Lord Blencathra (Con)

My Lords, I am delighted to support the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, on Amendment 185F, tabled by her and supported by my noble friend Lord Roborough. I do not need to talk at length, because the noble Baroness has set out excellent arguments for progressing this and other amendments. She said that this is one of the most important amendments in the Bill, and she is right. We are touching on it today in advance of next week, when we will discuss this and similar improvements. The noble Baroness has set out a simpler solution than the massive bureaucracy created in Part 3. Part 3 and the EDPs are a massive sledgehammer to crack the nut of nutrient neutrality. With the amendments that we will discuss next week in addition to this one, we can offer the Government a simpler solution than the EDP monolith. We need to tackle the problems of nutrient neutrality and will address some of the amendments next week. Amendment 185F would require local planning authorities to consider compliance with the habitats regulations and to conduct full environmental impact assessments on sites that are proposed as suitable for development. As my noble friend Lady Coffey said, let us plan this in advance—do not wait until developers come along to put in a planning application and then discover that they are trying to do it in the wrong place. This is not about adding a new layer of bureaucracy; on the contrary, it is about moving necessary assessment upstream to where it can do the most good. Too often, local plans identify sites for housing or infrastructure which turn out to be wholly unsuitable when subjected to proper ecological scrutiny. By then, the damage is done: developers are frustrated, communities are confused and valuable habitats are placed at risk. This amendment from the noble Baroness would support local authorities to screen out inappropriate sites early, giving greater certainty to developers and the public. It would also help to ensure that sites allocated in the plan were truly deliverable. It is, in short, a sensible and proportionate proposal, reflecting long-standing principles that plan-making is a stage at which big environmental choices should be made and that doing so reduces conflict and costs later on. I hope the Minister will take the advice of our friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. As I said earlier, she is an expert on this matter, no matter how much she may deny being a world expert.