---

Planning and Energy Bill

It is a little while since I read the Easter Act 1928. However, if my hon. Friend were to read it, I think that he would see that the phrasing of its commencement provisions is rather different from that of amendment No. 12. The amendment would give the Secretary of State the mandatory duty of keeping the matter under review and acting to bring the Bill into effect. My hon. Friend the Minister has said that the Government are sympathetic to the Bill. It is important that the Secretary of State has discretion because if we are to give these powers to local authorities, they will need to be ready to use them when the Bill comes into force. There is nothing worse than the House passing legislation that is not taken up, but that could well happen if there was a flurry of publicity surrounding the Bill becoming law but everyone forgot about it because local authorities were not ready to implement it. Things would then simply fall back to the national standards to which my hon. Friend referred. We need discretion to ensure that the Bill may be brought into force in an orderly manner, given the addition discretions that local authorities will have under it.