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Lord Grantchester: My Lords, I also speak against Amendment No. 52. Following the line of thought of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, Natural England must be allowed to build its own reputation. It must be allowed to look at every instance on its own merits and decide accordingly. Under the Bill, Natural England is obligated to decide how best to achieve its general purpose, taking into account all the issues. On many occasions, it will naturally take the view that nature conservation is the most appropriate way forward. There is no reason why that should always be the case. That is why it is important that no resolution is put forward that mandates how it should decide each case. I have great difficulty also trying to understand how it will be decided what is irreconcilable on any occasion.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, for digging me out of the hole I had got into by speaking only to the first amendment.
My name is attached to Amendment No. 50 because, especially for the most deeply rural communities, there will be many occasions on which that power and duty of Natural England's needs to be strengthened. Because of their remoteness, they will have a lot more to do with Natural England; we have frequently rehearsed the issues of sparsity, and I will not do so now. The sort of wording in Amendment No. 50 is important for the agency.
I move on to Amendment No. 52. I have to admit that I have tussled hard with the issue, and listened carefully in Committee to the arguments. I have a lot of sympathy with the "jewels in our crown" argument of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. However, I arrive at the difficulty that some areas have an awful lot of jewels—they tend to be concentrated into some areas. That is fantastic for those areas, but it means that the chances for any social and economic development will be massively reduced. There is no perfect answer to that. It is virtually a free-vote issue, if it comes to a vote. It is not an issue on which one can align oneself except by one's own best judgment;
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I certainly do not see it as party political. On it, we should leave Natural England the freedom to assess every case on its merits. I am sure that every difficult case will be difficult to assess, and the quality of Natural England's board will very much be reflected by its ability to tussle with such difficult issues. I do not believe that we can legislate on the matter, much as we might like to safeguard the environmental future of our countryside and environment. Therefore, I will not be able to support Amendment No. 52.
Lord Greenway: My Lords, I also oppose Amendment No. 52. I was not present in Committee when we debated a similar amendment, but I made my feelings clear at an earlier stage in Committee when I said that I opposed any effort to write the Sandford principle into the Bill. It is most important that we retain a balance between the different interests, which conflict from time to time. We must also remember that the remit of Natural England covers urban areas as well as the countryside; that would make the amendment more difficult to work with. Things have been slanted slightly in favour of environmental issues as a result of the habitats directive already; that will have to be taken into account by Natural England.
I have been intrigued to see that a number of noble Lords who have spoken seem to have changed their mind since Committee. I do not know whether that is because of what the Minister said on that occasion, but I have not changed my mind—I still very much oppose Amendment No. 52. My noble friend Lord Erroll, who was here a moment ago, got called away to host a reception but would also have spoken against Amendment No. 52.
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Lord Judd: My Lords, perhaps surprisingly, I would like to give a word of encouragement to the noble Baroness for her amendment. I get worried when I hear people beginning to talk about the need to retain a balance. That sounds to me like the beginning of the end. Retaining a balance really means, "Come on, let's be reasonable. There are all these economic and other considerations, and we've got to give them serious attention". My experience suggests that there is never a shortage of advocacy for the immediate material economic arguments. If somebody has an economic, profit-making enterprise at hand, they will be forceful and use every device at their disposal to make sure that their case is heard. Therefore, anything that can be done to underline that the intention of the Bill is to keep within our territory this rare qualitative dimension to our life—it is so essential for the psychological and physical well-being of our people—should be there in specific language.
However, I am not sure whether it would be appropriate to vote on the amendment tonight. The wording of the Bill is pretty explicit. The Minister seems to be demonstrating that the Government want
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to give very clear guidance to Natural England about the responsibilities in the future, so I shall listen with great interest to what he says.
Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, I have not had the opportunity to speak very much on the Bill, for reasons that are probably well known, but I would like to address Amendments Nos. 48, 50 and 52—briefly, as a lot has been said already about them.
Amendment No. 52 is about resolving "irreconcilable conflict" and the "greater weight" being,
As someone who has lived most of my life in rural areas—albeit remote rural areas—I think that, before one gives the amendment approval, one needs to think about the people and the sustainability of the communities. Young people there in particular may not have the opportunity of employment. I have seen instances where initiatives have been blighted and all hope for school-leavers in some communities has gone with the wind. I have a great deal of sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. I happened to be working in Scotland at the time of the initiatives in the Cairngorms. They were very much a regeneration of that area, because of a great amount of people leaving it. The initiatives were a flagship commitment of the authorities in Scotland at that time.
