Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, I too rise to talk about Amendment No. 52, and I am afraid I would like to oppose it. When we discussed this issue in Committee, I was totally agnostic on the subject. I was duly persuaded by the arguments of the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, and others who supported her. I was drifting along, waiting to be persuaded back into my state of agnosticism by the Minister’s reply. However, it was the speech of my friend and fellow Cross-Bencher, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that suddenly tipped the balance for me. She mentioned that if a conflict clause had existed for the relevant body, it would have been impossible for the funicular railway to have been built up the Cairngorms. That set me thinking. I love mountains, and I think there is nothing more uplifting than to stand at the top of a mountain to look down at the valleys or glens below. If I had to choose one mountain where the old, the infirm, the disabled and the very young should be able to have that uplifting experience, I would choose Cairngorm. In my view, Cairngorm Mountain is already environmentally prejudiced by the fact that it has skiers and mountaineers all over it in winter and—in the case of mountaineers—for most of the summer. It already has ski lifts and its slopes have been cosmetically altered, shall we say, for skiers. It already has road infrastructure; it already has a thumping great big car park halfway up the mountain; and it already has the Sheiling restaurant to give meals and shelter from rough weather to skiers, both winter and summer. Furthermore, there are thousands of jobs around Aviemore that depend on this particular very longstanding tourist attraction being open for as many days as possible in a year. When I say longstanding, I mean that I first went skiing there 48 years ago. I admit that the Cairngorm Mountain is indeed slightly environmentally worse off on account of the funicular. In the context of the hundreds of Munros in England and Scotland, however, it would seem fair to let this already slightly, or quite, environmentally damaged mountain suffer the fate of being chosen to allow as many people as possible to stand on the viewing platform and look down the slopes below. Now, if my noble friend Lady Young and I were on the committee deciding whether to permit this funicular, I am sure we would have a very good discussion. I am equally sure that, with her diplomatic prowess and powers of persuasion, I would probably get handbagged and lose the debate. The point is that I do not believe it is any business of Parliament to predetermine that decision for us. There could be many hypothetical examples where there might be minor environmental downsides on a local scale which, with a conflict clause, could be used to achieve some fairly perverse decisions. I strongly support the independence of Natural England and the CRC. But I believe that both we and government have to be bold and allow them to make their own decisions without trying to second-guess them in advance. That is why I do not believe that this conflict clause—even expressed in its new, moderated terms—is a very good idea.