Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 294: 294: Clause 100, page 51, line 32, leave out from ““consent”” to end of line 42 The noble Lord said: My amendments are consequential on earlier amendments that we have not yet pressed and which are therefore not part of the Bill, so it is not particularly helpful to refer to them at this time. I do not intend to speak to them in any detail. Amendment No. 317 would limit the amount of time that we would give the Secretary of State to take a decision after the IPC had made a recommendation. We seek to compare what can be done if we start using parliamentary procedures with what might happen if we finish up in the courts. We can perfectly practically limit the time that we take as politicians and administrators, but there is no way that I know of, or would be prepared to see, of trying in a Act of Parliament to limit the time that the courts might choose to take over an issue. We would be getting on to very improper ground if we did so. That is the background to this group of amendments, and I do not intend to fill out any more of the detail at this stage. They are self-explanatory, but they depend on other amendments that have not been pressed, so there is no point in spending more time on them and I shall not take the matter any further forward. I beg to move.