Land Use Framework

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

I pay tribute to the noble Lord and to the other members of his committee for their excellent report. He rightly points out that this is an iterative process; we are not going to do it just once to put it into a file where it will sit for ever as a rigid structure. I do not yet have the exact details as to how this process will be updated. I very much hope that this will form part of the final report when it comes from the Secretary of State shortly.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, the delay in the publication of the strategy is disappointing. Previously, the Minister has assured us that we would be seeing it “shortly”. It is interesting that “shortly” has now become “before the Summer Recess”. I thought I would look up the definition of “shortly” in the Cambridge dictionary; it is “soon”. The example given is:

“We will shortly be arriving in King’s Cross Station”.


Does the Minister agree that it is a jolly good job that he is not in charge of our railway services? Can he guarantee that we will see the strategy before the Summer Recess, or will we be seeing the use of “shortly” shortly?

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

As a frequent user of the train service between here and Edinburgh, I appreciate that “shortly” can mean lots of different things. When the Secretary of State took up his position at the beginning of December, he wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, saying that that was a really important subject. It is crucial that the Secretary of State is completely happy with a report that will go out in his name. It is right that he takes the time to reflect on the report that was being formulated at the time, put his own stamp on it and make sure that he is entirely comfortable with it when it comes out, before the Summer Recess.