Infrastructure Planning (Decisions) Regulations 2010

My Lords, the regulations are straightforward but I have a few questions on which I seek clarification from the Minister for the record. Our position was set out by my honourable friend Stewart Jackson when the matter was considered in Committee in another place. We have serious concerns about the democratic deficit in elements of the current establishment and proposal of the Infrastructure Planning Commission. Our position on that is clearly set out on the record. Without adding to that, the wording used by the Minister in introducing these regulations intrigued me. Effectively, he was suggesting that the regulations are necessary to preserve certain things as they are, and that things would not be as they are without the regulations. He spoke of ensuring the status quo, how it was vital that protections which exist in the present framework continue in the future and that things must continue as they are. Surely that should have been addressed when the primary legislation was before the House. That would have seemed a sensible place in which to ensure that all the safeguards were put in place. Is the Minister saying that in retrospect the primary legislation was deficient and that it lacked certain guarantees? If so, that raises concerns that are widely felt about the speed of legislation going through and the lack of rigour that is applied to its scrutiny. A couple of points are outlined in the Explanatory Memorandum rather than in the statutory instrument itself. Paragraph 7.1 states: ""Decisions will be based primarily on the National Policy Statements. The examination process will be streamlined"." We all welcome that. It continues: ""Questioning at hearings will be led by commissioners rather than being adversarial"." If it is the Government’s view that consideration of planning applications that might have profound changes for local communities should not be conducted in an adversarial way, that will undermine the process of our parliamentary democracy, not to mention our judicial systems which are based on the principle that people should argue for or against their case with vigour and clarity. It is then for an independent group to decide. I think that people would be very wary of anything that is designed to suggest that there might be some kind of behind-the-scenes stitch-up for planning purposes. I have a similar question about the point made in the paragraph above, which mentions, ""A new duty on promoters to ensure that proposals are properly prepared"." Does that mean that the previous legislation did not require proposals to be properly prepared? That is quite an odd way of phrasing things. Finally, the Government are always very eager to declare their openness to hearing other points of view, although presumably, given the regulations, provided that such views are not put in an adversarial way. When we click on the hyperlink to the archived consultation, we are told that consultations are welcome and that some 75 pieces of relevant legislation were consulted on. We then find that, of those 75, the only two pieces of legislation to which paragraphs 8.2 and 8.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum refer were considered and rejected. I have a simple question for the Minister to which I would be very grateful for a response. What changes were made to the regulations as a result of the consultation on them and on the other 75 pieces of legislation and the responses to them? Those are my only questions, and I reserve the right to ask them again in a non-adversarial way should some of them not be answered. I thank the Minister for presenting the order.