Commons Bill [HL]

This is an interesting group of amendments and, like my noble friend Lord Jopling, I have great sympathy with several of them. I particularly support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Peel, because it is right that an owner should be given the chance to acquire such rights. I hope that the Government will be willing to put that on the face of the Bill, because currently it is not there. Another noble Lord has already picked up a point made earlier by the Minister about Natural England acquiring rights only as a last resort and that they will be placed in sympathetic hands. I was intrigued by the words ““sympathetic hands””. For how long will they be held and in whose sympathetic hands? As regards the responsibilities of the new bodies that will hold those rights, it should be remembered that, on the whole, English Nature has held those rights. I know that it is very anxious that that should continue. But in the new set up of Natural England under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill its role will be slightly changed. It will not be a single non-departmental government body. It will have extra responsibilities to consider, so it will not be quite as clearly defined as before. I take the view that just because it had that right in the past, it does not mean that it is a good idea for the future. As the Minister has said, we are starting again from scratch, building and looking forward. The Minister is right that a willing seller is needed in order to get a willing buyer. Noble Lords have made further points about the cost of likely sale of land. The balance must surely be that, invariably, the person in the form of Natural England is likely to have a bigger purse than perhaps the individual who might want to take up the advantage. Is the Minister concerned about the slight imbalance that there could be between the two? My noble friend Lord Jopling referred to the National Trust. I am a member and I believe that it does a good job. On the Beatrix Potter farm—I think that it is Yewdale—