Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

Of course names are important. I welcome this very short debate, to which I do not intend to contribute for long. I simply make the point that the existence of any of these bodies is yet to be decided because, although I understand they all exist in shadow, this legislation has not yet passed through your Lordships’ House. So we are talking about hypothetical bodies, although they seem to exist in more than shadow. I take this opportunity, slightly cheekily, to declare my interests for the record so that I do not have to do so when moving my amendment. I remind the Committee of my rural interests: I chair Somerset Food Links; my husband chairs the Flood Defence Committee of the Environment Agency; my brother-in-law is a cider brandy and cider maker, and I have a small rural business. That said, I hope seriously that, when we have discussed the functions of these bodies and, indeed, whether they should exist at all, we will return to the matter of the appropriateness of their names.