Member

To turn to amendments to Clause 110, Amendments 357 and 358 would remove Clause 12 from commencement by regulations and instead provide that it should come into force two months after Royal Assent. This is from long experience of the endless delays there can be in activating legislation where it has to wait for the Government to bring regulations or the Secretary of State having to make decisions to commence a provision. We need to avoid uncertainty. After all, this Bill is all about trying to speed up planning decisions in relation to infrastructure. We know that regulations take an awfully long time to produce. You have to go through statutory consultation. As it is less of a priority within departments, the drafting is often delayed. I think that two months is a fair balance. It gives time to do it; it avoids a cliff-edge implementation, but it prevents unnecessary delay. Again, I will be interested in the Minister’s response to that.