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Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, like many noble Lords, I have a great love for and affinity to our national parks. In my case, that probably stems from the fact that I was conceived at about the time of the legislation in 1949 and came into the world roughly when it received Royal Assent. However, in my capacity as chairman of the Countryside Agency, I have also had the privilege of overseeing the creation of two of the more recent additions to the national park family—the New Forest and the South Downs. Our national parks are very special and they are unique to the UK. They are not wide, open, wilderness spaces, as in less densely populated countries; they are parks for a crowded nation in the 21st century. The Peak District National Park, for example, has, I believe, some 21 million people living within an hour’s drive of it. It is a very special place and has very special value because of that fact. Our national parks also have very special governance arrangements, and rightly so. Although they are privately owned, they are politically managed in terms of their appearance—the planning aspects—their environmental characteristics, their economic and social well-being and their accessibility. All that comes about through a fine balance between local government and the local people, and they bring benefits to the nation as a whole. Of course, that fine balance has been thrashed out in various bits of legislation since 1949 and it is something that we tamper with at our peril. I realise that the Government are currently going through a consultation on the precise form of local representation regarding the national parks, and that is absolutely right. There have been problems with some local representation in some national parks in the past. I am sure that in today’s big society improvements can be made to the local representation, but I wonder whether we need the heavy hand of Schedules 3, 5 and 6 to achieve this. As ever, these schedules might be satisfactory and mean no harm to the national parks in the hands of today’s Ministers. I am sure that the Minister shares our love of national parks and can reassure us that his Government have no wish to interfere with the unique planning powers that keep them so special, even when those planning powers are delegated to others, as with the South Downs. However, what of the future? Should we allow Schedules 3, 5 and 6 to stand indefinitely as a threat to national park authorities? Even if the current Government’s honourable intentions are spelt out clearly for now, it seems to me that the Bill would be better off with greater clarity and also with a sunset clause. I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, in responding to the stand part debate on Clause 3, steered towards responding to the sunset clause, but he seemed to veer away from it at the end. Perhaps I got that wrong and did not quite understand what he was saying, but it would be interesting to have some clarity on that.