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Planning and Energy Bill

It might help if I set out my view of the amending provisions. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) for tabling the amendment and new clause and setting out the reasoning so fully that there can be no misapprehension by the House of the strength of the case behind them. Equally, however, I would not want the House to labour on with the apprehension that the amending provisions actually strengthen the Bill in the way that he suggests. I shall explain more fully. The hon. Gentleman must be right that we need to balance the production side of the legislation in encouraging microgeneration with the energy efficiency side in ensuring that, once generated, energy is used as efficiently as possible. By encouraging more energy efficiency, we should be reducing the amount of energy—micro or macro—that needs to be generated. He is therefore right to ask us to look again at the balance between the production and the efficiency side of the equation. If we look specifically at amendment No. 11, we find that the insulation standards that the hon. Gentleman wants included in the Bill—it is right that they should be—are already included in it under the energy efficiency standards. The national policies for energy efficiency standards are dealt with under clause 1(7)(c) and the energy efficiency standards with which local authorities can require compliance are dealt with under clause 1(1)(c), so we do not need an additional sub-paragraph (d) to specify insulation standards as a national policy when they are already included in the energy efficiency standards promoted nationally, which must be complied with locally. If insulation standards were not included, I would certainly want to include them, but they are already covered, so the amendment does not strengthen the Bill in the way that he suggests. On new clause 1, let me first give the hon. Gentleman an assurance on the specific point he raised about the definition of development. It is in the nature of private Members' Bills that we try to get the drafting as taut as possible so that Bills are limited and restricted in their purpose, but I assure him that the references to ““development”” throughout clause 1 include all development—domestic and commercial—so we do not need to break it down as he does in new clause 1 and distinguish between the two. Indeed, I gently suggest that making that distinction might weaken the Bill because some developments are neither residential nor commercial—public facilities, for example. The drafting for domestic and commercial instances would add a further lacuna—a term that the hon. Gentleman used—to the Bill. Let me reiterate my assurance that the Bill covers all development—residential, commercial or whatever.