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Mr. Clifton-Brown: And in the Cotswolds.
Mr. Lidington: The Cotswolds and the Chilterns probably have a great deal in common so far as development pressures are concerned.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: My hon. Friend makes a good point, but does he accept that it is not merely areas to the north and west of Greater London, such as the Chilterns, his constituency and the Cotswolds, that suffer such pressures? Areas on the periphery of great cities such as Manchester also suffer. I refer to my constituency of Macclesfield in Cheshire, where the same pressures are being exerted and the same arguments are relevant to my hon. Friend's proposals, which he is making in an excellent contribution to the debate.
Mr. Lidington: I thank my hon. Friend. Having some good friends who live not in his constituency, I fear, but nearby, and having visited Wilmslow, Knutsford and Mobberley, I am certainly aware that development pressures in Cheshire as a consequence of people coming out from the Manchester conurbation are probably as acute as those affecting counties such as mine, which are adjacent to the London conurbation, although on a slightly smaller scale in view of the relative size of the two cities.
There is not only development pressure on the Chiltern hills and Buckinghamshire. Understandably, there is also a huge demand for public access and I have immense sympathy for that. I was brought up in north-west London and used to go for Sunday walks with the family along the Chess valley or the scarp of the Chiltern hills. None of us wishes to deny such walks to present or future generations, but we have to ensure that public access does not develop in such a way that it damages a precious environment. Public access has to be managed.
In my part of the country, there are many opportunities for legitimate public access through long-distance paths such as the Ridgeway along the scarp of the Chiltern hills and the north Buckinghamshire and south Buckinghamshire footways, which Buckinghamshire county council has developed with great prescience and vision to balance public access, conservation and efficient farming in a way that I am sure that the hon. Member for Sherwood seeks to achieve as much as anyone else.
Mr. Tipping:
I think that the hon. Member for Aylesbury missed the beginning of my speech. I have never advocated an unrestricted right to roam. As I said earlier in this short--but extending--debate, my position is set out in the Access to the Countryside Bill, which tries to deal with the tensions that the hon. Member so rightly recognises.
Mr. Lidington:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point clear.
Mr. Patrick Thompson:
This is becoming a very interesting debate. Before I became a Member of Parliament, I spent much time in the national park areas involved with the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme and so forth. To what extent do these issues differ in national park lands and in the areas that he is describing in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire? Does national park status make a difference and, if so, how?
Mr. Lidington:
I am no expert on national park land. Some people have argued that the Chilterns or the Cotswolds might be given national park status. I would prefer to avoid that degree of what some people might describe as overmanagement and rely on finding a sensible and pragmatic balance between the differing interests of agriculture, forestry, public recreation and conservation in the way that I have sought to describe.
Two local issues have given me cause for great concern about clause 92(3)(b). The first is my knowledge of the efforts being made by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Naturalists Trust to establish a network of nature reserves throughout the Chilterns to try to bring back some of the flora and fauna that have been lost as a result of poor stewardship during previous decades of this century. The people most closely concerned with those projects have told me that it is no good relying on a tiny network or series of oases of nature reserves, from which we exclude the public altogether and expecting that plants and animals will thrive in those isolated colonies. Instead, they argue, we need to link those oases through hedgerows and set-aside land which is responsibly managed in the interests of conservation. The creation of those links between nature reserves, in the traditional sense, could be put at risk by the amendment.
My second cause for concern locally derives from the ambitious project under way in the Chilterns--due in part to the great generosity of my constituent Mr. John Paul Getty--to reintroduce the red kite back into England. You will know, Sir Geoffrey, that the red kite is a bird of prey which, through persecution, had been confined to a small area of mid-Wales around Plynlimon, but which can now be seen by drivers along the M40, thanks to a sensible programme of conservation and management.
The hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), contributing from the Opposition Front Bench, referred to the fact that it was difficult to obtain details of every site listed under the various regulations described in clause 92(3).
Mr. Tipping:
I hesitate to correct the hon. Gentleman. However, the sites that we said the public had difficulty in finding were not those to which he refers, but those which have conditional exemption from inheritance tax to allow greater public access. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has been following the debate closely enough.
Mr. Lidington:
My point is that in the interests of good conservation--this was certainly true in the case of the red kite--it is often important to keep the location of specific sites secret so as to ensure that rare species are allowed to breed and thrive without the attentions of bird egg collectors or poachers intervening in that process. I would not want circumstances to arise in which, in order to achieve the desirable objective of greater public access to and enjoyment of our countryside, we allowed intrusions that could severely damage efforts to introduce or restore species to habitats in this country and to ensure that they thrive there.
I said earlier that I wanted to return to the enabling powers that the clause would give to the Government. I simply note that in clause 92 the proposed section 124C(4) to the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 would enable the Treasury, by order, to
Mr. Nicholas Winterton:
The amendment moved very reasonably by the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr. Tipping) seeks to make inheritance tax agricultural relief for land dedicated under long-term habitat schemes conditional on the public being allowed reasonable access to the land. Does my hon. Friend accept that protecting or improving the environment and creating public access to land are totally different objectives, albeit equally desirable ones? Is that not why there are different arrangements dealing with habitats and with public access to land? I have considerable sympathy with the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Sherwood, but are not
The First Deputy Chairman:
Order. Before the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) deals with those points, I must say that that was a very long intervention.
Mr. Winterton:
And a very relevant one.
The First Deputy Chairman:
Order. Relevant or not, interventions are supposed to be brief and to the point--and that one was neither.
Mr. Lidington:
I am sure that my hon. Friend will try to catch your eye later in the Committee's proceedings, Sir Geoffrey, so that he can develop his important arguments.
I want to conclude by saying to the hon. Member for Sherwood that, although I understand and have some sympathy with the motives behind his amendment, he has chosen a blunt instrument with which to secure his objective: there are better ways of securing improved public access to our countryside.
Mr. Jack:
This has been an interesting debate, which has shown that Conservative Members have a clear understanding of and a great deal of sensitivity towards the issues relating to the countryside and habitats.
"amend the list of enactments in subsection (3)".
It follows that if the Committee were to accept the amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Sherwood we would be putting into law a right of public access--or "reasonable access" in the terms of the amendment--not only in respect of those enactments already listed in proposed section 124C(3), but in respect of any future enactments added to the list by any future statutory instrument introduced at the behest of any future Government. It is a good principle that, whenever possible, we should try to avoid giving too many enabling powers and it is that principle which causes me to have further doubts about the amendment.
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