Lord Blencathra (Con)

My Lords, I support Amendment 185, tabled by my noble friend Lady Coffey. Only about half a dozen noble Lords in the Committee at the moment have previously served as Members of Parliament. From my own experience, there is nothing more annoying as an MP than to find constituents writing to you about some planning development that you know nothing about when other stakeholders have been notified. The Member of Parliament must then ask the council, the Government or the agency what the issues are about before forming a view on it and either supporting the constituents’ concerns or not. Constituents simply do not understand why MPs are not already in the loop. That diminishes their status when it seems that every other Tom, Dick and Harry has been on the stakeholder consultation list. I appreciate that this amendment is narrowly focused, with a much smaller range of stakeholders. However, the issue here, as my noble friend has said, concerns nationally significant infrastructure projects, where the Secretary of State is the decider. Therefore, while MPs might not be on the general planning consultation list, it would be reasonable for them to be on the list for these nationally significant infrastructure projects. The principle is the same. That is why I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey.