![]() House of Commons |
Session 2006 - 07 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Greater London Authority |
Greater London Authority Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Alan
Sandall, Keith Neary, Committee
Clerks
attended the Committee
Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 16 January 2007(Afternoon)[Mr. Edward OHara in the Chair]Greater London Authority BillClause 30Local
development
schemes
Question
proposed [this day], That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
4
pm
Question
again
proposed.
The
Chairman:
I remind the Committee that with this we are
taking clauses 31 to 35 stand part and new clause
12Amendment of
TCPA
(1) TCPA 1990 is
amended as follows.
(2) In
section 12(3C) leave out be in general conformity with
and insert have regard
to.
(3) In section
13(1A) leave out is in general conformity with and
insert has regard
to.
(4) In section
13(5A) leave out is not in general conformity with and
insert does not have regard
to.
(5) In section
15(2A) leave out are in general conformity with and
insert have regard
to.
(6) Leave out
section 21A.
(7) In section 26
leave out subsection
(2)(bb).
(8) In section 74
leave out subsections (1B) and
(1C).
(9) Leave out section
322B..
The
Minister for Housing and Planning (Yvette Cooper):
Welcome
back to the Chair, Mr. OHara. We paused before lunch
by agreement not to have an interrupted response to what has been an
extensive debate on the planning clauses before us and also, of course,
to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North a little more time
to sharpen up his stories about Scottish footballers. I understand that
he has four remaining members of the team to get through by the end of
the
afternoon.
Stephen
Pound (Ealing, North) (Lab): It is unfortunate that the
Minister is emulating players such as Neil Simpson and Mark McGee in
getting her retaliation in first, but I admire her for
it.
Yvette
Cooper:
The clauses that we have before us and the new
clause that we were debating are important components of the Bill. That
part of the Bill is about giving the Mayor more responsibility to
ensure that housing and affordable housing needs in London are
delivered in practice. Currently, the Mayor only has the right to block
things and he should be able to support much-needed major strategic
development in the interests of the capital as a whole. It is important
that
there are safeguards to ensure that the discussion is focused around
those major strategic applications. I will come on to discuss those
because we have set out the order in an attempt to give effect to that
intention.
Mr.
Greg Hands (Hammersmith and Fulham) (Con): The Minister
talks about the importance of the clauses in delivering affordable
housing, but what happens if the democratically elected Mayor has a
totally different view from her on the issue of affordable housing? How
would she deal with
that?
Yvette
Cooper:
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point.
Affordable housing is now so central to London that it will always be
of importance to an elected Mayor. However, affordable housing also has
wider repercussions across the country in terms of the impact on the
London economy and the impact on the wider housing market in other
regions. It is an issue that the Secretary of State would always expect
to be dealt with properly in London and in other regions. Affordable
housing has much wider repercussions.If the hon. Gentleman is
arguing that a future Conservative Mayor would not see affordable
housing as such a priority, shame on such a future Conservative
Mayorhe would certainly struggle to be elected on that
basis.
Mr.
Hands:
No, I am certainly not arguing that. I am arguing
that there may be a scenario in which there was a maverick Mayor who
decided that there should be no affordable housing in London, passed a
London plan accordingly, and intervened in the boroughs to try and
prevent affordable housing from being built. He may then say that he is
able to do so because of the Bill as amended here today and that if
people did not like it, they would have to vote him down in the next
election.
Yvette
Cooper:
I should inform the hon. Gentleman that to achieve
such a scenario, there would have to be, if not a Conservative Mayor,
some kind of maverick right-wing Mayor who was hostile to affordable
housing. There would also, in fact, have to be a Conservative or
right-wing Government in place who were hostile to affordable housing.
We have made clear the importance of affordable housing within the
national policy framework and the planning policies that need to be
picked up as part of the London plan. Therefore, under the current
policy framework, it would simply be impossible to produce a London
plan that could pass the planning process and that did not take
seriously the needs of Londoners for housing, including affordable and
social housing. That is the policy framework in which we
operate.
Mr.
