My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, and to hear from her about the situation in Northern Ireland, with its beauty and diversity of flora and fauna. These amendments relate to the issue of the independence of the office for environmental protection, which was much debated at Second Reading. I have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and, like him, I hope the Minister can reassure us.
7.15 pm
I am with the Government on this, and I thank the Minister for the helpful and comprehensive letter that he sent us after Second Reading, which was something of a model of its kind. Having read that, I think the level of independence granted in the Bill is adequate. Public policy requires Ministers, whatever the party in power—the Opposition will be on our Benches again one day—to take decisions. Agencies can become unwieldy and undemocratic, particularly after the dynamism of the first round of the appointments phase. Parliament needs to be able to hold Ministers to account, and not be persuaded to give yet more power to an unelected agency.
I do not think the parallel with the National Audit Office—suggested, I think, by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, who is not in her place—quite works. The NAO judges departmental actions in retrospect and tells us what, in the words of the prayer book, was left undone or ought not to have been done. As such it fulfils a vital function, but it is not a proactive organisation; it does not in general tell us what to do or how to go about things. The analogy drawn by the noble Baroness is therefore, to my mind, invalid. We also have the Climate Change Committee, led by my noble friend Lord Deben, and the Environment Agency, both of which play an important part in this area. In the context of the independence issue, it would be good to hear from the Minister how the three will complement one another.
We can also take some reassurance from the fact that Dame Glenys Stacey, the newly-appointed chair of the office for environmental protection, is very independent-minded and that a multiannual budget has been promised. Indeed, my concern is that the new body will be so independent and keen on the environment from which its status derives that it will neglect other equally important aspects of life, notably the economic dimension, particularly as we emerge from the unprecedented crisis of Covid.