Clause 59 - Notification of agricultural operations on moor and heath in National Parks
Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill
9:45 am
Jim Knight (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Rural Affairs, Landscape and Biodiversity), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; South Dorset, Labour)
I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman raised the issue and has given me the opportunity to seek to clarify it.
The clause helps better protect long-standing moors and heaths in national parks from forestry operations, planning and other activities that would convert them into agricultural land and that is likely to affect the land’s character or appearance. The effect of the provision in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 is to stop those potentially harmful activities for up to a year so as to allow the farmer and the national park authority to come to an agreement about how best to manage the land in question. Although the provision whereby the Secretary of State makes an order gives protection to threatened land, it relies, in practice, on someone else asking the Secretary of State to make the order.
In the few cases in which a request has been made to the Secretary of State, that request has always come from a national park authority. So, the Secretary of State has ended up doing something that the national park authority is perfectly capable of doing itself. Although the need for such orders is rare, when a request for an order is made, it must, by its nature, be made quickly, for example, to stop a farmer who has begun ploughing valuable unspoiled moorland or heath in a national park.
The last order in 2001 was made within 24 hours of a request being made by the Peak District national park authority. The Bill will give the power to make an order to national park authorities rather than the Secretary of State. That will save valuable time in that a park authority need not ask the Secretary of State to make an order but could make it without delay. Time is of the essence if potentially environmentally damaging activities are to be stopped and an acceptable solution found. The transfer of power from the Secretary of State to the national park authorities will simplify the administrative process and reduce the bureaucratic burden accordingly.
The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) and, through him, the NFU have raised some questions, and I shall try briefly to answer them. There are two essential reasons for introducing the power. We are required to take action following the identification of this power in the 1997 efficiency scrutiny of local authority consent regimes. The provision will simplify that process, because at present an order is made by the Secretary of State following a request from a national park authority. Transferring the power straight to the authority clearly simplifies the process.
There are additional benefits. The potential for time saving could mean that ecologically valuable land that might have been lost will be saved. The provision will not place any additional burdens on farmers. The power to restrict ploughing and certain other farming activities on moor and heath already exists; only the body applying the power will change. The provision will not place any unwanted administrative burden on the national park authority, partly because the power is rarely used, and because it will save the authority the bureaucratic burden of applying to the Secretary of State.
The hon. Gentleman rightly raised the question of the power’s relationship with environmental impact assessment regulations, and in that context he suggested, “Why bother at all?” There are conceivable circumstances in which the power would still be required if the environmental impact assessment regulations were modified, for example on plots of environmentally valuable land below any area threshold. Not having the power at all could lead to the loss of such environmentally important but small areas.
Finally the hon. Gentleman suggested that the power may cause confusion, which may lead to abuse by national park authorities. The power has existed for many years, and it has co-existed with the environmental impact assessment regulations. The section 42 power of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 can be used in some circumstances in which the regulations might not bite. All that we are changing is that the national park authorities will use the power rather than the Secretary of State. On the very few occasions that an order has been made by the Secretary of State, the national park authority has requested it.
I trust that that clarifies matters for the Committee. In essence, we are trying to simplify and streamline the process. It is rarely required, but still, it is required.