Water Bill
Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord Cameron of Dillington(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Whitty
My Lords, I will try not to repeat too much of what was covered in the earlier amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, but there is obviously some overlap.
Of all the exclusions from Flood Re, that of leasehold and tenanted residential properties was, certainly out there, the most unexpected and, on the face of it, the least logical and most inequitable. As the argument about it has gone on, it has also become the most complex and confusing. Leasehold and tenanted buildings in a flood-prone area are faced with exactly the same risks as the freehold properties next door. That is where we start from. The families and individuals who live in these properties face exactly the same problems. These are residential properties; generally, no business is conducted from them. They are people’s homes. Yet the Flood Re project, which was the product of bilateral negotiations between the Government and ABI without any direct engagement with landlords, leaseholders or tenants, now appears to regard these properties and that risk as being different in kind to that of the freehold buildings in the same street. The rationale for that is that letting a property—whether long or short-term—is regarded as a business. The risk must be the same and the families will not be very different, yet they are treated entirely differently.
Since the original proposition for Flood Re, its terms have been, shall we say, “elaborated”—that is, amended in some respects or, to put it more bluntly, confused. For example, the ABI made it clear—this is a clarification, in a sense, but it confuses the issue—that contents insurance paid for by tenants and leaseholders would be part of the scheme and included in Flood Re, but obviously not the landlord’s buildings insurance paid for by the landlord. That makes the arithmetic a bit more complicated. Clearly, the £10.50 levy on other households—they presumably pay the full buildings and contents insurance—does not apply to that group. That leaves a lot of grey areas. For example, one of the most serious problems for leaseholders and tenants will often be that the flood damage has caused depredation to the fittings and furniture, some of which—in the case of fittings, most of which—will be covered by the buildings insurance of the landlord. Of course, landlords have contents insurance so it is not necessarily the same position as that apparent distinction creates. The effect is that the whole situation is more blurred and complicated.
The Government have also complicated the system. Just recently, they apparently conceded that properties of three or fewer leases are in the scheme, provided that the freeholder lives on the premises. Anything more than three, or where the freeholder happens to live down the road, is outside the scheme. There is also a rumour, though it does not seem to be substantiated, that the ABI and Government were also looking at the possibility of distinguishing between small landowners or single-property landlords and large, commercial operations. Where does that all leave us?
Let us take a typical street in a low-lying riverside area of a market town. For the purposes of making us all at home and in deference to the Minister’s patience in dealing with all the complications of the Bill, let us call it De Mauley Street. In De Mauley Street, No. 2 is a family house with three generations living there from two to 80. No. 4 looks and is very similar but is divided into four flats, one of which is occupied by the landlord at least occasionally. No. 6 is a house divided into four leasehold flats that have jointly bought the freehold and administer it as a leaseholder-owned company. No. 8 is, let us say, owned by a school teacher resident in London who bought the premises for her retirement and is letting it out as four student flats. No. 10 is a four-flat block owned by a commercial leasing company with four leaseholders. I am tempted to add a No. 12 that is a mixed property, but that would complicate it too far.
Under the original proposition, No. 2—the family home—is covered but nobody else. Under the ABI concession on contents insurance, No. 2 is covered and all the rest are, but for leaseholder-paid contents insurance only; everything else is not covered. Under the Government three-leases concession, Nos. 2 and 4 are clearly covered, provided you can prove that the landlord actually lives at No. 4, but only the tenant-owned contents in No. 8 is covered. As I understand it, No. 6 would also be covered because the leaseholders jointly own the freehold and therefore one of them lives on the premises. In Nos. 8 and 10, only the tenants’ contents insurance will be covered. We are already in a very confused position.
If there were a cut-off defined by size of landlord, nos. 2, 4, 6 and 8 would be covered but not No. 10. If there happened to be a social landlord in the same street—there would probably not be in De Mauley Street—nobody would be covered because social landlords are not. Incidentally, I am not sure because we have not touched on it what the position is on mixed blocks. With the right to buy, some of the social landlord’s property may well be owned by private leaseholders, who presumably ought to be covered and may well assume that they are—but are not. We have a bit of a pig’s ear of a situation here. None of it is very logical. The properties are pretty much identical, the risk is the same and they thought they were all included under the pre-existing arrangement of the statement of principles.
