Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

I am considerably mystified by some of the arguments put forward by the Minister. I confess to being the owner of a SSSI which was designated before devolution and presumably was part of the same legislation that we are talking about here. Under the management agreement, it was laid out that signs would be erected and the landowner agreed to the signs being erected. It sounded to me when the Minister quoted the number of signs that had been destroyed as if he was suggesting that the landowners were destroying the signs. In fact, if Natural England has the agreement of the landowner to put up a sign and the sign is destroyed, whether that is done under this legislation or through agreement with the landowner will not reduce the number of signs that are destroyed. That is vandalism by persons unknown whom we hope someone will try to find. In some ways, this seems to be part of the whole tendency towards more heavy-footed government. At the moment, there is a possible problem with common land, but now that we are talking about the setting up of proper governing bodies for common land you would think that SSSI agreements would have a body with which they could consult about putting up notices. There might be an odd area in which the owner of the land was not known, but very soon there should at least be some body for common land in most areas. Our amendment is a halfway house, suggesting that agreement should be reached with the person with whom the SSSI has been set up. It might be a tenant; it would not necessarily be the owner. Making a blanket power that the government body can implement of its own volition without consulting anyone else is going a little too far.