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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): I must announce to the House that Madam Speaker has not selected the motion for an instruction.
7.27 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. James Clappison): I am grateful for the opportunity to make a brief contribution to the debate. It would be helpful if I gave the Government's view.
We welcome the Bill, which we believe will do a great deal of good. Both my Department and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food strongly support the principle that common land should be subject to proper and effective management. The House will notice that the Minister for Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell), is also present this evening.
Although comprehensive legislation along the lines of that proposed in 1986 by the Common Land Forum is neither feasible nor practical, in the White Paper, "Rural England", the Government undertook to support solutions tailored to local circumstances, such as those provided by the Bill.
I congratulate the promoters on their efforts to provide the means by which proper management of the commons of Bodmin moor can be accomplished.
Mr. Bennett:
Will the Minister explain something to the House? He said that the Government had decided to drop the idea of national legislation on access to and regulation of the commons--a decision that disappoints many people. As I understood it, the argument was that such matters should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. So surely when we are dealing with a particular case, the Minister cannot justify failing to make access provision in the Bill.
Mr. Clappison:
The Government are firmly of the view that there should be local solutions tailored to local
Mr. Steen:
With respect, I do not think that the matter has been dealt with satisfactorily. There is a national park in Dartmoor and a similar, although smaller, landmass some 50 or 60 miles away at Bodmin. Your constituency, Madam Deputy Speaker, is very close to Dartmoor, and you will be aware that some 8 million people enjoy the beauties of Dartmoor, an increasing number of whom travel across Bodmin moor. Can the Minister explain why the public have no right to leave their cars and go on to the private land at Bodmin moor, but have a statutory right to do so on Dartmoor? I fear that the Bill will bring the landowners together, and will exclude the public who have no right to go on the moor. The Bill may protect the commons from overgrazing, but will not allow the public to have the same free access to Bodmin that they currently enjoy on Dartmoor.
Mr. Clappison:
I understand my hon. Friend's concerns, but he must realise the current position that was explained clearly by my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cornwall, who made it clear that local solutions had been suggested for this case. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen), who is interested in local solutions, will appreciate the importance of seeking such a solution in this case.
Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall):
I want to come to the aid of the Minister. For six years, I was a member of the Dartmoor national park committee, and I draw the Minister's attention to the fact that the hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steer) has answered his own question. Dartmoor was designated as a national park, and one of the reasons for that was that it was necessary in national legislation to provide for specific rights of access on Dartmoor.
Some might think that Bodmin moor should also have been designated as national park, but the Bill is not a national park designation Bill. If it were, it would come from the Treasury Bench and we could discuss it in those terms. However, the Minister is absolutely right and I support him--this is a local response to a local problem, and it is a private Bill for that reason. If the hon. Member for South Hams wants to join me in looking at the case for making Bodmin moor a national park, we can do so on another day, as it is a separate issue.
Mr. Clappison:
A great deal of emphasis has been placed on the local question, and I made it clear at the outset that the Government are in favour of local solutions in this context. Among the local solutions that will be put in place, the Bill will seek to provide a comprehensive basis for the management of grazing on the commons and the promotion of the conservation of wildlife and habitats. I am sure that that objective will command wide support in the House this evening, and I therefore recommend that the Bill be given a Second Reading and be allowed to proceed in the usual way to Committee for detailed consideration.
Mr. Elliot Morley (Glanford and Scunthorpe):
Although this is a private Bill, I wish to put on record the position of the official Opposition. We very much support the Bill in principle, and we accept that it is important for the reasons outlined by the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Hicks). There is a need for proper management of the moor, particularly grazing management. That is an important conservation tool, although it can cause problems in terms of other grazing. Grazing can also be important in protecting plant species if managed correctly. There is a sound argument for the introduction of a commoners council, and we agree that it should be given the duty to draw up a management plan in consultation with the county council and the various statutory bodies. That will be a great advantage in bringing together the disparate ownership of the land, as the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall outlined.
For all those reasons, we think that the main thrust of the Bill is absolutely correct, and we would like to see it proceed. We have noted--and perhaps I can speak on a more personal level--the concerns about public access and the points that were reasonably made by the hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen). I recognise the issues and the differences between Dartmoor and Bodmin, but the Bill is being promoted in a similar way to the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 and I would have thought that it was not unreasonable to expect that the Bill would contain a provision for public access.
I am sorry that there has not been more agreement between the promoters and the considerable number of organisations which have petitioned against the Bill. These organisations are well respected, and include the Open Spaces Society, the British Mountaineering Council and the Youth Hostels Association. These are national and responsible organisations, and I am sure that their representations on access provision have been constructive and reasonable.
The 1985 Common Land Forum recommended that there should be access to common lands, and Labour thought that the recommendations were sensible and constructive. We are sorry that they have not been acted upon, and although it seemed at one stage that the Government were going to implement them, that has not taken place to date. I also note that the Countryside Commission has expressed great disappointment that the access arrangements have been withdrawn from the Bill. The commission has made it clear that it believes that such arrangements should be included if at all possible, and again that is not unreasonable.
In the discussions on the Bill, the issue of the right to roam--and whether it should be dealt with by a national policy or by legislation of the kind we are debating--has been raised. I understand the arguments, and the Labour party is committed to a qualified right to roam. The Country Landowners Association today published the document "Access 2000", which has a bearing on the Bill. The document contains a number of sensible suggestions, although I confess that I was surprised to see in the document and in some sections of the farming press that Labour is promoting a universal right to roam. I would like to state for the record that that has never been a right.
7.32 pm
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