Examination of witnesses (Questions 395 - 419)
TUESDAY 3 NOVEMBER
RT HON
THE BARONESS
YOUNG OF
OLD SCONE
and MS SUE
COLLINS
Chairman
395. Lady Young, I do apologise for keeping
a member of the Other Place waiting, no discourtesy was intended,
there was no carefully thought through slight, I can assure you,
it was just that we were, as always, finding the evidence of our
last witnesses interesting, but I am sure we will find yours equally
fascinating. Perhaps I could, just for the record, ask you to
introduce yourself and your colleague?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) My name is Barbara Young,
and I am Chairman of English Nature; and Sue Collins, my colleague
here, is the Director of Policy at English Nature. And we in the
Other Place, of course, know our place.
396. A very important place it is, too; we will
not get into that debate today though. I think it is fair to characterise
your written evidence—and thank you again for the written
evidence, which is, as always, appreciated by the Committee—I
think you are pessimistic, really, about the environmental benefits
that are going to flow from the Agenda 2000 package and from the
rural development aspect of that, in particular. And you say,
I think I quote you accurately, that the rural development regulation
is marginal to the main thrust of the policy proposals, and you
say the "pace and depth of the proposed reforms is too conservative
and offers little in terms of immediate gains for wildlife and
natural features." And I think that theme of excess conservatism
running through the Commission's proposals is something we have
heard from most of our witnesses, on every aspect of reform. So,
in your opinion, how can the maximum possible environmental gain
be extracted from the reforms, and, specifically, from the rural
development regulation, as currently drafted?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) Thank you, Chairman.
We think that there are some small avenues of opportunity in the
Agenda 2000 and rural development proposals but they are rather
tenuous and heavily threatened, and I think the UK Government
ought to be pressing to retain those and also to expand on those.
The sorts of things we are talking about are the fact that we
have now got environmental objectives integrated into the CAP;
that we will begin to see reductions in commodity support; environmental
conditions being proposed; the potential use of national envelopes
for the beef and dairy commodity regimes possibly being able to
be used for environmental purposes; and, of course, the rural
development regulation, which is outlined as being the second
pillar of the CAP. We need to see more, however, than simply defence
of some of those proposals, we need to see a real integration
of environmental objectives, along with social and economic objectives,
in agriculture policy as a whole; we need to see cuts in commodity
support being transferred to rural development and to agri-environment
schemes, rather than to compensation payments; and we want to
see a much faster degression and time limit on compensation payments;
and we want to see environment conditions applied to all payments,
across all commodity regimes, all ongoing compensation or production
payments. And we do want to see a degree of inventiveness and
enthusiasm in using the national discretion provided in Agenda
2000, particularly in terms of the national envelopes; they are
very large sums of money the national envelopes could release
for other purposes. The rural development regulation, particularly;
the previous speaker commended the fact that it does provide a
clear route for switching funds from commodities into environmental
objectives, and we really must make sure that that is retained.
We would want to see agri-environment schemes remaining as a compulsory
element of regulation. The greening of the Less Favoured Areas
will have major benefits for wildlife, particularly in the uplands,
though it would need to be associated with conditions on some
of the associated headage payments, otherwise it will really be
rather fruitless. And we believe that there is work going on,
within this country, already, on a variety of schemes that begin
to show the way, in terms of how we can actually, in rural development
terms, see some of these fairly large sums of money not just delivering
for agriculture production but also delivering for the environment,
and indeed for social objectives and communities within the rural
areas. So there is scope there; some of it needs to be defended
very fiercely at European level, some of it needs to be grasped
here, in the UK, with enthusiasm.
397. That is quite an ambitious list of objectives,
hopes and fears. I think, a theme that is coming through, I do
not know whether you agree with this or not, is that really what
we have here, in the rural development regulation, is a first
shot at a change in agricultural policy in Europe, and it is probably
disappointing a lot of us in this country but that it does offer
the opportunity to build, in the future, on foundations that are
being laid down at this stage of CAP reform. Is that a view which
English Nature would share?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) I hope so, providing
the things that are there in the proposals remain in the proposals.
We are seeing quite a degree of backsliding across Europe on some
of the fundamentals in the proposals, and so I think there needs
to be considerable vigilance and energy shown by the UK Government
in defending those points that I have just pointed out.
