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Planning Bill

My Lords, I am delighted that my name is also on this amendment. I shall collect the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, to produce a short book containing the wisdom and good sense that he has delivered to us during this stage of the Bill. I shall add a small annexe to that that one of the potential criticisms of measures to support good design is that design is simply a matter of taste and subjective judgment about which it is impossible to legislate. I am pleased to note that a national standard for well designed homes and neighbourhoods has been agreed between the key organisations in this field. It is run by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment—CABE—and the Home Builders Federation, and the Civic Trust, the influential Design for Homes, English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation have all signed up to the Building for Life standard. That is now the subject of annual awards. Twenty-four projects have just been given the seal of approval under that standard, and CABE is now committed to establishing a network of 500 local assessors—at least one in each local authority area—who will be trained, accredited, monitored and supported in using this objective assessment tool to decide whether the Building for Life standard has been met. The arrival of this practical, low-cost, objective process for making design decisions significantly helps the case for insisting on design quality appearing in the Bill.