The long-term implications of this are particularly severe. Particularly with small landlords and their tenants, if they cannot get insurance then they cannot get a mortgage or raise money for improvements. Hence the buildings deteriorate. The only way they could raise money would be to raise rents or the service charge, so tenants and leaseholders suffer directly. The area starts going downhill because the buildings appear more dilapidated and more obviously at risk. The tenant and leaseholder experience suffers, the landlords suffer and the number of new landlords prepared to invest and buy property diminishes in those areas. This is not a situation that the Government find easy to defend, but I think even the insurance industry is beginning to find some difficulty in defending it.
Having said that, as I said earlier in the previous debate, we recognise that the actuarial calculations for Flood Re are delicate and depend on various assumptions. I do not intend to unravel those calculations at this point by this amendment, but it is important that Parliament understands the position so this is a relatively modest amendment. It does not require Flood Re, the Government or the ABI to do anything directly. However, because the scheme has to have statutory backing and because to give that statutory backing Parliament needs to be convinced that it is logical, equitable and proportionate, Parliament needs to understand the consequences of including or excluding different combinations of property.
The amendment therefore seeks to find that out. It does not seek to delay the process—well, not by much. However, it proposes that before we finalise the statutory instrument on this—and it will need a final statutory instrument—the Government report back to Parliament on: the number of leasehold and tenanted properties included; the number excluded; the number where the landlord is in business in a large way; the number where a landlord is in business only in a very small way—probably with a single property; and the cost that would arise from including each of those categories in the Flood Re proposition. I am leaving the dividing line between large and small largely up to the Government, but we need to have a clear one.
The information that that report would show to Parliament would mean that we, and interested parties, could have a meaningful discussion before the consultation started—or within the consultation—on the statutory instrument, which I am assuming, because this is supposed to start in 2015, would have to be within a very few months. Without that information, we in Parliament are in danger of giving the go-ahead to what appears to every rational observer to be a seriously inequitable, complicated and illogical scheme, which we are about to back by legislation. I do not need to tell Ministers that that situation is probably judicially reviewable.
This amendment therefore asks the Government to give us the facts before we finally go down the road. In a way, it is not delaying this legislation going through, but it would allow us to face up to the facts before the final statutory instrument is carried. At the moment, frankly, we do not have those facts. The Minister referred to fanciful figures. A number of very reputable insurance companies and others have bandied about a number of different figures. I do not know the total number that fall into each of these categories nor, I suspect, does the Minister or the ABI. However, we need to know—at least approximately—and we need to know the cost consequences for them, for the scheme and for those in the rest of society who are subsidising this scheme what the effect would be. Therefore, we do need that information. This amendment would allow the Government, without holding everything up, to get that information and to report back to Parliament. In my view it is pretty obvious that Parliament needs to know. I beg to move.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, this is a very mild amendment to which I certainly would have added my name if I had become aware of it in time. There is no doubt that the exclusion of the leasehold and rental sector is the worst lacuna of the current Flood Re scheme. I understand the original political thought process—that professional landlords should not be helped to overcome their flood insurance problems by those who live in band A properties, for example. Of course, that political thought process is a fairly simplistic and stereotypical understanding of the average landlord. This is an important fact: 78% of all landlords own a single dwelling for rent.
As noble Lords know, there are many professions where a dwelling goes with the job. In my part of the world, farm work is the most common example. Many farm workers and tenant farmers buy a house to retire to, and, of course, they let it while they are still working, largely to help with the mortgage. It is perfectly sensible retirement planning and the Government should encourage it. Furthermore, perhaps it is a typical English aspiration, but many people currently living and working in cities have a dream of buying a house in the country and retiring there—similar to the farm workers who I have just mentioned—and they will let it in order to help pay the mortgage on it.
This Bill does not recognise these dreams of ordinary—well, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, mentioned schoolteachers, but it could have been anyone really: secretaries, nurses, anybody. It does not, to borrow a phrase from Yeats, tread softly on their dreams. They are excluded from this scheme. Surely these are the people for whom this scheme should be designed—people whose mortgage companies will insist on full insurance, including flood insurance. But what about those who cannot afford a house, in the country or elsewhere, and buy a flat? I cannot think of a more appropriate person to benefit from this scheme. However, along with 60% of the other households, they will almost certainly be excluded from this scheme while at the same time contributing to it.
