letter—assures me that these matters are receiving "continuing consideration".
My Bill has three prime objectives. The first is to enable—that word is important—the establishment of statutory conservation boards. But that is done on an "opt-in" basis. It is not compulsory. It happens where the Countryside Agency, English Nature and the elected local authorities recommend to the Secretary of State that they want this done. It will be done on an à la carte basis; each will be considered on its merits, each individual conservation board perhaps having somewhat different powers and composition appropriate to its area. That is a point that is not fully understood in the briefing put out by the National Farmers' Union.
The second objective is to provide secure funding from central and local government. The third and most complex is to strengthen the protection given by the planning system. The second point, which is very important, is dealt with in Clause 3 of the Bill. New Section 88D gives the AONB conservation board the same legal powers relating to funding as those that apply to national parks. Subsection (1) gives AONB conservation boards the power to levy local authorities for their contribution. Subsection (2) gives the Secretary of State power to make a grant.
In practice, I believe that a conservation board will follow the same procedures as a national park and will prepare a five-year corporate financial plan. That plan will be approved by the Secretary of State of the Department of the Environment, who will also approve the authority's budget annually. In approving the budget 539 the Secretary of State will determine the level of grant to be provided by the Government, which is currently 75 per cent. in the case of a national park, and the local authorities will provide the balance of funding. The AONB conservation board will have power to levy the local authorities for the balance of 25 per cent.
Dealing with the third point, planning is covered in detail in new Section 88C. Your Lordships will be relieved to know that I do not intend to go into all of the detail at this moment, but I hope that we shall do so at Committee stage. In general terms every conservation board will prepare an AONB management plan, and I certainly envisage public consultation in that process. Under Clause 4 the conservation board will be a statutory consultee in relation to development plans for AONBs but it will not be the sole planning authority. I suggest that this lies at the heart of the difference between super-conservation boards—a term that has become used in the local press in Sussex—and national parks. They are the sole planning authority. I believe that it would be not only a remote but an inefficient, expensive and unpopular bureaucracy if the South Downs AONB, which stretches nearly 100 miles from Winchester to Eastbourne and covers 16 local authorities, was the sole body responsible for development control throughout that area, where the 16 other local authorities would remain responsible for development in their particular areas not within the AONB. I believe that that would be an extraordinary additional piece of bureaucracy.
The same comment applies to the Chilterns AONB, which has four counties, and the Cotswold AONB, which has five counties and two unitary authorities in it. But the statutory consultee on development matters would be of vital importance in defending areas from major development threats, such as the plan to build 1,150 new homes in an AONB near High Wycombe. The statutory management plan would be of use in containing and managing pressures of tourism on famous and popular Cotswold villages and walking routes such as the Cotswold Way which I mentioned at the beginning.
Finally on planning matters, new Section 77(3A) in Clause 4 in effect requires the Secretary of State to call in a planning application if the conservation board decides, in view of its significance, to refer it to the Secretary of State. From experience with my board, I consider that to be necessary and that is why I put it in the Bill. But I appreciate that it is a step too far in the thinking of some local authorities. I hope therefore that it will be considered in detail at Committee stage, although I would welcome amendments.
The Bill has brought general support from a number of organisations and public bodies, for example the English Sports Council, the Association of AONBs and, in my own area, the Society of Sussex Downsmen. Others have criticised it. There are those who very firmly believe that at least in the case of the South Downs a national park is necessary and that the Bill does not go far enough because it is not the sole planning authority at development control level. Others, for example the CLA, may think that it goes too far.
540 Perhaps this means that my Bill has got it about right, but from my experience of the conservation board I say to those who fear that it goes too far that we are not a distant, remote imposing body. For example, we work with farmers only when they want us to find positive solutions to land management problems.
We seek opportunities for more quiet enjoyment of the Downs, for example by promoting our scheme Take Your Bus For a Walk through leaflets distributed in places like Brighton. We are rooted in the local authorities, not imposed on top of them. For example, 24 of the 36 members of my board come from local authorities. But our experience has shown the need for greater co-ordination of planning and management policies in a multi-authority AONB, and that can be done only by new legislation. This is a probing Bill and its purpose is not only to put forward a format for super-conservation boards but also to get the Government to reveal their intentions. I very much hope that in replying to the debate the Minister will be able to give us a hint of that.
