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Planning Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has put very adeptly the concerns that we on these Benches have. I would like to ask the Minister one question about the wording of Amendment No. 44. The proposed new subsection says: "““The Secretary of State may take account of appraisal””," previously carried out. It refers not to ““appraisals”” or ““an appraisal””. I think that ““appraisal”” here means something slightly different from where it is used in Clause 5(3). This goes absolutely to the validity of the appraisal—in other words, whether there has been consultation. Can there be consultation on appraisal used in its normal sense, over a much wider area, not a discrete piece of work? This may seem a tiny point, but I believe that ““appraisal”” means something rather different from a specific appraisal on specific policy, a specific White Paper or possibly a series of appraisals on specific policies that will have alerted the public, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said, to their importance and relevance for national policy statements.