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6.15 pm

Lord Judd: I warmly endorse the noble Lord's remarks. I have put my name to some of his amendments. He has put the case comprehensively and well. I wish to underline two issues. The first concerns the issue of byways open to all traffic, colloquially known as BOATs. It is difficult to overstate the problem we now face. I am well acquainted with the national parks. We are aware that for Exmoor National Park Authority alone, 36 applications to reclassify are pending. In the past year, in one part of the Yorkshire Dales alone, 30 footpaths and bridleways have been targeted for upgrade to BOATs by the Trail Riders Fellowship. In the Sussex part of the South Downs, an existing area of outstanding natural beauty, there are nearly 80 byway claims, many deposited in the past few months. I always make a firm principle of the importance of no retrospection in British legislation. It is a cornerstone of the kind of legal system we want to have in our society. However, I believe that there has been an abuse here. It has been clear since the consultation process began that there were to be new provisions. There has been a tremendous amount of sheer naked opportunism in seeking to use the intervening period before legislation becomes applicable to rush in those applications. In that context, the spirit of retrospection is not bridged if one fits a cut-off date, which is the time when any reasonable person can be clear that the new situation will exist. I am somewhat distressed—I hope that I do not use the wrong word—that so many people could be so opportunistic.

There is an overlap between those who want to seize the interim period to put in their claims and the needs of disabled drivers which have come more into focus in recent times. There is an issue here. I should like to see access to the countryside all the time being improved for the disabled. However, I am a little fearful that some shenanigans are going on: that the disabled are being used in an unacceptable way to open up a situation. That is deplorable. It might be helpful to draw attention to some of the opportunities which exist. While those who utilise electric buggies to access these ways are excluded from prosecution from driving on restricted byways, the position is unclear as regards specially adapted four-wheel drive or motorcycle use. The Minister's observations would be useful.

In the mean time, there is a need to encourage highways authorities to recognise the needs of disabled vehicular users as part of their duty to prepare a "rights of way improvement plan" which could assess whether some routes would be appropriate for creating agreements in order to improve disabled vehicular access. There may also be the opportunity to improve permissive access for disabled vehicles through negotiations with public landowners—for example, the Forestry Commission, the Ministry of Defence and
 
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utility companies—which have experience of negotiating restricted access to sites which they manage.

While national park authorities own only a small amount of land, they also have an impressive track record of making improvements to assist with rambles and access for the disabled. The Disabled Ramblers charity, which organises challenging rambles using a wide variety of mobility aids ranging from electrically powered pavement buggies, scooters, wheelchairs and, in some cases, manually propelled wheelchairs, has a 2006 programme that focuses on and encompasses most of the national parks.

Specific partnership initiatives include Exmoor National Park Authority's and the National Trust's three "Easy Access" sites in the park. These are properly constructed, fairly level footpaths in beautiful locations for use by disabled people—those with wheelchairs, buggies and so on.

Another initiative is the Black Mountains Cross Border Demonstration Project of which the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority is a partner. This has specifically targeted the rugged landscape of the Black Mountains, improving access points and providing information to people with a varying range of disabilities.

The opportunities are there and they need to be strengthened. There may be room for clarification by the Minister on the specially adapted four-wheel drive vehicle. In supporting the noble Lord, I emphasise that there has been a despicable amount of opportunism. We need to be firm about that opportunism. The Government have accepted the principle we pursue. The only difference relates to the date on which the regulations should become operative.

Viscount Bridgeman: I support my noble friends on our Front Bench and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, on Amendment No. 318A. The subject featured last week in "The Archers" and, if nothing else, that reflects the concern the issue has raised in the countryside.

A number of respected off-road bodies have given undertakings, I am sure in good faith, that their members will behave responsibly on the BOATs for which they make application. But we must be realistic. We cannot expect there to be a marshal from one of these bodies posted at every threatened green lane site to ask if the rider can produce his membership card. The reply that they would get defies imagination. The fact is there is a vast body of opportunistic, off-roaders who will have nothing to do with any of these organisations.

I am aware that the green lanes group and others would have preferred no exemptions from the measures proposed in the Bill and that would have avoided the disadvantages of arbitrary dates. Applications separated by only one day in the past would have received radically different treatments. However, I accept that the bodies representing the trail riders and off-roaders would feel a certain sense of injustice, real or imagined, if that line was adopted.
 
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Therefore, with some reservations I accept the spirit of government Amendment No. 318. My reservations are that Amendment No. 318 does not go far enough back in setting a cut-off date. However, Amendment No. 318A, in the names of my noble friends Lady Byford and the Duke of Montrose, and the noble Lords, Lord Bradshaw and Lord Berkeley, goes further in taking the date as proposed in Clause 2(3)(a) in Amendment No. 318 back from 19 May 2005 to 9 December 2003—the date of publication of the consultation paper to which the noble Lord, Lord Judd, referred.

I hope the Committee will appreciate that this is not simply an attempt to get, as it were, a larger slice of the cake. There is no doubt that certain interests deliberately flooded local authorities with applications once the discussion document was published so as to get under the wire, as it were. I understand that 1,000 applications were put in between the two dates. The date of 9 December 2003 has a logic—and I venture to say an equitable logic—behind it, and I very much support it.

