Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

Public Bill Committee, 23 June 2005.

Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill - Standing Committee A

Clause 17 - Commission for Rural Communities

Eric Forth (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 16, in clause 26, page 9, leave out line 11.

No. 17, in clause 27, page 9, line 25, leave out paragraph (b).

No. 18, in clause 27, page 9, line 26, leave out ‘and the Commission’.

No. 19, in clause 27, page 9, line 29, leave out from ‘England’ to end of line 30.

No. 20, in clause 29, page 10, line 7, leave out from ‘England’ to end of line 8.

No. 21, in clause 30, page 10, leave out line 12.

No. 23, in schedule 7, page 62, leave out line 35.

No. 24, in schedule 11, page 68, leave out lines 37 and 38.

No. 25, in schedule 11, page 73, line 16, leave out ‘places’ and insert ‘place’.

No. 26, in schedule 11, page 73, leave out line 17.

No. 27, in schedule 11, page 73, line 35, leave out ‘places’ and insert ‘place’.

No. 28, in schedule 11, page 73, leave out line 36.

No. 29, in schedule 11, page 77, line 29, leave out ‘places’ and insert ‘place’.

No. 30, in schedule 11, page 77, leave out line 30.

No. 31, in schedule 11, page 78, line 17, leave out ‘places’ and insert ‘place’.

No. 32, in schedule 11, page 78, leave out line 18.

No. 33, in schedule 11, page 78, line 25, leave out sub-paragraph (2).

No. 34, in schedule 11, page 78, line 28, leave out ‘that Part’ and insert ‘Part 2’.

No. 35, in schedule 11, page 85, leave out line 21.

No. 36, in schedule 11, page 91, line 24, leave out ‘places’ and insert ‘place’.

No. 37, in schedule 11, page 91, leave out line 25.

No. 22, in clause 97, page 39, line 14, leave out

‘and the Commission for Rural Communities’.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Thank you, and good morning, Mr. Forth.

The clause establishes the Commission for Rural Communities as an independent non-departmental body. Its general purpose and functions are set out in subsequent clauses. Statutory status will enable it to perform its role independently and impartially, and I suspect that during the debate on this clause we will return to the importance of independence and impartiality.

The clause also introduces schedule 2, which sets out the constitution of the commission, including provisions about its status, membership, chief executive and other employees, pay and pensions, procedure, accounts and annual reports. The arrangements are almost identical to those for Natural England as set out in schedule 1.

The commission will be a strong independent rural advocate, adviser and watchdog to help to ensure that the Government’s policies make a real difference to people in rural areas. It will pay special attention to tackling social disadvantage and the problems of areas economic underperformance. Rural-proofing will be at the heart of the commission’s role and it will help the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Government in general to ensure that policies at all levels of government—I think that we will return to this as well—are rural-proofed.

The commission was established on 9 March 2005 as a separate division within the Countryside Agency. Assuming that it will come into force, the Bill will turn it into an independent, free-standing non-departmental public body. We have said that it will not be based in London, and I can announce today that Natural England will locate its modest headquarters in Sheffield. A decision will be made at the end of the year about where the commission will be based, but it will be in a lagging rural area outside south-east England.

The combined effect of amendments Nos. 6 to 15 would be to remove from the Bill all the clauses that establish and empower the Commission for Rural Communities and the schedule setting out its constitution, which would prevent the commission from being established as a statutory body. Hon. Members will not be surprised to know that I resist strongly those amendments, and I will ask the Committee to reject them. Amendments Nos. 16 to 21, 23 to 37 and 22 are a consequence of amendments Nos. 6 to 15 and would remove all references to the commission from the Bill. Given the catastrophic effect that the amendments would have, it is important that I give a more detailed justification of the need for the commission.

There is a real need for the commission. It will be the one national body to focus its attention on the economic and social issues in rural England, and it will act as an advocate, adviser and watchdog to keep the Government and other key delivery bodies, such as local councils and regional development agencies, on their toes. The commission needs to be independent of central, regional and local government, and it needs to be seen to be independent, so that it can act impartially, challenge all those bodies—public, private or voluntary—that deliver services in rural areas, and influence that delivery. That is best achieved by establishing the commission as a non-departmental public body under the Bill.

The commission will have a remit to raise awareness of the needs of rural England among public authorities and other bodies and to promote ways of meeting those needs that contribute to sustainable development. That is important, because, although the commission’s main focus will be on social and economic issues, it will recognise the crucial link between environmental and economic sustainability. A good environment is good for the rural economy, and vice versa.

The goal of putting sustainable development into practice by integrating environmental, social and economic objectives drives everything that DEFRA does, and that principle was restated in last year’s rural strategy. The Bill will give statutory underpinning to that agenda by requiring Natural England, the Commission for Rural Communities and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee all to seek to contribute to sustainable development through their functions. The regional development agencies have a similar duty under the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998.

In the commission’s advocacy role, it will provide an independent voice for rural people, communities and businesses and, by virtue of clause 18(4), it will have particular regard for

“persons suffering from social disadvantage”

and

“areas suffering from economic under-performance.”

I find it surprising that the party that represents the most deprived county in England, Cornwall, should oppose giving those disadvantaged communities that it represents a powerful voice in Whitehall, in Bristol—where the South West of England Regional Development Agency is based—and in Cornwall itself.

Those remarks should address the points raised on the need to ensure the proper retention of viable local communities. The commission’s task will be to look thoroughly at the way all bodies connected with rural needs—public, private or voluntary—are developing and implementing policies to meet those needs. The commission will have a duty, under clause 19(c), to report on those.

I predict that hon. Members opposing the establishment of the commission will, in future—while still in opposition, their perennial place—not hesitate to quote back to Ministers in the House criticisms that will be voiced by the commission in its reports on the actions of government.

In its advisory role, the commission will provide independent information and advice to the Government and to other bodies with responsibility for policy development and service delivery on issues affecting people, communities and businesses in rural England. As part of that role, the commission will be able to undertake, commission or report research and evaluation. That will enable it to inform policy with robust evidence and objective advice and to promote innovative solutions to problems facing rural communities, including those in Cornwall.

The difference with the former Countryside Agency’s role is that the commission will not be distracted by being a service deliverer itself. It will not have to criticise itself. Haskins set out that priority in his original report. The commission will concentrate on advice, information and evaluation and on ensuring that those that provide rural services do so efficiently. The Government believe that making the distinction between policy and delivery will be fruitful for all concerned. Again, the evidence and advice produced will make the job of representing rural constituencies in the House easier. The commission will offer the evidence that we so often lack to demonstrate wider need in rural areas.

In its monitoring role, the commission will have a duty to monitor and report on the way that rural policy at all levels is implemented, and on the way in which policy is meeting the social and economic needs of persons in rural areas. The point about the linkages between a high-quality environment and a strong rural economy bears repeating. The commission will play a key role, through its particular powers and duties, in contributing to sustainable development. The fact that the commission will be an advisory and not a delivery body will enable it to take an impartial and broad view of service delivery and to obtain evidence of what does and does not work at national, regional and local level. The commission can use its powers to publish information on policy implementation and to share lessons learned, challenging government and other organisations responsible for service delivery at all levels to improve performance and to entrench best practice.

Rural-proofing will be at the heart of the commission’s role; its role will be at the heart of the overall effort on rural-proofing. The commission will help DEFRA and Government generally to ensure that all Government policies are rural-proofed. It will be able to advise on the issues that really matter in rural areas. That will be especially important given the commission’s particular role in addressing rural disadvantage across the board.

Before concluding, let me clarify what the commission is not. Some have suggested that if Natural England is the environmental lead and the regional development agencies the economic lead, then the Commission for Rural Communities must be the social lead. That is not so. The commission is not a delivery body and is not being resourced or empowered to perform that function. The function of a social lead is often best carried out by local authorities, as discussed on Tuesday.

To conclude, the commission will fulfil a role that no other single organisation can, as an influential advocate and watchdog for all rural people, businesses and communities, putting a particular focus on those suffering disadvantage and on rural areas that are underperforming economically. That includes a good part of my region and of regions represented by several hon. Members in this Committee. Are they really saying that that is not needed? Are they really saying that the urban majority in the House and many local authorities should be trusted consistently to make decisions that work for rural areas? Do they agree with me that rural England needs a champion, independent and resourced, to win battles for the countryside?

Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham)

One of the great complaints that rural local authorities have is that they are underfunded in comparison with urban ones. A group of 40 of them have been campaigning for years for better funding so that they are able to deliver the type of service that people expect in urban areas. What power will the commission have to change that situation?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The commission will have the power to produce robust evidence to demonstrate whether it is a direct function of rurality that leads to underfunding, whether such underfunding is genuine and whether the element that allows for rural sparsity in the formula that dictates local government funding is sufficient. With that evidence, Members such as the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) will be able to come to the House to argue that a watchdog set up by this Government points out the strength of his argument—if the commission produces evidence to support it.

I have argued for the clause on a slightly more impassioned basis than previously and I trust that when the commission is set up it will be even more passionate as a champion of rural England than I was as a champion of its establishment today. I trust that, on this basis, hon. Members will not press their amendments.

Colin Breed (Liberal Democrat, South East Cornwall)

I thank the Minister for his impassioned plea. During the first part of our discussions of the Bill in relation to setting up Natural England, we broadly welcomed the bringing together of different bodies and look forward to that new body working well for the interests of people in rural areas, although we would have preferred some changes.

I hope, however, that the Minister will forgive me for thinking that, in many respects, there is a certain amount of déjà vu in what he has just said for those of us who sat through the setting up of the Countryside Agency. I was just wondering whether some of his speech was a dusting down of one of the speeches made by Ministers during that process—the impassioned plea about rural-proofing and such. Of course, we have experienced the Countryside Agency, and Lord Haskins has said that it ought to be abolished. In concert with many other voices, I hope to explain why we believe that the setting up of yet another unelected quango is the last thing that rural communities need.

I would like to indulge the Committee’s time by going back in history a little—not too far—to when we had really strong local authorities, the Rural Development Commission and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. They were not perfect in many ways, and this is not a nostalgic look back to buses trundling through country lanes, cottage hospitals and chocolate-box views of village life. However, for all its faults and despite a significant amount of underfunding, that arrangement worked tolerably well.

Since then, the Countryside Agency has been set up, and it has not lasted too many years. It was set up in an effort to address some of the rural issues that were coming to the fore and where the strain was beginning to show. It was set up with all the right aims—they were laudable—and was headed by someone who understood rural issues and who was given the specific task of being the rural advocate. It would be true to say that when he finally stepped down, those of us who were there when we gave his farewell speech detected a certain amount of disappointment in his ability really to be the advocate that he had hoped to be. The Government’s intentions were laudable, but there was a difference between their words and the actions that they took to ensure that rural-proofing and rural advocacy took place.

So, under pressure following problems relating to MAFF and particularly foot and mouth disease, the Government decided after the 2001 election not to introduce a department for rural affairs, which was advocated by my party and me, as a discrete operation. Much to the surprise of many people in the civil service, they decided to create the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is a large Department and it took quite some time to settle down to all the aspects—the environment, food and rural affairs—of its role. However, when it started to get into its stride, it became clear that it was stepping on the toes of the Countryside Agency. The Minister will recall the Select Committee’s report on the roles and responsibilities of the Countryside Agency and DEFRA. It became increasingly clear that there was duplication. Rural advocacy seems to have been sidelined and the real issues, relating to what was happening in rural life, were not being adequately addressed. It became clear that, in some respects, there was even a competitive situation.

It was clear to the Select Committee that the duplication and competition between the Countryside Agency and DEFRA could not continue, so Lord Haskins was invited to undertake his report, which makes it clear that the Countryside Agency should be abolished. He did not say that it should be partially abolished; he said that it should be completely abolished. He said that it was not necessary. DEFRA could undertake its responsibilities.

