Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Grantchester Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[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.

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Moved by

[Lord Grantchester]

29: Schedule 1, page 16, line 21, leave out “Committee on Agricultural Valuation (the body established under section 92 of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986).”

[Lord Grantchester]

I shall speak also to Amendments 35, 36, 38 and 48, which are grouped with this one. Amendment 29 is in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, who apologises to the House that she cannot be present today. I declare my interest as a farmer in Cheshire and I apologise to the House for it having slipped my mind to mention this interest on the previous amendment.

The public bodies within the government department of Defra are what we are discussing today. Some, as the previous amendment showed, go to the heart of the Government’s strategic vision for the countryside. I concur that we may well need to look at those issues later as this legislation goes through the House.

One could probably describe the bodies that I shall refer to in relation to this batch of amendments as not of strategic importance; this is more of a tidying-up exercise. Nevertheless, it is important to bring them to the attention of the House and to ask the Minister to try to clarify what he thinks will be the work of the department, how it will be structured and how the activities undertaken by these bodies will be done within the Government, either by independent experts or within his own department as advisory committees.

Amendment 29 concerns the Committee on Agricultural Valuation. As the Minister said, it is recognised on all sides of the House that the deficit that has been created is consequential on the banking situation, and all sides of the House have proposals to tackle the deficit. We on this side were looking at that committee as a key one to tidy up and abolish in this period. It has not sat for over 10 years and, when it did so, it was largely made up of members of the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers, which has been instrumental in providing advice to Defra and indeed does so now as part of the Tenancy Reform Industry Group, which has been carrying on the work of that committee to great advantage. I understand that the group is looking at draft replacement statutory instruments to be brought in on the end of tenancy valuations, concerning such erudite matters as residual manurial values—before all eyes mist over in a glaze of appreciation—and the volatility of fertiliser prices that make this job so important to the nation.

Amendment 35 is on environment protection advisory committees. On these, we understand that the aim is to establish more flexible non-statutory engagement arrangements at a more local level. The Environment Agency must be able to engage more actively locally with society, the public and business. Effective stakeholder engagement and partnerships are key to successful delivery on the ground. With these amendments, we are seeking to engage the Minister to clarify the successor arrangements that will be put in place. We understand and agree that the design of the detail of this new approach is an important next step. The Environment Agency will be working closely with the chairs and members of the current committees to develop thinking on how best to maximise future local community engagement and to ensure smooth transition with partnerships and local stakeholders. Can the Minister tell us what stage these discussions have reached and clarify that, as this Bill passes through its stages in this House and is enacted, these new arrangements will be programmed to come into being in parallel with these committees being wound up?

Amendment 36 concerns Food from Britain and is a tidying-up exercise, as the body has already been administratively wound down. However, once again, it would be instrumental and helpful to be told what headway the successor arrangements are making with the activity that was carried out by Food from Britain. Looking to my interests in the farming industry, I know that that body has been very important in the past in promoting food from Britain both within this country and overseas. It would be helpful to understand how the successor bodies are being taken forward.

Amendment 48 concerns regional and local fisheries advisory committees. Will the Minister advise the House on the successor arrangements in that regard? I beg to move.

[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—

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[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.

Amendment 29 withdrawn.