My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, for moving my noble friend Lord Randall’s Amendment 139. The Government recognise how precious our protected landscapes are, and the Environment Act’s recently commenced biodiversity duty will play a vital role in further improving their ability to deliver for nature. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that there is no point in talking about 30 by 30 as if it was a line on a map; it has to be a quality that we are seeking to protect. We are determined that national parks and AONBs should play their part in really protecting nature and the environment. I will come on to talk about socioeconomic activities when I respond to my noble friend Lady McIntosh’s point.
However, the current statutory purposes are well established. Adding five purposes would cause confusion, particularly when it comes to prioritisation. Instead, we will publish an outcomes framework to define the expected contribution of protected landscapes to national targets later this year. This framework will be embedded within management plans to ensure they reflect the Government’s priorities—the priorities enshrined in the 25- year environment plan and in our environmental improvement plan, as part of the Environment Act. We believe this will deliver the desired outcomes in a less disruptive and more agile way than through legislation. We have also taken on board my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s excellent suggestion that new guidance would clarify interpretation of legislation. The Government will publish guidance this year on management plans and, next year, on the duties on public bodies.
I hope that is an important indication to your Lordships that we are determined to ensure that we achieve the kind of requirements for the purposes that these places were designated. When the 1949 Act was passed, no one was talking about climate change or about a crisis of species decline—but we are, and we want these landscapes to contribute to the response that this Government so passionately want to achieve, which is a reversal of the decline of species by 2030, with all those Lawton principles of bigger, better and more joined up absolutely functioning at the heart of it. I hope I have said enough to enable the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, to withdraw the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Randall.
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I thank my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering for tabling Amendments 272 and 273, which seek to give AONB conservation boards and national parks an additional statutory purpose, alongside their existing statutory purposes, to give equal weight to the economic and social well-being of local communities that reside within these landscapes. In the purposes of this part of the Bill, perhaps we should be talking about levelling out rather than levelling up—levelling out from the smaller towns into the communities so often covered by national parks and AONBs, where we want to see people thrive and businesses operate. What we are doing in rolling out connectivity, both mobile phone and digital connectivity—broadband—will mean that these communities will not be left behind and that they can continue to flourish.
The Government agree with the spirit of my noble friend’s amendments but we feel that this would be better served through non-legislative means, such as strengthened guidance and the sharing of best practice, and programmes that are already supporting local communities in our protected landscapes, such as the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme, a really successful scheme that is seeing the natural environment improved and farming businesses supported. An additional purpose would also dilute the importance of the existing purposes and could conflict with them if economic interests were placed above nature recovery.
We will continue to work with national parks and AONBs and all who love and work in them or support them, to support local communities in our protected landscapes. I hope that I have said enough for my noble friend Lady McIntosh not to press her amendments.