Andrew Slaughter (Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush)
(Lab): I hate to criticise my hon. Friend, but I support the
hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham because the scenario is perhaps
not as unlikely as she is making out; in fact the new Conservative
council in Hammersmith and Fulham is doing exactly that. It has a
principled opposition to all forms of affordable housing. No affordable
rented housing, and shared ownership housing only if it is out of the
reach of any[Interruption.]
Mr.
Slaughter:
Thank you, Mr.
OHara. Affordable housing needs to be higher up the political
agenda so that those putting themselves forward for the position of
Mayor would have to make clear where they stood on this issue. I doubt
whether we would see any Conservative mavericks, as the hon. Member for
Hammersmith and Fulham calls them, or any Conservative Mayors elected
for the foreseeable
future.
Yvette
Cooper:
My hon. Friend makes an
important point. Opposition Members may wriggle at the suggestion that
perhaps Conservatives might not be as enthusiastic about social housing
as they like to protest, but the evidence does not support their
protestations.
Siobhain
McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab): Our debate on
affordable housing ignited my interest in my own borough of Merton
where a Conservative group is now in power with no overall control. I
had a phone call from the leader of the Labour group only an hour ago
who explained to me that currently Presentation housing association is
considering suing the council as a result of the Conservative
groups decision not to pursue a scheme on which it had already
spent quite a large sum of money. As a result of the sitting of the
overview and scrutiny panel last night, some cases where the
Conservative councillors were trying to get rid of affordable housing
will now be referred to the Standards Board. It would seem that there
may be a pattern here. It may not just be afflicting trendy west
London, but also quieter south London.
Yvette
Cooper:
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I do not
know the circumstances of the individual case and obviously there are
limitations on the ability of Ministers to comment on individual cases
that may be going through the panel or the standards procedures.
However, I am aware from reports that have come to us via the Housing
Corporation, which we have asked to look into the current provision of
social housing in London, that Merton has been considering adopting a
policy that identifies particular areas where it does not believe that
there should be additional social housing. Mitcham, for example, is
considered an area where no social housing should be built. Concerns
have also been raised about the approach from Hammersmith and Fulham
council, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton and
Shepherd's Bush has mentioned, and Barnet council
too.
Ms
Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington, North) (Lab):
Further to the points that were being made by Opposition Members on
this very matter, I checked the figures for affordable housing
provision for some of those boroughs and discovered that Barnet, which
the hon. Member for Surrey Heath cited in aid of his argument, produced
only 8 per cent. affordable housing as against the Mayors
preferred target of 50 per cent. My own borough of Westminster produced
only 11 per cent.
Yvette
Cooper:
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Certainly
some of the figures that I have picked up included Bromley, which in
2004-05 delivered 14 per cent. affordable housing. The Committee will
be aware that I previously quoted the example of Wandsworth, which in
2005-06 seems to be delivering only nine social homes as supported by
the Housing Corporation. In an area as large as Wandsworth that clearly
raises some concerns.
Michael
Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con): I entirely share the hon.
Ladys concern about the lack of provisionof social
housing. Perhaps she could remind the Committee what the figures are
for the delivery of social housing overall nationally since 1997. Is it
not the case that in every year since 1997, the Government have
presided over fewer social housing completions than the preceding 10
Conservative
years?
Yvette
Cooper:
The hon. Gentleman should be rather cautious about
calling on the experience of the early 90s as the defence of
Conservative housing policy. He is certainly right to say that there
was a period in the early 90s when it was rather cheaper to buy
back social housing than it was more recently. The previous Government
and the housing associations decided that in order to step into what
was an extremely shaky housing market, it might be wise to start buying
properties that developers were unable to sell because the housing
market had gone into freefall. We had a devastating housing market
crash and a collapse in land values, triggered by the economic
management of the previous Conservative Government. He will appreciate
that we would not want to follow that approach to bringing down the
costs of delivering more affordable
housing.
Michael
Gove:
I am grateful to the Minister for taking us down
memory lane once more. There are two important points to make. First, I
was talking about the completion of new houses, whereas she was talking
about an entirely different process. Secondly, we all agree that there
was a period of economic turbulence in the early 90s, but that
period came about because of our entry into the exchange rate
mechanism.
Yvette
Cooper:
I would point the hon. Member for Surrey Heath to
some of the interest rate decisions and economic management decisions
that were made in the late 80s, in advance of the exchange rate
mechanism, as being contributory factors. Either way, we are agreed
that the economic policy of the previous Conservative Government threw
the housing market into freefall and had a devastating
impact.
