The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, this seems to be a relatively short debate, which has shown evidence of the great knowledge and experience that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has in this field. There was a debate recently on the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008, which informs a lot of his questions and points. However, I have not heard anything in those arguments that undermines the primary objective of the coalition Government to restore ministerial accountability for child maintenance.
The amendment would remove the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission from the list of bodies to which the Public Bodies Bill applies. The Government’s intention is to increase the accountability of Ministers for public services. This amendment would go directly against that intention.
The change of status for CMEC from a non-departmental public body to an executive agency within the DWP is driven by the coalition Government’s desire to have greater accountability for the hugely important issue of child maintenance. We feel that it is important to strengthen ministerial accountability when the Government are considering the role that the child maintenance system can play in their overall commitment to support shared parenting and promote parental responsibility.
We acknowledge that CMEC has built a stable base, following on from the success of the operational improvement plan to which the noble Lord referred. As it currently stands, however, with CMEC operating at arm’s length from the Government, the Government feel that it does not have the right level of responsibility and ministerial accountability. In order to regain that control, this change in status will make that happen. Removing the commission from Schedule 1 to the Bill would adversely impact on that intention.
There is a long and often painful history of poor performance within the child support system, as the noble Lord pointed out. A simple picture could suggest that the Child Support Agency was a failure and that only the introduction of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission turned performance around. I would like to point out that that is not entirely the case. From 2006 to 2009, the Child Support Agency’s operational improvement plan significantly improved the performance of the administration of child maintenance. That was because of the activity taken forward by the Child Support Agency, at that point an agency of the Department for Work and Pensions. Responsibility for child support functions transferred to the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission in November 2008, near the end of the period covered by the operational improvement plan.
Since its formation in 2008, CMEC has taken these improvements much further. It has also been given a much broader remit than the CSA ever had. Most notably, it has developed a very effective information and support service, Child Maintenance Options, which has received much praise in dealing sensitively with separating and separated parents. Indeed, the noble Lord endorsed it a few minutes ago. The Government want to maintain and build on the progress that CMEC has already delivered. In response to the noble Lord’s question, that is one of the areas where we want to see further progress.
Let me be clear: this is not about scrapping the commission, nor is it about undoing the progress that the commission has made through the hard work and dedication of its people. I can confirm, in answer to the noble Lord’s question in this area, that we are looking to see the progress made and the plans that it has. We are looking closely at our own plans for improving the position in this area.
As the noble Lord said, however, the major reforms that were set out in the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 are still to come. The improvements that the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission has made to date have been despite the inadequacies of its IT infrastructure. The legacy of past problems still casts a long shadow over the administration of the child maintenance system.
The Government believe that it is right—indeed, essential—that Ministers are directly accountable for the significant changes that still need to happen within the child maintenance system, not least the introduction of a new scheme for calculating child maintenance and the associated new IT platform. This Government, in including CMEC in the Bill, are clear that we must avoid reintroducing the well catalogued problems of the past.
To avoid destabilising the organisation at such a critical time, the new executive agency would essentially have the structure and functions of CMEC. The key difference, and the key purpose of this reform, would be the direct accountability and governance lines to Ministers. Many of the questions that the noble Lord raised are answered in that assurance about what will be happening.
I recognise that noble Lords have a keen interest in this matter, given their involvement in the redesign of the child maintenance system in 2006. I am referring, of course, to the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Kirkwood, who, alongside the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, have proposed the amendment.
The independent review undertaken by Sir David Henshaw made some strong recommendations about the steps required to reform child maintenance. However, the review recognised that the issue of whether or not that should be administered in a body positioned at arm’s length from the Government was a finely balanced debate. The key argument on which the Government rest our position was the need for a clean break, as it was then called—I think that it was referred to today as some other kind of break, but anyway those are the essential grounds on which the argument was made, in response to the well publicised problems that the CSA had been enduring.
I reiterate that this reform is not about dismantling the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission in its current form. Neither is it about jeopardising the performance improvements that have been made in recent years. It is fundamentally about restoring ministerial leadership and accountability at a time when child maintenance reforms are reaching a critical stage.
I shall pick up one or two of the questions that I have not already dealt with. The implications for staff are relatively few, given the nature of the transfer. What we are trying to do in the universal credit, in terms of information, may become highly relevant here. We still need to look at that; obviously, it is at a very early stage.
