Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, this amendment seeks to clarify the position of the Rural Development Service. It is not a separate legal entity from Defra. It is neither legally necessary nor appropriate to mention that in the Bill. It is, however, appropriate to provide that clarification in the Explanatory Notes and I have already given assurances that we will seek to do so. The noble Baroness was right that the RDAs will take responsibility for socio-economic funding, as we made clear in the Rural Strategy 2004, though this will be effected by means of the RDAs’ own powers and changes to secondary legislation, which do not need to be mentioned in the Bill. So the EU rural development regulation schemes that are run by the RDS, such as vocational training, processing and marketing grants and rural enterprise grants, will in future be administered by the RDAs. The large part of the RDS functions, including the delivery of agri-environment schemes, will be the responsibility of Natural England, as the noble Baroness recognised. Chapter 1 of Part 8, which relates to powers to enter into delegation agreements, provides a mechanism to delegate RDS functions. We expect to use those powers for some of the RDS functions. Others will be managed by changes to secondary legislation or using Natural England’s own powers conferred by the Bill, such as the power to enter into management agreements that is established by Clause 7. It is a pleasure to see the noble Lord, Lord Monro, back in his place. We missed him at earlier stages of the Bill. I accept fully his point about the difficulties facing those who seek to earn a living in agriculture and the countryside. It is our intention in this Bill to make the system easier for people to understand. With regard to agri-environment, it is difficult to say anything more about funding. The agri-environment budgets for 2007 are still being discussed with the EU. It is much too soon to make decisions on items such as match funding while that is going on. For the constituent bodies of Natural England, the Government intend that the outcome sought and the level of programme funding for 2005-06 to 2007-08 will be set out in their approved corporate plans. This year’s programme funding for those constituent bodies will be £246 million. Future budgets will be set by the Secretary of State as part of corporate planning rounds.