Malvern Hills Bill [HL]

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I should express my gratitude to the Malvern Hills Trust for inviting me to present the Bill on its behalf.

I am sure that none of your Lordships needs me to describe the iconic beauty of the Malvern Hills. I now live in the city of Worcester and for much of my life I have been in Malvern itself or in the villages close by. The hills stretch for about eight miles from end to end across the borders of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. The highest point is the Worcestershire Beacon at 1,394 feet. The hills are designated as a national landscape, formerly known as an area of outstanding natural beauty. Some 62% of the hills are a site of special scientific interest, and there are three scheduled ancient monuments, including the remains of trenches on the Herefordshire Beacon, or British Camp, which was used by Caratacus in his last stand against the Romans. The hills are home to a rich variety of wildlife and protected habitats. They attract very significant numbers of visitors who take advantage of open access, including a network of footpaths and bridleways.

The promoters of the Bill are the Malvern Hills Trust. That is its working name; its statutory name is the Malvern Hills Conservators. It is the job of the trust to protect and manage the hills for the benefit of the public. I should say that if one visits the hills, it is evident that the trust performs its task very well indeed. The trust was established by an Act of Parliament in 1884 and since then, four further local Acts have amended and supplemented each other. The most recent Act was passed in 1995.

One of the purposes of the Bill before your Lordships is to consolidate those Acts. This would make good what the late Lord Colville of Culross said when introducing the Bill for the 1995 Act at Second Reading on 8 March 1993. I hope it is not out of order if I refer to my pleasure at seeing the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, on the Woolsack. The late Lord Colville said in 1993:

“I have great sympathy with one of the petitioners, who would like to see this private legislation consolidated. I am sure that everybody would”.—[Official Report, 8/3/1993; col. 869.]


The area that falls within the management of the trust consists of large parts of the hills themselves and other areas of open land comprising roadside verges and commons. The area is illustrated by a map which has been deposited with the Bill. The trust owns most, but not all, of the land within its management. About 90% of it is registered common land and virtually all of it open space, accessible by the public on foot and on horseback.

Lord Colville also remarked on the ever-increasing pressures on the hills as they become more and more popular. The pressures arising from that popularity continue to increase, and the need for the hills to be conserved and managed for the future public good remains as strong as ever.

The trust is in a somewhat unusual position in that it has the power to issue a levy on the residents of certain parishes in the local area. I will come on to that in more detail later, particularly as it is one of the topics that has been raised in the instruction tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Atlee.

It is worth drawing your Lordships’ attention to the fact that the trust is a charity. As such, the trust has to comply with charity law and take heed of guidance issued by the Charity Commission. As your Lordships are aware, the purpose of a Second Reading is to consider the Bill generally and approve the principle. In due course, a Select Committee will be appointed to examine the Bill and the 50 petitions that have been deposited against it. The trust has looked through the petitions and will respond to all the petitioners.

Common themes have been identified in the petitions, and I will touch on some of them today. Part 2 of the Bill has drawn more attention from petitioners than any other. It would make significant changes to the composition of the board of trustees, which has not changed significantly in 100 years. The trust considers that its board needs to be smaller, and it needs to include trustees who possess the skills necessary to manage an area of open space as significant as the Malvern Hills, in line with good governance of other modern statutory bodies and Charity Commission guidance. The Bill would achieve that.

Currently, the trust comprises 29 trustees: 11 are directly elected by the residents of the levy-paying parishes; 18 are nominated by various local authorities and, in the case of one trustee, by the Church Commissioners. The Bill proposes to reduce the overall number of trustees to 12, with six elected trustees and six appointed trustees. It has been suggested that the Bill would dilute the proportion of elected trustees. The reality is that, if the Bill is enacted in its current form, the proportion of elected trustees will increase from 38% to 50%.

Another point that has been raised by petitioners is about the changes that are proposed to the way elections will work. Currently, the electors of three parishes and of some former wards of a long-abolished urban district council elect one or more trustees for their individual area. The Bill proposes one electoral area, combining all the areas which currently elect trustees, so each one of the six elected trustees would be voted for by all the electors, rather than each trustee being chosen by the electors of an individual parish or ward.

