Clause 59 - Notification of agricultural operations on moor and heath in National Parks
Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill
9:45 am
James Paice (Shadow Minister (Agriculture), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
The Minister had obviously seen the same paperwork, and I am grateful to him for seeking to respond. Will he clarify an issue about the environmental impact assessment regulations? He said that they have all existed for a long while, but those regulations have existed for only three years. The last instance of using section 42 of the 1981 Act that he quoted predated those regulations, as it was in 2001 in the Peak District national park. I am therefore still unclear about his suggestion of a hypothetical instance in which an action to destroy land would fall through a hole in the environmental impact assessment regulations. He talks about an instance if the minimum areas were changed. Are the Government planning to change them? Where is the confusion that the Minister discusses?