The hon.
Gentleman raised a wider issue about overall house building and housing
delivery. He tried to claim that the Conservative boroughs in London
were doing well. It is certainly true that Wandsworth, Bromley and
Westminster have done better on overall housing than some other
boroughs, although they have done relatively badly on affordable
housing. Kensington and Chelsea delivered 43 per cent. of its housing
target, while Barnet
managed 86 per cent. and Redbridge managed only19 per cent.
Before the hon. Gentleman tries to parade the Conservative boroughs, he
should accept that there is a mixed picture among the London boroughs
and that many of his Conservative colleagues are not quite as
enthusiastic about additional housing as he might like them to be.
Indeed, his colleagues on the Conservative Benches are not as
enthusiastic about additional housing as he might wish them to
be.
Michael
Gove:
According to the figures for housing completions in
2003-04 and 2004-05, the boroughs with the weakest performance were
Waltham Forest, with 45 per cent., Merton, with 54 per cent., and
Lewisham, with 55 per cent. Those three boroughs at the bottom of the
leaguethe Partick Thistle, the Greenock Morton and the Gretna,
in Scottish football termswere all Labour controlled during
those
years.
Yvette
Cooper:
I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for using the
figures for 2005-06, which, being the most recent available figures,
seemed to be the most appropriate. As I said, Kensington and Chelsea
delivered 43 per cent. of its target and Redbridge, which seems to be
one of the worst performers on the list, delivered 19 per cent. of its
housing target.
Tom
Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD):
The Minister is illustrating the point that it is
risky to cite individual examples. The hon. Member for Ealing, Acton
and Shepherds Bush was the leader for Hammersmith and Fulham,
although he does not frequently mention his constituency in his
interventions. He referred to Islington, which has not sold land at nil
value, as Hammersmith and Fulham did when he was the leader, but which
has occasionally sold land at market value, so as to get capital
receipts that can then be spent on new schools, for instance. When the
Minister deals with individual cases, it is important that she should
compare apples with
apples.
Yvette
Cooper:
I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is
arguing that Islington had failed to deliver on housing because it was
building schools. His intervention did not sound like a ringing
endorsement of Islingtons housing
approach.
Yvette
Cooper:
Islington is in line with some of the
Mayors targets, with 93 per cent. in 2005-06 and 76 per cent.
in 2004-05. I cannot find the figures for affordable housing swiftly
enough for the hon. Gentleman, although some of the other Liberal
Democrat boroughs might not have been so
successful.
4.15
pm
Stephen
Pound:
Is my hon. Friend not aware that the disparity in
performance between boroughs that Opposition Members are parading
before us makes the most powerful case for a central strategic role?
Does she agree that Opposition Members have made the case for us? Might
it not be an idea to move to a Division, given that they will certainly
support us on this occasion?
Yvette
Cooper:
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point.
We have before us wide variations. Some will be one-year variations due
to land supply issues in a particular borough while others will be more
systemic and reflect a boroughs ongoing failure to deliver
enough homes to meet the needs not only of the borough, but of the city
as a whole. That is a reason why the strategic issuesthe wider
needs of the cityshould also be considered by the
Mayor.
Michael
Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con): I implore the Minister not to
listen to the entreaties, siren-like though they may be, of the hon.
Member for Ealing, North. While not wishing to go down memory lane, I
wish to explain to the hon. Lady that in the 80s and early
90s, when I used to advise Gosteleradio, the state television
and radio agency of the Soviet Union, I walked every day past Gosplan,
the central planning agency of the Soviet Union. It had five-year plans
and a central scheme, but not one time did they ever
work.
Yvette
Cooper:
They clearly could have learnt a few lessons from
Islington with its achievement of 93 per
cent.
Members of the
Committee will recognise the importance of the strategic powers that we
have discussed many times. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North
was entreating me to speed up and put matters to the vote, so I will
try to accelerate, although I cannot resist the opportunity to respond
to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, who asked a series of wider
questions about attitudes towards development. As he said, he wants to
champion his partys credentials in favour of development.
