Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB)

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 258, 268 and 353 within this group. I appreciate the extended thinking in Amendment 320B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. I endorse the need to speed up planning and development, and I support many of the measures in this Bill to improve the process, but Part 3 remains a real concern, as we have heard already this afternoon. Despite all the reassurances—and I welcome the letter from Ministers this morning—to pay a levy to Natural England to ease our environmental conscience is highly unlikely to deliver better outcomes than locally targeted solutions. I have always been rather sceptical of off-setting. This feels very much like the same principle—pay a levy and ease your conscience. It may give developers a lot more freedom, but do we really think that a public body such as Natural England will deliver better environmental outcomes through the administration of a levy than locally contracted, locally managed, locally targeted arrangements between developers and ecologists, who will have assessed the species and ecosystems at risk and are taking appropriate actions to address the impact? Contractual arrangements and relationships have been established in recent years to address this challenge, and in many cases are working really well. It would be a serious retrograde step if these were demolished by the application of measures in this Bill and replaced by a much less effective solution. One of my concerns is that the levy will need to be administered, as we have heard. What proportion of the levy collected will eventually be spent? Will it be 80%, 75% or 70%? Natural England is a public body, so we know that a whole new department will need to be created and we can assume that lots of bureaucracy will have to be paid for. There will be a likely time lapse. Local market solutions can be established almost immediately by local actors and in parallel with the development. Development by Natural England is likely to take place at a much slower level—I was going to say “snail’s pace”, but perhaps that is not appropriate—and it will take years for Natural England to find sites and replace lost habitats and ecosystems. There will be a constant and ongoing environmental deficit as a consequence. Ecosystems vary within a few miles, as we know, and should be replaced as near to the development site as possible. Local knowledge is essential, and Natural England may not be as close to the action as local players. The impact assessment of this Bill has identified many of these risks, so it is a concern not just of mine. In addition, the Bill places huge responsibility on the Secretary of State. He or she will need to spend their holidays getting on his or her bike to visit sites the length and breadth of the country to make sure Natural England is doing its job. If local solutions to replace or replicate ecological sites at risk from development cannot be identified or negotiated, we should by all means apply a levy and give Natural England the challenge. But we should allow time for local solutions to be explored first. These amendments are proposed to allow developers the opportunity to present local private market solutions before the Natural England levy is applied. In response, I suspect Ministers may state that this opportunity exists; but it needs to be an explicit requirement and an obligation of the Bill. I beg to move.