| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Baroness Young of Old Scone: My Lords, I stand to support Amendment No. 52. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising the letter from Mr Jim Knight which was also copied to a number of us with an interest in this issue. The letter, dated 13 March, also kindly gave us a draft text of guidance that could have dealt with the issue of conflict resolution, and indeed was very much in line with the position I proposed in Committee, which I hoped the Minister was taking away. I was therefore pleased to see a copy of the letter, though I was a bit downcast when I learnt, round about 5.35 tonight, that the letter had been passed over and was no longer the Government's intention. I know a week is meant to be a long time in politics, but it appears that two days is now a pretty long time. I am confused about what the Government's position on conflict resolution will be. I understand that we are not to expect that guidance will be forthcoming on this issue and so I want to talk to the substantive issue of the amendment, which would not have been necessary if guidance had been promised.
I will use the briefing that many of your Lordships will have received from the Country Land and Business Association in relation to this amendment. The association gave an example where it thought it would be inappropriate for there to be guidance or anything on the face of the Bill saying that conservation and landscape should take precedence in extreme circumstances where there is no means of reconciling conflicts and they are of a serious nature. It took the strange example of a person running a tourist attraction in an SSSI who wanted to develop visitor facilities in the midst of the site, the construction of which would be detrimental to the provisions of the SSSI. The association went on to say that if the amendment were adopted, Natural England would
15 Mar 2006 : Column 1265
have no possibility of allowing that development to go ahead. It said that there might be perfectly good grounds for allowing it to go ahead and that,
"creating a couple of jobs and bringing in a bit of money for the landowner which could be reinvested in the area, may well do more for achieving the general purpose than a refusal".
I remind your Lordships that SSSIs are a very small proportion of the land surface of this country. They are the jewels in the crown of nature conservation, the most priceless and irreplaceable parts of our natural heritage. This briefing was equivalent to saying that you might carve a bit out of a Vermeer or a Picasso so a few local artists would have some canvas to paint on to keep them from going to the wall. That is not quite what we are looking for as the steer for what the Minister at another time called the "trenchant champion" of the natural environment, but it is a good example of the sort of pressure Natural England will undoubtedly face on a daily basis, and shows why the Minister needs at least to give it guidance, if not to put a conflict resolution clause on the face of the Bill. I know he will say that he has already said, I think on Second Reading, that protected sites will of course take priority, but it is clear that there will continue to be debate about what takes priority when economic development and conservation and landscape are in conflict with each other.
I would have been extremely happy if the Minister had underpinned his wish that Natural England be a trenchant champion of the natural environment by giving it the sort of guidance that it was indicated to us on Monday would be given. Now that it will not be given, there is a real need for Amendment No. 52, and I hope the noble Baroness will divide the House on this.
Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I too rise to talk about Amendment No. 52, and I am afraid I would like to oppose it. When we discussed this issue in Committee, I was totally agnostic on the subject. I was duly persuaded by the arguments of the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, and others who supported her. I was drifting along, waiting to be persuaded back into my state of agnosticism by the Minister's reply. However, it was the speech of my friend and fellow Cross-Bencher, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that suddenly tipped the balance for me. She mentioned that if a conflict clause had existed for the relevant body, it would have been impossible for the funicular railway to have been built up the Cairngorms.
That set me thinking. I love mountains, and I think there is nothing more uplifting than to stand at the top of a mountain to look down at the valleys or glens below. If I had to choose one mountain where the old, the infirm, the disabled and the very young should be able to have that uplifting experience, I would choose Cairngorm. In my view, Cairngorm Mountain is already environmentally prejudiced by the fact that it has skiers and mountaineers all over it in winter and—in the case of mountaineers—for most of the summer.
15 Mar 2006 : Column 1266
It already has ski lifts and its slopes have been cosmetically altered, shall we say, for skiers. It already has road infrastructure; it already has a thumping great big car park halfway up the mountain; and it already has the Sheiling restaurant to give meals and shelter from rough weather to skiers, both winter and summer. Furthermore, there are thousands of jobs around Aviemore that depend on this particular very longstanding tourist attraction being open for as many days as possible in a year. When I say longstanding, I mean that I first went skiing there 48 years ago. I admit that the Cairngorm Mountain is indeed slightly environmentally worse off on account of the funicular. In the context of the hundreds of Munros in England and Scotland, however, it would seem fair to let this already slightly, or quite, environmentally damaged mountain suffer the fate of being chosen to allow as many people as possible to stand on the viewing platform and look down the slopes below.
