House of Commons - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Fifth Report

1 Introduction

1. The Government announced its Rural Strategy 2004 on 21 July 2004.[1] Later that day, we appointed a Sub-Committee, chaired by Mr Paddy Tipping, to undertake an inquiry into the Government's strategy. The Sub-Committee's terms of reference were to examine the Rural Strategy, with particular reference to:

the proposal to establish an integrated agency
the proposed streamlining of rural, agricultural and environmental funding schemes
the delivery mechanisms for the Strategy, including the IT strategy that underpins it, its environmental impact and its lines of accountability, and
the extent to which the Strategy incorporates the recommendations of Lord Haskins's rural delivery review.[2]

2. In the course of our inquiry, we received written memoranda from 30 organisations and individuals. The Sub-Committee took oral evidence on three occasions in November 2004, hearing from 14 different organisations, including: the Centre for Rural Economy, the Forestry Commission, the Environment Agency, the East of England Development Agency, Advantage West Midlands, the National Farmers' Union, the Country Land and Business Association, the Countryside Agency, English Nature, the Local Government Association, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Council for National Parks and the Wildlife Trusts. We took evidence from Lord Haskins at our second meeting and our sessions concluded with evidence from Lord Whitty, Minister for Farming, Food and Sustainable Energy, on 30 November 2004. We also discussed the Rural Strategy in our meeting with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 9 February 2005.[3]

3. In December 2004, the Sub-Committee conducted a visit to a rural area in Cambridgeshire to speak to key stakeholders, on the ground, about their experiences of rural delivery and the likely impact of planned changes to the way rural services are delivered.[4] We are most grateful to all of those who gave us evidence, who met us on the visit to Cambridgeshire, or otherwise assisted us during the course of our inquiry.

THE DRAFT NATURAL ENVIRONMENT AND RURAL COMMUNITIES BILL

4. The Government has made it clear from the start that implementing some elements of the Strategy would require primary legislation. On 10 February 2005, the Government published the draft Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Bill. We decided to re-appoint a Sub-Committee, again under Mr Tipping's chairmanship, to undertake a brief pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill, concentrating on those provisions which take forward the Rural Strategy. The timetable for this exercise was tight, as we wished to complete it, and agree this report, before the Easter Recess, given the possibility of a dissolution of Parliament in April.

5. We took evidence on the draft Bill from some of the organisations which gave evidence to the earlier part of the inquiry. We also held an informal meeting with three members of the House of Lords with particular expertise in the issues raised by the draft Bill and the Government's Strategy: Lord Carter, Lord Cameron of Dillington and the Earl of Selborne. Our inquiry and report have benefited from their input. We are grateful to them, and to all those who submitted written and oral evidence on the draft Bill. It not only informed our analysis of the Bill, but added to our understanding of the way in which the Strategy is being implemented. We would especially like to thank those, including Defra, who submitted very useful written evidence at very short notice. Without their contribution it would have been difficult for us to complete this inquiry satisfactorily within the given timetable.

Background

Background to changes proposed in the Strategy

6. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was created in June 2001 through a merger that brought together responsibilities for the environment and agriculture, fisheries and food. Defra's creation meant that, for the first time, there was a single department with responsibility for taking forward the Government's rural policy agenda.[5] In order to fulfil this commitment, the Department had to find ways to eliminate the overlap between the many bodies that deliver services in rural areas. A review of these delivery arrangements was agreed by the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, during the comprehensive spending review negotiations in 2002. In exchange, the Treasury agreed a commitment to fund the reforms proposed by the Curry Commission into the future of farming and food.[6]

7. Defra's rural policy remit built on the Government's vision of "a living, working, protected and vibrant countryside", as set out in the Rural White Paper of November 2000.[7] A review of this Rural White Paper, along with an independent review of rural delivery carried out by Lord Haskins, were among the actions commissioned by Defra to improve the focus and delivery of rural policy.[8]

Lord Haskins's Rural Delivery Review

8. Lord Haskins published the report of his Rural Delivery Review in November 2003.[9] The report advocated a separation of rural policy making and its delivery, a rationalisation of delivery bodies and the devolution of delivery. Its chapter on 'How rural delivery works today' described how Defra "directly funds (or part funds) the rural delivery activities of a number of national agencies including the Countryside Agency, English Nature, National Park Authorities and Broads Authority, British Waterways, the Rural Development Service, Regional Development Agencies and the Environment Agency".[10] Five of Lord Haskins's 33 recommendations dealt directly with the development of a "more integrated approach to sustainable land management by rationalising agencies with overlapping agendas".[11]

