Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Thurlow Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I have not spoken in Committee so far, but in my four-minute contribution at Second Reading I raised two issues, which are the subject of these next two amendments. The first may be described as being in the weeds and the other in the stratosphere.

Perhaps I should begin with the weeds. Amendment 213 is about footpaths. I have three asks to make of the Government. The footpath issue is one that a cross-party group of Members of your Lordships’ House have been following—“chasing down” might be a better phrase—for many years. I am therefore grateful for the support of two of the group, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, and the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, asked me to give an apology as she cannot be here this evening. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, has left the Chamber because we had extensive debates on the footpath issue when she had her responsibilities as a shadow spokesman before the general election, and I wish her well in her new role.

However, one name is missing from the Government Benches, that of Lord Rosser. I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I add a short personal note. Lord Rosser was a doughty supporter of the footpath cause over many years and, despite his increasing frailty and looking exceptionally unwell, he came, possibly to speak for the last time, in support of a regret Motion that I had tabled. It is of course quite right that when one of us leaves your Lordships’ House the water should close over us quietly and soundlessly, but I wanted on this occasion for one last time to record my thanks to Lord Rosser for his support over the years.

With that, to horse. First, I need to declare an interest, as I am a member of the Ramblers, which campaigns on behalf of footpaths and open access. I am currently making use of our footpaths by walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats—in stages, I hasten to add—and I am just reaching Inverness. In the 1,000 or so miles that I have so far covered, I have seen at first hand how our network of public rights of way provides physical and mental support. In effect, it lifts the soul, even if, after seven hours on the road, the feet and the muscles may be a little sore.

The background to this issue is as follows. The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 required local authorities to provide and prepare official records of public rights of way, known as definitive maps. As a result, some 120,000 miles of rights of way were recorded in England. That leads me to my first ask of the Government: the reason for paragraph (c) in my amendment, “preservation”, is to get the Minister’s commitment that nothing in the Bill will be allowed to end the network of these paths in whole or in part. The key word here is “network” because, if a path can be brought to an end, even for a few hundred yards, the utility and value of the surrounding paths is greatly reduced. Can the Minister confirm that the provisions of the Bill will not put at risk this important national asset, which is the primary means by which the public can get outdoors?

There is a further challenge. While the recording of 120,000 miles of footpaths was a terrific achievement, research suggests that some 40,000 further miles were not recorded and therefore remain unprotected. There are over 3,000 miles in Cornwall and just under 3,000 miles in Herefordshire. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 attempted to bring this issue to a conclusion by setting a deadline for applications to be submitted to local highway authorities for adding these hitherto unrecorded rights of way to the official definitive maps. The deadline was set for 25 years later, 1 January 2026, three months from where we are now. After that date, applications for adding unrecorded public rights of way based on historic evidence will no longer be possible and any of those miles would be lost for ever.

Progress on recording those 20,000 miles was disappointingly slow: first, because local authorities had many other uses for funds and found it hard to justify putting additional resources into this activity, balanced against all those other pressures; secondly, because the actual process of recording is rather clunky and expensive, both financially as well as in management time and effort. I have first-hand experience of that because my family company owns a few acres of agricultural land in Shropshire, where we needed the diversion of a footpath; although it was not contested, it took over three years to achieve. I place on record my thanks to Shropshire County Council and Mr Rodenhurst, who is the county council footpath officer, but he too had to work to an existing system.

Some anecdotal evidence suggests that many councils can process only two or three applications every year. At one point, a working party of interested stakeholders was set up to streamline the system, but it seems to have gone nowhere. Therefore, my second ask of the Minister is whether that working party still exists and whether it has any role in the Government’s thinking on how to speed up this recording process.

Finally, as the deadline of 1 January 2026 became ever closer, I, together with a cross-party group of Members of your Lordships’ House, began to campaign for a better, permanent solution. At first, it looked as though we had had success. In February 2022, the then Conservative Government announced that the deadline would be abolished entirely, but a year later, in March 2023—presumably after lobbying by landowners and farmers—that decision was reversed and, instead, the deadline was extended by regulation by five years, to 1 January 2031. In my view, this is an exercise in pushing the pea around the plate, if ever I saw one.

On Boxing Day 2024, the new Labour Government announced that they would fulfil the prior undertaking of the Conservative Government to repeal the deadline but that they could do so only when, in that hallowed phrase, parliamentary time allows. This Bill provides parliamentary time within which the Government could fulfil that commitment, so my third and final ask of the Minister is whether the Government are prepared to bring forward amendments to the Bill to fulfil the commitment they have given to remove the recording deadline for ever. If the Government cannot accept and answer my questions, perhaps they could accept Amendment 213, which provides for a review in six months. That at least enables your Lordships’ House to monitor progress on this important topic. I beg to move.

[Lord Thurlow (CB)]

My Lords, having heard such eloquent advocacy for swifts and other birds, I will make a case for humans in Amendment 213. I will explain. First, let me thank the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, for tabling this amendment. I am very keen to support him.

My particular interest is actively to promote the case for the restoration of ancient rights of way—the unregistered ones that we have heard about already. I declare my interest as the owner of a property, a family farm, with a right of way laced right through the middle. I am also grateful to the Ramblers for its briefing.

In considering this, we should start from the premise that rights of way, whether registered or not, are a national asset. They belong to the nation—to citizens and individuals. No reasons were given except for the need for certainty as to whether these unregistered rights of way would be terminated or disallowed in future. The only certainty was that UK citizens would be stripped of their property rights because, in that rediscovered but unregistered place, these rights of way would have been disallowed. What possible benefit to the community arises from disallowing the registration of rights of way?