National Park Authorities (Elections)

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) on securing this debate. I do not know if any other hon. Members have two national parks in their constituency, but my hon. Friend certainly brings with him real authority on this subject. From contact that he has with me over the past two and a half years, both by letter and through parliamentary questions and other means, I know the extent of his interest in this important subject. I am grateful for this opportunity to respond to the debate.

The Government are committed to breaking down the perceived barriers between local communities and those making decisions on their behalf. As my hon. Friend mentioned, we have introduced directly elected police commissioners. There may be some doubt about the glee with which the electorate crammed themselves into the polling booths to elect them, but I feel sure that things will change over time. We also have directly elected mayors, and we have made other changes to increase local accountability. My hon. Friend is right to say that the issues we are debating today are political, as is the case with policing. They are matters of great concern to our constituents and they are vital to people in such areas who know and care about these landscapes.

Through the Localism Act 2011, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government made changes to give more power directly to communities and individuals so that they can challenge local authorities and take over and run the community services that are so vital. This is important to both parties in this coalition Government.

This is a timely debate, as my ministerial colleagues and I are actively considering the results of our consultations on the issue. That is why I should address the points in detail. I should say something about the importance of national parks to our country and this Government. As my hon. Friend rightly said, in 1936 the then Standing Committee on National Parks lobbied the Government for measures to protect and allow access to the countryside for the benefit of the nation. That pre-war world of 1936 might seem a long time ago, and many aspects of our world are unrecognisable from that time, but some constants remain, one of which is what the national parks can offer us. We need a sense of challenge in our lives just as much our forebears did, and we need the uplift that comes from contact with nature, as they did. The parks style themselves as Britain’s breathing spaces, which is exactly what they are for their more than 50 million visitors a year from home and abroad. That is of enormous benefit to our society. Those visitors help to support more than 22,000 businesses, the vast majority of which are small or medium-sized enterprises.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale is absolutely right to praise the leadership of his local national parks. Whether we are talking about a parish in our constituencies or a large area such as that covered by the national parks that he knows so well, there will be issues on which there is a divergence of opinion. What might seem good to one of us might not seem so good to another, especially when dealing with something such as planning. He was right to allude to the complexity of these issues at times and to the fact that many good things that are done are not always appreciated by everyone.

The national parks continue to deliver on their two core purposes: to conserve and enhance natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage; and to promote opportunities for the understanding and enjoyment of the special qualities of those national parks by the public. The means we use have, of course, changed over time, and they may change again. For the first 40 years of their lives, national parks were essentially managed by local government.

[Roger Williams]

The Minister sets out the two purposes of the national parks, but the legislation also includes a duty to take into account the economic and social needs of the communities that the parks serve. Surely at the heart of this demand for democracy is a better understanding of those issues.

[Richard Benyon]

I will come on to talk about that, but it is important that the three legs of the stool of sustainability are considered at every stage: environmental, yes; economic, absolutely; as well, of course, as the social dimension the parks give to their inhabitants and visitors. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

To turn to the main issue of the debate, the coalition’s programme for government said:

“We will review the governance arrangements of National Parks in order to increase local accountability.”

That commitment was honoured with a public consultation that ran from 9 November 2010 until 1 February 2011. The question of accountability and transparency was central to the consultation. The Government take seriously the improvement of the transparency of decision making and an increase in the accountability of national park authorities. We have made it clear that variety between authorities is possible, which would allow that governance to reflect better the national parks’ individual circumstances and histories as part of our commitment to decentralisation and localism.

Since the original legislation was enacted in 1995, there have been calls for some members of park authorities to be directly elected, which now already happens in the Scottish national parks authorities, as my hon. Friends suggested. I said in September 2011 that I had concluded that the time had come for us to explore that option more thoroughly in England, so I consulted on legislation that would allow for the possibility of elections to the national park authorities and the Broads Authority. Initially, we proposed to apply new legislation on a pilot basis in two parks, namely the New Forest—as my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) mentioned—and the Peak District. They provide different contexts in which to assess the effect of directly elected members.

First, I should be clear that although national parks cover some 9% of the country, have a population of more than 320,000 people, encompass in excess of 700 local authorities and parish councils and handle some 9,500 planning cases each year, fewer than 170 responses were received on the question of direct elections, which is a staggeringly low figure. Fewer than 40 of those responses came from individual members of the public. While a majority of responses were generally in favour, there was no clear consensus, even between parks, that direct elections were the answer to improving local accountability. As the Deputy Prime Minister recently made clear, opinion is divided.

