I would ask my noble friend to allow me to finish. Once I have concluded my remarks, his question and other questions may have been answered.
Much of the public forest estate is already protected. Many of the sites are, for example, in national parks and the estate contains almost 200 sites of special scientific interest as well as more than 800 scheduled ancient monuments. However, the Government recognise the strength of people’s concerns about the future security of the public forest estate. Indeed, I know that my honourable friend Mark Harper and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, hosted an event recently about the Forest of Dean. That is why we have made the following commitments, which I shall reiterate. The Government will not transfer any part of the public forest estate to the Homes and Communities Agency. We are amending our guidance to departments on the transfer of public land to make it clear that the public forest estate is exempted from transfer to the Homes and Communities Agency. We will not include the new public forest estate management body in any future regulations specifying which bodies can transfer land to the Homes and Communities Agency.
I hope that that clear public commitment by the Government provides a degree of certainty and reassurance to noble Lords. Having made these commitments, I must also be clear that the intention of Clause 21 of the Infrastructure Bill was simply to allow the direct transfer of land from central government arm’s-length bodies to the HCA. The noble Baroness asked about the list of arm’s-length bodies. I would be happy to share that with her and the rest of your Lordships’ House. The public forest estate is not owned by any arm’s-length body and, as such, is not covered by the aims or purpose of this policy.
Various questions were asked and my noble friend Lord Phillips raised some specific questions. If I may, in the interests of brevity and to move issues on, I shall write to him specifically on the issues that he raised.
I have listened very carefully to what has been said in the Chamber today and listened attentively to the sentiments expressed by your Lordships’ House. It has become increasingly clear to me during the course of the debate that there is still strong feeling in the House that this is an important issue on which the Government need to reflect further. Therefore, I shall seek to bring an amendment back to the House at Third Reading that will seek to exempt the public forest estate from transfer to the Homes and Communities Agency. I hope
that, with that assurance, and the faith that the noble Baroness has in me, for which I am grateful, she will be minded to withdraw her amendment.