Schedule 4 - Joint Nature Conservation Committee
Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill
2:00 pm
Jim Knight (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Rural Affairs, Landscape and Biodiversity), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; South Dorset, Labour)
The clause defines the UK conservation bodies and the Great Britain conservation bodies that are used in later clauses when the functions that they deliver through the Joint Committee are defined. For the benefit of this Committee, I should say that the UK conservation bodies are Natural England, the Countryside Council for Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside. The Great Britain conservation agencies are Natural England, the Countryside Council for Wales and Scottish Natural Heritage.
I have no objection to the principle behind these “legislatively polite”—as the hon. Gentleman puts it—amendments. However, the Scotland Act 1998 already requires the Secretary of State to consult Scottish Ministers—