Law Makers Creating Law Breakers by Michael Bax

On 24 November I attended a Cambridge University Land Society Debate with a panel of speakers including James Paice (Shadow Minister of State for Agriculture) and prominent land agent Peter Faulkner (ex-President of RICS). Their brief was to consider the law they would like to change most if elected Prime Minister.

The range of proposals was as follows:-

1. Amend one part of the habitats directive which seems guaranteed to hasten the loss of the wildfowl it is designed to protect.
2. Introduce amendments to the rights of way legislation in order to allow landowners to at least participate in the process of modernisation. At present they virtually have no voice.
3. Repeal the hunting ban.
4. Re-establish the permitted development rights that used to benefit the agricultural industry.

Undoubtedly all noble sentiments and worthy of immediate legislation, but the thing that struck me was the thread that ran through everything. That is that all this ill-considered legislation drags innocent and law-abiding people into lawbreaking.

For instance:-

1. Like it or not, wildfowlers know more about wildfowl than any legislator. If legislation on wildfowl protection is futile, wildfowlers will ignore it, outlawing themselves in the process.
2. Landowners will initiate their own footpath diversions and get away with a lot of them. Others will suffer punitive fines.
3. We all know what is happening with the Hunting Act which itself occupied many more hours of parliamentary time than the Iraq war.
4. In planning, we see on a weekly basis numerous situations where property owners are proceeding with their development projects with no consent, in the full expectation of having to correct the situation with a retrospective application. This lawbreaking seems to be vindicated by the fact that at least 80% of these retrospective applications are granted. What a farce!

It’s a mad world, but how on earth do we reinstate commonsense and reality when the law makers appear not to listen to their consultees?