Geoffrey Clifton-Brown calls on the Government to guarantee that any sale or lease of the public forestry estate will have “cast-iron legal safeguards” for rights of way and that these rights of way will be published before the lease or sale takes place.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Will my right hon. Friend give a guarantee this afternoon that any sale or lease will have cast-iron legal safeguards for all existing rights of way? Will she go further than that by publishing what those rights of way are before a lease or sale takes place, so that local groups will know for evermore what rights they have over their forests?

Mrs Spelman: I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance, because we live in age of transparency and that is what community groups have every right to expect.

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