Public Access to Nature

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 18th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), and I congratulate her on securing this very important debate. I want to focus most of my remarks on the importance of access to nature for children and for education. The hon. Lady and I have worked together on campaigns on these issues. However, I also want to touch on some local matters relating to developments in Worcestershire and Herefordshire to do with how we ensure that the children in all our schools benefit from the fantastic countryside and the fantastic nature around us, and how we protect those special places.

Last Saturday, I was on a sponsored walk for my local hospice up in the beautiful Malvern hills. It is a historical place for conservation, and the work of the Malvern Hills Conservators to protect the landscape of the area goes back over a century. We can see three counties from up there, including that of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). We cannot quite see Gloucester, but we can certainly see Gloucestershire, as well as Herefordshire and Worcestershire. It is an incredibly valuable landscape, and it was great to see, as we went on with our miles of walking, that scouts and guides were up on the hills and enjoying them as well. I pay tribute to all the voluntary organisations that provide access to nature for children of school age, including of course the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme, and the very important work that they do in getting kids out into the natural environment.

It was very interesting during my time as schools Minister to visit schools in the inner cities of London and Birmingham that were doing really important work, recognising the benefits of nature for the mental health of pupils, in trying to connect their pupils with nature. I remember one visit to a school in a very built-up area of Lambeth, where the teachers had determined to use the resources they had available to develop a garden, create a natural environment and have a pond in the small urban space they had, so that children could engage with nature. They talked about the mental health benefits of that. When we face such a huge mental health challenge in our schools and in our education system, I think we should see access to nature and engagement with nature as one of the solutions. It is certainly not the case that only schools in the countryside can deliver that—schools in urban environments can deliver that, too—but it needs to be something that we consider as part of our curriculum.

[Wera Hobhouse]

The hon. Member makes a great case for young people needing to have access to nature, but because there is so little directly accessible in their local area, they often have to travel a very long way. Does it not make sense to open up more nature, so that people do not have to travel, but have it on their doorstep?

[Mr Walker]

I absolutely recognise that, which is why it is important that councils work together with voluntary groups to make sure that we signpost those green spaces. In my own consistency, which is an urban constituency— Worcester is surrounded by beautiful countryside, I accept —we have seen a fantastic local project by the Worcester Environmental Group and the council to develop the Wild about Worcester Way, a walking route around the city. It connects green spaces in the city and accessible areas such as the Worcester Woods country park, Nunnery wood and Perry wood, where Cromwell allegedly met the devil, to our primary schools, so that there are walking routes for children to enjoy. In areas where they might not enjoy great parks and facilities, to link schools, through active travel, to such places is important.

We also need to look at routes through the countryside. I do not represent many farmers and I am not going to get into the detail of the debate about the right to roam, but I do think we should be exploring more greenways—more long-distance travel routes from area to area. I am interested in proposals for a Hereford to Worcester greenway to enable both active travel and engagement with nature for people. For that to work, there needs to be join-up between different Departments—the Department for Transport, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities—to make sure we have an approach that can support these things with proper funding.

I touched on this earlier, but there is also the importance of having nature as part of the curriculum. I have spoken before about the amazing work being done by the Rivers multi-academy trust in my constituency, which is promoting a curriculum based on the sustainable development goals. Right at the heart of that curriculum is engaging children with nature and making sure that they understand their responsibilities to nature. I was interested in what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion said about the balance of rights and responsibilities when it comes to access. It is absolutely key that children have the opportunity to learn those responsibilities at an early stage in their education, and they are not going to do that unless we connect them with nature and give them those opportunities to be outside and to be engaged with nature.

[Caroline Lucas]

As someone who spent the first 18 years of their life in Great Malvern and spent a lot of time on the Malvern hills, I appreciate the hon. Member’s words about that. I have been enjoying his speech very much, but is he going to come on to the natural history GCSE? We have worked together with the wonderful Mary Colwell to try to make sure there is a natural history GCSE in the curriculum, which would absolutely give young people that empirical exposure to the nature around them.

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right and pre-empts my very next point. I did have very interesting meetings with the hon. Lady, Mary Colwell and Tim Oates discussing the case for a natural history GCSE. I have to honest and say that I was initially sceptical. Going into those meetings, I had extensive briefing from officials as to all the questions to ask and all the reasons why we might not approve a natural history GCSE, and I felt that the campaigners, collectively, were able to answer those questions in an incisive way. That demonstrated the academic benefits of restoring subjects such as botany to the curriculum, and the opportunity to engage students at a crucial time and to make sure that we fill the gap between the primary science curriculum, which includes good elements of nature, and the A-level in environmental studies, which the Government have put forward. The conversations I have had in schools since taking the decision that we should go ahead and develop that, show there is enormous appetite for it. I will be writing to the Minister for Schools to urge him to come forward with the detail needed to ensure that the natural history GCSE can be delivered at the earliest possible opportunity. It is important that we move forward with that. I know that many groups, including The Wildlife Trusts, are interested in contributing to the work on that. I think it is possible to deliver an academically rigorous, challenging and interesting natural history GCSE, which will also widen opportunities for students in our schools to undertake field work.

It is so important to have a natural history GCSE. People say, “Well field work is covered in biology and geography”, but not every student takes those subjects. Many students will opt out of geography before they choose their GCSE courses, and many will take combined sciences and might not have the opportunity to take part in field trips. A natural history GCSE will give students another opportunity to engage in field trips and outdoor activity, and to develop some of the skills that we as a country will need if we are to meet our long-term ambition of leaving nature in a better state than we found it.

