Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, after the fourth Committee sitting, we wrote to Peers who had spoken in Committee on 27 February with more explanation, among other transfer scheme matters, about how the Secretary of State might need to use the continuing power within Clause 27 to make a further scheme. I reassured noble Lords that the clause would not permit the general acquisition of property held by other public bodies, nor would such a scheme allow the Secretary of State to move assets other than those currently held by English Nature and the Countryside Agency between public bodies in pursuit of achieving government targets. In response to a question put by the noble Duke, let me make it plain that ““Secretary of State”” covers all government departments; it is a single post, occupied by any individual Minister. Clause 27 permits the Secretary of State to make transfer schemes to transfer property rights or liabilities of a Minister of the Crown to Natural England, the Commission for Rural Communities or a person acting on their behalf, or from the bodies in question to a Minister. Such transfers are intended to cater for the efficient management of property rights and liabilities, and will be related to the setting up of the new bodies. In particular, we envisage that we might need to make a further scheme when something was inadvertently missed in the original scheme on the dissolution of English Nature and the Countryside Agency. The ability to make the proposed transfer schemes is required to further the efficient management of property rights and liabilities. The schemes can relate to rights and liabilities affecting staff as well as property. It will be important that where the business need arises, the transfers can be made quickly. Making such subsequent transfer schemes subject to the statutory instrument procedure would add an excessive burden and delay to the process, the principle of which would already have been agreed by Parliament. I have been able to reassure the noble Baroness on some of the constraints on the Secretary of State in those circumstances. On Amendment No. 117, powers of direction such as those provided by Clause 38 are very much reserved powers that we hope never to have to use, but are also part and parcel of the safeguards that are normally built into the framework when setting up an NDPD. We oppose the amendment because it would allow Parliament to countermand instructions that the Secretary of State had issued. That cannot be right. It would leave the joint committee in the position of not knowing what it should do if a Motion was tabled to annul the statutory instrument. A further and arguably more practical consideration is that a delay might result. If a direction is to have value, the joint committee must be able to issue it as soon as the Secretary of State has decided to make it. Given JNCC’s status as a cross-border body, any statutory instrument would need to be considered also by the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. That would again involve further delay in issuing the direction. I hope that I have reassured noble Lords that the scope of the movement between the bodies concerned is limited. I invite the noble Duke to withdraw his amendment.