Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 Committee Report

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

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[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

That this House takes note of the Report from the Select Committee on the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 The countryside at a crossroads: Is the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 still fit for purpose? (HL Paper 99).

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, from the moment we started our inquiry it was obvious to us that the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, known as NERC, has undoubtedly been overtaken by events during its 12 years of life. In our report, we start by looking at Brexit. In terms of the environment, the big difference here is going to be the disappearance of the threat of large fines from the European Commission, which I am told can have Ministers quaking in their boots. I read the other day about a 2014 EU fine against Italy under the waste directive. There was an immediate £40 million fine, followed by further £40 million fines for each six months of non-compliance. That does tend to make things happen.

Our committee was totally on the side of the Secretary of State in his desire to create a new environmental watchdog that is truly capable of holding public bodies to account, and we wish him well in his efforts. The only nuance where we might disagree with him is that we would hope to see the new body financed by more than one department, preferably including the devolved Administrations, thus making it very clearly an independent non-departmental public body.

On Natural England, created by NERC, our main message was that, as well as a 44% budget cut over 11 years, which might be expected in the age of austerity, it became clear to us that Defra was controlling more than just the purse strings of this so-called NDPB. A non-departmental public body should exercise a degree of political impartiality and be independent from its funding department. But we heard how Natural England has been overcontrolled by Defra and finds it hard to act as that vital critical friend—to speak truth to power or even, in some instances, to decide on its own priorities. This is not satisfactory. As we emerge from the EU, with all the land management challenges that that involves, and as the Government try to bed down their 25-year environment plan, Natural England will have a vital role and will need more funding and more independence to properly fulfil it.

In its response, Defra acknowledges that Natural England should,

“operate independently and … have a distinct voice”,

but it seems blind to the fact that it is currently overcontrolling it. I believe that the problem lies not with the Ministers but rather in Defra’s so-called integrated communications team. All PR departments hate mixed messages, which is why this team feels that it must control the output from Natural England. That is why, although a separate PR department for Natural England seems like a small issue, it is crucial for a truly non-departmental public body. It will not be high on Ministers’ radar but it is something that they alone can grip.

When I chaired the Countryside Agency, I had an agreement with my Secretary of State that—with the crucial condition of no surprises—I could speak up for the countryside, and if she disagreed with me, she could respond in public by saying, “Well, of course he would say that. It’s his job. But we have a wider agenda to work to”. Of course, the department did not like this, but I was free to speak up for the countryside in the same way that Natural England should be free to speak up for natural England.

Turning to Natural England’s planning advice, it seemed to us that this was a question of managing expectations. At a time when both Natural England and local authorities were suffering big cutbacks, both sides had assumed that the other would fill the gap. Even now, with the problem exposed but with hundreds of thousands of planning applications per annum nationwide and the small resources available to both camps, no solution is likely to be perfect. But we felt that, with updated written advice from Natural England and mutual understanding of the resources available to both sides, the situation could be greatly improved. Incidentally, we generally approved of the proposals concerning net gain and natural capital, although we recognised that both policies have limitations and need further work.

Turning to Section 40 of the NERC Act—the duty of all public authorities to have regard to conserving biodiversity—there is no doubt that this is currently ineffective. Hardly anyone seems to even know it exists. But it will be important for the delivery of the 25-year plan. Personally, I do not think that changing the wording will have as much effect as introducing a reporting system. For instance, if local authorities had to report annually, they and others would become aware of the existence of Section 40, and a simple naming and shaming would, in my view, make a big difference, even before penalties for poor performance. It is to be hoped that the new environmental watchdog can take on this responsibility.

Having cantered briefly through the first half of our report, I come to the meat of our concerns: namely, rural communities. Rural communities are in the title of the Act and rural affairs are in the title of the department, but in both cases it is now all smoke and mirrors. I say first that the current Minister and rural ambassador really does understand the problems and has been brilliant at reaching out to rural communities, but he no longer has the back-up of independent research or even, with the abolition of the Rural Communities Policy Unit, a designated team within Defra.

Regarding research, in its response to our report, Defra states that it collects,

“a wide range of official statistics on the economic, demographic and social characteristics of rural areas to inform national level policy formulation across government departments”.

Frankly, that is flannel. That is not the same thing as doing research into specific issues and asking what the problems are and how they can be solved. In its last years, for instance, the Commission for Rural Communities looked into issues such as: how rural interests are being recognised within LEPs; the social isolation experienced by older people in rural areas—I remember that one being very revealing; barriers to employment and training for young people in rural areas, which is of huge importance to our rural young; variations in access to social care—something that is seriously exercising rural local authorities, which have no real help from central government; or, again, rural housing at a time of economic change. I just wish that the Government had a greater understanding of that problem. It may be that the answers to those and similar problems would prove uncomfortable for Defra—or perhaps for the Government—and it may be that that is why the relatively inexpensive CRC got abolished: it did speak truth to power.

The only recent independent research done in this area has been by the Social Mobility Commission, which in its last report at the end of 2017 stated that some of the worst deprivation and poverty is now in rural rather than urban England. Are we surprised? As a department, Defra has always been a reluctant bride to its rural affairs remit. It inherited the Countryside Agency with a budget of £110 million; it soon wound that down and abolished it. The Commission for Rural Communities, which replaced it in the 2006 Act, also had its budget of £10 million wound down; then it, too, was abolished in favour of the in-house Rural Communities Policy Unit. The RCPU, too, was then abolished. This is a disgraceful abandonment of responsibilities.

