| Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
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The Chairman: Order. The Minister is absolutely right: he is going too far. Mr. Clifton-Brown: He wanted to be ruled out of order. Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) rose— Keith Hill: Oh, at last. I fully acknowledge that the hon. Gentleman was with us for 10 minutes at the first sitting, but after six sittings in which he has not appeared, it is my great pleasure, as we come to the dregs of our final sitting, to invite the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) to intervene. Mr. Davey: The Minister is kind, as always, which was totally predictable. Having read Hansard, I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow has dominated the Committee with his excellent insights and held the Minister to account admirably. May I ask whether the Minister would feel happier and more comfortable if the regional planning boards were elected and accountable? Keith Hill: It is the intention of the Government, as I understand it is of the hon. Gentleman's party, that we should move towards elected regional authorities. The Government would certainly be content for regional planning boards to operate under that particular form of democratic imprimatur. Mr. Davey: Would the right hon. Gentleman prefer them to operate under an assembly, or is he indifferent? Keith Hill rose—
The Chairman: Order. We are again moving into the merits or otherwise of regional governance, as opposed to the mechanisms set out in the Bill. Keith Hill: Thank you, Mr. Hurst. I do not feel entirely rescued from that issue, but it is perfectly true that we envisage the operation of regional planning boards under the aegis of elected regional authorities. In the meantime, however, we recognise that there is a need for regional planning. The measure sets out that Column Number: 366 regional planning structure within an effective and accountable framework.Mr. Clifton-Brown: I want to return to the example of south-west Bedfordshire—a subject on which I want the Minister to respond, for the record. If the region or the Government hand out hugely increased housing targets, surely it is wrong that the local authority should not be consulted first, but should simply be told after the decision has been taken. If that happens, it will give rise to much local dissatisfaction when the regional authorities draw up their regional spatial strategy. Keith Hill: I know that the hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot comment on a specific case, because I do not know the circumstances. However, the general principle that he enunciates is absolutely correct. We want that level of consultation and involvement in the elaboration of regional spatial strategies. All my remarks in our proceedings have carried that emphasis. For these objectives to be realised, we look to up-front involvement, to community involvement, to early discussions and to community plans at regional and local levels. I make no bones about the reasons for our commitment to greater community involvement—a thread that runs throughout the measure. Our conviction is that local people have the right to a large say in great changes to their local environment, but we also expect that process of engagement to increase the understanding and acceptance of the case for growth where it is necessary. Matthew Green: Before the Minister finishes speaking, I do not want to let him escape having to talk about my reason for tabling amendment No. 117, which, as I said, is a probing amendment. He gave a technical explanation of what the amendment would do, with which I agree. However, I did say that I had tabled it to get him to explain why and in what conditions the Secretary of State would withdraw recognition of a regional planning body, and what the consequences would be if the Secretary of State assumed those powers. He has not yet done so. Keith Hill: That is because I am still coming to it; I have been detained on other matters, but let me now hasten forward. Before that last flurry of exchanges, which I welcome, I was about to discuss the effect of amendments Nos. 271 and 272. As I read those two amendments, the latter would leave out subsection (3), and both would prevent the Secretary of State from recognising a body as the regional planning body until such time as a region had voted in favour of an elected regional assembly. In regions where that had not happened, there could be no designated regional planning body. That would mean that the Secretary of State would be responsible for preparing the provisions of the regional spatial strategy without any input from local authorities and key stakeholders in the region through the regional chamber. It seems highly unlikely that that centralised approach is what the hon. Gentleman has in mind. If it is, it seems wrong to suppose that the regional planning system would benefit from it. Column Number: 367 Amendment No. 117 would remove the Secretary of State's power to withdraw recognition of a body as a regional planning body—a power that I would expect the Secretary of State to exercise only in exceptional circumstances. As hon. Members will know, since 1 April this year, the regional chamber in each region has been acting as the RPB. I would envisage regional chambers being derecognised as RPBs if they fail the key test of being inclusive. The need for the RPB to be representative of key regional interests is something that we have emphasised from the Green Paper onwards, because only then can it take a strategic regional view that takes account of the interests of all stakeholders in the region. The draft regulations set minimum criteria for recognition of an RPB: 30 per cent. of members must be drawn from a non-local authority background and have voting rights on planning matters. Where the RPB ceases to meet those criteria it is appropriate that the Secretary of State should be able to withdraw recognition of the body. Matthew Green: In many ways, the Minister is being reassuring; but as in our discussion on a previous amendment, I am sure that he will be able to assure me that when there are elected