Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 8, 11, 14 and 15. Amendments 6, 8, 11 and 15 will remove from Ministers of the Crown the power to abolish certain environmental bodies separately constituted for areas in Wales: the Welsh Agricultural Dwelling House Advisory Committee; the Agricultural Wages Committee, the Environmental Protection Advisory Committee, established under Section 12 of the Environment Act 1995; and the regional and local fisheries advisory committees established under Section 13 of the Environment Act 1995. The Government has tabled a separate amendment, Amendment 80, which we will come to later, to give the Welsh Ministers the powers to abolish the equivalent Welsh committees. Amendment 80 is part of a package of amendments following in-depth discussions with the Welsh Assembly Government to provide specific order-making powers to the Welsh Ministers. Further details of the order-making powers being afforded to the Welsh Ministers to abolish these named bodies will be outlined in the context of this package. These amendments are consistent with the policy intention to give the Welsh Ministers the power to make decisions in relation to public bodies and offices in Wales where they fall within the policy areas which the Welsh Ministers and the National Assembly for Wales are responsible. This is also consistent with the aim of the Bill to provide the Welsh Ministers with relevant powers to ensure that they can put in place the most appropriate arrangements to deliver their environmental duties and policy objectives in Wales. The fourth amendment in the group, which was originally to be debated later but has now been grouped, Amendment 14, is to insert the Plant Varieties and Seeds Tribunal, or PVST, into Schedule 1. I am happy to set out the reasons behind that. The PVST was set up in 1964 under the Plant Varieties and Seeds Act. Its function is to hear appeals against decisions relating to plant breeders’ rights, national listing of seed varieties and forest reproductive material. The body has not sat since the mid-1980s—it might be another of the dead parrots that we discussed earlier. That is largely because other dispute resolution measures exist in legislation which have proved effective. For example, there is provision for persons affected by a decision to list a variety to make written and oral submissions to the Secretary of State. If this does not resolve a dispute, an appeal may be made to the tribunal. Similar provisions exist elsewhere in legislation covering early resolution of other disputes within the PVST’s remit. Matters covered on appeal are likely to be very technical and could include, for instance, proposals to add a genetically modified variety to the national list, thus permitting marketing of its seed in the United Kingdom. The tribunal therefore has an important function as the final arbiter in cases of dispute, and we propose to retain those functions to ensure that rights of appeal are not lost. Although we propose to retain the functions of the body, the Government's policy is to centralise the administration of tribunals and to reduce the number of individual tribunals. For that reason, we propose to transfer the remit and function of the PVST to the First-tier Tribunal of the Ministry of Justice's Tribunals Service. This means that the PVST would be abolished as a separate body but a specialist tribunal would still be convened as necessary to deal with appeals. Hence, we seek to include it in Schedule 1. The PVST was originally included in Schedule 7, which we all remember, because when the Bill was drafted there was some question about the appropriate legislative means to effect change. It is now clear that the alternative legislative vehicle of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 cannot be used to transfer the functions of the body because of its United Kingdom jurisdiction and it being within devolved legislative competence. Devolved Administrations have consented to this transfer and abolition. I beg to move. Amendment 6 agreed. Amendment 7 Moved by