9. The Government made an initial response to the publication of the Rural Delivery Review, agreeing with Lord Haskins's analysis that the delivery structures were too confusing for customers and too bureaucratic and centralised to meet future challenges. The Government concluded that:

its first priority was an immediate full review of rural funding schemes, to provide a clearer and simpler framework for funding that ensures funds are targeted at the achievement of outcomes, and to achieve a reduction in bureaucratic procedures;
elements of the work done by English Nature, the Countryside Agency and the Rural Development Service should be brought together where those functions would enable a more cohesive approach to delivery, particularly in relation to biodiversity, natural resource protection, landscape, access and recreation and the agri-environment agenda;
there was still a need for a much smaller, more focused Countryside Agency, to provide strong and impartial advice to Government.[12]

Government's Rural Strategy 2004

10. The Government's Rural Strategy 2004 was launched on 21 July 2004. In it, the Government set out three key priorities:

social and economic regeneration—supporting enterprise across rural England, but targeting greater resources at areas of greatest need

social justice for all—tackling social exclusion wherever it occurs and providing fair access to services and opportunities for all rural people

enhancing the value of the countryside—protecting the natural environment for this and future generations.[13]

Outline of proposals

11. The key delivery reforms adopt and build upon the principles set out in Lord Haskins's review. Under the Strategy's proposed new delivery arrangements, responsibility for economic regeneration in rural areas will devolve to the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). The present myriad funding streams will be streamlined into a new Agriculture and Food Industry Regeneration Programme, operating alongside a Rural Regeneration Funding Programme. Defra's role will be to set broad outcomes and targets and hold delivery agencies to account.

12. A new Integrated Agency is to be created which will assume responsibility for the management of environmental assets. The present range of agri-environment programmes will also be rationalised into a single scheme for Natural Resource Protection. Countryside access and recreation will become the responsibility of the new agency, but strategies for the promotion of tourism will reside with the RDAs.

13. The Strategy announced that the Countryside Agency would be refocused as a 'New Countryside Agency'—a small expert body providing strong and impartial advice to government and advocacy on behalf of rural people and businesses, especially those suffering disadvantage. It would lose its own delivery functions, but still monitor and report on progress in delivery. The decision was subsequently taken to call this new body the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC), the title by which it is now generally known and which is included in the draft Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill. For ease of reference, we will generally use this new title in the remainder of our Report. The establishment of both the Integrated Agency and the new Commission require primary legislation.[14]

14. Under these new arrangements, at the regional level, the responsibilities for primary economic and environmental policy delivery in rural areas will be vested in separate organisations. Partnership working within a sustainable development framework, brokered by Government Offices for the Regions and co-ordinated via strengthened Regional Rural Affairs Forums, is expected to provide the necessary co-ordination.[15] As part of the devolved approach of the Rural Strategy, it will be the RDAs that will be held accountable for delivery of Defra's Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets on rural productivity and services. (Lord Haskins identified five of Defra's PSA targets as having a "strong rural element".[16]) Defra will also put an additional £2 million into the Business Link network to improve support for economically lagging rural areas.[17]

1 HC Deb, 21 July 2004, col 329 Back

2 "New inquiry into the Government's Rural Delivery Strategy", Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee press notice, Number 83, 23 July 2004 Back

3 Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Minutes of Evidence and Memoranda, Wednesday 9 February 2005, The Work of Defra, HC 330-i, Qq 79-80 Back

4 See note of visit in Annex. Back

5 "Working in partnerships to revive the rural economy", Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs news release 453/02, 8 November 2002 Back

6 See: HM Treasury, Opportunity and Security for all: Investing in an enterprising, fairer Britain, New Public Spending plans 2003-2006, Cm 5570, July 2002, p 112; "Rural and green agencies face probe", Financial Times, 28 October 2002, p 2 Back

7 Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Our Countryside: The future-A fair deal for rural England, Cm 4909, November 2000, p 167 Back

8 "A modern radical agenda for rural England: Government's Rural Strategy 2004", Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs news release 291/04, 21 July 2004 Back

9 Christopher Haskins, Rural Delivery Review, 2003 Back

10 Christopher Haskins, Rural Delivery Review, 2003, p 20 Back

11 Ibid., p 112 Back

12 HC Deb, 11 November 2003, col 11WS Back