In rural areas, other unelected quangos may be given certain responsibilities, as the Minister has indicated. In fact, he has just outlined many of those responsibilities, which are apparently now going to the CRC: research, advice, help and information. There is no doubt in my mind that the Government offices, which were set up a considerable time ago, should now be abolished as well. They are also a duplicate, unnecessary and expensive bureaucracy and they add nothing to the progress that we could make in rural areas. They compete against regional development agencies, which were set up as unelected quangos to advise, support and give all this wonderful information to local authorities and to the Government.

We are proposing a combination of local government offices, regional development agencies and the CRC, all of which have a competing interest in pursuing the causes of rural life that affect those who live in rural communities, all of which have their own bureaucracies and agendas, and all of which compete to a certain extent for the ear of the Government and Government money to produce their pet projects. We now have a sufficient number of unelected quangos. DEFRA sits on the top of all that and local authorities have been relegated to the third or fourth division.

Despite all that the Minister has just said, even now it is not clear exactly how this body will succeed where the others, in particular the Countryside Agency, have lamentably failed. This body’s powers will be extremely limited and, as he pointed out, its resources will not be great. Its sanctions over Government policy are almost non-existent, yet he describes it as a strong, independent voice. I suspect that it will be a voice crying in the wilderness, as was the case with its predecessors.

I hope that we can look back on the statements from the CRC, and that this body will be strong and independent of the Government. What is quite clear is that our local authorities are strong and independent of the Government. I said earlier that Lord Haskins has made his position quite clear: when Natural England was established, there would remain no need for the Countryside Agency. We see no need for this rump of the Countryside Agency to be renamed the CRC, and thus it should be abolished and its funding and responsibilities directed to the already elected local authorities. As elected bodies, they will provide a far better, stronger and more independent voice, working closely with the rural communities that they already serve.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Could the hon. Gentleman answer my question about who would be the watchdog and the advocate overseeing the work of those local authorities, particularly those local authorities with an urban majority that might drown out the voice of the rural minority?

Colin Breed (Liberal Democrat, South East Cornwall)

The voice of the people, through their elected representatives, would drown out that of the Government. The people’s is the strong voice, and the voice that we are supposedly representing. The setting up of the rural advocate is rather strange, because we have a department of rural affairs. One might imagine that Ministers in the department of rural affairs might be advocates for rural communities and advocates in Government, recognising that they have the distinctive role of including that voice in Government policy. Apparently, they do not. They do not feel able to do that work, and they feel that it should be shunted to somebody else who is far more able to do the job for which the whole department was set up.

John Mann (Labour, Bassetlaw)

I was dwelling on the hon. Gentleman’s concept of the voice of the people, because the voice of the people in my rural constituency was hostile to my Government’s ridiculous ideas for regional government and more politicians. It was equally hostile to the concept that the people should have three councils governing them—a parish council, district council and county council. In his valiant call for the voice of the people to be heard, does he think that rural communities would benefit from getting rid of one of those tiers? Perhaps we should get rid of the district council and have some unitary authorities.

Eric Forth (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not be tempted into a digression about the structure of local government. Those matters can be touched on in the debate, but I hope that they will not become the substance or the thrust of it.

Colin Breed (Liberal Democrat, South East Cornwall)

I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Forth. All I would say is that I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s views. The independent voice of rural communities is found in strength when they do or do not support their local councils, be they parish, district or county councils.

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

In my constituency, which is part of Sheffield city council, we have three parish councils. I repeatedly hear the voices of local people expressing the feeling that they are ignored by their urban authority and that they are missing out on the investment that they see going into the city centre.

Colin Breed (Liberal Democrat, South East Cornwall)

That is certainly a similar subject, but perhaps my experience in Cornwall is somewhat different, as it now marks the closest thing to a one-party state that we have, since all five Members of Parliament are Liberal Democrats and we control the county council. The voices of the people there have made it clear what they are looking for and what they require, which perhaps are not the Government’s current policies.

At the beginning of the Countryside Agency’s operations, it really understood the idea of rural-proofing. Very early on, it made some very good cases about health services and the retention of our community hospitals. If we had lost those community hospitals, which was certainly a danger at one stage, our current services in rural areas would have been much poorer. So, at the initial stage, the Countryside Agency did some valuable work.

Do not get me wrong—there is a job for rural-proofing. I believe, however, that it is the responsibility of the Department. The Department is there, in Government, to try to put the case for rural communities. If it is unable to do that, it does not matter how many other people advise it on what is happening. If, at the end of the day, Ministers in DEFRA are unable effectively to ensure that Government policy reflects the needs of rural communities, all the advice and all the rural-proofing advocates in the world will not change the situation.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

As the Minister responsible for rural affairs, I regard it as my job within government to be the rural champion and seek to influence policy in respect of its effect on rural areas. At the same time, however, the country wants to see that someone independent of Government is able to say to the Department of Health that community hospitals are, or are not, working in rural areas. I do not think, with all due respect, that local authorities coming together, perhaps through the Local Government Association’s rural committee, are going to be a powerful enough voice—listened to and respected by everyone who is sufficiently resourced—to do that.

Colin Breed (Liberal Democrat, South East Cornwall)

I am sure that the LGA will be delighted at the Minister’s words. I suspect it will not be too long before he gets a letter or two from it.

The Bill states that the commission must

“(a) represent...rural needs”—

that is fairly reasonable—

“(b) provide...information and advice about issues connected with rural needs or ways of meeting them, and

(c) monitor...the way...policies...are implemented and the extent to which”

they

“meet...rural needs.”

I do not think that any of those three things could not be undertaken by local authorities. They have been doing most of that for the past I do not know how many years. Whether the Government take any notice is another matter. This is pure duplication. We do not need the CRC to have those as its three primary objectives, as that is what can and has been done by local authorities for some time.

Citizens Advice—no doubt the Minister has also received its briefing—says that it is concerned by the absence of any clear responsibilities for the CRC, other than for advice, information and monitoring. Having looked through the Bill, I cannot see that there are clear responsibilities other than those three aspects either. As I have said, those tasks can quite easily be done by existing local authorities. If the Government really want a watchdog with an independent approach, that independent watchdog must have some teeth. It must have statutory powers to act. The CRC does not. It is totally toothless, and will be nothing more than an advisory, information or monitoring body, without any real powers to ensure that its view is acceded to.

If the CRC is truly to match the ambitions for rural communities as set out in the Government’s rural strategy, it requires independence as well as capacity, expertise and resources to champion and engage effectively in rural policy proofing, development and delivery at both national and regional levels. I cannot understand why a properly funded and resourced local authority, which already has significant experience, expertise and knowledge, cannot do the work that the Minister intends the CRC to undertake.

That is not what is on offer, however. What will happen will in many respects be a bit like what has happened over the last few years, with people having the intention to address rural issues. What is proposed will be just another disappointment, another missed opportunity and a further example of the fact that the Government seem unable to understand rural issues and to tackle them seriously.

The confusion has already started; for example, I received a letter from Dr. Stuart Burgess, whose name appears on the letterhead as chairman of the Countryside Agency—whether or not he is chairman, or is likely to be—and one from the acting chief executive, on Commission for Rural Communities paper, both letters dated 21 June.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Just to clarify the matter, as I said in my opening speech, the Commission for Rural Communities was established in March this year within the Countryside Agency, of which Stuart Burgess is chair. It has an acting chief executive, so it is up and running internally, but if the hon. Gentleman’s amendments took effect it would fall away.

Colin Breed (Liberal Democrat, South East Cornwall)

I am delighted to know that. I hope that the setting-up costs, such as the stationery and so on, will not be too great because it would be a shame, having forged ahead, to find that the body will not come into being.

I do not want to trivialise this serious point. There is a genuine feeling in rural areas that the Government have tried to tackle some of their concerns, but setting up unelected quangos, which is their continual answer to the strong voices in rural communities, is not the way forward. The way forward is to recognise that local authorities have a central role in the provision of services to rural areas. They have to be engaged in these matters anyway, principally through planning; they have economic development units and access to a significant amount of advice and information; they are already involved in public transport through subsidy and planning routes; and they are involved, working with primary care trusts, in the provision of health services.

Local authorities have one real additional benefit: they are elected. There is a democratic deficit in the regional development agencies, the Government office for the south-west, the Countryside Agency and the CRC, which is why local people do not feel that the Government are responding properly to their wishes. They want their elected representatives to work with the Government to deliver what they need and want, which will vary between areas—it will not be “one size fits all”. Cornwall’s requirements will be different from those of East Anglia or Derbyshire. Local authorities, with their local knowledge and expertise, should be the real rural advocates. Only if they work with the Department will local communities get cost-effective and efficient services. The CRC will go the same way as the Countryside Agency, which Lord Haskins has already said should be abolished.

Central Government should operate in concert with local government: two democratically elected bodies working for the benefit of the people who elected them. That is what we should return to.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

I rise to support virtually everything that the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) said, possibly with the exception of his comments about Cornwall and the one-party state, which I am sure is purely a temporary arrangement.

We made our position clear on Second Reading, as did the Liberal Democrats. We share the view that the CRC is a wholly unnecessary body that will almost certainly be ineffective in achieving the Government’s objectives.

When my party was in office, we were accused, sometimes with merit, of continually setting up unelected quangos. However, the present Government have done so with a vigour that was unknown even in our day. What worries me is the criticism that is always levelled at quangos: they do not actually represent anybody. Sometimes quangos are the most effective way forward. However, as the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall made clear, rural people already have perfectly able, reasonable and sensible elected representatives at different levels. In theory, every CRC appointee could be from Westminster or Islington. There is no reason to believe that such people would have a specialist knowledge or understanding of rural areas.

That example was probably extreme and I trust that the Government would appoint people with rural knowledge. However, because, as the Minister explained, the body will be relatively small—we will talk later about the numbers on the board—there is a risk that it will seek to impose on the whole rural community of England its vision of what rural England should be in terms of economic activity. As the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall pointed out, those economic factors will be extremely different in Cornwall, East Anglia, Northumberland, Yorkshire, the south downs and wherever else—even in South Dorset. It could be argued that it would be better to have a big structure with lots of regional offices all doing what appears to be right, but that would make the situation worse in many ways because it would lead to even more conflict.

As we said on Second Reading, the Government have gone the wrong way not only about this clause but about this element of their whole rural restructuring. It is wrong to give RDAs a considerably enhanced role—arguably it was wrong to invent them—in delivering the economic aspect of the Government’s rural policies. They are wholly unelected. Those functions could perfectly well have been delegated to county or, I would argue, district level where, as the hon. Gentleman said, economic promotional activities are already in place. Most county and district councils have economic development offices and an infrastructure in place. More importantly, they have the down-to-earth knowledge of their particular area and are accountable. If the Government had fulfilled some of their rhetoric of driving power down to the people, they would not need to set up a national rural superstructure.

I hope that I do not need to convince the Minister, the Committee or the House of Commons of my fervent support for rural communities—it has been my guiding principle throughout my political career and will remain so. That is what I am here for. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) is here to represent her constituents, including the three parishes. We are elected to represent our communities, and councillors are elected at district and county level. We all know that we are accountable for how well we do our job, but the proposed organisation will not be.

I shall now highlight one or two examples of how the idea has already failed. The Countryside Agency started fairly well with, for example, the highly successful vital villages programme, through which many village halls were developed and stimulated. However, when the Government decided to change the national lottery rules and we lost all the money for vital villages, did the Countryside Agency say much? Not a lot. What did it achieve? Nothing. The Government rode roughshod over it. Government policy was to change the whole structure for allocating lottery money, so many village hall projects in the pipeline, including some in my constituency, were suddenly cut off. In theory, a rural advocate is fine, but the reality is that if the Government of the day or, indeed, RDAs, which are equally unaccountable, decide to do something different, it does not matter how loud the rural advocate’s voice is.

There is a strong case for saying that this aspect of rural development and of the Government’s restructuring of their rural delivery process need to be thought through again. As the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall said, Lord Haskins made his view clear. The Government could have done things differently. They could have driven responsibility for sustainable economic development back down to local authorities, where people are elected from small rural communities—people who have an understanding of the matter and who are accountable. If they get things wrong and seek to impose their perhaps somewhat twee or outside vision of a rural community, and the rural people do not like it, they can be removed at the next election, as applies to us.

This body, however, will exist in perpetuity. If it tries to impose its vision of rural communities, there is nothing that anyone can do about it, other than the Government disregarding it. That brings me back to my first point, which is whether the body is necessary in the first place. The Minister is clearly wedded to it; he believes passionately that it will be a strong rural advocate. I do not in any way denigrate his commitment to it, but I say with utter seriousness that this is not the right way to go about dealing with the problems of rural communities. We should be driving power back down to local people and giving them the resources and the responsibility to resolve their own problems, because then they know that the buck stops there and that things cannot be blamed on some body located we do not know where.

I suspect that I am whistling in the wind, but I support what the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall said, and I hope that the Minister is prepared to go away and think again on this aspect of the Bill.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

I do not dispute for a minute the fact that there are problems in rural areas and rural communities. I represent a constituency with a large rural element. However, there is a danger of talking rural areas down. It is fascinating that when we talk to residents throughout the country, they say that they want to move from urban to rural areas—that is the direction of travel. The growth of the population is in rural areas: people believe that there is a better future there. The rate of unemployment is lower and the rate of economic growth is higher in rural areas, so the notion that they are a wasteland is just not true.

Colin Breed (Liberal Democrat, South East Cornwall)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

Before I do, let me just say that I am happy to admit that there are problems—that was my opening line—but they are small-scale isolated problems compared with the massive disadvantage that exists in urban areas.

Colin Breed (Liberal Democrat, South East Cornwall)

The hon. Gentleman is right about unemployment. Certainly unemployment in my rural areas has gone down, which is to be welcomed. Of course, that is partly because there are no jobs and the young people have moved away to find jobs and careers, often after they have been to university, and they have been replaced by an increasing number of retired people, who are not on the unemployment register. So, although the figures are right, we would like far more jobs to be made available in rural areas, so that when young people leave school or university, they can stay there to live and work. Unemployment rates have come down, but that has not addressed the employment problem.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

I am not going to get into a long dispute about unemployment, Mr. Forth, because you will not let me. I merely say to the hon. Gentleman, simply and bluntly, that, yes, that is one factor, but there are others. He is right to say that we need to bring more employment opportunities, in particular, to small parts of rural areas. The Commission for Rural Communities might want to consider the issue.

The Countryside Agency has been important; for example, as an advocate of growth in rural transport. The rate of closure of small village schools has fallen significantly as a result of action by the Countryside Agency and the Government.

Colin Breed (Liberal Democrat, South East Cornwall)

The hon. Gentleman is right, but who has been doing that? It is the local authorities that have been receiving the subsidies, sorting out the bus routes and deciding where there should they go. Who has been looking at the schools? It is the local education authorities.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

But there has been a policy behind that, which has been decided by the Government. They took the view that they were not going to close small schools. That has nothing to do with local authorities; they were the delivery mechanism, but the policy was made centrally.

Let me give another example. Many Members in this Room were concerned about broadband, and the disadvantages that rural areas might face. However, the development of broadband has been absolutely tremendous. We have made more progress than I ever thought was possible. Yes, there are problems with rural post offices, but the Government are making available money for them to stay open; I know that the problem is tough, and we must find imaginative solutions to it, but they are being found.

Colin Breed (Liberal Democrat, South East Cornwall)

The hon. Gentleman is making my point for me. All that happened without the CRC. Broadband has improved, and we did not need the CRC or the Countryside Agency for that to happen. The Government recognised that.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

The Government recognised that they needed to consider the infrastructure. The hon. Gentleman talked in his opening comments about the strong campaign for a department for rural affairs. The Government wisely decided against that, and moved towards the establishment of DEFRA. As he said, that led to conflict between DEFRA as a deliverer of policy and the Countryside Agency, which still had a policy function.

I shall make two points about that. First, the needs of rural areas must be acknowledged, and the establishment of DEFRA showed that. Secondly, I feel strongly that there is a need for an independent voice for rural areas. The Minister spoke about independence, and that is important. However, the point that he made about strength is more important. The commission must be a strong body that is not afraid to take the Government on. There must be a dynamic tension—that is the kind of phrase that they use in No. 10 sometimes—between the new CRC and Government.

I am pleased that the chairman of the CRC will be the rural advocate, appointed by the Prime Minister and having direct access to him; perhaps the Minister will confirm that. Hon. Members who have already spoken have made important points, but it is important that the new body sensitises the Government and Departments to the needs of rural areas. Having said that, I accept that there will be some conflict between the policies being devised in DEFRA and the new CRC. That area needs further work and examination.

The new body needs to an independent outsider prepared to criticise the Government openly. It needs to produce an annual report and a stock-take of what the Government do. In the early days, that stock-take might be pretty poor, but it might be an encouragement to Government to do more. However, there is some tension between DEFRA and its officials and the new body, which needs to be carefully managed.

I am also clear that the body is designed to be a policy instrument rather than a service deliverer. That is right, but issues arise from that. One is that it is sometimes hard for a policy wonk to stay in touch with the real world. I am not convinced that the Haskins split between policy and delivery is as clear cut as many people argue. I am not entirely sure from where the CRC will get its knowledge of the situation on the ground, which is an important and difficult issue that needs to be carefully examined. As the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall said, the needs of rural communities across the country will be different and require different solutions.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

We all admire the work that the hon. Gentleman does and the thought that he gives to the issues. However, I live in a devolved nation, and there are 68 town and parish councils in my constituency. What will the people in the countryside think of the CRC? It will not deliver for them, and if they have points to make about community hospitals and local schools, surely they will go straight to local authorities or DEFRA or the Department for Education and Skills. It seems to me that the CRC will sit in some ivory tower without any contact with the people whom it is seeking to represent.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

If that proves to be the case, the CRC will be a failure, but I think that the people surrounding the commission—an embryo body exists—are aware of those difficulties. I want the CRC to be, first, independent and, secondly, a powerful voice for change. The CRC will not be able to make that change, but it will be an advocate, tool and lever for change. It will be judged on what it delivers: I am with the hon. Gentleman on that.

Both the hon. Members for South-East Cornwall and for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) have spoken about the role of local authorities. It has become fashionable to do local authorities down, but I want to see them strong and powerful. After two decades of denigrating them and reducing their powers, the tide is turning, and I hope that across all parties there is discussion about the need for a new localism. We want local authorities that are in touch with, advocate for and deliver for local people. Indeed, one interesting aspect of the Haskins review was the weight given to local authorities. Lord Haskins is a strong advocate for local authorities.

My final point is that we will have myriad players working in rural communities. Part 8 of the Bill, which we will come to later, talks about “Flexible administrative arrangements” in clauses 70 to 74, but I have some anxiety about how we will pull everything together. There will be Government offices, RDAs, the new CRC and local authorities, which we will be asking to do some of the delivery. I am not confident that we have mapped out clearly enough the infrastructure to bring about the change that we want in rural areas.

I am aware that new committees are being set up and regional plans developed in various Government offices, but I say again to the Minister that the CRC will be judged in time. Rural administration is fragmented and will need to be examined and worked on, but I am confident that the CRC will play an important role in enhancing rural areas. I want it to be strong and independent, and to take the Government on. I want it to get under the Minister’s skin and, more particularly, under the skin of some of his ministerial colleagues, who are fairly thick-skinned when it comes to rural areas. One way to judge the CRC will be on the amount of trouble that it creates for the Government. I look forward to a lot of trouble being created to try to ensure that the balance between rural and urban communities is better addressed.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I support what was said by the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall and my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice). I do not carry a copy of the Labour party manifesto around with me, but I am sure that the Minister will be able to remember whether it contains a provision calling for deregulation. I bet that it does. Certainly in the Budget before the general election the Government were clear that deregulation should be a priority. Yet, two weeks after the election, this Bill is published. Surely it falls at the first fence when judged against that agenda of deregulation because it confirms the re-establishment of a quango. We must question, as the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall did very effectively, whether that quango is needed.

The body’s very name—the Commission for Rural Communities—should tell us something about it. I liked the fact that the Minister was able to announce this morning that it will be located in Sheffield.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

What I announced was that Natural England will be located in Sheffield. A decision about the location of the Commission for Rural Communities will be made by the end of the year.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I apologise to the Minister; I misunderstood. So Natural England is to be located in Sheffield and we look forward to the Commission for Rural Communities perhaps being located in another one of our great cities.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

As I also made clear, the CRC will be located in a lagging rural area.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

A lagging rural area—I am sure that rural communities will be greatly reassured by that.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

As someone who was brought up in Sheffield, I remind the hon. Gentleman—and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough will back me up on this—that within the Sheffield city boundary there are areas of outstanding beauty and parts of the Peak park. Do not put Sheffield down.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I feel humbled and corrected by the hon. Gentleman about the beauty of rural Sheffield, which I am sure matches that of the south downs; no doubt both areas have deprivation on a similar scale.

The most serious points made were about the extent to which the establishment of a body such as the CRC usurps powers and roles that should properly belong to local authorities. It is a great pity that, while the thrust of public debate is moving, as the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) suggested, towards re-establishing power in local government, we are moving in the wrong direction by establishing this quango. There are issues about the extent to which rural authorities, even in an area such as mine, are sufficiently resourced to be able to deliver services to their areas. However, as an author of a new publication, “Direct Democracy”— I am sure that the Minister will have read it—that argues for a return of power to individuals, to local communities and, if possible, to local government from central Government, I think that it is a shame that that will not happen with this body.

We should also consider the extent to which voluntary organisations have the advocacy role that is being conferred on this body. Establishing public bodies such as this crowds out the ability of voluntary organisations to represent rural areas. There is quite a serious issue about the extent to which the Government are establishing publicly funded bodies that use those public funds to argue for greater public spending in certain areas. Arguing for greater Government intervention is properly the role of civil society and voluntary organisations. Setting up self-perpetuating bodies arguing for more Government intervention and more Government spending seems to me to be wrong in principle.

John Mann (Labour, Bassetlaw)

To which voluntary bodies is the hon. Gentleman referring?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

All of us who are fortunate enough to be members of the Committee will have received representations from a plethora of voluntary bodies—some of which I am sure have representatives here watching the Committee today—that take a great interest in rural England and rural communities and that do a great deal of valuable work. The Government should be listening to their collective voices. I question whether it is necessary for the Government to set up their own public voice to which they are supposed to pay attention.

I am intrigued by the idea of rural-proofing—the idea that the commission should encourage the Government in all cases to think rural and act as a rural advocate. I ask again why voluntary bodies cannot perform that role. In relation to my constituency, the Deputy Prime Minister overruled the wishes of local people as expressed through their local authorities and imposed 46,500 houses on West Sussex. Was that the kind of policy that the new commission for rural communities would have been able to rural-proof? Would it have advised the Deputy Prime Minister that that policy was not in the interests of rural communities in my area? If so, would he have reversed the decision? I suspect not. Large parts of West Sussex have a water shortage and we have a hosepipe ban already. There are serious questions about whether that part of the world has sufficient infrastructure to accommodate housing on that scale, but central Government are simply ignoring those concerns.

I invite the Minister to tell me whether we will be able to rely on the new body, with its powers to rural-proof, to prevent such anti-rural policies from being introduced in future. It is wrong of him to caricature the genuine concern about the establishment of the body that hon. Members have expressed as somehow not properly representing the interests of rural people. I think he suggested that he was surprised that we were not more concerned about them. In fact, we are very concerned, indeed, about the interests of rural people. It is a perfectly simple question to ask whether the establishment of a Government body in itself supports their interests. I do not see that the Bill answers that question positively at all.

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

I would like to start by stating how delighted I am that Natural England is to be located in Sheffield. It will be a great boost for the city. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood for his defence of Sheffield—never cross a Sheffielder when it comes to their home city; it is always a mistake—and I issue an invitation to the city to the hon. Members for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Herbert) and for South-East Cambridgeshire, who stated that there was nothing natural about Sheffield. They will be able to see just how rural it is. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood stated, a third of the city’s boundaries are within the national park, making it a fairly rural city by national standards.

In South Yorkshire overall, and taking the authorities of Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster, it may surprise hon. Members to learn that each one of those authorities is more than 70 per cent. rural. Even in the county that is probably best known for pit villages and steel, there are clearly outstandingly rural areas. I do not want to get into a competition to see who represents the most rural constituency, but the point that I am trying to make was made by the Minister earlier: rural areas can vary markedly and can sit extremely close to urban areas and centres of heavy industry and manufacturing, such as Sheffield.

In my constituency, there is moorland that goes right into the dark peak, right to the edge of the Howden dam, which is best known for the Dambusters. It is home to grouse, curlew, golden plover, skylark and merlin. The dark peak is also one of the only habitats in England for mountain hares. I hope that I have settled the point: Sheffield and many areas in the north can be considered as rural in part, even though they are directly adjacent to heavy manufacturing areas. The issues faced by the rural parts of Sheffield in my constituency are in many ways common to most rural areas in the country.

We have discussed access to small village schools and public transport, but we must also consider affordable housing. Two villages in my constituency, Worrall and Loxley, have, in effect, no local authority housing left, because it has all been bought under the right-to-buy legislation. That means that the average house price in Worrall is now in the region of £150,000 upwards. Even for the north, that is a staggering figure. So there are real issues that I am sure many constituencies in the south-east and across the country share.

There are issues concerning local authority housing. One of the villages that I represent, Stannington, is located on a ridge between the Loxley and Rivelin valleys. It is an outstandingly beautiful location. On one edge of the village, there are tower blocks and two of the most deprived council estates in Sheffield—the Liberty Hill estate and the Deer Park estate. Two miles down the road, at the other end of the village, there are isolated farms in the Peak District national park. That illustrates perfectly why we need a Commission for Rural Communities. Although the local authority, of which I was once part, has recognised the Liberty Hill and Deer Park estates as areas of deprivation to be prioritised for investment, the Commission for Rural Communities would ensure that the local authority would pursue that policy effectively.

In terms of the national policy framework that was outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood, the CRC will help to ensure that the local authority does exactly what it says it is going to do and takes the rural areas within its boundaries as seriously as it does its city centres. With the best will in the world, an authority such as Sheffield, which is a Labour-controlled authority, needs to have advocates that are ready to ensure that those parts of the city that are not as directly involved in the political process are effectively represented. I take the point about elected representation, but the point is that some elected representatives tend to get more involved in parish-pump and local matters and to isolate themselves from the political process within the local authorities.

Colin Breed (Liberal Democrat, South East Cornwall)

The hon. Lady indicated that she was a member of her local authority. Does she believe that the CRC would be a better advocate for those issues than her former council?

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

I have already said that the role of an elected representative is fundamental to economic development in rural areas, but when I was on the city council, the voice of a commission relating to any subject relevant to a local authority was always taken seriously. Local authorities ignored the policy advice of a commission at its peril. Those commissions, because they are independent and seem to have no direct interest in the issue at hand, are taken seriously, particularly in a politicised city such as Sheffield, which is so politically driven. Statements made by commissions are taken seriously by local community and lobbying groups and are ignored at one’s peril.

Schools, local authority housing and access to further education and employment have already been mentioned, but drugs are also a big issue in rural areas. The issue is not special to urban areas. There are drugs issues across every single rural area in my constituency. The problem needs to be addressed seriously. The problem is often ignored. I am convinced that the Commission for Rural Communities will play a part in raising the profile of such issues, which can threaten to destroy the very communities I am talking about. In a former pit village in my area, High Green, we have a specific drugs problem, which is one of the reasons why it is recognised as one of the city’s most deprived areas.

The whole point of having a commission, which I am pleased to see, is that the focus is going to be on social and economic disadvantage. Drugs and drug taking is one of the key indicators of serious social and economic problems. Outside my constituency, and outside Sheffield, is the village of Grimethorpe, which was made famous by the film “Brassed Off”. Grimethorpe is known as a village with one of the biggest drugs problems in South Yorkshire. It was one of the most prosperous villages in South Yorkshire, but the closure of the pit led to entrenched social problems. It is going to take more than the good will and focus of the local authority to deal with that problem. We need the national policy framework. We need a powerful advocate for communities such as Grimethorpe, High Green and Stockbridge—at the northern end of my constituency—to deal with such deep-rooted problems.

I welcome the commission and I hope the Committee and its members will support the Minister in rejecting the amendments.

John Mann (Labour, Bassetlaw)

This is nothing to do with Sheffield—never been to the place. I warn Conservative Members opposite that, if they take up the kind invitation of my hon. Friend, they would be well advised to go incognito.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that, I, like a lot of my colleagues in the House, have been to Sheffield on many occasions and do not need to be reminded of its good side, as well as some of the disadvantaged places. I like it.

John Mann (Labour, Bassetlaw)

I am puzzled at the Liberal Democrat and Conservative approach, and I am particularly puzzled as to why Conservative Members are opposed to the body. However, I understand the rather flawed, tortuous logic in the arguments about democracy made by the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall.

During the election, my Conservative opponent honed in on major issues such as housing and wind farms. I disagreed with his solutions to the problems, but they are major, contentious issues, in my constituency and many others, and they relate to the perception of quality of life. To me, it is in the interests of those who want an informed debate and who want to influence Government policy that there be such an independent body that is able to look and comment.

I am not dissing the argument about whether people in West Sussex want more housing and whether the local authority agrees, but there is likely to be a tendency in any rural community not to want significant expansion in housing, and for there to be resistance—we all get it in our communities—to big add-ons of new housing stock in our villages. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood said, there is increasing demand to live in those villages. That is a major policy dilemma.

I am as strong in my advocacy of “not in my back yard” in relation to new housing developments as many other Members are, and that case is argued cross-party. For example, in the Shireoaks village, I fought tooth and nail alongside local residents to prevent Bovis Homes from building some ridiculous houses on a flood plain that will, strangely enough, flood one day; the houses would be uninsurable. It would be ludicrous to build them there. Long-standing community members who remember from their life experience what a flood plain is like point out what will happen, where the water will run, and so on. We all can—and need to—put such cases, which are valid. However, in terms of the overall approach, we have to match such arguments with the increasing demand for housing. There are those of us who do not wish every flood plain in Britain to be built on. Successive Governments’ policies have been too lenient in that regard, and that is a very big rural housing issue. However, a body such as that proposed in the Bill might have more weight than I, the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall or any of us putting the case solely for our own constituency when it comes to blocking what we see, quite rationally, as bad developments.

It is similarly the case for wind farms. No one seems to want a wind farm in my constituency, but they want them on every blade of grass outside it; they want hundreds of them. I have counted about 200 proposed wind farm developments. It seems that half of Sheffield, which is up the M1, and most of Lincolnshire and south Yorkshire, north of my constituency, is to be made up of wind farms. I do not know whether the movement is southbound yet; I am sure that it will be. Perhaps we are a dip in the country, and will be surrounded by wind farms. That is a concern, and yet I am a strong advocate of the development of alternative forms of energy supply. No councillor who wants to get re-elected will go around their ward, district or county saying, “Bring all the wind farms here; we’ll have them all.” I do not think that many would survive for long if they chose to do that.

We want an informed debate, in which Government policy is perhaps impacted by the rural community. It seems to me that this body will have quite a potential influence. What it chooses to do is paramount, but we have the ability to pressure and argue about what its priorities should be.

I give another example, which is more controversial and relates to an issue that people in this country do not wish to discuss: immigration and rural immigration. At present, there are about 3,000 migrant workers from places such as Estonia residing in the rural community of my constituency. They are living in caravans, some of which are overcrowded and leaking. Who is their advocate? They cannot vote for me, or for or against the local councillor. Who considers issues such as planning and employment policy and the future of agriculture in that respect? These are major issues in many rural communities and they do not get a proper airing.

Robert Goodwill (Conservative, Scarborough and Whitby)

If the people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency are from Estonia, presumably, as European Union citizens, they are eligible to vote in local and European elections. If they take the trouble to go on the electoral register, they can participate in local decision making.

John Mann (Labour, Bassetlaw)

The hon. Gentleman corrects me and makes a very valid point. Who, therefore, within the local authority chooses to see that group of people as relevant to put on the electoral register? I do not know whether people who are here for a six-month period are entitled to be on the register, but if they are, there is a debate to be had. Let us suppose that 3,000 people in one or two of the wards suddenly appeared on the electoral register—my brain is now thinking ahead and I may rush from the Room. It is a shame they cannot vote for me, too. These are important issues. A commission that can take a non-party political and non-partisan view and crucially that is not subjected to the whims—perhaps I should say the accountability and pressures—of the electorate on some of these issues could come up with coherent, significant advice.

Mineral plans are another example where there is the potential for a clash with the local authorities’ approach. We know how local authorities develop mineral plans; they have to reach certain decisions and they will upset some local communities in the way they do so because they have to achieve their objectives. The impact that might have on a rural community is something that the body might want to take a look at.

GP funding is another absolutely classic example. The future of GP funding in terms of outreach provision—be it single GP practices or the spread of large practices—especially in a constituency like mine, should be considered. Rural GP practices are cross-county and there are all sorts of complications in linking them into the health structures. How national policy determines GP funding is of fundamental importance, and probably much more critical than any decisions of primary care trusts and strategic health authorities in this context. My constituency cannot be the only rural community where that would be the case. There is a very good argument for the proposed body to consider, as part of the work plan, whether rural communities are developing well or if there is a problem. That is exactly the kind of work which, in a non-partisan way, would have an impact on the policy making of political parties and directly on decisions that Parliament might take.

There are many other examples, such as the future of privatised telephone boxes. For many people in rural communities, the existence of a telephone box in the village—

Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill - Standing Committee A

Clause 17 - Commission for Rural Communities

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Good afternoon, Mrs. Anderson. It is a pleasure to wind up a thorough debate on the role of the Commission for Rural Communities. Before the Committee adjourned this morning, we were enjoying the contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann). Unfortunately, it had to be ended abruptly, but he put his points over well. I shall try to pull all the strands of the debate together. You seem to be blessed, Mrs. Anderson, with chairing the afternoon sitting and listening to me sum up a debate that you did not have the privilege of hearing in the morning. I shall do my best to reflect it for you.

As a starting point, it will be helpful—particularly in response to the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed), who perhaps is still enjoying his lunch—to sketch out the basic framework that we are discussing. It is helpful also to think about the organisations that we are setting up to be responsible for delivery, those responsible for policy and those responsible for being an adviser and advocate. That clearly relates to what the Government are doing in setting up the CRC.

