Clause 12 - Power to bring criminal proceedings
Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill
5:15 pm
James Paice (Shadow Minister (Agriculture), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
A few minutes ago, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw referred to ambiguity. Nobody could pretend that subsection (1) is ambiguous. It is quite clear and blunt:
“Natural England may institute criminal proceedings.”
I want to take the opportunity of the stand part debate to probe the Minister on exactly what that means in practice. On the face of it, it is an extremely wide, bald power. He said just now that, as he said earlier, Natural England is a legal person. Subsection (1) implies that it can start prosecuting people for anything under the sun. He may want to reflect on whether that is right or whether there should not be something in the Bill that relates the provision to Natural England’s general purposes and to the protection of wildlife, the countryside, the landscape and the environment. The subsection reads as though the proceedings could almost relate to someone being drunk and disorderly on the streets of London. I therefore question whether the statement should be quite as all-embracing as it is at present.
I raise this issue purely as a matter of inquiry. I would be grateful for the Minister’s thoughts; perhaps he could take the issue away and consider whether the statement needs to be quite as open as it really is, or whether it should be limited somehow to the purposes of Natural England in clause 2.