Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, as a new Member of your Lordships’ House, I begin by expressing my appreciation for both the general warmth of welcome and the many specific acts of kindness I have experienced since coming here. I note particularly the unfailing courtesy and assistance I have received from the Officers and attendants of the House. It is my privilege to serve the beautiful and largely rural county of Devon, not only as its Bishop, but as the chair of its county strategic partnership. As such, I naturally welcome the intention of this Bill to provide structures that will deliver social justice for all, tackle social exclusion wherever it occurs, and provide fair access to services and opportunities for rural people. However, my experience teaches me that to achieve such laudable aims requires structures that facilitate partnership working not only at the national level, but at a local level too. At present this can be difficult. In Hatherleigh, for example—where the cows, whether they look at the clocks or not, produce the best tasting beef in the country—we have recently commenced building the £1.6 million Hatherleigh community and enterprise centre, one of the vanguard projects of the post-foot and mouth recovery plan for that small market town, which was devastated by that crisis. It has taken four years of intensive local community effort, including raising a contribution of £260,000 from the local community itself, to bring it to that point. The process has involved successful bids for no fewer than seven separate sources of public funds, all ultimately coming from the ordinary taxpayer: the south-west RDA, European funding through Objective 2, SureStart, Sport England, Devon County Council, West Devon Borough Council and Hatherleigh Town Council. Reconciling the contrasting objectives of these funding bodies within a single coherent project has been an almost full-time occupation for the one community development worker. Moreover, some public bodies have failed to provide funding, and the search is still on for finance to support the renewable energy aspects of this development. Will the Bill help to simplify this kind of process? I am concerned that it will reorganise the institutional arrangements at a national and regional level, but perhaps do little to simplify and co-ordinate at the local level. I fully acknowledge that the Government are committed to simplifying rural delivery, but for many in my diocese it is still not clear how this will happen. The workings of the new arrangement will need to be monitored carefully. That brings me to the proposed Commission for Rural Communities. The CRC is intended to have an important watchdog and advocacy role. There is a need for a body that can hold the Government to account on the nature of rural policy and the delivery of that policy. Some in my diocese have expressed concerns that this body will lack independence and be largely a creature of Defra and the Government. There is no reason why that should be the case. There are many cases of tough-minded, independent commissions set up by government; the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the Sustainable Development Commission are good examples. A robust CRC, with commissioners drawn from the rural communities themselves, as well as from the voluntary sector and from those academic institutions with their fingers on the pulse of rural England, could highlight issues as they emerge in rural areas. But the engagement of those who are actually already deeply involved in rural community development—including, perhaps I may say, the churches—is absolutely vital. In the south-west we face a number of key issues relating to the development of rural communities. They are well-known: affordable housing; a low-wage, low-skill economy; poor transport connections; and lack of access to modern information technology. The addressing of these issues requires strong partnership working. In Devon, I constantly hear the demand for mechanisms that will build successful and robust partnership between existing rural agencies, the local authorities, the regional development agency, the government office and similar bodies. There is also a demand for mechanisms that will produce strong advocacy, rapidly grab hold of emerging issues and bring them to the attention of departments and Ministers. I am aware that the CRC, as a division of the Countryside Agency, has already highlighted to good effect issues surrounding rural disadvantage and housing. With no responsibility for policy delivery, the CRC could be able to roam across a wide range of rural issues. By conducting or commissioning the necessary research, it should support the evidence-based policy that we very much need. But for that to happen, and if the CRC is to come into being, I hope we would all agree that the commission must have robust independence, truly representative membership and resources adequate for the task, and, most of all, enable effective local delivery—especially in the most remote and sparsely populated rural areas of our land.