In many ways, there is confusion about that. The call for local authorities to be the adviser and advocate runs counter to what we are trying to do in setting up an independent advocate. We all value the role of local government as a major delivery body and as advocate for its own local area, but not for the nation as a whole. The Government are trying to split those functions in respect of England, so that we have clarity about who is delivering and who is the advocate. The regional development agency is the delivery body with particular emphasis on economic regeneration and economic development. The body that we discussed at great length on Tuesday, Natural England, will be the lead body on delivering for the environment. With the commission, we are setting up a body that has separated off its delivery functions and is left with its advocacy and rural-proofing function.

Having mapped that out, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) wanted me to, it is important to say that in many ways the CRC will act as the judge of whether we have got things right, because it will have the power and the resources to examine whether the delivery framework is effective for rural England. I look forward to it taking on that role.

For the benefit of the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall in particular when the record of this debate is published in Hansard, I stress that we are not abolishing the Countryside Agency. That was the wish of Haskins. We are significantly trimming and simplifying its function and making it the body of the rural advocate—the independent adviser and advocate for rural communities. As we discussed on Tuesday, its landscape and recreation functions will go to Natural England. Its socio-economic functions will go to the regional development agencies. However, those functions that the Countryside Agency—led so ably by the current rural advocate, the Rev. Dr. Stuart Burgess—performs so well at the moment will remain and it will continue to be an effective advocate for rural areas.

I pay tribute to the staff of the Countryside Agency for the work that they have done in that regard. They have achieved significant successes. Departments now rural-proof their policies; indeed, rural-proofing is part of regulatory impact assessments throughout Government. The rural-proofing process is a crucial way of providing equitable access to services for people in rural areas, which is a great achievement of the current functions of the Countryside Agency. However, we must not be complacent, which is why we want to distil its functions into a single body.

I want to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood, who asked me some direct questions this morning about the role of the rural advocate in individual areas. The rural advocate will be the chair of the CRC; he will continue to be appointed by the Prime Minister and will have direct access to him in that role. He will advise Parliament, not just Government, providing advice to MPs on rural services and the needs of rural communities. He will advise all bodies that have an influence and an impact in rural areas.

It is important for the Committee to recognise the crucial role played by local authorities. I do not want to downgrade that for one second; it has been argued for passionately by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, particularly by the hon. Members for South-East Cornwall and for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice). Local authorities are community leaders; they join up and deliver high-quality services to meet local needs and priorities and support the development of sustainable communities, working with regional and local partners.

It is important for the Government to let go, and to devolve decision-making and delivery to local bodies, recognising and strengthening the relationship between delivery bodies and policy makers. However, the Government need to ensure accountability for devolved delivery and the CRC will have a crucial role in that respect, advising Government on what is working and on the improvements that can be made.

We need also to look across, between and within local authorities at any disparities in those areas that are particularly disadvantaged to discover what is working well in some areas so that lessons can be learned and applied in new areas. That is why it is not appropriate to give the entire responsibility for advocacy and for being a watchdog only to local authorities. In the current context of Government, regional government and local government all having an important role as delivery bodies in rural areas, there should be an organisation that is properly resourced apart from those bodies to monitor their effectiveness.

I shall comment specifically on some of the earlier contributions. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Herbert) plugged his book, “Direct Democracy”, which I shall seek in the Library to try to find something appropriate on which to comment next time he speaks. The hon. Gentleman suggested that the Bill added regulation, counter to the Labour party manifesto. The CRC is not a regulator; the Bill simplifies and streamlines much legislation.

I trust that the hon. Gentleman has read thoroughly the regulatory impact assessment, which was published alongside the Bill. It reduces the number of bodies with which people have to deal. We have not chosen to put a duty on all public bodies to rural-proof their policies precisely because we do not want to increase regulation on public bodies. We are setting up this adviser, advocate and informer to ensure that policies are rural-proofed, but in a deregulatory way.

The hon. Gentleman also asked whether the CRC would fight against anti-rural polices. Certainly it will; it is the very core of its function to point out when government, at whatever level—not necessarily public bodies, but perhaps other bodies, too—acts against the interests of rural communities, which we all represent in the House of Commons. It would be the commission’s responsibility to point that out to whichever body is acting contrary to the interests of rural communities. It will then be a question whether or not government, or whoever is being criticised, listens, but armed with the evidence that the CRC will give the hon. Gentleman, if something affects his constituency, his arguments will be all the more powerful because they will have the authority of the Government’s watchdog giving him the evidence.

I listened with great enjoyment to the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith). We had some discussion of Sheffield this morning. and of what a fine city it is, because it has been decided that Natural England will have its headquarters there. That is not strictly relevant to the CRC, but one thing seemed to lead to another.

I have great affection for Sheffield. My father contracted cancer on a few occasions during his life. On one occasion we were living in Derbyshire and he went to Weston Park to be treated. Then, 10 years later, when we were living in our other Chairman’s constituency, Bromley and Chislehurst, such was the paucity of care that we experienced locally that we took him back up to Sheffield, to Weston Park, where he was successfully treated again, and he enjoyed many more years of life following that. That is why I have a great affection for Sheffield.

I understand the rural aspects of the city. There were the points that my hon. Friend made about the drugs problems that affect some of the villages in her constituency. I recalled listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw raising similar questions about his own constituency in the previous Parliament. I am sure that issues around drugs and social disadvantage will be those on which the commission will focus.

The CRC will not have a direct role in the planning process because it will not be one of the statutory consultees. That would not stop it commenting on an ad hoc basis, as and when it chose to, in order to fulfil its function as an advocate.

John Mann (Labour, Bassetlaw)

The point that I was attempting to make, and which the Minister could perhaps clarify, is whether or not the remit might include commenting not on the specifics, but on the whole process of planning, and whether or not that is sufficiently rural-proofed.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I can see no reason why it could not do that if it wanted to do so. I cannot foresee that we would necessarily direct it in that way, and we would certainly not put that in the Bill, but I can see no reason why it should not.

John Mann (Labour, Bassetlaw)

That is a helpful and welcome answer. Could I get the Minister’s comments on, for example, the creation of village of design statements? That process is slowly shifting powers over planning on the micro level to villages. That process and its effectiveness is exactly the kind of area that this body ought to be considering and commenting on.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point, which I do not want to go too far down the road with because I am mindful of the need for us to focus on whether or not it is appropriate for us to have a CRC. However, within the planning process, village design statements and, equally, rural exception sites—there are a number of issues—have a profound effect on villages and rural areas. I am sure that the rural advocate and the CRC will be watching carefully and, if appropriate, would want to comment.

I would round off by, obviously, encouraging the Committee to support the clause standing part of the Bill and to reject the amendments tabled by the absent hon. Member for South-East Cornwall. The commission will be a strong, independent rural advocate, adviser and watchdog, helping to ensure that the Government’s policies make a real difference to people in rural areas. It must pay particular attention to social disadvantage and the problems of economic underperformance, with rural-proofing right at its heart.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

I apologise on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cornwall, who has had to attend an important constituency engagement this afternoon.

This morning, he made a strong case for the role of local government in representing the needs of people who live in rural areas and, indeed, in all areas. This is a time in public life where we want to see clarity, and a certain amount of definition, in terms of who does what. Certainly the public want to know. The public do not want to have a plethora of organisations to which to make their representations. They want to be able to say, “This organisation will reflect my concerns and consider my points of view.” My hon. Friend’s argument that that should be local authorities is effective because they are made up of people who are directly elected by the people whom they represent and are democratically accountable.

Several Labour Members made telling points, such as that of the hon. Member for Sherwood, who is no longer in his place, that Lord Haskins’ point—that delivery, advice and advocacy can be separated—is not as straightforward as it may appear. [Interruption.] As I mention the hon. Gentleman, he enters the Room.

The Bill provides that the role of the Commission for Rural Communities will be to provide advocacy and advice to government and other bodies. It will have no role in delivery. My experience, having worked for the Development Board for Rural Wales, is that people engage with organisations that deliver, because they feel some response from them and thus feel the need to engage with them.

Madeleine Moon (Labour, Bridgend)

The sort of work that the commission could undertake was exemplified in a meeting that my hon. Friend and I attended last night with BT Wales, when we discussed how BT could, through the improved use of services such as broadband, help more people to continue working in rural communities through homeworking. That would bring opportunities for people to retain their expertise and remain in their home communities, rather than having to be part of the exodus that has gone on for generations in Wales of people leaving the countryside, feeling that they had to go to work in towns. We have a tremendous opportunity to encourage a flow of people back into rural communities, thus giving vibrancy to those communities. Surely, it will be the commission’s role to act as an advocate for government, business and deprived communities, and to ensure that rural communities have such facilities, rather than organisations such as BT having to work on their own with government. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

I thank the hon. Lady for that contribution. She makes a strong argument, with which I agree to an extent, but the Liberal Democrats do not question whether the Commission for Rural Communities could fulfil those functions—I am sure that it would attempt to do so—but whether it is the best organisation to do so. I do not want to stray across Offa’s dyke, but the hon. Lady and I both come from that area, and I think that local authorities in Wales have fulfilled those roles well since the Development Board for Rural Wales was amalgamated with the Welsh Development Agency.

Is the commission the best body that could be put forward to carry out these functions? The Minister has argued cogently, but he has not addressed our concerns. This is a matter of great principle, because once the body is set up, it will be difficult to undo. I have a letter from the chairman of the Countryside Agency in which he expresses himself both in his present situation and in a future incarnation. I presume that he is talking about the commission when he says,

“We intend to be independent and will speak out as necessary— but we accept that we will have to prove ourselves.”

It will have to prove itself to the people who it represents rather than to itself. Although the Minister has made a strong case, stronger cases have been made from the Opposition Benches and some pertinent messages have come from his hon. Friends. Given that, we will ask to divide the Committee.

Schedule 2 - Commission for Rural Communities

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

I beg to move amendment

No. 57, in schedule 2, page 45, line 13, leave out

‘less than 8 nor more than 15’

and insert ‘more than 8’.

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 58, in schedule 2, page 45, line 14, at end insert—

‘(1A)At least half the total number of members must have served as an elected member of a public authority or as a Member of Parliament within four years prior to first appointment.’.

No. 59, in schedule 2, page 45, line 31, at end insert—

‘5AEach member shall be appointed for a term of four years.’.

No. 60, in schedule 2, page 46, line 6, at end insert

‘after the first term of office, but no member shall be eligible for reappointment having served two full terms.’.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

There is obviously going to be a Commission for Rural Communities, so we now turn our attention to one or two small but important, aspects of trying to get that right. The four amendments all relate to the commission’s board.

Amendment No. 57 deals with the size of the board. The Minister—and the Secretary of State on Second Reading—spoke about the CRC being a small organisation that will not have a large number of staff and will not cost a vast amount of taxpayers’ money. Therefore, why is it necessary to have so many people on the board? My recollection is that there could be as many as 15. I am proposing that we reduce the board size to eight. The larger any organisation is the more unmanageable it becomes. Anyone who has tried to chair a meeting knows full well that the more people there are, the more difficult it is. For a small organisation that is trying to do the job that the Minister has set out, eight members is perfectly reasonable. I therefore commend the amendment to the Committee and mention in passing that the difference between eight and 15 is fairly massive. I am not necessarily wed to eight, but I do not think that there should be such huge variation.

Amendment No. 58 returns to the issue of accountability, which colleagues and I referred to in the previous debate. The wording of the amendment is slightly tortuous and, I suspect, entirely novel. Nevertheless, it seeks to address the point that, although we cannot introduce direct accountability because of how the Government are setting up the commission, it would be a significant step forward if the people on the board knew what it was like to be a representative of rural communities. That is why we are proposing that at least half of the board should have recent experience of having been elected either to a council or to this House—they could not be a sitting Member of this House, but could be an ex-Member. That would add the element of board members knowing what it is to be elected.