However, such matters involve not only the boroughs, but the attitude
of MPs towards
development.
I would
certainly not criticise Conservative MPs who oppose individual planning
applications that may be badly designed or inappropriately sited, and I
am sure that the hon. Gentleman may have taken such action in his
constituency, but several of his hon. Friendsnot only those on
the Back Benches, but those in Londonare opposing increased
housing overall, especially the shadow Chief Secretary, who has said
that suburbs such as Barnet are under attack from the Deputy Prime
Ministers excessive targets for new house building. Moreover,
the shadow Minister for London has complained about over-development in
Beckenham.
The hon.
Member for Surrey Heath challenged me to come up with a single
incidence of the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron)
arguing against increased housing. I could not resist the temptation to
draw the hon. Gentlemans attention to the words of his right
hon. Friend, who said:
Oxfordshire does not
wantand cannot managethe extra ... houses Labour
wants to
impose.
Obviously, I
would not have brought the right hon. Gentleman into the debate had the
hon. Gentleman not raised such matters. However, I am happy to furnish
him with a copy of the right hon. Gentlemans election
manifesto, in which he made those claims. The purpose behind the Bill
is to ensure that the overall strategic issues behind the London plan
can be delivered, regardless of the politics of individual boroughs or
MPs.
Clause 30 deals with local
development schemes, which set out what issues the borough will address
and what the time scale will be. That will not include the content of
the plan, which is an important point, because the clause allows the
Mayor to direct the boroughs on what should be in their work programme.
For example, if a borough is not planning a strategy on waste, it might
be reasonablegiven the citys difficulties in dealing
with waste and its importance under the London planfor the
Mayor to consider directing a borough to include a waste document in
its planning scheme or to draw up a waste
strategy.
The clause
will not allow the Mayor to draw up a waste strategy for the borough;
it will simply allow him to direct that the borough should include a
waste strategy in its planning
process.
The
hon. Member for Surrey Heath argued that the mayoral power of direction
duplicates the Secretary of States power of direction. I do not
think so. Without the power, the Mayor would have to ask the Secretary
of State to intervene on his behalf to deliver the London plan, and
things would become more bureaucratic and duplicative. The Government
want to devolve to the Mayor and to remove the need for the Secretary
of State to intervene in regional issues. The Secretary of State will
still be able to direct on national policy issues, but regional issues
should be a matter for the
Mayor.
Subsections (2)
to (7) of new clause 12 would remove the requirement for borough
unitary development plans to be in general conformity with the spatial
development strategy and replace it with a requirement for them to have
regard to it. In practice, the change would apply to the old system of
unitary development plans, so it would not have much effect as we are
replacing those with local development frameworks. However, I shall
address the intention behind the new clause rather than its practical
effect.
The Government
think that the new clause does not take the right approach. The
requirement for general conformity has been part of the planning system
for many years, stretching back well before the Greater London
Authority Act 1999. The new clause would effectively reduce the
boroughs requirement to look beyond their borders and do their
part in meeting new housing and other development challenges faced by
London and the
country.
Michael
Gove:
Is the Minister aware of the
briefing from the Mayors office discussing the general
conformity clause? It says that the clause, which she is
defending,
is a legal
minefield that will mean local authorities and the Mayor could end up
embroiled in judicial reviews, with London council tax payers footing
both sides of the legal bill. This will rightly be seen as a waste of
public
money.
Yvette
Cooper:
I have some shocking news for the hon. Gentleman:
we do not agree with the Mayor on
everything.
Yvette
Cooper:
The legislation that we have introduced reflects
the best approach, as set out in much wider planning legislation. As I
said, it involves a principle that has been in planning legislation for
a long time.
There is a difference between
conformity and general conformity. General conformity does not mean
slavish adherence to individual details of the plan. Only where a
borough plan contains an inconsistency or omission that would cause
significant harm to the London plans implementation should it
be considered not in general conformity. The fact that a borough plan
is inconsistent with one or more of the plans detailed
policies, either directly or by omission, does not necessarily mean
that it is not in general conformity. The test is how significant the
inconsistency is to overall delivery of the London
plan.
Martin
Linton (Battersea) (Lab): In that case, if the phrase
general conformity is legally clear, how clear is
have regard
to?
