Contribution
My Lords, before I respond to the amendment, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the Committee debates and the meetings we have held around the Committee stage of the Bill. We have apparently spent 60 hours in the Chamber debating the Bill and covered 650 amendments. Noble Lords’ knowledge and experience have helped us to shape this important new approach to planning, growth and the environment, which has been especially valuable.
I thank the Front-Bench spokespeople who have shown great stamina and fortitude, which has been really greatly appreciated. I also thank all the outside bodies who have contributed to our debates in the House. I especially thank all the officials who have worked on the Bill. The processes in the House of Lords mean that our officials often have to work at very short notice on putting together papers for Front-Benchers. I also thank the staff of the House, who have worked often very long hours on the Bill.
I also give my personal thanks to my fellow Front-Bench government spokespeople, the noble Lords, Lord Khan and Lord Wilson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who have supported me so ably on the Front Bench during Committee. I am extremely grateful to them for their support.
This final group of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, relates to the commencement of the legislation. I thank the noble Baroness for her support and encouragement of the growth agenda that the Bill is aimed at promoting. As we have made clear throughout Committee, our Planning and Infrastructure Bill will play a key role in unlocking economic growth, and we must progress to implementation as swiftly as possible to start reaping the benefits of these measures and getting shovels in the ground—including shovels operated by SME builders. My noble friend Lord Livermore yesterday quoted the fact that this Bill has already been assessed to be making a great contribution to the economic growth we all want to see.
On Amendment 363, while I commend the intent of bring all national policy statements up to date, we must resist this amendment because the clauses in the Bill already address this through the introduction of a requirement for all NPSs to be reviewed and updated at least every five years. These clauses include transitional requirements, the most stringent of which require the NPSs which were designated more than five years before the date when the clauses came into force and have not been amended, to be brought up to date within a two-year period. Delaying the commencement of the rest of the Act until such a time as all NPSs have been updated is therefore unreasonable and would have a detrimental impact on the objectives of the Bill, stalling delivery and growth in our country.
Amendment 253 also seeks to have all remaining sections of the Bill come into force on such a day as the Secretary of State may by regulations appoint. Commencement regulations under this amendment are to be subject to a negative resolution. The commencement of each section of the Bill has been carefully considered with regard to the specific issue and relevant circumstances to determine whether that provision should come into force on the day the Act is passed, or a set period beginning with the day on which the Act is passed, or on such a day as the Secretary of State may by regulations appoint. This bespoke consideration should not be displaced by a blanket rule requiring commencement regulations, and I do not believe there is any reasonable basis for requiring all commencement regulations to be subject to the negative procedure rather than the generally standard procedure of commencement regulations not being subject to any procedure.
Amendment 364 would require the Secretary of State to publish analysis regarding the impact of each section of the Bill on the speed of the planning process before we can commence any of its provisions. I appreciate the noble Baroness’ intentions behind this amendment, and we are aligned in that we want the Bill to have as big an impact as possible in unlocking growth and accelerating development across the country. However, we have already published a full impact assessment on the Bill, including analysis of how each measure will impact on the planning system. As I mentioned earlier, this analysis showed that the economy could be boosted by up to £7.5 billion over the next decade by this pro-growth legislation, and we should not look to delay the implementation of these clauses and the reaping of the Bill’s benefits across the planning system.
We are confident that the Bill will streamline and turbocharge planning processes. For example, our analysis of the Bill’s reforms to the pre-application stage of the NSIP regime shows that these changes could reduce the typical time projects spend in pre-application by up to 12 months. This is a dramatic acceleration of the current system and of delivery of major economic infrastructure and demonstrates clearly how the Bill will get Britain building again. With these reassurances, I hope the noble Baroness will not press her amendment.