There will be many occasions when hon. Members from all parts of the House of Commons will reflect on the different attitudes and pressures of and on elected representatives, who know what it is to be elected. We have all heard it said, or said it ourselves, that it is all very well for him or her, but they have never been elected to anything in their life. That is an important point. Even if we are not building direct accountability into the organisation, the people who serve on the board, or at least a majority of them, should have served in recent times as an elected member and therefore understand the discipline of accountability. I suspect that that is a novel approach, but I hope that the theory, at least, commends itself to the Minister. Again, I do not pretend to have got the drafting entirely right.

Amendments Nos. 59 and 60 are effectively a repetition of amendments that I tabled in respect of Natural England. They would include in schedule 2 proposals for members to be appointed for a term of four years and a maximum of two terms, to keep a constant flow of new blood to the board, while accepting at the outset that it would need to be staggered to avoid an “all-in, all-out” situation. The importance of the proposals is clear. I made the case as well as I could for Natural England and I will not bother to repeat it, especially as it failed to achieve its desired intent at that stage.

The four amendments would go some way towards improving the standard of the board, making it a manageable size, and not excessive compared to the size of the organisation seeking to run it, and bringing on to the board people with some understanding of what it is like to be accountable to the people whom they serve.

Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham)

I intervene briefly to support my hon. Friend’s amendments, especially the proposal that some members of the board should have directly elected experience. Everyone should vote for an amendment that would give Members of Parliament or former Members of Parliament an extra job, particularly after the next election when one or two may be looking for activities to make up for not being in the House of Commons.

On a more serious note, it is important that the Commission for Rural Communities will have the ability, in some manner, to get its fingers into local government and other existing organisations. I opposed the commission initially because it would add another tier of local bureaucracy to a very crowded area.

I have much sympathy with what the hon. Member for Bassetlaw said about local government, and it is worth considering the situation in Northumberland. The county is about a third of the size of Birmingham. Its population is about 306,000, yet it is governed by a county council and six district councils, a national park and the rural development agency. The population is becoming seriously over-governed.

The CRC will be another player in the field, albeit a slightly hands-off one. Certainly, some of the policies and the initiatives of the organisation will impact on the many local groups. The consequence of having members of that commission with direct local government experience and the requirement to face the electorate would be valuable, although I would prefer it if members had local government experience rather than parliamentary experience. They would understand the realities of standing for election. Often, the commissioners will have sensible ideas that are unmarketable politically, and that is the problem. That is why it is necessary to have someone on the board to whom local authority councillors can make representation who understands the difficulties that they may face on the ground in dealing with some of the issues that they may come across. I support my hon. Friend.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

These paragraphs of the schedule set out the membership of the commission and the terms of office of its members. As has been hinted at, the arrangements are identical to those for Natural England, which are set out in schedule 1.

The drafting has been amended to reflect many of the points raised during pre-legislative scrutiny, thus making the independence of the commission clearer. In considering the amendments, it is important for the Committee to appreciate how we have responded to the pre-legislative scrutiny. Minimum and maximum numbers of board members are now specified to give a range of eight to 15 members, in line with the Environment Agency. Those numbers are variable by order, in line with English Nature’s current arrangement.

Paragraph 3(3) was also introduced, placing a duty on the Secretary of State to

“have regard to the desirability of appointing a person to the board who has experience of, and has shown some capacity in, some matter relevant to”

the commission’s functions. That addresses the points raised this morning by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire about whether the commission might be set up to include a bunch of people who have no interest or experience whatever in anything to do with rural England. However, there is no power for the chairman to appoint board members, which the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs recommended, as that would be against the code of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments, and would raise serious issues of ministerial accountability to Parliament.

The amendments seek to limit the flexibility that the Secretary of State will have. Amendment No. 57 would limit the number of members who could be appointed to eight. Amendment No. 58 would require that at least half of the membership of the commission be made up of former elected members of a public authority or former elected Members of this House. Amendments Nos. 59 and 60 would require that each member should be appointed for a term of four years, and for not more than two terms, respectively. As I shall explain, some of the proposed amendments do not accord with the OCPA code of practice.

To be effective, the commission needs a good mix of members with diverse backgrounds across a spectrum of relevant skills and expertise, and needs to hear from rural areas in different parts of the country, because, as we heard this morning, there are different issues in different areas of rurality. To impose an upper limit of eight would constrain the flexibility needed to achieve that effectiveness. We are a Committee of 16 members, and I note how effectively you, Mrs. Anderson, and Mr. Forth are able to control and organise us. I am sure that the chair of the commission would be equally capable of managing a commission of up to 15 members, which is, of course, one fewer than on this Committee.

Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham)

There is a difference between a parliamentary Committee, on which most of the Government Members are forced to remain silent, and a general committee on which people have a great desire to talk for ever.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The hon. Gentleman should also consider the fact that Government Members tend to turn up for Committees, unlike Opposition Members. Certainly, a committee of up to 15 is perfectly manageable, as shown by the experience with English Nature and the Environment Agency.

John Mann (Labour, Bassetlaw)

Will the Minister clarify whether, in relation to the make-up of the board, the definition of rural communities will include the kind of communities in the Sheffield area about which we heard, and will incorporate the many mining communities across the country?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. It is important that the commission should have a duty to consider rural disadvantage and that the expertise of its members is sufficient to understand the needs of former mining villages and rural areas on the edge of cities, which can sometimes be forgotten.

The overriding principle of public appointments is that selection should be based on merit, so it would be unfortunate to restrict in the manner proposed our ability to secure the services of those best qualified to serve on the commission. I do not suggest that there would not be plenty of suitable candidates of merit among ex-Members of this House, but the stipulations are strange and, as the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire said, novel. I would argue that packing the commission with ex-politicians also risks bringing party politics into it. We are seeking to ensure that it is independent and, dare I say it, above politics so that it can be the powerful independent voice that we seek.

The accountability route is clear. Ultimately, the commission needs to feel accountable to rural communities, and I accept the suggestion by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) that it must satisfy rural communities, and not just itself, that they have a champion. It will ultimately be accountable to them, although it will be formally held accountable through Parliament.

Flexibility is necessary in the term of appointment of members to ensure that the commission is balanced and that the membership turns over in an orderly manner, so that not all the members leave at the same time. I accept what the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire said about how he would address that, but appointments are subject to the rules set out by the Commissioner for Public Appointments, as I made clear on Tuesday, and they are normally restricted to two terms. I shall not rehearse the arguments that I used then to explain why the OCPA code of practice should be applied and why the hon. Gentleman’s amendments are contrary to it. With that, I urge him to withdraw the amendment and to agree to the schedule.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

I cannot say that the Minister’s comments are a huge surprise—I think that I could have written them myself, although probably not delivered them with such panache. Nevertheless, I am slightly sorry that he has taken the view that he has. The idea of having 15 people on the board of an organisation that will, at least allegedly, be small, lean and purely advisory, is stretching a point. It is a little odd.

On my proposals for formally elected people, the Minister asserted that he did not want party politics to enter into things, so I hesitate to suggest that they tend to creep into lots of things anyway. I referred to ex-politicians, and as a Minister in a Government who have filled the other end of this building with ex-politicians who never seem to follow the party Whip, he will know that politicians cannot always be relied on to follow the party line, so I am not sure that he is right. I also cannot help reflecting on the fact that it is good enough for the Prime Minister of France never to have been elected to anything in his life. All that I am suggesting is that members of the commission should once have been elected to something, somewhere.

Neither point, however, is hugely important, and we may return to them in this place or in another place. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 18 - Commission’s general purpose

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 112, in clause 18, page 7, line 17, leave out ‘and economic’ and insert ’, economic and environmental’.

I shall not keep the Committee long, because our intention is perfectly self-explanatory. We seek to amend the commission’s general purpose to ensure that it has a responsibility for the environment. Some Members might feel that we have just done all that with Natural England, but earlier in today’s debate, the Minister said that social issues were mainly the responsibility of local authorities; he used that argument to rebuff the case that we made earlier. Despite that, however, social issues are clearly and rightly going to be part of the commission’s responsibilities. We therefore need to ensure that it understands the gamut of rural needs. That is not to suggest that it will somehow supplant Natural England or seek to interfere, but it will reflect on rural needs in its activities.

For the purposes of this chapter, “rural needs” means

“the social and economic needs of persons in rural areas in England.”

I think that environmental needs should be added to that definition. In rural England, one cannot separate people from the environment. Arguably, of course, the environment is always around all of us, but there is a particular aspect to rural areas in which people are part of the natural environment. One cannot separate those aspects, which is why the commission should consider all three elements as being rural needs.

In some ways, the amendment would reduce potential conflict between the commission and Natural England because without it, the commission could advocate something for social and economic reasons, but then Natural England could say, “Hang on, look at the environmental impact,” to which the commission could say, “To hell with the environmental impact; it is not part of our remit.” I suggest that the commission should understand the environmental aspect of things when proposing some sort of development. The environment is part of sustainable development; indeed, it is central to it. That is the nub of my argument.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The Bill makes it clear that the commission’s primary focus will be on social and economic needs, but in championing people it needs to ensure that relationships between people, businesses, communities and their environment are enhanced, not weakened. Therefore, it must promote ways of meeting the needs of rural people and areas that contribute to sustainable development. Clause 18(1)(b) concerns

“meeting rural needs in ways that contribute to sustainable development.”

So that consideration is there.

In many ways, the argument about whether we should accept the amendment is about whether it should be implicit or explicit that the commission should be mindful of the environment in the context of sustainable development. One could cut it both ways. We chose to state it implicitly in subsection (1)(b), whereas the Opposition suggest that it should be explicit. I am relatively relaxed on this, but there are several bodies that are concerned with the environment and that take the environmental lead, such as the Sustainable Development Commission, and I am nervous about creating too much duplication of duties, so I prefer that the commission should focus particularly on the social and economic needs of people in rural areas.

The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire is right to say that one cannot separate people from the environment. Where the environment affects people, the commission will certainly have a role. It will not be responsible for pursuing environmental goals directly, but will need to play a role in encouraging others to consider such issues in the round in developing sustainable solutions for rural communities. As hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have said, a high-quality rural environment and a vibrant rural economy go hand in hand. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

I am grateful to the Minister. He has covered most of the points and has had the grace to suggest that there is not much between his position and mine, except that I want to make the need to consider the environment more explicit. His comments are now clearly on the record as part and parcel of the purposes of the commission, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham)

I want briefly to probe the Minister on the general purpose of the clause and the balance that the commission will strike in dealing with persons suffering from social disadvantage and areas suffering from economic underperformance.

The hon. Member for Sherwood touched earlier on the fact that there is a considerable drift from the town to the countryside. Some of the problems in the countryside are caused not simply by industrial decline, as in the mining villages, but, in a sense, by increasing prosperity. A lot of commuters and others move into rural communities, leaving a rump of country folk—for want of a better word—who often suffer disadvantages. They are the ones who rely on the diminishing bus service and the village shop that is closing down, while the new people probably do not patronise them so much. There are also all the other problems of the changing countryside, and hon. Members will be fully aware of them. However, the rural development agencies and others are concentrating on the mining communities, although they are clearly rural communities, and there are a considerable number of them in the north-east of England. Everyone is very much aware of the coalfield communities, and a considerable amount of work is being done in them.

