Planning Bill

I find the hon. Gentleman's point challenging and it is part of the difficulty of having a site-specific NPS; the Government have agreed to the site-specific NPS. I hope, however, that the communities involved in such an NPS would take part in the consultation on the details at that stage. But when it came to any application to an inquiry, I hope that they would also take part in that inquiry entirely on local planning issues. That is what we need if the planning system is to be speeded up. At present, all the planning inquiries are held up because of the long debate about the policy; that is why having a national policy statement can, by itself, take out a large chunk of time. Whoever is chairing the inquiry should ensure that it focuses entirely on local planning issues. That is how I hope it would work, but currently the Government are trying to implement it. I go no further than that.