My Lords, I have just two points. First, the Minister said that it was important in the national interest to get big infrastructure projects going. Clause 24, which we will discuss shortly, relates to business and commercial developments that may or may not be thought to be infrastructure, but which many people will think are not. This new provision for fewer special parliamentary procedures will apply to that clause also.
Secondly, when we were discussing Clause 1 some time ago, the Government were adamant that it was necessary to have such provisions in the legislation in order to make sure that planning authorities that they thought were not performing got up to speed and organised themselves. The Government said that they hoped that no planning authorities would ever come under these provisions, but they were nevertheless a necessary back-stop. However, if there is to be no back-stop of special parliamentary procedure in these cases, is it not the case that the incentive for developers to provide alternative land or open space when necessary will be less because they can simply apply to the Secretary of State, who can say, “No, you do not need to do so”? They can then do absolutely nothing about it. Surely the fact that there have been so few examples of special parliamentary procedure is because applicants for development consent have done their business and found appropriate alternative open space to replace any that they are using. The current system is working and there is a danger that there will be far less of this happening, simply because the back-stop SPP procedure will not exist.