• Hourses in the New Forest.

The Labour Government have a democratic mandate to carry this proposal out.

They announced before the last general election that they proposed to create a National Park in the New Forest and, having won that general election, they can claim a democratic mandate for what has now been done.

It was never the case that the public inquiry would turn it down on the basis that a National Park was not the.best way forward for the New Forest.

The purpose of that public inquiry, as I said at the time, was simply to see whether the New Forest measured up to the criteria necessary to become a National Park, and of course it did.

I am surprised and disappointed that Dibden Bay has been excluded from the National Park.

I only hope that we do not, as a result, see a renewed assault on that specially protected area which was only recently, thank goodness, saved from port development.

Much will now depend upon the sensitivity and self-restraint of the new National Park Authority when it is set up, and I shall do my best to try to help the new arrangements to work for the benefit of the Forest itself and of my constituents.