Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

moved Amendment No. 103:"Page 7, line 11, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—" ““(b)   sustainable development in meeting the needs of rural inhabitants.”” The noble Duke said: My Lords, in speaking to Amendment No. 103, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 104, 105, 107 and 108. The drive behind all these amendments relating to the purposes of the CRC is that the word ““rural”” means people. It is also about landscape, open air, the countryside, farming, and sometimes tranquillity, but essentially it is about people. If the CRC is to have any value, it must express itself from the very beginning in terms of the people it works for and their needs. Rural people live and sometimes work in the countryside, so it is imperative to consider not only their social and economic needs, but the way in which meeting those needs has an impact on the environment. The CRC will have to be constantly aware of the interdependence of these three factors, and will have to ensure that its message to relevant persons makes that relationship clear. We have already dealt with the issue of affordable housing in rural areas, so we do not need to say anything more about that, but the CRC has an important role to play in alerting all manner of authorities and the public generally to the needs of rural areas. Perhaps if the wording is adapted in the way suggested, following the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, that will take care of so many of these things. The CRC will do this best if it is enjoined to think in terms of the people who live there. Amendment No. 109, the final amendment in this group, relates to areas under environmental pressure. I think that we all know the problems that occur on the east coast, where the history of cliff erosion is well known. Whole villages disappear below the waves. None the less, it is under increasing pressure, which we are told is caused by the south-east of England tilting gently into the sea and by sea levels rising in response to melting icecaps hundreds of miles away. I have also had some distant experience of the south-west and the environmental pressures of the annual holiday traffic, with its attendant litter, congestion, accident damage, and pressure on water supplies. But none of these things is inconsequential. Many of them impose heavy costs on communities that are not robust enough to bear them unaided. Those communities need a powerful environmental champion, whose voice carries weight in the arguments that surround progress, development and the attainment of government targets. I beg to move.