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Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): Coming to debate Lords amendments to a Bill of this nature and size, which took so long to consider in Committee, is almost like revisiting an old friend. In this case, the old friend appears to have changed since we last saw him or her, having undergone major cosmetic surgery that has been all to the good. In the Bill's long Committee stage and later stages in the House, we gave admonitions that it should to go away, smarten up and put on new clothes. It is as if all those admonitions had been taken to heart and, I am pleased to say, the Bill is much better as a result.
There may be several reasons for that, as the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) said. We made substantial arguments in Committee and during the Bill's later stages, but perhaps their effect was delayed and it took time for Ministers to see the good sense of our proposals. Perhaps we should accept the possibility that the greater skills of advocacy of Members of the other place were responsible. I should like to put on the record a tribute to Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer and my other noble Friends who did an admirable job on the Bill. I should also like to record my thanks to Ministers for listening to us. It would be otiose to list all our amendments that were accepted, but had they not been, the Bill would have remained deeply flawed. It is much less flawed now, and I wish it well. Some points of contention remain, but on the whole, it is a much better Bill.
5.30 pm
The group of amendments that we are currently considering includes a new definition of agricultural land,
and exemptions from the definition of open country. We pressed for that in Committee. I am not persuaded by amendment (a), which the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire tabled, because--contrary to the comments of the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean)--it would introduce a new anomaly.It was suggested that there was no qualification of amendment No. 2, which includes the phrase,
- appears to the appropriate countryside body.
Amendments Nos. 153 to 157, which apply to the area immediately surrounding dwelling houses, and--following moves by my noble Friends and others in another place--extend the provisions to cover buildings in which animals are kept, are extremely welcome. They will do a great deal to allay the fears of those who are worried about night access. I stress that the original measure needed to provide for a right to challenge someone who acts suspiciously near a property or domestic animals. The amendments would allow that because the land that immediately surrounds the buildings will not constitute part of the land to which people have access. That is an important consideration, which is now incorporated in the Bill.
I welcome amendments Nos. 155 and 157, which deal with racehorse gallops. Those sensible provisions should have been included in the original measure. The matter could have been tackled quickly in Committee; that would have been preferable to the protracted process that occurred. However, we got them in the end. Racehorse trainers in my constituency, as well as in that of the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire, will welcome the amendments because they improve safety and will allow them to carry on their business appropriately and safely.
We are considering a good group of amendments, which improves the Bill. The amendments were tabled largely at the suggestion of Liberal Democrat and Conservative Members. I hope that they will be incorporated in the Bill.
Mr. Maclean: The amendments constitute an improvement, as far as they go. Like my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), I have some anxieties about them. Of course, one welcomes an amendment that exempts "improved or semi-improved grassland". However, I am worried that such exemption will be at the discretion of the appropriate countryside body, which would be the Countryside Agency.
The Countryside Agency is skilled in many ways and has some expertise; it would have more expertise if the Government were less parsimonious with funding. It is currently suffering dire cuts. Perhaps proper funding would enable it to be the "appropriate countryside body" and to exercise perfect discretion in determining what
constitutes "improved or semi-improved grassland". However, the Minister could be laying himself open to legal challenges in future.
Mr. Mullin: The right hon. Gentleman may know that an extra £17 million has been announced for the Countryside Agency today. Some £10 million will be used for initiatives that were announced in the rural White Paper, which was published today. Additional resources include £2.2 million for rural transport and £3.5 million for areas of outstanding natural beauty and for preparations for the introduction of access to open country. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept that, far from facing cuts, the Countryside Agency will benefit from a substantial increase in its budget.
Mr. Maclean: The Countryside Agency has been thrown a few sweeties and bawbees today, but they do not make up for the cuts that it has suffered during the past three years under this Government, especially since the previous bodies were amalgamated. The amalgamated agency did not have double the budget of the two agencies that it replaced. I shall not discuss the £2.5 million rural transport budget because I do not want to stray from the amendment. The new transport initiative of £15 million, which was announced today, involves about £300,000 per county, which should buy us a few scooters and mopeds in Cumbria, but that is all.
As for improved and semi-improved grassland, I suggest to the Minister that there will be many circumstances--I can think of hundreds in my constituency--in which it would be a matter of dispute whether grassland was improved, or semi-improved. The land around many hill farms is flat, or flatter, land--it may not be low-level land--and it is clearly improved or subject to cultivation. It may even be arable. At the tops of the mountains, one clearly reaches completely unimproved mountain land. However, there is a grey area, which in Cumbria is known as "inby" land.
The lower level of such inby land certainly looks like improved grassland. Anyone could see that bracken had been controlled and stones removed and one could guess from the difference in the grass quality that nitrogen had been put on it at some point during the past 30 years. However, it would probably not have been improved during the past few years, because farmers have had no money to make such an input. Higher up, however, inby land has not been improved, particularly during the past few years, because of the dire situation in farming. Grants would have been given in the 1950s and 1960s to deal with bracken, take the land in hand and improve it and to turn more of the mountainside into better quality grassland. However, if land is not touched for 20 or 30 years, bracken makes a quick comeback, as do brambles, whins--or gorse, as I should say in England--and birch trees.
To the uninitiated--to many people--inby land will resemble cleanish mountain land; it will certainly not resemble arable fields or the grass fields that many people expect to see in the countryside. The question is whether such land is improved or semi-improved grassland. Unless the Countryside Agency allows experts from the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service or other qualified organisations and farm advisory services to say, "Yes, that is improved or semi-improved grassland," and allows a nitrogen reading or a soil sample to be taken, how will it determine the matter?
The appropriate countryside agency will have to determine whether land is improved or semi-improved grassland, and I would be content to leave it to make that judgment if the Minister guaranteed that, even if the agency were minded to say, "No, it ain't," representations would be heard or evidence taken that, at some point in the past 30 years nitrogen had been put on the land in question, the brambles and bracken had been cut or other measures had been taken to improve it.
Mr. John M. Taylor (Solihull): In my part of England, where we refer to gorse rather than whins, although I like the latter word, there has been an increasing tendency for grassland--or, for that matter, shrubland or woodland--to be converted into golf courses. I have no great objection to that because golf is a game that I like, but the number of courses is increasing at an alarming pace. Does my right hon. Friend have a view on that, in terms of ecology, habitat and the use of the natural environment?
Mr. Maclean: I certainly have, and I could expatiate on it at length, but I shall not do so in the context of the amendment, except to say that schedule 1 deals with golf courses. In Cumbria, we have some golf courses that are quite high up the hillside and, because they are 1,800 ft above sea level, they might almost fall under the definition of "mountain".
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