Planning Bill

I was extremely pleased to be able to put my name to Amendments Nos. 40, 87, 199 and 411, tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool; they are splendid. I shall not take the time of the House by restating their validity, which the right reverend Prelate set out extremely strongly and which the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has endorsed in very clear terms. I should like to add a few words of support on particular amendments that may not have been mentioned. We ought to gird our loins for the future. For the past 10 years or so I have been banging away to include in every Bill that came through the House a clause on sustainable development where it was suitable to do so, and to ensure that every public body would have a sustainability role and that such provision was included in all new legislation where sustainable development was important. It is gratifying that that is now almost axiomatic in legislation, but, as the right reverend Prelate outlined, addressing climate change should also specifically be mentioned as a requirement in Bills where that is important and there should be a requirement on public bodies that have responsibility for delivering on the climate change objectives that the Government have, very worthily, set—they have shown an example internationally. Although the Minister was very clear in her assurances on Second Reading that national policy statements would be properly appraised and that climate change would be part of that appraisal, in common with other noble Lords, I believe that we need to put that into the Bill. Climate change is the biggest threat that we face and, as the right reverend Prelate said, we cannot rely on assumption; there needs to be a duty. I was especially pleased to see that the amendments talk not just about climate change mitigation but climate change adaptation. Much of the critical infrastructure whose development we are talking about speeding is highly threatened by climate change. The Chamber will have heard me in previous debates talking about the amount of critical infrastructure currently subject to the highest level of flood threat. To take another issue, our biodiversity is currently at threat from climate change. The critical infrastructure and national infrastructure proposals take account of the need for adaptation to climate change, to ensure not only that we are protected from the impact of climate change but that we do not enhance the threats of climate change to other things that we hold dear, such as our biodiversity. I finish by talking about Amendment No. 411, on regional spatial strategies. We very much welcome the provision in the Bill to require local planning authorities to include policies to ensure that their areas contribute to mitigation of and adaptation to climate change and development plans. The amendment would apply the same provision to regional spatial strategies and, of course, to the subsequent single regional strategies that will replace them. If the Government are in earnest about the sub-national review and the increasing importance of regional decision-making, democratic accountability and planning, we must ensure that those regional instruments of planning have climate change embedded at their heart. Knowing the Minister’s commitment to ensuring that climate change is addressed, I hope that we may see these provisions in the Bill.