Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

That is probably a belated intervention on the Minister if he wishes to answer it. One of my questions concerned what would happen to the board and whether and how it would be reconstituted.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, specifically on that question on the board, if the Minister is minded to comment further, it would be interesting to know, if the board is to continue, what sort of remuneration it would have for what purpose, if the Minister is now to be much more accountable and have that proper oversight.

[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 Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords—

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

I wonder if I might assist the Committee. We are in Committee and we try to enable as much discussion and latitude as possible. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Knight, may not be aware that the procedure is that, once the Minister has concluded his answer, and then the person moving the amendment seeks to sum up and decide what to do with the amendment, the Minister should not then be subject to further questioning. Naturally, the Minister has wanted to assist the Committee as much as possible but the noble Lord has trespassed a little far on our usual procedures. I invite the Minister not to comment further. However, I am sure that, like all Ministers—as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, used to do when she was a Minister—he will be pleased to consider constructive discussions between now and Report.

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My final question is the one that I started with. Is this just about doing the same thing in a different, perhaps better, way: and will the Minister tell us which of the existing functions of the Commission for Rural Communities will not be performed in future? That is the crunch point. I beg to move.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I was very pleased to put my name to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I pay tribute to him for the way in which he is scrutinising this Bill, and in particular the arm's-length bodies in the Defra family, as we lovingly call it. My interest in this is as the midwife of the Commission for Rural Communities. I was the Rural Affairs Minister responsible for the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill, and for the creation of the Commission for Rural Communities in 2005.

For noble Lords who are not familiar with the subject, I will give a potted history. In 1999, the Countryside Agency was established out of the Rural Development Commission and the Countryside Commission. It was ably headed by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, who also served as the rural advocate. Just prior to my taking over from Alun Michael as Rural Affairs Minister, Stuart Burgess was asked to take over the rural advocate’s responsibilities. At the same time, the recommendations of the review carried out in 2003 by the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, were being implemented through the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill that I was pleased to steward through Parliament. The Bill took English Nature, a rural development service within Defra and the Countryside Agency, and created from those three bodies Natural England. A small element around rural advocacy was retained as the Commission for Rural Communities.

After some searching around the real estate of government, it found a home in Cheltenham, which was where the Countryside Agency had been. On the longest day of 2005—23 June—we debated at length in Committee primary legislation that would create the Commission for Rural Communities. It is ironic that five years later, on the shortest day of the year, we are now debating its demise. Currently it has just over 60 staff based in Cheltenham, and a budget just shy of £6 million. As we have heard, its closure was announced in June. Looking through the local press cuttings, it is notable that the Member of Parliament for Cheltenham, Martin Horwood, said back in June:

“There hasn’t been any obvious consultation and I think it leaves questions unanswered about how important independent roles are going to be fulfilled”.

I think that the Liberal Democrat Member for Cheltenham puts his finger on the need for independent advocacy and independent rural-proofing, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, echoes his questions about how those functions will now be performed if the Commission for Rural Communities is allowed to go.

When I was thinking about this debate today, I also noticed a fine article in the Daily Telegraph—not a paper that I normally peruse with great interest—of 2 July this year by Geoffrey Lean, who is easily the longest-serving environment correspondent writing in any of our national newspapers. He has been following these issues for a considerable number of years. I think it is worth quoting some of the things that he said in that article. I know that it may not be the most popular newspaper today among the government Front Benches but in an article headed “The countryside will be the poorer” Geoffrey Lean says:

“Think about poverty in Britain, and the mind jumps to grim inner-city estates. But deprivation can be just as great amid some of the loveliest landscapes. About one in five rural families live beneath the poverty line, a rate increasing three times as fast as in the cities”.

He goes on:

“The commission’s job was to tackle this. It could, perhaps, have done so more dynamically—and it could have sold itself better—but it did make a difference ... It produced regular State of the Countryside reports—the last, as it happens, comes out next week”—

this was written in July—

“keeping a focus on rural poverty. And it persuaded the last government to stump up £180 million to maintain village post offices and enable them to provide banking services, and to propose a 50p tax on all phone bills to finance rural broadband. Now, a coalition of two parties that traditionally represented the countryside is betraying it. First to go was the broadband tax, scrapped in George Osborne’s Budget. And now Ms Spelman has killed off the commission”.

He finishes:

“This will save money—but not a great deal. The £3.5 million a year won’t help much towards the £750 million reduction in the department’s budget demanded by the Chancellor, and seems outweighed by the cost to the countryside … So who will speak for the countryside? The Conservative and Lib Dem backbenches, perhaps? But many of the Tory knights of the shire have retired behind their moats, leaving the party more Bullingdon than bucolic, while their coalition partners seem cowed by power. The NFU, and the Country Land and Business Association, are effective, but represent sectional interests as, in a different way, does the Countryside Alliance. And the much diminished Campaign to Protect Rural England has disbanded its rural policy team”.

Finally, there is a quotation in the article from Tim Farron:

“’The role of somebody outside government to look at rural policy and decisions taken by all departments is very, very important’”.

I could not say that better. I apologise for reading to your Lordships from the Daily Telegraph at such length but I think that Geoffrey Lean makes a really good argument.

It is true that at times the Commission for Rural Communities has not pulled its punches—sometimes, I am afraid, at the expense of the Government of whom I was proud to be a member until May of this year. I found a cutting from the Times—this must have been before the paywall was invented because it is dated 6 June 2008—on the report by Stuart Burgess as the rural advocate. The report states bluntly:

“Rural issues are given little recognition in keynote speeches, only passing reference in policy papers, and rare places on platforms of major economic and regeneration conferences. Urban-based officials and organisations are rarely challenged to upgrade their understanding and commitment to the substantial rural part of the national economy”.

Stuart Burgess and his lean team of staff based in Cheltenham did an admirable job in holding us to account. It is great to see the noble Lord, Lord Hill, in his place as a schools Minister. Stuart would regularly come to see me, encouraging me to ensure that the rural schools group established by the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, was allowed to continue and to ensure that I attended it and listened to what it had to say. He was also keen to ensure that we properly rural-proofed what we were doing in education, that the presumption in favour of keeping rural schools would be retained, and that things such as the academic broadband network that schools are able to take advantage of could be piggy-backed to help to tackle the rural broadband issues that the Commission for Rural Communities was so keen to advocate.

I have a document from the commission dated 11 May 2010 which lists some of the successes of 2009-10 alone. They relate to areas such as affordable rural housing, fuel poverty, climate change, transport, digital communications, health, post offices, financial inclusion and market towns. There is a whole list of areas where the commission has been active, has been reporting and has been challenging the Government to do their job. That should be allowed to continue. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, will be assertive and perhaps even put it to a vote and challenge the government on this, if not now, then at some future point. This is a commission that the Government can and should be proud of and should allow to continue.

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I hope that I have given sufficient reassurance to the Committee—I think that it is fairly obvious—that we are committed to rural people and rural communities. The department will continue to do all it can for them, but we will also continue to pay tribute to the commitment of, and quality of work undertaken by, the CRC, midwifed by the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, some years ago. However, I think that its time has come—

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords—

[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.