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Planning Bill

Before the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley replies, I should like to congratulate the Minister and the Government on a small outbreak of common sense on the statements of community involvement. The process has been long-winded and bureaucratic, and having to put them to an independent inquiry has been ridiculous. To have to put amendments to a local inquiry would be ludicrous. The statements exist now, so it is probably not worth abolishing them—although I would. They are often quite thick documents which in most cases have done little or nothing to improve or change the amount of public involvement in the planning process. They have not changed much; that would have happened anyway in the requirements for each of the development plan documents. At least there is a small outbreak of common sense here. From these Benches, we approve of the amendment.