Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

On that issue, the advice that I have received is that it is always the Secretary of State who appoints the nominees from the parish councils; he or she will do that in all cases. The two amendments are on an interesting subject. I garner three general principles raised by them, and I shall address them before I make some comments on the practicability of Amendment No. 307 itself. The first general principle, which is raised by both amendments, is that the primary legislation should specify that national members should always make up at least 25 per cent of an authority. The second general principle, again raised by both amendments, is that before laying an order to establish the membership of an authority the Government should consult not just the local authorities affected but,"““all relevant authorities and interested bodies””." The third general principle, which is raised only by Amendment No. 307, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, is that national park authorities should include some members—perhaps a majority—who are directly elected to that authority. Let me take those three principles in turn. First, I refer to the 25 per cent rule. That is the case for specifying in primary legislation that 25 per cent of each national park authority must always be made up of those other members whom the Secretary of State appoints, and who are often referred to as the national members to distinguish them from their colleagues who are drawn from local authorities or parish councils. The key consideration is not so much the 25 per cent figure itself, which is in any case consistent with current practice, but whether it is sensible for any level to be set in primary legislation, and whether that is a decision best left for secondary legislation, when the make-up of each individual national park authority—one is different from another—is being set by statutory instrument. The Government’s clear view is that such decisions are best left to secondary legislation where they can be taken on a case-by-case basis, and can reflect the context in which NPAs are working at the time. The Welsh Assembly Government are preparing to consult on membership arrangements and have expressed the view that they would not want the Bill to pre-empt the decisions that they will take in light of their consultation. The second principle is whether the Government should have to consult more widely before introducing secondary legislation. Although the existing statutory requirement is to consult only the local authorities, it is already Defra’s practice to include other consultees who may have an interest. In practice we are already doing what the amendment seeks. Perhaps it could be argued that no change to the legislation is therefore needed. I turn to the principle of directly elected members, which is again part of Amendment No. 307 but not Amendment No.307A. This is a well-worn issue, having recently been debated and rejected in another place. Directly elected members for England and Welsh park authorities was a subject discussed when the existing legislation was being enacted, and was looked at again in both the English and Welsh reviews. The issue has never commanded general support. Indeed, as the noble Baroness was frank enough to say at the start of her speech, neither the Association of National Park Authorities nor the Council for National Parks supports the idea. National park authorities are unique bodies. We need to recognise that and devise our approach accordingly. They have many of the characteristics of local authorities, including being subject to most of the generic local government legislation. They also have some features of a non-departmental public body. That duality reflects their dual responsibilities. They serve the country as a whole—they are after all national assets and called national parks—but they also have a direct responsibility towards those whose lives are spent in the park. The noble Lord talked about them in his speech. The current arrangements reflect their unique role rather well. At present, each authority has some members who have been elected to local authorities in the area, some members who have been recruited through a national competition, and in England some members who have been elected to parish councils. That mix gives them a broad range of skills and expertise that they perhaps need. It also ensures that they do not overlook either their national or local responsibilities. Is it na&-uml;ve to say that the real test of the current system is whether or not it actually works? It seems to us that it does. It certainly seemed to work to the authors of the 2002 Defra review of English national park authorities, who said that they were not persuaded that directly elected members would bring clear benefits. The separate review of the Welsh national park authorities also found no consensus on this issue. I have already mentioned what the Welsh Assembly Government plan in terms of consultation. In short, and to end, we see no need for a directly elected component. We believe that to introduce one could unbalance the approach that has proved successful for many years since independent national park authorities were established. Moving on from general principles, there are some drafting weaknesses in Amendment No. 307, which we fear is ambiguous and would not be workable. First, it is unclear whether it is intended for local authority and parish members to remain on national park authorities. The start of the amendment implies that they do not, yet they are mentioned in subsection (5). While the amendment would remove the part of the Bill which specifies that there are to be three categories of members—local authority, parish and national—perhaps inconsistency leaves in place those parts of the existing legislation which relate to each category. Secondly, Amendment No. 307 does not define what working in a national park would mean. Would part-time or unpaid work qualify? Would a directly elected member lose his or her place on the authority if they lost their job? Thirdly, the amendment does not specify how direct collections would be run; I refer, for example—and this point has already been made by the noble Baroness—to the simple question of who would be eligible to vote. For those reasons, I am afraid that we cannot support either of the amendments tonight.