Agriculture Bill

Debate between Viscount Trenchard and Lord Rosser

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendments 6, 9, 98 and 111 in this group. For many people, Covid-19 has provided an opportunity —or perhaps a necessity—to go on and discover local walks in their own immediate neighbourhood, to get exercise and fresh air and not spend the whole day in their own home. A crucial feature of the Bill, as we know, is the introduction of a new system of financial assistance for farmers to replace subsidies paid as part of the EU’s common agricultural policy. In future funding will be in exchange for the delivery of public goods, which includes better public access.

Clause 1(1) states:

“The Secretary of State may give financial assistance for or in connection with any one or more of the following purposes”,


with paragraph (a) reading

“managing land or water in a way that protects or improves the environment”.

Although this is helpful, it does not acknowledge the value added of enabling people to experience some benefit from improvements in environmental quality. Amendment 6 adds

“and people’s access to it”

and seeks to ensure that where financial assistance is provided for the protection or improvement of the environment, public access enhancements are incorporated, where appropriate, so that people can experience some benefit from the actions taken. This is particularly important near centres of population, where the recreational value of new woodlands or better access to paths across open land is far higher than in more remote locations.

Clause 1(1)(b) refers to

“supporting public access to and enjoyment of the countryside, farmland or woodland and better understanding of the environment”.

However, as landowners or occupants, farmers are already required by law to keep clear public access to their land, so “supporting public access” could appear to be providing funding for doing something for which there is already a legal requirement. There is thus no certainty that funding will be provided for new public access or for making existing paths more accessible, yet this is important in enabling more people to get outdoors. Natural England estimates that 20% of people cannot use rights of way because they cannot use stiles or gates or they are with someone who cannot.

Amendment 9 replaces “supporting” with “enhancing” to express more clearly that financial assistance will be provided to enhance public access to the countryside by improving accessibility beyond the legal minimum of existing rights of way. It also helps ensure that funding can be provided for the creation of new access opportunities through, for example, the provision of paths along field margins as alternatives to unsafe country roads and at the rural-urban fringe to increase the connection of communities to nature and the rural world.

Clause 1(1)(b), which enables the Secretary of State to provide financial assistance for

“supporting public access to and enjoyment of the countryside”

is welcome, but more clarity is needed on the outcomes in terms of public access to and enjoyment of the countryside that will be supported through further financial assistance to farmers. Amendment 98 seeks to do this by adding to Clause 1(5)

“‘supporting public access to and enjoyment of the countryside’ includes the provision of new public access or improving the accessibility of existing public rights of way”.

Thus the amendment provides certainty that financial assistance may be provided for new public access or steps to make existing rights of way more accessible, and also that the new financial assistance scheme will provide direct benefits for the public through better access to the countryside.

Clause 2(2) states:

“Financial assistance may be given subject to such conditions as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”


Landowners and land managers are required under the Highways Act 1980 to keep rights of way on their land clear and accessible to the public. The duty was reinforced by the system of cross-compliance governing payments to farmers under the EU’s common agricultural policy, which required, among other things, the fulfilment of legal duties for rights of way as a condition of receiving funding from the public purse. The Government are committed to ending cross-compliance and have suggested they will establish a new, simplified regulatory regime.

The principle of financial assistance being subject to conditions, as introduced in subsection (2), is welcome. What it does not do is specify what those conditions will be. Amendment 111 provides that:

“The conditions may (among other things) require the recipient to fulfil their duties for public rights of way under the Highways Act 1980.”


It will thus help ensure that landowners’ and occupiers’ duties for public rights of way are among the conditions that the Secretary of State may attach to the provision of financial assistance. This is important because existing rights of way are the primary means by which people can get outdoors. It is, therefore, vital to have in place a regulatory framework that encourages farmers to keep paths clear as a condition of receiving payments from the public purse.

The set of conditions, including those relating to public access, provide clarity for farmers over the baseline standards expected, and it also—as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said earlier—helps create a level playing field within the sector. Most farmers fulfil their legal obligations, so those who do not should not be treated equally and without any sanction for not keeping access open.

I hope the Government will give careful consideration to this group of amendments and the objectives they seek to achieve. It would be helpful if the Minister could say, in his response, whether they are also government objectives, either in whole or in part. If they are but the Government do not feel overexcited by these amendments, I hope, like my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley, that the Minister will spell out very clearly in his response why the Government believe that the wording in the Bill—and which wording that is—already provides, without any doubt, the safeguards and assurances that these amendments to which I have referred are intended to provide.

Our farmers must have, and deserve, a fair deal as we leave the EU, and we need to make sure this Bill delivers precisely that. However, our countryside should be accessible to all and, in return, those who visit the countryside must exercise that right responsibly and in a manner that does not adversely affect those who earn their livelihood from the land and who provide us with a basic necessity of life—namely, food.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, whilst I can support reasonable extension to public access, as I said earlier it is indeed a double-edged sword. In those parts of the country where agricultural land is close to towns or cities, significant opening up of more footpaths, or increasing the numbers of people entering land used for agriculture, forestry or horticulture, may cause disturbance to birds and animals and exacerbate a littering problem that has got worse during the lockdown anyway.

It is likely that farmers, whose financial rewards are going to depend more on the quality and condition in which they maintain their land, are going to be reluctant to encourage more public access unless they are paid to provide it. They need to be paid because they will need to make good, or mitigate the damage to, the land, crops, fences, gates and wildlife habitats that will result from increased public access in those parts of the country near significant population centres.

Perhaps the amounts that farmers should be paid for public access would have to be more than is justified in terms of the numbers of people who would benefit. We should also remember that you do not need to have access to the improved environment in order to benefit from it in terms of better air quality, higher standards of food products and cleaner water in our rivers.

I sympathise with the intention of my noble friend Lord Lucas in Amendment 34, but I believe this is already covered by subsection (1)(b), whether the drafting of that is changed or not.

Amendment 59, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, seeks to enhance public access not only to land but also to water. Would my noble friend the Minister not agree that farmers and riparian owners would have to be compensated for the significant additional costs of this? Would he also concede that compensation should be paid to owners of fisheries whose catch numbers would be damaged by an increase in kayaking and boating on rivers and inland waterways?

Lastly, I slightly fear that too much path surfacing, signage and waymarking may make the countryside more like a cross between a golf course and a public park, which, in extremis, will urbanise the appearance of the countryside and remove its wildness, which is so valuable.