Planning Bill

Amendment No. 360A, to which my noble friends on the Front Bench have added their names, is in this group. If I may say so, the noble Baroness has expressed herself with unnecessary moderation on an issue that warrants much stronger words than she used. Clause 116(5)(a) and (b) say that, "““An order granting development consent may … apply, modify or exclude a statutory provision which relates to any matter for which provision may be made in the order””," and, "““make such amendments, repeals or revocations of statutory provisions of local application as appear to the decision-maker to be necessary or expedient””," and so on. I find this horrifying. We are setting up a body, the IPC, that will be making an order, and somewhere in that order it is going to alter statutes. I cannot believe that that is what is intended. It is bad enough when we hear about Henry VIII clauses, where Ministers—who, after all, are accountable to Parliament—are empowered to alter statutes by order, orders having frequently to come before Parliament, but here there is nothing of the sort. No Minister is responsible and there is no parliamentary process; the IPC, when it makes its order granting consent, can actually change the effect of the existing law. I simply cannot believe that is right. It may be that I have misunderstood the language and the Minister will be able to explain that I have got it all wrong. I should be greatly relieved to be assured of that. As it stands, though, this wording appears to give the IPC the power to change the law. My amendment would take out the two sections about altering and amending the law so that they would not apply. As an alternative, it could be that if the order needed to change the law in order to have proper effect given to it, it should ask the Minister to introduce an order that would then come before Parliament, which could express its view on it. Simply to leave the commission with the power to change the law when it issues its consent order seems to be wholly unacceptable. This is the sort of matter about which Parliament needs to come in and say, ““Look, this is contrary to the rule of law and we will not have it””.