Greater London Authority Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman—but my advice to him would be not to worry. Obviously I am not an expert on Southwark, but I am an expert on Hammersmith and Fulham, and I can say that it has decided to ignore its unitary development plan entirely at local level, giving the reason that it is entirely out of date—and as the plan is nearly two years old, I suppose that it might well say that. As a result, on housing and planning policies generally, exactly the opposite of what is said in the UDP is being done. Local boroughs have a great deal of leeway in that respect. The essence of the point remains: that what is guiding the Mayor is the London plan. Yes, there will be some conflicts, and they can be resolved, but we are still talking about matters of a strategic nature. One of the most controversial parts of the draft order will possibly be the proviso, which mirrors what was in previous policy, that the Mayor can intervene on developments larger than 500 units of residential accommodation. That must be right. I doubt that there could be such a development in London that would not have some strategic impact.