Planning Bill

This is another of those areas where there is general agreement. The noble Baroness has put her assent in terms that force me to my feet to agree; otherwise, I might have stayed seated. We need to recognise a difficulty, because Amendment No. 37 applies to national policy statements. There is a problem with that because the majority of national policy statements will not be site-specific. Because they are not site-specific, it will be difficult to apply assessment of the heritage aspects of a particular development. The noble Lord has already tabled amendments in this field and may need to think a little more on Report about how we build consideration of the detailed subjects into the procedures of the commission and the procedures which the applicants are required to undertake. That is where the real work will have to be done. When you deal with the applicants' procedures, part of the application might be to enhance and improve conservation of buildings, and so on. That is a separate consideration, but I thought it worth mentioning here. It will be difficult to consider those matters under Clause 37 whereas, later in the Bill, we can do something practical about these issues.