Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)

My Lords, I support Amendment 164 from the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who has laid out the case very clearly. Local planning authorities are vital if the Government and we as a nation are going to achieve the legally binding targets and programmes for climate, environment and biodiversity listed in the amendment. We are likely to have this debate on multiple occasions over the next few months and years. Of course, we have already gone through this process of debating why major bodies—new bodies in legislation or bodies whose legislation is being changed—should have the opportunity of a statutory duty to promote these issues. We had some success in this House in giving such a duty to the Crown Estate. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, played a sterling role there, and although it was not actually adopted in the legislation, it was included in the guidance to the Crown Estate. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, had he been in his place, would have been reminding the Committee that he, of course, has a Private Member’s Bill that would do the job in a sort of bulk-buy fashion and give a whole list of the key implementation public authorities a similar duty in one fell swoop. It would be absolutely the right way forward if that private legislation were adopted by the Government and put forward as a government Bill, because that is the most efficient way of doing it. Otherwise, noble Lords are going to have to listen to the likes of me, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, bang on about this sequentially as each body comes forward, until such time as we have debated the whole lot. So, I commend this amendment and issue a stern address to the Government that accepting the Krebs Private Member’s Bill would be a splendid shortcut to the right destination.