Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

moved Amendment No. 125:"Page 2, line 18, leave out ““keep under review”” and insert ““review at least once a year””" The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 125 is grouped with Amendments Nos. 128, 131 and 132. If noble Lords who tabled the other amendments in the group would forgive me, I would like to speak only to Amendment No. 125, listen to what they have to say about their amendments and perhaps come back to the Minister when he responds to them. Amendment No. 125 requires the new agency to keep under review its raison d’être and review it at least annually. This is a probing amendment to try and establish the intended nuances in the use of this phrase. One may keep under review by insisting that the subject to be reviewed is brought into every discussion it reaches when the body has to make a firm conclusion. It could be, ““Right, gentlemen, we have decided that and we are all satisfied that nothing about the decision conflicts with our remit””, and so on. Legislation sometimes lays down that there should be a review session every so often. For example, all school exclusions of longer than five days have to be reviewed annually by the governing body, mainly to ensure consistency and fairness. It is possible that an injunction to keep under review could be honoured more in the breach by relegating it to a periodic paper, to be discussed only if anyone raised an objection to something in it. Such an approach would tend to ignore omissions and might easily overlook matters that had occurred in early weeks and months of the period it covered. We feel that the Bill should be more specific concerning the frequency of that required review, and we would prefer the words that demand a formal report at least in the form of a board minute. That review should be at least annually. I beg to move.