My Lords, my name is added to a number of these amendments, and I will not repeat everything that has already been said, most especially by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and my noble friend Lord Marks. However, I cannot let this debate pass without making three comments about the unusual speech made by my noble friend Lord Horam.
First, his speech was inaccurate. He blamed judicial review for delays in infrastructure development and for making infrastructure development more expensive. Had my noble friend taken the trouble to read the successful judicial reviews of infrastructure development, he would have found that in 95% of the cases—and I may be underestimating that—the judicial review was granted because of the incompetence and sloppiness of officialdom ranging from government departments through to local authorities and other statutory organisations. The answer to that is for those public authorities to prepare their cases properly, to make their planning applications in due form and for Ministers, in appropriate cases, to call in major planning issues so that they can be decided more quickly.
Secondly, my noble friend’s speech was unusually statist. In his career he has, in a very distinguished way, exercised his principles repeatedly, having been a member of three political parties. As I understand it, he left his first party—the old Labour Party—because he regarded it as too statist, yet nothing could sound more statist than what he said just a few minutes ago. I am personally in favour of HS2, fracking and the Severn barrage.