Planning Bill

My Lords, the amendment goes to the heart of the role of the Infrastructure Planning Commission which will be set up by the Bill, and hence to the heart of the new arrangements for handling the planning of nationally significant infrastructure projects as proposed in the Bill. It is a very important amendment. Subject to a number of smaller points—for example, on attention to good design and a list of those who should be statutorily consulted—to some of which the Minister has responded by tabling government amendments, for which I thank her, I am broadly satisfied with the structure proposed by the Government. It is reasonable that the Secretary of State and Parliament must be fully concerned with the national policy statements that are drawn up and approved. The Secretary of State designates and is responsible for the national policy statements and must lay them before Parliament. It remains to be settled whether parliamentary approval is to be required—I think it should be—and that is the purpose of Amendment No. 34, to which we shall come later. However, the question which now arises on Amendments Nos. 1, 2, 101 and the others is whether the Infrastructure Policy Commission, working within the national policy statements established by the Secretary of State—and, I hope, approved by Parliament—should now have the power to take the decisions on proposed developments and projects; or should it have only a consultative role, leaving the decision, or at least ratification, to the Secretary of State. There are extensive provisions in the Bill on the pre-application procedures; for example, on the duty to consult the local community and to publicise. There are also detailed provisions on the handling of applications by the commission. I think that we can seriously ask what is to be gained by transferring the role of decision-making to the Secretary of State and reducing the role of the Infrastructure Planning Commission to an advisory role. If we can get right the basic building blocks consisting of the national policy statements and parliamentary approval, we can leave the specific development and project decisions in the hands of the commission. We do not need to add a further stage of submission to the Secretary of State.