Mr. Niall Cussen:

It is always a good place to start. There are commendable provisions in the Bill to ensure, as the Minister prepares new national planning policy statements, guidance and so on, and as the national planning framework, NPF, and the renewable energy support schemes, RESSs, and so on change, there is an appropriate process of reflection and upgrading or updating of statutory plans that might be out of step with those.

The broader issue, and I am drawing on my past here to some extent, but we are into a much more sophisticated era of policy development and enunciation in respect of how the different plans interrelate. The Deputy is correct in that it is very important that as a Government, trying to grapple with its policy priorities and issues of national level, it lands its boots gently in ensuring that the rest of the system can catch up.

That is not forget that when the national planning framework was published back in 2018, we were facing into a very significant housing crisis, there were climate issues and so on. There was a serious degree of urgency around addressing those and, effectively, washing that through the rest of the planning process. What was probably not counted enough was the importance of enabling the rest of the system to catch up with that.

There is, therefore, a much more nuanced relationship in this Bill between the national, the centre and the local, in ensuring ongoing calibration between the different plans. Our role is very important in that, given that we are an independent office and are in a position to adjudicate on whether plans at local level etc. have appropriately reflected national policies.

A certain amount of just practical experience will be involved in the implementation of this. One cannot legislate for every eventuality and scenario but there is a good set of interlocking checks and controls there at present.