Lord Lansley (Con)

My Lords, I do not want to speak to all the amendments in this group. I want to speak to Amendment 200 and make just one remark about Amendment 194. I am not persuaded by Amendment 194. Our day- by-day experience of working with organisations which provide environmental impact assessments and environmental outcome reports, and that have all the expertise we might need in this context, is not to be found exclusively in public bodies, so I would not support this amendment. Turning to Amendment 200, in Committee we had a short debate about the relationship between Natural England and the making of development plans. Clearly, as we noted then, Natural England has to have regard to these. The sooner Natural England can be aware of the potential requirement for environmental delivery plans, the better. They do not necessarily start at that stage, but they can certainly engage in programming for their activity. The pressure on them is clearly going to be considerable. My Amendment 200 is about local authorities having a duty to tell Natural England when they have potential sites for development. I interpret this as being at Regulation 19 stage. If they are coming forward with the development sites they are proposing for consultation, they should tell Natural England. Natural England can then factor into the thinking about environmental development plans what might emerge, typically a year or more after that point, as the adoption of a development plan. It gives them access and time. I completely understand if the Minister says that this is not necessary because they can already do this. We are talking about statutory processes and local planning authorities who are so pressed that they will not do what they are not required to do. In order to make this system work, a Regulation 19 requirement to notify Natural England to inform the process of EDP making would be a helpful addition.