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As amended in the Standing Committee, further considered.

I am making the case. If the clause was not part of the Bill, putting microgenerating plant in one’s garden or attaching it to one’s house would be a matter for planning and subject to the usual planning laws. In that case, one would make an application, fill in a form, pay a fee to the local authority and discuss it with the local planning authority, which in due course would develop a policy in its local plan process. That might cover the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone) made about whether we should have many individual pieces of generating plant or whether one larger piece of community generating plant would be preferable. The planning process could deal with all those issues. If individuals wanted to install many pieces of plant, councillors could end up discussing the applications. They could ask questions, such as that asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) about the implications for bird strike, the butterfly population and so on. However, if the clause remains in the Bill, none of those opportunities would arise. The constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) is in an urban area, where proper protection under planning laws is even more crucial, because people live close to each other.