Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My hon. Friend makes another important point. It is very much the Government’s hope and intention that it will be possible to involve the voluntary sector and we may be able to explore that point in Committee. One reason for seeking to provide flexibility in the Bill for setting up such partnerships is to reflect the diversity and variety of potential partners, whether they be voluntary or other organisations, and to ensure that people can work in ways that best suit the tasks that they seek to perform. The means will vary from one area to another and we hope to allow for precisely that. I mentioned the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. The Bill will strengthen the breadth of scientific expertise on the committee by increasing the number of independent members from three to five. The Bill will also introduce measures to strengthen wildlife and habitat protection and to mainstream biodiversity considerations into public policy and decision making, because it provides that every public authority must have regard to the purpose of conserving biological diversity in the exercise of its functions. That duty should help to ensure that biodiversity becomes a natural part of policy making. The Bill will introduce a package of amendments to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 aimed at improving protection for native animal and plant species and a new provision on the possession of pesticides, designed to help prevent their abuse to kill wild birds and other wild animals. Those measures, too, have been the subject of wide consultation. The Bill will introduce new enforcement provisions to help ensure compliance with wildlife protection legislation to help redress some of the current imbalance of interests in wildlife enforcement. It also creates two new offences to assist in managing and protecting our sites of special scientific interest. One will enforce an existing duty on public authorities and the other, we hope, will help further to deter intentional or reckless damage. The broads, national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty are recognised as both our finest landscapes and as leaders in sustainable land management. The Bill contains a number of provisions that stem from the review of English national park authorities that was published in July 2002 and the subsequent review of the Broads Authority to ensure that the statutory framework is sufficiently clear to enable them to operate efficiently and flexibly. The Bill places some important limits on establishing rights of way for mechanically propelled vehicles by limiting vehicular rights that can be recorded on local authorities’ definitive maps and statements of public rights of way in England and Wales. The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) raised that issue and I understand that there are strong views on both sides of the argument. We have taken into account more than 14,000 responses to our 2003 consultation document and believe that the provisions in the Bill strike the right balance between the needs of all users of the countryside and the protection of our landscape and wildlife.