Lord Cromwell (CB)

It was a pleasure to follow the last two speakers, as they adroitly picked their way through the thickets of these various amendments. I will briefly touch on theirs before getting to mine. As regards Amendments 256 and 313, where land is CPO’d from its owner, it is manifestly unfair to include in the levy the cost of acquisition. It is reminiscent of the victim of an execution being made to pay for the bullet. As regards Amendments 307, 312 and 314, I support clear limits being set on the ability of quangos—particularly quangos in a monopoly situation—being able to overegg their charges. Amendment 307A in my name requires Natural England to provide a proper budget breakdown for the use of levy funds requested from a developer. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how a required levy could be quantified in any other way. In the event that there is an underspend of the developer’s levy, then the amount not spent to meet the purpose of the levy should be promptly returned to the developer. It has always been my understanding that the specific purpose of the levy is to enable the offsetting of environmental degradation caused by specific developments. Such environmental degradation is to be defined, calculated and quantified by Natural England or its appointees to arrive at a numerical amount of the levy sum payable by the developer. Natural England has confirmed to me that that sum will in each case include an amount for contingency. That is a normal part of any budgeting process for what could be a complex project. Where the system departs from normal practice is: what happens to any unspent funds once the quantum of environmental benefit that the developer has paid for is achieved? When I asked Natural England executives about this, they told me to my great surprise that any unused funds would simply be kept by Natural England and spent on unspecified further work. The levy amounts are likely to be substantial. It is not unreasonable to anticipate millions of pounds in some cases. To allow Natural England to retain any unspent funds for its own purposes flies in the face of standard contractual practice. It is also an open invitation to overprice the levy for any project as a means of generating revenue for Natural England above and beyond what is reasonably required for the agreed environmental benefits.