I will not give the rest of the speech on leaseholders and flat owners because that has already been very well covered by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. However, it seems strange to exclude householders whose only error has been to choose to live in a flat rather than a full-blown house. It seems unjust to me. A much more sensible cut-off point for the application of Flood Re would have been owners of, say, two, three or four let properties. However, all that apart, this amendment will at least ensure that we have a full understanding of the sort of owners, leaseholders and tenants whose property is being excluded and what they could have contributed to the scheme if they had been included. As I say, I think that this is a very mild amendment, merely touching on a problem that is a major shortcoming in the Bill. I hope that the Minister will look kindly on it.
Water Bill
Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord Cameron of Dillington(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Whitty
My Lords, some of the issues covered by Amendment 9 have been discussed in the previous group. I do not entirely disagree with the Minister’s response on common carriage, in terms of how water gets delivered and having as broad a range of potential new retailers as possible. However, the outcome seems to be that if you have de-averaged prices, you have discrimination between users. Whether all the structural amendments—some in this group and some in the previous group with the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne—would be necessary to prevent that, the Bill ought to enunciate that principle. At the end of the day, we do not want a market where the easiest route leads to suppliers cherry picking and to a two- or three-tier market for the final delivery of water to businesses, public authorities and so forth—the non-domestic retail market.
In one sense, Scotland shows us what the benefit to business, and the knock-on effect to the domestic side, has been. It has been not in differentiated prices but in better service, in driving water efficiency both in the delivery and use of water, in better means of dealing with waste water, in better water treatment in specialist cases and in disposal of water and waste. If you put competition wholly on the price side, you will not get those advantages. It will be easy for a supplier, on the supply side, to have a more accessible or more cheaply accessible source of water at the upstream level to bring to its business consumers or, on the demand side, to have a group of businesses and other institutions taking advantage of its terms because they are all fairly close together and all have similar requirements, and therefore there are economies of scale in actually supplying that institution.
I do not think that the Government envisaged—and nor did we on this side—the increasing competition in the retail sector as being primarily about wholesale price. Reassuring noises have been made about Ofwat having the ability to ensure that de-averaging does not take place. The natural drive of the market, however, is likely to make it quite attractive. Unless Ofwat has a clear line, which this amendment would give them, that the wholesale price and therefore the retail price of wholesale water would not be differentiated by location, we will get some differentiation of outcome. We will get cherry picking and we will get distortion. It will hit particularly the more remote rural areas and rural businesses in those areas; it will hit particularly businesses in rundown parts of the inner city, where not many of them are inclined to negotiate deals with the company; and it will hit businesses where it is difficult to see how a new arrangement would work.
Unless there is an overall presumption that there should be no de-averaging then it is quite easy to see how the market would end up with that. It may be that Ofwat’s powers would be exerted to prevent that, but this Bill does not require Ofwat to do so. The terminology that de-averaging would exist only if there was an “overall benefit” to consumers makes it quite difficult to assess. You have an example of de-averaging which clearly might benefit the immediate consumers who are benefiting from that de-averaged price, but how do you then assess its effect in the short and medium term on consumers as a whole? It is quite a difficult judgment for Ofwat. If the outcome the Government want is that which has been delivered in other quasi-utility markets—largely it has been—why not actually tell Ofwat to deliver that? Surely it would be easier.
I hope that the Government take this slightly more seriously. It will not necessarily unravel their whole approach to competition in this Bill. It is simply giving Ofwat an explicit duty that will deliver an outcome the Government say they want. The Government should not fundamentally object to this amendment. It may require a bit of back-up along the lines the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, has suggested already, but it requires at least the principle to be reflected in the Bill. Otherwise, we will get cherry picking and we will get discrimination, which is unlikely to drive the kind of efficiencies that we have been praising the Scottish system for delivering. I beg to move.
Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)
My Lords, as this is the first time I have intervened in Committee, I declare an interest as a farmer with abstraction licences. Even though I come from Somerset, my farmland is not yet flooded. However, if the current rains continue, it is unlikely that I will be able to say that on Report.
