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Planning Bill

My Amendment No. 438T is in this group. It removes the definition of infrastructure. That might seem a little perverse after some of the debates we have had. This is another amendment that I was asked to table by the Local Government Association, which makes the proper point that every local area is different and the needs for infrastructure will vary in different places, so the Bill runs the risk of thwarting local growth and regeneration. The list is not complete. Crematoria have been mentioned at least twice this afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, is not a veteran, as other noble Lords are, of the Housing and Regeneration Bill, in which we spent some time considering the place of crematoria in terms of infrastructure and what is needed to support a community. I am puzzled by the fact that we have a list which is not exhaustive and a provision, in Clause 202(3), for regulations to amend that list. That seems to me to be a little odd. If it is illustrative only and can be revised to reflect changing needs, as the Minister in the Commons said, is it an appropriate way of addressing changing needs? The Minister has already been asked today to give us some idea of how long the process will take in each local planning authority area. We know that the proposals for CIL will have to go through an examination and that the planning inspectorate or examiner will test the authority’s infrastructure requirements, but to have to go through the parliamentary process of amending regulations, when the starting point is that items contained in the Bill are ““illustrative only””, seems as odd as many other things we have heard today.