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Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, I support these amendments. I think sustainable development is a very important concept, and if it is important for Natural England to abide by the rules of sustainable development, as I think it should, and if it is important for its board to have to consider the economic and social agendas, it is equally important for the CRC to have to consider the environmental agenda. One of the benefits that the Countryside Agency had over its two predecessors was that it encapsulated the whole principle of sustainable development. Previously, the Rural Development Commission looked after the social and economic aspects, and the Countryside Commission looked after the landscape. They very often gave opposite advice to government, and very rarely co-ordinated their agendas. I thought that various tricks were being missed. But with the advent of the Countryside Agency, the emphasis was on underlining the economic gains to be had from maintaining and promoting our beautiful countryside in national parks, AONBs and elsewhere. Not only rural tourism but rural business is attracted by the countryside. It was all co-ordinated. Equally, it was about underlining the environmental and social gain of having profitable businesses, managing the countryside and the land and supporting the regeneration of rural communities. So let us make sure that we roll-out sustainable development as a basic principle underlining the purposes of all these bodies. I support these amendments.