I am therefore anxious for an assurance from the Minister that the commission will not pick on one type of area and ignore the problems in other, more prosperous areas. I was thinking of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs, which is not normally known for deprivation, but it does contain traditional country people who suffer such problems.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s comments, because it is important to clarify that when I talk about social disadvantage, I am talking about it wherever it is found. His analysis is correct: at one level, we could say that social disadvantage is a wide side of difficulties that prevent people from participating in society. They include poverty, but also limiting factors such as lack of skills, unequal levels of health and well-being, inability to participate fully in local government and so on. We may find concentrations of those factors in what I referred to earlier as lagging areas, although there was a suggestion that areas might not want to think of themselves as lagging. Such areas are typically remote—there is a core-periphery relationship in all this analysis—and may often have seen a decline in traditional industries, such as fishing, mining and agriculture.

A huge number of people want to retire to my constituency of South Dorset, with its beautiful environment and wonderful quality of life. Many people want to purchase second homes and holiday homes there. In many ways, the prosperity that they personally and individually bring masks pockets of deprivation. I would certainly see one of the commission’s functions as producing the evidence and marshalling the arguments on addressing pockets of rural deprivation so that it can assist government at all levels to do so.

Clause 19 - Representation, advice and monitoring

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 113, in clause 19, page 7, line 31, after ‘meeting’, insert ‘, or not meeting,’.

This is another brief amendment, and it is equally self-explanatory. We are talking about the commission representing rural needs, giving advice and monitoring and making reports about the way in which policies are adopted. I suspect that here, too, we shall be arguing about what is implicit and what is explicit, but I would like it made explicit in the Bill that the commission’s reports can also address the ways in which the policies of a Government, a local authority or an organisation do not meet rural needs. If we are to ensure that the commission is given the credibility that we all want it to have, everyone should understand its role. I rest my case. If we are going to ensure that it takes heed of rural communities and rural needs, we must also fully and explicitly understand that its function is to point out the problems as well as the positive things.

Saying that something is beginning to meet rural needs or is meeting 50 per cent. of rural needs is the reverse of the half full, half empty argument, but it would be better if the Bill clearly stated that the commission’s reports should address failures as well as positive things. I hope that the Minister will accede to this minor proposal to make something explicit in the Bill.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Paragraph (c) establishes the monitoring function of the commission. It places a duty on the commission to monitor and report on the implementation of policies—that is, to assess the way in which policies are adopted by the Government and others are implemented—and the extent to which those policies meet rural needs.

The amendment is relatively harmless, and relatively unnecessary. By implication, when the commission reports on the way in which policies have been adopted by relevant persons, such a report would highlight the good and the bad. The use of the word “extent” would also render the extra words “or not meeting” superfluous. Policies could meet need to a greater or a lesser extent.

The amendment is therefore unnecessary. I trust that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw it on that basis.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

I had hoped that the Minister would at least have attempted to humour me on an amendment as minor as this. It is usual, during the passage of a Bill, for the Minister to accede to some completely minor amendment, just so that the Opposition have a feeling of success, even though it is purely token. This could have been the Minister’s opportunity to do that, and I could have left the Committee Room, issued all my press releases and really made a great deal of this, but he is flatly refusing to accede to two minor words—

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Three.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

Sorry, yes.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

The devil is in the third.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

The devil is in the third word, but there we are. I am hopeful that, as the Minister is not going to humour me by accepting this amendment, he will accept a more significant amendment later. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

On a point of order, Mrs. Anderson. I have just noticed that my hon. Friends have tabled an amendment that withdraws the whole of clause 19, but it does not appear on the amendment paper, so do we take it with the clause stand part debate?

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

That amendment has not been selected.

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

With the leave of the Committee, I propose to take clauses 20 to 28 together.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

On a point of order, Mrs. Anderson. I wished to make a point about clause 26.

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

It might benefit the Committee if we take the clauses separately.

Clause 25 - Directions

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

We have had much debate about the directions that the Secretary of State could give Natural England, and the clause replicates the directions for the Commission for Rural Communities. However, one difference between Natural England and the CRC is that Natural England could actually do things. For instance, it could enter into management agreements and take much more explicit action in the countryside. The CRC, however, is a body for advocacy and advice. Subsection (4) states:

“The Commission must comply with any directions given under this section.”

However, that is less appropriate for the commission than it is for Natural England.

I understand that the Secretary of State might wish to stop a body from becoming actively involved in an activity that was contrary to Government policy or that stood in contradiction to the work of another Department. However, if we do not give the commission the absolute right to decide what do— which elements of rural activity to make reports on or take evidence on, or what recommendations to make on Government policy—we will do away with the very independence that the Minister has advocated. I ask him to reflect on that. Although I can understand that he might believe such arrangements to be suitable for Natural England, are they really appropriate for the Commission for Rural Communities?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and it is appropriate that I should clarify it. On one level, we are doing no more than what is done with all non-departmental public bodies. I can rehearse all the arguments from before about Natural England and accountability, but the bottom-line assurance is that, ultimately, the Secretary of State is accountable to Parliament. Therefore, the clause is necessary.

The commission is an advisory, not a delivery, body, so it is unlikely that the power would ever be used. There is a similar power in relation to the Countryside Agency, and I can confirm that no directions have been issued to that body either. I can also clarify that we would not be in a position to direct the commission on what its findings should be or on what to advise Government, although we could ask it to look at something for us.

To give the hon. Gentleman an example, we are in the process of negotiating with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for the establishment of a task and finish group, as a commission to look at affordable rural housing, which we all know is a concern in rural England. I could have asked the fledgling Commission for Rural Communities to do that work for us. However, I have made the judgment that, while we are in the middle of organisational change for the commission, the formation of Natural England and everything else that is taking place in the context of the Bill, it would be more appropriate for a separate body to have completed the work by the time that the commission is formally established, so that the commission can then take the matter up for us.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

Perhaps I can be a little more explicit about the avenue of thought that I was pursuing. What if the Commission for Rural Communities wanted to look into an aspect of rural life in which the Government felt they were failing? I would be concerned about the Secretary of State having the power to tell the commission, “No, you can’t look at that, because we’re very sensitive and we know we’ve failed.” I am not talking about this Government, but a Government in the future. That is the real concern that I have about that power. It is not the power of being able to tell the Commission to go and do something; it is the power of saying that it cannot look at something because the Government feel very sensitive about it.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

That is useful clarification, but I think that the fact that we have included in clause 25(2) that the

“Secretary of State must publish any directions given under this section”

means that if the commission were to announce that it was going to do a piece of work on, let us say again, affordable housing in rural areas, and the Secretary of State, by direction, said that it was not allowed to do so, that would be published and there would, understandably, be an outcry in the country, particularly in rural England, that the Secretary of State had constrained the commission from carrying out what everyone would consider to be useful work. I hope, on that basis, that the hon. Gentleman has the reassurance that he needs.

Clause 26 - Transfers on dissolution of English Nature and Countryside Agency

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

So far the Committee has had the opportunity to talk about policy, but clauses 26 to 30 talk about practicalities: the transfer and the way in which the new bodies are to be set up. I want briefly to ask the Minister some questions about that. It is not an easy task and perhaps at the outset I should record my appreciation of the work that the staff of the agencies are doing. There is more than just one agency; there is an end-point when they will be unified in one agency, and they have to manage the process. They have, as we say, to move from the past to the future. Some movements are easier than others, and this one is quite difficult. There are some issues involved with that, and I want to ask the Minister about property.

All Government Departments are under pressure, through the Gershon review, to reduce spending. The Minister has told us that the two new bodies—Natural England and the CRC—are to be independent. Will he give me an assurance that the property in which the bodies will eventually reside will belong to the agencies themselves? There have been stories in the past that the properties might belong, for example, to DEFRA, and will be sub-let, and the new bodies will merely be tenants. My own view is that they are truly independent bodies, and it is important that they have control of their own property. I believe that substantial savings lie behind the Bill, and it would be helpful if the Minister would confirm that the new bodies are to be property owners in their own right, and that they are independent and in control of their own destiny.

I want to return to an issue that was touched on on Second Reading, which is the IT systems that will lie behind the new bodies. One of the tasks that the Department is currently considering is the Rural Payments Agency, which is in the midst of real change, with a new IT system being installed. It has had a chequered history, and is putting in a new IT system at the same time as the reasons for and methods of payments are changing. It moved to single payments and an entry system. That is not going to be easy. Natural England, in particular, is to be involved in those payment mechanisms. Can the Minister assure me that, within the timeframe that has been set out, the new IT system will be delivered on time, on cost and fit for purpose?

The Minister may not want to be absolutely definitive on that point at the moment, as I know that there are problems in this area, but I wanted to use this occasion to say that all reorganisation is difficult and that in this reorganisation strong management will be necessary because, as I said initially, it is important to keep the show on the road while developing new purposes and new organisations. That is not an easy task. I know that the Minister’s officials have been heavily involved in it. Good management is necessary and satisfactory outcomes will be important.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to join him in paying tribute to the work of the staff of the various agencies and of the RDS, which we are talking about in the context of this clause. They have done and continue to do excellent work and I look forward to them doing equally good work in the new organisations of which they will be a part.

My hon. Friend asked specific and valid questions about property and the vexed issue of IT—of course I welcome those questions hugely. The Countryside Agency and English Nature hold freehold or leasehold interests in land in two distinct categories. The first is property held for the public benefit, such as national nature reserves and sites of special scientific interest, where the land has been acquired by the body. The second category is property such as administrative office buildings held to enable the body to carry out its functions.

The property in the first category and attendant rights and liabilities will be transferred from the Countryside Agency and English Nature to Natural England. I hope that that is clear. It is clear in the Bill that the commission and Natural England will have the power to buy, own and dispose of property.

Property in the second category is expected to be transferred to become part of the civil estate, held on behalf of the Department. The transfer will be from the Countryside Agency or English Nature to the Secretary of State. As a matter of detail, in practice the property will be held by the Secretary of State on behalf of DEFRA, but the legislation needs to provide only for transfers to a Minister of the Crown. That transfer of property will allow flexible estate management to meet rapidly changing business needs, and the better management of public sector property assets in the light of the recent Lyons and Gershon reviews. In future, the Department may want to transfer property with attendant rights and liabilities to Natural England and, if appropriate, the Commission for Rural Communities, or vice versa, according to business needs.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

I have entirely followed the process and I hope that we will reach that end stage, with the new bodies responsible for their own property, as quickly as possible.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Certainly. As part of the Department’s response to the Gershon report, we have said that the estate properties will possibly be held and managed on a corporate basis for Natural England and the Commission for Rural Communities. It is also worth saying that the estate’s footprint should reduce significantly from the 80 or so sites across the country occupied by the existing organisations, particularly in the light of the more flexible and customer-focused ways of working envisaged and the joining up with partner organisations across the DEFRA family and beyond. Over time, we expect the final estate figure to be in the order of 50 sites across the country, subject to the introduction of more flexible and customer-focused ways of working, to IT to support that reduction and to Natural England’s final business need.

There was a request for an assurance that the IT will be delivered on time and to budget. The right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) raised that point on Second Reading and I have written to him accordingly. If the Committee wishes, I will circulate that letter to members of the Committee—seeing nodding heads, I will do that. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood that I am aware of the difficulties involved with IT, including those of the Rural Payments Agency, and my officials are considering the matter very carefully. We are not complacent, but it would be rash of me to make promises about the outcomes.

