The English countryside is a “place of business” and already has “hundreds of thousands of miles of public footpaths”, a minister has said in response to questions about why the “right to roam” report has been shelved.
The comments by Mark Spencer, the leader of the house, came as campaign groups expressed their fury over the Treasury’s decision to shelve the review, which was commissioned to search out a “quantum shift in how our society supports people to access and engage with the outdoors”.
