Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alexander Randall (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 6 and 18 and I am very happy to support the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on those. I am very keen on getting more public access, but it is not just about creating new footpaths and so forth; it is about improving what we have as well, as he said. If footpaths are very muddy, that will put people off. I have examples locally where we used to have a bridleway. That got very muddy, the hooves churned it up and it is now very good for horses, very good for cyclists and very good for walkers, so this can be done and is, I think, very important. I have taken a great interest in getting more access to the countryside. It is not just about wheelchair users, although that is very important I got a great deal of assistance from an organisation called Birding for All and a gentleman called Bo Beolens, whose blog goes under the title "Grumpy Old Birder"—I was rather sorry that he got there first. He pointed out to me the problems you can have. For example, he can be given a key so that he can drive his car to a car park—somewhere walkers cannot go but he can get to a hide or something—but he has to get out of his car, assemble his wheelchair, go to the gate, unlock it, get back to the car, take his wheelchair down, go to the other side of the gate, get out again and repeat the process. It takes a long time and a lot of effort, so there have to be some innovative ideas. However, as I said, it is not just that. Something he pointed out that I think might have some resonance for many Members of your Lordships’ House is that, as you get older, sometimes you want to sit down on your walk, calling for provision of some resting place. It does not have to be a fancy seat; it could be an old log appropriately placed, or something like that. So, there are lots of things that can be done The other thing that has not been mentioned is getting access for those people who are very nervous of going out into the countryside, or even into nature. It does not have to be into the countryside; as I said earlier, we have lots of suburban areas. They are normally referred to as BAME, but there is another expression, which is the "visible minority ethnic" population, who feel very nervous about going out into areas where they do not see many other people who look like them. If we want to encourage more people to get into and understand the countryside, including farming, this is something we have to look at The Minister echoed the word "balance", which was used previously, and balance is all-important here. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, mentioned the fact that there are competing desires. As somebody who goes out to enjoy nature, I am not always entirely chuffed to find myself in an area where there are lots of cyclists hurtling around when I am trying to spot a butterfly or something else, so there has to be balance I also well understand that landowners and farmers are nervous because, as we have seen in recent weeks and months, where people have been going out there seems to be an increase in irresponsible littering and fly-tipping, although that is a slightly different thing. I can understand why they do not want to have open access too much. We must also not forget irresponsible dog owners. Although it is probably a minority, you need only one person or a couple people to leave things around to put people off allowing access. Even on those areas that have public access, about a month ago a very important heathland in Surrey was set on fire. almost certainly by people using portable barbecues. I think that has also happened elsewhere. I can understand why, if I were a farmer, I would want there to be a balance in letting people in. We have to persuade and educate people on how to treat wild open spaces with respect That said, this is an important area that we should look at. For those people getting payment for public goods, public goods could well be encouraging people to use the countryside.