Planning Bill

I am delighted that my name is attached to these amendments, and I shall read and reread the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and the brilliant, masterly speech of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. However, my comments will be rather brief. In our discussions on Monday there was support across the Committee for the concept of design playing a bigger role in the Bill, even though the earlier amendments on the subject did not gain much approval from the Minister. I hope that at least some of this long list of additional amendments may find their way on to the statute book. I made the point, which was well elaborated by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that major infrastructure projects—and indeed all projects which serve not only utility but beauty—will last, as have the Victorian monuments. If we construct shoddy buildings that no one appreciates, they will not last and the savings gained on day one will soon be lost. Given the need to find many billions of pounds to fund the major infrastructure projects of tomorrow, the anxiety is that design will be the first casualty of financial constraint in the present credit and banking crisis because it is so easy to skimp on it. We are likely to see more projects going down the private finance initiative route, but those projects are not noted for their architectural merit. I declare an interest as an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. What has happened to its proposals for smart PFI procedures that would build into the PFI mechanisms a greater emphasis on design, which seems to have been lost along the way? I hope that design will be given the prominence it deserves somewhere in the Bill, whether that is done through the PFI or other routes.