Planning Bill

Insignificant and nationally significant infrastructure projects; the noble Earl has taken us into the territory of the national policy statements. I shall not follow that, but he has made me think about how the commission will function. It must be the case that, whether it is a single commissioner or a panel, there will be the need to discuss matters that arise, as colleagues in any situation do; they will want to test comparative matters and talk about how procedures are going, and so on. I can see a role for the council, and I am beginning to wonder whether there is not actually a bigger role for the council. I apologise to the noble Lord, who has done so much work on this. I hope he had the assistance of a word processor in finding every reference to the council, because it would have taken ages otherwise. As the noble Earl said, as the Bill stands, I do not think that we should lose the council. I can see its function. My Amendment No. 254 is in this group. The benefit of reading things again and again, but then hearing other people talk about them, is that suddenly things fall into place. I now understand what that is about. The noble Baroness need not look for it, because I am not going to move it when we come to it. My question has been answered.