Member

I like the idea of Natural England, but it is not a fit organisation to undertake this work. Even if it were, the Bill would make it simultaneously judge, jury and executioner, as a monopoly supplier of advice, interpretation and remedy as a self-governing, unaccountable quango. I have not been in your Lordships’ House for long, but I know a conflict of interest when I see one—and obvious grounds for judicial review. If Natural England had any sense, it would see the jeopardy that it is being placed in. We are being asked to make statute law where there is no separation of duties between a single monopoly operator acting as regulator and an operator with a fiscal incentive and conflicts of interest to set fees to suit itself, in so doing crowding out what is starting to be developed as a globally significant, innovative private mitigation industry.