Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, who is one of the House’s great champions of the arts and cultural life. Briefly, I will express the Green group’s support for Amendment 87D in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. This would ensure that assets of community value cannot be demolished. It is worth going back to where the assets of community value started, in 2011. Creating that category of buildings and structures was so hard fought for, and it could, in effect, be lost under permitted development rights. The noble Baroness has identified a really important issue, and I hope the House will back that. I rise chiefly to speak against government Amendment 64. We have already heard some important points. Both the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Fuller, pointed out just how late this is coming in the process and how we have not had the chance to have proper scrutiny. The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, is right about a considerable change in tone, but I would go further and say that it is a considerable change in the direction of the entire law, and that should surely not be done this late in the process. More than that—like other noble Lords, I am sure— I have received a pleas from the Better Planning Coalition, the National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts to reject this government amendment. If we look at the situation and the arguments they make, absolutely rightly, we see that this amendment embeds into the law a concerning narrative about development at any cost. It does not acknowledge, and it pushes aside, the fact that economic activity and human life are dependent on the environment —the economy is a complete subset of the environment. The core purpose of planning policy is supposed to be to ensure that developments do not happen in the wrong place or destroy nature gratuitously or without adequate consideration. It really feels, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, said, that this would open up decisions to politics. Well, this is purely politics: it seems to have been put in to drive headlines that say that the Government are taking a hard line with councils that oppose new housing.