Local Transport Bill [HL] Bill

I am grateful to the noble Lord for explaining his amendment, which is presented with a strongly localist flavour. I am probably at one with him in seeking to ensure that we work very closely with the local authorities on the work that they undertake to guarantee that local transport plans consider the impact of their transportation policies and projects on the environment, whether it is the landscape, biodiversity, noise or air quality or climate change. As the local government White Paper of 2006 made very clear, we are trying to ensure that local authorities are not overly burdened with guidance and targets from central government. However, we are committed to ensuring that transport contributes even more to reducing carbon emissions and improving the environment. It is vital that local authorities are fully aware of government policies on the protection and improvement of the environment as they develop and evolve over time. It is for that benign and important reason that we must be free to issue guidance from time to time, obviously at suitable intervals so as not to burden local authorities, to offer them support, encouragement and advice as they develop and implement their policies and plans in tackling issues such as climate change and in protecting the wider environment. So it is a benign feature of the relationship. We think that local government can benefit from that sort of guidance and that it is valuable to establish benchmarks, quality thresholds and so on. Guidance is a useful and helpful way in which to do that, and guidance that is produced nationally has the benefit of drawing on the experience of many different local authorities and perhaps helping to illuminate and elucidate some of the better practices that local authorities such as Essex might develop. So we look at this in a positive sense rather than seeing it as over-centralising. It is there to assist and enable the better development of environment policies through the development of good-quality transportation planning.