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Mr. Wigley: I shall be interested to hear the Minister's response on the principle that compensation should be payable in the minority of cases in which circumstances might produce a material difference in the value of property, which might not only be the value of the land. I can think of one example in which access to open land is extremely close to a farmhouse. There is no other reasonable access. Many people will have to pass close to the farmhouse to gain access to the open land, so if that makes the house less valuable on the market, the question of compensation for its owners will arise.
That may apply in only a minority of cases, but other circumstances may arise. My hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) and others referred to dangers on the land. Extra expenditure might be needed to cope with such dangers. Such cases might be few, but the Human Rights Act 1998 and other legislation must surely come into play. There must be some provision in the Bill to deal with such matters. When the Minister responds, will he address those difficult cases for which there should be a mechanism in the Bill?
Mr. David Heath: My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) was right to point out during an intervention on the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) that there are two options: either a significant and recognisable loss to individuals will be occasioned by the Bill, in which case it must be right that the Government have a duty to provide compensation; or there will be no loss, so no compensation will be paid and the Government will not be the losers.
I tend towards the second option. There will not be many cases in which a substantial loss occurs as a result of the measure. In some circumstances, a quantifiable loss may be established. I take seriously the fact that, in the case of hill farmers--especially tenants--we are dealing with people whose land is only marginally viable. A small difference in their circumstances could have catastrophic effects on their business. It would be wrong for Parliament arbitrarily to deprive them of their living through this measure--albeit unintentionally.
No compensation process should allow either spurious claims or claims that might be made to cause difficulty for the Government or to bring the legislation into disrepute. That would be quite wrong. However, as the hon. and learned Member for Harborough pointed out, there are mechanisms that would deal with that. For example, in Committee, I cited the provisions under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949,
which require that genuine loss must be shown before compensation is payable. That seems to be entirely appropriate.11 pm
I cannot possibly compete with the hon. and learned Member's exposition concerning the effect of the Human Rights Act 1998--nor would I wish to do so. He raised serious questions which the Government must answer. They have relied so far only on the assurance that the Bill, as currently framed, accords with that Act. The Government should at least respond to the case for a compensation mechanism. I applaud the fact that we have had the opportunity to discuss such a mechanism, but, unless the Minister can assure me on the very important points that have been raised, I will support the new clause in the Lobby if it is pressed to the vote.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York): I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) on having moved the new clause so eloquently. I lament the fact that the Minister apparently has such a closed mind, but perhaps he will prove me wrong. His answers may show that he has an open mind on the issue of compensation. However, in response to a question from the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice), the Minister said:
- A cost benefit study for the Government, undertaken by independent consultants, supports the view that landowners will not suffer significant losses or costs as a result of the new right of access such as would warrant the provision of compensation.--[Official Report, 17 March 1999; Vol. 327, c. 670W.]
I go further than my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough. I argue vigorously that there could be three heads of compensation. The first, which as my hon. and learned Friend so eloquently outlined, is the right to protect property under the European convention on human rights. As he also said, the second is the right to compensation for preparing the ground for access. That point has received some sympathy in the House.
The third head of compensation, however, appears in new clause 3, which was regrettably not selected for debate. I hope that the Minister will also consider the provision in the new clause that calls for rights of compensation. It states:
- Any person who, on entering or remaining on access land for the purposes of
- that damage and compensate the landowner for any damage so caused.
Mr. Hogg: I support the principle behind the new clause. As I told my hon. and learned Friend the Member
for Harborough (Mr. Garnier), I believe that such a scheme should be on the face of the Bill or, at the very least, should be dealt with by regulations that are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. My preference, however, is for the provision to appear in the Bill.We need to be clear about the fact that, as a result of the Bill, farmers and landowners will incur expenditure: that is absolutely certain and to deny it is an absurdity. The expenditure will fall under certain obvious heads. For example, it is certain that there will be increased insurance premiums to pay. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) suggested that some landowners already incur insurance premiums in respect of their workers--and that, no doubt, is true. However, on the estates with which we are dealing, the number of workers can probably be counted on the fingers of two hands. We are speaking of unlimited access--millions of people will have the right of access, although it will not be exercised by millions. That will have a dramatic effect on the insurance premiums that must be paid, which will be much larger than any premiums currently paid.
Secondly, there will be greatly increased maintenance costs. As a consequence of considerably increased access, there will be much heavier usage of roads, tracks, bridges and so on, and inevitably costs will be incurred in making those good. The insurance companies will require regular inspections and the undertaking of maintenance works.
That brings me to the third head of expenditure. Leaving aside obvious making good of bridges and roads, there will be the obligation on the part of a landowner- farmer regularly to survey the land to see, for example, that there are no obvious or less obvious traps--the barbed wire and coils of wire that we mentioned when we discussed amendment No. 8. That is not a negligible burden.
Take another head, which is of a slightly different kind. There may be--I do not want to put it higher than that--economic loss flowing from the right of access. I can envisage certain obvious heads of economic loss--for example, the loss of lambs to flocks that are running on the mountainside. There may well be a diminution in lambing as a consequence of public access. There may well be a diminution in the value of shooting rights as a consequence of public access. That is real economic loss.
A different point--although in a sense it encapsulates the whole--is the plain fact that land is less valuable when other people have rights over it that they did not previously have. That is difficult to measure, but not impossible. From time to time, land valuation tribunals have had to consider the effect on land on which new easements or other rights are suddenly created. It is fundamentally wrong to deny that there will be both costs and loss.
That takes us to the difficult question of where the loss should fall. Historically, the House of Commons and, indeed, our constitutional system have not always recognised the need for compensation. There are those who know that I have been responsible for regulations that did not provide for compensation. I am thinking, for example, of the head deboning prohibitions that we imposed as part of the BSE requirements. There are many other examples, because historically the House has taken the view that when one imposes restrictions or
prohibitions, one does not compensate. That has been the historical point of view, and I have some sympathy with it, but I think that it is changing, for a number of reasons.
Mr. Garnier: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. Is not one of the reasons--perhaps the major reason--why it is changing the Human Rights Act 1998, and the need for Ministers to comply with section 19? The Government must make up their mind whether the Bill is to come under section 19(1)(a) or section 19(1)(b), and they must make it abundantly clear which route they intend to take.
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