Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I apologise for intervening, but I wanted to make certain that I understood exactly what the Minister was saying. I take it that, along with the major dead parrot, all the smaller parrots die as well, including all the amendments that come under the broad heading of Clauses 17 and 18. However, on the proposed expert panel on forestry, which I understand will report back in the autumn, will there be an opportunity to raise the issue of the make-up of that panel? For example, will it include a person with knowledge of the heritage forests? If there is no opportunity to raise this, I will have to pursue the issue through Parliamentary Questions. I speak as someone who was about to make an eloquent short speech on the subject of the New Forest—the largest and most historic heritage forest. I will pass that opportunity up given whatever answer the Minister gives me on the earlier point.

[Lord Henley]

I will not speculate on the make-up of that panel other than what I have said already. I said that the panel should be relatively small. Most of us would agree that to create an overlarge panel would be unwieldy. Having said that, while I was abroad I received an e-mail from the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, suggesting one particular group, while many other noble Lords have sent other suggestions. We want to create a small group but it should be understood by everyone that that group would have the power to consult and to set up sub-groups to ensure that as many as possible are included. I will not give a precise figure about how small that group should be, but it should, as I said, be relatively small and focused. We want to make sure that it reaches out to all the other people and we will make it quite clear to members of that group once we have appointed it, and appointed an independent chairman, that they should be consulting with many of those who have already written to the department or made their views known.

I am not sure whether the noble Baroness will have another opportunity in our proceedings on the Bill to discuss these matters because all the forestry amendments that can be are in this group. One or two amendments cannot be in this group because they would insert clauses after Clauses 17 and 18 and, if those clauses are not there, the amendments obviously cannot be moved. I am sure that the noble Baroness will find ways of tabling amendments should she wish to do so. She will also find ways of speaking to me or to other colleagues to put forward her views about who might or might not be on the panel.

I notice that the noble Baroness has tabled Amendment 174ZB much later on, which cannot be moved because it would come after these amendments and those clauses will not exist. The amendment is also in the names of her noble friends Lord Greaves and Lord Strathclyde, but my noble friend Lord Strathclyde’s name is there in error. That amendment mentions the New Forest, Sherwood Forest, the Forest of Dean and Kielder Forest. I was intrigued to see Sherwood Forest mentioned. I had visions of sylvan glades and Errol Flynn skipping around in green tights, with the noble Baroness possibly as Maid Marion. But we will see about that in due course.

The noble Baroness will find her own way of making suggestions about who should or should not be on the committee. All I am saying is that we would like to keep it small and focused. Although they might represent certain groups, we want those on the committee to be there for their individual expertise and experience rather than for representing the particular groups involved.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of Guildford]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Taylor and Lord Henley, for their interventions this afternoon, and for the Secretary of State’s intervention in another place some time ago. I speak as one who would have supported the amendment in the name of my colleague the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, had the question been put.

Your Lordships’ House will be anxious to move on fairly quickly now, so I make one simple point as someone who has taken a close interest in the Forest of Dean in particular and in the general debate about forestry. I refer to the process of preparing Bills. We have heard about the huge public response to the proposals as they have been understood, or even misunderstood. Had the section on forestry been researched with close attention to the debates in your Lordships’ House in 1981 and in another place, almost all the issues that have been in the public domain and which have been debated so fiercely and strongly—although, I agree, not always accurately—would have put an amber light in the preparation of the Bill. Therefore, to save further embarrassment in government and policy, I gently propose that looking at what Parliament did on the previous occasion on an issue such as this would help in the construction of Bills.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I shall be extremely brief, but first perhaps I might follow the right reverend Prelate’s comments by saying that I have been puzzled from the very beginning of this Bill. I find it extraordinary that the New Forest has been protected by primary legislation dating from 1877 through to 1970, yet essentially a process of statutory orders can overtake and indeed overrun those original primary Acts. Therefore, my first question is how such Acts can be so easily set aside and whether one should reconsider the way in which consultation on legislation takes place.

My second and only other question concerns the impact of the Localism Bill. Those of us who care about the forests have now established that this legislation was very unwise. However, I am not clear whether that Bill will insist that decisions on forests are taken at the most local level. The regions where the feeling is greatest are the ones that are most closely related to the forests on which they depend. That is probably where the decisions should be taken, rather than statutory proposals being made centrally.

Let us bear in mind the lessons of this Bill—the deep lessons of how the British public hold forests as very dear and very important—and let us make sure that, when the Localism Bill emerges, there will be no attempt to go back to central control over the future of the forests.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, to save time, I shall spare your Lordships my musings on my ramblings around the Forest of Dean which I enjoyed over two days last week. However, like the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, I want to ask a question about the Localism Bill. When I was the Forestry Minister, I was pleased to agree with my right honourable friend Yvette Cooper—when she was at the Department for Communities and Local Government—planning policy statement 9, which protected biodiversity in forests. In the context of the changes to the planning system that are also in the Localism Bill, how will those protections to biodiversity, which I know the Minister holds dear, be retained?