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Mr. Hayes: I do not want to encourage the hon. Gentleman to go down a tributary, rather than sticking to the main thrust of the debate, but I am not sure that what he says is absolutely true. The truth of the matter is that people are worried about the scale and character of development. Part of the resistance to development of the kind that the hon. Gentleman describes has come about because historically—at least in recent history—the scale and nature of development have not always been desirable. That is probably a fairer reflection of local opinion than that which he suggests.
Matthew Green: The hon. Gentleman would do well to talk to local groups in, say, the south-east about where they would like to see houses built. Very few people want any houses anywhere near them; they want them somewhere else. That is part of the nature of local planning. I am not suggesting that everything could be done at a local plan level, which would be misleading the electorate. However, I do not believe that the Government should be giving themselves the power to dictate from the centre; that is the very one-size-fits-all route that, in other areas of government, they seem to be rejecting.
I support Lords amendment No. 2 because, to an extent, it would chop away the power of the Government while allowing them to set out guidance and recommendations. It would require the RSS to "have regard to" the Secretary of State's policy, and would remove the words "must set out". It would be a considerable step forward if the Government accepted the amendment. If the Bill remains as it is, there is a great danger that a Secretary of State could misuse his powers. I am not suggesting that this Secretary of State
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would dream of doing that, but if the powers remained, it is possible that we could have a centralised and imposed planning system.
Andrew Selous: Is not the hon. Gentleman belittling his constituents and those of other hon. Members somewhat? My constituents are very concerned about the supply of affordable housing locally and they will reflect that pressure in terms of the councillors they elect. Surely it is a question of providing local housing for local people across all the areas about which we are talking. Does that not contradict what the hon. Gentleman is saying?
Matthew Green: I do not think it does. As the Minister knows, I have been arguing for an increase in our housing numbers because we have too few. The local authority and local people are arguing for greater housing numbers because we cannot build the affordable housing that we need in the area. Potential changes to planning policy statement 7 would make the situation even worse by removing exception sites, but that is not a subject for this debate.
Even in my area, where there is strong demand for extra houses over and above our allocation—we want more; we complained about what the county and the regional system allocated to us—people will say that they do not want 20, 30 or 40 extra houses in a field near them. They will say that they want the houses somewhere else. That is a fact of life. None of us particularly wants extra houses built immediately around us.
Sometimes the tensions locally can be too great. I am not trying to be flippant, but in areas under immense housing pressure—unlike south Shropshire—such as parts of the south-east, I suspect that the extra affordable houses that are needed would not come at the rate that is needed if it were left to local authorities to provide them.
Lords amendments Nos. 4 and 5 are concurrent with amendment No. 1 and would be necessary only if amendment No. 1 were accepted; they would delete what would be unnecessary words.
5.30 pm
I hope that the Minister has thought about this matter, which is the biggest area of contention in the Bill. Debates are coming up on other issues, but it is this part of the Bill that has the potential to lead to ping-pong between the two Houses. I say to the Minister in all seriousness that he needs to look at this issue again. If he cannot accept our proposals, he needs at least to move some way towards our position, because not only politicians and local councillors but the public themselves think that the Bill involves an unacceptable transfer of powers from directly elected bodies to unelected ones. The public do not want to stomach that.
I know that the Minister cannot say with confidence that there will be elected regional assemblies throughout the country within the next 12 months. So for many years to come, regional planning bodies appointed by Secretary of State will make decisions on behalf of large parts of the country, and at least 30 per cent. of those bodies will not consist of directly elected councillors.
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The public find that unacceptable, and that is why we shall continue to support the amendment successfully moved by Liberal Democrat peers.
Sir Sydney Chapman: I rise to support the four Lords amendments before us, and I share the view of the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) that this issue is crucial. The Government claim that they are devolving power downwards, but part 1 of the Bill does the opposite by transferring power upwards. It enables the structural plans made at county level to be made at regional level.
