Planning Bill

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that intervention, but much of that will have taken place at the earlier stage when the national planning statements set out the policy. Various procedures set out in the Bill, which we discussed at earlier sittings, give ample opportunity for interests such as the noble Baroness is describing to make their case to the authorities. That is one of the reasons why ultimately it has to be a decision of Parliament to approve the national planning statements. Once you are at the commission taking individual applications, the work that is done through the national planning statement must not be duplicated. The Minister said that it is a seamless road between the two stages. I have argued the same, but they have their separate functions. We are discussing the second stage—the commission stage. I am not sure that I wholly agree with the noble Baroness who said that the national interests could take part in that.