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Mr. Hayes: In my experience, major infrastructure projects are often justified on the basis of economic benefit—or alleged economic benefit. Projects are frequently justified by claims about regeneration, job creation or trading opportunities. I am sure that other hon. Members will share my experience that in those circumstances, hapless communities are accused of being hostile to those advantages when they understandably seek to defend their communities from ugly or environmentally damaging schemes. Aesthetic arguments are regarded as obtuse or fanciful, and are too frequently disregarded.
Yet there are those of us—I hope that they are represented in the Chamber tonight—who believe that the pursuit of truth and beauty is the most noble
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purpose of politics. In assessing economic advantage, it is important that other costs should also be measured and weighed, and the Lords, through their amendment, seek to rebalance the scales in favour of local communities.
Lords amendment No. 41 is designed to test empirically the economic regeneration benefits that major projects promise. I recognise that with major strategic infrastructural developments, there will often be broader benefits that do not necessarily accrue in the first instance to the community in which the development takes place. However, where local people's quality of life will be directly, and sometimes dramatically, affected by such proposals, those people should have a key role in the decision-making process.
The Lords' relatively modest suggestion that such factors should be measured independently and that the regeneration possibilities should be tested seems to me balanced and reasonable. I agree with my noble Friend Lord Hanningfield, who said in the other place that
"a robust appraisal of whether demonstrable economic benefits will accrue must take place."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 March 2004; Vol. 659, c.904.]
I know that you will forgive me for mentioning a local example, Mr. Deputy Speaker; in my constituency I am currently fighting a proposal to erect a massive number of wind turbines 100m or 120m tall—monstrous in a fenland landscape, as you will know. All kinds of claims are being made about the benefits of those turbines, but few of them are tested or subjected to the sort of independent analysis that is necessary if the significant costs in environmental damage are to be measured against those advantages.
Inexact and uncosted claims are often made for such local planning applications, just as they are for major infrastructure projects of the sort that we are debating under the amendments. I shall return to that matter in both a local and a national context later, on behalf of my constituents and in defence of my local landscape.
Lack of clarity about the assumptions that underpin development proposals often make the decisions on such projects all the more difficult. Independent analysis would discourage purely spurious claims, while allowing genuine benefits to be measured and weighed against costs, as I have described. It would restore public confidence in the system and assist with good decision making.
Where people are facing a major project that will disrupt their community, they feel that they have little influence, and little opportunity to make their case. If they have to do so on the basis of what they perceive to be inexact information, or there is a lack of clear factual support for the project, that feeling of disempowerment is all the greater.
The Government have accepted that principle elsewhere. As the Lords mentioned when they debated these matters, the Department for Transport is taking forward the recommendation of the Standing Advisory Committee for Trunk Road Assessment that economic impact reports should be produced before decisions on new transport infrastructure are taken.
In that instance, the Government have recognised that such impact assessments can assist proper planning and decision making. Yet in this Bill, at this time, in this detail they are not doing so.
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Governments, when they run into difficulties, become increasingly suspicious of the people they govern. No one loves the man he fears, as Aristotle said. I suspect that the Government are becoming increasingly suspicious of the people and are beginning to disregard arguments that people should have the opportunity to have their say and to have their voice listened to.
The arguments that have been asserted successfully and convincingly in the Lords would result not only in what I described earlier, but would allow for better and earlier public scrutiny of proposals. If we trust people and believe that they have a right and competence to be involved in a process, we need to provide them with information. We need to provide them with the facts so that they can become involved up front when the decision is taken, not later on appeal as has been suggested as a rather weak alternative. Truly believing in power exercised by people means supporting the kind of proposals embodied in the amendment.
8.30 pm
Mr. Clifton-Brown: My hon. Friend will be aware that in spite of the Government's timetabling of the Bill and two whole sets of Committee sittings, this matter was not discussed at all in Committee. I say that merely in passing.
Clause 44(4) provides that if the Secretary of State gives a direction under the section, the application must be referred to him. That lies behind the thrust of my hon. Friend's argument. Would it not be a better procedure if the local planning authority considered each major infrastructure project as if it were a normal planning application, and then, and only then, once the local authority had heard the views of local people and made its own decision, the Secretary of State could call it in, as he has the right to do with any planning application at present before a determination is made by a local authority? If he did that, the local democratic process could operate.
