My Lords, due to procrastination, I did not ask for my name to be added to those of the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, until the weekend, by which time the first Marshalled List was already with the printers. However, I warmly support what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and I do not need to add very much to it.
The point I would make is that the Mayor of London—I am talking about the office and not the individual—already has very substantial strategic planning functions in London. As to the question of designation and the right of an applicant to apply under the rest of the Bill to the Secretary of State, it seems obvious that in London the application should be referred to the mayor because, by definition, we are talking about major applications. As I think my noble friend said, the mayor has extraordinarily good planning relationships not only with the boroughs but with a range of other
interests, such as developers, other stakeholders and so on, who are very much concerned with planning. That has been developed to a considerable degree of expertise and skill. That is the right body to exercise the function if, as has been said, any London borough suffers the misfortune of being designated. I very much support this.
I hope that by the time we come to debate Amendment 80, my name will have been added to it. It is a very useful and important addition. The Mayor of London, with his overall economic functions, has a very considerable interest in ensuring that there is sufficient energy to supply London, particularly when one is dealing with decentralised energy—what might be local wind-power turbines and things of that sort. It would be entirely appropriate in those circumstances that he should have the right to call in applications that refer to such functions. Like my noble friend Lord Tope, I warmly support the amendment and hope that the Government may see their way to accepting it. Amendments 39 and 80 were drafted to follow the pattern of the earlier part—Clause 1—of the Bill, so I hope that the Government may feel able to accept them. It would be very much welcomed in London, and also by the London boroughs. I have already declared my interest as a joint president of London Councils. I look forward to hearing what my noble friend says from the Front Bench.