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8.30 pm
Mr. Grieve: The issue raised by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) is certainly interesting. As I said earlier in an intervention, the whole question of the relationship between the byelaws and schedule 2 strikes me as important.
I should say at the outset that I do not favour legislation on rights of access. I believe I said on Second Reading that I did not consider such legislation necessary or desirable. Given that rights of access are to be provided, however, I do not think they should be used to fetter or restrict existing rights. In particular, I do not think that trespassers should be turned into criminals without very good reason. I think that the Minister agreed with that earlier.
There will clearly be a difficulty. The byelaws envisage the possibility that local authorities, national parks authorities or whatever other authorities may be involved will start to impose regulations that, on occasion, will turn mischiefs that might previously have been described as no more than trespasses into criminal offences. What happens to a trespasser who decides to sleep in a bivvy bag on access land? I must confess that I have done that many times in the past when the land in question has not been access land, and, technically, I have probably been trespassing. Nevertheless, I believe that my activity caused no problems to anyone, and that my presence was not noticed 10 minutes after I departed in the early hours to go off and climb some new mountain.
The hon. Gentleman's point is very pertinent, but I am not entirely persuaded that uniformity is the answer. I am always anxious when powers are delegated from the House to others for the purpose of creating criminal offences. There may, for instance, be unintended consequences, because the arrangements have not been thought through properly.
I shall be interested to hear from the Minister how it is envisaged to implement the proposals. Will guidelines be issued for the purpose of matters in schedule 2, in regard to which it would be appropriate to make byelaws, and for the purpose of those in regard to which that would not be appropriate? It is clear that byelaws might be suitable in some areas covered by the schedule, although some are probably covered by the existing criminal law. I am thinking of offences of interfering with plants or trees, for instance. In other respects, however, it is difficult to see what byelaws there should be. I hope that the Minister will be able to enlighten those of us who did not have the opportunity of participating in Committee about what is envisaged for such cases, and to reassure both the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish and me.
As I say, the hon. Gentleman may be right: perhaps we need uniformity. I am not persuaded of that--I see this as a open issue. What really concerns me is that the amendment is not used as a ratchet for interfering, busybody bureaucracy where none is required.
Mr. Green: Amendments Nos. 112 and 85 deal with two separate issues--the provision of wardens and the provision of notices indicating boundaries and so forth on access land.
A consistent theme of our attempts to improve the Bill has been the need for successful management of access, in the interests of walkers particularly but also in those of owners and occupiers of land and, of course, those of the wider environment. It seems to us that the experience of parts of the country containing large amounts of access land--hon. Members on both sides of the House have referred to it--suggests that an effective warden system provides one of the keys to successful land management. Amendment No. 112 aims to ensure that if such a system does not arise organically--as it were--a scheme is in place to push the access authorities into establishing it in the first few years of the availability of the access land in question.
I am sure that many hon. Members have seen the briefing from the National Farmers Union. The NFU supports the amendment, because of its--in my view--legitimate fear that there may not be enough wardens to manage the new right of access. My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) said that he did not wish to set up unnecessary bureaucracies. Amendment No. 112 avoids that by simply suggesting that
- The access authority shall review . . . the adequacy of warden arrangements in respect of . . . access land in their area . . . not more than one year after that land became access land,
That is clearly no great imposition on anyone. It would cause no great increase in spending, or diversion of resources. It strikes us as a fairly small-scale practical measure to ensure that the warden arrangements operated at a suitable level. Apart from anything else, there will be differences in different areas: the same level of warden arrangements will not be necessary in every area where access has been granted.
If we are to enact realistic legislation benefiting all who wish to use land for leisure purposes or who own land, a decent and sensible warden system is vital. It will be particularly important during the early stages of the introduction of access land, if the Government succeed in their aim of extending the delights of walking in the countryside to a wider proportion of the population than have enjoyed them so far. Many relatively inexperienced walkers will then appear in the countryside. Clearly, it will continue to be critical as new generations use access land. To some extent, especially on safety matters, owners will need decent advice on how to manage access locally. I hope that the Government will welcome our low-key, low-cost but important proposal, which would ensure that wardens were provided for such areas.