398. So we have got to really work hard even
to defend these inadequate proposals, would be your view?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) Yes, absolutely.
399. Are there any short-term benefits, do you
think, from the regulation as it stands at present, or is it really
only a foundation for the future?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) I think there are major
benefits in the short term, providing some of the arrangements
that we have outlined actually come to pass. But one of the real
stumbling blocks, of course, in terms of the rural development
regulation, is the amount of funding provided for it, there is
no real growth, in fact there may be a slight diminution.
400. Perhaps I may interrupt your flow, because
I know that Mr George wants to ask you precisely about funding,
so it may be sensible if we express our concerns and you respond
to those; would that be helpful, to go to underfunding?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) Okay; fine.
Mr George
401. On the issue of the level of funding, which
is clearly exercising us all, it has dawned on many of us, and
certainly Professor Lowe, two weeks ago, confirmed that, in his
view, if increased funding for eastward expansion of the EU is
stripped out of the Commission's budget projections, there will
be, in effect, a budgetary freeze on rural development spending
during the period 2000-2006, and it seems unlikely, therefore,
that your target of 25 per cent of Guarantee fund expenditure
allotted to the regulation will be met. In your opinion, should
the Government increase national expenditure on these programmes
to at least partly make up for the likely freeze in EU funding,
or is there some other way you believe it is possible to make
up what most people anticipate is going to be a shortfall in the
expectations?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) Sue, do you want to
deal with the funding issue.
(Ms Collins) Thank you. Yes, we agree with the analysis
of Professor Lowe. The rural development regulation is starved
of funds and it is set to decline, the agri-environment element
will decline from 6 to 5 per cent of CAP. Currently, in the UK,
£3.7 billion is going into CAP, and, of that, £85 million
is being spent on agri-environment schemes in the UK. Now we have
said in our evidence that, in the longer term, we think there
needs to be expenditure of the order of £800 million a year
on agri-environmental schemes and delivery of biodiversity, landscape
and rural development objectives. Historically, the UK has been
a low spender on agri-environment schemes; within the EU, it is
tenth out of 15; so the point you make about the responsibility
of the UK Government here is very pertinent. The rhetoric of environmental
sustainability is strong, and we support that and applaud that;
what we would like to see is more delivery of cash to support
the very many farmers who do wish to farm more environmentally
sensitively, who do wish to change their farming structures and
their farming regimes to meet environmental codes of practice,
and so on, but who are currently prevented from doing so because
all the handouts actually support different sorts of farming,
which is often environmentally damaging. So we do believe the
long-term aim should be of the order of £800 million to £900
million a year; we think that this could build up progressively
from £85 million at the moment; if you added £100 million
to £150 million a year. We have very good propositions, which
we set out in our previous evidence to you, in Annex 2, on Agenda
2000, about how that could be spent and what the environmental
benefits of different sorts of amounts would be. How is it to
be funded? We think it is to be funded from redeployment of money,
instead of spending huge sums on unconditional compensation for
removal of price supports—there is no `public good' argument
for that. If you deployed, as a start, 30 per cent of the national
envelopes for beef and dairy you would have available £210
million per annum in the UK for environmental purposes, over and
above the £85 million spent already. So we believe that should
be done.
402. You also recommend that at least 66 per
cent of funds dispersed under the regulation should be spent on
agri-environment measures, at least at one point in the document,
and, in another, I think paragraph 5.1, you say: "we recommend
that at least 50% of the funds under this regulation are committed
to agri-environment measures." Is this simply an opening
gambit, are we to take that kind of of pitching the bid seriously?
(Ms Collins) We think that the rural development regulation
potentially provides a model for the restructuring of the whole
of the CAP, and in that context we think that two-thirds of whatever
goes into rural development support could go into funding agri-environmental
measures, leaving a very considerable sum for some of the other
structural and other aids that you talked to the CLA about. Now
the precise level of those, and the social and economic objectives,
are not well specified and articulated at the moment. The environmental
objectives are extremely well articulated in the UK and they relate
to international and national obligations, and we have costed
those and we know that you could deliver a lot of benefit for,
say, £350 million. I do not have a good feel for precisely
how much social benefit could be delivered with, say, another
£100 million of socially-directed funding, but we think two-thirds,
one-third would be a good balance.