Defra has never really understood that some 93% of the rural population have nothing to do with the land or fisheries. Thus their needs and their deprivation have, in the last decade or so, been largely ignored by government as a whole. All the evidence we received, without exception, emphasised this, but it was also obvious to us that Defra, with its current workload, was never going to be able to start a whole new area of work. Right now it is overwhelmed: it has to organise a wholly new agriculture and fisheries policy, and it has to implement a new 25-year environment plan. I believe that, of the Government’s 325 Brexit work streams, Defra is managing 64. Statutory instruments are going to be flying like snowflakes. It is doubtful that Defra can cope with this workload, let alone reinstate a whole new rural policy. So I am afraid we took the view that it was simply not going to happen, even if the will was there.

This was why we decided to revert to plan A and ask the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to once again play a greater role in this agenda, as it always did with great enthusiasm in the past. After all, housing is one of rural England’s most serious problems. Communities—villages and market towns—are where most of the solutions lie, and local government is the key delivery agent for the services needed: social welfare, transport and housing. So the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government seemed to us to be an absolute shoo-in.

In a similar vein, but separate, there is rural-proofing. Rural-proofing is based on the fact that Defra’s work has little effect on the lives of the 93% of the rural population not involved in the land. The quality of life for those 93% is dependent on the way that government services are delivered to rural areas by: the Department of Health, as a prime department; DWP through jobcentres; the Home Office, through the police; DCMS through broadband; the Department for Transport, which is crucial; and BEIS, since there are actually more manufacturing businesses in the countryside than the towns, et cetera. Every department is crucial. Thus, rural-proofing within each and every department is really important, and it depends on training in all departments to take account of a whole range of rural problems which currently they do not understand. Why should they? They do not understand how population sparsity adds costs, nor the very real poverty that exists in our countryside, nor the lack of opportunity for the young and the growing cost of delivering social care to the elderly, nor the real problems of rural transport for all these groups.

Just last weekend, I was speaking to someone who lived in Hampshire. He did not have a car at a time when he was looking for a job. He went to the jobcentre and was told that there was a job in Salisbury, so he said to the lady who had apparently just come down from London, “Well, how do I get to Salisbury?”. She said, “Take a bus”. He said, “Well, which bus do I take?”, and she said, “Well, the bus to Salisbury, of course”. He said, “Yes, yes, I know that, but do I take the one on Tuesday afternoon or the one on Thursday afternoon?”. Why should London-based civil servants understand these issues? There needs to be a dedicated team continuously training each and every department.

In any case, it is difficult for one department to tell another how to run its affairs, and because Defra no longer has a dedicated team, we were again forced to rethink what was necessary. All the evidence we received indicated that rural proofing has to come from the centre of government, for the authority that that gives and the co-ordination that might be possible. That means a well-resourced team within the Cabinet Office, with enough clout to embed the principles and training for proper rural-proofing within every department.

I realise that it is a hard pill for Defra to swallow to shed responsibilities, even if it does not have the resources to fulfil them, but I will say only this: I have dedicated most of my political life to defending the interests of those who live and work in our countryside. I have tried to highlight the obstacles that prevent the entrepreneurial spirit of my fellow countrymen flourishing. I have consistently drawn attention to the depressing, yet special, problems of the rural young, the rural poor, the unhoused and the rural elderly, of whom there are now more and more. However, in spite of the efforts of the Minister, I believe that rarely have rural communities and their problems been more ignored by their Government than now. Rural local authorities are at their wits’ end. I was at a meeting with the LGA just a couple of weeks ago. Local authorities can see the problems, and they struggle to deliver much-needed social services for both young and old, but they remain largely ignored by central government and, with funding in some areas per head of population often as little as 60% of that of their urban counterparts, they can do little.

“Rural? Oh, that’s a matter for Defra”, say the other departments—but they do not realise that Defra has closed down its Rural Communities Policy Unit. They do not realise that no one is doing the independent research any more. I think that I have said enough. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

My Lords, I thank all the speakers for their views and indeed for their support of our committee’s views. I also thank the members of the committee for their hard work and for the sometimes quite strong arguments. I am grateful to the clerks and special advisers to the committee for their hard work, and I appreciate the particular wordsmithing skills of the clerks in implementing some of the various and divergent views that arose within the committee. They were very skilful in that particular respect. I also thank the Minister for his response to the debate and I support his positive views on the economic and social potential of our rural areas, in particular the potential of our rural young if only they are given the chances and support that they deserve. I am grateful to him for outlining the various changes that are being made or are going to be made.

In dealing with the various issues that arose, I am glad that the views of our committee on the environmental watchdog have been strongly supported around the House. We look forward to seeing what comes out of the consultation and the Bill on that issue that no doubt will eventually come to this House.

I turn to Natural England, and all the speakers, I think, took on the theme that this is a really important body and will probably become even more so in the future. As the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, said, it is also a respected body, which is very important. It needs more government support and the Government should give it more authority and independence—I underline that word. It was good to hear from the Minister about the new communications protocol with Natural England, although obviously that remains pretty vague. We hope that something firm and concrete comes out of that.

On rural communities, again a lot of support was expressed for our view that we need much better, more integrated and detailed research in order to produce solutions. Again, it was good to hear from the Minister about possible changes in that respect. I agree that our suggestion to move rural affairs to MHCLG was a bit controversial and I will not say any more about it. However, if it is not going to happen, I thought that the suggestion of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans to seek more focused work by Defra with the key departments is going to be extremely important.

Rural proofing, on the other hand, as mentioned in particular by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, is different. There was no divergence within the committee on this issue. Without strong and proper rural proofing, in particular the importance of training, especially with the authority coming from the heart of government, the committee believes strongly that rural problems associated with all departments will continue to be swept out of site under the urban carpet. Rural proofing remains a bone of contention between us and it is an important area. Nevertheless, I beg to move.

Motion agreed.