My Lords, I, too, support the amendment moved so clearly and effectively by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, and supported so strongly by the right reverend Prelate. I declare an interest as a patron of a charity in Coggeshall, Essex which runs a large forestry estate. Indeed, I am lucky enough to have a piece of ancient woodland. What has been said about public concern regarding this aspect of this Bill cannot be overestimated. I dare say many Members of the House have had a huge amount of correspondence from people really anxious to get the public forestry estate and, I believe, forestry charities excluded from the Bill as was successfully done during the passage of the Public Bodies Act 2011. They want to do that not because they view the Homes and Communities Agency as a malignant body
but because they know only too well that large bureaucracies can lose touch with public feeling and opinion. Indeed there is a march going on at this very moment down in the West Country in the Forest of Dean about this Bill and the potential people think it brings for despoliation. People are deeply anxious in our wonderful country, which seems little by little to be being concreted over, developed and exploited, that we preserve and give special status to what forestry and woodland is left. I think that is at the root of this.
As a talisman of so many people who have written in, I will read a sentence from a letter written by Brian and Michelle Jones, who run an animal charity in the Forest of Dean. They say a good deal, including:
“For your average Brit, the freedom to roam on the beaches, by the lakes and, especially, in the forests, is sacred. It is what being British is all about”.
That would be a pretty universal sentiment.
6.30 pm
Specifically in relation to the language of the Bill, the wording in Clause 21 to introduce into the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 new Clause 53A, entitled:
“Other property etc transfers to the HCA”—
that is, the Home and Communities Agency—is far too wide. It is absolutely right for the noble Baroness who tabled the amendment to make clear beyond peradventure that public forests are not to be subject to that clause’s provisions. It states:
“The Secretary of State may at any time make one or more schemes for the transfer to the HCA of designated property, rights or liabilities of a specified public body”.
That is typical legalese and I am lawyer, but one wants to know what “designated property” and “a specified public body” are. On those two phrases hang the potential, or lack thereof, of the Bill to wound the public weal.
Further into Clause 21, “designated property” is defined extremely widely. It states that,
“in relation to a scheme”,
it is to be,
“determined in accordance with the scheme”.
It is extraordinarily wide. The scheme that the Secretary of State can make is to transfer property—any property—to the HCA for the purposes of housing. This whole piece of the Bill harks back the Homes and Regeneration Act 2008, Section 2 of which states that the purpose of the Homes and Communities Agency is,
“to improve the supply and quality of housing in England”.
Very fine, too, but it is a question of how you do it. I am saying that the language in this clause is too wide.
The noble Baroness referred to “specified public body”, because there exists the contemplation that the Minister may say that the public forestry body is not caught within the new addition to the 2008 Act. However, “specified public body” is itself widely defined. It simply says that it shall be defined in accordance with,
“a description specified, by regulations made by the Secretary of State”.
Well, that is good, is it not? We all know the force of regulations in preserving our cherished rights and advantages. We know very well that you cannot amend
regulation; you have to reject it in its entirety or it goes through, and the chances of rejecting a regulation in its entirety are slim. We are therefore left with a definition of “specified public body” as wide as the Atlantic Ocean.
“Public body” is defined in subsection (5) of new Section 53A as,
“a person or body with functions of a public nature”.
Well, that is jolly helpful, is it not? You could get 10 lawyers arguing for 10 years about that. I asked a well known Law Lord about this. He is not here this afternoon, or he would confirm that he believes that that definition includes, for example, all woodland charities. Every county of England has a woodland trust. He believes that they are brought within the provisions of this clause. Can you imagine the potential consequences? The charity of which I am a patron is one of thousands of woodland charities.
I anticipate that the Minister will say, “Oh, that is rubbish. ‘Public body’ does not extend that far”, and so on. I will read to your Lordships from the Local Government Act 1972; that is not some little measure, after all, but a measure central to our national life and government. Section 270 of that Act defines “public body”, inter alia, in these terms,
“any trustees … who, for public purposes and not for their own profit, act under any … instrument for the improvement of any place”—
which is also a very wide definition. Then it mentions a number of things, such as the supply of water, providing cemeteries and markets, and so on. It boils down to the fact that the definition of “public bodies” includes, of course, local authorities, parish councils and all the rest of it, but also,
“trustees … who, for public purposes and not for their own profit, act under any … instrument”.
That includes every charity in the land. The definition, the central core of charity, is that it exists exclusively for public benefit. What could be more of a public body than that? Of course, trustees cannot run charities, to use the language of the 1972 Act, “for their own profit”. They cannot charge a penny for their services.
My contention—and I shall be fascinated to know whether the noble Lord disagrees with this—is that Clause 21, introducing new Section 53A into the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, is far too wide for comfort.