regional assemblies, we can expect to see in the Bill that empowers them the ending of the Secretary of State's power to withdraw recognition of a regional planning body. There will then be a democratically accountable regional assembly to which the RPB will be accountable, rather than its being accountable to the Secretary of State, so that will surely be up to the elected regional assembly. Given the Minister's previous enthusiasm, I am sure that he will accede to that. Keith Hill: I can reassure the hon. Gentleman, but let me develop my argument first and then we shall come to that matter. If the Secretary of State could not withdraw recognition of an RPB, we could be faced with an RPB that was wholly unrepresentative, and failing to take a strategic regional view. Derecognition is ultimately and properly a decision that should be made by the Secretary of State, but that will not happen in a vacuum, or without prior discussion with interested parties. Any unreasonable use of those powers could be subject to judicial review. We will not act in an arbitrary way. In the unlikely event of derecognition being required in the future, I undertake to publish the reasons for it at that time. Now I come to the hon. Gentleman's point. Those powers are necessary for the situation as it will be when the Bill is enacted, but when elected regional assemblies are established the circumstances will be different. We propose that an elected regional assembly should have statutory responsibility for preparing and publishing the regional spatial strategy. If Parliament agrees to that, it will be for Parliament, not the Secretary of State, to withdraw that responsibility through primary legislation. The circumstances will be completely different. Mr. Turner: I have just been looking at clause 11. Can the Minister explain who on an elected regional Column Number: 368 body will represent the interests of, for example, people who are in the part of Yorkshire that now falls within the Cumbria county council area, but are also in a national park, and so will be dealt with by the Yorkshire and Humberside regional assembly?Keith Hill: In answer to that—[Interruption.] I am obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney), who represents a Yorkshire constituency, for the comment from a sedentary position that no part of that national park is in Yorkshire. As a Yorkshire person, he ought to know. However, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight has asked an interesting question. It would be preposterous for me to say that I know the immediate answer to it, but I will undertake to write to him. I have made my observations about our expectations of the situation when there is an elected regional assembly. The power to withdraw recognition is simply the necessary and sensible flip side to the power of recognition. For those reasons, I ask the hon. Member for Cotswold to withdraw the amendment. Mr. Clifton-Brown: We have had an interesting debate. When I dreamed up amendment No. 272—it was probably late at night—I had no idea that it would result in such a good debate. I thought that it would be buried under a large list of amendments. I apologise to the Committee for not having been ready to debate clause 2. Because the order of consideration had been changed, I was busy preparing for clause 40—but I am ready now.
4.30 pmWe need to probe the Minister a little more. I seek your guidance, Mr. Hurst, as to whether I should do it now, and go slightly wide of the amendments, or whether you will allow a clause stand part debate. The Chairman: I am minded not to have a clause stand part debate, but the final decision has not yet been taken. It will be taken subject to what is said during the present debate. Mr. Clifton-Brown: We need to examine how the regional assemblies are working prior to an affirmative referendum result. They are non-elected bodies. The White Paper ''Your region, your choice'' makes it perfectly clear that most will have between 30 and 40 members, so most are likely to have only 30 members. The Minister has already said that of those 30 members, 30 per cent. are to have a non-local authority background. A county like Gloucestershire will be lucky if it has one or two representatives on the South West regional assembly. If the people of Gloucestershire want to dabble in the details to find out who those members are, they will discover that their members were indirectly elected by the county council. If they ask those members why, for instance, they have allocated a particular number of houses to the Cotswolds, the members will shelter under the resources and policy committee of the county council from which they receive their instructions. The regional assemblies have no democratic accountability, yet through the RPB they will hand Column Number: 369 down allocations of the number of houses—probably the most sensitive planning issue that we face. I wonder whether that might cause widespread unrest, particularly in the south of England, which is so densely populated. I acknowledge that many extra houses will be needed there—but the Minister relies on that.As my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh said, the Bill makes a fundamental change. Such allocations used to be determined by county councils. In Gloucestershire there was a reasonable degree of consensus among the county councils and the six local authorities about where the county council's target should go. I cannot see that degree of consensus happening under the new regional structure, because it takes the decision making away from locally elected bodies. If someone was dissatisfied with the targets handed out by his county council, he could easily find out who his local county councillor was. As I have already made clear, it will be much more difficult to find out who is his indirectly elected member on the regional assembly. Even when he has found out, that member will shelter under the relevant committee of the body that elected him. There must be an element of democratic deficit in the procedure that the Government are embarking upon.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 2003 | Prepared 23 October 2003 |
