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Resolved,
That this House welcomes the record falls in crime achieved by this Government since 1997, recognising that the chances of becoming a victim of crime are now at their lowest level since records began and that gun crime fatalities are falling; recognises that these achievements are the result of record numbers of police officers on the streets, reinforced for the first time by Community Support Officers; welcomes the Government's achievements in reducing anti-social behaviour which has blighted the lives of too many of the most vulnerable people; and supports the Government's continuing programme of action to tackle crime, including the recruitment of 25,000 Community Support Officers and wardens, the provision of extra prison capacity and tougher penalties for those who break the law.
CIVIL PARTNERSHIP BILL (PROGRAMME) (NO. 2)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Orders [28 June 2001 and 6 November 2003 (Programming of Bills)]
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That the Order of 12th October 2004 (Civil Partnership Bill [Lords] (Programme)) be varied by the substitution in paragraph 2 (time for conclusion of proceedings in Standing Committee) for the words '21st October 2004' of the words '26th October 2004'.—[Mr. Ainger.]
Question agreed to.
DELEGATED LEGISLATION
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6)(Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
That the draft Legal Services Ombudsman (Extension of Remit) Regulations 2004, which were laid before this House on 15th July, be approved.—[Mr. Ainger.]
Question agreed to.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6)(Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
That the draft Roads (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 7th September, be approved.—[Mr. Ainger.]
Question agreed to.
EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 119(9)(European Standing Committees),
That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 8875/04, Commission Communication entitled Fostering Structural Change: an Industrial Policy for an Enlarged Europe; and supports the actions proposed by the Commission to facilitate the process of structural change, namely better lawmaking, better exploitation of synergies between different Community policies impacting on competitiveness and analysis of the specific needs of various sectors; but believes that such analysis should concentrate on sectors with potential for growth.—[Mr. Ainger.]
Question agreed to.
Ordered,
That the Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2004 (S.I., 2004, No. 1861), dated 19th July 2004, be referred to a Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation.—[Mr. Ainger.]
Ordered,
That Ruth Kelly be discharged from the Committee of Public Accounts and Mr Stephen Timms be added.—[Mr. Bob Ainsworth, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]
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Mobile Phone Masts
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ainger.]
10.25 pm
Mr. Paul Truswell (Pudsey): Major concerns have arisen in my constituency—as in many others—about the siting of mobile phone masts. In the past four years alone, constituents have contacted me about more than 60 applications, half of which have been refused or withdrawn, so unacceptable were they. We have had applications for masts on the roof of a day centre for people with learning disabilities and for masts feet from people's homes, and a major proposal for a church tower split a community apart. As a result of those experiences, I became a founder member of the all-party parliamentary group on mobile communications and I am now privileged to be the group's secretary.
In May, the group conducted a two-day hearing into planning procedures relating to mobile phone masts. We did not feel that we had the expertise to adjudicate on health issues, but there are still several inescapable references to them in our report. We believe that the perceived risk and fear arising from health concerns can and should be reduced by the adoption of consultation methods that involve communities and others much more. Our report, containing 19 recommendations, was published in July.
Brian White (Milton Keynes, North-East) (Lab): Following that report, we met the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), who was very positive and welcomed many of the recommendations. Many of them could be delivered without legislation. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should implement the non-legislative recommendations as soon as possible?
Mr. Truswell: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and I concur with his conclusions.
The purpose of this debate is to elicit a response to our report from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. I intend to conduct a whistle-stop tour of the recommendations, leaving my hon. Friend the Minister ample time to respond in full. The report is a rounded package of recommendations, designed to improve confidence in the planning process relating to mobile phone masts. Our first, and perhaps major recommendation, is that permitted development rights should be revoked, in line with the proposal made by Sir William Stewart in the independent expert group report on mobile phones in 2000.
We believe that the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995—or GPDO—is outdated. The 56-day deadline is arbitrary and difficult for planning authorities to meet, especially given the number and controversial nature of many applications. It is difficult for communities to engage in the process. Indeed, one of the latest objections in my constituency was on Knott lane in Rawdon, where considerable concern was expressed about the time scale and the notifications. As the process is not seen as transparent and open, many of the concerns regarding health are increased by the perceived inadequacy of the
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permitted development process. The GPDO is difficult for all parties to understand and apply consistently. We therefore believe that its provisions in respect of telecoms should be comprehensively reviewed and revised using plain English. Indeed, I apologise that so much of this speech and the report itself has to use jargon that is somewhat removed from plain English.
