Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]

I entirely agree. Only the Co-operative Wholesale Society could jump on that bandwagon in the hope of having a third shot at building on that site. It tried to build a new town when I first became a Member of Parliament. Its plans were accompanied by lots of pretty brochures and pictures of butterflies and birds and so forth, but the plan was exactly the same as before. It did not involve such an intensive amount of building or such a huge operation, but none the less, that was the plan. When that plan failed, the Co-operative Wholesale Society withdrew it. In 2007, the society came up with something called a sustainable urban extension, or SUE. It wanted to build a projectile of buildings from Oadby and Wigston, the suburban borough in my constituency that is right up against the city of Leicester, into the area concerned. The Prime Minister returned from China in late summer or early autumn of 2007—he had been Prime Minister for just a few weeks by then—having spoken to the leadership of the People's Republic of China, where I understand the planning laws are rather different. He returned with an enthusiastic desire to build something like 10, 12 or 15 eco-towns, which would no doubt be similar to the eco-cities that he saw in China. The hapless Housing Minister—I have forgotten who it was; there have been one or two since—was invited, in that polite way that the Prime Minister has, to provide him with a list of 10 sites from a wider list of 50 or so sites. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire has had problems with an eco-town in his area. As I said a moment ago, the hon. Member for Leicester, South and I have also been battling hard together with our colleagues and neighbours to ensure that the idiotic scheme does not go through. However, the scheme has now become involved in murky politics, deals and everything other than proper planning and the proper assessment of the evidence. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, there are also district councillors who are itching to say something about a scheme that will destroy their districts, but they are precluded from saying anything because the Standards Board for England will jump on them and say, "Ah, you're now parti pris and therefore may not carry out your local democratic function of being a representative of your own electorate." That is absurd and Kafkaesque, and it must stop. There are two other hideous blots on the landscape of Harborough that will not be improved by this Bill. The first is the random depositing of wind farms in my part of rural Leicestershire. There is a case for wind farms and for developing alternative sources of energy, but these things need to be done in the right place. If we destroy something that is beautiful simply because we can—and, incidentally, because we have a subsidy from the East Midlands Development Agency to do so—we will be doing so for the wrong reasons and in the wrong place. It is more difficult than pulling hens' teeth to get common sense out of this Government, the East Midlands Development Agency or the developers of such projects. I fear that there is nothing in the Bill that will make my constituents' lives any easier. A further planning matter that is not going to be sorted out by the Bill or dealt with in an enhanced demographic way relates to East Midlands airport. The airport is not in my constituency; it is in north-west Leicestershire. In May 2005, just as the general election campaign was beginning, the Government thought that it would be a good time not so much to bury bad news as to announce it. They announced a change in the air routes of the flights into the airport from the west to the south and to the east and, guess what, the airport—which is owned by the Manchester Airports Group; a strange connection, that—is now hoping that a night flight will come into the airport over my constituency in rural south-east Leicestershire once every 90 seconds. East Midlands airport wants to promote itself as the freight hub of England, and good luck to it. I suggest, however, that it—and the Co-operative Wholesale Society of Manchester—must do things for my constituents, rather than doing things to them for its own exclusive economic benefit. All the profits from the airport tend to get sucked back into Manchester. None of those profits seem to come to my constituents, so far as jobs, beneficial environmental circumstances or access to the airport are concerned. We get the downside, while Manchester seems to get the upside, in terms of money and of a reduction in council tax bills, because the Manchester Airports Group is owned by the local authorities of Manchester. This might sound like a rant, but I am desperately—