---

Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

I wonder whether we might tempt the noble Lord to take the view that the two circumstances he has just described would not, in fact, straitjacket Natural England because they would not be significant and irreconcilable. On a day-to-day basis any public body tasked in the way Natural England is will be making these balancing decisions. To take his example of a Repton landscape, I am sure that dredging the lake and clearing the rhododendrons would probably not be regarded as significant or irreconcilable, but were the veteran tree at the bottom of the view, which harbours probably some of the most important beetle collections in Britain, to be demolished, that might be an irreconcilable and significant issue. It is a question of degree. I wonder whether the noble Lord might feel that.