Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

In speaking to my Amendment No. 119, I should like to emphasise first that I totally support the view that Natural England should be a body focusing on the management of the environment in its widest sense: an ““environmental champion””, to use the words of the Minister. However, in order to be successful, Natural England will have to persuade others. The body does not own much land and that for which it has management agreements is also limited. So in order to be successful, it will have to persuade others to champion the environment. To do that, Natural England will have to promote the sustainable development agenda and be seen to do so in the widest sense. Land managers and the general public can understand the links between landscapes and attracting visitors and businesses. They can understand the links between the wonders and diversity of the natural world and our long-term quality of life. But in all this they need to feel that a balance is held between, say, at one extreme saving every invertebrate in the country, and at the other their own social and economic well-being. I do not think that Clause 2(2)(e) achieves this at present. It is all right as far as it goes, but by limiting Natural England’s sustainable development responsibilities so that they apply only through its management of the natural environment, I start to worry. Natural England will have to work in partnership with other land managers in order to achieve its objectives. It must understand the essentials of current land management survival, particularly where its new responsibilities for landscape are concerned. Most land managers now have to create new, often non land-based, enterprises on their land or in their communities in order to fund the management of their land. This trend can only increase over the medium term as the single farm payment reduces or disappears as we move towards 2012 and beyond. In many ways, the original form of Clause 2(2)(e) ought to read the other way round; namely,"““contributing to the management of the natural environment by the encouragement of economic and social well-being””." That might have done as an amendment, but perhaps the ““encouragement”” of economic and social well-being is going too far for what is, after all, only a conservation body. However, Natural England now has responsibilities beyond the management of the natural environment. It has to promote access to the countryside, it has to promote learning and understanding, and it has to conserve and enhance the landscape. Thus it seems logical to me that somehow its sustainable development remit should also be extended beyond the natural environment. The body has certain responsibilities towards national parks, where under the relevant legislation national park authorities already have a duty positively to foster economic and social well-being. Surely, unless the bodies more or less coincide, it would be difficult for that particular partnership to work as effectively as it should. In that context, I worry about the sustainability of the upland landscapes that we cherish in our national parks. Hobhouse’s original intention was that ““established farming must be protected””. But now with the single farm payment, and thus the almost positive encouragement in upland areas of the option not to farm, hill farming by itself is unlikely to be the economic, social and environmental driver it used to be in many of our upland areas. The consequences of this for conservation, recreation and local communities could be disastrous. So it seems that Natural England will have to become involved in social and economic development as part of its primary responsibilities for conserving and enhancing the landscape. We should note that this involvement is unlikely to be through the natural environment, but more in consideration of its needs. It is therefore imperative that it has broader responsibilities for economic and social well-being than merely through the management of the natural environment. It is going to have to be much more imaginative than that. A further point to note is that Natural England will be required to give advice to the Government on everything from habitats to farming policy. While I feel sure that such advice, particularly that available from the current personnel, will almost certainly take into account social and economic well-being, the perception of the public in general and land managers in particular will be that this advice could be unbalanced without the introduction of this amendment. I want Natural England board members to be able to ask as often as possible whether the economic and social well-being issues have been considered. We are not asking for social and economic well-being to be encouraged or fostered, as in other legislation—or even to be contributed to, as in the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller—and certainly not for it to have precedence. As my noble kinsman the Duke of Montrose said a moment ago, sustainable development is a way of looking at things; it is not necessarily an outcome. We are merely asking for the management of Natural England to have regard to the economic and social well-being of rural areas in the same way as later in the Bill all public authorities, whatever their primary purpose, now will have to have regard to conserving biodiversity. It seems to me that what is good for the goose must be good for the gander.