Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, I rise to move Amendment 31 and to speak to Amendment 34. In doing that, I should also like to say a few words about the government amendments. When I arrived at the House today, there was a message from the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, asking me to move the amendment and saying that he was ““confined to barracks””. I thought, ““My goodness, the Whips are getting tough on the other side””. But, in fact, I am sorry to say that the noble Lord is unwell again. I am sure that it would be the wish of the whole House, because of the noble Lord’s commitment on these matters, to send him greetings and God speed for a rapid recovery. After the profound issues of law and legal institutions that we have been having today, this issue might seem a bit ephemeral. However, I do not believe that it is ephemeral because it is central to the quality of our society and those things that make Britain a place worth living in. Before I speak to Amendments 31 and 34, I should like to put on record how much many of us appreciate the moves made by the Government in their amendments to remove some of the anxieties which were surrounding the future of the park. No one could be in any doubt that we have Ministers, whatever our profound differences on all sorts of things, who are committed to the national parks. Indeed, I was very impressed when I took the chair at a meeting on Thursday to hear the Secretary of State speak so positively about the parks. From that standpoint, I should like to express real gratitude that the Government have moved. In a sense, that makes my remarks on Amendments 31 and 34 sad in that I wish they were not necessary. The amendments would remove national park authorities and the Broads Authority from Schedule 3, the schedule relating to constitutional arrangements. As has been the case on a number of other parts of this Bill, it is not clear why the wide scope of Clause 3 is necessary in the light of powers that are already available to Ministers and the absence, as I understand it, of radical proposals in the local responses to the Defra review of governance of national park authorities and the Broads Authority. It has been suggested that the list of constitutional arrangements in Clause 3 could be tightened in relation to its application to national park authorities and the Broads Authority. However, the Government have indicated that they are not ready to do that because of the way in which the clause is set up. Clause 3(1) gives Ministers the powers to change constitutional arrangements and subsection (2) says that that includes X, Y and Z and so on. But it is not a definition of the power itself. So the Government could still make a constitutional change even if it was not listed in the examples. It might be helpful if I put three specific questions, which I hope are constructive, to the Minister. First, why is it considered necessary to include national park authorities and the Broads Authority in Schedule 3 at all, given the powers that Ministers already have in relation to amending the membership of these bodies—for example, those introduced by the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006. Secondly, will the Minister indicate which proposals emanating from the Defra review of governance of national parks are likely to require legislative changes, particularly any proposals which relate to the composition of membership of authorities and which would anyway be covered by Section 61 of the NERC Act? Thirdly, can Ministers provide a definitive list of the constitutional arrangements of national park authorities and the Broads Authority that they consider will be covered by Clause 3? Which of these do they consider will need amending in the light of the Defra governance review, which, it seems, will not be published until May because of the local elections? If greater flexibility is still deemed necessary by the Government, surely it would be better for the Bill to contain a dedicated clause relating to national park authorities and the Broads Authority which amended the relevant sections of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 and the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Act 1988. It could specify what constitutional arrangements Ministers would have the power to amend by order. As it is, I hope that Ministers, with whom we have worked so well on this Bill, will agree that Clause 3 as it stands is unacceptably open-ended. I believe that it is time to reflect. I hope that the Government, as they have so readily done on some other issues, will move to meet these points. I beg to move.