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Planning and Energy Bill

My natural instinct is obviously to support my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore). However, reading new clause 9, as compared with the elegant phraseology originally propounded by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon), I am rather more inclined to support his view than that of my hon. Friend. As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, the list in new clause 9 is not entirely inclusive and might be counter-productive. He mentioned some organisations that could be added to the list—personally, I would like to see tenants associations as well as residents associations. There are also no references to health authorities, primary care trusts or any other health provider. However, an essential component of the Bill and everything that we are discussing is the health of the tenant, the resident, the country and the world. It is crucial that we consider the wider issues, particularly as, after a week of balmy, sunny weather, the weather forecasts predict a weekend of hail, gales, storms and tempests. Our world is clearly changing rapidly; therefore, we need to make progress. The hon. Gentleman rightly reminded us of the requirement for all homes to be zero carbon by 2016. It is important to realise that we are in a process. What we need to discuss is what best aids us in that process. I have an instinctive antipathy towards ever-widening processes of consultation. In my many years of experience as a councillor, I found that people always pray in aid consultation when they do not get the result that they want. It is always said that consultation did not spread widely enough, but that usually just means that someone's view did not prevail. The existing legislation on statutory consultation is tried and tested. We already have a process. For instance, the consultation process for Captain Morgan's, a pub that has just opened in my constituency—it is not named after Simon Morgan, the former captain of Fulham, but is the generic name for a group of pubs—involved a wide variety of stakeholders and local residents. However, people who did not want the pub to open still said that they wanted wider consultation. The difficulty with new clause 9 is that if it becomes a statutory requirement that"““a local planning authority shall consult””," that will provide a green light for people who wish to expand the process ever more widely. As the hon. Gentleman said, the problem is that we have an eight-year time frame. We are already in the process and we need to move forward. I deeply regret to say that were new clause 9 to become part of the Bill, it would slow the entire process down. That is not to say that we need to parachute in new building systems or create new methods of house construction. However, we need to accept that there is an urgency on the one hand and a need for sustainability and energy efficiency on the other. It is not impossible for us to marry those two. The new clause is widely drawn, including house builders in one category—an enormous range of people could see themselves as coming under than umbrella—but, equally, excluding other people, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. The test of utility that should always be applied when considering a new clause—I do not remotely intend to recast ““Erskine May”” or to influence you, Mr. Deputy Speaker—is whether it adds to the substance of the Bill. Does the new clause make it a better, more workable or more viable Bill? My concern is that if new clause 9 were accepted, it would not pass that test.