---

Planning Bill

I intervene briefly and with some hesitation, because I am disturbed equally by the existing text and the proposed amendment. They alight on the point of central difficulty in the Bill; namely, how we have a solid, sensible policy, carefully worked out at the centre, which will apply, almost invariably, to a particularly difficult and sensitive part of the country. I am not convinced that we can put down in words a solution to the problem. It will require great sensitivity on the part of the Ministers concerned and a realisation that, however far you think that you are looking ahead in making a decision about a new airport or nuclear power station, something may come along and you may have to change your policy. We should ideally try to find a form of words that commits the Government of the day to a serious policy and to making every effort to get everybody to agree with it, but which admits to the possibility that, in exceptional circumstances and after careful consideration, you might have to change it. That is a difficult task, but I do not see it in the Bill.