We have looked at costs overall as part of SR10. We are determined that, in undertaking the transfer, we do not divert attention away from the need to get systems up and running. Clearly, this area is vital in tackling child poverty. Family breakdown is one of the main drivers of child poverty. We are determined to move forward on this and maintain targets. As the noble Lord will know, the introduction of the universal credit will have a powerful impact on child poverty. That is not yet included in the IFS calculations, although I imagine that it is working on that. We will be looking closely at other ways of ensuring that we stem the problems arising from family breakdown. Given all this, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for that very full reply. I have no intention of pressing this amendment, as I tabled it in order to seek information. I am comforted by what he said about the progress and planned progress of the child maintenance system and that it is still the objective to try to introduce the new basis of calculation next year and the systems that will support that. I understand that it is intended that all the CSA cases will eventually migrate to the new system by 2014.
However, I am still a little mystified by this issue of ministerial accountability, as there is accountability to Parliament through the Secretary of State. I am a little curious as to what difference the measure would make for Ministers in practice, as for most, if not all, NDPBs there is a way for Ministers to engage and influence. A framework agreement defines not only the financing of NDPBs but their governance arrangements and their relationship with Ministers, so the argument that the Government are switching just to achieve that purpose is a little thin.
I wish to make it clear that I certainly do not contend that improvements came about only once CMEC came into being. Improvements were made under the operational improvement plan before CMEC came into being. I certainly assert—I think that the Minister agreed with this—that CMEC has carried that on and has made continuing progress, although matters still remain to be resolved. I am comforted by the fact that this will not be done in a way that would disrupt the progress that has been made and disrupt the introduction of the new systems.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
If the Minister wants to pick up those points now, perhaps I can come back to my points later.
Lord Freud
We want to move to the new arrangements as soon as we can. The details of the arrangements for the agency will be elaborated on, but our intention is basically to leave the CMEC structure unaffected. The accountability point is much more political. I imagine that it would delight any Opposition, and slightly worry any Minister, to be directly responsible for what this very important agency does. That is the key difference. There is direct accountability for what is happening across these Dispatch Boxes and, of course, those in another place. We think that that is right, given the very many millions of parents and children affected. The figure is not quite 10 million on my count but it is getting on for that. For that reason, it is vital that there is direct political responsibility.
Lord Grantchester
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for the excellent way that he has put forward his amendment tonight. I thank my noble friend for his parental advocacy of this body. I also thank other noble Lords who have spoken with great passion on this amendment, which goes to the heart of this Government’s attitude to rural livelihoods and rural communities.
The Commission for Rural Communities was set up to promote awareness of the social and economic needs of people who live and work in rural areas, and to help decision makers across and beyond government to identify how these needs can best be addressed. It has given valuable independent advice to the Government and has produced a number of excellent reports, many of which have been referred to approvingly in recent rural affairs debates in your Lordships’ House.
The arguments about the usefulness of outside, independent and impartial advice, rather than simply relying on departmental in-house sources of advice from civil servants, have been well aired in relation to a variety of bodies proposed to be scrapped in the Public Bodies Bill. In particular, the debate on the pesticides advisory committees and the remarks made by my noble friends Lord Whitty and Lady Quin, and others on 29 November, were very pertinent. The value of the report of the Commission for Rural Communities was mentioned in a debate on rural affairs initiated once again by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on 15 July. That then informed your Lordships’ later debate on the Prince’s Countryside Fund.
The CRC focuses on practical outcomes for people who live and work in our rural areas. I pay tribute to Stuart Burgess who with his team accompanied a tour on the work being done in market towns, which was a strong initiative in my local area in Cheshire. The second round of the town centre initiative fund expanded excellent help towards 15 further rural local authorities; that is, 38 per cent of recipient authorities compared to only 6 per cent in the first round of that initiative. It has been involved in collaboration and partnerships through local areas, and in working to find the most effective solutions at the least cost. It has picked up on local challenges and strengths, and has been part of local economic assessments, which have been vital to the work of regional development agencies and, through the rural development of England proposals, has worked with the development agencies, which is another body we will look at after the new year. It has become a repository of expert advice and opinion to take advice of rural needs to the heart of government.
It is clear that there has been no real consultation about the abolition of this commission, despite the assurances from the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, about consultations in an earlier debate. In answer to a Written Question, HL2837, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, said:
“The decision to abolish the Commission for Rural Communities was made after full consideration within Defra and the usual consultation across government”.—[Official Report, 25/10/10; col. WA 224.]
No wider consultations have been undertaken.