The current position of AONBs was very well summed up in the words of the Countryside Agency in one of its leaflets:
Perhaps most vulnerable of all are not the wild high places but the gentle smaller scale landscapes of England and Wales, hedgerows, spinneys and bluebell woods: heath, marsh and meadows".That is us. What will the Government do? I hope that we shall hear something about that today.Finally, perhaps I may suggest to the Minister that if there is no time for a major countryside Bill in the 1999–2000 Session, as we are now being told by the spin doctors, why not introduce a short, specialised protected areas Bill dealing just with the AONBs and the sites of special scientific interest? It would be an important step forward for our environment in the new millennium. As a former Chief Whip I should do my utmost to see that it received all-party support.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Renton of Mount Harry.)
§ 11.20 a.m.
§ Lord Morris of Castle MorrisMy Lords, the next time your Lordships re-read John Keats' long poem, Endymion, perhaps I may invite you to give special attention to the opening lines, where he writes,
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness",because with all respect to the great poet, that is rubbish, is it not? A thing of beauty, especially a beautiful landscape, will rapidly deteriorate into a wreck, an eyesore or a tip unless it is guarded, defended and saved harmless by those who care about beauty in our environment and protect landscapes from inappropriate industrial and commercial exploitation. The Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, does just that. I welcome it, and I hope that the whole House will welcome it and give it a fair wind.I declare, proudly, a long-term non-financial interest as one of the vice-presidents of the Council for National Parks which for half a century has worked to protect our 541 countryside from everything that might harm it. There is no conflict of any kind between the national parks and the areas of outstanding natural beauty. They were indeed begotten together in the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, and each was given such standards, status and safeguards as seemed at that time appropriate to them. AONBs were generally smaller and more numerous, but there was not, is not and never will be any sense of the national parks being first-class citizens and the AONBs second-class citizens. I cannot emphasise too strongly that AONBs and national parks have developed contentedly side by side for 50 years without envy, hatred, malice or any uncharitableness.
For reasons which no doubt at the time seemed sufficient, the 1949 Act failed to make anyone statutorily responsible for AONBs. Unlike the national parks they have no guaranteed source of funding. The welcome Bill of the noble, Lord Renton, proposes that local authorities should have a legal responsibility for the conservation and management of AONBs, which they might, if they wish, discharge through formally constituted conservation boards. This is good. The Bill also places on local authorities a duty to contribute to their cost. This is better. And it gives the Secretary of State power to contribute as well. This is best of all. The CNF' welcomes these proposals, and looks forward to working with the new conservation boards, which can make a considerable contribution to safeguarding the countryside.
But lest it should ever be thought that the sun is shining, God's in his heaven and all's right with the world, perhaps I may draw your Lordships' attention to a few matters in which I consider that this excellent Bill is still capable of improvement. The most important is probably the omission, to which the Country Landowners' Association has drawn attention, of any mention of the social and economic characteristics of the AONBs. People live and work there. Economic and social considerations need to be just as much in the foreground in AONBs as in any other rural areas. Perhaps the Bill might be improved if it were to include a duty on local authorities and conservation boards to foster the economic and social well-being of local communities in AONBs, on the model of Section 62 of the 1995 Environment Act.
Might it not also be wise to reconsider the Bill's proposal that conservation boards should have compulsory purchase powers? Local authorities already have considerable powers in that area, and it is always a sensitive and contentious issue. I find myself agreeing with the CLA that no convincing case has yet been made for such a power, and the time is not ripe for doing something which it is not clearly necessary to do. It would be a work of supererogation, like over-egging the pudding, or taking a steam hammer to split a dried pea.
It might also improve the Bill if there were to be proper provision on the face of the Bill for public consultation over the proposed management plans. To do so would add a pleasing touch of transparency to the process, and encourage as many interested people as possible to participate in the consideration of matters which, in many cases, would be sharply relevant to their concerns.
542 AONBs have unquestionably proved their value since 1949, and the Bill of the noble Lord. Lord Renton, recognises their achievement. But, in the AONB nest, there is still one huge cuckoo, one anomaly, which has never been satisfactorily resolved. The noble Lord referred to it, and so shall I. Unfortunately, the Bill is sadly silent on the question of the South Downs.