We have recently seen in Worcester the establishment of the Office for Environmental Protection. It has been interesting talking to it about the job and skills opportunities there are for people who can understand and monitor levels of nature, biodiversity and environmental issues. Some hard skills are required for that, such as data science and scientific knowledge, so we must ensure that we take advantage of those opportunities. We must look at careers guidance in schools and prepare children for a greener, more environmentally aware future, in which increasing the quality of our natural environment and biodiversity is a key goal shared by all parties across the House. That is also a good reason for stepping forward with access to nature for schoolchildren in general, and with the natural history GCSE in particular.

A couple of things have improved in recent months and years, one of which is the conversation around environmental land management schemes. I have met my local wildlife trust regularly, and our discussions have led me to think that the Department is now in a much better place on ELMs than it perhaps has been sometimes in the past. Some of the concerns that the trust raised strenuously regarding the direction of travel about a year ago seem to have been met, so I am grateful to Ministers for their ongoing engagement with The Wildlife Trusts on that.

A number of constituents have written to me recently about the so-called Save the Shire campaign and the interesting challenge of saving literary landscapes. When that first came in, I imagined that it might refer to the view from the Malvern Hills, which I have always understood was very much the inspiration for Tolkien’s Shire. It turns out, however, that it is to do with another part of Worcestershire, which the Tolkien family had connections with, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean). It is an example of some of the tensions between access to nature and other environmental issues, because it is a campaign against the development of a solar farm. People are saying that they do not want the development of the solar farm because it will change the nature of the countryside and change access. that is a challenge. I will not wade into the planning area. Of course it is important that we protect our rural landscapes, and it is also important that we develop renewable technologies and renewables, but access must be a key part of that and one concern is that, if we have large renewable installations on land, they will restrict access. We should ensure that we enable access, both for nature and creatures, but also for people, to those sites and that we do not allow rights of way, which are important, to be shut off.

We need to continue to work on this area. Some of the figures on the health benefits have been cited. I suspect those understate the reality. The £2 billion figure I have seen in a Natural England report about health benefits largely focuses on physical health. As a country we face such huge challenges with mental health, particularly among our young people. Engaging people with nature and ensuring that they have that opportunity to reflect and engage with nature—as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion ably pointed out, that has very much been part of our natural development as human beings over the millennia, let alone the centuries—will be better for people’s mental health and in the long run it can save the health system a fortune.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell]

I absolutely agree. The historic injustice in who owns our land across our country has to be addressed. We have much work to do on that. The environmental improvement plan does not address those issues, which must be addressed, so that everybody can have access to our natural environment.

The plan also lacks ambition when it comes to addressing inequality. The word “inequality” is not sewn through the plan and it must be. Inequality is why we are standing here today, whether that involves the historic injustice of who owns the land in Britain, or the diversity of our communities, where access is far more restricted for those from the most deprived communities—something I recognise within my constituency. Just 8% of England is covered by the right to roam, and 3% of our rivers and 15% of our woods.

We are indebted to Chris Smith, and the work he did in bringing in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 to open up access to mountains, moors, heaths, downlands and common land. However, even after those efforts, most of our country locks us out. We need a fresh start and I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) will have that ambition when a Labour Government come in. Even in York, with our incredible bioeconomy, pathways are still closed to the public as developers buy up land and lock them out. We need to address that injustice too.

I personally have known the enrichment that access to nature gives. It is my place to go for restoration. It is a privilege to walk many national trails, over hills and mountains, to be lost in complete wilderness when finding myself, and to cycle the breadth of the country. Even in my constituency, each day, I seek to have a brisk walk to enjoy the rivers and strays, and the environment that comes into the heart of York. I always say that the most important skills I ever learnt were to ride a bike and use a map and compass, yet many of our young people today have no access to either. It is so important that young people learn those vital skills as part of their formal education process. Many youth organisations such as the Brownies, Guides, Scouts and Cubs teach those skills, but every child should have that enrichment.

I will never forget talking to a teacher at Carr Junior School in Acomb in my constituency, who talked about how the children in her school had never seen crashing waves at the seaside and never felt the “sand between their toes”. We have incredible assets across our country, but our children cannot necessarily access them unless their schools have proper funding to afford those trips, or unless we have a strategy that really focuses on young people getting that love of nature.

[Mr Walker]

I agree with the hon. Lady’s point. One visit that I did during my time as Schools Minister was to a primary school in Hastings and Rye, which was all of a mile and a half from the sea—admittedly up quite a high cliff—and I was struck by the headteacher saying that probably two thirds of the children there had never been to the seaside. That is an extraordinary example of how, even with very small distances, communities sometimes get locked in and do not have that opportunity to go and enjoy the natural resources right on their doorstep. It is crucial that schools are resourced but also challenged to provide that engagement with those natural resources, which might be close by but are still considered inaccessible.

[Rachael Maskell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point and could not agree more. It often comes down to funding in schools and being able to afford those opportunities for young people to experience the natural environment. That should not be the case, because we know how that further bakes in inequality. Of course, at a time when children really need to access nature, they are denied it. We have such incredible assets all around us, so we need to provide that opportunity to young people.