Planning Bill

I am very conscious of the amount of time that we have to debate the range of amendments to which you refer, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I want to concentrate largely on the areas that Members are most exercised about. Members are concerned about three main issues: first, the principle of independent decision making, which, as they have said, goes right to the heart of the Bill; secondly, what happens at the examination stage and the public's right to be heard, not only at that stage but under the rest of the Bill—public consultation and the right to be heard is absolutely central—and thirdly, the impact on the local community of decisions on major national significant infrastructure projects, which is the aspect that Members have expressed most concern to me about. We should make those three areas the principal focus of our debate, and I intend to do that. The amendments fall broadly into nine blocks. If Members will bear with me, I propose to deal briefly with the Government amendments, which fall into blocks 1, 2 and 3. The issues at the heart of the Bill are dealt with in blocks 4, 5 and 6, and then we have some Opposition amendments towards the end. If I refer to minor issues, I do not mean to denigrate them, but they may not be at the centre of people's concerns. The Government amendments deal broadly with changes to procedure relating to ministerial intervention. Contrary to some of the views that have been expressed, there is provision for ministerial intervention in certain narrowly defined circumstances, one of which relates to national security and defence. A series of Government amendments seek to prescribe a procedure where intervention takes place on the basis of national security or defence issues. They relate primarily to being able to take evidence in a particular way because it might involve sensitive matters, in order to ensure that if there are hearings in private the interests of people who might be affected are protected by special procedures. In many ways, the procedures mirror those that we have in criminal law and civil law where issues of national security are touched on and there is a need to protect the sensitivity of the information. That is the broad thrust of that group of amendments, and I hope that they are agreed to. There are provisions for the Attorney-General to appoint people to protect interests—that sort of thing—and they are in the interests of good government.