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) One of the things we
have got to point out is that the agri-environment spend is currently
50 per cent of all of the schemes which would go into the future
rural development regulation, so we are not asking for a lot more;
it currently spends 50 per cent of the funds, what we are saying
is we want to up that a bit. Two other points. One is, agri-environment
schemes, of course, also have social and economic benefits, they
employ people, they maintain rural communities, they create economic
wealth for farmers and for support industries, so that though
agri-environment schemes are primarily pointed at the environment
they actually deliver social and economic benefits as well. We
should also say, of course, that part of the problem about how
much should agri-environment get and how much should other forms
of rural development get is complicated by the fact that this
is a pifflingly small sum; if it were not such a pifflingly small
sum we would not want to be scrapping about it. If the sum was
increased it would become much easier to see how you were getting
the sorts of objectives that Sue was describing, both the environmental
and the social, out of the whole piece of the rural development
funding.
403. Would it not be better for English Nature
to be arguing that we should be integrating environmental goals
in rural development project eligibility, rather than necessarily
saying "we want so much for the environment and you can have
what's left for rural and social development", as if that
is somehow separate and has no environmental benefits at all?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) What we have attempted
to do, as Sue pointed out, was to try to get a handle on the total
cost of delivering the sorts of environmental objectives that
are required for this country to deliver in both the uplands and
the lowlands in rural areas, and the total cost of that is something
around £800 million, which is the 25 per cent that we are
talking about. We absolutely agree with you that rural development
schemes need to be an integrated blend of environmental, social
and economic outcomes, because, in fact, if you look at some of
the schemes that currently exist, and some of the quite innovative
pilots that are being developed, you can see immediately that
it is quite difficult to separate them apart. The agri-environment,
per se, is delivering jobs, and jobs are delivering benefits
for the maintenance of communities, and, likewise, some of the
quite innovative pilots that are being developed at the moment,
in terms of the upland pilots in the Forest of Bowland and in
Bodmin and also in the Countryside Commission's Land Management
Initiative, both of those are beginning to show that it is actually
impossible to separate out environmental, social and economic
objectives. And that we need to be very explicit in the development
of these schemes as to what the precise objectives on each of
the three counts are, but they are delivered by one chap, or one
set of people, operating in the rural community.
404. Right; so there is agreement on that, but
could I ask you, the corollary. You heard, I think, what the CLA
said, towards the end of their evidence, that maybe agri-environmental
measures could, or should, stand alone. How do you respond to
that, as the negotiating position of another organisation?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) I must confess, I would
worry a bit about that. I think we have got to be quite clear
about the difficult times that farmers particularly are going
through at the moment, and rural communities generally. And we
would be loath to see what we would kind of describe as park-keepers
in rural parts of this country, we need to see people managing
the land for production still; sheep may be conservation tools,
but you eat them, at the end of the day. And so we do, I think,
need to move from where we are at the moment, which is very much
a focus on production from agriculture, into blending in the social
and environmental objectives with that, so that land managers
are seen as delivering a rounded package of public goods for the
public support for these very big sums of money that we are seeking,
for public support for the uplands and the lowlands of this country.
I do not know, Sue, whether you want to add to that.
(Ms Collins) Yes. Could I add two things. We are engaged
in innovative projects with, for instance, Cumbria Farm Link;
they bring together both aspects; they do an environmental audit
and a business audit on the farm and then they come out with proposals
that work for the farm and for the environment and for the business,
and that kind of integrated approach is one of the ways forward
we see. The reason why we have been very specific about the environmental
objectives is because we think that, as a public body, asking
for public money, we have to be clear about the outcomes that
we are seeking, and it does not mean that we do not believe and
share interest in other objectives that go alongside. We are looking
for win/win solutions, particularly in the uplands, where often
the environmental quality is integral to the farming system and
so you can deliver an environmental benefit and a rural business.
In the lowlands, often, the semi-natural land is peripheral to
the farm business, and there it may be that the agri-environment
scheme has to stand alone and not support the farm, per se;
one can see it as a sort of diversification of farming, in a sense,
in the lowlands, because it cannot be integrated with, say, arable,
particularly, for instance, if it is a bit of wet grassland.
