My Lords, I have a little concern with the amendment—not with the thrust of where it is trying to go, but the way it is worded and the implications of proposed new subsection (2), which says:
“Local planning authorities must provide any necessary advice on national and local infrastructure projects as requested by neighbourhood plan makers”.
That seems to me to be a little top-down. If they have information, it should be automatically given to those making the neighbourhood plan. To paraphrase the words of a former American Defense Minister, sometimes there are the known knowns, and sometimes unknown knowns. I am sure this is not the intention of the amendment, but it needs to be a bit stronger in terms of automatically giving the right to the neighbourhood plan makers rather than them having to ask for it. I hope that those who tabled the amendment will reflect on that.