Part of Planning and Infrastructure Bill - Committee (1st Day) (Continued) – in the House of Lords at 5:45 pm on 17 July 2025.
Lord Ravensdale
Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology Board
5:45,
17 July 2025
My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for that response. I will address some of the questions that noble Lords raised. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jameson, about sustainable development, but he mentioned the specific list of bodies. When we started out with this Amendment, we had a long list of bodies and agencies that would be considered within the amendment, but we were informed by the Public Bill Office that that would present hybridity concerns, which is why we limited it to the subset that noble Lords can see in the amendment today. The reason we have gone with those is that most of the issues we have had with regulation of large infrastructure have been to do with the Environment Agency and the statutory nature of conservation bodies, but we have given that power for other bodies to be prescribed in regulations by the Secretary of State.
As I said, I thank the Minister. I am very encouraged by what she said. I note that she talked about the strategic priority statements in terms of duties on regulators, but I would note the strength of a statutory duty, which I think is quite important here in pinning down the objectives of regulators. There will be a lot of benefit in doing that within statutes. I look forward to seeing that in further detail, and I would welcome further engagement with the Minister on this point between now and Report. But, for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment 46 withdrawn.
Clause 10 agreed.
Clause 11: Changes to, and revocation of, development consent orders
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As a bill passes through Parliament, MPs and peers may suggest amendments - or changes - which they believe will improve the quality of the legislation.
Many hundreds of amendments are proposed by members to major bills as they pass through committee stage, report stage and third reading in both Houses of Parliament.
In the end only a handful of amendments will be incorporated into any bill.
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