My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I shall start briefly with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, being keen to fly. He said at the end about Heathrow expansion, “We should get on with it”. I am not necessarily a believer that textual exegesis is the right way to approach a winding-up speech, even in your Lordships’ House, but this question of what “we” is in that sentence is at the heart of this. If it were purely a private planning application, it would mean the developer, but I do not think that is what he meant
when he talked about Heathrow. He meant either “we” as a Government or “we” as a nation: we, somehow bigger than just the private sector developer, should be getting on with it, and it is that blend that is involved in nationally significant infrastructure projects, where, as I say, the Government make themselves a co-partner with private sector developers in the case both of Heathrow and the other example I gave. It is that confusion about who is responsible that I am trying to get to.
We know the Government are responsible, to some extent, with a project such as Heathrow expansion, but what are their responsibilities in relation to the consequences of it and are they actively monitoring? That is really my question. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, I am sure understood that I was not in anything I said criticising the process as such or saying that there was not the need for a process that would speed large applications through the system, although it is undoubtedly the case that the speed with which the DCO process is handling applications is getting slower and slower, and everybody involved in it knows that. It may well be that the time for a refresh is coming. I do not think it is simply skills; it is also demand for additional up-front information and so forth: this is something the Built Environment Committee, which I chair, may well look at again.
I do not know why the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, said that he was only three-quarters in support of my amendment, as I thought he gave a 100% endorsement. I do not know what reluctance prevented him from coming out wholeheartedly, because he also put my purpose very well. Although I invited my noble friend to accept the amendment, the noble Lord recognised—as I am sure my noble friend does—that it is essentially a probing amendment to try to find out what the Government do and how they take their responsibilities for these projects forward.
I welcome my noble friend’s response, but it was slightly on the disappointing side. Of course, it is wonderful that an inter-ministerial group is being set up to look at these issues—I did not know that—but she slightly took away from the benefit of that in saying that it should not look at individual projects, which are precisely what I would like Ministers to look at. I appreciate that a Planning Minister, who may have to take planning decisions—