Clause 8 - Experimental schemes
Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill
4:45 pm
Jim Knight (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Rural Affairs, Landscape and Biodiversity), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; South Dorset, Labour)
I am always grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) for his imaginative and interesting simple questions and I will return to that point once I have dealt with the matters raised by the hon. Members for Hexham and for South-East Cornwall.
The clause gives Natural England powers that already apply to the Countryside Agency in relation to experimental schemes, so in that respect we are not doing anything new but merely transferring existing powers. Experimental schemes are most likely to comprise pilot studies designed to look at new ways of working to further Natural England’s purpose. As a key Government delivery body, it is vital that Natural England has the power to pilot new delivery methods and test them to ensure that they achieve their intended objectives and are efficient and effective from Natural England’s and a customer’s perspective. I point to the successful piloting of the countryside stewardship scheme by the Countryside Commission as a good earlier example of how that power can be used.
The powers in subsection (4) on compulsory purchase powers, which were referred to by the hon. Member for Hexham, also come from countryside legislation. They are very much reserve powers. They are not intended to be used as a matter of course and the Secretary of State’s approval would be needed. I stress that the Secretary of State would take a considerable amount of persuasion before compulsory purchase powers were ever used—indeed, they have never been used by the Countryside Agency. However, it is appropriate to retain the power for the new body to guard against circumstances such as a landowner asking for an unrealistic payment or holding a piece of land as ransom, or the owner of the land being untraceable.
The hon. Member for Hexham asked about the National Trust. National Trust land is held inalienably, meaning that it cannot be sold. As he suspected, that is provided for in existing legislation and we do not propose to interfere with that.
In respect of the interesting question by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw on methods, concepts and techniques, I seek to help him—I do not know whether I will entirely resolve the matter—by suggesting that methods are practical things that one might do, concepts are ideas that one might apply, and techniques have a practical application and perhaps bring the other two together. I hope that that is helpful.
John Mannrose—