Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

My Lords, these amendments cover a number of detailed aspects of the process for approving revisions to regional strategy, and I can understand the intentions behind them. Noble Lords want to strengthen the consultation requirements on the Secretary of State before approving or revising the draft strategy. It is absolutely not our intention to limit the Secretary of State’s consultation in any way. Amendment 164C would make it explicit that the Secretary of State must publish a draft revision of a regional strategy for consultation and would delete the current provision for the Secretary of State to, ""consult such persons (if any) as the Secretary of State considers appropriate."" Clause74(3) already requires the Secretary of State to engage in consultation which would automatically include publishing a document for consultation, which would obviously go as wide as possible. Amendment 164E would insert into Clause 74(3) a provision that "any person" can make representations on the proposed changes. Clause 74(4) already makes it clear that any person can make representations and the Secretary of State must have regard to those representations. That also takes care, in part, of Amendment 164C. Amendment 164H would insert an explicit requirement into Clause 74(5) for the Secretary of State to set out reasons for making any changes to the draft strategy revision submitted by the responsible regional authorities. We have had the regional spatial strategy process for some time now; it is a well established and welcome practice for the Secretary of State to set out the reasons for making further changes to strategy revisions. It is done in some detail so that everyone can see why the Secretary of State is recommending a different approach. It seems to me that there is little substantive difference between what the noble Baroness is proposing and the existing provisions. The important principle, on which we are absolutely agreed, is that there should be wide public consultation on the final draft of the strategy. We will make sure in guidance that that will be as clear a commitment as possible. I may not be able to answer the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, in exactly the context in which he raised it. He is absolutely right that we are in a very dynamic situation, and it is clear that the landscape over the next few years is going to look very different, whether we are talking about management of resources or the trajectory of housing starts. Clearly, our regional spatial strategies will have to be dynamic. We are looking at revisions to some strategies at the moment as more demographic information comes online. The important point about the amendment is that, instead of having what we originally proposed—the concept of a transitional arrangement—we will just have the regional spatial strategy in its present status and condition and the regional economic strategy. Together they will form the regional strategy on the day of commencement. There will not be any waiting for further changes or negotiation of accommodation—that will be the starting point. The noble Lord was absolutely right that the delivery of our strategy will be affected by local economic realities. It is the combination of evidence, intelligence and forecasting that comes out of the RES and the RSS which forms the framework for development. In local decisions, of course, economic conditions are always a material consideration. There will be a feed-through into local decision-making as well. I am very happy to write to the noble Lord if he would like some more detail on how we see that process working. Amendment 157G agreed. Amendments 158 and 159 not moved.