I beg to move amendment No. 74, in clause 74, page 30, line 28, leave out '20' and insert '10'.

I was concerned when I read the proposal for the maximum period—I readily accept that it is a maximum period—for which an agreement may authorise a body to perform a function is 20 years, which is a long time. Schedule 7, which we discussed a short while ago, contains a list of 19 bodies—I am sorry, I said earlier that it was 17. Their functions have changed over the past 20 years. Earlier this morning, we discussed devolution, which has affected a large number of those bodies. The Broads Authority has become more of a national park authority. The whole context of agriculture has moved from a bipartisan policy to encourage self-sufficiency towards decoupled arrangements and a wholly different system of agriculture. Forestry strategy has changed from timber production to amenity and landscape. Wine standards have changed and there has been a proposal to abolish the Wine Standards Board because English wine is now quite good, but 20 years ago it was not considered so. The milk industry has changed considerably. I could go through the list of bodies. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority did not even exist 20 years ago.

I use those bodies as examples to demonstrate what a long period 20 years is. Although we may say today that it is fine to sign up to deliver something in 20 years, it is a very long period. The Minister will almost certainly say that the Secretary of State can terminate the agreements and that clause 72 requires an agreement to be reviewed every five years, so this does not matter. However, 20 years is an exceptionally long time and very few organisations, other than train operators and so on with which we are not concerned, will think about such a time scale. Conservation takes a long time, but delivery of functions, which is what this chapter of the Bill is about, operates on a shorter time scale.

My amendment would reduce the period from 20 years to 10 years. In terms of our democracy, that is, as you know, Mr. Forth, two full Parliaments, which is a considerable period and allows for huge variation in government policy. Ten years is a reasonable period for which to expect any outside body to make a contract, to make a significant investment and to be able to write off that investment in staff, training, equipment, capital   assets and so on. Ten years is reasonable, but 20 years is far too long.

Having said that, I confess that I have not waded through a vast amount of previous legislation and the Minister may tell me, as he did a short while ago, that the period in another Act is 20 years. That would not make it right in this context and that of the delivery of DEFRA's functions to the rest of the community. Ten years is reasonable.