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77 Marine and Coastal Access Bill 26 OCTOBER 2009 Marine and Coastal Access Bill 78
[Lords]
[Lords]
of the existing categories. I hope that is of some help to
the hon. Gentleman as he has identified a relevant
point, but this Bill and the reform of some of the
excepted land categories offer us the opportunity to
make the sort of changes to which he refers.
Mr. Jenkin: I thank the Minister for his comments
and his helpful suggestion, which I think means I shall
be able to take part in the consultation on what categories
of exempted land shall be made. Perhaps areas where
public access has historically been allowed could be
included in that. In the meantime, however, may I ask
the Minister just to have a word with his ministerial
colleague with responsibility for the HSE? It seems that
at present the Minister is trying to extend coastal access
but the HSE does not give a monkey’s about coastal
access issues. It could therefore be encouraged to behave
a little more responsibly in that regard.
Huw Irranca-Davies: I am sure that the HSE and
relevant Ministers will hear those comments. On whether
the Bill will provide access to Mistley quay, let me say
that we are consulting on the treatment of quays specifically,
and we currently propose that the right of access should
apply to them. The landowner would therefore benefit
from the reduced liability I referred to earlier in respect
of clause 301. I ask the hon. Gentleman to keep the
communication going and to keep putting points forward.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test
has been a keen advocate of coastal access and the
coastal margins both in Committee and through
campaigning outside this House, as have many hon.
Members and hon. Friends. On amendment 40, I have
described the role of the reporting function to Parliament
after 10 years, but I want to clarify what I said earlier: if
it is necessary for an earlier report to be made, the
Secretary of State may, indeed, ask for that to be done.
I believe I have covered in some depth all the points
that have been raised. On that basis, I urge the hon.
Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.
Mr. Benyon: I am grateful to the Minister for that
tour de force, which went into some detail.
The Minister’s earlier remarks on my amendment 35
left me mildly piqued. He seemed to suggest that I was
intending by this measure to trash the whole concept of
a coastal margin, but nothing could have been further
from my intentions. I was seeking to be honest and
transparent—as he says, we in this House are all interested
in that at this moment—and in trying to be frank with
people. We are not saying that there will be coastal
margin everywhere in the delivery of this path. I was on
holiday this summer in the north Norfolk area. As the
Minister might know, there is a narrow strip of beach in
many parts of north Norfolk, with a few dunes and
then a vast area of marsh, before coming to solid land
with houses, gardens and fields. As I looked at this,
fresh from the Committee, I was struck by how difficult
it would be to deliver in these areas coastal margin
access that was either safe or practical. Through
amendment 35, I was just trying to create some clarity
and honesty. The Minister’s remarks, which are on the
record, have helped in that respect and I am not going
to push the amendment.
On amendments 32 and 33, I pay tribute to the
Minister for his Herculean efforts in seeking to find a
greater degree of understanding and agreement on this
issue; he should take the credit for that. His meeting
with the relevant bodies has gone a long way towards
clarifying the situation. I may have got it wrong, but I
think he went a little further in his remarks today than
he originally did. Specifying in regulations in schedule 19
is a major step forward. It secures the position of a
whole range of interests in the land. I am grateful for his
further comments relating not just to sporting interests
but to those with mineral rights or options for such
rights, for example. They will be reassured by his comments,
so this is a major step forward.
On amendment 34 and the change of use, the Minister
said that this provision would be implemented in a way
that does not sterilise land. That is really important.
Land should not be sealed in aspic; it should be constantly
evolving. A whole range of options are open to land
managers; they do not want them to be stifled by what
could effectively be a charge on the land, which would
prevent them from going down such routes.
I do not understand why an exclusion around agricultural
buildings could not have been included in the Bill, as it
was in the CROW Act. If we have learned one thing
from foot and mouth and other more recent problems,
it is that biosecurity is very important. A 20-metre
exclusion around farm buildings would have been a
good thing; however, I am not going to press the matter.
The Minister talked about exclusions, which have
been used very effectively under CROW by a whole
range of different land managers. The problem is that it
is a big ask of walkers. Before going for a walk in the
country, are people really going to sit down, log on to
the local authority website, see which landowner has an
exclusion because of lambing or nesting, for example,
and find out where their land starts and finishes? It is
asking a lot of people to follow through that process.
On the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member
for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin)—he told us about the
rescue of an injured person—although the Health and
Safety Executive has caused this problem, it could be
the solution in that it might now say that action has to
be taken to resolve such problems. However, this is a
very important case study that shows how pressure
points will be applied to this legislation. They will be
resolved best locally, by local people and with the
involvement of organisations such as local access forums
and local authorities.
The Minister made some sensible suggestions in respect
of amendment 40, and I hope that the hon. Member for
Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead)—he is not in his
place—heard them.
On the debate concerning parks and gardens, we
discovered in Committee, as was discovered with the
CROW Act, that a lawyer’s charter can be created, with
lawyers dancing on the head of a pin in trying to
describe where a garden finishes and a park begins. Of
course, when thinking about the Bill, hon. Members
have in their minds landscapes by Repton or Capability
Brown—vast landscapes miles away from any residents.
However, we have to secure basic rights of privacy. We
have to recognise that the wording is very difficult to get
right, and the Minister is right to keep that exclusion in,
albeit with his caveats about hoping to achieve more
access.
The Minister said that this is not a sword of Damocles
over landowners’ heads. In Committee, a particular
landowner was mentioned in relation to the hon. Member