National Planning Policy Framework

I am going to whizz through my speech and, I hope, leave plenty of time for my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) to make his comments. I welcome the NPPF and many of its changes, because I was not happy with the original draft document, as the Minister well knows. The Minister knows also that in Daventry we are part of a joint planning unit, with South Northamptonshire council and Northampton borough council, and, although we might struggle to have a local plan in place in 12 months, we have an emerging joint core strategy across the area. If it were to be adopted as a local plan post consultation, I wonder whether it could be treated as a local plan, because it would afford those areas the protection that they would like. I associate myself with the comments on the abolition of the regional spatial strategies and would very much like to be copied into the note—or if there is an answer today, even better—about the timing. The Minister knows my concerns about the Planning Inspectorate, and I understand that he has written to a constituent of mine, saying that there is a chance of its duties, or the inspectorate itself, being reviewed soon, so I should like to hear something about that. I would like a quick moment on renewable energy, my favourite subject. In previous answers to me, the Minister said that criteria can be set for renewable energy locally, but will he confirm that that could include the efficiency of such projects? I have one point about wind farms, because, owing to the confusion in previous advice, noise has become an issue in planning. The night-time limit on mining is 42 dB, but using the same metric, we are going to allow wind farms to be noisier, at 45 dB, so could the Secretary of State confirm that the list of revoked planning policies in the NPPF includes by implication the annexes and companion guides to all previously revoked policies?