Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Amendment No. 65 is grouped with my noble friend’s amendments, and I concur with all his points. We sat through both the Commons Bill, which as he reminded us was only in 2006, and the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill, which gave extra protection to town and village greens. My amendment explores why, when the Government brought in legislation that has provided the useful additional protections for those open spaces they very much needed, we are now setting up the HCA which, according to Clause 9, suggests that it can do anything with regard to planning permission and despite all the other enactments. The Minister will probably reassure me by saying that the HCA will have to pay regard to issues of protection. As drafted and as I read it, provided that the agency accords with planning permission—it is a planning authority as proposed in the Bill—despite all the things we spent ages discussing and agreeing on in your Lordships’ House, it can drive a coach and horses through them. I hope that the Minister will tell me that I am wrong about that. I am very glad that my noble friend raised Section 19 of the Acquisition of Land Act 1981. It is particularly important because subsection (2) raises the issue of public consultation and the fact that the Secretary of State must give public notice of her intention so that all interested people can make representations and objections in relation to what will happen, and perhaps, "““causing a public local inquiry to be held in any case where it appears to him to be expedient so to do””." Sometimes the HCA’s proposals will be controversial and people will need to have their say. My noble friend’s rather neat amendment, applying Section 19 at the very least, is a good opportunity to enable this.