Malvern Hills Bill [HL]

Earl Attlee Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, for his usual expert introduction of the Bill today. The promoters would have been hard pushed to find a more suitable and capable Peer to move the Second Reading.

Assuming that your Lordships give the Bill a Second Reading, I will then move my Motion that it be an instruction to the Select Committee considering the Bill that it considers both the precept area and the electoral arrangements. This will not prevent the Select Committee considering, subject to the Standing Orders governing its procedures, any other matters it sees fit or the many petitions that have been deposited, and the noble Lord recognised that. I am indebted to him for agreeing in advance that he will not oppose my Motion. I gently point out to my noble friend Lady Coffey that the drafting of my Motion was very carefully considered and agreed with the promoters in early February this year.

If both instructions are agreed—and they probably will be—your Lordships’ Committee of Selection will have to decide between composing a committee that is ideal for considering the electoral and precept issues or one that is ideal for considering the AONB and access aspects of the Bill, if I may put it that way. I think that the electoral and precept aspects are more important.

My interest in the Malvern Hills arose through my wife, who was born in Little Malvern, and we regularly attend local events. By chance, last Saturday, we were in Malvern and climbed the Worcestershire Beacon—my hips have just about recovered. We have no property interests in Malvern, although my wife’s siblings do.

I would like to think that I am very well briefed on the MHT. I have an open mind, but I have some serious anxieties regarding the governance of the MHT. In particular, last year, the board lost its chair in acrimonious circumstances; there were accusations that it was being run by a small group and was withholding information from certain trustees. Some trustees complained of not getting information in a timely way, or even at all. I have taken up the governance matters with the Charity Commission at the highest level, and this is no longer a matter for me to deal with—I am not equipped to deal with it, nor is it my role. It should be noted that not all trustees are in favour of the Bill. However, advice from the Charity Commission is that the decisions of the trustees do not have to be unanimous.

I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, about the operational side of the MHT. Despite a recent tragedy, I have no doubt that the Malvern Hills are being very well looked after. There is an excellent new chief executive in place. I agree that the five Acts of Parliament that govern the Malvern Hills need to be brought up to date; some of the drafting is archaic and refers to organisations that are no longer extant, and the trustees are unnecessarily constrained in what they can do.

Compared with the eight petitions in 1995, there are 50 petitions on this occasion, reflecting the Bill’s complexity and controversy. Many of them are very well argued, and I am sure that the Select Committee will look at them all carefully.

Removing “natural aspect” from the objects of the Acts and replacing it with “natural appearance” is one example of shared concerns of those living in or close to the Malvern Hills or surrounding commons. Others concern estovers and other ancient rights of commoners. In the context of the trust’s rights to grant land access easements, the residents fear that the changed wording will invalidate previous case law and counsels’ opinions on what might affect the natural aspect, leaving the door wide open for future developments to be facilitated. “Natural aspect” continues to be used and understood in the planning context and neither the conservators of Epping Forest nor of Wimbledon and Putney Commons have chosen to remove those words from their governing Acts.

An important issue raised by many petitioners is whether or not MHT is a public body. Last year, I tabled a Written Parliamentary Question on this point and it was confirmed by the Government that MHT is not a public body. However, very recently, the ONS has undertaken a reclassification exercise and determined that MHT is indeed a public body. My understanding is that the ONS did not consult with MHT before making its conclusion public, which was rather surprising when MHT is in the course of putting a private Bill through your Lordships’ House.

If it is a public body, MHT might be subject to freedom of information requests, but it is not well enough resourced to deal with them. I am not a fan of FoI, although I have used it to good effect myself. Can the Minister tell the House what she thinks the new position is regarding FoI and MHT?

Some of the petitioners make compelling arguments that MHT is a public body because it takes in the precept as its main source of income. Car parking charges are considerable, but those are for the provision of a service. Charitable income is negligible. If it was a normal charity, funders could walk away if they disagreed with how it was being run. Instead, they must pay a compulsory levy.

