Examination of witnesses (Questions 100
- 112)
WEDNESDAY 24 NOVEMBER 1999
MR TONY
BURTON and MR
ALASTAIR RUTHERFORD
100. You would not describe them as a bunch
of NIMBYs who are trying to keep the countryside nice for themselves
and preventing other people being able to make more use of it
or live in it?
(Mr Burton) Not at all. CPRE is positively supporting
a great deal of development that is taking place in rural England.
It is positively supporting new measures to improve the quality
of life for people living in rural areas and tackling the problems
of social exclusion and it is representative of a huge interest
that people have in the countryside, particularly those living
in urban areas who wish to see it protected and enjoyed for generations
to come.
(Mr Rutherford) I can give you a specific example
of that. It was in some of the farming press just recently about
a cheese producer in Cornwall who had done exactly what CPRE advocated
in its agricultural policy about diversifying and adding value
to the product. It has been so successful that you can buy the
cheese in your supermarket if you want to. He needs to expand
his enterprise to do that and there have been local objections
to that but I am very pleased that the CPRE at a local level actually
endorsed and gave backing to the expansion of the enterprise.
We are not an organisation that says "no" to all development,
we are an organisation that says "yes" to the right
kind of development in rural areas.
101. What do you think about this Performance
and Innovation Unit rural report which seems to have been put
together by a couple of scribblers in the Cabinet Office and it
seems to me to be taking account of rural toy towns where all
of the farms are making clotted cream and selling it at their
farm gate? What do you think about that report?
(Mr Rutherford) Unfortunately we have not seen the
report.
102. You have seen the reports of the report.
(Mr Rutherford) We have seen the reports of the report.
We know that early versions of the report were released to The
Times and have been selectively reported. Some of the ideas
that were selectively reported we would have concerns with if
that was the sum total of what was in the PIU's statement but,
to be honest, we do not think that is what is the sum total. I
think it will probably be a collection of some quite interesting
ideas, some perhaps a little naive as you suggest but others will
probably be very useful in invigorating thinking.
103. Including building on prime agricultural
land?
(Mr Rutherford) That is not exactly what the report
recommended as I understood it. What it was saying was that the
mechanism that we have got, the Agricultural Land Classification
System, which protects the most versatile agricultural land, does
not take into account other purposes for the countryside, whether
that is a recreational purpose or whether that is protecting the
landscape or a wide range of other issues. What it was saying
was that we need to get a better balance into deciding how we
develop agricultural land in the countryside. What we would say
is that you do not scrap the current mechanism until you have
got something better in its place. I think we need to see the
full report and to see the recommendations.
104. Do you believe that it matters, the way
you describe the proposals that Professor Crow is putting forward?
You can either talk about it being two new towns every other year
or 33,000 houses a year spread over the whole of the South East.
How would you describe the proposition that Professor Crow is
putting forward?
(Mr Burton) We could describe it in all sorts of ways,
not all of which could be repeated. What is important is that
people are made aware of the implications of the Crow Report for
the South East and other parts of the country. To describe that
in terms of five cities the size of Southampton more than the
local authorities are putting forward or enough houses to line
both sides of a road stretching from London to Hawaii, I feel
is a very effective way of communicating the scale of the development
which is being suggested and people can then make their own minds
up as to whether they want it or not.
105. But it is completely misleading, is it
not, because no-one is proposing a highway from here to Hawaii
or necessarily five cities the size of Southampton?
(Mr Burton) I fear that the area of planning expansion
may well develop into something akin to five new Southamptons
remembering that the planning period does not end in 2016. Once
that sort of engine of development starts it is almost impossible
to turn off again, as we have seen in the South East as a whole.
106. I do not know whether you have ever come
to Essex, which is the part of the country I represent.
(Mr Burton) A delightful part.
107. Most of the housing proposed for Essex
is in the part of South East Essex that I represent. May I ask
you, do you ever come down there and have a look at the green
belt and some of these sites that we have around Essex, meaning
our part of Essex and particularly the Thames Corridor, where
there are really very large expanses of land which are frankly
derelict and horrible and would not be despoiled by some of this
new development? Do you go around and look at it or do you just
go to these little villages?
