Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

I think that the amendment is essential. A good civil servant is good at weighing up all the alternatives and both sides of an argument equally; he is not there to take political decisions. It is therefore essential that the Civil Service and the people who implement the Bill have a clear guide to the political objectives and to the political contrasts that may arise. It is for Parliament, not a civil servant, to decide what should happen where there is a conflict. It is important that, in looking at the amendment, we recognise that ““priority”” does not mean ““paramount””, as some people seem to be reading it. The amendment sets an order of importance among the various paragraphs. It does not say that paragraphs (a) and (b) will always rule and are completely paramount; it just says that, when you are weighing things in the balance—or when two alternatives seem to be hanging in the balance—there will be a priority and an order of precedence. That is very sensible. Outside the SSSIs, where sensitive plants and birds may have protection, we may have ground-nesting birds, such as English partridges or skylarks; we may also have rare plants and all sorts of things that happen to be not particularly common in various areas. Pressure from public access could damage those irretrievably and some of them could be lost. We have to be careful that we are not going to condemn more species to extinction by not setting a priority order among these things. I entirely agree with the right reverend Prelate when he says that we are conserving the environment for its own sake, not just for future generations.