Yvette
Cooper:
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The
phrase have regard to is used not just in the Bill, but
in other aspects of legislation, and I think that it is seen as weaker
than general conformity. Clearly, judgments must be
made about the strength of the relationship for different aspects of
the Bill, the planning process and other development processes. We
think that general conformity captures the relationship
that ought to exist between individual borough plans and the London
plan. It has done so for some time, and it reflects the long-standing
planning policy relationship between local and regional
plans.
Robert
Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): I am interested in
that point. This morning, we were told that an obligation on the Mayor
to have regard to the assemblys views will
strengthen its position. Now we are told that that is a rather weaker
concept. Clearly, what is good enough for the assembly is not good
enough for the Mayor. Do I take it that the Minister wishes the Mayor
to have a greater hold over the boroughs than the assembly has over the
Mayor?
Yvette
Cooper:
I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is
following the details of which issues we are discussing, but I think
that it is right that the Mayor should have regard for the
assemblys views. The expectation that the Mayor be in general
conformity with the assembly on a series of issues is challenging. The
role of the assembly is to scrutinise; the role of the Mayor is to be
the executive force in the
city.
Robert
Neill:
The Minister has missed my point. If the use of the
term general regard is good in one context, why should
the Mayor not have general regard for a boroughs development
plans in the same way that he should have general regard for the
assemblys comments?
Yvette
Cooper:
Okay, now we have a third variable. We have
have regard to, have general regard and
have general consistency. We also have the possibility
of consistency. There is a series of variables that we
could apply. The point I made earlier was that different variables will
apply to different sections of the Bill, because we are talking about
different relationships and the different roles that the executive and
scrutiny parts of the GLA must fulfil.
As we made clear on Second
Reading, we are strengthening the position of the assembly. The
independent inspector who examines a boroughs draft plan is the
final arbiter of general conformity, not the Mayor. The Mayor can give
his formal opinion, but the inspector rules on the issue.
New clause 12(8) would remove
the power of the Mayor to refuse a planning application that was
contrary to the London plan. It would not be right to remove that
power, which is about dealing with major strategic planning
applications. However, the issue goes to the heart of the disagreement
between us. There are some strategic issues that affect London as a
whole, over which it is important that we take a London-wide view. The
decisions of an individual borough can have an impact not only on
neighbouring boroughs, but on the city as a whole, its housing market
and its prosperity. On that basis, it is right that the Mayor should
continue to have the power to direct that planning applications be
turned
down.
Mr.
Hands:
Will the Minister reassure us that the proposed
procedures conform with the Human Rights Act 1998? She will be aware of
controversies in recent years concerning that Act and the right to make
representations in person when a planning decision is being
taken.
A House of
Commons Library paper states:
Case law from both the
House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights has accepted that
the taking of planning decisions by democratically elected politicians
does not breach the convention. However, that conclusion is partly
dependent upon procedural guarantees of
fairness.
Will the
Minister tell us what the procedural guarantees of
fairness in the proposed process are, given that it appears
that decisions could be taken in behind-closed-doors meetings that
nobody else is allowed to attend?
Yvette
Cooper:
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. I
will say more in due course about the procedures that need to apply and
the safeguards that need to be in place, as well as about the
safeguards provided by the Human Rights Act and the common law. First,
I shall finish my remarks on new clause 12.
In the past six years, the
Mayor has carried through 18 directions in Londonan average of
three per year. That number is out of an average of about 90,000
planning applications per year. I calculate that0.003 per
cent. of planning applications in London are so directed by the Mayor.
I am sure that a correction will flutter its way toward me if I have
miscalculated my percentages, but 0.003 per cent. seems like a small
proportion of planning applications. Therefore, it is right that the
Mayor continues to have the power of
direction.
Clause 31
introduces a parallel positive power. The Mayor currently has the power
to block applicationswhat are effectively negative,
anti-development powers, which can stop things that are important to
the London plan. Those powers should be balanced bythe ability
to support things that are important to the London plan, as against
taking an unbalanced, anti-development
approach.
Mr.
