I shall come back to that in a moment. Clearly, the hon. Gentleman raises a very good point that needs to be fleshed out. I would like to give him one further example of joined-up working first, which is the issue of biomass that he mentioned. I can confirm that we are looking at that issue as part of the funding streams review that is being carried out at the moment. We shall certainly try to ensure that the Forestry Commission and Natural England operate in a seamless way to simplify structures for customers. That is another good example of the direction in which we want to go.

The schemes run by the Forestry Commission will be part of an environmental land management fund, one of the three major funds that we will have under the simplified funding arrangements that I just referred to. The Forestry Commission and Natural England will share targets and objectives in many areas, although one of the aims of alignment will be to drive out duplication and inactivity.

The delegation powers that we shall debate later mean that the Bill will allow that close partnership to work. When we come to those provisions, it will be worth the Committee’s while to bear in mind that one of the main reasons for those powers is to allow such activity to take place.

On the issue of the body being a cross-border one, transferring functions from the Forestry Commission to another body could impact on the commission’s work in Wales and Scotland. As well as the delivery functions of regulation, provision of advice and incentives mentioned in the amendment, the Forestry Commission has other delivery functions related to the management of the public forest estate and the protection of the health of woods and trees. If delivery functions were transferred in England, Wales and Scotland would doubtless wish to consider their own arrangements and any changes there would require their own primary legislation to come into effect.

The Committee should also be aware that the Forestry Commission has other GB-wide functions, which, with the agreement of the Northern Ireland authorities, mean that it acts as the lead department for international forestry matters, such as trade and statistics, EU policy development and sustainable forestry on an international scale. It also has GB-wide research functions through its forest research agency.