Planning Bill

My Lords, I do not recognise the caricature of PPS25 in the way it has been described today. In my experience, not only is PPS25 robust but on at least two occasions it led to an organisation of which I was in charge to pull back from a planning application. Contrary to what was attributed to Sir John Harman, the statutory process of consulting the Environment Agency also provides an important flooding safeguard. Flooding is an enormously important issue, as the noble Earl said, but it is unfair to characterise government action—PPS25, in particular—and the role of the Environment Agency in quite the way that we have heard today.