Environmental Impact Assessment (Agriculture) (England) Regulations 2006

Perhaps it is a good thing that I did not hear that. There are some substantive issues here which are worth looking at. As the noble Baroness said, the regulations re-enact and amend the regulations in relation to uncultivated land and introduce regulations, belatedly perhaps, in relation to restructuring projects on farms. The substantial matter raised by the Merits Committee, which the noble Baroness explained in detail, is the possible lack of clarity about the definition of restructuring projects. It also expressed concern about whether there will be sufficient publicity, and understanding on the part of farmers and land managers, about the requirements of the new regulations. Defra states that Natural England will provide informal advice, but if one is looking for a clear definition of what something means in law, and it can clearly make a substantial difference to what a farmer or land manager is able to do with their land, informal advice is not entirely satisfactory. What will that advice be and who will decide it? The regulatory functions in these matters have been transferred from the Rural Development Service in Defra to Natural England. As in all such cases, there is an interesting question of accountability. A lot of people will be monitoring this very carefully. The new arrangements may work, but, if they do not, no doubt we will all be discussing them again. One or two specific questions arise from the regulations. The first relates to cross-compliance. The regulations relating to uncultivated land are alreadyin the cross-compliance rules and appear againin, I believe, Rule 37. However, the restructuring regulations will not be in the cross-compliance rules. It is stated quite clearly that they will not be included. I do not understand why this is the case. Perhaps the Minister will explain it to my satisfaction. The second question relates to publicity. My noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer would no doubt raise it if she we here, because it relates to website publicity. Quite a few years ago, when we were talking about the CROW Bill, as it then was, whenever the Bill said that there had to be publicity in local newspapers and so on, my noble friend tabled amendments saying, ““and on the departmental website””. The answer we always had then, and that we have had on a number of occasions since in different contexts, was ““leave it to them, it will be okay””. We are now finding, and it is in these regulations as well, that the requirement to be on the website is being written into the law. We welcome that, because that how so many people communicate nowadays. Local newspapers are set out specifically, and websites should be set out specifically. We have an interesting situation here. Regulations 12 and 13 set out that applications for consent for significant projects, as they are called, should be in the local newspaperand on the website. Regulation 20, which covers where the decisions are announced, only specifies local newspapers, "““or by any other means it considers reasonable in the circumstances””." So what we seem to have here is a halfway house where the websites are in one part of the regulations but not in the other. It would be helpful if there was consistency in these matters. We hope that, increasingly, legislation sets out that it does have to be on the website, because that is where nowadays a lot of people look first. Finally, I hope that the regulations might be useful in the circumstances in parts of the uplands, including the Pennines, where I live, where there are sometimes serious threats to dry stone walls. People find that the income that they can get from hill farming is no longer worth the candle, but they can tear down and sell off the dry stone walls of natural stone for quite large amounts of money. There is a real danger that if hill farming declines significantly under the new regime—we all hope it will not but there is a possibility that it might—people will try to asset-strip those marginal farms on the edges of the moorlands in the upland areas, and the dry stone walls will be removed and sold off for astronomical prices to builders. I hope that the regulations might be useful in stopping that. Having said that, in general we support the regulations, and I look forward to hearing the answers to my questions and those asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford.