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Mr. Chope: My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) is right. The issue was not glossed over in the Government's discussion document. In referring to situations in which the legislation might not apply, the document dealt with hedges that were already established. Effectively, the document says that if someone already has an established hedge it might be unreasonable to expect it to be cut down. Paragraph 5.43 on page 28 of the "High Hedges: Possible Solutions" consultation paper states:

"There may be a case for exempting from any system hedges which have previously been accepted as not causing a problem. It would be possible not to allow complaints from neighbours about hedges, unless they were bigger than when they moved into their neighbouring property."

That is exactly my point. I have described a case in which a property has been built after the hedge has already been planted. The document continues:

"This would prevent new owners from upsetting an arrangement which had previously been acceptable to occupiers on both sides of the hedge."

Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon): My main concern is that the new clause is somewhat prescriptive. I do not wish to stray into discussing later amendments, but has the hon. Gentleman looked at amendment No. 15 in my name and that of the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), which deals with this issue in a more discretionary way?

Mr. Chope: I have not yet looked at that amendment, but I look forward to the chance to consider the arguments in its favour that the hon. Gentleman and, no doubt, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst will deploy. I decided to concentrate on the new clauses and amendments in my name and to leave it to others with amendments to make their own arguments. The hon. Gentleman says that the new clause is prescriptive. It has the advantage of being clear and transparent. I do not know how it compares with his proposal for addressing the problem.

This issue is comparable to that of rights of light, which have to be established for 20 years. Someone who constructs a building very close to someone else's

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boundary wall or building cannot say that their right to light has been removed or interfered with. There is a prescriptive right to light but it must be established over a 20-year period. I am sure that the new clause will appeal to my fair-minded hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor).

Mrs. Claire Curtis-Thomas (Crosby): I would appreciate clarification of the words, "the hedge was established". Does that refer to the size of the hedge when the property or land was purchased? Could individuals make a claim for an onerous hedge if it exceeded the height that it was when the property or land was purchased?

Mr. Chope: No. Under my new clause, "established" means that as long as the hedge had been planted before the house was built, the owner of the hedge would have total immunity against any action that might be brought against him under the Bill. That seems a perfectly reasonable approach. Somebody may enjoy what they think is a view over urban wasteland--or a wildlife area or undeveloped land, depending on how one wants to describe it--and suddenly find that an opportunistic planning application has been made because someone else has been able to get access to the backland. Under the rigid planning guidelines imposed by the Government, planning permission will almost inevitably be granted for residential development, because such a site would be described as brown land. What are people to do in such cases? As I pointed out earlier, they should do their best to protect themselves against the loss of amenity that would inevitably result from the construction of the development.

Those people have no right to a view--no one is suggesting that they should--so they have no absolute right to veto such a development, but they can protect their own amenity and privacy, as many people choose to do. Of course, they could plant a yew hedge but that would take so long to grow that by the time it had grown to a sufficient height the houses against which people sought protection might have been there for five, 10 or 15 years. Fortunately, the development of varieties of fast-growing conifer means that it is possible to plant a conifer that will grow so rapidly that it would have almost reached the height of the houses before they were fully constructed. In other circumstances, of course, that might be a nightmare for people and that is why I am not absolutely opposed to the Bill. However, in the circumstances that I describe, it is reasonable that a householder should have protection against the taking down or trimming back of his hedge because a neighbour has chosen to build and occupy a house at the end or side of his garden.

People will say that it is possible that such issues could be taken into account by local authorities when they decide whether it would be reasonable to enforce an action against an occupier of land. However, what is so undesirable about some aspects of the Bill is that there may be more than 10 million people with hedges in excess of 2 m in height--as defined by the Bill--who may be worried out of their minds; they are law-abiding citizens and they will be concerned that their gardens and their aspect could be ruined as a result of the arbitrary actions of an unreasonable local authority, or neighbours who are

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very much against tree protection. In drafting his Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull has not taken those worries sufficiently into account.

Last Saturday, I did some market-testing in Christchurch of some of the ideas reflected in the amendments. First, I encountered complete ignorance of the extent of the restrictions on personal freedom contemplated in the Bill. Householders told me that they had no idea that they could be ordered to have the hedge at the end of their garden chopped down to 6 ft or 2 m. I saw cupressus trees that are established parts of the landscape; ironically, the owner of one such tree wants to have it taken down, but because it is more than 18 ft tall, he has to obtain permission from the local authority--for nothing more than a large and well-established macrocarpa. If and when that tree is taken down, the fact that the owner would be unable to replace it with a hedge that could exceed 2 m is anathema to him. I hope, therefore, that the new clause will find favour with hon. Members.

Amendment No. 58 changes the definition of a high hedge so that instead of the present definition of

"two or more adjacent evergreens",

it would be

"six or more adjacent evergreens".

Again, my concern is that the Bill is over the top. In common parlance, a hedge is made up of many more than two shrubs or trees. If one talks about a hedge in the local pub or Conservative club, people do not say, "Oh, you mean any two trees in your garden which happen to be adjacent." The image in their mind is of a specific grouping of trees or shrubs in a line. It is extraordinary that the Bill uses a definition of "hedge" so narrow that it would include almost every evergreen tree or shrub more than 6 ft high.

It is not clear whether the campaign being waged by Hedgeline--an important single-issue pressure group--is against only cupressus and leylandii hedges made up of many individual plants that create an overwhelming threat to light and make people feel closed in. The definition in the Bill is far too wide. I realise that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst has tabled an amendment similar to mine--the numbers involved are slightly different--but to ensure that the Bill accords with common parlance, my amendment would provide that a hedge should be defined as having six or more adjacent evergreens.

Maria Eagle: My constituency is somewhat different to that of the hon. Gentleman; it has smaller properties with smaller grounds. Many of the cases brought to my attention by constituents relate to problems caused when two or three trees are planted closely together in a small garden and a nuisance due to lack of light quickly develops. If the amendment were accepted, I am concerned that it could create a loophole and lead to cases such as I described, which are the very ones that the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) is trying to deal with. I understand where the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) is coming from, but is he not concerned that the amendment would render the Bill unable to deal with some of the very cases for which it is designed?

Mr. Chope: I hear what the hon. Lady says, but for how many cases is the Bill designed? Later, we shall

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discuss enforcement, costs and the number of people who will be adversely affected. In the light of future experience, we might find that some problem hedges are not caught by the current definition, although I have my doubts. Let us deal with the serious problems--

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Chope: I shall give way in a moment--I am answering the question put by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle).

If one defines almost every evergreen tree of more than 6 ft in height, in any garden in the country, as a potential subject of complaint, one is opening the floodgates to an enormous number of applications to local authorities, an enormous amount of wasted local authority time, and--most important, from my point of view--an enormous amount of unnecessary anxiety for the owners of the trees and shrubs in question.

In amendment No. 58, I am trying to bring us back to reality and say that a hedge is not two trees or shrubs but a minimum of six planted together in a line. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle) does not think that that is a reasonable definition. I know that, in common parlance, a hedge normally comprises trees or shrubs of the same species or variety. I am not limiting the definition to that in my amendment.

It is no surprise that people have not woken up to the threat that they face from the narrow definition of hedge in the Bill. It is not even narrow enough for the drafters of the Bill; they have included the power in clause 16 to define a hedge as a single tree.

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