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Broads Authority Bill (By Order)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I am delighted to have this opportunity to introduce the Second Reading of the Bill and I welcome all the other right hon. and hon. Members to the Chamber this afternoon. It may feel like Sleepy Hollow, but this is an important issue for many people, not only in Norfolk and Suffolk, but across the country and internationally. The Bill has been gestating for some time and will probably go on for some time to come, until we get it right, because that is how determined we are to take it forward. I wish to thank my colleagues from Norfolk and Suffolk who are in their places to represent their constituents with a personal interest in the Bill. I am sorry that the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) is not here, but he has suffered a family bereavement. I hope that the Bill will progress, to give him the opportunity to make some of the points about which he feels passionately. I wish the hon. Gentleman and his family well in their current situation. The broads, which stretch across Norfolk and Suffolk, are the UK’s most important wetland. They are a unique and internationally important landscape, with a designation equivalent to that of a national park. I shall say more about why they are not a national park in name, although they share many other functions with national parks. In the 1950s the origin of the shallow reed-fringed lakes—or lochs, for the Scottish—was discovered, and they can be seen as the most extensive archaeological sites in Britain, including mediaeval peat diggings from a time when Norfolk was the economic powerhouse of the country. They were subsequently flooded, which gave later generations the network of rivers and broads in which so many people delight today. The broads are known for their big open skies, the drainage mills dotted across the landscape and the reed beds with bittern and swallowtail butterflies. They are where Nelson learned to sail, and where the concept of a boating holiday was invented. The railways are still there. Arthur Ransome made holidays on the broads popular, and hon. Members will recall the distinctive railway posters of young people disporting themselves on sailing boats. The value of tourism in the area now is estimated at £140 million a year. A famous local naturalist, Ted Ellis, called the broads"““a breathing space for the cure of souls?." That is a majestic phrase, and the area is indeed one of those very special places that help us to recharge our batteries and cope with our modern busy lives—and the odd MP does visit. In the 1947 Hobhouse report, the broads were listed as one of the areas proposed as a national park. Ten of the 12 proposed areas have been established as national parks under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, and the other area, the south downs, is under serious consideration. However, the national park for the broads did not proceed, because of the multiplicity of authorities with responsibilities for the planning and management of the area, strong commercial pressures and the anticipated high costs of management. It was recognised that it needed a special solution. In the intervening years the broads came under huge pressure, water quality declined and there was a real concern that many of the special qualities of the area would be lost. We now know that a combination of factors were in operation, including phosphates from sewage treatment works, bank erosion by boats, drainage of the precious grazing marshes for arable crops, and nitrates from agricultural run-off. In 1977, the Countryside Commission brought matters to a head by announcing that the area met the criteria for designation as a national park and seeking views on the best way forward. The opinion that a standard national park was not the best solution remained widely held, and negotiation with local interests led to the establishment of a joint local authority committee in 1978, involving county and district councils, the water authority, the Great Yarmouth port and haven commissioners and other interest groups. A decade or so later, the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Act 1988 was passed, and the Broads Authority came into permanent existence the following year to provide governance of the whole system. Much has been achieved in the past 20 years, and the decline has not only been arrested but reversed. Plants that have not been seen for 50 years have flowered, and the pioneering Halvergate grazing marshes scheme led to the environmentally sensitive areas programme and modern support for environmentally sensitive farming. A bursary scheme supported by the heritage lottery fund is training a new generation of reed and sedge cutters and millwrights. Tourism in the broads, which faces increasing competition from cheaper overseas holidays, is moving forward by improving the quality of the product while recognising and supporting the special qualities of the broads. To conclude my introduction, at a meeting that I attended, the chairman of the East of England development agency expressed an ambition to make the broads like the Florida keys. Having visited the keys I shied away from that, and I said that the broads had a magic that, thank goodness, the Florida keys could neither get their hands on nor improve on. There will be debate, I hope, in Committee and in another place about the Broads Authority, which is a special statutory authority established under the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Act, with a general duty to manage the broads for three major purposes: conserving and enhancing the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the broads, as I have described; promoting opportunities for the understanding and enjoyment of the special qualities of the broads by the public; and protecting the interests of navigation. The first purposes are identical to those given to the national parks, and it is the third additional purpose that makes the Broads Authority’s responsibilities special. It is, as it were, a national park plus. The authority is the third largest navigation authority after British Waterways and the Environment Agency. I must apologise to the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who has been dealing with water problems all day, last night, the day before and so on. Water is suddenly at the top of the agenda, and inland water problems have risen high in the country’s political life. British Waterways and the Environment Agency work with the authority through the Association of Inland Navigation Authorities—AINA—and the national park authorities. The authority is a harbour authority, too, and its navigation responsibilities, which are unique, include public safety provisions for navigation and for boats, and maintenance of the navigation system, including moorings, dredgings and markings. The authority is a local planning authority for the broads, with responsibility for planning, conservation, development control and enforcement. There are some problems, and we will take them on board, as people have quite rightly complained about the provisions of the Act, the number of members, who they are and so on. In 1988 the authority comprised 35 members, but after four years of discussion and consultation, agreement was reached to reduce that to a more appropriate number. In June 2005 the authority comprised 21 members, who are charged with taking account of national and local interests while reflecting the authority’s particular duties and responsibilities. Ten members are appointed by the Secretary of State, nine by the eight local authorities in the area, and two by the authority from its statutory navigation committee. I shall talk later about the other organisations that should have an input. The locally appointed members are councillors who have been elected locally and are an important link with the community, and the Bill does not include any proposals to change the overall membership. The authority is keen to engage with a wider group of stakeholders and local people, and it established a broads forum, which has been emulated by other members of the national park family. It is keen to continue to develop its role, and has recently included parish council representation. It has met the Norfolk Association of Parish and Town Councils—I expect that many of my colleagues in the Chamber have done so, too—and it has undertaken to work more closely with them to strengthen the relationship with parish councils in the broads area.