Secondly, while much is made of the possible benefits of introducing some elected members into the national park authorities, views are divided and some practicalities need to be taken into account. The legislation required to implement direct elections would be significant, so we would need to identify a suitable opportunity in the parliamentary timetable. I must share with hon. Members the fact that such legislation would not only create a significant call on the time of the House but, as we face the reality of the financial situation, we would be bound to ask if this would really be a good use of public money. Initial estimates indicate that the costs of the proposal could run into many hundreds of thousands or even millions of pounds, although obviously there would be a full cost assessment nearer the time.

Thirdly, the consultation proposed holding pilot elections in the New Forest and Peak District national parks during May 2013. Given that we have not yet secured the required legislation, those pilots obviously will not go ahead on time. It is also clear that we cannot and should not commit to any wider programme of direct elections without piloting so that we can fully understanding what impact, if any, the changes would have on the performance of the national parks in question.

Finally, direct elections are not the only mechanism for improving accountability and openness, and some of the suggestions from the governance review are already being taken forward by individual parks. Many avenues could be explored and, in conjunction with the park authorities, we will continue to look at what can be achieved. It is also worth making the point that local authority members of a national park authority are elected members of the local authority, so they are already held accountable through the ballot box, although not to the satisfaction of some. Similarly, parish council members are sometimes elected.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I am not entirely happy with the thrust of what the Minister is saying. Are the pilot schemes therefore on hold indefinitely? With the greatest respect to the Government, the legislative pressure on the time of the House of Commons means that it should not be impossible for such relatively uncontentious legislation to be slotted into the timetable, especially if the past few weeks are anything to go by, when we have frequently finished our business earlier than scheduled.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

I am happy to share with my hon. Friend the information that I have been given about the complexity involved. I can give him my absolute solemn commitment that I think that this is something that the Government should do. I do not believe, unlike some colleagues in both our parties, that everyone down to the dog warden should be elected, but I believe in localism and local accountability, so I have been progressing things in a meaningful way.

I was surprised by the complexity of something that initially, I agree, sounds like it should be simple. However, I have been concerned about conversations that we have had with the Boundary Commission about matching boundaries, which sometimes follow more ecologically-based routes than politically-based ones, as well as about the many measures that would need to be included in a Bill. I am happy to go into more detail, but I can absolutely give my hon. Friend my commitment that if the resources were there and if we could find the parliamentary means, we would take this forward, as it is something that the coalition is firmly united in wishing to achieve. I will give him more detail at a later date.

[Tim Farron]

I am a little concerned about the direction in which the Minister is going, but I am pleased that he thinks the Government should make progress. However, we already effectively have pilots in Scotland, so we have learned what to do constitutionally and about how the impact is felt in the national parks.

There is time to act in this Parliament. When I challenged one of the Minister’s predecessors in the previous Government about this, their view was that as the national park authorities had been asked whether they wanted to be elected, and they said no, they would not be elected. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas, even though I greatly respect the high quality turkeys in the New Forest.

[Richard Benyon]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s point, and I can only give my commitment that although we remain in favour of direct elections, we must ensure that we achieve that in the necessary time scale and with the resources we have.

It is interesting that Scottish national parks have all-postal ballot elections. When I raise potential complications, it sounds as though I am being negative, but I assure my hon. Friends that I am not. However, we need to mention the fact that there is concern about such elections.

[Roger Williams]

When I had the pleasure and privilege of going over to monitor the US elections, I was surprised to find that some US states have wholly postal ballots to elect their President.

[Richard Benyon]

My hon. Friend may like to share his thoughts with colleagues in the Cabinet Office, who are looking at greater participation in elections. After what happened two weeks ago, I want more participation in local elections, and if we could get more people voting by post, that would be good.

I was delighted to hear that the Peak District magazine Park Life recently published the names, photographs and telephone numbers of all members of that authority. That is the start of real transparency. It does not happen in every national park authority, so we must press them to look at such innovations.

In an ideal world, I would like to devolve decisions to national parks if they can prove that there is local demand, and we can introduce enabling legislation that allows them to take that forward and let a thousand flowers bloom. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale that I will keep him in touch with any progress and ensure that what we are doing is affordable for the resources in my Department, feasible in terms of the primary legislation that I am convinced that we will have to introduce, and workable locally. I assure him that the Government remain in favour—