Growth and Infrastructure Bill

I made it very clear, I think in my first speech with my new responsibilities last autumn, that everybody is in favour of sensible rationalisation. I have never opposed that, but the Government have to get it right, and the Bill self-evidently does not get it right. I suspect that the Secretary of State’s heart is not really in these changes; maybe the planning Minister’s heart is. I do not know whether the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford, smokes cigars, but a photo of him smoking one ought to go on the Secretary of State’s wall behind him as a reminder of what can happen if he lets down his guard.