Planning Bill

The noble Baroness has dealt with her usual conscientiousness with a difficult area of the Bill. She has been of considerable help, so the debate has been well worth having. I am bound to say that my noble friend Lord Jenkin and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, precisely illustrated the dilemma that we all face at this point. We are having to make a judgment on a new process that we have not seen. The noble Baroness is quite right: it will constrain the content and proceedings of the sort of inquiry that the IPC members will run in the way that it has not previously been constrained by the current planning inquiry system. We need to think quite carefully what we are about. I was going to apologise to the noble Baroness—who has had to make a quick call elsewhere—for bowling the question of an independent cross-examiner, rather than the commission doing the examination and the risks that that might involve in the increased liability for judicial review. We may run into a barrage of judicial review of the new system. I very much fear that; I think that there are those out there in the great wide world who will want to test the system to destruction, to ensure that it is doing what it is supposed to. The Bill deliberately sets up a new system, so the first batch of commissioners will be somewhat in the position of Dr Livingstone when he was in the darkest and deepest heart of Africa: they will be going where people have not been before. Everyone—we as politicians and those involved in the planning system—will have to learn to make the new system work if and when the Bill becomes law. This has been a very interesting and useful debate. As I said, in her response, the noble Baroness has given us some help. We will have to go away and study very carefully what she said, compare it with what our advisers are telling us and see how much we want to take further. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 85 agreed to. Clause 86 [Initial assessment of issues, and preliminary meeting]: [Amendment No. 270 not moved.] Clause 86 agreed to. Clause 87 agreed to. Clause 88 [Written representations]: [Amendments Nos. 271 to 275 not moved.] Clause 88 agreed to. Clause 89 [Hearings about specific issues]: [Amendments Nos. 276 and 277 not moved.] Clause 89 agreed to. Clause 90 agreed to. Clause 91 [Open-floor hearings]: [Amendments Nos. 278 to 280 not moved.] Clause 91 agreed to. Clause 92 [Hearings: general provisions]: [Amendments Nos. 281 to 284 not moved.] Clause 92 agreed to. Clause 93 agreed to. Clause 94 [Representations not made orally may be made in writing]: [Amendments Nos. 285 to 288 not moved.] Clause 94 agreed to. Clause 95 [Procedure rules]: