My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have added their support, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who agrees, normally, with so much of what we are debating. I am sorry we have a slight difference at this late point in the debate, but I am sure we can iron it out.
My noble friend Lady Hayman was quite right to emphasise the essential link between nature recovery and the planning system. This comes up in other amendments we will deal with during the course of the Bill, but this amendment deals with one specific part of that relationship. My noble friend also rightly emphasised the need for wildlife corridors. We are learning so much more about the fact that you cannot have little isolated pockets of nature recovery and expect it to work. We need that broader viewpoint and a way for nature to travel around the country to provide a wider benefit.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, was quite right to stress that, in order for that to happen, the less special and the less beautiful places need to play their part as well. An awful lot of nature recovery activity can go on in places which we do not necessarily see as being particularly beautiful, although they nevertheless have a role to play in nature recovery.
All that leads to the concept of the wild belt. I disagree with the noble Earl, Lord Caithness; it is not a bureaucratic proposal because we already have the structure here—we are just giving an extra tool to the local nature recovery strategies and the people working
on that to take a wider look at what is going to make nature work in their area. As I say, it is about finding new pockets or areas which are not necessarily the ones that people might think of, which will help with this nature recovery plan.
Therefore all the powers are already there—they already exist in the Environment Act. All we are doing is providing greater scope for those people to really deliver what we are asking of them. I disagree about whether it is bureaucratic; I think it is actually quite a simple ask. It is quite a popular ask; a lot of the NGOs and campaigners out there recognise the benefit that this can bring, so I hope noble Lords will not disregard it as it is a proposal worth pursuing. In fact, I have had a number of noble Lords from the Government Benches talking positively about this, so it is a concept that has legs, and I think we will return to it.
Having said all that, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Randall, has a speedy recovery and that he will be able to be here for us to plan our next steps on what we will do with this amendment. However, in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw it.