Planning Bill

I hope that my noble friend will find that a satisfactory conclusion. I have great sympathy for the Minister having a question on devolution bowled at her in the middle of a detailed group of amendments on the content of the Bill. I have three amendments in the group. They are small. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, for supporting my Amendment No. 34. It requires an environmental assessment of a national policy scheme in accordance with EC directive 2001/42/EC, which requires that, particularly projects of this nature, are properly environmentally assessed. I hope that the noble Baroness will be able to give me an assurance that that is and always has been the intention of the Government. I find it difficult to believe that that would not be the case. Of course we have to probe these things and it is very important to get them on the record. That is what these questions do. The second amendment deals with flood risk, which is too often a neglected subject until it is too late and the water is coming up through the floorboards. However, I must say that I lived just outside a village. There was a certain section in the village where the first the villagers knew that the river was rising was when it came up through the floorboards. It had been doing it for about 300 years and nobody took any notice.