No doubt MHT will consider the implications of this latest development. The committee will have to consider it because there are several potential consequences; these might include distinguishing between the legal and statutory requirements of being classed as a public body as distinct from its role as a charity receiving donations. As a public body, the trustees could have a duty to the levy payers rather than acting only in the best interests of the charity—a point touched on by the noble Lord.

I have identified two major issues of concern for the residents of the Malvern Hills area; that is, the area in the jurisdiction of the trust. They are the subject of my instruction to the Committee, and they are both linked. The first is the long-standing anomaly that some residents pay the precept while others also in the MHT landholding area do not. Although existing Acts provide that the levy-paying area can be applied to commons and wastelands at any time and from time to time, the provisions have never been used. However, the new draft position at Clause 71(6) appears to give the power only on lands acquired in the future, so the residents in those existing areas will never bear a portion of the precept. I also question whether orders made by the Secretary of State under Clause 71 really require the affirmative order process.

On the one hand, the trustees recognise that some paying the levy and some not is illogical and unfair. But, of course, there is no financial advantage for them in changing this because the total precept received would remain the same but there would be some increased costs for the trust. On the other hand, existing precept payers argue that they are exposed to an increased burden on costs, especially as some 46% of the trust’s landholding is outside the precept area and the trust continues to have the power to purchase more land. Parliament owes it to residents in the Malvern area to have the matter of the precept very carefully considered.

The second issue is the electoral and appointment arrangements for trustees. The noble Lord has carefully explained the new arrangements for the trustees. The proposals to have all the levy-paying parishes combined into a single electoral area is of concern to the residents because they believe they will lose their democratic right to elect their own representative. Their concern is that the new arrangements will extinguish the practice established in 1884 of ensuring that the individual needs of the different parishes—rural, urban and agricultural—are properly considered through their local trustee. That may now become particularly relevant if MHT is a public body.

A further concern is that non-levy payers, many of whom live in the rural areas, may have no voice at all. Extending the precept area could resolve these anomalies and be fairer. Matching the precept area to the landholdings of the MHT was envisaged in the 1884 Act, because, if the conservators acquired land in the future, they had the powers to levy the relevant parishes and they would be entitled to appoint a conservator.

The removal of the 18 trustees appointed by local councils across the whole of the area under MHT’s jurisdiction, to be replaced by the appointment of six independent trustees, via a new nomination committee, from anywhere in the country with no necessary connection to Malvern whatever, will further dilute the residents’ ability to have a voice in the trust. Surely the necessary expertise could be found from within the Malvern area or at the very least from within, say, 35 miles of Great Malvern Priory and all of Birmingham.

However, the question remains whether the complete severance of the link with all local councils is the best way of managing the hills effectively. Perhaps the residents of Malvern would be better served if the trust bought in some or all such expertise as and when needed and instead increased the numbers of elected trustees to give a fairer representation.

In addition to some of the concerns that I have had time to mention, I am concerned that, over time, the new arrangements would mean that it would be too easy for the trust to be taken over by a single-issue pressure group, with serious adverse consequences—a point recognised by the noble Lord.

In conclusion, I hope the whole House will welcome the principle of having a new Bill. It is essential that we instruct the committee to look specifically at the two areas I have suggested. However, the Committee will have to consider the petitions and other matters as well, and I fear that the Committee’s task will be somewhat onerous.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Earl Attlee]

That it be an instruction to the Select Committee to whom the Malvern Hills Bill is committed that—

(a) notwithstanding that the promoters themselves are under a restriction which prevents them from promoting provisions in the Bill which would have the effect of changing the existing levy arrangements materially, the committee considers the provisions in the Bill relating to the levy paying area; and

(b) the committee considers the provisions in the Bill relating to the composition of the board of the Malvern Hills Trust and the proposed arrangements for electing and appointing trustees.

Motion agreed.