Planning Bill

It may be on that point, but I am going to make some more progress. We consider speed and efficiency to be important, but that is not our sole objective. We also think that our proposals will lead to better-quality decisions. The big, nationally significant infrastructure projects are sometimes uniquely complex, and also involve major technical questions. The Heathrow application involved seven different consent regimes and 37 different planning applications. It was incredibly technical and complex. We need to ensure that the members of the independent planning commission have enough relevant expertise and knowledge to get to grips with some of the issues, and also that they have a background in community engagement and understanding of issues that are important at local level. We do not want them simply to be technical people, removed from matters that local people consider important.