Arm’s-Length Bodies (Accountability to Parliament) Bill

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Friday 14th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

Before the hon. Gentleman moves on from Natural England, in my constituency we have got a huge problem with the Whinney Hill tip, which Natural England and the Environment Agency are both heavily involved in. My residents face horrendous issues with gulls, the stink and many other challenges from that tip, but we have been limited in finding an alternative because elected officials need to plan for an alternative waste station. If the Environment Agency had greater teeth, it might have been able to push the issue and find a better solution. Is it not sometimes about having the right powers in place rather than removing quangos altogether?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

That intervention was slightly broad in scope, but it returned at the end.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The Environment Agency as an arm’s length body is found wanting in many respects, not least that it argues that it has a lack of resource to introduce the necessary prosecutions and enforcement of the regulations that it is meant to be in charge of. Just to illustrate that point—this also relates to Natural England, actually—towards the end of the last Parliament, I arranged with the then Minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to have a meeting in his office with officials from Natural England and the Environment Agency to discuss the state of the Avon valley: the river, the nitrates and phosphates problems, and the break in the Avon valley footpath, which crosses the River Avon in my constituency but, as a result of neglect, is no longer viable.

The Minister set up the meeting in his Department. The first time I went along to the Department with him, he was sitting there with his private secretary and we were meant to have officials from Natural England and the Environment Agency with us online on Zoom—I do not know whether they were working from home—but nothing happened. At the last minute, there was a message saying that they could not attend. I said to the Minister that he should get heavy with them, because this was intolerable. It was another month or six weeks before we had an in-person meeting with them. I wish that I could say to the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) that, as a result of all that, the issues have been resolved, but they have not. I have got a meeting with Natural England on site on 1 April in the Avon valley in my constituency.

All is not well with these arm’s length bodies. There are probably different solutions for resolving that, depending on their specific nature.