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Planning Bill

I offer my warmest congratulations to my noble friend Lord Reay on the astonishing achievement of getting the Minister to add her name to his Question about the clause standing part. I have listened to the Minister with great care. We shall obviously want to study this but she has gone a long way towards meeting the concerns which I received in a briefing from the Environmental Law Foundation and others. They made an overwhelming case and one is surprised that the clause got as far as it did. But the clause has been removed and we have these new clauses in its place. I do not know whether the Minister is in a position to reply to this question, but in other countries, particularly France, it has for a long time been the practice that when a large infrastructure project—for instance, a power station—is erected in a particular area, there is provision for reduced electricity charges to people within a substantial range of the facility. This is a wise provision but it has never been followed here. The nearest we are getting to it, as I mentioned earlier, is in nuclear waste disposal, where a community is being asked to volunteer and to suggest benefits for the community which might compensate it for doing so. I did not table amendments to this effect because one would have had to change the whole shape of the Bill and this is not the right place to do that. However, is there not a case for looking at that solution to the problem? Perhaps it would not be appropriate for electricity or gas charges because that is limited, but a reduction in the community charge that is levied could apply automatically to people within a particular area. If a promoter put forward the proposal that a significant body of people affected by nuisance would get some tangible financial benefit as a result, the whole question of compensation could be dealt with in an entirely different manner to the exceptional cases, whereas the provision in the Bill—which is a great improvement on Clause 151, I fully concede that—requires the commission to go into considerable detail as to who will be entitled to what. Has that ever been considered by the Government?