My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken in the debate, which has been a little one-sided perhaps. I thank my noble friend on the Front Bench. It is a difficult task to defend a policy that manifestly, from the body language and from what people have said, has no support from anybody present in this House. I do not hold her responsible for that. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked where the policy had come from. If he reads earlier discussions on this, he will see that I have expressed a shrewd suspicion as to the answer: some might say the uber-moderniser tendency—indeed, I think that that is self-description.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for whose support I am grateful, is quite right that people will still be able to build extensions, but, as the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Elton, said, as well as the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, in a striking speech which I hope officials will study carefully, they will simply have to negotiate with neighbours, which is part of neighbourliness and living together in a society. It seems in life that many matters depend on which end of a telescope you look in. The Government are talking about extending rights, but they are taking away, if you look in the other end of the telescope, a major right from those who are neighbours of people who want to build very large extensions. I repeat what I said: in some of the small, terraced communities which I and others represent, those extensions in some cases could be more than half the back garden if you take the curtilage of the front garden into account. This is major stuff.
One of my many eccentricities is that I used to spend a lot of time when I was young reading Livy, the Roman historian. The third decade of his books, about the wars against Hannibal, relate that, after three crushing defeats, the Roman generals, Fabius and Claudius Marcellus, although the latter was a little more vigorous, did not take on the Carthaginian field army until the Romans thought that they had the balance of forces in their favour. Despite the overwhelming opinion in the House being in favour of this position, I do not believe that something analogous is likely to happen at this moment. I want to study particularly carefully the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, about Article 4, which is critical. I reserve the right to come back to it at Third Reading, perhaps looking at Amendment 46AA. We need to clarify how local authorities opt out. It is true that the Secretary of State does not have to approve, but the Secretary of State has the power to cancel or modify an Article 4 direction at any point. That is absolutely germane to this, setting aside the other points that I made.
I do not want noble Lords to think that this will be the end of the matter. I have had some experience in the usual channels in this House. There will many opportunities to bring this matter back before your Lordships which I shall explore, including on secondary legislation. I therefore hope that the Government will listen to the mood of your Lordships’ House. What is the point of your Lordships’ House if it does not have the opportunity through its debates as well as its Divisions to express an opinion?
I hope to hear further clarification at Third Reading on how Article 4 will actually work as well as more about the consultation—11 weeks to analyse 1,000 answers
is quite a long time in my book. The leader of the council could do that, let alone some of the good people I employ. With the promise that I do not intend to go away on this matter, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.