Planning Bill

I shall speak principally to Amendment No. 74 to Amendment No. 65. I shall start with Amendment No. 74 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Greaves, regarding national parks, which has been referred to by several speakers. I am delighted to support them on the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, is president of the Friends of the Lake District. I am merely one of his vice-presidents. As he said, he is a vice-president of the Council for National Parks. I am also a vice-president. I think that those are the only interests that I have to declare. The point has been made—so I will not elaborate on it—that national parks are planning authorities in their own right and that therefore it should be axiomatic that they should be consultees on the same basis as the various local planning authorities listed under Clause 8. I should like to think that this is a question of, ““Homer nodded””. Nevertheless, it is a curious fact that the Council of the Scilly Isles is a consultee but none of the eight or nine English national parks is a consultee. It is possible that most of the proposals that will be directly relevant to national parks will have to do with wind farms. There may be road, railway or electricity grid schemes, and so on, but I suspect that wind farms will be one of the most contentious areas. I suspect that the issues will be not so much about wind farms proper but about wind farms adjacent to national parks. Therefore, it is rather important that, when we bring national parks in as consultees, the area of consultation should be wider than the specific boundary of the national park. Clause 8 (2) states: "““A local authority is within this subsection if any of the locations concerned is in the authority’s area””." What is adjacent to the area is also important. Turning to Amendment No. 65, although my main concern has been to include national parks in the Clause 8 consultation process, it is equally important to say, although the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, did not emphasise it, that the other relevant agencies listed in that amendment should also be included in Clause 7. I assume, incidentally, that in including Natural England, the other important landscape categories of areas of outstanding national beauty and SSSIs would be covered in the consultation process. That is important. Time goes on and I will close on that note.