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Earl Ferrers: My Lords, he said that I had congratulated him on his maiden speech. But we all make errors of judgment. The noble Lord has never stopped talking since, and after some of the comments he has made subsequently, I might have been more modest in my congratulations. However, he has been a great and loyal supporter of the Conservative Party and in your Lordships' House that is a good thing. He, too, said some nice words to which I listened with pleasure. He said--I regarded it as a great compliment--that sometimes he had listened to my answers to some of the stupid questions that I was asked and cried with laughter. And then he asked me three stupid questions. He might just as well start crying with laughter now because I shall give him the answers to them.
The noble Lord kindly let me know the questions that he would ask. First, will the guidance notes accompany the regulations and will they be consulted on very soon? The answer is yes, that is the intention. Secondly, will those who apply to remove the hedgerow have to pay a fee? The answer is no. Thirdly, if a hedgerow becomes an important hedgerow does it incur a land charge? The answer to that is no.
My noble friend Lord Peel said that he did not want to end a relationship on a sour note. But no relationship is ended. Nothing from my noble friend would ever be on a sour note. I have forgotten the question that he asked. All I have written down is "hedgerows". I presume that he asked a question on hedgerows. I shall read Hansard and ensure that he has a reply.
My noble friend Lord Marlesford is sitting there, the chairman of the Council for the Protection of Rural England. I was not quite certain whether he welcomed the regulations. He said that my heart was in the right place. Of course it is in the right place--he should know that. He said that he had made some mistakes when he was young. The only trouble is that he continues to make them and he has no regrets. Then he made an absurd suggestion. He asked why on earth should hedgerows be allowed to be pulled out after having been planted only 30 years because they had been planted with public money. Of course they have not been planted with public money. Farmers who have planted hedgerows have had the benefit of grants, as they have had for a number of things. If my noble friend suggests that any hedge ever planted must stay there sacrosanct, he has much to consider and understand.
But the thing that really distresses me about my noble friend is that there he is, the head of this great institution, badgering on that we must have hedgerow regulations. He has been running around like a headless chicken asking, "When are we going to have these regulations?" Now we have produced them. And what does the Council for the Protection of Rural England say? I shall tell your Lordships. The council issued a press release. And what was the press release headed? It is headed,
- "CPRE slates hedgerows S.I.".
I quote the council's own press release. It states:
- "CPRE has slammed the statutory instrument ... for protecting 'important' hedgerows which the Government laid before Parliament today...Sir Angus Stirling, Chairman of CPRE's Policy Committee said:
- 'These regulations are almost worse than having no regulations at all'."
Yet my noble friend Lord Marlesford runs around saying, "We must have these regulations". And when we produce them that is all that his council can say. I just wish that his council and his chairman spoke with a single tongue. My noble friend has some odd ideas. He said that he would rather have nuclear reactors in the countryside than wind farms. Whether that represents the views of the CPRE, I do not know. But the CPRE and my noble friend seem to walk out of step with each other. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has gone out of his way to meet the views of the CPRE and others. I think that they might have given him more acclamation than that.
Having said that, my noble friend lives close to me. I know him well. I am delighted to see him smiling away. I hope that he will talk to me after this. But I think he talks a lot of rubbish sometimes and this evening was one such time.
I am grateful for the enthusiastic welcome that your Lordships have given to these hedgerow regulations. I commend the regulations.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Adjournment
9.7 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, in moving the adjournment of the House I wish to say the customary word of thanks to all those who have worked so hard to ensure the efficient running of your Lordships' House throughout this Session, and indeed throughout this Parliament. It has been only a few weeks since Christmas and this Session has been shorter than a normal Session. However, I am sure that your Lordships will agree with me that everyone has worked extremely hard, particularly in the past few weeks, to ensure the orderly completion of business in this House.
As always, I do not wish to draw particular attention to any specific individuals or groups of staff since to do so would run the risk of failing to name some key individual or group. My thanks are to all the staff of this House. Seen and unseen, they do so much to make your Lordships' lives as bearable and pleasant as possible in
and around the House. I am sure that the Whole House will join with me in wishing all of the staff a peaceful and happy Prorogation and Dissolution Recess.I also wish to use this opportunity to thank the other members of the usual channels for the spirit of co-operation which has, almost without exception, been the rule throughout this Session. It is an extraordinary tribute to this House that we can, even under conditions of great political excitement, continue to proceed by way of agreement in arranging our business. The result is that your Lordships' House is able to scrutinise legislation in a calm and efficient atmosphere--and long may that continue!
Perhaps I may say just one word which may break all sorts of conventions and refer to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor. The House will have seen that he has announced his retirement at the general election. On behalf of the Government at this Dispatch Box I should like to thank him for the tremendous years of service and for the hours that he has sat on the Woolsack, always patient, always clear in his instructions and always kind and generous to his colleagues on the Front Bench.
Tributes have already been paid to my noble friend Lord Ferrers. However, while I am on my feet and seeing that they are in the Chamber, perhaps I may also mention my noble friends Lady Trumpington and Lord Goschen, who have also announced their retirement at the general election.
As for the Opposition, they have had plenty of practice over the course of the past 18 years to become good at it. I hope that the Whole House agrees that in the course of the past few years they have become extremely good at it. It is my wish that, when we return in May, they shall remain practising that art of Opposition while we remain in government.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, in the unavoidable absence of my noble friend the Opposition Chief Whip, it falls to his very inadequate substitute to say that we on these Benches wish to associate ourselves most warmly with all the remarks made by the Government Chief Whip--
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Except the last ones!
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: --except the last ones! Like him, I should find it invidious to name any names because I, too, know from bitter experience that, however many individuals are thanked, there is always that one who is inadvertently omitted and who will never, ever forgive the omitter for the rest of his life.
Even though I am a substitute for the Government Chief Whip--
Noble Lords: Opposition Chief Whip!
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, I must not anticipate matters!
When I received the order that I should carry out this agreeable task, I did not realise that I was in for one of the greatest comic performances I have ever heard at the Dispatch Box by that master of comic performances, the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers. I mean this quite sincerely. For a short time in my past I was a professional actor. However, I have never heard anybody time the remarks that he makes better than the noble Earl. I have sat in admiration on many occasions and wished that he could teach me how he does it.
I shall make one small change to what I just said about not mentioning anybody in particular. Perhaps I may thank and pay special tribute to all the attendants in your Lordships' Chamber, the Doorkeepers, who want your notes when you have finished with them and fail to see you waving vital communications when they are looking straight at you, and who rebuke with a terrible severity any noble Lord who trespasses unbeknown on some arcane rule, convention or practice of this House. They can be at times a terrifying group. John Donne, in one of his satires, refers to, "the great eight-foot high iron-bound serving men"--which fits nearly all of them since "Jumper" Collins retired. They all look like and resemble in so many ways regimental sergeant majors in the Brigade of Guards. However, as they get to know you, and if you behave yourself in a proper fashion and do pass their test, you become a sort of "persona grata", rather like the young second lieutenant who is looked on in a grandfatherly way by the regimental sergeant major as a young fellow who might one of these days make something of himself.
I agree with the Government Chief Whip that the usual channels have, fortunately, flowed unblocked in this Parliament. I say nothing of what has passed through those channels--but it has been of great assistance to organic farming and we should have a bumper crop next year!
Finally, and bearing in mind the verbal punch-up which seems to have taken place earlier today in another place and which surprised me, I thank all noble Lords on behalf of all of us on these Benches for the good relationships, good taste and good humour that has almost always characterised our debates and deliberations.
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