We have an interesting situation at the moment with some of the older initiatives. For example, there was an appalling café on top of Snowden. I do not know whether I am allowed to mention it, but the Prince of Wales criticised it. He has not called it a carbuncle, but we are having to build a new café 100 years after the old one was built. No doubt the new one will not really be appropriate, but it should be a heck of a lot better.
I shall make a couple of points on the other amendments. I strongly support Amendment No. 48, which is on,
That is terribly important. There are a lot of aspects that we do not have time to go into, but I shall speak about one. We will have to look in the future for drought-resistant varieties of crops. We can no longer use North Sea gas to produce nitrogen to produce crops. We will have to go into nitrogen-creating crops such as new varieties of clover, which will actually sustain drought problems and increase production in, and the viability and sustainability of, the countryside. We are cutting back on research and development at present. Is that wise? Some of our research stations are going to lose many of the staff working on such things at the moment. There needs to be a great deal of thought on that.
Amendment No. 50 is very important in supporting rural communities in furtherance of social and development objectives. We have to achieve in the countryside the viability and sustainability of our communities as well as of our environment. This series of amendments is extremely important. We can see that there is variable reaction to some of them—
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particularly Amendment No. 52—but I would have thought that most noble Lords could subscribe to Amendments Nos. 48 and 50.
Lord Bach: My Lords, we have had another excellent debate around the topic of Natural England's purposes. I take the view that each of these amendments is quite separate from another, dealing with different issues but on the common topic of Natural England's purpose. I am quite sure that they are not consequential on each other in any way.
Before I start addressing the matters that have been spoken about so well—it has been an example of the House of Lords at its best—we are all glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, back in his place. We missed him very much in Committee, although I have a feeling that he will make up for that during the rest of our hearings today and next week.
So that noble Lords know our view, I say straight away that, although we understand and sympathise with many of the points made today, we do not agree that they should be dealt with in the Bill—with one possible exception, which I will come to in due course.
As I said in Committee, Natural England's purpose has been carefully drafted to be broad and enabling and to give Natural England the flexibility and independence to champion the natural environment. At the same time, Natural England is given the responsibility to find ways of doing such things so that wherever possible its environmental work also contributes to social and economic goals and, therefore, to sustainable development.
Having said that, I have heard some powerful arguments since Committee, not least in today's debate, and the House may be pleased to hear that I am not going to be dogmatic in considering this clause. Let us look at the amendments in turn.
The effects of Amendment No. 48, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, would be to make it clear that taking action in the countryside to assist in containing global warming was part of Natural England's general purpose. No one could be more forthright or eloquent on the subject of global warming than the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and for that the House owes him a debt.
That climate change is a vital issue is a given. Government expect Natural England, in common with all other public bodies, to play an active role in combating those effects. The issue, as the noble Earl, Lord Peel, put it, is whether this would be a remit too far for Natural England.
However, climate change has a wide-ranging agenda and one in which, frankly, Natural England would not be the lead player. As a key element of the broader sustainable development agenda, climate change would be an important part of the context in which Natural England operates. There is no doubt that relevant action to mitigate climate change could fall within Natural England's general purpose, but it will approach it from the point of view of an organisation whose functions, powers and expertise lie in environmental management. The items listed in
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Clause 2, at subsections (2)(a) to (e), are a selection of the things contained within Natural England's general purpose. The list could be made very much longer, but that would not necessarily increase its value as a means of clarifying the role of Natural England. Our view is that this amendment falls into that category.
Amendment No. 49 is based upon the premise that the change of wording makes it stronger. I am afraid that I cannot accept that. Indeed, I believe that within the current wording Natural England could do all that the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, suggests.
Since the 1940s, "conserve" has been applied to landscape and natural beauty, including wildlife. References in existing landscape legislation to "conserve" and "enhance" have not curtailed the ability of the Countryside Agency to take action to preserve and/or protect landscapes should that be required. A further point is that neither the agency nor its predecessor, the Countryside Commission, have indicated at any time that they have been restricted by the use of "conserve".
Amendment No. 50 would amend Clause 2(e) to make "rural communities" the focus of Natural England's efforts to promote,
I hope that the noble Baroness will recognise that the Government are a passionate supporter of rural communities—the noble Baroness certainly is. That is why the Government are setting up the Commission for Rural Communities.