Has the effect on rural areas really been considered? The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred to costs and rightly pointed out that the upfront abolition costs are in the region of £2.5 million. Unlike many of the other Defra bodies where cost savings are negligible or non-existent, this could be one where some costs may be at issue. However, one has to look at the value for money that this expenditure has produced. If the Government commission reports in the future on the kinds of subjects that have previously been considered by the CRC, there would presumably be considerable costs in undertaking them. Furthermore, independent, impartial advice is a valuable commodity.
The Defra Minister, Richard Benyon, has also said that proposed changes to Defra’s public bodies will create modest savings. The main benefits of the proposals in the Public Bodies Bill are to increase transparency and accountability in public bodies. But how can accountability be improved if existing bodies, such as those we are discussing tonight, which publish their reports and proceedings and have excellent websites, high visibility in rural areas, and make minutes of their meetings available to everyone, are abolished and replaced by Defra in-house bodies? The CRC made a difference. This simply does not make sense.
I turn now to the announcement made on 29 June by the Secretary of State. A new policy unit is to be set up within her department covering rural communities. It will work across government to ensure that rural interests are reflected in programmes. I join other noble Lords who have asked the Minister how an internal policy unit can have the profile to cut across and into other departmental activities. Can these new arrangements be effective? What evidence will he require of his department to support the Government’s contention that the work done so admirably by the Commission for Rural Communities will still be carried out as effectively in the future?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
My Lords, I shall now address the amendment and put things into an appropriate perspective. I welcome the remarks of all noble Lords who have spoken about the CRC. The noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, described himself as the midwife of the body, but he was then described as its father by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. We are getting our metaphors a bit mixed up on this occasion. However, as I said, I want to put this into perspective, so I shall start by reminding the Committee, as other noble Lords have done, that we announced our intention way back on 29 June that, subject to the passing of legislation, we would abolish the Commission for Rural Communities along with its statutory functions as just one part of the Bill before us.
I think I can speak for all my fellow Ministers and future Ministers once my time is up when I say that the decision to abolish the commission does not reflect in any way a reduction in the Government’s rural commitment. On the contrary, the Government are committed to improving the quality of life for people living and working in rural areas and intend to put the fair treatment of rural communities at the centre of government. There are already many rural organisations and commentators who will continue to hold the Government to account, as happened with the previous Government. I think that noble Lords might remember one faintly rural community, the Women’s Institute, which I seem to remember a former Prime Minister going to address but not coming away from that occasion exactly unbloodied. However, I think he enjoyed the experience.
I remind the Committee of what the name Defra stands for. It is the department responsible for the environment, food and rural affairs. It is the department that works to promote the interests of rural people within all government policies. I can speak for all my colleagues in the department—I am sure it will be true of all future Ministers and, dare I say it, those like the noble Lords, Lord Knight of Weymouth and Lord Clark, who have served in similar departments in previous Governments—by saying that we will continue to push for rural affairs. Many of us have a strong rural background. The noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, comes from my part of the world and I was grateful for his reference to the fact that we support the same football team and read the same newspaper. We will continue, as he and the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and others have done, to champion rural issues across the Government.
I must make it clear that we as a department will continue to work with a vast range of departments on issues of importance to rural people. This will include working with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on broadband. It is an important issue and I am glad that noble Lords mentioned it. The noble Lord, Lord Clark, referred to what my honourable friend in another place is doing in Penrith and the border region for north Cumberland in trying to bring the project forward. He has had long discussions with both the DCMS and my colleague, Richard Benyon, who has responsibility for these matters in Defra on that issue. We will continue to work with the Department for Communities and Local Government on housing and planning and with the Department for Transport on rural transport issues.
My noble friend Lord Newton kept emphasising that he was a junior Minister, but he was actually the first Secretary of State I served under in the Department of Social Security, and I hope that I learnt a great deal from him in doing so.
Lord Newton of Braintree
I am tempted to intervene. I am grateful to my noble friend because I now remember. He was War Pensions Minister, if I remember rightly, and I am willing to bet that he found the external campaigning of what was then called COBSEO—it may be called something else now—very useful in trying to get money out of me for war pensions.
Lord Henley
My noble friend touches a sore point: I remember many issues relating to war pensions and other matters that caused him and me a great many problems. I can also remember taking social security Bills through this House for my noble friend when he was the Secretary of State and that I suffered a number of defeats which ran into millions, billions and trillions of pounds and which my noble friend then had to overturn. The point I am trying to make is that what this House and another place can do is equally important. I always used to feel that any Secretary of State from another place with whom I worked needed two or three defeats in this House before they understood its importance. My noble friend learned that and we dealt with the problems.
