My Lords, I want to add a short footnote to the excellent speech made by my noble friend Lord Lansley, and to try to understand in what circumstances the conflict that we have been debating can arise—that is, the conflict between the local plan and the national development management policy.
Page 294 of the Bill—I appreciate that we have not got quite that far yet—describes the process that a local authority must go through when it prepares its local plan. New section 15CA(5) states that:
“In preparing their local plan, a local planning authority must have regard to … any observations or advice received from a person appointed by the Secretary of State … other national policies and advice contained in guidance issued by the Secretary of State”.
If that process has been gone through, the local plan should already be consistent with the national development management policies—it would have been spotted. So is it the case that the only time a conflict can arise is when, subsequent to a conforming local development plan having been adopted, the Government actually change the policy? Is that the only time that a conflict can arise? It cannot arise if a plan has gone through the process under the current NDMP.
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