Amendment No. 85 deals with the need for access authorities to erect and maintain notices indicating the boundaries of access land and excepted land under clause 19. That clause is permissive; it states that authorities may erect such notices. We want to harden the provision by replacing the word "may" with the word "shall" and introducing some caveats. I shall quote the words of the Minister for the Environment back at him. He complained that the similar amendment that we moved in Committee would have replaced the word "may" with the word "shall", but did
- not state, "shall, where appropriate or expedient" . . .--[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 2 May 2000; c. 444.]
- "shall, where appropriate or expedient"
Having taken the Minister's advice, we tabled amendment No. 85 because we believe that, as well as wardens, decent notices are key to the practical success of the widespread increase in access land. There was consensus when we discussed that matter in Committee in that both sides accepted that a lot of information must be transmitted to those embarking on a walk in open country. It is perhaps surprising but we all agreed about that, which is why we tabled amendment No. 85.
An access authority might decide that providing decent notices is not at the top of its list of priorities in any year for 101 reasons, the most obvious of which is the availability of the necessary resources. Many access authorities will not have enough money to do so. It would be easy to cut such a budget because if the money has never been there, people are less likely to notice if it never arrives.
The Government have said throughout that they expect no extra financial imposition to be placed on landowners under the Bill, so clearly the erection of such signs and notices will fall to the access authority. As in amendment No. 112, that relatively small change that we propose would ensure that access authorities give walkers and owners what they think they require--a decent service that allows the new regime to be introduced as smoothly as possible. Therefore, the new regime of access to the countryside would be much more likely to be a long-term success. In that spirit of helpfulness and to ensure that the
Bill is introduced more successfully than would otherwise be the case, I commend amendments Nos. 112 and 85 to the House.
Mr. David Heath: Again, I thank Ministers for Government amendment No. 149, which deals with a proposal that I pressed the Government hard to adopt in Committee because I feared that the matter would not be covered. I am grateful to them for listening and tabling amendment No. 149.
Having said that, one reason that I wanted adequate signage was that my fear throughout has been that people will be ignorant of what they are expected to do under the Bill, not through any intent but simply because new arrangements will be in place. They will have read reports in the newspapers about their supposed new right, but, as we know, it is heavily qualified in the Bill. I do not want people to be treated as trespassers simply because they do not know the local information. That ties in with the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) on the degree of conformity of byelaws.
8.45 pm
I would be the last person in the world to argue that there should be absolute conformity--that is not sensible; the purpose of byelaws is to ensure adequate provision for local circumstances--but, having said that, unnecessary variation in the form of those byelaws is equally unhelpful. If the same difficulty is encountered in more than one place, it makes sense to have the same provision. That is why guidance from the Government is so important and why it is so important to have in the appropriate places signs that people can read. Even if 99 per cent. of people ignored a sign stating local byelaws, at least it would be there for them to read--they could not claim total ignorance. There is a lot to commend the hon. Gentleman's amendment and I shall be interested in what the Minister has to say.
I am glad that the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) addressed the issue of wardens, which could be difficult. If access to open countryside is to work effectively, it has to be accompanied by the infrastructure that will make it work. Wardens are part of that infrastructure. It has been proven time and again in our national parks and in some areas of outstanding natural beauty that an effective wardening system is of great assistance to people who want to take advantage of access to the countryside and to the landowners and other users of the land.
Concern has been expressed on many occasions that wardening will, sadly, be a low priority for many local authorities--perhaps not because of any intent on their part, but simply because of competing budgetary pressures. Unless the situation is monitored, at best we are likely to achieve patchy provision, and probably none at all in large parts of the country. That would be detrimental to the Bill's purposes and the Government's intention. We must send a clear signal to local access authorities that they should properly consider the adequacy of the wardening and other services that they
will provide, such as supplying information and policing the Bill's operation. The amendments raise important issues and I look forward to the Minister's reply.
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