Lord Lansley (Con)

I hope we can be equally quick about Amendment 99. It is grouped with Amendment 127, on which I am looking forward to hearing, I hope, complementary thoughts about the importance of neighbourhood planning. I do not think we need to debate the importance of neighbourhood planning; we did that in Committee. What we need to do is to find out what the Government are going to do. Since the Government in relation to their White Paper on English devolution made it clear that they want “effective neighbourhood governance” and since we are going to see unitaries creating what might otherwise be regarded as distance between local communities and the plan-making process, it seems to me that that heightens the importance of neighbourhood development planning and what are called neighbourhood priorities statements, which were included in Schedule 7 to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act inserting new Section 15K into the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. As things stand, the neighbourhood priorities statements have not been brought into force. My first request to the Minister is: will the Government do that? Secondly, can she confirm that the valuable Section 98 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, which clarified what should form part of the contents of a neighbourhood development plan, should also be brought into force? I hope that that is not something that Ministers are neglecting to do but are simply trying to bring into force alongside other planning reform changes before we get to the next iteration of the National Planning Policy Framework. There is a reference in Amendment 108 to Section 100 of the levelling-up Act, which is about the power to require assistance with plan-making, but it is quite clear from paragraph 4 of Schedule 3 to the Bill that it is the Government’s intention to bring Section 100 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act into force, otherwise that part of this Bill would be redundant. So, I have two questions: will the neighbourhood priorities statement be brought into force and when will the neighbourhood development plan be brought into force from the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act? I beg to move.