Mental Health: Access to Nature

Debate between Philip Davies and Victoria Prentis

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Victoria Prentis]

It is always a pleasure to speak with the hon. Gentleman, and he is right to highlight the work that various groups are doing to encourage all of us to engage with nature in a more educated way. Indeed, my own community was excited to find a great crested newt in my neighbour’s pond this morning, and we immediately got on to the RSPB who are full of information about great crested newts, and that is just one example of the work that can be done on a very local level to make sure that we all enjoy nature in an educated and appreciative way.

To go back to the Government schemes, we have an £80 million green recovery challenge fund, which has been set up to kickstart nature-based projects across England in order to help with the recovery from the pandemic. One example of what we have done through this fund is to create 12 tiny forests across urban areas in England. This fund is also being used to work specifically on projects in NHS facilities.

I would like to join the hon. Gentleman in saying how absolutely fantastically well my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford is looking today—I know that she spent far too much of the last year in NHS facilities, and she will appreciate how important it is for patients, who may not be very mobile or feeling very well, to be able to go and sit somewhere or just enjoy nature around them during their treatment. I, sadly, had to spend many hours in A&E on Saturday with a family member—all was well, I hasten to add—and when I came out I was privileged to walk along the canal. That blue space was critical in helping me calm down and really put the day’s events in context. It was very useful.

Another example of our work to support equitable access to nature is the cross-Department project led by DEFRA which aims to tackle mental health specifically through green social prescribing. I heard about a brilliant initiative from a GP’s surgery in Newcastle where they prescribe working in the GPs’ allotment to help patients feel better. These services link people directly to nature-based activities such as community allotments, green gyms and conservation volunteering, which specifically target communities which have been badly hit by the pandemic.

We are also committed to ensuring that the public have good access to footpaths. For example, we are developing the England coastal path, which will be the longest way-marked and maintained coastal walking route in the world. We are also planning a new northern coast-to-coast national trail. We intend to table legislation this year that will enable unrecorded historic rights of way to be registered more easily, which should protect them for future users. As the hon. Lady said, our future farming policies are very much targeted towards rewarding farmers who bring about environmental benefits, and access to farmland for the general public is very much a part of this.

An example of the type of action that we envisage paying for in the future would be well signposted footpaths in places that are easily accessible from towns as well as more rural communities. I am very keen on creating circular walks and bike rides wherever possible, and I know that my hon. Friend will be particularly keen on the bike access, as well as the allotment progress.

Specifically on the points that my hon. Friend makes about the Environment Bill, the Bill will, if passed, require the Government to set and meet ambitious targets on biodiversity, together with those on air, water and waste. The Government feel that what she is seeking to achieve is inbuilt in the very nature of the Environment Bill, and will in future be protected for the public by the new Office for Environmental Protection. Nevertheless, I am sure that we will continue to have many discussions during the passage of that Bill about the right way to achieve these really important goals. I encourage Members from across the House to continue to engage with DEFRA to help us identify new opportunities for increasing access to, and meaningful engagement with, the natural world.

Thank you, Mr Davies, and I thank my hon. Friend once again for this excellent debate.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Can I also say from the Chair what a delight it is to see the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) looking so well? If the promise or threat—I am not sure which it was—of a hug from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) at the appropriate time does not give us something to look forward to, I do not know what will.

Question put and agreed to.