The two adjacent areas, East Hampshire and the Sussex Downs, were first proposed as a national park as long ago as 1929 by the CPRE. It was 30 years later that East Hampshire was granted AONB status, and a further four years elapsed before the Sussex Downs made the grade. Yet in 1947 the Hobhouse Report had recommended national park status for the South Downs., and the Council for National Parks supported that recommendation then, and has continued to support it consistently and unwaveringly ever since. We have done so for three reasons. First, the South Downs have been subjected for decades to unrelenting development pressure on a par with that experienced by any one of the national parks, most of which lie in upland areas and, further away from major conurbations. One has only to mention Twyford Down and the titanic struggle over the major road scheme there to realise the difficulties that have had to be faced. The demands on space made by the ever-expanding coastal towns have eaten up swathes of downs, and "as we speak" there are proposals to establish a major development in a disused chalk quarry. It is the serious, informed opinion of the South Downs Campaign Group that AONB status has done nothing to protect the downs from these developments. I quote from one of its submissions which states:
All Planning decisions affecting the South Downs have remained in the hands of thirteen (now twelve) different local authorities, each with its own priorities and agendas".Secondly, in size, extent and complexity of administration the South Downs cover an area of 1,375 square kilometres, which is almost the same as the Brecon Beacons and larger than four of the existing national parks. It is estimated that there are 32 million leisure visits to the South Downs every year, while the most visited of the national parks, the Peak District (and I declare an interest there because I live in it) has 22 million visits per year.Thirdly, for the past 49 years it has been generally talked of in and around the South Downs as if it were a national park. Very many people think that it is. Only those who have to administer and defend it know (all too painfully) that it is not. In 1959, the then Minister for Town and Country Planning said:
Now at last we shall be able to see that the mountains of Snowdonia, the lakes and the waters of the Broads, the moors and dales of the Peak, the South Downs and the tors of the West County belong to the people as a right and not as a concession".—[Official Report, Commons, 31/3/59; col. 1493.]It is somewhat rhetorical, perhaps a bit Old Labour, but it makes the point.If it were possible, we should like to see the South Downs AONBs excepted from the Bill in some way. It is surely not beyond the wit of man or the wisdom of a parliamentary draftsman to redesignate the South Downs as a national park. They need that defence. As we read in PPG7, which I am sure is never far from 543 your Lordships' bedsides, the Government regard national park designation as conferring the highest status of protection as far as landscape and scenic beauty are concerned.
Finally, perhaps I may ask my noble friend whether in winding up she can enlighten me by telling me and your Lordships how many AONBs there are in England. The Countryside Agency, the new statutory body with responsibility for advising government on issues relating to the environmental, economic and social well-being of the English countryside, states boldly, baldly and confidently that there are 37 AONBs in England. On the other hand, the Country Landowners' Association informs me in writing that there are currently 40 in England and Wales; 35 wholly in England, four wholly in Wales and one on the border in the Wye Valley. Somewhere, somehow someone has lost two AONBs. Perhaps I may adopt and adapt the words of Mr. Oscar Wilde: to lose one AONB may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.
§ 11.31 a.m.
§ Lord JoplingMy Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Renton of Mount Harry on instigating this general debate on AONBs on the back of his Bill. I have a great interest in the subject because in a previous incarnation in another place I represented parts of two national parks and part of one area of outstanding natural beauty.
I begin by referring to the entertaining speech of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris. I wrote down his comment that national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty have existed without malice for all these years. However, I invite him to come to the north of England. I have been criticised by my former constituents for being much too friendly to national parks and their organisations; I have also been criticised by national park authorities for having on occasions been extremely rude about them. I always describe the two national parks, part of which I represented, as the Lake District National Park, which was on the whole tolerated by the people who lived in it, and the Yorkshire Dales National Park. which was generally loathed by the people who lived in it. Therefore, I suggest to the noble Lord that he might reconsider his comments. I have always tried to encourage those who manage national parks to create a better feeling among the people who live in them.
My noble friend Lord Renton of Mount Harry referred at the end of his speech to the fact that he is a former Chief Whip. I hope that he will not mind that, having fulfilled a similar role, I begin by commenting on the parliamentary procedures for Bills of this kind. He will know that, given the rules in another place, his Bill can get on to the statute book only if no one says a single word on the subject and the whole Bill goes through another place entirely on the nod. I do not want to debate how many national parks and AONBs we have—let us settle for 40—but there must be many Members of another place who have a great interest in the subject. Frankly, they will not allow the Bill to go through without a single word being spoken.
544 Five or six years ago a Bill was introduced in this House dealing with the administration of the national parks. As I was the Member of Parliament representing parts of two, I made it clear that I was not going to have that Bill go through another place without saying a single word. The same will apply to this Bill. It may be that our procedures need to be examined, but that is a different matter. There is a concern that many people do not recognise the procedural niceties and assume that the Bill is a serious contender for legislation this year. Of course, it is not.
