Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Quin]

I, too, support my noble friend Lord Judd in his amendment. I was very struck by the support that, even in a very brief debate, he received throughout the Chamber with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, who, we know, is strongly committed to the national parks, and the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Maclennan. The Government can be in no doubt about the strength of support for the national parks that clearly exists on all sides of the House.

As my noble friend told us previously, he is a vice president of the Campaign for National Parks. I am not involved in quite the same way, but I would like to thank the campaign for the briefing and information that it is always ready to send to Members of your Lordships' House.

I also thank the Government for clearly responding to some of the concerns expressed the last time that we debated this in Committee. In particular, they removed the national parks and Broads authorities from Schedules 5 and 6 to the Bill relating to the power to modify, transfer or delegate functions. Because of that, it is not surprising that the debate has focused on the continuing mention of these authorities in Schedule 3. I agree with the comments and concerns that have been expressed about this.

Obviously, mention was made of the consultation that has taken place and to which the Minister referred when we dealt with this in Committee. In Committee, he said that he and his colleagues were currently considering the responses to that consultation and were committed to announcing the outcome by the end of March. Well, the end of March is this week. Perhaps this evening the Minister might have something to say about the outcome of that consultation. At the time, he was thinking that we would probably get to this part of Report after Easter. None the less, given the interest and concern about this, we would like to know the preliminary findings of the consultation exercise.

In speaking this evening I want to reinforce the questions asked by my noble friend. The key one is why it is still felt necessary to include these organisations in Schedule 3 given the powers that Ministers already have under other legislation. Are there elements of the changes that the Government want to make that cannot be done via the legislation that already exists? We need an answer to that specific point in relation to national parks—it has been pointed out to me that perhaps the Broads legislation is somewhat different in this respect. What is not available to Ministers under the 1996 Act and other legislation mentioned by my noble friend that is already on the statute book?

We would like a list of the constitutional arrangements that the Minister feels are best dealt with in this Bill and cannot be dealt with by some other legislative instrument. Without information of that kind, what is being proposed still seems too wide, too open-ended and too vague. We are not in a clear position to judge what is in the Government's mind.

As we were reminded today, the 11th report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee stated that despite the welcome changes that the Government have made in the Bill, the committee is still very concerned about the,

“exceptionally wide delegated powers which remain in clauses 1 to 5 and 13”.

Given that concern and the importance to our country of the national parks and the Broads, we should get some answers to the questions that were well raised by my noble friend and others who took part in this evening’s debate.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, I will respond to Amendments 31 and 34 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I would like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that there has been no element of his legs having been broken or anything like that. Sadly, my noble friend Lord Greaves is ill. He is not here, so we wish him well and look forward to seeing him back in due course.

I will also speak to Amendments 46, 53, 57, 58 and 59. Amendments 58 and 59 are in the name of my noble friend Lord Taylor. Amendments 46, 53 and 57 are in the names of my noble friends Lord Greaves and Lord Taylor, which gives some indication of where we are coming from on those issues.

I agree totally and utterly with the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, about the strength of support on her own Benches for the national parks and the Broads authorities. That is true of all Benches throughout this House, and I reiterate it on behalf of the Government.

We had a good debate on this matter in Committee on a similar group of amendments, and on that occasion I explained the Government’s thinking in placing these bodies in Schedules 3, 5 and 6. I shall make things absolutely clear on the scope of Schedule 3 for the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who seemed to imply that the provision could be used in a slightly wider way, with matters from other clauses. We do not think that Schedule 3 could be used to go wider than it is set out, and I hope that I shall be able to cover that matter in due course. We dealt with Amendments 3, 5 and 6, which stemmed from the consultation on the governance arrangements for those bodies, which honoured a commitment in the coalition agreement—our bible—and was run in close co-operation with the national parks and Broads authorities. We asked each authority to make recommendations following consultation on the changes needed for their governance arrangements. We were clear from the start that the objective was to improve the governance arrangements of those bodies and not to remove or replace them. For that reason, they do not appear in other schedules to the Bill—not in Schedules 1 or 2, for example. Our consultation began with these words:

“The Government wishes to retain an independent authority, as currently exists, for each of the National Parks and the Broads. It intends that these authorities should continue to be the local planning authority for their areas”.

The paper then went on to raise a number of questions about what modifications or refinements of the current governance arrangements might be desirable.

In Committee, your Lordships pressed me on the sort of steps we might want to take and on why those could not be achieved without this Bill, perhaps by using powers which already exist in the Environment Act 1995 or the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006. Of course, at that time it was too early for me to be able to give concrete examples, as we were still at an early stage of evaluating the consultation. I have a slightly embarrassing admission to make, because at that stage I announced that we would have the outcome of our consultation by the end of this month. That has slipped a little, because that takes us into the period of local government elections purdah, and it will not now be until after the elections. At that stage, I still thought that Report stage might be after Easter, but one never knows quite what the Opposition will achieve in delaying government legislation. So there has been a degree of blame on all sides. But we have made significant progress in identifying what might be in our response. As a result, we have come to the conclusion that there is very little likelihood of the powers in Clauses 5 or 6—the powers to transfer functions and authorise delegation—being needed to implement any changes resulting from that consultation. For this reason, I propose to remove the national parks and Broads authorities from the schedules. That is why Schedule 6—because they are the only bodies left in that schedule—will disappear, and Amendments 46, 53, 57 and 58 have that effect. Amendment 59 is a consequential amendment that removes the reference to Clause 6 from Clause 7. Although it is clear that Clauses 5 and 6 are not required to implement necessary changes, the same is not true for Schedule 3, which deals with constitutional arrangements, so I cannot agree to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Judd.

It would not be appropriate for me to pre-empt or predict the announcement that we shall make after the May elections. However, purely by way of illustration, the House will see a number of the suggestions which national parks authorities have already made. The proposals are—dare I say it?—largely in the public domain, having featured in various board papers produced by the authorities, and elsewhere. They include, for example, the power to remove the requirement for the Secretary of State formally to appoint the members whom parish councils choose and the power to allow non-councillors to be eligible for the parish seats, or to limit the maximum time that all members may serve on a national parks authority. Any of those points, if accepted, could be delivered through Clause 3.

I appreciate that noble Lords might feel that there are other ways of dealing with these things but we think it would actually be easier and better, under the powers in the Bill, to deal with those matters in that way. I therefore hope that your Lordships will agree that it is premature to consider removing Schedule 3 at this stage and that it should continue to stand as part of the Bill. There is no sinister motive behind that; all we are proposing is a power to amend constitutions and all the usual checks and balances are available in the Bill. We want to look at what comes out of that consultation. I have given some hint of that in what has appeared in the public domain but the noble Lord, Lord Judd, will probably know even more—the noble Lord smiles—about what might come from it. I hope that he will accept that this should continue to be part of the Bill.

As I said, we are perfectly happy to remove the national parks and Broads authorities from Schedules 5 and 6, which is why we have tabled our amendments. However, it is quite right that they should remain part of Schedule 3 on the power to modify constitutions. With those assurances, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.