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Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech

My Lords, those of us on these Benches who never cease to be ministers also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, on her new appointment. We hope that her tenure is long, but for her sake not eternal. The gracious Speech referred to legislation being brought forward "to ensure the better management and protection of the natural environment and to provide support for rural communities". I begin by declaring an interest, as for the past four or more years I have been a member of the board of the Countryside Agency, so I have seen the Government's rural strategy unfold at fairly close quarters. It has not been a speedy process. The Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill, which was published last week, appeared in draft in February. It built on the key elements of the Government's rural strategy published last July. That, in turn, was a response to the Rural Delivery Review, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, and published towards the end of 2003. From the time of the establishment of the Rural Delivery Review through to the eventual creation of the new agencies—Natural England and the Commission for Rural Communities—between four and five years will have passed. That is roughly the length of time that the Countryside Agency existed before the shake-up started. The Countryside Agency was of course itself an amalgamation of the Countryside Commission and the Rural Development Commission—the product of an earlier strategy that was quickly superseded. The countryside is often regarded as a place of quiet repose and recreation. My experience of the delivery of rural policy in recent years is that it is one of continuous change and widespread uncertainty. I hope that once the new structures are in place they will be allowed some time to work. There seems to be an itch to restructure. The dynamics of rural communities do not lend themselves to quick fixes. A lot of energy has gone into rural scene shifting. Once we have set the stage this time, I hope that we will allow the new structures real time to work. There is an old story of an ultra efficient managerial bishop. They exist even if not in Norwich. He wrote to one of his clergy, who had been in his parish for more than 30 years, suggesting a move. He got a letter back saying, "Dear Bishop, I had not realised that when your predecessor but six instituted me, it was only a temporary appointment". We have lost a good deal of the continuity and stability that derives from such stickability. One of the ways in which communities are built is by people giving their lives to them, staying in them and giving them long-term commitment. I understand the fears of the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, that the new Commission for Rural Communities could turn into a talking shop. But I hope that it will recognise that dynamic of rural communities. It has a significant task. It will be the only body left with a real national overview of rural communities now that so much has been delegated to regional bodies. The regional development agencies are bound to take time to develop expertise in rural regeneration. They have no track record so far. The new commission will need to ensure that the new structures do not lead unwittingly to greater rural disadvantage. That is even possible in relation to the public service reform in the gracious Speech and to the Government's desire to increase choice. If, for example, better-off parents send their children to schools well away from their rural locality, what choice does that leave the less well-off if the local school closes? One in six rural households has no car; roughly a quarter are on low incomes. As other noble Lords have said, affordable housing remains a significant problem and I welcome the Commission for Rural Housing, which I hope will produce practical solutions. There is a big agenda and we must let those new structures work. My second main point is simply to note without real surprise that while the gracious Speech made reference to rural services, rural communities, protection of the natural environment and sustainable development, the words "farming" and "food" were entirely absent. It signifies a massive social shift that too often is not mentioned. The countryside is seen as an urban back garden where some 18 million people go from our towns on a fine summer Sunday, after they have been to church, of course. Our thinking about the rural environment in recent years has been focused on conservation, wildlife, access and recreation. The Countryside Agency, with which I have been involved, has been foremost in doing so. When we think of the countryside, agriculture and food production are no longer in our minds. We have largely forgotten that the common agricultural policy was originally intended as a social policy that would help to build rural communities. There was much poverty and depopulation in many parts of rural Europe, including Norfolk. Keeping commodity prices high was intended to be a way of supporting rural communities. The money given to farmers would find its way to others through employment, food production and local spending. The idea that agriculture might nowadays deliver any social goals within rural communities is barely considered. That is because so few people work on the land, yet about 80 per cent of the country is a farmed landscape. Farmers have become isolated, even from the rural communities of which they are part. The way that we regard them as being engaged in a marginal economic activity can mean that we marginalise them socially, too. That does not benefit rural communities or anyone else. My final point concerns a disturbing feature of the recent election campaign. It appeared to be taken as axiomatic by all political parties that we should become an even more prosperous nation. Prosperity seemed always to be linked with increased financial wealth. Yet there is a different form of prosperity—one which protects the fortunes of generations yet to be born. It was astonishing that climate change and biodiversity received little attention at the point in the electoral cycle in which people voted. Yet if we are to reduce carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions, we must change our behaviour, not least in our devotion to cheap air travel. Despite the further damage to the environment that the Prime Minister's shuttle diplomacy will cause, I welcome the priority that he is giving to tackling climate change and world poverty in advance of the G8 summit. It is a pity that that was not at the top of the agenda during the election campaign. It might have made for a more outward-looking debate and reduced some of the cynicism of the electorate. In his book, Oaks, Dragonflies and People, Dr Norman Moore describes what can be done by increasing biodiversity in a small area of Cambridgeshire. He goes on to say that we are perhaps the last generation that can take decisive action. He states: "The future of the environment is a matter of life and death, and so political parties should be able to put aside differences and achieve an effective long-term campaign on behalf of future generations". The building of healthy rural communities is intimately connected with a much longer term agenda for which even the term "sustainability" does not convey sufficiently the threats that we face. Our complacency, which is a spiritually debilitating state, does need disturbing.