Ms Keeble
405. Bearing in mind the comments that the County
Landowners made previously, are you confident that with that big
increase in funding—it will be about a five-fold increase
in the funding for agri-environment measures—you would have
the take-up for it?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) I think it is interesting
to see what is happening at the moment, in terms of take-up of
agri-environment measures, because there is huge pressure on the
existing funds. Countryside Stewardship is about 50 per cent oversubscribed;
the recent arable pilot, which is aimed at trying to bring environmental
objectives into intensive arable farming by extensifying gently,
and I stress the word gently, was very, very oversubscribed and
is only on a pilot basis in three areas of the country; and the
upland pilot is only a pilot at the moment in two places in the
country. And you can see there that there is considerable scope
for using funds in similar ways countrywide. So I do not really
have concerns. I think there are concerns about getting good schemes,
that are properly evaluated and do deliver all the environmental
and social and economic objectives. And so it is going to be a
tough task to move as quickly up that path of ascending towards
whatever figure eventually of millions is chosen, but I do not
think it is impossible, and, certainly, at the moment, the option
is not there, we are just seeing no possibility of further growth
in these schemes, and continuing decline in wildlife.
Ms Keeble: So the quantity would be there
but the quality might be questionable?
Chairman
406. I think there was disagreement there, from
the witnesses.
(Ms Collins) No, I think what we would say is that
you would build to this figure, over, say, a decade, and we think
there is untapped demand that could be met next year, so you could
double £85m next year, if you get a move on and start marketing
it properly, if you changed the support so that you were supporting
extensive production in the uplands, which is not supported at
the moment, the organic farms, and so on. There is lots of demand
there.
Ms Keeble
407. You also mention, and I completely agree
with you, that public attitudes towards price support are not
particularly good. What do you think the public attitudes would
be towards this very large increase in spend on agri-environment
measures?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) I think this is the
only salvation, actually, for being able to continue to support
rural communities in the way that I think many of us want to;
rural communities are absolutely vital for conservation in the
environment. At the moment, I do not blame the public for getting
pretty edgy about supporting rural communities with huge slabs
of money, because the policy that carries those huge slabs of
money is broken in all three aspects, it is neither good for the
environment, in fact it is positively bad for the environment,
it is not good for local communities and it is not actually producing
a viable agricultural industry either, so it is broken on all
three counts.
Chairman: I think we are getting into
the area that Mr Todd wants to explore with you next; it may be
that Ms Keeble wants to come back after that, but we will perhaps
move on to Mr Todd.
Mr Todd
408. Your evidence might be characterised as
setting out a vision of a nation of bird-watchers, badger-lovers
and people observing well-kept hedgerows, rather than a sustainable
agricultural economy in this country, which can compete on the
world stage. How do you balance those two goals; if, indeed, you
do?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) I think that we need
to take account of what, as a nation, we actually want to deliver,
and we do want to deliver competitive agriculture, but we do not
want to deliver competitive agriculture at the price of the environment,
which is what is happening at the moment, or at the price of rural
communities, which is what is happening at the moment. So we want
an integrated rural development policy that actually delivers
on all three sets of objectives. I would not, I think, be totally
out of line with a large number of commentators if I were to recognise
that in many of the lowland areas of this country we will continue
to see comparatively intensive agriculture that is well equipped
to compete on a world stage. There are many parts, however, of
the rural economy where, quite frankly, we are not going to compete,
and we never will compete, and where, quite frankly, the environmental
and social objectives are more important than the economic ones.
So I think there will be a range across the countryside.
409. So your goals are segmented according to
the environment in which they are set, if you like, that you would
recognise, say, in East Anglia, that we should be building competitive
arable farming to compete on the world stage, and that environmental
goals may well have some role, and I think you touched on them
perhaps being at the periphery of the farm business. And yet in
more upland areas you would be talking about that being much more
the core of what is being done, that you are keeping beasts because
they are nice to look at, they cut the grass very well, they contribute
in a variety of other ways towards biodiversity, and we eat them
in the end but that is not the main goal of why they are there?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) I would typify it less
extremely than you have put it. There is no doubt that we will
always see more intensive agriculture in East Anglia than we will
in Cumbria. However, I would not want to see Cumbria typified
as a place which is a kind of zoo for nice animals that people
can go and look at in the hills, because farmers in Cumbria will
still be farming for farm produce; much of it can be value-added
farm produce, particularly because it is extensively produced,
it may well have a very local nature to it and can therefore be
produced at premium price and marketed on the basis of the local
values of that particular area, which include the local wildlife
value. So let us not write off Cumbria as a kind of theme park.
