Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment. I believe that some local authorities are excellent in practice but, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, rightly says, the comprehensive performance assessment at the moment gives no recognition of that important work, so even those authorities that are excellent do not receive the recognition that they should. The environmental part of the assessment was fairly hard-won, because when the CPA started it did not have an environmental area at all. Now it covers areas such as litter collection, and so on—so I think that biodiversity does need to be in there. These Benches very often say that they do not believe in duties being imposed on local authorities, particularly when resources do not follow. But I believe that the noble Lord’s amendment, in this case, only asks that they further the interests of biodiversity in so far as is consistent with their functions. I really cannot add anything further to what I said in Committee—that I believe that it is about a state of mind and a way of working. I believe that the noble Lord’s amendment would help that. I do not myself believe that it would be so hard to put it in the Bill.