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Planning and Energy Bill

One issue that was discussed in Committee was the fact that planning policy statements can change, but that when the Bill goes through Parliament—I am sure that it will go through Report and Third Reading in the coming hours—these matters will be on the statute book. That is fundamentally different from having only PPS guidance. That is why the Bill is important and why we have been commending the hon. Member for Sevenoaks. I worry that new clause 3 would create ambiguity about the Bill's intentions. It prompts one to ask why there are not other clauses requiring planning authorities to consider the desirability of community schemes that serve more than one building. Examples include combined heat and power schemes in Southampton and Woking, medium-sized wind turbines, and imaginative strategies for using a community's waste to generate heat and power for that community. Focusing on one desirable, whatever its merits—I agree that microgeneration has real merits—risks relegating other desirables. I know that that is not the intention of my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, but as helpful as his new clause has been in stimulating debate, I think that he will agree that it is imperfect as it is currently drafted.