I want to back up the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who said that she could not understand why we had only a week between Second Reading and Committee. This is a very complicated Bill and I am not certain why that particular protocol has been broken on this occasion. I have never had an explanation of it. Maybe I have missed some explanation somewhere, but I think it is wrong. I hope it is not a precursor to a Commons-style approach to Bills, where arguments and the length of discussion are ridden over roughshod.
I strongly support Amendment 9 and the whole question it addresses. It is very important that de-averaging does not take place. I would have supported the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, in his amendments to ensure there are no detriments or de-averaging if I had understood that that was their intention. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said that he was not entirely clear what the amendments intended; personally, I could not understand them at all. Anyway, I would have supported the noble Earl had I known.
Water, like Royal Mail, should be covered by a universal service obligation that is amendable only with the permission of Parliament. Water should be a universal right—although clearly there can be exceptions, as with Royal Mail. For instance, I believe that a postman does not have to deliver to a household where he is permanently attacked by a savage dog. The water equivalent of that might be a blatant leak in a householder’s garden where the water was going to waste; there could be exceptions.
It is very important, particularly in rural areas, that de-averaging does not happen. I have heard the view expressed that de-averaging is bound to happen with the introduction of competition, especially if that competition eventually moves on to cover domestic premises. I personally hope that it will but obviously we should go softly, softly. I do not see competition as incompatible with de-averaging. It is possible to invest efficiently in the overall infrastructure and still charge your customers competitively, based on an average cost per litre, once the overall infrastructure is in place and the supply of water adequate for the demand. That obviously means we must manage the supply, the overall abstraction and the demand—preferably through universal metering but we have yet to come to those debates.
For the time being, I strongly support the thinking behind Amendment 9. Neither remote nor very remote properties should have to pay more per litre than their urban counterparts. I sincerely hope that the Minister was right, when replying to the previous debate, to say that Ofwat has the power to prevent de-averaging. I sincerely hope that it will use those powers.
Energy Bill
Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord Cameron of Dillington
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I support the amendment. I, too, served on Sub-Committee D and this was a major part of the message in our report No Country is an Energy Island—a very apt name.
The joy of a pan-European grid—or even an intercontinental grid, because the geothermal springs of Iceland could bring electricity down to the industrial heartlands of the UK—and interconnection would be to allow intermittent renewables to complement each other. When it is not windy in Germany, for instance, it might be sunny in Italy; when it is windy in Portugal in the middle of the night, that power can go to Poland where they are just waking up, and so on. Such interconnection could bring a whole new justification to the renewables yet to be built. Intermittency could become an issue of the past and our energy security would be greatly enhanced.
Furthermore, if this interconnection were to grow, it would not only help to keep the lights on but should ensure that we could get the cheapest and most economic electricity available for both domestic and industrial uses. It is obviously going to cost a lot of money and will take a lot of planning. There are many regulatory and political obstacles to be overcome, not least the public acceptance of more pylons. However, as with everything else in the electricity industry, we must start planning now—that is where I am at odds with the noble Earl, Lord Caithness—in order to get these long-term gains. That is why I strongly support the amendment.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I register our support on these Benches for the amendment, although the Minister will already have detected that this is a big conspiracy by Sub-Committee D to get its report discussed again at this late stage. I was party to that. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has said, there is enormous possibility here.
I will make only two points. First, as long as there is a sniffy attitude towards interconnectors in any of the European energy markets, we are all going to be operating at higher cost than we need, with greater misery for consumers and, eventually, higher cost to the taxpayer. Secondly, this matter is not separate from the rest of the Bill. When asked earlier in the proceedings where their CFDs could apply in relation to supply from French nuclear power stations or Irish wind farms, the Minister said that in certain circumstances they probably could. That is important. It is not tomorrow’s solution, but it could be quite important as long as they were connected with projects here. The same question arises with the capacity market. This is potentially a hugely important way in which we maximise our capacity, and therefore the report to which the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, refers is important. Whether the Government want to put it in the Bill or not, they really ought to be looking at the strategy for interconnectors as an integral part of overall energy policy.
Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord Cameron of Dillington
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I first declare my interest as a farmer. I put my name to the amendment because it is important that we remain as flexible and light on our feet as possible in changing circumstances in this area. The effectiveness of the groceries code adjudicator is dependent on the effectiveness of the code. Both are equally important. It is surprising that while the adjudicator and his role are continually under review in Clauses 15 and 16, the review of the code is not given such emphasis.
