Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

My Lords, this group covers a wide range of amendments. My Amendment 157B is a Local Government Association amendment as well. Some of these issues were discussed in relation to the 2004 Planning Act, when the Government accepted the will of this House. As I said, it is vital that the planning process for regional strategies should be bottom-up. Otherwise, one is going to get resistance rather than acceptance for building houses. You have the district doing local development frameworks and the counties above that with the highway powers, waste and mineral powers and all the social powers. That is a coherent policy, which is tied to the economic, environmental and social strategies that we talked about in relation to the amendments tabled by the Liberal Democrats. It is important that all this should tie together and then go up to create the regional strategy. The Government suggest that leaders’ boards working with the RDAs might be the answer. I fear that it will not be if you really want to achieve success, develop the economy, build houses and provide a satisfying solution, given that, as I have just said, a vast amount of the country is covered by two tiers—it is very rural with a series of large towns in it. I have been involved in this process for a long while. I want to see agreement on the building of houses and development, but it works much better from the bottom up than it does from the top down. The amendment sets out a number of bodies that should be part of creating the regional strategy; it should not be only the leaders’ board. Obviously the RDA and the leaders’ board will decide ultimately, but the process should be bottom-up, with lots of people participating and being involved; if it is not, it will not work. I think that everyone agrees that the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 has not worked terribly well in giving planning powers to the regional assemblies, otherwise we would not now be giving them to the RDAs; the Government have admitted that by proposing something different two or three years later. The Government should acknowledge that the process should be much more bottom-up and that these various bodies should be consulted and involved in the construction of the regional strategy. I beg to move.