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Planning Bill

In due course we may arrive where the hon. Lady would like to be, where I would like to be, and where I suspect Ministers want to be. The essential problem, which she has just identified again, is this. While it is not beyond the wit of man or woman to devise a solution, does she think it possible for us to propose in the Bill—perhaps it is not possible, because it would amount to a fairly fundamental constitutional change—application of the Parliament Act to orders, and establishing an arrangement whereby the process of approval for national policy statements ultimately gives the wishes of this House primacy over those of the other place? Would Members of the other place be likely to vote for a clause to that effect? The answer is that they probably would not, and trying to push the proposal through could delay the passage of the entire Bill. I believe that the hon. Lady is arguing that when we come to discuss again—in, I hope, the not-too-distant future—the relationship between this House and the other place, we should begin by discussing not how the constitution of the other place should be constructed and who should be a Member of it, but what are the powers of this House in relation to those of the House of Lords, which House has primacy, and whether that primacy applies to orders as well as to legislation. That is an important and interesting argument, but I am not convinced that tacking it on to a clause in the Planning Bill is the solution. If a solution could be found that satisfied the law officers who are advising us, I would probably vote for it, but I suspect that the hon. Lady's amendment does not do that, and I think she accepts that it does not really work in the context in which it probably ought to work. I therefore do not feel that I can support the amendment, although I instinctively share her sentiments.