Our report also highlights the inconsistencies in planning approaches across the UK. We feel that the ODPM should take the lead in a comparative review of relevant law and practice across the UK to ensure consistent best practice and a common approach where that would be beneficial. Many of us are aware that emergency provisions can be abused. I have a case in my constituency in which a mast was erected on Carlisle road in Pudsey, causing great concern, and was not removed for more than a year. The all-party group recommends that, in revising the GPDO, the Government investigate ways in which emergency provisions can prevail, but with much more stringent regulations about what constitutes an emergency and with suitable penalties for operators who do not comply with those procedures. In addition, we recommend that temporary consent should be reviewed.
There is a strong view that communities are not properly consulted in the process of development of mobile telecoms, as I suggested when I mentioned permitted development rights. We were attracted to the practice of Basingstoke and Deane council of holding a telecommunications inquiry, which produced guidance on three stages of consultation: roll out, pre-application and when prior approval or permission had been applied for—more jargon.
The provision for earlier involvement of interested parties, in particular the public, led us to recommend that a revised planning policy guidance note 8—the planning guidance relating to the issue—should specify much more clearly the arrangements for public consultation during annual roll-out discussions to encourage local planning authorities, in conjunction with operators, to publicise the strategic plans for mobile phone networks.
As a further aid to public involvement in scrutiny we also recommend that under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 all local planning authorities should be obliged to include a telecommunications plan as a local development document, or LDD, in their local development scheme, or LDS—even more jargon. Later in the report we recommend that mobile phone operators adopt common digital mapping techniques to enable a national map of the location of mobile phone masts and base stations to be produced on an ordnance survey basis. That would help to inform discussions on the overall siting of masts.
The often controversial and time-consuming nature of mast applications can demand extensive work from planning officers for which the fee levels are grossly inadequate. We were attracted by proposals for notification of neighbours within 200 m of an application site and for councils to have dedicated planning sub-committees, developing real expertise on mast applications. Even a city the size of Leeds has limited expertise in dealing with such applications.
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Extending involvement in the ways suggested carries a financial cost. It is therefore our view that a revised PPG8 should include further guidance on pre-application discussions with a view to allowing local planning authorities to charge for them. We also believe that consultation and advertisement arrangements should be widened to ensure that everyone who might be affected by a proposal is well informed. A further important recommendation is that fees should be increased to reflect the resource demands on local authorities in their consideration of applications and that more guidance should be published by the Secretary of State on where charges can be made for pre-application discussions.
In the midst of concerns about the proximity to people's homes and workplaces of proposed masts, we must also consider the visual impact, and our report contains two specific recommendations, which I shall not go into in detail. Mast sharing is often seen as an underexplored option. We appreciate that it can cut two ways. It reduces the number of sites required on the one hand, but it can lead to higher emissions where masts are concentrated on a particular site. Indeed, there was uproar recently in my constituency about plans to attach additional antennae to a shop on the busy New Road Side in Horsforth. The group has recommended that further research should be carried out into mast and site sharing to better inform the Government in their formulation of policy guidance and also local authorities in their dealings with applications for masts.
As I said, the group did not think that it could adjudicate on health considerations, which are obviously at the forefront of many people's minds. The perceived risk and fear arising out of health concerns could be reduced by the adoption of consultation methods that are aimed at involving communities much more closely and at an earlier stage. Until more detailed and scientifically robust information on any health effects from the use of mobile phone technology becomes available, the precautionary approach should be adopted in line with Sir William Stewart's recommendation in his report. That should be reflected in a revised PPG8.
I mentioned the idea of planning committees developing special expertise. We also think that the Government should actively seek methods of providing technical advice to local planning authorities. We suggested that those might include a dedicated adviser employed by the Government, a Government-sponsored website offering independent information, and the identification of sources of funding for local authorities to share experts and resources for specific training for local authority planning officers dealing with mobile phone mast applications.
There are other recommendations, of which my hon. Friend the Minister is no doubt aware having assiduously read the report, which I am sure he has done. They call for more rigorous procedures to enable locations to be on optimum sites and for further research to be carried out to identify best practice in other European countries for possible application in the UK. We called for a formal joint body to be established by the Government and the industry, with representation from local authorities and the regulator,
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to build confidence between all parties, especially the community, on the range of issues that our report covered.
Our final recommendation acknowledges that changes to legislation can take some time to implement, but to restore confidence in the planning system we recommend that a ministerial statement be made as soon as possible to add strength to the requirements for consultation on pre-development and pre-application proposals for telecommunications installations. I shall conclude on that point and hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will use this opportunity to make just such a statement.
10.35 pm
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