The Committee will see that the amendment would mean that the Forestry Commission’s work on regulation, incentives and advice would be incorporated into Natural England. I accept what the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire has said about this being largely a probing amendment and I welcome that. There are some technical issues in respect of the way in which it has been drafted, which, as I accept the spirit in which it has been tabled, I will not dwell on. The debate is useful in that it allows us to flesh out how the provisions work.

I also noted what Lord Haskins said in his “Rural Delivery Review” and what the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said. Lord Haskins said:

“it is logical to integrate or closely align functions”.

The Select Committee said:

“it seems anomalous that the delivery functions of the Forestry Commission are not to be included in the remit of the Integrated Agency. If the territorial problem cannot be resolved easily, we recommend the closest possible working between the two organisations”.

The Select Committee and Lord Haskins, like those who have spoken in the debate, rightly pointed out the close and clear links between the work of the Forestry Commission and Natural England. As the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire has said, both are concerned with sustainable land management. The Forestry Commission must be a close working partner of the new agency and work is already in hand to look at how the Forestry Commission England and Natural England can align their functions.

The straightforward answer to the probing amendment would be to say that, in essence, the hon. Gentleman is right that we need to get the bodies to work together as closely as possible, but, for technical reasons to do with the fact that the Forestry Commission is a British body, we do not think that it is appropriate to have complete integration. We think that aligning their functions is the more pragmatic route to take so that they can act as one organisation where that will deliver additional benefits for the customer and the environment. That might include, for example, sharing specialist staff and establishing first-stop shops; the hon. Gentleman used the phrase “one-stop shops”. To that end, a memorandum of understanding is being developed between the Natural England confederation of partners—English Nature, the Countryside Agency and the Rural Development Service—and the Environment Agency and the Forestry Commission. It will set out shared environmental outcomes and collaborative work programmes so, as far as possible, where appropriate, the individual customer will liaise with a single body.

The hon. Gentleman raised a very good example about the number of landowners developing more woodland who do not want to deal with a large number of agencies. I hope that through that memorandum an understanding can be reached with shared staff.