My Lords, I have been listening to this debate with interest. Obviously, it relates to environmental standards, but is also about the way in which the legislation that deals with environmental standards is cast. I am sure we are all agreed that some of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, described could be substantially mitigated, to the benefit of everybody.
Having said that, what we see with the two amendments we are considering is the introduction of legal certainty into the legislation. That, it seems to me, is actually quite important because, as has been described on previous days in Committee, the underlying rationale behind the kind of approach being adopted by the Government is what I might describe as the operation of a compensatory principle. This, it seems to me, is a very attractive notion. But how is it going to work? In particular, as has been debated previously, what is the currency you use to determine whether or not something is compensation? It has to be equivalent, it seems to me. That is the basic meaning of the word in the English language.
Then there has been discussion about “Well, it’ll be done on the whim of a civil servant or a Minister”. But I do not think this is going to be the end of the story—this is what my concern is—because any change that comes about will produce winners and losers. Wherever there are winners and losers, not least in this area of policy, the law gets dragged in. I can see that the whole scheme on which this particular approach has been adopted is going to lead to an absolute abundance of applications for judicial review, because any change
that is made on the basis of this compensatory principle is going to have a winner and a loser, and is going to be the hinge on which the legislation depends. I would be very interested to know the views of the Front Bench on this, because I can see that what sounds superficially like a siren song of easy administration may well end up providing an absolute bonanza for lawyers. I suppose that, as one myself, I should declare an interest.