Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)

My Lords, I welcome the Statement from the Minister about a much more joined-up and rational approach to infrastructure. It has been long called for and is very much welcomed. I also welcome NISTA’s commitment to ensuring that infrastructure developers are going to take account of biodiversity protection and delivery. I was delighted when NISTA’s predecessor discovered climate change, and the fact that it has now discovered biodiversity is even more welcome. I also am very pleased to see that the Government are committed to the land use framework approach to spatial issues. But a fair number of existing infrastructure schemes are already in progress and decisions are being made on a day-by-day basis, and government departments across the piece are now preparing spatial strategies of all sorts. We have housing spatial strategies, transport spatial strategies, energy spatial strategies—everybody has a spatial strategy, but we have not yet got the land use framework in place that gives them join-up and integration. So when do the Government intend to make their hand clear on the land use framework approach? I am concerned, as I said, that by the time it arrives and is then implemented at national, regional and local level, it will be too late for many of the decisions on infrastructure that are currently being made. Secondly—and more of this anon, tomorrow—in my view, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill does not take a sufficiently clear approach to a land use framework approach. In fact, any concept of land use framework is singularly absent in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which seems not to be as joined up as this admirable strategy is. Perhaps the Minister would care to respond on that.