Member

I turn to the non-governmental amendments. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would significantly restrict the application of EDPs and reduce their ability to accelerate development. While nutrient neutrality is an important issue that is being covered by the first EDPs, addressing this issue alone is not enough to deliver the level of growth that the Government are seeking to achieve, and it would limit the environmental aspirations of EDPs, as these would secure better environmental outcomes than the status quo, and limiting it in this way would reduce the ability of EDPs to support nature recovery. It also could be argued that all EDPs in some way concern wildlife, as they concern protected species and habitats, but this will be more clear-cut in some instances than others, and it may also be unclear, therefore, what might be considered to be a local concern. Restricting the number of EDPs that come forward risks reducing their ability to support development or incentivise larger, broader EDPs, and that would appear to run counter to the aim of the amendment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, said, we need to keep focused.