Member

The Government have established a strategic environmental assessment for the programme as a whole, which, as I understand it, is an essential preliminary to a consultation on the sites that the Government are going to propose, not least because the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations 2004 make that necessary, or would potentially prejudice the Government’s initial decisions, because they would not necessarily have incorporated the environmental effects. That means that we will probably be looking at the Government’s proposals for consultation in the new year. I hope that the Minister will say that it is the Government’s intention for us in Parliament to be consulted, and that we will have a debate on the new towns programme itself.