Planning Bill

My Lords, I warmly welcome the government amendments, which I respectfully suggest address the issues raised in Committee. I direct the House’s attention to the terms of Amendment No. 43, which would insert new provisions into Clause 12 and in particular to proposed subsection (1C), which states: "““For the avoidance of doubt, section 5(3) to (7) continue to apply where the Secretary of State proposes to designate a statement as a national policy statement for the purposes of this Act””." Clause 5(3) provides that, "““the Secretary of State must carry out an appraisal of the sustainability””." As we saw last week at Report, that now includes both design and reference to climate change as well as general sustainability. Clause 5 (4) states that: "““A statement may be designated as a national policy statement for the purposes of this Act only if the consultation and publicity requirements set out in section 7, and the parliamentary requirements set out in section 9, have been complied with””." Those are the full requirements in relation to these matters. National policy statements would be required to comply with consultation and publicity provisions in Clause 7 and the parliamentary procedure in Clause 9, which we amended on Report last week. Clause 5 (5) sets out what the national policy statement must include; Clause 5 (6) states that the, "““national policy statement must give reasons for the policy set out in the statement””;" and Clause 5 (7) states that: "““The Secretary of State must—""(a) arrange for the publication of a national policy statement, and""(b) lay a national policy statement before Parliament””." Those provisions go a very substantial way indeed towards concerns expressed by noble Lords in Committee, and ensure, so far as I can make out, that pre-commencement national policy statements will have the full rigour applied to them as would be applied to national policy statements made after the commencement of the Act. From my own knowledge, in the nuclear field the Government have commenced the procedure for the adoption of a national policy statement through consultation on the strategic siting assessment and the criteria for a strategic environmental assessment. We heard not only in this Bill but also in the course of debates on climate change and energy about the problems that face the Government and our society in meeting the challenges of climate change and security of energy supply. If we delay any further, as would be implied by not accepting pre-commencement national policy statements, we would be doing a disservice to the challenges that we face.