Secondly, I turn to AONBs in general and return to a point I made earlier with regard to the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Morris, that there was no malice about them. I remember when a new AONB was proposed in my constituency in Cumbria at the top end of the Eden Valley. There was massive opposition not only from the Country Landowners' Association and the NFU, but from a whole raft of local organisations. It took a great deal of negotiation and trimming of the legislation and the area defined in order to obtain widespread agreement. To try to impose new rules on the countryside, which will probably be onerous on the people who live in there is not sensible, given the current major crisis in the farming industry, particularly in areas where the land is not of the best quality. The greatest difficulties are being experienced in those areas at the moment.
I do not want to speak for too long, but I should like to turn to a number of matters in the Bill. As A.P. Herbert said on one occasion, I know nothing about agriculture. Although I am a farmer and a former Minister of Agriculture, I am afraid that I have no knowledge whatever of the Sussex Downs Conservation Board or much knowledge about the area it covers. However, I am particularly concerned about the Bill and the reaction that it has brought from the Country Landowners' Association, of which I am a member. am also a member of the National Farmers Union.
I am especially concerned about the association's principal anxiety, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Morris. It states:
We strongly suggest that the Bill should include a duty on local authorities and conservation boards to foster the economic and social wellbeing of local community in the AONBs".I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Morris, that that should be included in the Bill. He made a very constructive comment because there is a great lack of understanding among the urban population in Britain that the countryside is the workplace of a huge number of people and should therefore be respected.I turn to another issue which is important and which was also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Morris: the great objection of the Country Landowners' Association to the suggestion that compulsory purchase powers should be made available to the boards. I first came to this building 35 years ago, to the other place, and I remember being enthusiastic about compulsory powers for boards of this kind. I remember a previous Labour government introducing the rural development boards. I also remember the North Pennines Rural Development Board, in my old constituency, being given such powers. 545 I remember making speeches when the board was first formed, suggesting that that may be a good thing in certain circumstances.
However, I have totally changed my mind. I see no need for, and I see no great advantage in, powers of compulsory purchase being given to such boards and organisations. I believe that at all costs that provision must be removed from the Bill. I am strongly opposed to it altogether.
In opening the debate, my noble friend Lord Renton of Mount Harry talked about the landscapes of national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty being equivalent. In some ways, that is true. However, I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, is to follow me and the other day I heard him make a speech in which he implied that private ownership of land, whether in areas like these or elsewhere, was not a good thing and that it was, to use the current "in" phrase of the new Government, the "people's land". I believe that is the view that he was trying to convey, and I reject that view absolutely.
§ Lord Renton of Mount HarryMy Lords, I thank my noble friend for giving way. On that point, I think he misheard me. I do not regard the landscapes of AONBs and national parks as equivalent. I was asking that in law they should be clearly given equivalent protection, a point that the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, took up and agreed with. I believe that there should be equivalent protection in law, but I do not believe that in terms of scenic value or remoteness or population they are equivalent.
§ Lord JoplingMy Lords, I was about to turn to that point and say that I do not agree with that view. I believe that areas of outstanding natural beauty should have considerably looser protection than the national parks which are our prime scenic, cultural and environmental honey-pots. I do not agree that the AONBs should have equivalent powers of protection.
On that rather unhappy note, I think that I have said enough. I believe that is the first time for a long time that my noble friend, Lord Renton and I have disagreed. I simply question whether there is any great point in moving into Committee on this Bill. To have a general debate on AONBs is extremely useful, but to make amendments to a Bill which, clearly, will never get on to the statute book may be a waste of everybody's time.
§ 11.42 a.m.
§ Lord Beaumont of WhitleyMy Lords, I congratulate my old, personal friend—not my political friend—the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, on introducing this Bill, even though I am a little puzzled by it. I wonder whether it is a Bill about how we should run AONBs in future or whether it is a Bill about the Sussex Downs. Perhaps it falls between the two.
The noble Lord has a particular interest in the South Downs. In so far as the Bill is about the South Downs, it is suitable that he should introduce it. His very title comes from the Downs. Most noble Lords who will speak today on the South Downs part of the Bill will 546 probably know Rudyard Kipling's mnemonic about them. I do not believe that this is one of his best poems, although he was, in my view, a great poet. The poem states:
The Weald is good, the Downs are best—I'll give you the run of 'em, East to West. Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill, They were once and they are still. Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount Harry Go back as far as sums'll carry".Then it lists the various Downs ending with the words:And when you end on the Hampshire side—Butser's old as Time and Tide. The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn, You be glad you are Sussex born!Noble Lords who are Sussex born may be glad of the fact, but I am afraid that it is no longer true that "the Downs are sheep" and "the Weald is corn".I declare an interest in that I also am a vice-president of the Council for National Parks, along with the noble Lord, Lord Morris, and other noble Lords who will speak in the debate. Two areas that it has been suggested may become, over a period of time, national parks, are the New Forest and the South Downs. I am the first to suggest that the New Forest is not suitable to become an orthodox national park. The historical and common land arrangements are too complex. However, I see no reason why the South Downs should riot be a straightforward national park. I speak, not with the advice of or on behalf of the Council for National Parks, but merely as someone who has taken a great interest in them.
