Examination of Witnesses (Questions 229-239)
13 DECEMBER 2004
LORD MCINTOSH
OF HARINGEY,
KEITH HILL
MP AND MR
ALASTAIR DONALD
Q229 Chairman: Welcome to the two ministers.
For the sake of our records would you like to introduce yourselves?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Andrew
McIntosh, Minister for Media and Heritage in the Department for
Culture, Media and Sport.
Keith Hill: Keith Hill, Minister
for Housing and Planning and Alastair Donald, who is a policy
adviser in the urban policy directorate of the ODPM.
Q230 Chairman: My apologies for being
late for the first session due to a few problems on the M1, for
which neither minister is responsible, I am pleased to say. Do
you have anything to say by way of introduction, or do you want
to go straight into questions?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Straight
to questions as far as I am concerned.
Q231 Christine Russell: CABE's reputation
as an independent effective detached body has taken a bit of a
battering in the last 12 months. How do you think it can restore
its reputation?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I think
it has restored its reputation. I think that there was a battering
in the press, certainly it was essential, when criticisms were
being made about procedures in CABE, that they should be dealt
with independently and publicly. We did both of those things.
We appointed an independent body of forensic auditors, independent
of us and independent of CABE, to report on the claims that had
been made about perceptions of conflict of interests. We published
their report, we acted on their report. We have, I believe, a
CABE which is unscathed as a result of this and we have a very
distinguished new chairman starting work tomorrow.
Q232 Christine Russell: Do you have any
real tangible evidence from local authorities, conservation groups,
amenity societies, the media, the public at large that the credibility
of CABE has been restored?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: There
are two kinds of evidence. First of all, I read the written evidence
to your Committee and the written evidence from a significant
number of local authorities has been favourable. Secondly, CABE
itself has a rolling programme of research into the views of CABE
by those who are affected by it. The approval ratings of CABE
have remained very high[1]
Q233 Mr Cummings: Evidence presented
to this Committee indicates CABE as being a secretive, unaccountable
body with its advice carrying considerable weight with local authorities.
If this is the case, is it not time that CABE opened up its proceedings
to public scrutiny?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I think
there is a conflict in what is being said to you, if I may say
so. I think it would not have the kind of influence it is said
to have, I believe rightly, if it were a secretive body. On the
other hand, let me give my own recent example, which is that I
went to a design review session last week and the proposals in
front of that design review session were confidential. They were
at a pre-planning stage and they could not have been released.
My view at that time was that in the cases which come before the
design review committee which are not confidential, those meetings
ought to be in public and there is no conceivable reason why they
should not be. I was enormously impressed by the way the design
review queried a whole range of different factors, because a lot
of people were standing around there. You do not sit down in the
design review. I thought to myself, that if this were held in,
for example, a small auditorium like the Royal Institution or
in an anatomy lab in a university, that would be rather a good
thing. A lot of students of architecture and planning and people
in local government would want to come, would like to come and
would benefit from the frank exchanges of views between developers
and architects and the members of the review committee. In that
sense, there is room for greater transparency, but I do not accept
that that means that the existing procedures are secretive.
Q234 Mr Cummings: So will you be moving
in that direction?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: It
is what I would recommend to CABE to do.
Q235 Mr Cummings: If CABE refused to
do it?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: No,
I have not suggested it to them.
Q236 Mr Cummings: No; I said "if
they refused to do it".
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Let
us not go further than we can walk.
Q237 Mr Cummings: When do you intend
to write to CABE about that?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I have
not thought about it yet, but I will do.
Q238 Mr Cummings: So you have not thought
about it.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I have
formed a view which I am sharing openly with the Committee. Why
not?
Q239 Mr Cummings: Do you believe that
CABE should listen to the views of local interests before taking
a view on a particular scheme.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I believe
that they should, and I believe that they do.
1 CABE carries out two biennial surveys in alternating
years; a detailed stakeholder survey (first was in 2003) one year,
and a more general national opinion poll survey the next. So although
CABE does carry out a survey every year, it is not the same survey
every year. Back
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