Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)

I thank the two noble Lords for their interventions. I will just say that I do not believe it is about anything but power and money coming down—that was my experience. I tried to go to the full endgame; I tried to join the local director of children’s and adult care services with the local director of the NHS. I tried, but it did not work because health would not give up its power and its money. Amendment 141B would add environmental responsibilities and opportunities to the local growth plan guidance published by the Secretary of State. While this is a well-intentioned amendment to help ensure that local growth plans balance environmental and economic considerations, which all local authorities have to do, we recognise that councils have to take into account a range of factors when drafting their local growth plans. Indeed, councillors will be aware of their local area’s precious habitats and the places where nature is valued most. In my opinion, local communities are best placed to evaluate trade-offs between those environmental opportunities and economic growth, so we believe that this should be left to local councillors rather than for the Secretary of State to set out a potentially one-size-fits-all approach to this. I am grateful for the contributions to this thoughtful and interesting debate and I am really looking forward to the response from the Minister.