My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 272 and 273, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, to whom I am grateful for his support.
Before I address those amendments, I want to express my severe reservations about Amendment 139. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, on moving the amendment, in her name and those of my noble friend Lord Randall and others, so eloquently. However, I want to consider why national parks were created. They were set up and have become cherished spaces that seek to reach a balance between those who live and work here, those who enjoy activities such as walking and riding, and the environmental benefits to which the noble Baroness has referred.
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Each national park is administered by its own national park authority, an independent body funded by central government, with land use and economic development within each national park being the responsibility of the relevant national park authority—for example, the North York Moors National Park is administered by the North York Moors National Park Authority—and areas of outstanding national beauty, to which the noble Baroness also referred, are other cherished areas of outdoor space. What was missing from her amendment is the fact that in my view, if she succeeded in getting it adopted, the balance of the countryside, as represented by the national parks and
areas of outstanding natural beauty, would be profoundly disturbed from the balance that we currently enjoy. The reason biodiversity and the environmental gains and benefits exist in national parks is precisely those who tend the land and achieve the high level of beauty and nurture of the environment that they do. So I disagree: national parks are something to celebrate, and I congratulate all those who achieve what they have done.
The noble Baroness and the others who have signed the amendment are right in so far as we could urge others, such as utility companies, to do more. For example, it would be more appropriate for electricity wires and pylons to be undergrounded, basically for environmental reasons but also because it would also save a lot of money and lead to less electricity being lost in transmission.
However, the noble Baroness says, in subsection (3) of the new clause in Amendment 139, that:
“Relevant management plans must include targets and actions intended to further the purposes specified”
elsewhere in the amendment. To me, that causes great problems. The noble Baroness and her co-signees are asking for yet more responsibility and more duties for those who administer the national parks, who tend to be unpaid, part-time and, therefore, volunteers—unless the Minister is going to stand up and allocate a whole raft of new money to national parks to administer this, which would be a different matter completely.
So I have profound reservations about the amendment. It would not be fair on those who live and work in the national parks, and it would give undue priority to the environmental gains; we are all signed up to those, but we have to have the balance maintained, such as it is.
As an alternative, I shall speak to Amendments 272, relating to national parks and local communities, and 273, on areas of outstanding natural beauty and local communities. As I said, I am very grateful for the support from the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. My amendments seek to introduce the promotion of the economic and social well-being of local communities and businesses—in national parks in Amendment 272, and in areas of outstanding natural beauty in Amendment 273. That would enable us to recognise the economic role and the social well-being of those who live and work in national parks, and to achieve all that the noble Baroness says she hopes to achieve from the existence of national parks.
The idea would be to make this social and economic duty one of the purposes and put it on a statutory basis. I believe that would achieve more of what the Government and the noble Baroness want. I know the Minister is very wedded to the Glover report and the measures therein, but putting the promotion of economic and social well-being on a statutory basis would permit diversification while furthering the environmental ends that I think all of us in the House today support.
With those few remarks, I commend Amendments 272 and 273 as powerful alternatives to Amendment 139.