Clause 2 - High hedges
High Hedges Bill
10:30 am
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Coventry North East, Labour)
As was made clear on Second Reading, the Government support the Bill.
I listened carefully on Second Reading to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins), which I understood to be about the desirability of including an absolute limit, in all circumstances, on the height of evergreen or leylandii hedges. The effect of that would be that even if a hedge were generally considered acceptable, legislation would prevent it from exceeding a maximum height. That it not necessary or desirable because there may be circumstances—if we think seriously then we will know that there are—in which evergreen hedges exceed 4 m and are acceptable to all concerned. If such hedges do not cause complaint, it would be wrong for legislation to state that they must be cut back.
My hon. Friend will recognise that the matter must be kept tight to ensure that the Bill passes through the House without creating unnecessary complaints or opposition. However, it is stated elsewhere in the Bill that light is the only objective criterion—that will be the grounds for making a complaint. That matter was discussed in the consultation process. Local authorities and Hedgeline, which has done much work to secure legislation on behalf of people throughout the country who are suffering because of the problem, accept and believe that light will be used as a proxy for many other problems. Clause 16 provides that if light is not an effective criterion for judging the complaints that arise, the Secretary of State may, by regulation, extend the powers of the Bill to cover complaints that have not been dealt with satisfactorily.
I—and people who were consulted—hope and believe that the overwhelming majority of cases and the problems that hon. Members have heard about from their constituents, will be dealt with by the powers of the Bill and by using light as a proxy for other problems that may be caused by high hedges. If that does not occur, amendments may be made by regulation at a later date. In that way, we will avoid the overall ban on hedges exceeding a certain height that was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North on Second Reading, which he wants to explore further today.