My Lords, Amendment 6 stands in my name and has been suggested by both the Local Government Association and the Campaign to Protect Rural England. It would of course mean that only local authorities which do not already have a local plan in place could be designated as poorly performing. In other words, it would immediately remove from the possibility of designation all those authorities that have a local plan in place. As we all know, the preparation and adoption of a local plan is a lengthy process. It is sometimes too lengthy a process but it is fully democratic and shows that the planning authority concerned is performing to proper democratic accords. On that basis, it is believed that they should be excluded from this threat.
Good, sensible local plans are forward-looking. They are intended and designed to encourage and stimulate growth. It is felt that they are in themselves probably a better measure of how well an authority is performing than individual planning applications—I think that this point has been made in earlier debates today—however major the project for which they are submitted. As I said, the intention of this amendment is to exclude those authorities that have adopted a local plan over the previous 20 years, as it suggests.