We talk to a large number of different departments; we will continue to do so and we will continue to be the rural advocate. As part of our changes to rural policy, Defra’s rural capacity will be significantly increased to create a new rural communities policy unit. That unit will expand on the existing policy work of the department, moving to a single organisation to act as the rural champion within government—and that rural champion is Defra. This will remove duplication, improve efficiency and improve our focus on priority issues for rural communities.
In moving the amendment, my noble friend Lord Greaves asked about staffing issues and the transitional period. This is very important. I can assure my noble friend that 14 staff from the CRC have already transferred to Defra as they are connected to work which will be undertaken in the rural communities policy unit. This will assist in building upon the relationships that the commission has built up. In addition, any vacant posts in the new unit—and we expect there to be at least some—will be advertised so that commission staff without an automatic right of transfer can apply for those positions.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, asked about the RDPE and whether the CRC was responsible for that network. That function has been transferred to Defra and the three CRC staff undertaking the work have been transferred; they are among the 14. I must make it clear to the noble Lord that the CRC was not responsible for the full RDPE programme, which is a wider matter.
One of the most important issues to address is costs. What we are doing is not only about saving money, but we expect significant savings to come from this action. This is important in terms of our contribution to reducing the deficit. We, as a Government, inherited a very large deficit from the party opposite when they were in government and we all have to do our bit to reduce it. Obviously there will be up-front costs as a result of the change and redundancies, and those are estimated at less than £2.5 million. These will be far outweighed by the long-term savings, estimated to be in the region of £4.5 million a year. That is a significant sum. There are very good reasons for wanting to continue to attack the deficit and we will continue to do so. However, as I have made clear to the Committee, that is not the sole reason for our doing this.
Lord Henley
I will give way to the noble Lord when I have finished that sentence. It is my right to decide when I give way. I pay tribute to the work of the Commission for Rural Communities during the past four years, but I think that its time has come.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
Will the noble Lord also pay tribute to the work of the rural advocate and address the points made by all speakers in this debate about the importance of having a voice for rural England that is independent of government? Does he think that that role should continue, even if the other functions can be absorbed within his rural policy unit?
Lord Henley
The noble Lord looks for an independent rural advocate. I do not think that we will be short of any number of independent rural advocates or that they necessarily need to be government funded. He referred in terms of environmental matters to Geoffrey Lean. There are many others who will offer us advice and make their views known, as will the noble Lord himself, this House and another place. I can assure the noble Lord that we will not be short of advice. I therefore hope that my noble friend Lord Greaves will consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
While I recognise the strength of what my noble friend said about the department’s commitment, is not the problem that the department is only part of government and that there can be much stronger departments—for example, the Treasury and the department for business? We have witnessed the National Grid announce a consultation on covering large parts of rural England with pylons from the North Sea. When that issue comes to be debated within government, we will hear the voices of the Treasury and the Department of Energy and Climate Change, but those debates will be internal. Would it not enormously strengthen my noble friend’s department to have an authoritative voice—not just local women’s institutes—from an objective body set up for the purpose of giving a view which is clearly not parti pris but is committed to the benefit of the rural areas of this country?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I appreciate that some departments are more equal than others. One of the first things that I learnt sitting at the feet of my noble friend Lord Newton was that the Treasury had a slightly greater say on these matters than other departments. Nevertheless, Defra will play its role in arguing these views in government. I do not think that the CRC would be able to stand up to the Treasury with any greater authority than, for example, my own department, but, as I said in response to earlier remarks, there are a great many other bodies outside that will also make the case for rural communities very strongly. I do not think that spending £4.5 million per year on the CRC is certain to give more prominence to the arguments of rural communities. We will do that, and do it far more cheaply than the CRC.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, before I respond to what the Minister said, I would like to thank everybody who has taken part in the debate. I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, was representing the Labour Front Bench because at least somebody apart from me was not a past or present Minister. At one stage, the debate was developing into a past and present Ministers’ club, with lots of gossip that the rest of us did not quite understand. However, I am grateful to everybody and particularly the former Ministers—midwives and everybody else—who have taken part.