It is clearly our intention that the IT should be on-time, on-budget, effective and work well to allow staff to get on with the job they want to do, rather than wrestle with IT problems. That is our intention and I have a fair degree of confidence from the conversations I have had that the IT challenge in respect of setting up the new organisations is considerably simpler than the problems of the Rural Payments Agency: the establishment of single payment systems, the entry-level system and the consequent issues of digitisation of maps and so on. As far as I am aware, there are no digitised map issues attached to the formation of Natural England and the Commission for Rural Communities.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

Those bodies will be responsible for access, so presumably they are taking over the whole of the responsibility from the Countryside Agency for mapping all open country. Presumably, they have a huge mapping exercise to undertake. One would assume that they will use the same maps as the RPA rather than reinvent the wheel—even if it has been badly invented.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Certainly there would be no intention to reinvent the wheel. The hon. Gentleman makes interesting points regarding rights of way and the relationship with registration, but the reassurance I am trying to give is that we are aware of the IT issues. The letter that went to the right hon. Member for Fylde was also copied to the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire and the problems of the RPA are discussed in this letter. By way of reassurance, the rights of way maps are not new. The work on them is now under way and is now largely completed. Much has already been done and those maps can be transferred relatively easy. The hon. Gentleman is right that I should not mislead anyone about maps, but I was talking about the same sorts of problems and digitised maps that are currently an issue.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

That point has been raised with me in the context of the maps that delineate the open access land. Presumably copyright will stay with one of the bodies—perhaps Natural England—and because of the cost of obtaining the copyright, mapmakers will not be able to afford it. Therefore, people will not have quite so much information. The copyright for maps of open access land could be made available without charge to other mapmakers so that there would be a greater amount of information for people who wanted to make use of that land.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I shall give some thought to the hon. Gentleman’s point. Suffice it to say, in respect of this clause, rights of way mapping will transfer as part of the transfer of functions from the Countryside Agency to Natural England. If there are issues related to the practice of the Countryside Agency or the future practice of Natural England, I will consider them and we can have a separate discussion.

I hope that I have given sufficient explanation of the transfers for the Committee to be content for the clause to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 3 - Transfer schemes

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I want to speak very briefly on this for the benefit of staff, in many ways. Schedule 3 to the Bill allows the Secretary of State to make transfer schemes to provide for the transfer of property rights or liabilities that would not otherwise be capable of being transferred or signed.

Schedule 3 schemes can cover the rights and liabilities under contracts of employment that are transferred by virtue of a scheme. This is the point that I wanted to make sure was clarified: the transfer of staff will be carried out so that staff are protected and they do not suffer detriment to their employment rights as a result of that transfer. That will be accomplished through the transfer of undertaking regulations principles and in accordance with the Cabinet Office statement of practice.

Schedule 4 - Joint Nature Conservation Committee

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 87, in schedule 4, page 50, line 29, at end insert

‘after consultation with the Scottish Ministers and the National Assembly for Wales’.

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment

No. 88, in schedule 4, page 50, line 30, at end insert

‘after consultation with the Scottish Ministers and the National Assembly for Wales’.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

On Second Reading, I reminded the Minister that this was, to a large extent, an England and Wales Bill, although the previous parts of it that we have been discussing have referred mainly, if not entirely, to England. Sometimes we MPs with constituencies in Wales are extolled by Ministers at the Wales Office; although we complain that there is not enough Wales-only legislation, they point out the number of Bills that affect Wales and England.

However, I find it disappointing that there is not a Wales Office Minister on this Committee to deal with Welsh business. We deal with a lot of legislation that affects England and Wales, and it is important that the primary legislation that comes from Westminster and affects the devolution settlement is appropriate for—and, more importantly, sympathetic to—that settlement, the progress that it makes and the evolution that takes place.

Amendments Nos. 87 and 88 are only minor. They are just a reminder to the Minister that it would be legislatively polite if the Secretary of State, in appointing the chairman of the Joint Committee and its five members, consulted the devolved National Assembly for Wales and Scottish Ministers.

I hope that the Minister will be able to reflect on that and understand that it would strengthen the relationship between Westminster and the devolved Governments. It would be an advantage in making sure that the committee worked better and that the relationships between Westminster, Wales and Scotland were enhanced. I urge the Minister to reflect on that and agree to these minor amendments, which would mean so much to the devolved Administrations.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The clause defines the UK conservation bodies and the Great Britain conservation bodies that are used in later clauses when the functions that they deliver through the Joint Committee are defined. For the benefit of this Committee, I should say that the UK conservation bodies are Natural England, the Countryside Council for Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside. The Great Britain conservation agencies are Natural England, the Countryside Council for Wales and Scottish Natural Heritage.

I have no objection to the principle behind these “legislatively polite”—as the hon. Gentleman puts it—amendments. However, the Scotland Act 1998 already requires the Secretary of State to consult Scottish Ministers—

Janet Anderson (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen)

Order. I remind the Minister that we are on schedule 4 at the moment.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I apologise, Mrs. Anderson. I was coming to address schedule 4, but I seem to have just given you the justification for clause 32, which was a flaw in my juggling. Occasionally I drop the ball.

Schedule 4 covers the funding arrangements for the Joint Committee. The main change is to provide for the participation of Northern Ireland, in the form of funding arrangements. As I began to say before you so rightly corrected me, Mrs. Anderson, I have no objection to the principle. However, in respect of Scotland it is unnecessary because the Scotland Act already requires the Secretary of State to consult Scottish Ministers on appointments to cross-border bodies. While there is no equivalent provision relating to Wales, the Secretary of State routinely consults Welsh Assembly Ministers on exactly the same basis as Scottish Ministers, and would continue to do so, as we have on this and every other part of the Bill.

The amendment, as drafted, does not cover Northern Ireland, and would therefore create a differential approach. I therefore ask the Committee to resist the amendment on that basis. The extension of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee’s remit to Northern Ireland through this legislation means that Ministers there—and, should the Assembly be restored, Ministers of any devolved administration—should be treated on the same basis as their counterparts in Scotland and Wales. I will reflect on what he says but, given this, I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

I thank the Minister for that, and for clarifying the difference in the legislation between Scotland and Wales and, indeed, Northern Ireland. I hope that he will reflect upon the matter, because these things may seem small but they are important. Given his assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I beg to move amendment

No. 108, in schedule 4, page 52, line 40, leave out sub-paragraphs (1) to (5) and insert—

‘()The funding bodies must provide the joint committee with such financial resources as the appropriate authorities consider are needed for the proper discharge of the functions conferred by Part 2.

()When determining what financial resources should be provided, the appropriate authorities must take into account—

(a)any grant being made under paragraph 15, and

(b)the views of the joint committee and the funding bodies.

()The contributions of each of the funding bodies are to be such as are agreed by the appropriate authorities, having taken into account the views of those bodies.

I hope that I am using the right piece of paper. Paragraph 14 of schedule 4 covers the funding arrangements for the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. As drafted, the Bill would follow the approach set out in the Environmental Protection Act 1990, by leaving decisions on the budget, and the share of costs to be borne by its body, to the bodies that contribute funding—that is, Natural England, the Countryside Council for Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage and, as a result of the extension of the JNCC’s remit, the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland.

This amendment would not change the requirement for the so-called funding bodies to contribute towards the budget of the JNCC, but it would leave decisions on the budget level, and the proportion that each body should pay, in the hands of the Government. In effect, it would reflect what happens in reality, and the belief is that it is better to reflect reality than some other process that may go on.

The appropriate authorities—that is, the Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland as JNCC sponsors in Government—in reaching their decisions would be obliged to have regard to the views of the funding bodies and, in the case of the budget level, the views of the Joint Committee as well. As I have said, this reflects the recommendations of the last financial management and policy review of the JNCC, which were endorsed in the Government’s response issued in November 2002.

Additionally, the changed wording omits references in the original text to budgets being set with reference to a particular financial year, in order to be consistent with the wording in schedules 1 and 2, for Natural England and the Commission for Rural Communities. This wording might also work against our desire to provide the JNCC with three-yearly budget settlements, as we do for our other sponsored bodies. I would like to apologise to the Committee for our not getting this situation reflected in the original text of the Bill, but we were busy consulting our friends in Wales and Scotland when the Bill was introduced and we have therefore had to include this provision as a Government amendment in Committee.

Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham)

I should have intervened in the Minister’s speech, but I was not quick enough. There seems to be a rather intriguing change of phraseology about this because there has apparently been a change of emphasis. In the original document the funding bodies

“must pay to the Joint Committee such sums as these bodies, with the approval of the appropriate authorities, may agree.”

The new version, however, says:

“must provide the Joint Committee with such financial resources that the appropriate authorities consider are needed for the proper discharge of the functions conferred on part 2.”

It seems that the stealthy hand of the Treasury is getting in the way.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

As I said before, that reflects what happens in reality and it is better, for the sake of transparency, to have such clarity in the Bill and it better reflects the 1990 Act.

Clause 33 - Purpose of functions under this Part

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

I beg to move amendment

No. 114, in clause 33, page 11, line 25, leave out ‘desirability’ and insert ‘commitment’.

The Bill refers in several places to sustainable development. Now is not the time to debate what that may be, or precisely how the various aspects of it—social, economic, environmental—fit together.

Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham)

We can.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

We can debate it if my hon. Friend really wants to, but I suspect that he would give me short shrift if I started to do so.

How committed are we to sustainable development? We debated earlier whether Natural England was to be promoting or contributing, and in this clause the JNCC is to

“have regard to ... the desirability of contributing to sustainable development”,

which is extremely vague. The words “have regard to” are vague and “the desirability of contributing” is pretty vague, so when, as in this subsection (2)(b), the two are put in train, we end up with a serious lack of commitment.

The JNCC’s responsibilities are fairly narrow and we will support them, but if it is going to have any relationship with sustainable development, surely it ought to be as committed to the principle as everybody else. That is not to suggest that it should abandon its principles about being primarily a conservation body with the responsibilities set out in clause 33(1), but it should be committed. I am concerned that the double phrasing of “have regard to” with “the desirability of” is too vague to be meaningful.

Article 2(3) of the habitats directive, which we are signed up to, refers to the commitment to sustainable development. The Government are committed to that concept, as are the Opposition. If the habitats directive can refer to the commitment to sustainable development, it would be odd if the JNCC—the very body that has to report to the Government about the habitats directive—were not committed to sustainable development.

This is another short, sharp, self-explanatory amendment and I hope that the Minister will not say that it is unnecessary, because it slightly firms up what we are trying to achieve. We want to ensure that the JNCC, like other bodies, is committed to the overall objective of sustainable development.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The original wording of the clause requires the United Kingdom conservation agencies and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee to have regard to the desirability of contributing to sustainable development when exercising their functions. We must remember that the primary role of the JNCC is that of an adviser on nature conservation. The phrasing in the clause was chosen carefully, so that the JNCC could set its advice in the context of sustainable development, without having to moderate it to take into account socio-economic factors.

The amendment would require the JNCC to take account of the commitment to sustainable development and to have to take into account socio-economic issues, by implication. I do not believe that that would be appropriate. It is for those whom the JNCC advise, including Ministers, to weigh the considerations of the other pillars of sustainable development when making decisions. We want the JNCC to provide objective and sound scientific advice on nature conservation issues.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the European Union’s habitats directive. Socio- economic, cultural and regional considerations are delivered through other provisions in the directive, such as in article 6, rather than providing a sustainable thread throughout the directive as a whole. I ask him to reflect on the argument that, as a closely defined body advising on nature conservation, it is appropriate for it to

“have regard to...the desirability of contributing to sustainable development”,

but such a function is so closely defined that it is then up to Ministers when they receive such advice to have stronger regard for sustainable development than he is after.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

When I go back to the organisation that suggested the last three amendments that I have introduced, I shall tell them that the Minister was not able to accede to them and that I shall not accept any more of its suggested amendments. The record is beginning to become monotonous.

It is the role of the Opposition to put forward suggestions from outside bodies and—to be serious—I am happy to do so. I understand the Minister’s argument. At the end of the day, it is for advisers to advise and for Ministers to decide, which is as it should be. We should all be committed to the principle of sustainable development. To me, it is not sustainable development if the interests of the environment are not taken into account seriously and put at the forefront, as I implied in an earlier debate. However, I am happy to accept the Minister’s assurances and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.