Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the Minister for that long and detailed reply. We shall have to read carefully what she said before we decide whether she has answered the point satisfactorily, so I shall retreat on that one. On the question of national policy, I clearly was not trying to remove the national policy because planning policy statements exist and they are a part of the regional spatial strategies and the planning system. What I perhaps did not make clear in my probing for clarity here is what national documents will be produced in respect of the economic development side; that is, what the regional development agencies are doing at the moment. I assume that planning policy statements will remain and that they will be the national policy in relation to the spatial planning side. But what do the Government intend to call in evidence in relation to the economic side? On housing, are we to understand that the existing regional housing strategies will remain, and to that extent the joining up is not taking place? The Minister said that she hopes that these proposals will bring about the sort of change that will deliver for local communities. In a sense that is our real concern. Every time the Government introduce changes to the planning system, it becomes more top-down, and is more like something from the old-fashioned eastern European central planning command economies. The point about bureaucracy was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, because we feel that the Government are trying to do too much. For the best of reasons, they are trying to plan and invest in too top-down a way—I am trying to prevent myself saying ““social democratic””, but noble Lords will understand what I am saying. Who is to put this together? One bit about the new regional strategy for the north-west which I did not read out concerns a new regional strategy advisory group that will be brought together to help the RDA and the leaders’ group put the new regional strategy together. A list of some 43 organisations is set out, one of which is the Government Office for the North West, but I do not see one that represents ordinary people who might want to get involved in the planning process. The Minister helpfully confirmed that the regional strategy will be part of the development plan. If it includes the RDA’s investment proposals, what possible confidence will people at the local level have in the planning system when they are told that the development plan itself, within which planning applications have to be determined, actually includes the detailed development plan for the region put together by the responsible regional authorities and which includes a detailed economic investment plan? They will have no confidence in it at all. If they say something is not right and they want it changed, they will be told, ““Sorry, it’s in the document””. This is not going to be just a planning document by which a development proposal or planning application has to be judged; the planning application itself will be for a development proposal which is in the development plan. That is where all this is becoming more centralised and more top-down, making it more difficult for anyone on the ground to make changes. No doubt we will have to consider these issues further.