Baroness Coffey (Con)

My Lords, the Minister has just said potentially her favourite words. She spent a lot of Committee on this Bill saying that “in due course” was her least favourite phrase, so it was delightful for her to be able at least to say “very soon”. I wonder whether the same might apply to my amendment; sadly, I expect not. In Committee, I mentioned that I was not satisfied with the response of the Minister and that I would be minded to bring the amendment back on Report. It is somewhat clunky, but it is just the nature of the Bill that we are discussing NSIPs and, as a consequence, I have to speak to my amendment at this stage of the Bill. So what does my amendment basically say? In essence, we will have environmental delivery plans; what I am asking is that, alongside other matters that the Secretary of State has to consider, they should consider the environmental delivery plan when it comes to an NSIP. For me, this seems logical. I am conscious that other provisions in Section 104 of the Planning Act refer to the need to consider “any national policy statement which has effect in relation to development of the description to which the application relates”. It requires “the appropriate marine policy documents … determined in accordance with section 59 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009” and consideration of “any local impact report” as well as—I am conscious the Minister may say this— “any other matters which the Secretary of State thinks are both important and relevant to the … decision”. The reason why I believe the proposed wording merits being included in the Bill and put into legislation is that, in other parts of legislation, the primary duty of the Secretary of State for Defra is to achieve a variety of targets for nature recovery. But, as we debated in Committee, in reality what we are considering now is what the Secretary of State for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will consider. Let us be candid: there has not always been a happy exchange between the two departments in previous history, especially with the new Secretary of State, having just been the Secretary of State at Defra, now talking about “Build, baby, build” and rolling out a whole series of reasons for why infrastructure is being held up—which could not necessarily be stood up properly. Coming back to my amendment—by the way, I tabled a similar amendment on councillors’ consideration of matters that are not NSIPs—we are trying to get to the bottom of what the EDP will really do, which is still unclear to me. On the whole purpose of this, it is quite possible that an environmental delivery plan may cover land being used by an NSIP. But, according to the answer from the Minister in Committee—I appreciate that she did not use this phrase—it is the quintessence of cash for trash: “That will have already been considered and we don’t need to think about it ever again. There should be no reason for it to be even considered by the Secretary of State when they’re making their determination”. However, I believe it matters so much that it should be.