National Trust acts like land grabbing oligarch, says Patten
THE National Trust was branded ‘ autocratic’ and ‘out- of-touch’ by a senior Tory peer yesterday.
The criticism of the ‘landed leviathan’ by former cabinet minister Lord Patten comes a week after the charity was accused of acting like the ‘mafia’ in the Lake District.
Former TV presenter Lord Bragg accused the trust of acting as a bully during its ‘disgraceful purchase’ of land that puts at risk a sheep farm which has been part of an agricultural tradition dating back 4,500 years.
Yesterday, during a Lords debate, Lord Patten referred to a ‘cocktail of concerns’ relating to the trust’s actions. The former chairman of the BBC Trust and Chancellor of Oxford University criticised its lobbying activities across a range of subjects from global climate change and fracking to agriculture.
He said: ‘ During the course of 2016 so far there has been a growing chorus of concern about the lobbying activities of and associated behaviours by one charity set up by statute, the National Trust, particularly by those in the regions away from London.’
He said the trust had ‘ accumulated holdings that no Whig magnate in our House in the 18th century could ever have dreamt of accumulating’. He added: ‘Yet the National Trust is totally unregu- lated except by itself.’ He highlighted the ‘gazumping’ of farmers in the Lake District at a recent auction of land.
He said a trust agent bid hundreds of thousands of pounds more than the land was worth ‘with all the casual, insouciance of someone waving the cheque book of a land-accumulating Ukrainian oligarch’. Lord Patten said there should be an independent review of the trust’s governance to ensure it was acting in the national interest. The former Bishop of Oxford and independent crossbencher Lord Harries of Pentregarth rallied to the defence of the organisation and argued it was ‘ absolutely right’ that it should make its views known. The ex-bishop, who is a member of the trust, said he was ‘deeply grateful’ to the charity every time he walked along the coastal path, which had been acquired by the body. Amid a range of different opinions, Lord Harries added: ‘It’s right the National Trust should also have an important point of view out of their own experience.’ The trust currently has 4.5million members and 62,000 volunteers.
Opposition spokesman Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town hailed the important role played by charities. But she accused the Government of seeking to ‘clip the wings’ of such groups by restricting their ability to share expertise with decision-makers.
‘Growing chorus of concern’