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Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 135: 135: Clause 202, page 115, line 34, at end insert ““where the building does not form, or form part of, infrastructure to which CIL can be applied under section 208”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, we move from which types of organisation and project can receive CIL—which include roads, railways and maybe even third runways—to who is liable. The question of liability started with everybody being liable, including roads and railways. Then, the Government’s policy of continuous improvement turned ““who is liable”” in Clause 202 of the last version of the Bill to, in this section: "““‘development’”” means,""the creation of a new building””—" or anything done to alter a building. In other words, I thought, from a railways point of view, that the tracks would be excluded and station buildings included. I recall arguing in Committee that, under this structure, we would move from a situation where local authorities often contribute to the cost of new or refurbished stations to one where they could charge Network Rail or the train operators for the dubious benefit of spending their money on doing up the stations, and the consequence would probably be that the stations would not get built or done up. On that basis, I tabled Amendment No. 135, seeking an exclusion from this liability for stations or buildings which do not form part of the infrastructure in which the CIL was applied. That is Amendment No. 135. It occurred to me, on listening to the debate on the previous grouping when noble Lords talked about charities being exempted, that perhaps we should turn Network Rail into a charity. Some noble Lords might think it is a charity already. It would be a simple way of avoiding this merry-go-round of the Government paying for it, then clawing it back and going around again. I look forward to hearing what my noble friend has to say about Amendment No. 135. My worry—and this will save me getting up again, which I know is not really allowed at this stage—is about Amendment No. 135A, tabled by noble friend, and Amendment No. 136A which now replaces Clause 202. I am afraid I am extremely confused as to what kind of project is liable and what is not. Previously it was quite clear that buildings were liable, but I do not see ““buildings”” anywhere in these two amendments. The closest I can get to it is in lines 8 to 9 of Amendment No. 136A: "““works or changes in use of a specified kind not to be treated as development””." I am sure my noble friend can explain to me what that means, because frankly I do not understand it. I would like to know what is and is not included in my noble friend’s two amendments. Does it include bits and pieces on the railway, such as buildings and tracks? Have the Government gone back to including tracks? The same might apply to roads, airfields or ports. I beg to move.