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Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 241: 241: Clause 60, page 35, line 32, at end insert— ““( ) the single Commissioner handling the application,”” The noble Baroness said: I shall not speak to the substance of the amendment. I move it only to speak to a procedural point which I raised briefly with the Minister and to reassure those who may be watching our proceedings at 6 am tomorrow on the Parliament Channel or on whatever other modern technology. I have a hand-held device, which is very helpful. The point is that yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and I agreed with the Minister not to move a clutch of amendments in order to make progress on the Bill. Those amendments are not necessarily unimportant; in some cases we are seeking clarity and in others we are making points where we disagree to a certain extent with the Government. In return for not moving them, the Minister has offered to write to us—which we have readily accepted—to give certain assurances. But we are concerned that what the Minister has to say should, through some means or other, be a matter of public record. This is where the point about computer technology comes in. I have seen a letter from the leader of the Bill team and he entirely takes the point. He states that one option is for me to say that I am not moving amendments and that the Minister will be writing to give a formal response. That would alert interested parties to the fact that there is correspondence. I know that the noble Baroness will make sure that her responses are placed in the Library, but my suggestion is that amendments which are of particular importance could be reframed as Parliamentary Questions for Written Answer, and those could then be part of the public record. I am happy to go through the amendments and consider how best to deal with each, but I wanted to raise the issue because it is an important procedural point. I beg to move.