Now, if my noble friend Lady Young and I were on the committee deciding whether to permit this funicular, I am sure we would have a very good discussion. I am equally sure that, with her diplomatic prowess and powers of persuasion, I would probably get handbagged and lose the debate. The point is that I do not believe it is any business of Parliament to predetermine that decision for us. There could be many hypothetical examples where there might be minor environmental downsides on a local scale which, with a conflict clause, could be used to achieve some fairly perverse decisions.
I strongly support the independence of Natural England and the CRC. But I believe that both we and government have to be bold and allow them to make their own decisions without trying to second-guess them in advance. That is why I do not believe that this conflict clause—even expressed in its new, moderated terms—is a very good idea.
6.30 pm
Lord Chorley: My Lords, it is quite often the case that Cross-Benchers disagree with each other. I am not sure that I agree with my noble friend Lord Cameron on the Cairngorms, but he makes a point. I was quite happy with the noble Baroness's amendment when I saw it on the Marshalled List at the beginning of the week. It seemed to me that she had got it about right and that she had got the point about irreconcilability. Irreconcilability is the point. If you have something and you want something else, these things may be mutually incompatible. There is a question about the Cairngorms that one might argue on that front. But I thought that the noble Baroness had got it about right, including the magic word "irreconcilable". Then, this morning, I got a copy of the letter from Jim Knight to the noble Baroness and I thought there was something to be said for a bit of flexibility in what is a difficult issue. So I was most interested in what the Minister was going to say. Now I hear from others, who obviously know more than I do about what is going on, that the letter seems to have been withdrawn. Whether the noble Baroness will press her amendment to a Division tonight rather depends on what the
15 Mar 2006 : Column 1267
Minister will say. It may make sense to press it not tonight but at Third Reading. It is not easy when you receive a letter in the morning and then find, by half past six in the afternoon, that it has apparently been withdrawn or that something else has happened.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, perhaps I could make a general point. When we have a group of amendments, Members are expected to speak only once prior to the Minister speaking. I know that at least two noble Lords have got caught in this trap, having spoken earlier to this group of amendments. Perhaps we could be flexible in this group and rather strict beyond this group.
Earl Peel: My Lords, with the leave of the House, having spoken to the amendment of my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith, perhaps I could now speak to Amendments Nos. 50 and 52—in the name of my noble friend Lady Byford in the case of Amendment No. 50, and the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, in the case of Amendment No. 52.
Before doing so—it was an error on my part—I should have declared an interest when I last spoke. I own land in the north of England. Briefly, I have great sympathy for Amendment No. 50 and would support it. However, in exactly the same way that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has just expressed it, I have difficulty with Amendment No. 52. This new body, Natural England, will have to decide how best to carry out its responsibilities under the general purposes clause of the Bill. Clearly, Natural England's brief is principally one of promoting nature conservation. I believe that that is absolutely right and proper. I think it is very important that, notwithstanding Amendment. No. 50, Clause 2(2)(e) includes the opportunity for Natural England to contribute in other ways,
That will require a delicate balance. Indeed, I supported an amendment in Committee in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, which would have substituted Clause 2(2)(e) with a somewhat stronger socio-economic remit. We felt that there is a danger that some rural economic activities could be unnecessarily compromised by the general purposes clause.
I think I am right in saying that my noble friend Lady Byford supported this amendment. That being the case, it is perhaps a little surprising that she has moved this conflict resolution amendment which would virtually destroy any degree of latitude or compromise in Natural England's operations. I fully understand and appreciate the sentiment behind the amendment, but sustainable development is not always about conservation of the natural environment in isolation. Economic and social issues are often intertwined and cannot be regarded in isolation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, made reference to the example of the Country Land and Business Association. I think that her analogy, on that occasion, was probably reasonably accurate. If, for
15 Mar 2006 : Column 1268
example, you had a large upland SSSI on which a farmer or a land manager wanted to insert a track that might enhance the actual management of that area with benefits to the nature conservation value of the site, then, under my noble friend's amendment, I do not think that Natural England would have any option but to say no. So this choice, this delicate balance, which is so vital to the success of Natural England, cannot be compromised. I appreciate that my noble friend's amendment will deal only with what she described as "significant cases", but we have all seen it in practice. At a local level, small decisions can suddenly become increasingly significant. So I hope that my noble friend will not press her amendment. I have had the pleasure of working with her very closely on rural matters for many years and I do not think I have ever had a real disagreement with her. However, on this occasion, I am bound to say that if she were to press her amendment, I would have no option but to vote against it.
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |