Environment: Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty

My Lords, this has been an excellent debate, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Renton, on securing it and on his choice of subject. A lot of questions have been asked and points made, and I shall do my best to respond to as many as possible. I will seek to write regarding those that I miss out. As I go through, I have counted about five declarations of interest that I will have to make in responding to various issues. I want to put a couple of facts on the record. Natural England’s settlement for 2008-09 is £176 million. No one mentioned that. Up or down, it does not matter; that is the figure. It is flat cash compared with last year, with a £5 million efficiency saving that was built in. I understand that that came about as part of the efficiency savings that would be expected from the merging of three separate organisations. There was some long-term planning, which others in the House will be more familiar with than I am because I was not at Defra at the time the legislation went through. At present Natural England is on record as saying that it was a good outcome for the natural environment, but it is not yet able to say what the funding is this year. I regret that as much as anyone else. It has had board meetings relating to this, and I accept that there are some hard choices to be made. It is in everyone’s interests, including those of the Natural England board members, to get decisions out as soon as possible. There is a contrast there with the national parks. Because they are effectively quasi-local authorities, they have to set their budgets in advance like ordinary local government, which are duty-bound to fix their rates or taxes in advance. That difference goes to the very point that the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, made about differences in the administration of these bodies. One thing that I can say, and it might answer a couple of questions asked by noble Lords, is that they are considering three-year settlements for areas of outstanding natural beauty in order to provide more stability and certainty. That is important. The delivery of Defra’s policies is undoubtedly devolved to Natural England. We cannot micro-manage them from Whitehall. That would be completely wrong. The man and woman in Whitehall do not know best; there is no doubt about that. Natural England is spread over the country to take the decisions appropriate to the particular areas, even the areas that are run by the conservation boards. There are only two conservation boards, for the Chilterns and the Cotswolds. It is up to the constituent parts of the areas of outstanding natural beauty to decide whether they want a conservation board. It is not for Defra to impose them. I have to get another point out of the way before I am accused of missing it out. I cannot say anything whatever about the proposed South Downs national park. I have all the fancy words here in bold: ““quasi-judicial””; ““prejudice the Secretary of State’s decision””; ““essential that Minister’s officials to do not engage in public discussion on the issue””. But I can say this—and then I can get it off my chest. I remember the announcement, in 1998 or 1999, of two new national parks. I think it is appalling. It is not a credit to democracy that, in 2008, we still do not have one of those. It is not a credit to say, ““It takes a long time””. I regret the lapse in standards of administration and democracy and the fact that no decisions have been made. But a second inquiry is still under way and I cannot say anything about the detail.