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Planning Bill

I had not supposed that my rather naive amendment would provoke such an intense and appropriate debate. I am grateful to all those who have contributed. Like the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer of Leeds, I agree that we cannot have continuous uncertainty. That was not the intention of the amendment. It is certain that progress in scientific development and change will not comply with any timescale that we are stupid enough to write into the Bill, so there must be a mechanism. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for drawing our attention to Clause 106, which deals with a ““significant change in circumstances””. Surely if the system was working properly the significant change in circumstances would have provoked the review anyway, before it got to the commission, and the Secretary of State would have had to intervene in what I would call an active planning application. There are difficulties in what the noble Baroness has said. A moment ago, my noble friend Lord Caithness intervened to ask what might happen if there was a politically driven consultation. I remind the noble Baroness, although I am sure that she needs no reminding, that this became an issue during consideration of the housing legislation, when there was a question of whether housing should go to the housing association or stay with the local authority in particular circumstances. At that point, it was deemed that, if a local election had been clearly won on the basis of a clear proposition that the housing should be determined in a particular way, that was a sufficiently adequate public consultation. I find myself wondering whether that in fact answers my noble friend’s question, but I suspect in the case of the Bill that it does not. That means that we shall have to treat the answer—