My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for that explanation of the Government’s thinking. I feel bound to make two points. I am not going to press the matter at this late hour. I want to contrast the extremely rigid position she has adopted in respect of developments that include any element of housing—where the Government have given an absolutely categoric view that looks to me to be unduly rigid—with the extreme lack of precision which the noble Baroness has offered the House when it comes to a whole range of other projects such as open-cast mining and quarrying. These may or may not be subject to the nationally significant planning routes depending on decisions that the Government will take care of afterwards. It exemplifies the problem we have in this House of making the law. We are very much dependent on the assurances the Government give us as to what they may or may not do, which we are unable to hold them to.
That leads to me to her response on open-cast mining and quarrying where she said that this will be subject to regulations that will come forward under the affirmative procedure. The great problem in this House is that we have to take statutory instruments or leave them. We do not have the capacity to amend the regulations so the whole set of very important criteria for qualification for the nationally significant planning routes, which will be made hereafter, will be presented to the House on a take it or leave it basis. If we were making the law in a proper and satisfactory way then, after a proper process of consultation with the results firmly laid before the House, it would be in the Committee and the Report stages of the consideration of this Bill that we took the decision as to what was going to be in the definition of business and commercial projects within the Planning Act 2008 regime.
However, I am well aware that I am whistling in the wind at the moment. I am not going to be able to change the whole legislative process at one minute to 10 this evening but I feel bound at least to make that point because one day, I hope, we will turn ourselves into a properly efficient and satisfactory legislature. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.