My Lords, I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who said that our planet faces an existential crisis. We must ensure that we take every opportunity to deliver policies and practices that will enable us to tackle the climate change emergency. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, was right to say that the beauty of Amendment 191 is that it deals with national policy—it could and should be in the national development management policies, but we do not know whether it will be yet—and, equally, is important for local plan-making and local planning decisions. So the amendment deserves and will get our wholehearted support.
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If the Government are minded to accept the amendment, as I hope they are, they will be pushing at an open door as regards local authorities, many of which have passed climate change emergency motions. My own council is currently beginning a review of its local plan; one reason it is important to do so is that it has passed a climate change emergency motion. The policy of the council is now to deal with the climate change emergency in every way it can, including through planning policies. The review of the council’s planning processes in my authority should lead to a wide-ranging change to address climate change mitigation and adaptation as regards planning policies and processes. My council will not be alone; many councils have similar climate change emergency declarations. The local is ahead of the central in support for climate change policy.
This amendment is utterly important. If we are determined and want to be seen to be determined to address the climate change emergency in every possible way, this is such a way. If adopted, it will mean that houses will have to be built already adapted to climate change, instead of post hoc, which is much more expensive. There are many ways in which that could happen.
Amendment 246A in this group, which deals with wildfires, is very important. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, made his points very well. He is absolutely right to bring it forward at this stage.
It would be great if the Minister could just stand up and say, “This is a really good amendment; we will accept it and put it in as part of our planning policies”. However, if the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, wants to push it to a vote, we will give it our support.