My Lords, I will be brief. Amendment 278 is in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, and the noble Lord, Lord Randall, neither of whom are able to be with us this evening. I declare an interest as a commissioner on the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission and as chair of the Woodland Trust.
We are all waiting with bated breath for the land use framework that the Government say will burst forth in October or November. I use the words “burst forth” advisedly because we hear that there has been consultation across government but little consultation with anyone else, including the 140,000 people in this country who actually own the land. That is strange for a land use framework.
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The whole point of a land use framework is that it should engage all stakeholders with an interest in land, across all the multiple purposes that are currently putting pressure on land. It should start the conversations—nationally, at regional level and locally—that will mean much more effective use of land and that the right decisions will be made about this pressurised resource.
Although there has been consultation between government departments, including DLUHC and the Department for Transport, I am anxious that, with Defra as the lead department, it will nevertheless focus overmuch on Defra issues—food, farming, carbon and biodiversity—rather than also helping with decisions on the use of land for development, infrastructure and transport.
We hear that this land use framework will be a high-level affair: it will focus on high-level principles and will not have a spatial element. That is a pity because it ignores the splendid spatial database that the Geospatial Commission launched in early summer and that provides an admirable set of data—a huge range of spatial levels—that could help these conversations about more effective decisions.
I have grave doubts that the principles-based document will be linked to effective practical tools to aid land use decision-making and land use change. Tools like ELMS and the planning system are the levers for change, and we need the land use framework to use them effectively and to be joined up with them. I am sure that the Minister will wax lyrical about the land use framework having links with local nature recovery strategies, but these are what they say on the tin: they are about nature, not the whole range of competing land uses.
My amendment remedies all these potential deficiencies and sets a statutory deadline of a year, which would allow adequate time for essential consultation and engagement. I beg to move.