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Malcolm Wicks: Let me continue by saying that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has been conducting a review of householder development consents. The review was set up to address the problem that the planning legislation governing minor consents is unnecessarily complex, possibly too constricting and may be interpreted in different ways by local planning authorities across the country. The ODPM proposes to look at ways of simplifying the relevant sections of the secondary legislation, known as the general permitted development order, to make it easier for households to install microgeneration technology without the need for a planning application.
The Government continue to support clause 9, as we want to make it easier for householders to install microgeneration equipment. That is its purpose. There is clearly some confusion, but this clause is about facilitating small-scale microgeneration, a kilowatt or two. We are not talking about a provision that would allow one of those 50kW jobs to be installed in a suburban back garden. We thought that was obvious, but I am happy to suggest that my colleague, the Minister for Housing and Planning, the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), will write to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) setting out clearly the terms of the review so that there are no misconceptions.
Mr. Hollobone:
Does the Minister not understand that there is concern because of the definition of the
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capacity of microgeneration? If the Minister had come to the House today and said that this provision relates to microgeneration up to 1kW or 5kW, we might not be having a debate of this length. However, because we are placing a capacity of up to 50kW in the Bill, under PDOs that could, despite the Minister's good intentions, lead to the establishment of wind turbines that local residents might find unacceptable.
Malcolm Wicks: Perhaps foolishly, I was applying a common-sense test to this. No one can anticipate that, following the Deputy Prime Minister's review, such things would be allowed. If my judgment on common sense lets me down, I apologise to the House. We have to bring some sense of scale to this. It may be helpful if my colleague the Minister writes to the hon. Member for Christchurch on this point so that there can be no misconceptions.
Mr. Evans: Does the Minister recognise that there are more and less controversial microgeneration plans? Small solar panels on roofs would be acceptable to the vast majority of people in this country, yet certain wind turbines, even of a small scale, might be controversial, particularly to neighbours. Does the Minister recognise that there are two aspects of microgeneration?
Malcolm Wicks: I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. As colleagues are finding, progress and modernisation can be controversial, and there can be resistance. That is true for microgeneration, if the hon. Gentleman understands my meaning. These things are controversial, but the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will do a review to facilitate sensible-scale microgeneration. That is all we are saying. It is a red herring to think that we are talking about 50kW plants.
Mark Lazarowicz: An earlier intervention from the Opposition Back Benches suggested that the review might be carried out without any form of consultation. Is the Minister prepared to give an assurance that there will be consultation in any review, as one would expect to be normal practice?
Malcolm Wicks: My hon. Friend encourages me to finish my speech. I have made the point that my colleague will write to the hon. Gentleman so that we can clarify these matters.
Amendment No. 13 specifies things to which the Secretary of State should have regard when carrying out his review of permitted development orders. It goes without saying that the Secretary of State would conduct a thorough review, so a prescriptive list, such as this, is unnecessary. The listing of various bodies as consultees in amendment No. 70 is also unnecessary. When there is a consultation exercise on a planning matter, the ODPM invites comments from a great many organisations, including those that represent local authorities, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Campaign to Protect Rural England and other organisations with an interest in planning. That will already happen, so the amendment is unnecessary.
I want to clarify a point that was raised about permitted development orders. Should the ODPM decide, following the review, that a new permitted
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development order is required in relation to microgeneration, the order will be tabled in the House. It will be subject to the negative resolution procedure, but the House will nevertheless have the opportunity to comment. That is in addition to the full consultation that will take place as part of the review.
In summary, amendment No. 71 is consequential on the incorporation of amendment No. 70. I oppose the inclusion of amendments Nos. 32, 13, 70 and 71.
Chris Huhne: I am certainly reassured by the Minister's answers, especially on the point about consultation. Members who raised that issue may have been unaware of the Cabinet Office code of practice on consultation, in which criterion 3 states clearly:
I have no doubt that the Government will attempt to do that.
Mr. Forth: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Chris Huhne: No, because I know that the right hon. Gentleman has a great interest in absorbing large amounts of time.
The key point is that no new powers for the Government are introduced by the clause. If the Government were minded to allow the building of monstrous wind turbines, biomass fuel plants or anything else under PDOs, they could do so already. The concerns expressed from the Conservative Back Benches seem completely unfounded. The clause introduces a requirement for a review of PDOs, which will then be brought to the House in the normal way—with a statutory instrument, which, as the Minister says, requires a negative resolution. That seems appropriate and is one of the reasons why we shall support the clause and the Bill.
Dr. Whitehead: The purpose of the clause, as the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) has already suggested, is to examine whether it is possible to ensure that small-scale microgeneration equipment of various kinds can be installed by householders without their necessarily having to go through the full bureaucracy of the planning process.
At present, authorities take a different view about the planning process for particular items of microgeneration; for example, in some local authority areas one may put solar tiles on one's roof without planning permission, while in others planning permission would be required, due to concerns arising from section 60 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
Similarly, if one erects a small wind turbine—we have heard about various people who are trying to do that, one of whom is me—some local authorities will say that all applications for miniature wind turbines on houses are subject to planning permission, but other authorities will not require planning permission, within particular constraints. The clause provides that if a review finds that a permitted development order is possible, after
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discussion in the House, the PDO will remove the requirement for the full planning process for a number of defined microgeneration devices.
We have heard the idea expressed—I am sure by inadvertence or misunderstanding—that a 50kW wind turbine might be installed on a roof in Bromley, which would be a monstrosity and insupportable—
Mark Lazarowicz: In every sense of the word.
Dr. Whitehead: Indeed, and might lead to other consequences.
The provision suggests that the PDO mechanism does not actually work at present because, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, the general permitted development order and section 60 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 limit the scope of development orders in terms of the extent to which they may be mediated by
"the approval of the local planning authority with respect to the design or external appearance of the buildings".
The general permitted development order makes a number of points about the circumstances under which that may happen.
For example, in local authorities generally, if a householder adds less than 15 per cent. to the curtilage of their property, that is not regarded as requiring planning permission. I am sure that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) is well aware of that from discussions that he has had in his constituency. In addition, there is a range of other considerations that cause certain things that are not fundamental to the extension, or the change of the appearance of the property, to remain outside the planning regulations. If one thinks about it for a moment, that is a good thing because otherwise no one could do anything without being snowed under by the requirement to have planning permission, and local authorities could not operate because every time that someone put a porch on their house, or some such, they would have to apply for planning permission.
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