Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

I agree with the hon. Gentleman in his premise, but his conclusion is entirely a non sequitur. He is right that rural Britain, like urban Britain and suburban Britain, is hugely diverse. It is impossible to imagine the man from Whitehall having the slightest sense of all the variations that provide protection. That is the very reason why powerful and eloquent advocates for particular parts of the country who know those areas—people such as the hon. Gentleman—are employed by the taxpayer in this place to make representations: not to some intermediate body without power, which the CRC will be, nor to any other intermediate body, but direct to the fountainhead, the Secretary of State, sitting not 20 ft from the hon. Gentleman. That is a marvellous example of what can happen by way of genuine representation. Likewise, local authorities representing the many hundreds of parts of our kingdom, right down to parish councils, exist precisely to represent people living in a particular place at a particular time, to understand their concerns, and to raise them with the mandate that democratic legitimacy gives to those bodies. That is a better way to represent rural and other interests than creating a quango in Whitehall that is, in effect, under the close direction and supervision of the Secretary of State. Part 1, chapter 1 deals with natural England—the critical element of the Bill. The same observation as I made about the CRC has to be made about natural England. The Secretary of State said today that natural England would be independent. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), observed in its recommendations on the new body that"““in order for it to be successful, it is important that it has a strong independent voice . . . The independence of the new Agency must be clearly enshrined in its establishing legislation.””" At the same time as they produced the Bill, the Government published their response to the Select Committee’s report, in which they stated, ““The Government agrees.”” Just in case that could be taken to be a slip of the draftsman’s pen, the Government say in paragraph 5a of their policy statement on the Bill that they will give ““a strong independent status”” to the commission and, in paragraph 5b, that natural England will be ““independent of government””. Alas, it is not the policy statements of Ministers, however well intentioned, or Ministers’ responses to Select Committees that determines whether a body is independent: it is the law that does so. Clause 16(1) states clearly—the Liberal Democrats will tell that it is another example of admirable legislative transparency—that the Secretary of State will have the power"““to give Natural England general or specific directions””," and subsection (5) states:"““Natural England must comply with any directions””—" [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight), says that the directions will have to be published. That is splendid. We are all in favour of publication, because we want to know the extent to which the body will be under Ministers’ control. However, publication will not make natural England independent. In a previous post, I frequently argued about the independence of the judiciary with the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett). The House would not be impressed if it were told that the independence of the judiciary consisted of the ability of the Home Secretary of the day to give directions to the judiciary about which persons were to be acquitted or convicted, what sentences were to be handed down, and so on. People are independent of Government when they are not subject to direction; they are not independent of Government when they are subject to direction. Natural England will not be independent; it will be an arm of DEFRA.