However, Natural England's interests are not confined to communities in rural areas. I believe that the rationale here, if not the wording, is something that we can look at further—to give added impetus to Natural England in its work with and for local communities, both rural and urban. If the noble Baroness will allow me, I am happy to take it away and, if I can find acceptable wording—discussing it with her before—then bring back a government amendment on Third Reading.
I was grateful to the noble Baroness for her explanation of Amendment No. 51. We were not sure of the rationale for the amendment, unless it was to make clear that Natural England could also promote social and economic well-being through the carrying out of the other strands of its general purpose. While Natural England can and will, in some cases, promote social and economic well-being through its other activities, we do not believe that the current form of wording—which would hence be less restrictive—would rule out a more innovative approach, if that were appropriate.
Amendment No. 52 is, as the noble Baroness said in her speech, very important. We covered conflict resolution in depth in Committee and I do not want to reiterate all the arguments. However, I must begin with an apology—which I do. As promised in Committee, we have considered whether it would be appropriate to guide Natural England on how to deal with conflicts between different aspects of its purpose in the statutory guidance which Clause 15 of the Bill
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allows the Secretary of State to give. In order to assist our discussions tonight, my honourable friend Jim Knight circulated on Monday an example of the way in which this might be done. He said at the end of his letter that it was as an example of how conflict resolution might be covered, not as a draft for approval.
To give noble Lords time to consider this, it was sent out, frankly, before we had completed our consideration of its merits. I have to tell the House that the conclusion of that consideration is that it would not be appropriate to cover conflict resolution in the statutory guidance. So, the note noble Lords received is no longer relevant to what I am about to say. I apologise for the inconvenience.
Let me start with the core of our response: Natural England will be—the word has been used before, and I say it again unashamedly—a trenchant champion of the natural environment. No one reading the purpose in Clause 2 can be in any doubt, I would argue, that Natural England is an environmental organisation. It is about managing and enhancing places and nature and about encouraging people to enjoy and benefit from them. It will make decisions in the context of sustainable development. Through its environmental work, Natural England will contribute to sustainable development by actively seeking economic and social benefits for present and future generations. Sustainable development cannot be delivered by social, economic or environmental work on its own.
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We believe that Clause 2 and the Explanatory Notes—which I have just summarised—provide the right framework for the board of Natural England to decide how to address the diverse range of complex issues which will come to it for decision. As has been said in this debate, it will build its own reputation and it must be allowed to do that. It will be one of the Government's key advisers on managing the natural environment. We maintain the view that it would not be right to constrain the judgment of the board on the face of the Bill in the way proposed in Amendment No. 52; nor should it be exposed to the threat of judicial review on this ground for every decision that it takes.
I acknowledge that the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, has significantly adjusted the amendment she brought forward in Committee to refer to "significant", "irreconcilable" conflicts. I promised to go away and give thought to whether conflict resolution in those very rare situations could be dealt with appropriately in the statutory guidance which the Secretary of State can give to Natural England under Clause 15. Our conclusion, after considerable thought, was that it would not.
We were looking for a form of words to include in statutory guidance that would, first, not unduly limit Natural England's independence; or, secondly, not encourage it to pay any less heed to the social and economic implications of its activities and thus
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not contribute as fully as it could to sustainable development; or, thirdly, put it at undue risk of judicial review. We were not able to do that to our satisfaction. I recognise that this is a matter of judgment, but that is our firm conclusion.
Returning to our overall aim, we are trying to strike the right balance—for once, I did not completely agree with what my noble friend Lord Judd said about balance—and it is the right thing to aim for. Of course he is right to say that those who put forward economic arguments for change in the countryside do so with great passion, but if I have learnt one thing in my few months in this job, it is that those who put forward an environmental argument do so with equal, if not sometimes greater, passion. So it is a question of striking the right balance between Natural England's independence to make its own judgments as an expert on the natural environment—something many noble Lords have stressed when discussing other provisions in the Bill—and establishing a clear framework within which it will operate, which is important to its many customers and stakeholders, as well as to Ministers and Parliament to whom it is ultimately accountable.
The combination of Clause 2, as drafted, and the Explanatory Notes to which I referred, does the job. On the basis of those arguments, and those that have been put forward during an excellent debate, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment and other noble Lords not to move theirs.
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