I am not one of those who think that Ministers, even at a junior level, do not have any influence and cannot, with enough energy and commitment, achieve things within their departments and perhaps outside. I spent last Christmas reading Chris Mullin's diaries about his time as various kinds of junior Minister, which give a very cynical view of the person with a minor position and no power whatever. I suspect that he laid it on a little. The diaries are extremely amusing, but I think that he probably overstresses his lack of power and influence.
Having looked at it all from the outside over many years, I have seen that Ministers with energy can achieve things, but one problem that faces all Governments and all ministerial teams is that at some stage they run out of energy and new inspiration. I would not accuse the present Government of having a lack of energy or a lack of determination to do things. In fact, I think that they sometimes rush into things far too quickly, when a little more thought and careful consideration might be helpful, although I understand why they do so. However, such energy does not last. The idea that a Minister at a middle or junior level within Defra will have the presence and ability to promote causes on behalf of rural areas, particularly disadvantaged rural areas, that the CRC and its chairman have at the moment is arguable at the very least and possibly wishful thinking.
I understand that the Government have an agenda, which I share to quite a considerable degree, of looking hard at quangos, reducing their costs and doing away with them when they are not doing a useful job or where what they do can be done more efficiently or democratically. I do not disagree with that fundamental wish in any way whatever, but the quangos have to be looked at one by one.
One specific question that I asked, to which I did not get an answer, was whether the State of the countryside report, as a basic piece of essential impartial, independent research, will continue in future even if within Defra. I hope that the Minister might write to us with an answer to that.
I would also like much more information on exactly how the rural champion across government will work. One of the things that a lot of us on the Liberal Democrat Benches have learnt in the past few months is how busy Ministers are and how much of their time is taken up with activities, some of which are clearly extremely vital and some of which I wonder why they are bothering with. I wonder why they do not just say no and get on with doing something useful. It is absolutely clear that competent, keen Ministers have their time and energies fully occupied by the job that they do. Some will cynically say that such Ministers are just being run by civil servants, but I do not think that that is true of good Ministers. Nevertheless, Ministers are very busy people. To have the job of co-ordinating rural policies across government is a pretty big job. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, can tell us how he got on trying to do that kind of thing when he was recently a rural Minister.
The other fundamental question to which I do not think that I have an answer is this: what does the CRC do at present that will not be done in future? The noble Lord, Lord Knight, set out clearly what the CRC does now. What we would like to know is which of those tasks will not be done in future, by Defra or by anybody else. If £4.5 million is to be saved—as the Minister quite rightly said, that is not a small sum, even in these days—what jobs are not going to be done because that money is not being spent? The noble Lord, Lord Henley, said, “I think that its time has come”. It is probably inevitable that its time has come, no matter how much we debate it in Committee and at later stages, but it is important that we understand who is going to do what in future. I do not think that we understand that yet.
Some of the quangos—the arm’s-length bodies, or whatever they are called—that are being done away with in the long lists in this Bill will not be missed in future. In five or 10 years’ time, we will look back at the list and ask ourselves, “What an earth were they? What did they do?”. Such quangos will not be missed and we will wonder why we argued about them, but some of the quangos will be missed, including, I suspect, the CRC. Life goes round in circles, as we know, and some of those quangos will have to be reinvented in future. It is far better either that we get it right now and do not drive the bulldozer through those that are necessary or, if the organisational arrangements are to change, that we understand at least that robust structures will be set up that will deliver the same kind of thing.
Finally, the Minister said that he did not believe that the CRC could stand up to the Treasury better than a rural advocate within Defra. That may be true in some respects, but the real difference is that the rural advocate within Defra will operate within government and behind the closed doors of government. Some of what he is doing will come out, because we will have debates in Parliament, reports will be produced and leaks will appear in newspapers. By and large, however, that process will take place within government, whereas what the CRC and other similar bodies can do is to take it all out into the public domain so that the research is published. The proposals are public proposals and, as Members of Parliament and your Lordships' House, we can use that information to call Ministers to account, to take part in debates and to take part in legislation. It is much more difficult to prise information from within the department. That is a fundamental difference, which the Government have not got quite right in a number of these issues.
