I should like to say, not on the basis of prejudice but on the basis of my practical experience as a magistrate over many years and as chair of a city's planning committee, that my natural instinct is to let the magistrates get on with things and keep the planning inspectorate out of them. I can assure the hon. Lady that the Clause has been scrutinised from that standpoint.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mr. Simmonds) asked a specific question, which perhaps I can answer. We believe that there are likely to be more appeals in the future, but still not many. This is a backstop provision, as I will explain in my response. It is sensible for the backstop provision to be the same for appeals against a decision by the Environment Agency as by a local authority. A degree of consistency is introduced to the arrangements.

At the moment, provision is for appeals to go either to the magistrates or to the Secretary of State, depending on which regulator serves the notice—the Environment Agency to the Secretary of State, the local authority to the magistrates. What we are proposing is that the cases all go to the Secretary of State, which is more appropriate given their complex legal and technical nature. That should allow for consistency in decision making. The rarity of the cases makes it more appropriate for the Secretary of State and, normally, an inspector to deal with these issues.

As a general point, where there is a remediation notice, the owners of land are often keen quickly to deal with the remediation so that there is no blight on the land and they can get on with whatever development they envisaged. Again, therefore, the appeal process will not be needed in many circumstances, but, for a small minority, needs to be there.

The hon. Member for Vale of York asked about the National Assembly for Wales. The National Assembly is able to draw on the same pool of expertise that is available to the Secretary of State in dealing with appeals across England and Wales. That expertise crosses a variety of recent legislation.

The clause removes the inconsistency of having two avenues of appeal, for remediation notices under part 2A, where they are served by the local authority or by the Environment Agency.

Appeals are so unusual and technical that magistrates would simply not build up a sufficient body of expertise. From my own experience, magistrates quickly develop an expertise, for instance in road traffic offences. In some circumstances, magistrates get specific training to deal with, say, children's issues, young offenders or licensing issues. When appeals are such a rarity, there is frankly nobody on the bench who is going to have the expertise to deal with the issues consistently. I think that the case, against my normal instincts, has been made.

As I indicated, there has only been one remediation notice appeal to the courts and none to the Secretary of State. As authorities progressively identify sites needing action—the emphasis on the use of brownfield sites may assist the process—there may be more appeals. However, they are still likely to be infrequent. Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 is designed to encourage remediation through agreement and negotiation—a strong point in its favour—without needing formally to enforce action. Of 70 cases of contaminated land identified up to October 2004, only three required a remediation notice; 25 instead resulted in a remediation statement setting out the agreed approach.