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Planning Bill

The noble Lord makes my point for me. What comes around goes around. I accept that it may not be precisely the same site—my geography is reasonable—but the point is made that the arguments that we were engaged in 30 years ago can come around again. That is the only point that I seek to make. Surely no one in your Lordships’ House is suggesting that that statement of policy or that consultation was appropriate to this, so we must narrow down very precisely what the Government have in mind or we could be ranging back. In the debate on the previous clause, the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, quite rightly identified the dilemma of, on the one hand, trying to be specific and clear and avoid blight and, on the other hand, enabling communities in a democratic society to take proper decisions about where they prefer a particular development. That is what the Bill is all about. The Minister has very precisely indicated at all stages of the Bill, as have her colleagues in the other place, that this is a new and improved way of dealing with these problems. That is great, but if it is, how can the Government possibly maintain that there can be any element of retrospectivity going back to previous policy statements and previous consultations, because that would suggest that nothing will be improved under the present Bill and that there is no better methodology? Clause 12 is really most peculiar. In both principle and practice it seems to introduce an element of retrospective legislation, which this House, above all other parts of the democratic structures of our country, has always set its face firmly against. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain in her response to this short debate why the clause is felt to be necessary.