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Mr. Martin Salter (Reading, West): Is my hon. Friend aware that I visited the estates of the chair of the CLA in Berkshire? The Benyon family are well known to Conservative Members and theirs is one of the few estates that is growing. Their problems are caused not by walking or rambling, although the estate is a few miles from 250,000 people in greater Reading, but by off-road vehicles, motor bike scrambling and picnicking by the roadside. In their submission to the Government, they said that voluntary access agreements had produced more open access to the countryside through caravan sites and pick-your-own strawberry farms. Does my hon. Friend agree that they talk absolute nonsense?
Mr. Prentice: My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. It is astonishing that my modest Bill, which simply seeks to give people the right to roam on foot, is apparently not enough for the CLA. One of the criticisms that it has levelled at me is that I am ignoring people with four-wheel drives, cyclists, canoeists and, for God's sake,
hang-gliders. That is absurd, and the CLA is constantly moving the goal posts. The National Farmers Union is only slightly less hysterical, but it, too, has got the wrong end of the stick.
I am minded not to pursue my Bill, because of the Government's statement of 8 March, but I want to listen carefully to what my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment says. For the record, my Bill has three legs which I shall describe, but not necessarily in order of importance. The first is clause 12, which is a stand-alone clause dealing with cross-compliance. It would stop European Union and United Kingdom Treasury grants going to farmers who block footpaths. If a landowner cannot show that footpaths are unobstructed, he or she will not receive a grant. If footpaths are unobstructed, but become obstructed within five years, he or she will not receive a grant or will have to repay it.
In its briefing for hon. Members, the NFU says that it wants people to stick to paths. It does not want area access. The NFU refers to clause 12 as the "politics of punishment". Again, the language is extreme and over the top. We do not want a "something for nothing" society in Britain--that is what we are told--yet public money can go to farmers and landowners, although we get nothing other than a slap in the face in return. That is astonishing.
If paths are blocked, the cash should stop. In a written reply earlier this month, the Minister, using figures produced by the Countryside Commission in 1994, told me that 26 per cent. of footpaths were blocked or difficult to use. That 26 per cent. represents 25,000 miles.
Mr. Gill:
I wonder whether we could explore the principle that is at stake. I understand what the hon. Gentleman says, and the whole House will have noted it, but surely the principle that he is discussing extends far beyond this issue. For example, is he saying that anyone entitled to benefit under the social security arrangements who committed an offence would thereby be deprived of those social security benefits?
Mr. Prentice:
The hon. Gentleman should catch up. I support the Government, like all my hon. Friends, although that caused me some difficulty when the Government controversially proclaimed in the context of welfare reform that they were against the "something for nothing" society.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned welfare reform. Landowners in the UK receive £2.5 billion a year from the common agricultural policy; the poorest hill farmers receive more modest sums, such as £148 million a year through the hill livestock compensatory allowance. If public money is to be used in that way, it should have strings attached. We want something for that. It is only the Conservative party that says that bucketfuls of public money can be poured into landowners' pockets, but that the public can expect nothing in the return. That must change.
The second leg of the Bill refers to conditional exemption from inheritance tax. I have a fixation about that as well. Clause 15 requires a person who has been granted conditional exemption from inheritance tax because the public allegedly have access to his or her land to publicise that access. Is that asking too much?
Some 350 super-wealthy people in this country get conditional exemption. They tell the Inland Revenue that they need not pay inheritance tax when the owner dies
because the public have a right of access to the land, even though the public do not know that they have a right of access because it has never been publicised. It is absurd.
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer took a major step forward in last year's Finance Bill, which expressly prohibited landowners from requiring advance notice of visits. Those who take the trouble to find out where the land is could not just turn up and exercise the right to walk on it, but had to give the owner advance notice that they were coming. It was absurd. That is changing under this Government. The Inland Revenue is now revisiting all 350 agreements, and insisting that access is publicised and put on the world wide web.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Faversham and Mid-Kent):
The hon. Gentleman is personalising this issue to a considerable degree, but I understand that the majority of acres in this country are owned by organisations such as pension funds and insurance companies, which presumably do not enjoy the same benefits. Will he assure us that the Government are equally interested in ensuring that those organisations publicise access to their acres?
Mr. Prentice:
I would be interested in the evidence for that assertion. I know that six landowners in Lancashire get conditional exemption from inheritance tax, and I tried to find out who they are. The Table Office would not accept my question and the Inland Revenue would not tell me because, it says, to do so would breach taxpayers' confidentiality. I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman again if he can tell me how he knows that those organisations are conditionally exempt and if he can name them.
Mr. Rowe:
That was not the point of my question, which was quite straightforward: the majority of acres are owned by public companies, pension funds, life assurance companies and other such corporate owners--that is certainly the case in my area--which presumably do not have those inheritance tax problems. I am concerned that the hon. Gentleman should be equally interested in ensuring that people know that they can roam those companies' land. Publicity should be an obligation on them as much as on a private owner.
Mr. Prentice:
That does not take us much further forward. The Channel 4 "Dispatches" programme broadcast a two-part series entitled "The Lie of the Land", but it listed none of those companies and institutions that the hon. Gentleman referred to. However, I shall make inquiries about that. I do not intend to personalise this issue in a nasty way. [Hon. Members: "Oh?"] It is true. We want land to be identified so that people can have access to it. The issue is simple.
The third and final leg of my Bill deals with access to the open countryside, which is covered by the Minister's statement on 8 March. As I said at the beginning, there is no policy difference whatever--not a cigarette paper of a difference--between me and my Government on this, but there are a number of questions which I hope that the Minister will pick up when he speaks later.
Mapping is central to the Bill and to the Government's proposals. Common land is already identified. Apparently, the Agricultural Development Advisory Service maps the moorland areas of England. I learned
that just a few days ago when I was at a meeting called by the Countryside Commission in the House of Lords. The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), a former Environment Secretary, was there, and a look of surprise crossed his face when he heard that the moorland had already been mapped. Clearly, however, a lot of work remains to be done.
First, will the Countryside Agency have the resources that it needs to map the land quickly? Secondly, if it takes time, can the mapping and the commencement dates for the legislation be done in stages so that easy terrain, such as mountains, can be mapped first and more difficult terrain, such as downlands, can be mapped later?
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