Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

This group of amendments addresses a set of inter-related issues around levy bodies and their future. I know the Committee will understand if I am slightly reticent on the topic, as we are presently considering the important conclusions to which Rosemary Radcliffe has come in her report. We have made no decisions about them yet, and I will in due course announce what decision the Government have taken. Part 8, Chapter 2 gives the Secretary of State order-making powers—as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, just reminded us—to establish new bodies for agricultural and related industries and to dissolve the existing levy bodies. I will not name them all, as everyone in the Committee knows which they are. There are also provisions to amend or dissolve any new bodies created by orders made under this chapter. We have already agreed Clause 80, which enables the appropriate authorities to establish one or more levy bodies for a defined purpose by an affirmative resolution order, limited by Clause 81. The clause allows functions—limited by Clause 82—to be assigned to one or more new levy bodies and provides for the constitution of such a board as set out in Schedule 8. Orders under Clause 80 will cover the essential detail for such a new statutory body within the parameters set by Clauses 80 to 83 and related Schedules 8, 9 and 10. This chapter of the Bill will provide the means for implementing the recommendations of last year’s independent review of the statutory agricultural and horticultural levy bodies, conducted by Rosemary Radcliffe, for which the Government, and everyone else, should be extremely grateful. One key recommendation of the report is to restructure the agricultural Levy Boards according to a new model. It envisages a single NDPB, which would replace the existing five NDPBs and act as a holding company for subsidiary sector companies, which would carry out the day-to-day functions of the current levy bodies—with the possibility that separate boards might be required for certain levy activities in the devolved regions. Such an overarching levy board would establish a common framework of activities, planning, performance monitoring and reporting arrangements. The Bill represents, in this case, an important and timely opportunity to put in place a general provision that would provide for changes to the Levy Board structure. As I say, I will be making announcements in the spring about the outcome of recent consultations on the Radcliffe proposals. The only place in the Bill where I believe that certain changes need to be made, following publication of the report, is in Schedule 10, which deals with the ancillary provisions relating to such a new levy board. Not only do Government want to have the option of implementing the Radcliffe model—in full or in part, depending on views expressed in the recent consultation exercise—but, given the rapidly changing nature of farming, as referred to in our short debate this evening, we need to have sufficient flexibility built into the legislation if we want to revisit the structures of the levy bodies in future years. That is a tall order, but we need to be able to optimise delivery structures in that particular area with efficiency, and future parliamentary time for this specialised area of necessary primary legislation will inevitably not be easy to secure.