However, granted that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, decided to be more ambitious and to provide a framework for AONBs as a whole, I wish the Bill well, although I doubt, as the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, has suggested, that it will be allowed to live very long. I disagree with him about it going into Committee. In Committee I believe that we would be able to work out a large number of problems which need to be worked out, whatever happens in regard to future AONBS or future national parks. It would be time well spent, and rather more well spent than some time recently spent in your Lordship's House.
In the meantime, I agree with those who have said that we must try to improve the Bill. I am quite interested in the idea of the representation of owners on boards, as happens in the Broads. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, quoted my remarks about ownership of land. Let me make my position quite clear. The land belongs to God, and under God to the Queen. As it belongs to the Queen, it belongs to the community and I believe that individual ownership comes below that in the hierarchy. Owners are really stewards rather than owners.
I too query the power to acquire land compulsorily. I have not heard that being defended and I do not have the faintest idea why it is in the Bill. II: does not seem to me to be necessary.
It is good that we are discussing the AONB s and the Sussex Downs as I am most fond of them. I hope that we shall go on to discuss the Bill in Committee, but in the meantime, I give the Bill a limited and slightly puzzled welcome.
§ 11.48 a.m.
§ Lord KimballMy Lords, I must declare an interest. I live in a area of outstanding natural beauty and, like my noble friend Lord Jopling, in another place I represented a major part of one of the most successful areas of outstanding natural beauty in the country, the Lincolnshire wolds. In that area there is an efficient farming community, the excellent diversification of redundant farm buildings and the co-operation of all the Conservative controlled local authorities in the area.
Whatever concern we may express about the Bill, I am certain that we shall all want to pay a sincere tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, for the work that he has done on the Sussex Downs. It is that excellent work that has made everybody want to proceed further. I suggest that when the noble Baroness winds up the debate she could lay to rest a lot of the concerns expressed today if she said that the necessary finance will be made available so that the current arrangement of the Sussex Downs Conservation Board can continue to be run as it has so successfully been run.
The difficulty with this Bill is that it extends what has been a success as a local measure to all areas of outstanding natural beauty and not just to the Sussex Downs. Some noble Lords may have had the opportunity to read the June edition of Field with its comment that the old threat of nationalisation of the ownership of land seems to have been replaced by,
a gradual move to actual nationalisation of the use of land".Forty-four per cent of all the land in England and Wales is now covered by one of the following: there are 40 AONBs: there are SSSIs; there are nitrate vulnerable zones; there are green belts, national parks and the land owned by the National Trust. And that is not all. There are some exciting new entrants coming into this field: special protection areas are just around the corner along with special areas of conservation.And the awful thing is that countryside officers in various guises now outnumber farmers, farm workers and foresters. The offending officers do not understand the "living landscape approach" under which the English countryside has developed. I see that reflected in Clause 1 of the Bill in which it takes powers,
safeguarding such areas from intrusive development".What constitutes "intrusive"? It is a presumption against change and it does not serve the rural community. Diversification is the way that the countryside is going to develop and I believe that this Bill does not give sufficient consideration to the economic and social attributes that must function in areas of outstanding natural beauty.We must get away from this chocolate box approach to the English landscape. People have to manage farms and forests. In that area, we have to have manufacturing and service industries. The diversification of activities is what keeps an area of outstanding natural beauty alive.
Many of us will want to table a large number of amendments to this Bill. It is important that, as it is a probing measure, my noble friend Lord Renton of Mount Harry realises that we will want to discuss in depth a duty on the boards to foster economic and social 548 welfare; representation on the boards for owners and land managers; and, as my noble friend Lord Jopling said, we will certainly press for the removal of the compulsory purchase powers. I do not know why they are in this Bill. They are quite unnecessary. We will also be expressing grave concern about this jurisdiction over adjacent areas.
I see a case for over 20 amendments to this Bill. I hope that in considering it my noble friend Lord Renton will realise that we need a great deal more time in the various stages. Perhaps with that warning, the newly fledged Countryside Commission may well want to pause and not encourage one of its most favourite children to rush forward for this well-meaning and unnecessary legislation. The sensible voluntary approach can still work, if only those who have to administer the system know that they cannot just rush to Westminster and legislate about things.