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Energy: National Policy Statements

My Lords, if the structure that the Government have introduced of national policy statements, which are to attract the bulk of the debate, leaving the IPC to do a rather narrow job, is to be successful, consultation must itself be successful. I see no detail—obviously I have not had the chance to spend very long on it—about how that consultation of the citizen is to be carried out. I am provoked by the misprint only to ask the Minister whether he does not believe that the NPS justifies long and detailed scrutiny and not simply a debate. More importantly, what is the process for consulting people outside this building? Planning policies in the past have regularly set out in detail the process of consultation. Although it is referred to in debate, there seems to be no indication of how the consultation is to be taken forward and how people are to respond to it. What we have heard is a Statement from the Dispatch Box this afternoon that the Government will drive forward their policy with determination.