Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

Clause 75 comes under the heading ““Implementation of strategy””. It is a short clause, which is headed ““Implementation””. The nub of it is in Clause 75(1), which reads: "““The responsible regional authorities must produce and publish, and from time to time revise, a plan for implementing the regional strategy for their region””." Amendment 180F would delete that. It is obviously a probing amendment. If it were to be passed, it would wreck the whole clause. Maybe the whole clause needs wrecking. Maybe this whole lot needs wrecking. I have been told I have not got to be so rude today as the Minister thought I was the other day. At least I will not be quite so rude until we get on to the next lot. The purpose of putting this amendment down is to ask some questions about the implementation plan. What is it? What will it be like? What will it look like? How big will it be? How will it be produced? What processes of consultation and involvement will there be in producing it? What force will it have? The report does not have to go to the Secretary of State—it is one of the few things in the entire Bill that does not have to go to the Secretary of State to be approved—but, as I understand it, after 12 months a report has to be put forward on how it is carried out. I do not quite understand what an implementation plan is in relation to the regional strategy. Under the existing system we have the regional spatial strategy, which is a planning document. It is a strategic planning document, which is what it says; it is a strategy, but it is essentially a planning document. It includes some overall spatial planning for the region, together with what used to be in the county structure plans and the structure elements of the unitary plans in the unitary authorities. Therefore, the RSS is essentially a plan. What are the current implementation documents of the regional spatial strategy? At least one of the implementation documents—perhaps the most important one—is the local development framework in each local authority, unitary or district area. People go to that document to find out what they can do, what they are encouraged to do, what they are banned from doing and how they have to do things if they want to carry out development in a particular area. So, in many ways, the current local plan and the local development frameworks as they are evolving are the implementation strategy for at least that part of the RSS which is the successor to the structure plans and possibly for the whole of it if spatial planning is working. The RSS will be half—that is, one of the two parts—of the regional strategy. The other half is something quite different. It is the economic strategy integrated with the planning strategy for the region. I can understand what an implementation document for the economic strategy will look like. I am not sure whether the RDAs have one at the moment but I can get a feel for what it is like. However, I cannot get a feel for an implementation document or the planning part of the strategy. Does it mean that local development frameworks will be different in future? Will the document that they have relate to regional level and be based on the whole regional strategy or just the spatial element of it? If it is the whole regional strategy, is the implementation document an important part of the local planning system? Will planning authorities, when putting together their local development framework, have to take account of the implementation document? Clearly, if the implementation document is what I think it is in terms of the economic strategy, it will talk about investment. It will look at where government investment and other public sector investment can go and where private sector investment can be brought in. It will be an active, practical document trying to push and channel development to certain areas and away from others. This issue concerns something quite new. This is a very short clause and I think that it would be of great help if the Minister could explain more about it: how it will work, what it will be and, in particular, whether it will cast its shadow over the planning system as well as trying to promote public investment and regeneration. I beg to move Amendment 180F as a probing amendment to ask those questions.