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Mr. Bennett: What does "due regard" mean? Does it not mean that as long as the council considers the present access carefully, it will be entitled to alter it?
Mr. Tyler: I will come back to that as my speech unfolds.
The hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) has just slipped out of the Chamber but I assure him that it is recognised that there are growing pressures on the moor from peaceful recreation. However, there are also pressures from less peaceful recreations. I know, from my experience as a member and vice-chairman of the Dartmoor national park committee for five years, that Dartmoor has already experienced major problems. It is important that powers should be available, for example, to control access for four-wheeled vehicles which not only damage the moor's ecology but make it difficult for other people to enjoy peaceful recreation such as my weekend walks.
There is considerable anxiety in Cornwall about the state of the commons on Bodmin moor. Some suffer from overgrazing while others are insufficiently grazed. As a result, environmental quality is visibly deteriorating in several parts of the moor at an alarming rate. It is intended that the primary purpose of the commoners council should be to take action to correct that deterioration. Such action will involve considerable restrictions on the activities of some local commoners, but they accept that in the interests of the wider community and of the long-term stewardship of the land.
I emphasise that there is nothing in the Bill that alters the availability of the commons for public access. It may be that a better definition of open country, as the Common Land Forum has suggested, would, in the long term, greatly benefit Bodmin moor and other parts of the UK. However, it would be inappropriate to use a private Bill to pioneer such a new definition. I reiterate the point made by the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall that the petitions against the Bill lodged by the British Horse Society and the owners of a riding establishment on the edge of the moor have been withdrawn because they have accepted that the promoters have met their concerns.
The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) mentioned public access. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that discussions have taken place, not only during the passage of the Bill through the Lords and locally, but in the past few days, in anticipation of this debate, and in recognition of the concerns that gave rise to the attempt to lay an instruction before the House and therefore the Committee.
Last week--I am sure that the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish will not mind me saying so, because it is material to the discussion--there was a useful meeting, at which I was present, between the promoter and the hon. Gentleman, and at that meeting we sought to find a way to meet his concerns. It was suggested that a voluntary agreement on access might be in place before Royal Assent or before the Act came into operation. That was the subject of some discussion locally. I understand that, yesterday, the promoter, Cornwall county council, agreed that it would seek to achieve that in whatever form was appropriate to the legislation, to enable the Bill to proceed.
I strongly endorse what the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe said about the need for balance. That balance is well understood by the promoter and all the organisations that have promoted the Bill. That is why I am delighted to tell the House that I understand that the
promoter is able to put on record tonight that it agrees to seek a voluntary access agreement with the landowners and the commoners of the Bodmin moor commons.
Mr. Bennett:
What the hon. Gentleman says goes90 per cent. of the way towards what we want. We now need evidence of the good intent of the county council. All we need to hear from the hon. Gentleman is that the county council will not seek Royal Assent until the access agreement is in place because, if it goes that far, we can simplify the procedures tremendously. I do not doubt the good will of the county council, but if one or two of the more awkward commoners were to refuse to go along with an access agreement, there is little that the county council can do as things stand. If, however, the county council were to give an undertaking tonight, or very soon after, that it would not go ahead with Royal Assent until the access agreement were in place, I do not say that we could all go home, but we could all go home without saying much more.
Mr. Tyler:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but he will appreciate that I am a Member of the House, not the promoter. It would be much more appropriate for the specific wording of the statement that he requires to be dealt with in Committee, which is the right place for petitions to be heard; the hon. Gentleman is not a petitioner in his own right.
Following the meeting that I mentioned, at which the hon. Gentleman was most generous with his time--and his coffee--and during which we made good progress, I am able to convey to the House the assurance that the promoter, Cornwall county council, has agreed to seek a voluntary access agreement along the lines suggested at our meeting last week, and the county council has already set in motion the appropriate machinery to make that action take place forthwith.
I accept, as I am sure does the promoter, that that may not meet all the wishes of the Ramblers Association and the Open Spaces Society, which have lodged petitions against the Bill and which, if the Bill is read a Second time tonight, will be entitled to appear before the Committee. However, the Bill is not about compulsion, and Cornwall county council does not propose to embody compulsion in the Bill. That is borne out by negotiations that the promoter has already carried out, as I have said, with the two other petitioners--the British Horse Society and the T.M. international school of horsemanship.
Amendments have been suggested by those two petitioners, and will be submitted for the Committee's approval if the Bill is read a Second time tonight. The purpose of the amendments is to ensure that the passing of the Bill and the coming into being of the commoners council will not change the position to the detriment of the British Horse Society or its members on or near Bodmin moor or of the T.M. international school of horsemanship. As a result of that agreement, those two petitions have been withdrawn.
The amendments would provide that the commoners council, when preparing the management plan that the Bill requires to be prepared, must have due regard to the existing permitted use of open-air recreation. That includes any existing permitted use by ramblers. Were
that not to be the case, I should not be supporting the Bill tonight, because I believe, as do many others in and around Bodmin moor, that that existing permitted use is of great importance.
The hon. Member for South Hams is probably right that only 2 or 3 per cent. of people who visit Bodmin moor walk miles, as I do. Nevertheless, sometimes we have invasions. Only a few years ago, about 30,000 people came for the so-called White Goddess festival on Davidstow moor, on common land in my constituency, and caused chaos to farmers and everyone else in the local community. It is not inappropriate to be aware that such possible threats can not only destroy the habitat and environment and prevent the quiet enjoyment of the moor by people who walk or ride, but cause immense damage to the local community as a whole.
The suggested amendments would also ensure that the commoners council makes certain that unlawful interference with the commons is precluded, but also ensures that recreational access on foot or horseback does not cause material damage. There is no intention to destroy the sensitive balance that the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe rightly mentioned.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish):
I should first declare an interest that does not need to be included in the Register. It is only fair to tell hon. Members that I am an honorary life member of the Ramblers Association and vice-president of the Peak and Northern Footpaths Society. I have spoken on behalf of walkers many times in the House, but I have also spoken several times about the private Bill procedure, which I find very, very unsatisfactory indeed.
As a result of efforts in the House on occasions to delay Bills, it was possible to pass the Public Works Bill, and we have substantially reduced the number of private Bills that come before the House, so we now deal with private Bills rarely. Nevertheless, it is a very unsatisfactory procedure for dealing with the Bill before us.
Traditionally, Bills were used to promote railways, canals and other major works. The tradition grew up that, as the Bill progressed through the two Houses of Parliament, it had to become progressively narrower. In other words, no one's rights could be taken away as the Bill progressed; all that could happen was that people could be exempted from the Bill.
In this case, we have a very odd procedure. When Cornwall county council started to promote the Bill, there was a balance in it. The rights of access were balanced by the right of the commoners to regulate the legislation. By a procedure that I have never quite understood, which is not quite a lottery--I suspect that it is more Machiavellian than that--some Bills start in the House of Lords and some start in the Commons.
In the case of a public Bill, if the Lords remove something from the Bill, it is easy for us to disagree with them and put it back in; or, if the Lords put something
into the Bill, we can remove it. If necessary, the Bill can shuttle backwards and forwards, until eventually a meeting takes place between the two sides, at which usually one or other gives way.
With a Bill such as this, however, if the House of Lords has removed a provision from it, usually the House of Commons cannot put it back. Rather foolishly, the House of Lords removed the provision that guaranteed access. The question is: do we have the right to put access back in the Bill as it goes into Committee? At some stage, that could become a major point at issue.
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