Lord Lansley (Con)

My Lords, as this is the first time I have spoken on Report, I remind the House that I am chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. I provide advice to the Norfolk and Suffolk, Thames Valley and greater Cheshire development forums as well. I apologise to the House in advance, as I know that I cannot be here for days two and three on Report, which is one reason why I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Best, for leading the amendment relating to the statutory position of a chief planner. In the spirit of the Whips’ rendition of the Companion, I will not repeat either the points so splendidly made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, or the speeches I made in Committee and on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. I know that his amendment, which is supported by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and my own Front Bench, appears to have a great deal of support not only in the country but in the House. I hope that when the time comes, if that is on day three, the noble Lord, Lord Best, will, if necessary, test the opinion of the House to show that support. We have not previously imposed that provision on the Government but, if necessary, the House should impose it in this Bill. I also thank warmly my noble friend on the Front Bench for speaking to Amendments 122, 123, 125 and 126. As he said, they are all about making the local growth plan consistent with the spatial development strategy. I will not go through that in some detail, but we have now seen the draft revision of the National Planning Policy Framework. While it says, for example, that the spatial development strategy should give spatial expression to the strategic elements of the local growth plan, that plan, as set out in the Bill, does not make it clear that it should identify which employment, commercial, industrial and logistical projects are integral to the growth projections for a strategic authority area. It needs to do that so that those strategic elements will necessarily be reflected into the spatial development strategy; exactly the same is true for infrastructure as well. That is why those two additions to the content of the local growth plan are so important in being reflected into what then, in due course, should be incorporated in the spatial development strategy, which is already legislated for. I finish merely by saying to the Minister that I hope she and her colleagues will look carefully at the draft revision of the National Planning Policy Framework, in so far as it relates to the spatial development strategies. It should say more by way of the content of a spatial development strategy, along the lines of what we have already discussed. Many noble Lords will recall that we debated at length whether the spatial development strategy and the Planning and Infrastructure Act should deal with both the amount and distribution of housing and, specifically, the amount and distribution of affordable housing, but the National Planning Policy Framework does not refer to the latter. It is really important that the NPPF, to which the equivalent of statutory weight is to be given in planning policy decisions, should reflect the statutory requirements mandated in legislation by this House. I very much support my noble friend’s amendments, which would have that effect.