Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, we had an interesting debate on this matter in Committee and I am sure that the noble Baroness would agree that the strength of the argument was powerfully on the side of retaining the Commission for Rural Communities. I thought that at the end of that debate that the noble Baroness had agreed that that was the way that the argument had gone—obviously she has changed her mind since. I had hoped that this was a probing amendment—as is mine, which proposes to leave out Clause 85. I have no intention of pressing that amendment, which aims only to obtain some assurances from the Minister on the record regarding the work of the levy boards. We had a powerful argument in Committee and there is no need to repeat that now. As I pointed out then and at Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, eventually came round and is now in favour of the Commission for Rural Communities. I repeat the question that I asked at Second Reading and I still have not had an answer: which of the 20 organisations that have lobbied us support the noble Baroness’s proposal not to establish the commission? All the evidence that we have received is that not a single body supports it—perhaps with the exception of the Countryside Alliance. Certainly the NFU, the CLA and all the other organisations are strongly in favour of the commission.