Planning Bill

My Lords, as always, I am extremely grateful to other noble Lords who joined in the debate and supported the thoughts behind these amendments. In the light of what has been said, the Minister should recognise that there is confusion and that this needs to be resolved so that there is greater clarity about the relationship between the proposed new national policy statements and all the other planning instruments at the different levels of local government that the planning system has to work to. I shall certainly study carefully what the noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford, has said. He spoke very quickly and, if one is getting on in years, it is not always easy to follow everything, but I shall read carefully what he said. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd of Duncansby, referred to the concept of the hierarchy and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, there has to be a measure of local option. If you are going to make local government mean anything, it has to be in a position to make decisions. It is a question of what are the influences that will lead it to make a decision in a particular way. Where the IPC is dealing with infrastructure projects at the highest level, the same principles should apply at the local level. However, I am not entirely clear that the existing planning law provides for that. Throughout the Bill one has been very conscious of the influences of nimby. When I was Planning Minister at the Department of the Environment there was another one, NOTE—““not over there either””. One has to recognise that there are often legitimate and powerful local pressures that will frustrate what most people would regard as being a national imperative. Somehow one has to deal with that. I always come back to the Hampshire experience of a plan for dealing with a major waste incinerator. There was total uproar and the plan was rejected. Waste incinerators generating power are useful instruments for both dealing with waste and generating power. Hampshire then set about a process of massive consultation within the county and, in the end, came up with a proposal which had sufficient support to get through. But behind it all there was, even then, a clear national policy that this ought to be encouraged and ought to happen. It was that which enabled it to drive the process forward and that is what I am asking for here. I shall study what the Minister said and I hope that I will come to share his optimism that this will happen. Some of it will depend on government action independently of the Bill but following it, when the planning policy statements, the planning guidance and so on come to be revised. There will be an opportunity to make sure that the policies in the NPSs are properly reflected in the planning documents as they go down the line. It may take a little time but it is probably the right way. The amendment may not be the right way, in which case I beg leave to withdraw it. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 37 [Applications for orders granting development consent]: