Commons Bill [Lords]

This is a small technical amendment and I rise on a small technicality. We received a briefing from English Nature which refers to the letter Sir Martin Doughty received from the Minister, no doubt relating to this clause among others. There is a lot of detail about Sir Martin’s reply to the Minister but we have not actually seen the Minister’s letter, so my first brief point is that I hope the Minister will put a copy of the relevant letter to Sir Martin Doughty in the Library. For accuracy, I shall quote a few words from the briefing:"““The Parliamentary Secretary for Biodiversity, Landscape and Rural Affairs wrote to Sir Martin Doughty, Chair Designate of Natural England, following a debate at Standing Committee concerning Natural England’s role in the implementation of the Commons Bill. In his response of 24 May 2006, Sir Martin highlighted the considerable importance of Common Land for a wide range of public interests, justifying significant involvement for Natural England within and beyond the confines of the new legislation. He agreed that Natural England should assume a central responsibility for the management and protection of common land, and of town and village greens, and expressed confidence that this role of ‘public sector champion’ could be achieved without any requirement for a specific statutory duty.””" The second part of my technical point is that I hope that, in addition to the first letter that the Minister wrote to Sir Martin, which he will put in the Library, we will have sight of the next letter he is going to write to the wonderful Sir Martin Doughty, saying, but in better civil service language, ““Get back in your box, Sir Martin. You will stick within the confines of the legislation, and you will not become a champion for the management of our Cumbrian commons—which you have never done before—without any statutory cover for doing so. You will not go beyond the confines of the new legislation.”” I do not want to labour this little point. English Nature is superb in many of the things that it does but it has no track record of managing our wonderful Cumbrian commons. The idea that it is suddenly going to become public sector champion of running Caldbeck common on our fells, and that it is going to go way beyond its statutory duties and do things beyond the confines of the legislation, is not acceptable. I hope that the Minister will say, ““Sir Martin: carry on doing the wonderful job you are doing in Natural England, do it within the law, do it within the spirit of the Act, but do not step out of the box too much.”” I just wanted to make that technical point.