Mr. Hayes: My hon. Friend describes with typical assiduity and insight a different balance in central and local relations. He is speaking about a situation in which a local authority would assess the merits of a scheme in the first instance, on the basis, I hope, of the kind of empirical information that I have described. The Secretary of State could subsequently take a view, as my hon. Friend rightly says he can now, about the local authority's decision, the basis on which it was made and the wider public interest. That would rebalance the relationship, and it would change local perceptions of schemes.
Half the problem is that the further we move decisions from local people and the more obtuse we make the reasoning behind them, the more likely we are to fuel irrational views about such schemes. If there is honest, open, up-front local discussion, based on good independent information, many of the concerns that can properly be satisfied by examination of the facts can, frankly, be dealt with. The more distant and esoteric the matter becomes, the more likely it is that there will be
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local concerns. My hon. Friend makes a helpful and interesting suggestion. The Minister has heard it, and I think that she will have been impressed by it. She may well wish to rise in a moment or two to say that she has thought again as a result of what he suggests.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: May I suggest that when such matters are called in by the Secretary of State and go to an inspector for a major infrastructure inquiry, the inspector would be able to deal with such an inquiry much more judiciously if he had the benefits of the local democratic process and of hearing local views? That would give him a much more comprehensive base on which to make his decision.
Mr. Hayes: That is what happens with a typical planning application of the normal kind when it goes to appeal. The inspector studies what has happened before the stage at which he becomes involved and listens to local opinion during the course of the appeal. My hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) is right to say that what he proposes would be much closer to normal good practice than the system that will result from what the Government propose. The Lords go some way to improving that proposal, although not quite as far as my hon. Friend, by introducing a degree of empiricism. My hon. Friend hits on an important point, however, when he talks about the balance between central Government and the locality in these sensitive matters. Major infrastructure projects and planning proposals of that kind are almost always highly contentious, and no one in the House would pretend that they will ever be plain sailing for any Government who seek to introduce major changes of this kind. There will always be different views locally, and there will always be good arguments on both sides of the case. However, the introduction—as the Lords propose—of a greater degree of upfront analysis into the process would improve the Bill rather than limit or damage it.
The second amendment in the group deals with site-specific proposals in Government White Papers. In effect, that unhappy trend bypasses the planning process altogether. I make no apology for quoting Lord Hanningfield again, because he is a great authority on such matters and the distinguished leader of Essex county council. He said, in a debate on this subject:
"Major infrastructure projects rarely enjoy all-round support"—
"but they must have public legitimacy."
It is an erosion of democratic decision-making if a White Paper pre-empts the question of whether a specific development is needed. As Lord Hanningfield points out:
"A White Paper consultation does not adhere to the same checks and balances as a planning application."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 March 2004; Vol. 659, c. 905.]
The Lords amendment would allow an inspector to examine the justification for a site-specific proposal in a White Paper, at an early stage and in a well-understood fashion, thus allowing public scrutiny, proper local debate and well-informed decision making.
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Too often, the need for a development is taken as read and the argument revolves around the strength or otherwise of objections. That might be said of the planning process generally. There is a presumption in favour of development, but it is important that the a priori case is examined, as well as the reservations and objections. That is all the more valid if the a priori case is embodied in a Government White Paper. Some people claim that the White Paper process is implicitly consultative and I suppose that that is true, but as Lord Hanningfield implies, it cannot be compared with the rigorous process that the planning system, at its best, can deliver. The need for a development should be tested. White Papers are not adequate in that respect and the Lords once again highlight an important weakness in the Bill.
In both the cases that I have made, the Lords amendments would strengthen and improve the Bill. As the Minister said earlier, and I should have perhaps acknowledged, the Government have listened to the Lords on a wide variety of matters in relation to the Bill. The Government have accepted several of the suggestions made by the other place and the Minister was generous in his assessment of the quality of debate there. Given the strength of the arguments made in the other place on these amendments, which have been reaffirmed tonight, I hope that the Government will think again on these issues. The amendments are not unhelpful or damaging: they are designed to make the Bill better law.
More politically, the Lords have once again championed the interests of the people against arbitrary power and insensitive Government. These very sensitive Ministers should listen to the Lords' case, accept the amendment and show that they are part of a listening team.
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