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Planning Bill

Amendment No. 302 takes a little further some arguments that I expressed in earlier debates in Committee. It tries to sharpen up that argument and to it underline what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, suggested in their contributions. We are dealing with the decision-making process and the elements that need to be brought in. If the Bill draftsmen had also been working on the Climate Change Bill, for example, they would have wanted to include the new paragraph proposed in my amendment. It talks about, "““the desirability of contributing to the mitigation of, and adaptation to climate change””." I notice that the same wording is used in another amendment in this group which was tabled by the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Liverpool and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and others. Other policies should also be considered and could form quite an important aspect of the utility of this Bill. Indeed, some of what Governments will seek to achieve in the use of the new authority will contribute to the, "““mitigation of, and adaptation to climate change””." Surely those factors should be specified in the Bill as forming part of the decision-making process. The other amendments refer specifically to national policy in terms of land-based development plans and to marine policy and marine plans which are consequent on the forthcoming Marine Bill—and here I am back on the track which I have bored the Committee with before. However, I hope that I am being consistent in trying to bring these aspects together for the usefulness of the Bill in achieving the Government’s objectives and in order to ensure that the rather nebulous statement set out in paragraph (c) is replaced with something a little more specific.