Viscount Falkland: This may be an opportune moment for me to speak to my Amendment No. 310ZB in this group and to Amendment No. 369 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, who unhappily is unable to be here. That is unhappy for me but happy for him as I understand that he is lecturing on a cruise ship in the Pacific.

I discussed with the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, how I should approach his amendment, with which I have great sympathy. I have been approached by many noble Lords in the Lobbies today and yesterday who said that they were looking forward to opposing what they thought would be my spirited defence of off-road motorcycling. I am afraid that they will be disappointed. In principle I have great sympathy with the measure, as does the noble Lord, Lord Jopling. After all, the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, represented with distinction over many years a rural constituency with countryside of great natural beauty. He and I have both been connected with motorcycle activities that take place within Parliament and elsewhere. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, has been concerned more specifically with sporting events, which gives him a greater interest in off-road motorcycle competitions. However, it may come as no surprise to the Committee that neither of us is a recreational off-road motorcyclist. Those who ride off-road motorcycles are generally young—you have to be. When we learnt to ride motorcycles—in my case that was over 50 years ago, and I think that is probably the case with the noble Lord, Lord Jopling—there were no such things as off-road motorcycles. I have just been reminded that there were machines called farm bikes, which are now called cannabilised motorcycles, which were converted to go, at some risk to the rider, across rough countryside. Nowadays, the motorcycle industry caters for a large customer base of young people who want to ride off road and provides them with technologically very sophisticated machines with which to do so. With the spending power that is
 
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available to them they will buy those machines and use them. There is a growing problem in that regard. The perception is that a great number of young people ride irresponsibly and dangerously over our beautiful countryside. In fact, it is a small minority. As always, a small group of people destroy the rights and pleasures of others. There is no denying that some ride in a way that shows little consideration for other users of byways and green lanes and areas used by walkers, horse riders and others.

These amendments seek only to mitigate the rather drastic measure of cutting the time during which correct and proper applications can be made for the right to use these byways. It was considered in 2000 that it would take 20 years to create a proper map and arrive at a responsible and proper sharing out of our countryside among users. The public and other user groups such as walkers, ramblers and so on can be forgiven for having perceptions that are not entirely realistic. Their perception is that the main culprits in this regard are motorcyclists and other vehicle users. They certainly have a high profile.

We accept that public opinion will hold sway, that the Government represent public opinion and that therefore they are introducing legislation which effectively curtails the activities not only of the small minority who ride irresponsibly, noisily and dangerously and cause great damage but also of responsible, law-abiding people. We are asking for a 12-month delay after Royal Assent to get some of the outstanding claims settled. My amendment asks the Government to suspend rather than extinguish rights. The relevant powers already exist, certainly as regards motorcyclists, to take action where damage and nuisance are caused. But nothing has happened. It is extremely difficult to enforce the law in this area. I see nothing in the new regime which will change that situation. In fact, it may make it even worse because the responsible user groups and clubs which usually comprise mainly young but sometimes older people who ride these machines will obey the law. However, those who are not minded to obey the law will continue to behave as they always have done, and the activity will grow.

How will these activities in the countryside be policed? To do that effectively a great deal of money will have to be spent creating a police force somewhat like the police support system that we have in your Lordships' House, with police officers equipped with motorcycles to chase people. It would be rather like the Wild West with police officers forming posses to chase those causing damage in the countryside, thereby compounding the whole problem. However, that is the situation in which we shall find ourselves. For that reason my amendment asks the Government to consider suspension rather than the extinguishing of rights.

Other byway and green lane users will be affected by the legislation. Some people use vehicles, whether two-wheel or four-wheel, to do many other things than jump over hillocks or perform acrobatics in the countryside.
 
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There are those who go fishing, hang-gliding, or bird-watching—all these people use vehicles to arrive at a place where they can start to pursue their leisure activity. Effectively, it will be easier to police those people than it will be to police those on two wheels who are on the Ridgeway or in peak areas of Britain. But it would be easy for an over-zealous policeman—heaven forbid that one may exist—to stop somebody going up a green lane with his car and fishing tackle, or to go up a lane bird-watching than it will be to catch those who the public, and the Government presumably, now see as the main offenders.

That is the situation that I would like to put before your Lordships at this stage. I spoke to the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, and there is no intention to divide the House at any stage on our amendments. We just seek to bring a sense of reality into the situation and to point out that the countryside is becoming more and more a place for recreation and relaxation. My noble friend Lord Bradshaw referred to the historical origins of these rights of way and byways. He is quite right; they go back hundreds of years. They were mostly for the transporting of agricultural workers and their tools and produce, who used them to go from villages to areas where they had to work. They were useful and were encouraged by landowners because that was the way the countryside then worked.

We now live in a different world, a world where everyone feels so empowered, which they have every right to be in a democracy. After all, that is what we aim for in a democracy—that everybody should have more rights, more ability and more freedoms. But unfortunately there are too many people who abuse their freedoms and think only of their own activity at the expense of the enjoyment of others. That is the sense that I get from the remarks that I have heard from other noble Lords and I agree with their concerns. What I do not agree with is the assumption that this legislation will end the problem. I suggest that it will only aggravate it.

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