A minister who owns a vast country estate is facing accusations that he gave Parliament “false information” over lobbying by landowners to deny the public access to thousands of miles of country walks.

Environment minister Richard Benyon owns the 14,000-acre Englefield estate in Berkshire and is one of the richest parliamentarians, worth £130m, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.

The government decided earlier this year to impose a 2031 deadline for formally registering unrecorded public footpaths through private land, known as rights of way.

In the House of Lords on Monday, Benyon denied that the government had engaged with lobbyists about the decision. But openDemocracy last month revealed that the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) had written in December to Benyon’s colleague at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Trudy Harrison, asking the government to set a new deadline for lost path claims.

The deadline of 2031 was imposed in March, having originally been set as 2026 but then abolished altogether last year, to the delight of campaigners.

In the letter, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the CLA claimed landowners had “suffered numerous frivolous claims of historic rights on their land holdings”.

The Ramblers, a British walking charity, has identified 41,000 miles of potential historical rights of way in England – but says the new deadline will not give volunteers enough time to compile the large amounts of evidence needed to support applications for the paths to be added to modern maps.

Responding to a written question from Liberal Democrat peer Ros Scott, Benyon specifically denied discussing the issue with landowner lobby groups including the CLA and the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).

He told the House of Lords: “Ministers had no engagement with the Country Land and Business Association and the National Farmers Union regarding the decision to reinstate the deadline for the recording of historic rights of way.”

The CLA has itself stated that it held a meeting with Benyon as part of its “intense lobbying” on the issue, and the NFU has also said it lobbied Benyon directly on the subject.

James MacColl, head of policy at the Ramblers, said: “We’re concerned that the minister may have potentially given false information to Parliament. The report that there has been no engagement on this issue with the CLA and NFU seems to directly contradict their accounts.

“The government also released the CLA’s letter to [Trudy] Harrison, after which the CLA claimed victory for successfully lobbying to reinstate the deadline. If this is not what has happened, the sequence of events should be clarified.

“In any case, the Ramblers – and other organisations representing the interests of millions of people who want to get outdoors and connect with nature – were not consulted. This has resulted in a decision that threatens thousands of miles of historic rights of way. The public deserves transparency from the government on the interests they considered in making this decision.”

Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, which campaigns to protect footpaths and green spaces, said: “Lord Benyon appears to have a short memory. It is obvious that ministers have caved in to landowners’ demands. Lord Benyon should have said so.”

Benyon’s estate was targeted last year by 150 members of the Right to Roam campaign, who held a peaceful protest aimed at securing his support – as minister for access to nature – for opening more of the countryside to the public.

The group also sent the peer a letter asking him to open up his own estate to the public. Nick Hayes, author of The Book of Trespass and one of the group’s leaders, said that 200 years ago, Benyon’s ancestor had moved an entire village out of sight of Englefield House, where the minister lives, to create a deer park. He also said a historic footpath through the estate had been identified on old Ordnance Survey maps but had since been “extinguished”.

Defra declined to comment on the evidence contradicting Benyon’s parliamentary answer.

A Defra spokesperson said: “We are committed to increasing access to nature and our Environmental Improvement Plan sets out our ambition for every household to be within a 15-minute walk of a green space or water.

“We will extend the cut-off date to 2031 for those wishing to register historic rights of way – and are implementing reforms to existing processes making it easier and faster to update the legal record of rights of way.”

Only 8% of England is open access land on which there is a right to roam, whereas in Scotland there is a right to roam on most land and inland water.

Almost two thirds of Britons support a Scottish-style right to roam in England, according to a YouGov poll conducted last month and commissioned by the Right to Roam campaign.

Labour has pledged to introduce a “default of access” under a new right to roam law based on Scotland’s example.