Andrew Pelling (Croydon, Central) (Con): The Mayor is
arguing in favour of the Bill on the basis that he will have
involvement with only 1 per cent. of planning applications. If the
Ministers calculations are correct, that suggests that the
number of applications he considers will go up by 333 per cent. If that
is the case, surely it is too radical a change in approach to all
planning
applications.
4.30
pm
Yvette
Cooper:
Okay, I said that the Mayor had taken a decision
on 0.003 per cent. of applicationsnot 3 per cent., but 0.003
per cent. That applies to the average number of cases on which he has
taken a decision as a proportion of the planning applications in the
most recent year; there may have been more applications in a previous
year, which would change the percentages accordingly. Either way, 0.003
per cent. or 0.001 per cent. both seem pretty small figures to
me.
Mr.
Pelling:
I apologise for misleading the Committee. The
figure of 333 per cent. was far too lowthe number of
applications that the Mayor would consider would be 333 times larger.
The Mayor is arguing that he should have control of 1 per cent. of
total applications; if the Minister says that he currently controls
0.003 per cent. of them, 1 per cent. would represent a huge
change.
Yvette
Cooper:
There may be some confusion about the number of
decisions that the Mayor has taken and the number of cases that pass
the threshold set out in the schedule. If the hon. Gentleman will allow
me, I shall come to those issues later, rather than go round in circles
discussing different small percentages.
Opposition Members are uneasy
about any
planning
Mr.
Hands:
I thank the Minister for giving way. May I take her
back to Boxing day? It is worth considering how the Mayor is going
about rejecting planning applications. Does she approve of a press
release being issued to the Evening Standard on a no-approach
basis on Boxing day? Is that the correct way for an elected person to
determine planning applications in this
country?
Yvette
Cooper:
The hon. Gentleman obviously has concerns about
the Mayors work-life balance and the timing of his holidays.
Many of us would not want to issue press releases on Boxing day.
Nevertheless, it is not for me to discuss with the Mayor exactly when
he chooses to issue
them.
Mr.
Hands:
One advantage of the existing planning
systemI mentioned it earlieris that a planning report
comes before a democratically elected and open committee that considers
the officers recommendation and determines yea
or nay accordingly. In turn,
that recommendation will have been made after an investigation of the
planning document, whether before a plan or a Bible.
The application that I
mentioned was rejected by the Mayor on Boxing day. The report in front
of him stated,
on
balance, the application will deliver substantial numbers of affordable
homes, significantly above the overall strategic target for
boroughs.
Is the
Minister still such a fan of the new process? Under it, the Mayor will
be able to determine hundreds of applications across London in that
way.
Yvette
Cooper:
No. I want to respond to that specific point, but
only after I have made a little progress. The hon. Gentleman will know
that obviously I cannot comment on individual cases that may yet go
through the appeal process. He should also take into account the
parallels with the Secretary of States planning process and not
simply that of planning committees. However, I shall come back to the
issue.
What we are
discussing involves a city-wide role; big developments have an impact
on the city as a whole, and that is why there should be a positive role
for the
Mayor[Interruption.]
The
Chairman:
Order. If Committee members wish to conduct
audible conversations, I would prefer them to do so
outside.
Yvette
Cooper:
Thank you, Mr. OHara. We want
the Mayor to intervene in and take decisions on only a small handful of
cases; we do not think that he should decide a large number of cases.
The order is designed to achieve what we want. It will be consulted on,
and we will take into account the views expressed in this Committee as
part of that
consultation.
I
should clarify the most recent figures. Some 90,000 planning
applications are ongoing in Londonthere are sometimes as many
as 100,000and the current arrangements for the Mayors
negative powers mean that about 300 cases a year are over the size
threshold. That is about 0.3 per cent of casesless than 1 per
cent. of cases. The Mayor has on average used his powers of direction
on three cases a year, because the fact that a case is above the
threshold does not mean that it is necessarily an appropriate one for
intervention. We are also applying the same threshold to the positive
powers on housing, retail and commercial development. We are changing
the thresholds on waste, and I hope that hon. Members will support our
proposals, given the significance of waste issues for the Committee. I
know that we shall discuss those later.
Michael
Gove:
On a point of clarification, of
those applications that passed above the size threshold, what
proportion did so as a result of the space that they
occupiedthe square footage or square meteragewhat
proportion did so because of the size of the development, by which I
mean the number of dwellings, and what proportion did so because of
their height?