In East Anglia, we cannot afford to allow intensive agriculture
to be as uniquely wildlife-unfriendly as it is, we have got to
do more about bringing back some of the common, lowland, farm,
arable birds, invertebrates and plants into the arable areas.
Now the arable pilot is an attempt to see whether you can combine
intensive arable farming with some wildlife benefits within the
intensive arable farm, because at the moment there are two impacts
of intensive arable farming that are undesirable and cannot continue:
one is the one I have described, an almost total absence of a
diversity of lowland farmland species; and the other, of course,
is the whole question of pollution from intensive use of the land
and the impact on soil. So we have got some quite strong environmental
problems that we have got to solve within the arable areas as
well, so I would not typify the two extremes as you put them.
410. How do you solve those problems, in the
context of the removal of production-related subsidies in these
particular sectors, in which those businesses will have to stand
on their own feet, against industries in other parts of the world
which have no such obligations or expectations placed on them?
(Ms Collins) Could I say that I think for industrialised
agriculture then we need standards, decent standards, to be delivered.
411. At a global level?
(Ms Collins) I think, probably at a European level,
I would introduce those standards. If you are asking for global
ones then you are asking for not doing it for 30 years. So I think
that is overambitious, shall we say. I think the UK itself could
deliver a higher regulatory floor for industrialised agriculture,
and that would tackle air, water and soil quality, it would not
allow pollution of water courses from run-off, and so on. So the
areas of East Anglia need better regulation, if you are not going
to pay money for them to—if you are not going to support
them, they definitely need to be regulated.
412. Would you, therefore, envisage that those
landowners who had received support for that additional requirement,
which would not be placed on their international competitors,
because that is the legitimate complaint of farmers—
(Ms Collins) There are many signatories to the Rio
Convention on Sustainable Development, and so on, in which it
is implicit that decent environmental standards will become the
norm across the world. If it imposes extra costs in, say, adapting
the farm's handling of slurry, or something, so that they can
meet the conditions, then that is an area for `public good' investment,
I think. The question of whether they should be paid any money
for arable production is a matter for public debate.
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) Could I come in. I am
a bit more of a cynic than Sue is, actually, about international
competition. It seems to me that this myth of international level
playing-fields is a myth; there are huge differences in commercial
conditions across the world, and trying to level the playing-field
for all of them is in search of nirvana, which we will never reach.
We have got to recognise there will always be other countries
which, for a variety of reasons, have got a bit of a competitive
edge in a particular direction, whereas we may have in another.
I do not see any objection at all, and the arable pilot is specifically
aimed at this, to paying arable farmers as part of rural development,
if, in fact, they are delivering more than the basic minimum of
environmental outcome. It is a product, the same as wheat and
barley and sugar-beet; if we want it, as a nation, we should be
prepared to pay for it, but that does not mean to pay for minimum
environmental standards. Too often, at the moment, arable areas
are not actually achieving what could be regarded as good levels
of environmental practice that we need to see go on right across
arable farming. But if there are either habitat recreation or
additional habitat management tasks that we would want arable
farmers to do, and the arable pilot will demonstrate whether it
is possible to get some wildlife gain out of intensive arable
farming, and I am sure, I am, personally, on the experience of
Set Aside, very confident that you can, I think we should not
be turning our back on looking to pay farmers for delivering this
public good. And that is where our £800 million has a very
large slab in it for buying environmental and wildlife benefit
from the arable areas.
413. Two very narrow questions. One is, you
refer to the need for a "biodiversity imperative" within
rural development policy; what does that mean?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) It is strange you should
ask that, because when I read it I thought to myself "This
is a very good phrase, I wonder what it means." The biodiversity
imperative is the one that I think I have already described, and
that is, biodiversity in our farmed countryside is in serious
trouble, that is the biodiversity imperative; we cannot continue
to go along seeing our wildlife in the farmed countryside diminishing
ever rapidly, which it certainly is.
414. So, imperative means—
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) It is a driver.
415. It is a driver, backed up by targets?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) Yes.
(Ms Collins) Yes.
