---

Planning Bill

My Lords, I am pleased that our amendments to the substantive issue have been welcomed. This has required a lot of close discussion with the industry to understand its concerns, and I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. I should say that I am quite happy to make U-turns if they are in the direction of common sense and the workability of legislation. It was not so much a U-turn, but that we are on a long road and we have been able to get there in the end. I want to speak to government Amendment No. 153A, which amends Clause 217 to allow the Treasury to repeal the Planning-gain Supplement (Preparations) Act by order, and Amendment No. 160A to Clause 232, which provides that the order would, "““extend to each Part of the United Kingdom””." In that context, I should like to address the amendment tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. We have a problem in that we are dealing with a non-existent piece of legislation in the terms of his amendment. I was conscious that we debated this issue at the very end of a rather exhausting day in Committee and that both this amendment and those that followed it suffered because we were all rather conscious of the clock. I therefore stand reproved by noble Lords who said that I had not given a full answer to the issue. This is an opportunity for me to explain our amendment and make the position clear. The fact is that the Act in question is an extremely short and technical piece of legislation that contains no tax-raising powers. It is purely an administrative tool. It is significant to note that in all our conversations with industry bodies, none thought it significant enough to lobby for its repeal. However, the noble Earl has asked why we do not go the whole hog on this. We believe strongly that CIL will be an effective tool for local authorities with which to raise additional funding for infrastructure, but it is sensible and proper to make sure that it works in practice on the ground before we start to unpick the steps that were taken previously just to facilitate the introduction of PGS. Ministers at the Dispatch Box in either House are often told that the Government tend to rush in before the evidence of change actually working can be assessed. This is an instance where we think that we are right to be pragmatic and to commit to assessing the impact of CIL. There is nothing underhand or sinister about it, and it certainly does not mean that we are setting CIL up to fail so that we may return to PGS by a tortuous route. That would not make any sense. There is impressively wide consensus that CIL is the right way forward—and that consensus includes Members on the Benches opposite. It has taken several years of debate and a huge amount of hard work on all sides to reach this point, so why on earth would we throw such consensus away by deliberately and not very subtly undermining a policy that everyone agrees has a good chance of success and is necessary? The Government will want to consider a number of factors in assessing whether CIL is fully delivering its objectives, and these include the uptake of CIL by local authorities, the amounts raised for infrastructure and that the CIL process is operating at a proportionate cost for developers and local authorities. The Government want to consider those factors in the round so that we reach a balanced and sensible assessment of CIL once it has had a chance to bed in. The problem with the amendment tabled by the noble Earl—a problem that has arisen consistently with this proposal—is that it would not give us that ability. That is why I am afraid that I cannot accept his amendment. However, under the circumstances, I hope that he will accept in good faith our proposals. On Question, amendment agreed to.