Schedule 2 - Commission for Rural Communities
Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill
1:15 pm
Peter Atkinson (Whip, Whips; Hexham, Conservative)
I intervene briefly to support my hon. Friend’s amendments, especially the proposal that some members of the board should have directly elected experience. Everyone should vote for an amendment that would give Members of Parliament or former Members of Parliament an extra job, particularly after the next election when one or two may be looking for activities to make up for not being in the House of Commons.
On a more serious note, it is important that the Commission for Rural Communities will have the ability, in some manner, to get its fingers into local government and other existing organisations. I opposed the commission initially because it would add another tier of local bureaucracy to a very crowded area.
I have much sympathy with what the hon. Member for Bassetlaw said about local government, and it is worth considering the situation in Northumberland. The county is about a third of the size of Birmingham. Its population is about 306,000, yet it is governed by a county council and six district councils, a national park and the rural development agency. The population is becoming seriously over-governed.
The CRC will be another player in the field, albeit a slightly hands-off one. Certainly, some of the policies and the initiatives of the organisation will impact on the many local groups. The consequence of having members of that commission with direct local government experience and the requirement to face the electorate would be valuable, although I would prefer it if members had local government experience rather than parliamentary experience. They would understand the realities of standing for election. Often, the commissioners will have sensible ideas that are unmarketable politically, and that is the problem. That is why it is necessary to have someone on the board to whom local authority councillors can make representation who understands the difficulties that they may face on the ground in dealing with some of the issues that they may come across. I support my hon. Friend.