416. Specific targets for what we are supposed
to be achieving. And the second thing is, there is obviously an
opportunity we have characterised, well, we have not characterised
Cumbria as the theme park, you have quite reasonably said that
that is not your goal, but the encouragement of tourism clearly
is part of rural development, which can have a major impact on
biodiversity. Have you got models of how tourism can be enhanced
within a nature-sensitive context, which you would support?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) Just before we leave
the biodiversity imperative, one of the models, generally, in
terms of rural development, that we have offered up, and we were
intrigued to hear that the CLA were going to offer you theirs
later, because we have here one that we prepared previously, in
the Annex to our evidence, and we know that it is very similar
to the ideas that the CLA are currently developing, but it, basically,
responds to the biodiversity imperative by saying everybody should
have a minimum level of standards, which they are not paid for,
and then an ascending pyramid of payments, delivering not only
environmental objectives but also social and economic objectives
as well, in an integrated way. So the response to the biodiversity
imperative has got to be an integrated rural development set of
schemes, rather than just simply a biodiversity set of schemes.
On tourism, there are lots of examples, I think, of sympathetic
tourism in the countryside already, but what needs to be done
is this integration right from the start. In designing diversification
within our rural areas, we need to be sure that all diversified
activities, not just tourism but also any other form of non-farming-related
activity, and some farming-related activities, are properly environmentally
appraised so that we can be sure that we are doing this genuine
job of integration, not only delivering for social and economic
objectives, in the case of tourism, but also making sure that
they are environmentally sound as well. I think green tourism
is a major opportunity, quite frankly. If you look at our National
Parks, they are very much in demand. I am not convinced that the
great British public, just moving on to the access issues, necessarily
wants to go to the brightest and best places in this country,
I think there is lots of very standard, pretty uninspiring agricultural
land on the periphery of towns which could, if properly managed,
provide a very useful source of access for the public, and also
of useful and interesting diversification for farm businesses.
(Ms Collins) Could I just make two points, in relation
to your first characterisation of "it's kind of nice for
the birds and the bees"; it does go rather deeper than that,
in that the environment has functions that are really central
to the health of the planet and to the health of the nation. And
when we are very specific about biodiversity objectives they are
underpinned by this view about functionality; so it is not just
nice to do, to look after the wildlife, they are indicators of
a healthy environment.
Chairman
417. It is my intention to run this session
until about 12.15, as we began late with you; but can I just push
you a little bit. I am just trying to get a feel, you seem to
be dismissing almost entirely the rural development issue, the
economic and social issues, and I entirely agree with you about
sustainable management, it being so important in these issues,
but you seem to be almost sidelining the social, the economic,
the housing issues, the employment issues?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) We simply have not commented
on them. We are an agency charged with the conservation of the
biodiversity of England, and so we have taken particularly a slant
that looks at how you can achieve the environmental objectives.
We do not dismiss the diversification and the other things that
need to cluster round that, we are very supportive; indeed, that
was one of the reasons why we pointed out that many of the agri-environment
schemes actually do deliver on the other objectives as well, though
we need to do far more of that.
418. So when you say that "rural prosperity
depends on sustainable management of...the...biodiversity of regions
and localities", that is a necessary but not a sufficient
condition for rural prosperity; is that what you are saying?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) Absolutely, yes; the
point that Sue was making.
(Ms Collins) Yes. The alleviation of rural poverty
is clearly a social objective, but you do not look to English
Nature to put forward a whole list of social objectives; we could
speculate, like many others, on what those should be, but we look
to the Rural Development Commission and others, and we work with
them, and we are very keen to work in partnership.
Chairman: That is a very helpful clarification.
Thank you.
Mr George
419. You mentioned that there are other landscapes,
other than the Cumbrias, the not necessarily inspiring, I think
you were saying, landscapes on the edges of towns, which perhaps
could be looked at in terms of the contribution they can make
to biodiversity and recreation and access. I would like to start
really asking a question about rural development plans and the
experience of the Bodmin Moor and Bowland, which I hope would
not come in to the definition of uninspiring landscapes, but the
experience gained from those recent pilot studies, and I wonder
if you could, in the context, describe to us how these schemes
have come about, and particularly what their successes and failures
have been so far?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) Could I talk, just a
tiny bit, about the framework within which this all happens, because
I think it is absolutely vital that there is—
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