Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 70 and all the amendments that go with it, and obviously address the government amendments, Amendments 74A, 95A and 105ZA. I will not comment on what legislation was going through when I was born, as did the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, rather coyly refused to comment on what legislation might have been going through when she was born. Those are matters for all of us to think of in due course. I underline and fully accept what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, about the importance of national parks and their iconic nature—the fact that they are national parks. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, they cover 9 per cent of the land area of England— or is it the UK? I forget which, but it is large. As my noble friend said—he did not use these words but I think that he would accept them—they should not be cast in stone. He did not want them to be protected in the way that some of the church lands were in the past until Henry VIII appeared. I am no Henry VIII on this occasion. I want full protection of the national parks and I want them to work as best they can. I hope that in dealing with the amendments I can assure the House that that is exactly what we are going about. Currently, they are managed by bespoke public authorities. I make the point that they are bespoke and vary from authority to authority. They are not identical. They are constructed on local government lines, but those authorities have been doing an excellent job since they came into being, some as long ago as 1948, when the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, was conceived—or was it when he was born?—and for a long time since. Just as they have been doing an excellent job, the local authorities, and the planning boards which preceded them—in some cases, until much later, thinking of the more recent national parks—also did a very good job. However, those authorities now face the challenge of ensuring that they can continue to deliver their core purposes in very different times: in what—dare I say it?—are rather straitened times. They seek to minimise the impact of the spending reductions on their front-line services and see how they can continue to improve what they can offer in some areas. National park authorities have a long tradition of managing very small budgets, engaging with their local communities and making very good use of volunteers. That experience will serve them well in devising innovative approaches to delivering key services in future. The important point to get across—this is dealing with the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, particularly when he discussed the six questions that were put by the Government to the national parks authorities and others in that consultation—is what they do in the future. We are currently considering the responses to that consultation on their governance arrangements and honouring the commitment made in the coalition agreement. The consultation closed on 1 February, and we are committed to announcing the outcome of that by the end of March. I can give an assurance to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that the Broads Authority was consulted, as were all the other authorities, about what was going to happen and what it thought would happen. The six questions were put to it, and it was made aware of what the Bill would allow Defra and it to do. It might be that the Broads Authority and some of the others do not feel that they were consulted enough. If that is the case, the door will still be open, and my honourable and right honourable friends will listen to what they have to say.