Clause 13 in its simplicity is not sufficient. It sets out what the adjudicator could do but does not give me any confidence that anything will happen. It is important that as the adjudicator gains more experience, and as all the players inevitably try to push the rules to the limit, we should be able to review their roles and the rules involved. Circumstances change. The rules of rugby change from year to year and from time to time. The rules of Parliament relating to MPs’ and Peers’ expenses change. There are always new problems to be dealt with and overcome. We need to ensure that we can overcome the shortcomings in a structural way—hence subsection (2) of the proposed new clause.
The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, mentioned the problems of the dairy industry. I do not know whether any review of the dairy code in the light of these recent developments would necessitate change, but the matter would certainly be worth looking at. It is vital that the groceries supply code of practice is not set in concrete. The amendment represents the necessary Kango hammer to free it.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, my Amendment 31 is in this group. I apologise to the Minister and the House that I was only a passive presence at Second Reading, and even more passive in Committee, despite my long-standing interest in the subject. I wish the Bill well and I am glad that the Government brought it forward.
I will resist the temptation to give my Second Reading speech now. I will say two things. First, as my noble friend Lord Grantchester said, it is 10 years since I started grappling with this issue and urging the noble Baroness’s predecessors, the competition authorities, to take this seriously. We have had the code since then and this begins to give it serious teeth.
Since I left office as a Minister I have also been a consumer champion. Occasionally I was leant on to say that it was not in the interests of consumers to have a go at the supermarkets by means of the groceries code. Supermarkets have made a very impressive contribution to consumer benefit, in terms of choice, price and convenience. However, it is not in the interests of consumers, even in the medium term, for part of the supply chain to be wiped out, or for supply at the retail end to be restricted in terms of competition if that is done by a large-scale operator. Consumers have benefited from supermarket activity, but they would not benefit from the supermarkets overstretching their ability to control the market.
It is also true, in defence of supermarkets, that it is not only they who could abuse their power in the supply chain and engage in the kind of activity that they are accused of, and which my noble friend and others referred to earlier in our debates on the Bill. As we know with the current situation of milk production, there is a question mark over the behaviour not only of supermarkets but also of large milk processors. My amendment does not seek immediately to broaden the scope of the code but it suggests that, were Amendments 2 and 26 adopted—in other words, were there to be a review—it may well be that it is not just the large retailers that should be included within the code’s provisions. In those circumstances the Minister would not have to wait another 10 years for primary legislation to extend the code and the adjudicator’s powers but, in the light of the reviews required by the other two amendments in this group, would be able by order to extend the provisions of the code to other large operators within the supply chain. That would be beneficial to the small suppliers; it would also give some clarity and restraint to those who were tempted to overuse their monopsonistic or oligopsonistic powers within the food chain. It would be an improvement to this Bill if the possibility of so doing were included in the primary legislation at this stage, rather than have to come back to it in a few years’ time.
Localism Bill
Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord Cameron of Dillington
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I speak to my Amendment 147M. At Second Reading, I expressed my concerns about the proposed duty to co-operate as a replacement for regional strategies. As I then said, I am not particularly enamoured with the whole idea of regions. Particularly in the south-west, where I come from, the region was far too large to be of any real relevance to people on the ground and their lives.
As I am sure we all recognise, we need some form of supralocal planning framework to deal with a whole range of issues for which it cannot and should not be left to each and every local planning authority to come up with the answer all on their own. These issues include areas such as flood defence, where water management in the upstream can impact on flooding and water quality in downstream communities. Equally, unless cross-boundary issues are addressed, pure localism could lead to fragmentation of landscapes and ecosystems. The recent national environment White Paper introduced the concept of nature improvement areas, ecological networks and local nature partnerships to rival or possibly complement local enterprise partnerships. All of these are likely to be transboundary concepts in their application.
Some form of supralocal planning is also needed for a strategic approach to renewable energy. While it is important that all local authorities work towards their own solutions for producing 15 or even 20 per cent of their energy requirements from renewable resources—many of which can be built as small, local ventures—each local authority will have different constraints and opportunities for taking different routes towards whatever technology is most suitable for their area. It will be important for everyone to see the bigger picture.
