Planning-gain Supplement (Preparations) Bill
10:30 am
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North, Labour)
I, too, welcome your chairmanship of the Committee on this important paving Bill, Mr. Hood. I do not want to delay proceedings, but it seems pertinent to take my mind back to the first Committee on which I sat as a newly elected Member of Parliament, just under 20 years ago, when we discussed the water privatisation paving Bill. That was before the time of programme motions, and we spent countless weeks discussing a paving measure. The important point is that we now have a new procedure; the hon. Member for Rayleigh spoke about the arrangements that relate to it.
Whether or not the Committee qualifies for the benefit of calling witnesses, while taking feedback to the relevant authorities, Mr. Hood, could you ask how the use of witnesses in Public Bill Committees will sit alongside the work of Select Committees? Select Committees, including the Environmental Audit Committee, of which I am a member, look in great detail at particular issues, including planning gain supplements. Can the recommendations of Select Committees and the Government’s responses to their reports be incorporated in some way into the new procedures for Public Bill Committees?