Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

This amendment relates to the appointment of members to the joint committee and is designed to impose specific terms on appointment to it and a maximum of 10 years for any appointee. It is a probing amendment. Schedule 4 does not specify the lengths of any appointments. However, the joint committee is covered by the code issued by the Commissioner for Public Appointments, and that will not change when it is reconstituted. I am assuming that the intention is to ensure a phased turnover of appointments. While I can see how that might work in theory, here we are setting up a new committee from scratch. The JNCC will be reconstituted and some existing appointments will carry over. Following best practice, appointments have been made so that they will not all come to an end at the same time, though however well we plan these things, premature resignations can frustrate our intentions. That is a good reason in itself to retain greater flexibility. It also covers those who are appointed from the UK conservation agencies and could conceivably impinge on appointments to those bodies. The intention behind the amendment is at odds with the code itself, since an appointee who has served two full terms or 10 years is eligible to apply for appointment through open competition and can be appointed again if selected on merit through that competitive process. The JNCC, as I have said, is not a new body, so not all appointments will come up at the same time. Usually appointments are for three years—oh! I have inadvertently made an error in saying that the committee was setting up from scratch. In fact it is the opposite; it is continuing. I apologise to the Committee. I congratulate those who advise me for having let me know as quickly as they did.