Speeches by Holmes.

“I will try not to take that personally. The Minister should be grateful for what he has got. If he wanted a shadow Energy Minister on the Committee, he could have made that known through the usual channels.”

“Amendment 83 was tabled by the shadow Scottish Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). We welcome clause 22, which empowers the Secretary of State to establish a financial benefit scheme for people living near new or upgraded electricity transmission infrastructure. It…”

“Good morning, Mrs Hobhouse. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship and to see you again. I welcome both Ministers to their places. As soon as you said that we can start removing layers, Mrs Hobhouse, my button suddenly popped off. I apologise, and I guarantee that I will not remove any more layers, for fear …”

“I would say to the Minister that significance is in the eye of the beholder, but may I bring him back to something that he said? I do not want to do him a disservice, but I believe he said that planning officers’ decisions, rather than local committee decisions, would not change under a national scheme of delegation; t…”

“The hon. Gentleman is making a very reasonable argument. Does he agree that we could be having a very different debate today if the Minister and the Secretary of State had not been so heavy-handed in legislating on what local councils can do? We could be having a conversation about national guidance for planning commit…”

“Again, I understand where the hon. Lady is coming from, but it is still within the rights of the appointed planning committee to say yes or no to the detailed development proposals. Local plans talk about numbers and locations. Planning applications that go before officers but are then called in by the committee are di…”

“It is an executive decision. An executive is required by legislation to put five-year housing land supply forward under a local plan, and a local plan is approved by full council. That work is undertaken by officers, signed off by a lead member for environment or planning under their responsibilities, and put forward t…”

“I will, yes—is he going to give me another one?”

“I accept what the hon. Lady says, but I do not agree that a local ward member who may disagree with the local plan should not then have it considered in planning committee later on. Of course, a full council does meet to approve the local plan, but I go back to my original point: that is an executive decision.”

“I welcome the clarity in the Minister’s opening remarks on the clause. While the theory of generating renewable energy, and deriving income by selling electricity generated from renewable sources, on public forestry land is positive, several concerns need to be addressed that do not lend support to the Government’s ini…”

“The Minister has satisfied me with his answers and is adopting a constructive tone regarding the clause, but I want to press him on the criteria used to determine ministerial consent. He is right to say that we do not want mission creep, and that we would usually expect minimum amounts of development around visitor cen…”

“We welcome clause 25, and I welcome the Minister to his position. He has a lot to live up to after those clauses, and I will continue to be nice to him. I say well done also to the other Minister for the constructive way he has been working on this Committee. Opposition Members do appreciate that. Because we are not st…”

“I do not know which newspaper the hon. Gentleman reads, but it is obviously not a very good one, because it takes the comments of my hon. Friend the shadow Scottish Secretary and acting shadow Energy Secretary out of context. My hon. Friend did say that the target date was not based on evidence, but he was talking abou…”

“We will oppose the clause. Our reason for doing so is that this chapter of the legislation is a massive power grab and piece of centralisation. The whole Bill—in particular its planning reform elements and this clause—reeks of this Government’s centralising zeal, as I said on the Floor of the House on Second Reading. I…”

“We welcome the clause and the clarification and certainty that the Minister has given, but I want to put some questions, along similar lines to those we have asked before, about transparency and limits or caps on the fees that authorities can charge. We believe that without clear limits, there is a risk of inconsistent…”

“May I say, Mrs Hobhouse, that you are absolutely on fire? We are getting through things very quickly, and I will adhere to your instructions. The clause updates the objection and decision-making timelines under the Highways Act 1980. Although the goal is to align with other planning regimes, several concerns remain. Fi…”

“I beg to move amendment 83, in clause 22, page 29, line 33, after “benefits” insert “of £1,000 per year for ten years”.”

“On that point—depending on the Minister’s answer, I may not have to make a speech and detain the Committee—the Minister has outlined that the strategic highways authority is National Highways; does he envisage that for some roads, particularly across England, the county council is the strategic highway authority, and w…”

“We agree with the Government on clause 39. However, if local authority members need to give a majority vote on the first round, it makes the Minister’s claim that the measure will reduce bureaucracy seem a tad overstretched. We will not press the clause to a Division, but circumstances do change between the first and t…”

“I wonder whether the Minister has given any thought to political proportionality when it comes to any future national scheme of delegation. I will give him an example. Forgive me if this is slightly out there; if so, I can write to him, or we can have a conversation in the Lobbies later. Say a local authority was 87% m…”