Localism Bill

My Lords, my Amendment 166VZC is grouped, and I of course support my noble friend Lord McKenzie's amendment. My amendment is designed to be a helpful contribution to Ministers. As we have not seen the NPPF, it is a suggestion of what it might contain. I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. There is not much about rail freight in here, but there might be a bit. The key point is in subsection (2) of the amendment, which tries to set out in more detail how the activities and development of other parts of local authorities, regional authorities, the Government and other people could be made more sustainable if they took into account the cost of environmental issues such as transport. The obvious example is when, two years ago, a lot of law courts were closed in different parts of the country, which meant that people had to travel for long distances and sometimes even stay overnight or pay for taxis because there was no public transport. Of course, the assessment of the benefits of closing law courts did not include anything to do with transport, and one could make the same comment about the closure of hospitals. Therefore, the amendment is intended to try to link planning with transport and to look at the sustainable elements involved. Transport routes are fundamental in the location of warehouses and distribution sites so as to reduce distances travelled and traffic congestion on busy roads. I have included something about former railway lines. I know that the Government are not yet interested in reopening former railway lines, and I can understand why in the present situation, but a lot of people will be looking at this. I know that it is planned to locate High Speed 2 on some disused railway lines, but there are many other lines in this country which could be used not for railways as such but for cycle ways and other transport routes to get people off congested roads. However, it is very difficult to reinstate corridors for those types of purposes if bits of the land are sold off. Reinstatement costs an enormous amount. I mention in paragraph (d) under my proposed new Clause 2 in the amendment the need for travel to be minimised and, in paragraph (e), sustainable transport modes for the movement of people and freight. However, it is also useful to talk about, as I do in paragraph (f), public transport, pedestrians, cyclists and disabled people. I believe that in future all these things will have a much greater impact if we are to meet the famous 80 per cent reduction in carbon. That is the Government’s target and I think we all support it but achieving it is going to be pretty challenging. Lastly, paragraph (g) would remove the need to travel so far and would maximise sustainable modes of transport. I do not know whether those points will be in the final version of the NPPF but, if they are not, perhaps the Minister could consider making a few last-minute amendments and including them. We have talked about the parliamentary requirements, and there is obviously a need for consultation. Proposed new Clause 5 in the amendment makes yet another attempt at achieving sustainable development. I do not think that I need to go through it with your Lordships now because noble Lords will all have read the NPPF and we all have ideas about what it should contain. However, it certainly demonstrates to me the need to have something like this in the Bill and to have more detail somewhere in the NPPF, as I have tried to do in the amendment.