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Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

The noble Viscount makes an important point, which I suspect we will be discussing in some detail when we come to Amendment No. 122 on the role of Natural England in making decisions. Sometimes there will difficult decisions between various aspects of sustainable development. There is a view that Natural England should choose the environmental side in all circumstances, and an opposing view—which the Government take—that an independent body like Natural England must be able to choose between the conflicting, if they are conflicting, possibilities. That is what it is there for. We do not expect that those conflicting possibilities will arise every time, or even very often. The hub of the debate about what is called the Sanford principle is the question that the noble Viscount has asked.