Lord Lansley (Con)

My Lords, it seems to me that we are getting ahead of ourselves. We are yet to reach Part 3, but these seem to be mostly considerations relating to the content of Part 3 and how the environmental delivery plans and the nature restoration levy are intended to work. I understood my noble friend Lady Coffey’s amendment to be grouped where it is and say what it does because nowhere in Part 3 is there something that otherwise tells us how the making of an environmental delivery plan affects a local planning authority in making its decisions. It seemed to me that she had tabled a rather useful amendment that did precisely that. I do not think it is relevant whether a developer has to pay the levy or not. It can request to pay the levy, or, as we can see in Clause 66 and Schedule 4, Natural England can make it mandatory that it pays the levy. Either way, it does not really matter. The point is that, if the environmental delivery plan is made, a local authority should clearly take it into account in determining any planning permission, in the same way as it would be required to have regard to all the legislation relating to protected sites and protected species. Schedule 4 simply tells us that when the local authority makes planning decisions it may disregard them because there is an environmental delivery plan in place. What my noble friend Lady Coffey is saying would be at least a useful addition, in a technical sense, to the Bill.