Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, for once I find myself not in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, partly because I do not really understand his amendment, which reads,"““having regard to the need to contain global warming””.," in the context of the ““General purpose”” of the Bill. I will give the noble Lord an example. Last year, there was a major wind farm inquiry near Tebay, between the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the English Lake District National Park. The Countryside Agency put in evidence, extremely strongly and extremely effectively, that on landscape grounds there was no case for this wind farm. That was a good, renewable project. I am glad to say that the Minister accepted evidence from others, in particular the Countryside Agency, and the wind farm was rejected. There will be wind farms up and down the country where the landscape question will be extremely important. There will be other questions. A moment ago, the noble Baroness mentioned Southwold and just down the coast there is Sizewell. I am fully behind the noble Lord on global warming; it is the most serious issue the world has to face in the next hundred years; and I believe nuclear power will be one of the main ways of dealing with it. But the siting of nuclear power stations will be a problem and Natural England has to keep its hands free so that it can participate in the wider national debate. For that reason, much though I respect the philosophy of the noble Lord regarding global warming, I cannot support his amendment.