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Localism Bill

My Lords, before I say anything else, I should probably declare an interest, which I hope that I do not have to declare every time, which is that my wife is a former chairman of Braintree District Council and currently the cabinet member for planning and strategy. I hasten to add that, on this subject, we have not considered our views together, and I am not expressing her opinions—as I do on everything else, of course. This is an unusual occasion for me. I do not usually find myself tempted to my feet by my noble friend, who is historically rather more robust than I am. I am normally seen as being on the softer side of the party. I have every sympathy what he just said. I will not elaborate, therefore, but I add a second heretical view, which is that, from what I have heard so far today—and I have reservations about parts of the Bill—we are in danger with all these definitional clauses of creating a pure lawyers’ paradise in which every decision is capable of endless judicial review to determine what these meaningless words mean. I do not encourage that.