I would like to support the amendment of the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire, which I assume is a probing one designed to tease out from the Minister some of the Government’s reasoning. The Government’s response to the Select Committee report was a little thin and even at the stage of pre-legislative scrutiny, the Forestry Commission recognised that the issues were what it called “finely balanced”. That is probably as close as it can get to saying that it cannot understand why we are not moving in this direction.

There needs to be a clear, close working relationship and it has even been suggested that Natural England and the Forestry Commission would have shared targets. If they are going to share targets and be operating in similar spheres it is difficult to see why they are not part of the same organisation.

It was also suggested at one stage that the Bill creates a big enough amalgamation and incorporation anyway and that to include another large organisation might be too much to swallow in one go. Perhaps in two years’ time the Government could consider a relationship that would be so close, with shared targets and shared work, that it made little sense for the organisations to remain separate. There should at least be a consideration of the situation to establish whether there is a more efficient way of issuing guidelines, and whether controlling and examining forestry matters might be done better by one integrated organisation.