A complaint that has been made is that this will mean that parishes lose their representation on the board, but charity trustees are not representatives of the interests of those who appoint them. The trust’s objects are to preserve and manage the hills for the benefit of the public as a whole. They are not to look after the interests of any particular area.

The trust and I are grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for giving us the opportunity to comment on a draft of his instruction, which touches on the trust’s constitution. I can say now that I do not intend to oppose it. I understand that the noble Earl’s concerns may, to some extent, overlap with those of the board as regards the potential for single-issue candidates dominating the elected trustees. I am sure that the Select Committee will look into this in detail, but the position of the trust is that the Bill strikes the right balance between elected and appointed trustees.

Part 3 of the Bill is about finance, and includes Clause 33, which deals with the levy, the subject of the other limb of the noble Earl’s instruction. The first point is that Clause 33 makes no changes to the current position. The parishes which are subject to the levy would not change; the amount that is charged at the time the Bill attains Royal Assent would not change; the way in which the levy is collected would not change; and the statutory limitation on annual increases to the levy would not change. The instruction would require the Select Committee to consider the area within which the levy is applied. I am sure that this would be a matter which the Select Committee would wish to examine in any event. I say again that I do not intend to oppose the instruction.

At the request of the trust, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, included some wording in his instruction about a restriction on the trust on what it can promote in the Bill in relation to the levy. By law, the trust has to obtain the consent of the Charity Commissioners to incur expenditure on the promotion of the Bill. As a condition of that consent, the trust must not incur expenditure in promoting any material changes to the levying provisions, including changes to the levy-paying area. The trust is content, of course, with the levy clause as contained in the Bill, and it would seek to persuade the Select Committee of its merits.

Part 4 deals with public access to and management of the hills. It is worth referring back to Clause 5 for context. Clause 6 sets out the objects of the trust, which are

“to protect, conserve and maintain the landscape, natural appearance, habitats, flora and fauna, geology and archaeology of the Malvern Hills”,

and to

“keep the Malvern Hills unbuilt on as open space for recreation and enjoyment of the public”.

Alongside Clauses 38 and 40, which respectively set out the statutory rights of the public to access the hills and impose a duty on the trust to keep the hills unenclosed, there remains very significant protection for the hills into the future.

I hope that your Lordships have no complaints about the way in which the trust manages the hills now or about the provisions of Part 4, which, in general terms, consolidate the existing local legislation, with very few changes. The most significant change in the Bill is a new power to fence common land to prevent animals straying from it. The Bill does not provide the trust with a charter to build on the hills or to install solar panels or wind turbines all over the hills, as some of the Bill’s detractors have, rather fancifully, suggested. It is quite the opposite.

The proposed instruction by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, asks that the Select Committee pays particular attention to the provisions which would impede or restrict public access. I strongly suspect that public access also will be of interest to the Select Committee, and I do not intend to oppose her instruction.

Part 5 restates in modern terms the trust’s power to make and enforce by-laws with one significant change—namely, a new power to issue fixed penalties. Part 6 deals with the trust’s power in relation to land, and again makes no significant changes.

Finally, I should mention Clause 83 in Part 7, which is a new general power for the trust, akin to general powers enjoyed by other statutory bodies and charities. It is important to note the inbuilt restrictions on the use of the power, which means that any fears about the trust bypassing the provisions I have mentioned about preserving the hills cannot become reality.

The proposed instruction of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, touches on the scope of the promoters’ powers. I am sure that, in any event, the Select Committee will take particular interest in Clause 83 and Clause 84, which introduces a number of miscellaneous powers, all of which can be exercised only to further the objects of the trust. The noble Baroness’s instruction is based on the instruction which was passed on Second Reading of the Bill which became the Malvern Hills Act 1995. Following in the footsteps of the previous Lord Colville, as mentioned earlier, I do not intend to oppose it.

