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The Duke of Montrose: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that amount of clarification. However, even in that case, the power could still be taken as part of the winding-up of the existing bodies and the setting-up of the new ones. That is the central problem that is being addressed and I had hoped that the Minister would focus on it. We will read carefully what the Minister has said in response to the amendments. The fact that the issue is likely to spill out into devolved matters and so on makes it quite complicated. In the light of that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 113 to 115 not moved.]
Clause 29 [Interim arrangements]:
[Amendment No. 116 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 117 not moved.]
Lord Bach moved Amendment No. 118:
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 40 [Duty to conserve biodiversity]:
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville moved Amendment No. 118A:
Page 14, line 5, leave out from "functions," to end of line 7 and insert "further the conservation of biodiversity so far as is consistent with the proper exercise of those functions"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I declare the interest that I declared at previous stages of the Bill. In Committee, at col. 763 of Hansard, the Minister said that he expected us to return to this important issue. I said at col. 766 that I would read what he had said. I read the whole debate. I suggested in closing that the issue seemed to have caught the interest of the Committee without the Minister being able immediately to extinguish the fire. On reflection, the quick-fire exchanges at cols. 759 and 762-63, which comprised 17 or 18 different exchanges and snatches of speech, implied what I think the Americans would call a fire-fight. I apologise if I any way provoked it at that late hour.
Having read the whole 45-minute debate, I would summarise it as the Minister thinking my amendment was a bridge too far and my thinking that the Bill, which I agreed promotes this issue, was a bridge not as far as it might have been.
I did appreciate better, in retrospect, the points that the Minister made, yet I was still left feeling that the noble Countess, Lady Mar, who only intervened briefly, articulated my point succinctly when she said:
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"'Having regard to' and 'considering' can be just paper exercises".—[Official Report, 8/2/06; col. 762.]
That is another more vivid version of my own expression that "having regard to" is, inter alia, an "amulet against judicial review". I realise that I am simply repeating the amendment that I deployed in Committee, but let me try again to bridge the gap between the Minister and myself, since I believe that he acknowledges the importance of biodiversity.
The Wildlife and Countryside Link, which I defined and quoted in Committee—and which supports this amendment—wants public bodies to think about biodiversity. Government have an important role in sending strong signals to these bodies that they too have an important role. The Bill is one way of doing that but it is not just about, as the Minister also said in Committee, preventing biodiversity from being "inadvertently damaged", which was in col. 760, nor about choosing between different projects, one of which might be good for diversity but bad for other issues, or vice versa, as he indicated in col. 761. It is much more about considering biodiversity from the outset, thinking positively about it and maximising opportunities for it.
An example of that might be a proposal to build housing: that is a particular issue in some parts of the country. Yet once the decision for a housing development has gone ahead, how it is designed can contribute to furthering biodiversity. To give a specific example, a new village called Cambourne has been developed near Cambridge. The Wildlife Trust there worked closely with the local authority to ensure that biodiversity was incorporated into the design of the development from the outset. That was due to pressure from the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Peterborough and from South Cambridgeshire District Council. The developers themselves employed a team of ecologists on site before the building work started. The new development is interlinked with green space and is now managed by that Wildlife Trust. The area is now rich in wildlife, which can be enjoyed by residents of the development.
I shall not spell out, at this hour, the lessons that can be learned from this experience but I pay your Lordships' House the compliment of assuming that noble Lords can infer and imagine them, especially the involvement of local people with wildlife in as many ways as possible. Of course I appreciate that the Minister may say that nothing in the Bill prevents that from happening, but I can reasonably say that little in the Bill encourages that to become standard or habitual practice. I realise that there could be other ways of achieving the same ends; a comprehensive performance assessment framework is an important incentive for local authority performance. The Wildlife and Countryside Link would welcome biodiversity being incorporated into that, but the Bill is an important opportunity to send a strong signal—I emphasise "strong"—to local authorities and other public bodies that biodiversity is important.
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I appreciate that Rome was not built in a day; its building took time. Yet each monitoring point on progress in this area, like this Bill, is important. If the Minister believes that the Government have gone as far as they can—I must inform your Lordships' House that I am not responsible for that noise that has just been occurring—it would help if he could spell out more than he was able to, in Committee, what difference the wording in the Bill will make to progress in this field. It would help even more if he could allow a change by Third Reading to progress further in the direction that your Lordships demonstrated in Committee that they wished to see accomplished. I have sought to avoid the Minister feeling a provocation toward rebuttal, but in the same spirit I would welcome a more positive ministerial response, however brief. I beg to move.
Earl Peel: My Lords, I want to identify myself firmly yet again with my noble friend, whom I supported in Committee. His point is that local authorities must begin to embrace the concept of biodiversity in a much more comprehensive way. I understand and genuinely appreciate that to have that in the Bill would create difficulties for local authorities and the Minister. Yet the point my noble friend makes is absolutely right, so I hope that the Minister will give a robust indication in his reply that it is indeed Government policy to ensure that local authorities embrace biodiversity much more positively than they have up 'til now.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment. I believe that some local authorities are excellent in practice but, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, rightly says, the comprehensive performance assessment at the moment gives no recognition of that important work, so even those authorities that are excellent do not receive the recognition that they should. The environmental part of the assessment was fairly hard-won, because when the CPA started it did not have an environmental area at all. Now it covers areas such as litter collection, and so on—so I think that biodiversity does need to be in there.
We on these Benches very often say that they do not believe in duties being imposed on local authorities, particularly when resources do not follow. But I believe that the noble Lord's amendment, in this case, only asks that they further the interests of biodiversity in so far as is consistent with their functions. I really cannot add anything further to what I said in Committee—that I believe that it is about a state of mind and a way of working. I believe that the noble Lord's amendment would help that. I do not myself believe that it would be so hard to put it in the Bill.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I support my noble friend in what he is trying to do. I was a little surprised in Committee that we did not get a fuller response, so I am grateful to him for bringing the matter back again today. What he is calling for in the amendment is to have a greater involvement of local communities and
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a better understanding of how one can develop or plan or evolve in a more biodiverse concept. I know the temptation from the Minister's point of view would be to suggest that if one involves too many people it would take time and that there would be delays on planning and other matters. However, a little bit of forethought in the first instance can bring greater awards at later stages.
I, too, raise the question, as I did in Committee, whether the proposal involves a financial commitment. I do not see it—and I do not think that my noble friend is moving it in that way; if he is, he may comment on my comment anyway, when he speaks again at the end. But any development that involves local authorities with biodiversity and in how they can help constructively is something that we can support in any case.
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