Planning Bill

That fact that the debate on this group will be considerably shorter than that on the last group—and probably considerably shorter than the debates on the next two groups—does not means that it is unimportant jam in the sandwich. I warmly support the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. I struggled with how sustainability was dealt with in the Bill, partly because I was a little unwilling to accept that the Commons concessions had stolen our thunder on the issue. However, I realised that involving the Sustainability Development Commission is an obvious and sensible approach to ensuring that worthy thoughts have a mechanism to deal with the issue in a realistic and practical manner. The Minister may be about to tell the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, that at least some of his amendments are unnecessary. The thinking in them is obviously to be supported. I hope that she will say that my Amendments Nos. 38 and 54 are also unnecessary, but they have exercised me. They make essentially the same point. The second was sent to me by the Local Government Association, so perhaps has a better provenance than the homemade drafting of Amendment No. 38. The issue is sustainability across matters, not just within the single statement, such as modes of transport. The obvious example is whether there should be an airport—the subject of national policy statement 1. Could the functions that the airport is designed to achieve not be achieved, at least in part, by a high-speed rail link—the subject of national policy statement 5? I have mentioned transport and renewable energy, for instance, as against traditional forms, particularly fossil fuels. I am sure that the issue goes wider, but these seemed crisp examples. I hope that the Minister can reassure me that when the NPSs are drafted, they will not be discrete statements which the IPC and local planning authorities will be forced to read without reference to much broader issues than those within them.