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Town and Country Planning (Amendment)
Mr. Tony Baldry accordingly presented a Bill to amend section 31 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 so as to allow local planning authorities to determine themselves in the structure plan the amount of new housing, including figures for housing provision in each district: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Wednesday 29 November, and to be printed [Bill 191].
Orders of the Day
Countryside and Rights of Ways Bill
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Sylvia Heal): I must draw the House's attention to the fact that privilege is involved in Lords amendments Nos. 19, 33, 100, 124 and 268. If the House agrees to any of these amendments, I shall ensure that the appropriate entry is made in the Journal.
Clause 1
Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 2, line 13, after ("includes") insert
(", subject to the following definition,")
5.2 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Chris Mullin): I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment No. 2 and amendment (a) thereto, and Lords amendments Nos. 3, 34, 38, 153 to 157 and 171.
Mr. Mullin: This group of amendments refines the concept of access land and exclusions from it. Before I go into them, let me say that almost all the amendments were tabled that we will be discussing today in response to proposals by one or other of the Opposition parties--whose attention I hope to attract in due course.
We have bent over backwards to meet the concerns of right hon. and hon. Members and their noble Friends to address the genuine concerns of landowners. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will celebrate the fact that they have helped to make what was already a good Bill even better. That was acknowledged by Opposition Members in the other place. Lord Glentoran, for example, said that the Bill
- is developing into a first-class piece of legislation.--[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 November 2000; Vol. 619, c. 480.]
- The Bill will now give access to millions of people--safe access, because that is what we have been after. It preserves our fauna, flora and wildlife. It improves rights of way. It has added . . . the areas of outstanding natural beauty. We welcome all that.
- It has been my great privilege to have taken part in the shaping of a Bill that will give great pleasure to millions of people in the future.--[Official Report, House of Lords, 23 November 2000; Vol. 619, c. 1065-66.]
Lords amendments Nos. 1 and 2 will specifically provide that
- "mountain, moor, heath or down" does not include land which appears to the appropriate countryside body to consist of improved or semi-improved grassland.
Mr. David Kidney (Stafford): When my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment set out on this legislative procedure, he estimated that the Bill would open up access to about 4 million acres of mountain, moor, heath, down and registered common land. Does the amendment make a significant difference to that estimate?
Mr. Mullin: I do not expect that the amendment will make a significant difference to the estimate. However, it will, as I said, provide some clarity, which is what walkers and landowners wanted.
Part I provides for a right of access to all common land registered as such under the Commons Registration Act 1965. Lords amendments Nos. 3 and 38 will ensure that access to common land would be preserved if it was de-registered after the Bill had been enacted. They will ensure that any land removed from the registers by virtue of an application made after the date of Royal Assent will continue to be treated as registered common land for the purposes of the statutory right of access. That will not affect access to common land that is removed from the registers as a consequence of powers of exchange or compulsory purchase.
Lords amendment No. 34 will enable regulations to be made to avoid possible undesirable consequences arising from access land being treated as a public place under other legislation. We do not envisage many circumstances needing to be addressed in this way, but the power is likely to be useful in certain cases.
We have also recognised the concerns expressed about the impact of the right of access on occupiers' obligations under section 162 of the Mines and Quarries Act 1954. The Act provides that certain mine shafts and quarries that are accessible to, and pose a danger to, the public are to be regarded as statutory nuisances for the purposes of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 unless they are fenced.
Issues of occupiers' liability will be addressed later, in the fourth group of amendments that we shall consider. However, Lords amendment No. 34 will enable regulations to be made that would provide that access under the new statutory right may be disregarded in determining whether a disused mine shaft or quarry is a statutory nuisance. Such regulations would, in effect, relieve the owner of any burden to fence it under the 1990 Act, when that might arise under the new statutory right.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): I do not seek at this stage to cast aspersions on either the purpose or the likely effect of the regulations to which the Minister has just
referred, but it would be helpful if he explained whether they will be subject to the negative or the affirmative procedure.
Mr. Mullin: I believe that they will be subject to the affirmative procedure.
Mr. Kevin Hughes (Doncaster, North): It is the negative procedure.
Mr. Mullin: I am being advised that I am wrong, and that the regulations will be subject to the negative procedure. There has been a lot of debate on these matters.
Lords amendments Nos. 153, 154 and 156 except from the right of access any land within 20 m of a dwelling or a building used for housing livestock--that is just over 65 ft, to any Euro-sceptics. I do not think there are many present. Oh, yes, I see that there are. The amendments reflect the Government's response to genuine concerns about the impact of access on the privacy and security of people living on or adjacent to access land, and on the security of farm buildings. However, the exclusion of access from around farm buildings will not apply where the position of such buildings would effectively frustrate access.
Lords amendments Nos. 155 and 157 recognise the special needs of the racehorse training industry. We accept that there are real concerns about how best to reconcile the new right of access with the training of racehorses on land that qualifies as access land. We have listened to the racing industry and tabled the amendments to target action where it is needed. I believe that there is common ground between the Government and the racing industry that the exclusion of access from training gallops should not be more than is required to ensure the safety of employees, their horses and the public. The amendments therefore provide for land used for training racehorses to be excepted from access between sunrise and midday and at other times when the land is in use for that purpose.
Schedule 13 to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 imposes an obligation on the Countryside Agency to make an annual report to the Secretary of State on the exercise of its functions arising under the National Parks and Access to Countryside Act 1949, the Countryside Act 1968 and the 1981 Act. Lords amendment No. 171 extends those obligations to require a report on the exercise of those functions under the Bill.
Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire): I thank the Minister for the way in which he introduced the amendments and I place on record my appreciation of the courteous note that I received from the Minister for the Environment to explain his absence at the beginning of our proceedings.
I do not wish to repeat last night's debate, but the Opposition are concerned that the fractionally under five hours allowed for this large number of amendments is inadequate if we are to give them the attention that they deserve. The Minister rightly said that many of the amendments had been tabled in response to views expressed in Committee, but, as I shall show in a moment, the Government vigorously and robustly rejected many of those views, but did a U-turn when the Bill got to the other place.
We welcome the amendments. As hon. Members will have seen, we have tabled a few amendments to the Lords amendments and we will deal with them as we proceed. The purpose of our amendments is to clarify or refine the amendments made by their Lordships, which in general we welcome.
As the Minister rightly said, Lords amendments Nos. 1 and 2 exclude improved or semi-improved grassland from the definition of mountain, moor, heath and down. I think that the Minister used the phrase, "It will put beyond doubt" the fact that improved and semi-improved grassland is not included. In Committee, the Minister for the Environment said clearly:
- the cultivated land exception is not intended to be the mechanism for excluding improved or semi-improved pastures and fields from a right of access. Such land will not qualify as open country and should not appear on the statutory maps . . . If cultivated land were given a broader definition, to include any improved grassland, for instance, that would result in a considerable uncertainty and confusion as to whether such an area was excepted land or open country.---[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 6 April 2000; c. 167-68.]
The Opposition welcome the decision clearly to exclude improved and semi-improved grassland. The issue was debated at length in Committee with reference not only to England but to Wales, although the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) is not with us this evening.
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