It is customary on these occasions to ask the Minister to write to us and to give us answers to the questions that have been asked that have not been answered. I hope that he will do that after this debate. I will certainly collate the questions that have been asked from all parts of the House, write them down and hope to get more thorough answers from the Government and from the civil servants in Defra and everybody else involved before we come back to Report. We may have to come back to this issue on Report, but in the mean time I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Clark of Windermere
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 38, which concerns the Home Grown Timber Advisory Committee. I do so in the same spirit as my noble friend on the Front Bench in that I seek to ascertain whether the Government have the right processes in place to take over any jobs that this body may have undertaken. It would be foolish of me to oppose the abolition of this committee, as we stopped it meeting under my watch as chair of the Forestry Commission. I remember it well because we reviewed all our advisory committees and considered that there was no real justification for the Home Grown Timber Advisory Committee. According to the Minister’s Answer to a Parliamentary Question, it has not met since September 2005 and fell into abeyance in June 2006 when the members’ terms of office expired. In the second part of the Parliamentary Question, I asked what the cost of the body was. The Minister replied that it had cost £625 since November 2005, which is about £125 a year. I suspect that it does not cost that much and that most of that money was incurred in winding up the body in the latter part of 2005 and in 2006, so in essence it is a no-cost body. That is an important point.
I spent this afternoon looking at the Second Reading of the Forestry Bill on 5 August 1919—I was able to do so in view of the delays incurred when another matter was being discussed in the House—which set up the Forestry Commission. It is interesting how much wise debate took place when the Forestry Commission was being established. One thing that was debated at great length was whether Scotland should have its own, separate Forestry Commission. That has not changed. Almost 80 years later devolution took place to a certain extent and great powers were given back to Scotland and to Wales, as well as to England, to run their part of the forestry estate. Flexibility was also built into that legislation, which was then carried forward into the subsequent Acts affecting forestry. There was no Home Grown Timber Advisory Committee; it was simply a central advisory committee. I have never been quite sure why the Government are so intent on abolishing it.
I come back to my other point about the big society, which seems to be the Government’s underlying philosophy. This committee was a radical proposal for the time, in 1919. A very radical and progressive Liberal Prime Minister, Lloyd George, was trying—
Lord Clark of Windermere
Perhaps the coalitions in those days were a bit more radical than the current one. But we will let that lie.
That advisory committee was a link in the new concept of state forestry—forestry belonging to the citizens—being challenged by and running side by side with the private forest interest. The Act said that between six and eight members of the advisory committee would be appointed after consultations with forest owners—who I suggest were not exactly supporters of the Labour Party or the Opposition—and that six to eight would come from the timber merchants and allied trades. It was a genuine attempt to try to draw in expertise and to be aware of the interests not so much of those who were involved in state forestry but of those who had great knowledge of the industry. It certainly served the state forest service very well, helped to build up the Forestry Commission and also helped private forestry. That is one reason why, even today, a large body in private forestry wishes to retain the state forest service. However, we will come back to that in later amendments.
I am simply suggesting that this is perhaps a little more than tokenism. Perhaps it is just tidying up—I concede that straight away—but if the committee does not cost anything, why abolish it? Interestingly, the Home Grown Timber Advisory Committee was not set up until 1939, when there was the threat of war and the need for timber. It was established to try to ensure that that need was met. It resonates today that the first edict that it set out, facing the demands of war—it sounds obvious now—was that one should go first for the mature timber, then for the semi-mature timber, and, lastly, for the timber which should be used only in dire emergency. It classified the various parts of the country as to where the main felling should take place. It is relevant today that the two areas that the committee singled out for more or less immediate felling, because the trees were mature, were the New Forest and the Forest of Dean. I was interested that the Business Secretary in the other place, Dr Cable, who I think has a cottage in the New Forest, said recently that the New Forest certainly would not be privatised. I know also that the Forest of Dean is of great concern to my noble friend Lady Royall. We should bear in mind that forestry is a long-term game. It is many years since the end of the war, and those trees that were replanted just after it are now coming to maturity.
I will make a further point about tokenism. When the 1919 Bill had its Second Reading in this House, much of the discussion was about devolution. The term was not used then, but that was what the discussion was about. One of my early tasks at the Forestry Commission was to devise a system of governance that allowed us to have a devolved forestry enterprise, yet at the same time keep a GB entity. We did not have a sufficient critical mass of timber in the three separate countries to sustain a viable body. We had a lot of difficulty with this until we discovered that, just as there was a central advisory committee, it was possible under the original Act to establish three national advisory committees. By reviving these committees that were there in statute, we were able to form a system of governance that has withstood almost a decade and, depending on this Bill, will probably stand the test of time for a while longer. My overall point is that if you have a system of governance with a certain amount of flexibility, it will allow you to deal with contingencies that are unexpected at the time, but which occur in long-term businesses.
