Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

For the benefit of the House, I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, that this is not a heinous process that produces lapdogs appointed by the Secretary of State. As an ex-chairman of English Nature and the current chief executive of the Environment Agency, I have been appointed by the Secretary of State on numerous occasions. To my certain knowledge, Ministers on frequent occasions have wished that both I and my boards would go somewhere else and not express the independent views that we have. The arrangements that are currently being proposed for Natural England are not out of line with those that have worked fairly successfully for the past 10 years in both English Nature and the Environment Agency.