I am most grateful to all noble Lords who participated in this rather important debate. From my point of view, in considering whether strategic policies should be distinguished from non-strategic policies in plan-making, I asked my noble friend a question and I got a reply. It is an interesting reply because by simply asserting that the local plan must include, in effect, all policies, my noble friend is saying that that is clearer than the present structure which distinguishes between strategic policies and non-strategic policies.
Noble Lords may say that we are all dancing on the head of a pin—I do not think so. The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, made an extremely good point: identifying strategic priorities in a local planning authority’s local plan is a key component of creating spatial development strategies in a broader area. That would be extremely helpful.
None the less, what my noble friend has told me is going to be an interesting conclusion for people to draw. We are now told that the consultation draft of the National Planning Policy Framework, which was published on 22 December following the passage of this Bill in the other place, did not take account of what is in the Bill. This is rather interesting. It means that if we change the Bill, we can change the NPPF—which, from the point of view of my noble friend’s and other amendments, is a very helpful thought that we might take up. I do not think that the revisions that will follow to the NPPF will be as wide ranging as my noble friend implied, because that would mean that they would do away with much of what is written presently into the chapter on plan-making.
Noon
In the cycling and walking debate on Amendment 199, it might be helpful for my noble friend Lord Young to recognise that the latter part of the NPPF relating to how development proposals are to be considered, and how walking, cycling and active travel are to be incorporated, will no doubt form part of the new national development management policies. Therefore, how it is written will require local plans and the determination of planning applications to accord with how that is written, so the language of the NPPF, if it turns into NDMPs, is terribly important. They were right to focus on that point.
When they come to write the NPPF, which clearly will now have to be substantially rewritten, I hope that my noble friend and the Front Bench will pick up the point about economic growth and put it into the terms
that, I think we are more or less agreed, are required. My noble friend responded to the questions that I asked on Amendment 193, so on that basis I beg leave to withdraw it.