Planning Bill

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) on his amendment. As an aside, the proposal is relevant because, within 20 years, we will be on the edge of a tipping point on climate change, which will be potentially irreversible. That is why it behoves us, on every relevant piece of legislation, to emphasise the issue of climate change. That is what the amendment does and, for the life of me, I cannot understand why there is any opposition to it whatever. I welcome the opportunity to vote on it. I have a number of problems with the Bill, but the one area where I did not have problems—it was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts)—was the concept of national policy statements. I support them overwhelmingly. I encourage the idea of democratic involvement in the development of a policy statement that then becomes policy, and then advises those making planning decisions. Everyone who has served on a planning committee in the past knows the difficulty of understanding some of the policy diktats that have come from central Government and how they were ever developed, in many instances. This proposal clarifies the process, and I welcome the idea of publishing, publicising and consulting on the statements. On parliamentary scrutiny, I would prefer sequential involvement—consultation followed by the Committee—but I accept the compromise reached. We will see how it works. I hope that we will have a commitment to a review, which would then be brought back to the House after a period to see whether the system was working effectively. That review should be undertaken by Committee Chairmen but then reported back to the House. I do not understand why, at the end of the process, the House cannot have a vote. It is constitutional sophistry to say that these are policies and not legislation. We have a vote on a policy statement; it is called the Queen's Speech. There is a precedent. To give these statements credibility, they need the democratic stamp of approval, and what better than a vote of this House? Credibility is important. If these policy statements are driven through this House without a vote, we will find even more protestors on the roof of Parliament trying to exercise their democratic rights to tell us that we are not doing our job. On the question whether the other place has a veto, if it were up to me we would abolish the other place in the first instance, but that is another debate. However, as long as the other place has a role in the determination of legislation, I see no problem in it having a role in the determination of policy as well. We all know that the Parliament Act is implemented very rarely. The issues are bounced back between us and we eventually arrive at a compromise. On those points, I wish the debate would move on to examine how we can resolve the issue of the process. I do not understand the provision referring to"““either House of Parliament makes a resolution with regard to the proposal””." I echo what the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) says; I do not know what ““makes a resolution”” means. Does it mean that an early-day motion is tabled? Does it refer to a Committee resolution? Is a negative or affirmative procedure of this House involved? We need clarification on that matter, to assure us that we have some democratic role in its final determination.