(Mr Burton) No. I have seen a great deal of tatty
development and I have visited many parts of the East Thames Corridor
and the Thames Gateway, including parts of Essex. The value of
that green belt is its openness. The reason it is designated as
green belt is because it is open land, not because of its environmental
quality. A solution to the tattiness, to the dereliction, to the
decay that we see in a very small part of the green belt is positive
land management and positive policies to improve the look of that
land. It is not a weakening of green belt policy and approval
for new development. That is why we are pushing for improvement
grants for the urban fringe countryside and it is one of the benefits
that we have received from some of the shifts in agricultural
policy as well.
108. A lot of it is a dumping ground, meaning
landfill sites, for parts of London and other areas around about.
I am going to ask you, do you think that some of the remarks that
you make, including the idea of the five towns the size of Southampton,
are very helpful in the public's appreciation of this whole business
about people want more houses or they want larger houses to live
in? Are you being helpful or are you not just proselytising the
rather limited views of certain people who happen to have nice
comfortable homes in the countryside?
(Mr Burton) I think it is extremely helpful and I
think that the quality of the public debate about the Crow report
needs to be substantially improved. CPRE will do what it can to
improve the quality of that debate.
Mr Gray
109. I was slightly concerned by your answer
about the PIU report which I thought was slightly weasly. Surely
I am right in thinking that the CPRE would oppose the building
of houses on prime agricultural land, is that not the case?
(Mr Burton) By and large we support the protection
of the best and most versatile land as an environmental resource
and the Royal Commission for Environmental Pollution endorsed
that in its key report a few years ago. There is no question that
the policies for protecting Grades 1, 2 and 3A have been among
the most important in protecting the countryside from development.
What we are not saying is that they are anything other than crude
instruments. What we need is a wider recognition that that land
is valuable for other reasons in addition to it protection for
agriculture, in terms of its contribution to landscape, opportunities
for recreation and wildlife.
(Mr Rutherford) I think part of the debate here is
the confusion over what is in the study because part of the study
is not in the public domain. One of the things that we have called
for is to get this study into the public domain. It can contribute
to the Rural White Paper process, it can contribute to the Ministry
of Agriculture's review of agriculture and future directions for
farming and also it can be very valuable in terms of this Committee's
study.
Chairman
110. I do think that this Committee is very
keen to see it. Is a Ministry for Rural Affairs necessary to bring
the White Paper forward?
(Mr Burton) It depends what you mean by a Ministry
for Rural Affairs because it could be constructed in a number
of different ways. We do not think you need a Ministry for Rural
Affairs which takes the environmental bits or the countryside
bits out of DETR and lumps them with MAFF and creates some champion
for the countryside. We do think, however, you need to fundamentally
change the culture and the approach of the Ministry for Agriculture.
Creating a separate Ministry under the first scenario, would create
a weak Ministry. It would separate the countryside from the machinery
of Government as a whole and become just a pressure group within
Government. Crucially when it tried to do anything it would constantly
have to go to talk to planning, talk to local Government, talk
to transport, talk to other parts of Government and it would be
devoid of the powers to deliver. What we do think is that the
Ministry for Agriculture needs to change, it needs new terms of
reference, new objectives, changes in its culture and in its staff,
and new mechanisms within Government as a whole which would ensure
that MAFF integrates across Government, particularly through the
Public Service Agreements and the mechanisms for rural proofing
which we have already described.
111. Do you think this idea of a Rural White
Paper and an Urban White Paper makes sense? Would you not accept
that if you took somewhere like Pott Shrigley or somewhere like
Allendale and Upper Weirdale, they are so different that they
do not really need to be linked as countryside, they have much
more common problems with some urban areas?
(Mr Burton) I think you are right. I think it is a
pragmatic and an understandable response from Government though
to produce two separate White Papers. From basic principles you
are right that many of the issues are fundamentally the same but
it needs to be divided up in some way and this was as pragmatic
a way as the Government could see.
112. Do you think it is a good way?
(Mr Burton) I think it will be helpful if it raises
the quality of debate and delivers positive initiatives. What
we do not want is simply a discussion of the issues without an
action plan to deliver them. The key test of the Rural White Paper
and the Urban White Paper will be that we are still talking about
them and they are still relevant two or three years after they
have been published.
(Mr Rutherford) What we would not want coming out
of the process is a blanket solution for rural areas treating
them as though they were common and uniform and had the same kinds
of problems and, indeed, opportunities. The Rural White Paper
should definitely recognise that and try to identify the concern
that you have pointed out yourself that rural areas are different,
they have got different needs, they have got different opportunities
and, therefore, the policy should be tailored to suit that.
Chairman: On that note, can I thank you very
much for your evidence.
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