Lord Bruce of Bennachie
Main Page: Lord Bruce of Bennachie (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Bruce of Bennachie's debates with the Wales Office
(8 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the Bill, having only joined the House since then. On the basis of what was said by my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace and the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, like the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, I represented an area which had an awful lot of applications, but we found that the big developers got in very quickly and were able to process their applications, whereas the small community proposals took a lot longer and found it more difficult, so they were later in the field. They have been caught by this. Does the Minister not recognise that the Government could find themselves in a situation where they are seen to have gone against communities in favour of big business? That just compounds the difficulty and the ideological divide that the Government are pursuing.
The noble Lord is wrong on the issue because, with the grace period and with the investment-freeze conditions, we have allowed for movement on these issues. I take the point that he is making but I do not agree with it.
I am just double-checking, but I hope that I have now done full justice to the comments that have been made.