My Lords, in speaking to Amendment No. 140, I shall not go over the ground covered by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford. I, too, received the letter from which she quoted, and it indicates that a huge number of applications are in the pipeline. That pipeline may not so far have reached Defra, but there is no doubt whatever that a large number of multiple applications is being made speculatively by those who ride motorbikes, quad bikes and other vehicles and drive four-wheel off-road vehicles.
I want to emphasise the huge number of applications facing local councils. Those councils employ a very small number of rights-of-way staff, who should be employed in updating maps and working to make byways and footpaths more accessible by all classes of users. However, their time and energy is being taken up with the applications and with all the complaints to which the abuse of rights of way gives rise. Therefore, a small group of officials is, on the one hand, being charged with making rights of way better and more accessible and, on the other, is being burdened with representations about new claims and with the complaints to which they give rise.
Can the Minister give us some up-to-date figures relating to the number of claims in the system? The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, quoted a figure of 207. I think that that is completely wrong—I guess that the number is nearer to 2,000. That may refer to multiple claims, but we want to know how many footpaths and byways are the subject of claims.
There is no doubt at all that the claims were triggered by the consultation document published in December 2003. The intention of the legislation proposed in that White Paper was that the old rules would cease to have effect. Under those rules, if you could prove previous horse and cart use, you would be able to establish vehicular rights—that is, the rights were somehow transferable to users of motorcycles and four-wheel-drive vehicles. Most of the claims were put in as a pre-emptive move by the off-road fraternity to take advantage of the old rules as long as they lasted.
Can the Minister tell me whether any human rights issues are involved in going back to 2003, as this amendment proposes, or in sticking with the date of 19 May 2005, as currently proposed by the Government? It seems to me that a human right over anything should be exercised on the basis that a person’s use of his human right does not allow him to prejudice someone else’s opportunity to exercise that right. I direct the Minister’s attention to a case that appeared in the newspapers last week concerning some travellers in Leeds who occupied a recreation ground. The travellers brought the case on the basis that turning them off the recreation ground would be an abuse of their human rights. The judge threw out the case. He said that public money should not have been spent on bringing the case because the travellers’ occupation of the recreation ground prevented other people using the ground or frightened them away from doing so. So one set of people cannot insist on their human rights if, in so doing, they prevent another set of people exercising their human rights.
Will the Minister tell us what human rights objections there are to going back to 2003? On whose opinion is it based? Was it a government official, or has counsel’s opinion been sought by the Government? Are we talking about hard facts or somebody’s supposition? What sort of authority does the person exercise in giving his opinion?
We are talking about someone enjoying the right to walk along a footpath or to ride a horse—in other words, the right enjoy the peace and quiet of the countryside, which is the principal purpose of rights of way. Other people may come along, saying, ““We will destroy the surface of this footpath. We will make a hell of a lot of noise. We will terrorise people and make it impossible to ride horses””. Does that not create a situation, whereby one group’s human rights come into direct conflict with another group’s human rights? Can we have an answer to that question? We are happy to wait for it because we can return to the matter at Third Reading. We want to know why the Minister raised an objection. I was not convinced by what he said, and want to know how many claims there are. How will the Government deal with the problem of local parish councils having to fight off claims that will cost lots of money when they have neither the staff nor the money to do so?
Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Bradshaw
(Liberal Democrat)
in the House of Lords on Monday, 20 March 2006.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill.
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