Supralocal planning will be about more than just the larger sub-regional infrastructure projects; more than just where to site bad-neighbour developments such as waste disposal facilities or even large housing developments. I am not so worried about local authorities co-operating—they always have co-operated and they always will. I do not see any real need for compulsion or threats. What they need, in my view, is a framework which sets out what they need to co-operate on—as I have already explained, this is probably wider than many councillors might assume. They need a framework that sets out who should be involved and most importantly, who should lead; the outputs and outcomes; and furthermore, having co-operated, how the results should be incorporated into local plans and local transport plans and the application of the community infrastructure levy. In that context I refer to my twin amendment on this subject under the CIL clauses, Amendment 148ZZBA, to which I speak in my current remarks.
These amendments require unitary or upper-tier authorities to prepare strategic infrastructure assessments in consultation with planning authorities and other strategic infrastructure providers, including local enterprise partnerships and local nature partnerships. I believe we need to specify these assessments as a necessary result of the duty to co-operate. It is only in this way that the duty would have a clear output that would harness the expertise and capacity of unitary and upper-tier authorities in matching investment with growth and provide a consistent framework to inform sub-regional and local plans.
I want to pause for a minute on the words “consistent framework” because I believe they are vital for any country that wishes to remain progressive. I spoke at Second Reading on the dangers of uncertainty within the planning system as a result of this Bill for everyone from businesses, through service providers to environmentalists. They all need some form of consistent framework within which to work, plan and to risk their money through investment. We cannot expect businessmen to invest and house builders to build or, for that matter, environmentalists and landscape aficionados to protect what matters if they are all working in a fog of uncertainty. If each development case has to start from scratch, only delays and increased frustration will result. I believe my amendments give clarity as to where the leadership should lie, so efforts can focus immediately on getting on with the work of strategic planning rather than risking delays because no prime mover is identified in the legislation. Obviously, it is platitudinous to say that delays are the enemy of progress but I do not believe that we can afford delays in the current economic climate. Rather, we need a coherent sense of purpose with a simple reference document as a guide for local plans and new neighbourhood plans. I believe my amendments achieve that.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, scattered among this vast group of amendments are four amendments of mine. The Committee will be relieved that I do not need to speak for very long on them since one of them, Amendment 147R on the marine planning side, has already been spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and I endorse everything he said. The other three relate to the area to which the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, has just spoken. Amendments 148G, 148J and 148K try to sharpen up the requirement to co-operate. Much like the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, I have particular issues in mind where clearly a development, as distinct from a very high-level strategic approach, will be of interest to more than one local authority and may well be of interest to local and national authorities. I declare an interest, for example, in relation to climate change adaptation as I am a member of the Environment Agency Board. Clearly, flood arrangements need to apply to the whole catchment area, wherever the political boundaries may fall, and there may be an involvement in that of national bodies such as the Environment Agency or Natural England. On climate change mitigation, major renewable energy projects may well involve more than one authority, either because of the location of the plant itself and its connections, whether it is a wind turbine or a biogas plant or whatever, or because there are visual effects thereof which impinge on other local authority areas.
I would hope that the requirement for local authorities to co-operate will be pinned down a little more than is currently the case. My proposals to amend the new section proposed in Clause 95 would give a general subsection (1) duty to co-operate, and a clearer purpose to that, making a specific reference to sustainable development. They would also ensure that the requirement in proposed new subsection (6) to consider a “joint approach”, very much along the lines of the joint framework to which the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, referred, and “joint local development documents”, became a compulsory requirement.
I know that some local authorities are not particularly keen on those provisions being in that form in the Bill and say that they will co-operate the whole time. Regrettably, that has not always been the case in relation to flood defence provisions or to renewable energy projects, when different local authorities may have reached different conclusions coming from different angles. So it is important that the Bill itself puts a requirement so that, as far as possible—and this is mildly framed—they reach a consistent and compatible approach to these matters. This needs to be seen in the wider context of sustainable development, which the Committee debated the other night, when I was unfortunately not able to be here. If we tighten this up a little bit, there will be an extra nudge to local authorities to co-operate and take a more coherent and sensible approach to planning and projects within their areas. I therefore commend these amendments and hope that the Government can at least take the spirit of them on board.