Clause 5
Planning Bill
9:15 am
John Healey (Minister of State (Local Government), Department for Communities and Local Government; Wentworth, Labour)
We can dwell on that at length when we discuss clause 11. However, if the hon. Gentleman checks the record, he will see that I was trying to exemplify the points made by the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon. I said that it is possible that a Secretary of State for Transport might take the view that fresh consultation is necessary to comply with the standards for a national policy statement in the Bill.
The hon. Gentleman is right that there is provision for Secretaries of State to consider consultation that has already taken place on the content of a policy statement in coming to their judgments. That is reasonable. It will also be up to the House and ultimately the courts to consider that. The case that I used to exemplify the point was the aviation White Paper. I was quite careful about how I described the hypothetical situation of the aviation White Paper being considered as a potential national policy statement.