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Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

I rise to raise some questions. I too was reading the two clauses together, but a different question was raised in my mind from that in the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry. My worry would be that in Clause 14 the grant may be made subject to such conditions as the Secretary of State thinks fit, so Natural England may acquire the property subject to the money coming from the Secretary of State, who can impose any conditions that he likes, all of which might add up to the expression used earlier—social engineering. If we were conspiracy theorists or paranoid, that would be a worst-case scenario. The Minister needs to address our worries in that regard. I have a slightly less paranoid worry that the power, the grants, and this way of spending public money will encourage public money to be spent as the easy way out where management agreements and so on may be difficult and onerous. I have in mind, for example, the contrast between national parks—which were mentioned earlier—where voluntary agreements with landowners can produce outstanding results satisfactorily and much more cheaply to the public purse; and the easier option where a national park has chosen to buy itself out of a problem. That way of addressing issues, for example, simply by spending public capital on buying land—as I would fear—we need to question. I am glad that the noble Baroness raised the issue.