I will make two or three further points. The reason why the Forestry Commission and the Home Grown Timber Advisory Committee were established was that in 1919, after the war, only 4 per cent of the land in Britain was covered by trees. That figure was almost the lowest in Europe. Over the past 91 years, it has increased to 12 per cent. One may not think that is a huge rise. However, bearing in mind the long-term nature of forestry, it is true that Britain is one of the few countries in the world—if not the only country—that has reafforested. It is quite remarkable, and is recognised by bodies such as the United Nations and by countries such as China that are trying to move into the reafforestation process. Bodies such as the advisory committees have been very helpful to the Forestry Commission in developing that expertise.
My next point concerns the flip side of this, which is timber. We still use a massive amount of timber, even in this world of plastic and synthetics. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture in 1919 told noble Lords of the day in this House that Britain imported 92 per cent of the timber that it used. The situation has got better—but not a lot. We now import in the region of 85 per cent of the timber supply of this country. This is an important reason why we need advisory committees. We are trying to establish timber and wood-using industries in this country. These are often very labour-intensive. When these companies are considering establishing themselves in the UK, their first question is: can we guarantee a sufficient supply of timber? They almost always come to the Forestry Commission—often through its advisory committees—and say, “Will you guarantee us that supply of 30 or 40 per cent?”.
I cite as an example the quite large wood-using power station that was built on Teesside. People would not have gone ahead with that if there had not been a sufficient supply of timber from the state forest to guarantee a critical mass. One might ask, “Why just the state forest?”. The answer is simply that the elasticity of supply and demand very much applies. Timber prices go up and down. When they fall, any private owner thinks, “I am not going to put my timber on the market. I’ll withhold it and, when the prices rise, I’ll put it on the market then”. I accept immediately that that makes sense to the forest owner. However, it does not make sense to the timber and wood user, whether it is someone making pallets, chipboard, paper or whatever. Therefore, we need that critical supply. Is the Minister confident that without advisory committees—we should remember that this is only an advisory committee—there will be sufficient advice for government?
My final point relates to one that I made earlier and it concerns the amount of forest cover. Again, when I was at the Forestry Commission, we decided to look at carbon sequestration and the question of meeting our carbon demands. I start with a couple of statistics which I have used in this House before but which I think are worth repeating. Twenty per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are due to deafforestation, and that is equal to the total emissions from the world’s transport industries. Reafforestation is a win-win situation and, because we have reafforested our country to a certain extent and are acknowledged as having done so, we believe that we have a role to play. However, that role is effective only if we have advisory committees.
In order to challenge ourselves on that premise, we established an eminent advisory committee to look at the issue under the chairmanship of Professor Reed. The committee was composed of foresters, climatologists and scientists. We basically came up with the recommendation that a great deal of carbon capture was involved in afforestation. The committee came up with the second statistic that I shall cite to your Lordships. A 4 per cent increase in tree cover in this country would allow us to capture 10 per cent of our carbon emissions. It is something that the previous Government committed to do and I hope that this Government will pursue it. However, without advisory committees, it would not have been possible to come to that conclusion.
I simply ask the Government to bear these points in mind. Instead of abolishing the Home Grown Timber Advisory Committee, which I view as tokenism, why not leave it as an advisory committee and it can be used for some unforeseen contingent problem that may occur in the future?
The Earl of Selborne
My Lords, I defer to no one in my admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Clark, for his distinguished period as chairman of the Forestry Commission. He has made a very powerful case for the role that forestry plays, whether in the public or the private sector. However, the question for the Committee today is whether the Home Grown Timber Advisory Committee will contribute to carbon sequestration and whether it will add to the contribution that forestry makes in this country. A moment’s thought suggests that a committee that has not met for quite a long time is perhaps past its sell-by date.
Having said that, I do not want to denigrate in any way the contribution that forestry makes to land management and to meeting some of our essential needs. It is very important that the forestry estate be increased. Whether the Home Grown Timber Advisory Committee has a role to play, I rather doubt. Looking at this group of amendments, we recognise also that the Committee on Agricultural Valuation, as the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, reminded us, has not met for over 10 years. I think that we can assume that that is a committee that has also met its sell-by date.
I speak, very briefly, to draw attention to Food From Britain. I have enormous admiration for the work of my late friend Lord Walker, who created Food From Britain when he was Minister of Agriculture at a time when he was appalled by agriculture’s inability to react to the markets. We had been used to the socialist concept of marketing boards. The farmers—I have to declare an interest, as a farmer and an apple grower—were lamentably incapable of reacting to the needs of supermarkets as those were evolving and to the demands of the market. He pointed out that, unless we had an organisation within Government—within the Ministry of Agriculture, as it was then—that could relate the farmers’ priorities adequately and make farmers more aware of the realities of the market, we would lose out to our competitors. That was very successful.