The Minister says that there are excessive delays in the current town and country planning system—a point to which I shall return briefly—but it is my fundamental belief that those delays are mainly caused not by its structure, but by its operation. Of course, there is a vast difference between a directly elected body and an indirectly elected one. No regional spatial strategy should be left to unelected—and perhaps unknown—people, who will take decisions that affect everybody in a given authority. That will sever the link between the elected and the overall structural plan for the future.
We should all be worried about the fact that even today, many people feel disaffected and alienated from the planning system: they feel that they have no part to play in taking decisions. It pains me to say so, but I still get far too many letters from constituents who believe that there is corruption or fraud in the planning system. I am sure that there is not, although of course, there are bad apples in every basket, and perhaps it happens on one or two occasions. However, handing over powers to unelected regional bodies—that is what we are talking about—will in no way improve the public's recognition of the planning system as above board and fair.
Mr. Hayes: My hon. Friend is a great expert on these matters and as ever, he is making a very valuable contribution to our deliberations, but has he considered the fact that many of the misapprehensions about the planning system arise because it is regarded as esoteric and outside the scope of many who come into contact with it? If it also becomes distant, which is precisely the Bill's effect, that problem will be exacerbated, not eased.
Sir Sydney Chapman: My hon. Friend puts it perfectly, and I envy him his eloquence in forcing home the point that I am trying to make.
If the Bill goes through, it will scale down the importance of local plans, which I think are a vital part of our planning system. They will not be replaced, but they will lose their influence. If this part of the Bill is enacted, local plans will have to have regard to the regional spatial strategy, but the Bill also says that the RSS must set out the Government's policy. It is as simple as that—there is a direct link to the views of the Secretary of State.
Unlike the hon. Member for Ludlow, I am against regional assemblies per se. They will only bring about yet another tier of government, and we have quite enough tiers. Ministers may say that we are the odd ones out in Europe and that most other countries have directly elected regional bodies, but we are a densely populated island, and it is not as if there were 3,000 miles between Berwick and Cornwall. We do not need
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regional authorities. My seat is in the Greater London area, and it is true that I have a regional authority, but I regret that I do, because I do not think that it is needed.
Unless we radically changed the whole local authority structure for our capital city, a regional authority for London would probably have to extend as far as Brighton to the south, Bath or Bristol to the west, Northampton or wherever to the north, and Southend to the east. What cannot or should not properly be decided by counties in the south-east or by London boroughs should in fact be decided by the Government, because of the huge conglomeration that is the metropolis of the greatest city in the world.
If regional bodies come about, they will be weak; they will have little to do; they will be relatively expensive—anybody who doubts that should be aware that the first four years of the Mayor of London and the Greater London Assembly have meant an increase in Londoners' precept of 96 per cent.; and they will empire-build, trying to take further powers from the counties and district councils.
Of course, planning applications are still dealt with by district councils, or in London by the 32 boroughs, but any significant application is referred up and is therefore not determined at the local level of administration. The Minister in the Lords said that county boundaries do not work as the basis for effective strategic planning. If they do not, regional boundaries will not do so either. I do not believe that a case can be made for taking planning powers from the counties, which I believe were the one angle of local government that people could really identify with until a Conservative Government, I regret to say, introduced new counties that bore no relation to the historical background of the people of our country.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) has dealt with the Minister's rather strange point—I have a great regard for the Minister, but I agree with my hon. Friend that he has been speaking valiantly on a very bad case—in saying that these structure plans are just as likely to be up to date as any regional plan. In any case, not all structure plans are out of date. They are, by their very nature, brought up to date and revised.
The prestigious Town and Country Planning Association supports the Lords amendments. I do not believe that the Government's proposals, particularly in part 1 of the Bill, are creating a simpler, fairer or faster system. It will not be simpler because there will be an additional layer of government; it will not be fairer because power is being transferred upwards; and it will certainly not be faster because the extra layer will bring about even greater conflict between the county or district level and the new regional level.
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