My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in the discussion and thank my noble friends Lord Judd and Lord Beecham for their strong support for the amendment.
What surprises me somewhat is the view that people have taken that the clause is now so dramatically different from what it was at Second Reading, when pretty much everyone who spoke in the debate would have preferred to see it out of the Bill. Along the way, I should say that at no stage would I have it said that I had not recognised the important work that the Minister has done on this Bill, and will continue to do.
Let us look at the position. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, said that he thought that the Planning Minister would believe or hope that this provision would not affect anyone at all. At a meeting just the other day
that the Minister organised, he said that the number likely to be caught had gone up and that it could be as many as 20. The criteria that are promulgated—we do not yet know what the final criteria will be—have not changed since Second Reading. The 20% and 30% criteria have been consulted on.
The noble Lord, Lord Tope, said that if local authorities are so bad, they deserve what comes their way. It depends how you judge “so bad”. Part of the challenge that we have is that the criteria are not necessarily a fair determinant of poor performance because so many other factors influence the timing of approvals and the planning process. If you look at what has changed since Second Reading when people were so unhappy with this clause, you will see that we have the term “major development” in the clause but, at the start of our consideration of the Bill here, the position was always that major developments would be caught by this and that was very clear from debate in the other place. The criteria that were promulgated at that stage have not changed.
We have a parliamentary process but, frankly, the negative procedure is the weakest parliamentary process you can have. We know full well that it is not really possible to change those regulations once they come into force. We also know that the Government are seeking to tighten those criteria in the future. They have consulted on that, although we do not know the extent to which that tightening will take place. It seems to me that very little has moved on this clause that is positive. I accept that there have been assurances around sector support, but even that was promulgated around a concept at the time when we debated this at Second Reading. From my perspective, very little has changed in practice on this clause since the Bill arrived in your Lordships’ House. I hear what noble Lords on opposite Benches have said. I am sorry that I have not been able to persuade those who have spoken, but I wish to test the opinion of the House.