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Planning Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

I thank the noble Lord for bringing this order before us today. Anyone who lives in Northern Ireland would welcome a reform of its planning regulations. Thinking of things that have happened in the past year, I hope that it will also include a reform of the way in which the service is managed, handled and trained. As the noble Lord and others will know, we have had all sorts of problems with the planning service, including strikes, which I hope will never happen again. It is helpful that Northern Ireland planning regulations are being brought in line with Great Britain. I always support anything that brings alignment. It is difficult in this sort of forum: we have limited debate without a great deal of time to go into the detail. I do not want to labour the point, but it is quite difficult. One has to take a lot as said. As I went through the Explanatory Memorandum, I found myself ticking and answering, ““Yes, yes, yes””. In principle, I support what is being done. I hope that it will lead to more clarification for the public on the ““where, when, how and who”” in relation to planning. I have been involved in a small way in trying to get some planning permissions sorted out. For years, I have suffered due to, for example, wrong names and addresses, not knowing what will happen, not having done this, not having done that, not knowing that the plot has been sold, and so on. You can also come against much larger-scale issues, such as the Titanic water, and problems with ““this, that and the other”” and ““how, who, when and what for””. Of course, one hears of only difficult and bad things about the planning service. But I sincerely hope that this legislation will make things easier for the civil servants employed to implement it, for the general public and, in particular, for those who are trying to invest in Northern Ireland. One of the major problems that I have faced over the past two or three years is that public companies from this country that want to invest large sums of money in Northern Ireland are being held up year-on-year—not week-on-week—by the planning service and by arguments. I know that the noble Lord played an active role in a certain situation—which I will not mention today but he knows, I know and we all probably know—in trying to sort things out in his earliest days when he came to Northern Ireland. I sincerely hope that this legislation will not make it more difficult, but easier for off-shore investors to find a way to invest in Northern Ireland, creating jobs and wealth, and will make it simpler and easier for the people of Northern Ireland to understand what they can and cannot do with their properties. If that is to happen, I support the order.