I am sorry that my noble friend Lady O’Cathain is not in her place because I remember vividly that she was one of the five advisers that Peter Walker—as he was then—appointed. While recognising that all good organisations have to recognise the realities of time, I would not wish this provision, which will consign Food From Britain to history, to go without record. I am personally enormously grateful for the contribution that it made.
Lord Henley
I shall respond to one particularly lengthy speech from my fellow Cumbrian, the noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, who spoke at some length, allegedly about the Home Grown Timber Advisory Committee, although most of his remarks related to debates that we will have later on the Forestry Commission. Those debates will, fortunately, not be tonight and I will respond to those remarks on that occasion.
With these amendments, those noble Lords who can remember their Monty Python were dealing with dead parrots. Amendment 29, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, relates to the Committee on Agricultural Valuation, which, as he said, has not met for something like 10 years. From a sedentary position I said, on two or three occasions, “19 years”. Is there any purpose in keeping such a body going? It has withered on the vine; it is a dead parrot.
Moving on to Food From Britain, as I think others have said, FFB ceased its activities in 2009 following a decision by the previous Administration to reduce its grant in aid—one of those rare occasions on which the previous Government did something to reduce expenditure. It is another dead parrot.
Coming to the Home Grown Timber Advisory Committee, we will address during later debates the matters relating to the Forestry Commission that the noble Lord, Lord Clark, regaled us with at some length, but he was kind enough to remind us that, under his chairmanship of the Forestry Commission, that body last met in, I think he said, September 2005. Yet again, it is another dead parrot, which I do not think it is necessary to keep going. The noble Lord said that abolishing the advisory committee is not going to save any money and he carefully quoted from, I think, my Written Answer that it had cost something like £625 in total since 2005. He reckoned, quite rightly, that most of that money was probably in the earlier years—there were very little savings. However, I do not think that we should keep bodies going merely because they are costing nothing. If they are not doing anything, why not wind them up? This is a very useful tidying-up operation.
Lord Clark of Windermere
I just want to make myself absolutely clear. The Home Grown Timber Advisory Committee was not set up until 1939. The original Act did not include such a body, but it did include an advisory committee that could be used for different purposes. My point is: if it is not costing any money, is it not useful to have in your armoury an advisory committee that can change its interest to face the problem that you may have to deal with? That is the thrust of what I am arguing.
Lord Henley
I see things differently from the noble Lord. If it is not doing anything, if it has not met since 2005, if it is what I have described in Monty Python terms as a dead parrot, why do we not get rid of it? We do not need to have it in our armoury. Should we need such a thing again, we can set up an appropriate panel as necessary. It is not necessary to keep it going as the noble Lord wishes.
We have dealt with quite a few dead parrots. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, would accept that they are dead, dead and very dead, particularly the one that has not sat since 2005.
I now turn to the two remaining bodies: the environment protection advisory committees and the regional and local fisheries advisory committees. They are statutory committees that advise the Environment Agency. The Government's aim in proposing the abolition of those committees in Schedule 1 is not to remove that advisory function. Indeed, both committees have provided valuable advice to the agency, and it will continue to need that advice. However, having two sets of committees on a regional, statutory basis creates a degree of inflexibility and inefficiency that is now proving unduly restrictive.
Defra now wishes the Environment Agency to establish more flexible non-statutory arrangements that will enable better local engagement of all interested parties at the catchment level, including in delivery, together with a more integrated approach between environmental protection, conservation and fisheries. Such a structure will have the flexibility to evolve as needed, without the constraints of a prescriptive statutory remit at the regional level, and will better address local priorities while working with partners and communities to deliver improved local engagement. That will enable civil society to take the lead where appropriate, rather than continue the current focus on advising the Environment Agency.
I hope that noble Lords will accept that. I appreciate that those two bodies are slightly different from the earlier ones, but I hope that the noble Lord will accept my basic premise that certainly three out of the five are very, very dead parrots indeed. I therefore hope that he will feel that he can withdraw his amendment.
Lord Grantchester
I thank the Minister for that clarification. On this side of the House, we will not be tempted to enter into his script of re-enacting Monty Python and claim that the parrot is only half dead. We will agree to withdraw the amendment.