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Mr. Bennett: There is a suspicion that country landowners have a double function in this. We started off with agreement that there would be access, but between patches of common there are landowners' holdings, some of which are substantial. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) mentioned one. Landowners' interests are different from those of commoners. Landowners would like to have environmentally sensitive area status, but if commoners gain access to the commons, the logic is that they can gain access to the big landowners' land by the side of them. I suspect that that is where the country landowners, among others, started to change their attitude from supporting access to saying, "Hang on a minute--if we give access to the common, we shall have to give it on surrounding land."
Mrs. Jackson: I suspect that my hon. Friend may be right. I do not want to keep harking back to last Sunday, but on Strines moor in my constituency the large landowner, Fitzwilliam estates, which has owned that moor for generations and which has been so stubborn that it will not give an inch--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The debate is about Bodmin moor, not the hon. Lady's constituency.
Mrs. Jackson: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It was just that larger landowners were mentioned and I was making a point about my experience of them and their possible intentions in relation to Bodmin moor.
Mr. Flynn: My hon. Friend has mentioned large landowners. I think that she has studied clause 16, referring to allegedly the largest landowner in Cornwall: he owns the Duchy of Cornwall. My hon. Friend will notice that the Bill has the normal preamble referring to the Royal Assent that it will need. As we know, that is on all Bills. It is done in the name of Her Majesty, according to our unwritten constitution.
Mr. Skinner: What if the Queen does not give Royal Assent?
Mr. Flynn: Indeed. There might be unforeseen circumstances. But is there not a conflict of financial interest here? We have just had Lord Nolan's recommendation on declarations of financial interest. Is it inconceivable, as there is a family connection between the sovereign and the person who has the--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That was all very interesting, but it was a very long intervention.
Mrs. Jackson: That was an interesting intervention, but it perhaps stresses only my general point: the crux of the
issue is that, if a negotiated settlement about an access agreement were in the Bill, we would not be debating it at such length as all parties would be agreed.
I was especially interested in the letter on this issue from the Countryside Commission, which is financed with Government grants. Dated 10 February 1995, the letter said:
I am further concerned that there are not sufficient safeguards to ensure the establishment of rights of access for recreation through the commoners council. Clause 5 covers access to leisure but does not mention or specify rights of access of ramblers, walkers and people who want to enjoy the open countryside or go off the beaten track to enjoy the very special wildlife and vegetation that I am sure one can find on Bodmin moor.
Mr. Skinner:
I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) talk about the council. When he was asked whether it was a quango, he said that it was not quite, but sort of. I want to know exactly how the council will be formed. Will people be nominated? Will there be a lot of patronage? Will there be wealthy people on it per se? Will some people be elected, and if so, will the elections be first past the post, the Liberal Democrats' proportional representation system, or what? My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish, who is well versed in such matters, did not give the proper information. Can my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson) shed any light on the matter?
Mrs. Jackson:
My understanding is that the commoners council will comprise people who have an interest in grazing, farming or otherwise using parts of Bodmin moor. If the sponsors of the Bill have any further information, I am sure that they would want to explain the matter.
Mr. Bennett:
Does my hon. Friend accept that the moor consists of parcels of land in what most people would call Bodmin moor, the physical area? For each parcel of land, selective groups of people have commoners' rights which go back to the middle ages. The intervening bits of land were taken away by the Enclosure Acts. Anybody who has a right to use the common for grazing--I think that there are other rights, but I am not absolutely certain--is entitled to elect representatives. One of the people who was complaining about the Bill explained to me that the process was not particularly democratic. I can understand the argument that one piece of land might have two representatives and another might have three and that, like parliamentary constituencies,it is very difficult to establish fairness between--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. That is an awfully interesting point, but the hon. Gentleman is taking a long time to explain it.
Mrs. Jackson:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett). As what one might call the grazing industry reorganises itself, the commoners council could easily become one, two or at the most three people over a number of years. The same people might therefore be involved in different pockets of land and the crucial issue of access would again be determined by a very small number of people who have grazing interests on the common areas of Bodmin moor. That would concern us all.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cirencester and Tewkesbury):
Will the hon. Lady admit that there is a perfectly good footpath network throughout the moor? Is she merely rehearsing arguments for a wider right to roam over the whole of the United Kingdom?
Mrs. Jackson:
The hon. Gentleman has not been in the Chamber while we have been discussing the paucity of rights of way over Bodmin moor that are shown on maps. The danger is that even the existing footpaths, which are few and far enough between, may be affected by the Bill.
Mr. Bennett:
As I explained before the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) came into the Chamber, I looked at the Ordnance Survey maps of Bodmin moor in preparation for the debate and was disappointed to find few rights of way recorded. I counted 16 ancient monuments and other archaeological sites on the map, none of which was linked to a public footpath. As I asked earlier, how does one get permission to look at those sites if there is no one with the right to say that one can go there?
Mrs. Jackson:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury(Mr. Clifton-Brown), too, will be aware that ancient monuments in open country are rarely close to public footpaths. My father liked to look at archaeological remains, including those on Bodmin moor, and probably the first and last time that I went rambling in that area was as a fairly small child looking for archaeological sites. I do not remember their ever being close to public footpaths.
As we were saying earlier, such leisure activities are of interest only to a minority. There are not millions of people desperate to explore every archaeological site and trace of ancient history on Bodmin moor, or on any other moor. As has been argued through the ages, and certainly here today, an access agreement for areas of open country such as moorland or woodland--by no means across the whole country, as the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury suggested--would enable the relatively small number of people who want to indulge in such recreations, or to make academic studies, to do so without having to approach a rather nebulous body such as a commoners council, from which it might be difficult to get permission.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) said, the Opposition do not suggest that landowners and farmers are unreasonable people--perhaps one of us might, but my hon. Friend the
Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is not suggesting any such thing at the moment. My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish described how in his experience, if farmers are approached nicely for permission to walk across land and look at something that one finds interesting, there is usually no problem.
Mr. Bennett:
I think that my hon. Friend will agree that most people who work with their hands are proud of their skills. Most working farmers are proud of the land that they till and look after, and they are pleased to let other people go on to it. The problem arises with some of the people who own land but never do a day's work on it. They often want to keep people out so that they can use the land occasionally for shooting or some other such activity.
"We regret that it has not been possible for you to achieve a negotiated settlement of the petitioners' concerns. Our position has always been that we want this Bill to succeed"--
which the Opposition want as well--
"and we believe that such a settlement would have assisted the passage of the Bill through Parliament."
That is obviously true. If there had not been an attempt in the House of Lords to rule out the inclusion in the Bill of clear access provision, there would be no problem.
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