Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, in view of the fact that the Minister said that prior to the election I was responsible for the Bill, it will come as no great surprise to your Lordships to hear that I strongly support it. In so far as it has been changed since I relinquished responsibility for it, it has been vastly improved. Much has been said already about the Bill and I do not intend to repeat much of it. However, I wish to make two points that I do not think have been made, certainly not while I was in the Chamber or watching the debate on the monitor. First, as a former waterways Minister, I very much welcome the establishment of the independent waterways council. Waterways are a very important feature of our rural and, indeed, urban landscape and their contribution to recreation and biodiversity is very important. Secondly, I also welcome the contingency powers to implement recommendations arising from the review of the agricultural levy boards. I am at one with the NFU and the farmers’ organisations that we need to update the whole role of the levy boards in an era when we are moving to single farm payments and a more homogenous approach to farming more generally. As regards the main provisions of the Bill, I believe that generally there has been a huge welcome for the creation of Natural England, with the rather important caveat of doubt about its title. I was not personally responsible for the title. It was subject to a competition among the staff and others during the early period of discussion and consultation. It rather reminds me of when I was a trades union officer and we had to change the rather old-fashioned name of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers. We had 100,000 replies with the consensus being that it should be called the General and Municipal Workers Union. To some extent, the name Natural England has a slight problem for the reasons given by my noble friend Lord Carter and others, whereas ““nature”” is a slightly wider term. Nevertheless, any changes that need to be made to the name will have to be consequent on the body’s activities and on the passage of the Bill. I believe that everything else in the Bill has largely been welcomed. One of the reasons it has been welcomed is due to the very substantial constructive engagement not only of the staff, boards and chairs of the agencies involved—I wish particularly to put on record our thanks to Sir Martin Doughty and my congratulations on his appointment—but also of stakeholders more widely, the Environment Agency, the Forestry Commission and the staff of the parts of Defra which are being passed on to the new organisation. Those efforts and that constructive approach in a period of difficult and anxiety-inducing change have greatly improved the provisions which are now reflected in the Bill. There seems to be a wide consensus on the overall intentions and objectives of the new agency although there has been some argument about its general purpose. The drafting of the relevant clauses was subject to considerable consultation and ingenuity. They may not be absolutely perfect but they reflect a better balance than is now being urged by some. On the one hand, those who say that we should give equal weight to economic and social objectives in sustainable development miss the central point that this is essentially an environmental agency. While it has to recognise that it has social and economic outputs—I hope that those will be positive—the central role of the agency will be environmental. On the other hand, I do not accept the argument put by some of the environmental lobby groups that the references to social and economic outputs should not be included at all and that the body should be seen purely as an environmental organisation. In fact, the role of sustainable development constitutes a wider philosophical and political argument but we need a balance here—it is primarily environmental but it must pay attention to the social and economic implications for the countryside of its aim of protecting biodiversity and the landscape. The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone alluded to the importance of the new agency working very closely with the Environment Agency. That is particularly important in the areas which will become of increasing significance in the countryside as we move more resources of the agri-environment schemes into Pillar Two of the CAP, to which she referred. I refer also in that regard to the management of water in our countryside. The catchment areas and their effect on farming, agricultural practice and the quality of water will become increasingly important and have a significant effect on biodiversity and, indeed, in some instances on the landscape itself. That requires all the agencies to co-operate, and to co-operate with the farming community, to ensure that we achieve the objectives of adequate quantity and quality of water without having a negative impact on wildlife. The more controversial area concerns the role of the CRC. I am almost entirely at one with the views of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, on that matter. I do not understand the position of noble Lords who have indicated that because the protection of rural communities is such an important issue somehow we should not have a CRC as proposed in the Bill. The logic of that escapes me. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, is right to say that the Countryside Agency in its previous incarnation as a delivery body was partly hamstrung by the fact that it was a delivery body and had to deliver through its rather limited resources in conjunction with other bodies while at the same time performing a cross-government role on rural proofing, rural advice and rural advocacy. I support the removal of those delivery obligations and the creation of a stronger countryside representative body, arguing across government. People argue that this is Defra’s responsibility but the whole point of the CRC is that it will be an organisation influencing all areas of government which affect rural communities. There are huge social and economic problems in many of our rural areas. We have established a separate commission responsible for affordable housing. However, there are other social problems of great significance in rural areas, not least of which is the problem of inequality in income and wealth and access to services such as transport, education and health. Therefore, it is important to have a CRC that is sufficiently independent and cross-government and operates at regional, local and national level to ensure that all policies are assessed in terms of their impact on rural communities in England. There is a very strong case for having a CRC as proposed in the Bill. It must be strong and independent and its membership must have a broad vision regarding the future of our countryside. However, I acknowledge that there are caveats. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, and others, I should have liked to see a slightly bigger role for local government. However, I suspect that is not a matter for this legislation; it is a matter for the broader policy which surrounds it and which I believe will deliver a better future for our countryside not only through its rationalisation of the agencies but also through better co-operation between those agencies, local government and the RDAs and other rural and regional instruments of policy. I greatly welcome the Bill. I wish it God speed through this House although I suspect that we shall have substantial discussions in Committee. I wish it well.