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Broads Authority Bill (By Order)

The hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) has covered these matters in exhaustive, not to say exhausting, detail, so I shall try to be brief. I placed a blocking motion on the Order Paper because, like him, I thought that these issues should be aired. Matters that are important to our constituents should not simply go through the House on the nod. I feel at best lukewarm about the Bill, partly because of the local government review, which has been mentioned. If restructuring is being considered, which it is—I hope that that does not happen, and I do not believe that it is inevitable—there is a strong argument that we should just wait to see what happens and incorporate the Bill into that. The authority's composition is obviously going to change at some point, and Parliament will need to return to this issue either through that local government legislation or through other means, such as a specific piece of extra legislation, so there is an argument for waiting until then. The Committee has done good and thorough work on the Bill, and I congratulate the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) on that. I also congratulate the hon. Member for North Norfolk on bringing forward and promoting the Bill as he has done. I shall not oppose its Third Reading, and I think that the House should allow it to proceed. However, it is important that we allow the views of those who oppose it to be aired and placed on the record, not least so that if those views, however alarmist or lurid they might seem, should later prove to have been justified, there will be something to refer back to. If necessary, we could revisit the issue with new legislation. It is worth stressing the point about national parks, because several hon. Members have talked about national parks as though the broads area were one, but it is not—as the hon. Member for North Norfolk correctly pointed out. There is a reason for that, which is clear from looking at the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 and Lord Sandford's review of national parks in the early 1970s. National parks have two basic purposes: conservation of the natural environment and providing the public with access to those areas. If there is a conflict between those aims—or, I should say, if it is not possible by skilful management to reconcile them—conservation should come first. However, the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Act 1988 makes it clear that there are three purposes for the authority:"““conserving and enhancing the natural beauty of the Broads…promoting the enjoyment of the Broads by the public…and protecting the interests of navigation.””" So, from the Act's inception, it has always been agreed that protecting the interests of navigation was an explicit statutory principle which, because of the Sandford principles, excluded the possibility of the Broads Authority being a national park. The central fear underlying the concerns that have been expressed to us and to the Committee by petitioners, is that, as a result of the Bill, navigation could be compromised and could end up taking a back seat to conservation and wildlife, when in fact the ever-present need to balance all these factors is precisely the reason why the broads are not a national park.