Within 12 months of this Act coming into force, the Secretary of State shall conduct a review into the process by which local authorities determine amendments to planning approvals and shall lay the report of the review before each House of Parliament.—

Brought up, and read the First time.

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

As the Minister is carrying out lots of reviews, I thought he might like to add another to his list and review the way in which local authorities are able to determine amendments to see whether he can give local planning departments a bit more flexibility in how they deal with amendments, and in particular what they consider to be material or non-material considerations. Does the Department have a view on allowing split decisions to be taken on planning applications? A local authority may say, for example, “We want to approve this application, but there is one bit that we do not like. We are going to approve the rest of the application, but we want this one bit to be changed.” I am simply asking a question of the Minister. Further, does he have a view about local authorities being able to charge additional fees where an amendment means that they have to go out to public consultation again, or a lot of officer time has to be put into determining whether a particular amendment should stand?

The Minister is not particularly welcoming of another statutory requirement to have another review, as the hon. Lady may have predicted, but perhaps I can get a better understanding of her concerns outside the Committee, reflect on those and come back to her.

I am happy to write to the Minister with some of the documentation from the Planning Officers Society, which is exercised about the issue. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Schedule 1