'All plans must be subject to a Strategic Environmental Assessment.'—[Matthew Green.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 130, in

clause 5, page 3, line 35, at end insert—

'( ) carry out a Strategic Environmental Assessment of the proposals in the draft;'.

Amendment No. 133, in

clause 5, page 3, line 38, after first 'the', insert

'Strategic Environmental Assessment and of the'.

I shall try to be brief on the new clause and amendments, which relate to an area that we covered in the original Committee in January. They would require the Government to make the planning system compliant with the strategic environmental assessment directive by July 2004. New clause 29 would ensure that all plans, from local development documents to regional spatial strategies, were subject to strategic environmental assessments.

When we debated that in January, the then planning Minister, now the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty) said:

''The draft guidance is structured to enable authorities to comply with the directive within the context of the broader sustainability appraisal framework. There may be things in our framework that go well beyond what is in the directive and enhance it . . . I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of the consultation.''—[Official Report, Standing Committee G, 9 January 2003; c. 23.]

I should like to know from the Minister for Housing and Planning whether that consultation has ended and what its outcome has been, because we are running out of time. We are talking about next July. When we were in Committee last January we had 18 months to go, so the assurances from the Minister of the time carried some weight. We are now halfway through that 18 months, and I have tabled the new clause and amendments to tease out from this Minister what progress has been made, and whether he is satisfied that the Government will meet the needs of the strategic environmental assessment directive by next July.

I, too, shall attempt to be brief in my reply. We do not need the new clause or the amendments because under the terms of the Bill, local development documents and revisions of regional spatial strategies will be subject to European directive 2001/42/EC on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment, which is known as the strategic environmental assessment, or SEA, directive. The consultation has now been completed and guidance for planning authorities on the SEA directive will be published next week. Draft regulations will appear in December. It seems to me that that was what the hon. Gentleman was seeking to tease out. I hope that I have given him the answer, and with that I can sit down and invite him to withdraw the new clause.

I thank the Minister for that. This is another situation in which the response to the consultation and the draft guidance is just about to be published. There would be far less need for new clauses and amendments if they had been published a few

weeks ago, but with the Minister's assurances that we shall have compliance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.