Planning Bill
1:30 pm
Jacqui Lait (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Beckenham, Conservative)
We are indeed, because most of the time we are trying to find out what the Minister means and what the thinking is. For instance, I would suggest that when a national policy statement is site-specific, that is in effect tantamount to giving planning permission. There are consequences that flow from that. I am trying to get the Minister to be forthcoming on whether he thinks it is correct that a national policy statement will, in effect, give planning permission for various developments, or whether a better way forward would be to lay out the terms and conditions for such developments and allow the contractors to come forward with their own site-specific proposals.
Most of the contractors are in the private sector, even though it is regulated. Highways, of course, are not. I suggest that it is entirely up to them to know where they want to develop. There could well be arguments about where a new port should go.