Access To The Countryside

EDM number 1497 in 1992-93, proposed by Alex Salmond on 01/03/1993.

That this House notes with alarm the view expressed by the Environment Minister, the honourable Member for Penrith and The Border, who is reported in the Evening Standard of 24th February to be actively considering a 'ramblers' toll' for public access to the countryside; opposes any move to introduce a Landlord's Charter which would strip the public of a most basic and fundamental right to enjoy, free of charge, the benefits of their own natural heritage; views with dismay his view that the public should be charged for using the countryside on the same commercial basis as access to a leisure centre or a museum; regrets the endorsement given to this mean-spirited suggestion by the honourable Member for Eastwood in the Edinburgh Evening News of 27th February; believes that this latest example shows that the acquisitive society fostered by this Government has gone made; and calls on all honourable and Right honourable Members to repudiate this unpopular and impractical suggestion.

This motion has been signed by a total of 45 MPs.