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Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

The hon. Gentleman is ingenious.I suspect that our approach might recommend itself to him, given his party’s predilection for local independence, autonomy, delegation and subsidiarity. Our view is that there is no need for such a quango; that it is difficult for such a quango, in practice, to represent anybody much; that it will not be independent in a full sense anyway, because it is funded in just the way in which the hon. Gentleman has described and open to the degree of pressure that we all know exists; and that it is even less worth having if it is subject to explicit direction, which I agree is honest but extremely powerful. It would be far better to rely on local authorities, Members of Parliament, Select Committees and so on to represent genuinely the interests of the countryside. We would then avoid the need for yet another quango. That is our position on part 1, chapter 2. The main issue is with part 1, chapter 1.