I hope that what I have said is persuasive enough for your Lordships to allow the Bill to be given a Second Reading and for it to proceed to Committee. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, may I say how delighted I am by the tone and content of every speech made in this debate, particularly that of my noble friend the Minister? She answered a number of the issues raised by others as the debate has gone on, which I therefore do not need to repeat now. What I would like to do, though, is first to endorse what my friend Lord Murphy said about the international status of the Malvern Hills—the fact that it is wider than Malvern, wider than Worcestershire, wider than the West Midlands. They are an international icon, and it is the determination of everybody concerned with the trust in future to make sure that that goes on.

The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, talked about his ancestor—his father, I assume—and the dire predictions he uttered in 1993. It is interesting that the hills have not been ruined over the last 32 years: there is no McDonald’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken there. The hills are in as good a condition today as back in 1993, and the Bill today is to modernise the governance and levy-paying arrangements and to ensure consultation with local residents. I note what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said. She is a great critic, I think, of the trust and of the consultation, but it is fair to say that the trust went to great lengths—

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I am a critic not of how the trust has managed the hills’ affairs—the general management —but of how it has managed the Bill process. I hope that that came across to everyone. I would not dream of commenting on that; I am not in a position to do so.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her clarification, but she is presumably aware that 15,000 leaflets were distributed to households in the area. Posters were put up, businesses and cafes were leafleted, there were advertisements in the local press and on social media, and there were drop-in sessions. With an issue like this, you cannot please all the people all the time—which is, I think, almost exactly the words she finished her speech with—but I am certainly satisfied that it has done the best it could. I am certain that the points that have been made in the debate tonight will be taken on board by the Select Committee, which will look at the petitions and consider all the other points that have been made today.

The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, whose contribution I am delighted to pay tribute to—his interest in the formulation of the Bill deserves the highest praise—expressed concern about the possible dominance of single-issue candidates such as those, perhaps, who oppose further housing in their area. I imagine that the committee will consider this in detail, but there are one or two points that can be made in response. First, this could happen where there is a single electoral area, as proposed in the Bill, or, as now, where candidates are elected by individual parishes or wards. It is also worth bearing in mind that the exercise of democracy and the election of trustees has not been entirely without problems. One example is that under the present arrangements, most seats go uncontested: eight of 11 seats were uncontested at the last election. If interest in the election can be enhanced by the creation of a smaller board of trustees, then that change is worth while.

I do not intend to answer the question, “public body or charity?” The Select Committee will want to look at that, but it seems to me that it does not have the dire consequences that some people think.

As for the levy, which the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, mentions in his instruction, it is important to remember that the trust is under a constraint which means it cannot incur expenditure on promoting provisions in the Bill which are materially different from the existing levy legislation. The Bill brings together the existing levy arrangements into one clause with modern drafting and preserves the status quo.

The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, briefly turned to the Dartmoor judgment, the question of open access and the freedoms which visitors on Dartmoor have. The trust has been studying the judgment and it will obviously take account of any elements that have implications in the drafting of the Bill; and it is something I imagine the Select Committee will want to hear about. However, the existing Malvern Hills legislation and the by-laws make provision to prevent camping on the hills, so I cannot see the Malvern Hills being turned into a giant campsite as a result of the Dartmoor judgment.

I hope that either the Minister or I have been able to address most of the points that are of importance to noble Lords. The promoters of the Bill have, as I mentioned earlier, continued to work hard to conserve the natural beauty of the hills, and I am delighted that so many of your Lordships have referred to their natural beauty. But the time has undoubtedly come to modernise the way the trust is constituted and to update and consolidate its powers.

Alluding to my predecessor in moving a private Bill on the Malvern Hills, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, I hope that your Lordships will see that as a matter of principle, it is wholly reasonable to try to bring the legislation up to date, subject, of course, to getting it right. As a number of noble Lords have said, that is the point of a Select Committee procedure. I hope, therefore, that noble Lords will give this Bill a Second Reading and establish the Select Committee. I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Select Committee.