Schedule 1 contains provisions for appointments to the board of Natural England. In line with the flexible and future-proofed approach taken with the Bill, we have not included provisions for maximum terms of appointment for board members, or included limits on the number of times that any member can be re-appointed, as the hon. Gentleman has noted. That is in part to ensure flexibility within the appointments process—I referred to flexibility earlier—and to guard against succession planning problems. The board of Natural England will be regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments, and hope that hon. Members will find the rules, which I shall sketch out in a moment, reassuring.

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is trying to probe, and clearly there is an advantage to his approach of ensuring that the board is frequently refreshed with new members. The disadvantages concern loss of skills and experience and succession planning, which is sometimes overcome by staggering the periods of appointments.

The rules of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments state that all appointments will be made by open and fair competition and that appointees can serve only two terms, although OCPA does not regulate the length of the terms and a third term can be awarded in exceptional circumstances, again following an open competition. In addition, no board member may serve longer than a total of 10 years in the same post. The OCPA rules help to ensure that boards do not become stale and that new members are regularly appointed, while allowing departmental flexibility to handle unforeseen resignations or events. The rules therefore provide the safeguards in the appointment process that I suspect hon. Members are concerned about. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.