Yvette
Cooper:
I do not have the detailed figures to hand. I am
happy to provide the hon. Gentleman with them, if he so chooses. He
raises the kind of issue that
we can discuss as part of the consultation on the order. As I said, we
are applying the same thresholds to the positive powers on housing,
retail and commercial development. That means that we would not expect
any additional cases in those categories to be referred to the Mayor or
to be passing the thresholds as a result of introducing these new
powers. We are talking not about an increase in the number of cases
referred to the Mayor but about continuing with the existing
thresholds. All of those cases will currently be passing the
thresholds, so we are not causing an
increase.
We are
changing the thresholds on waste and our approach on casinos and bus
depots, and there are specific reasons for our doing so in each case.
The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington made a specific point
about casinos. He will be aware that the decision to issue a
casinos premises licence still rests with the London borough,
as the licensing authority. It would not be possible for the Mayor to
give the go-ahead to a casino and for a casino to start running in a
borough that did not want one, because the borough retains the ability
to license the casino in the first place.
Mr.
Hands:
I think that the Minister omitted tram stops and
depots. Can she confirm whether they are included, as that is of
particular interest in west London, given the Mayors
controversial proposal for a west London
tram?
Yvette
Cooper:
The hon. Gentleman will have seen the wording of
the draft Town and Country Planning (Mayor of London) Order 2007. We
have added the specific reference to bus depots, because the Mayor has
a concern that bus depots might be under pressure from housing or
retail development and they are desperately needed to provide for the
increase in buses and transport in the capital. If I may, I shall wait
for the detailed clarification on trams to spring into my mind. As the
hon. Gentleman will know, the order is not specifically being debated
in this Committee. We will consult more widely on it, and I am happy to
get back to him on that
matter.
I return to
the core issue of the number of cases to be decided by the Mayor. We
are not increasing the number of cases that will pass the threshold. We
are making it clear that there are additional tests in the order. The
Mayor will need to demonstrate that a development
is
of such a nature or
scale that there would be a significant impact on the implementation of
the spatial development
strategy.
He must also
take into account how far the council is delivering on the
relevant targets. Relevant is
important, because if the application were a housing application and
the borough were meeting its housing target, that would be something
that one would expect the Mayor to take into accountrather than
him simply saying that there were grounds for intervention because the
borough was not meeting its waste targets, for example. If a borough is
delivering well on both affordable and overall housing, the application
may be less significant to the London plan than if the borough is
persistently failing to deliver the homes that are needed. That is the
kind of territory around which the Mayor will need to make the
case.
Michael
Gove:
On Second Reading, the Minister said that the Mayor
would be able to exercise his powers only over planning applications
that went to the heart of the London plan, whereas in the order a new
form of words is used that covers applications with a
significant impact. As we all know, going to the heart
of the London plan would mean tearing it apart, or propping it up.
Significant impact is a lesser threshold. Will the Minister say why the
threshold was weakened between Second Reading and the
order?
Yvette
Cooper:
As the hon. Gentleman will know, we have consulted
extensively across and beyond London on a series of different possible
tests, and we will consult further as part of the order. We are
attempting to find a workable form of words that will allow some kind
of clarity for developers, for the boroughs and for the Mayor as well.
We are open to responses during the consultation, and we shall continue
to consider. For example, we looked at whether there should be a
geographic testthat was one of the issues on which we consulted
as part of the earlier review. I think that there are still significant
merits to that test, but London First argued that it would lead to
greater uncertainty, and it was uneasy about it. Nevertheless, we will
listen to the consultation response. Our clear intention is for the
Mayor to decide on a small handful of casesthe same as for the
negative powers, and the order should properly support that. The cases
should be the right ones, and the right strategic focus should be
delivered, but we shall continue to listen. After representations from
London Councils and from London First, we have also changed the process
so that the Mayor does not take over cases at the beginning, and can
intervene only after the borough has dealt with the case in the normal
way.
The hon. Member
for Carshalton and Wallington asked some questions on the schedule, and
there was an issue about whether category 3B included a wider category
of cases. The provision simply transposes the thresholds and categories
that were in place for the negative power. I recognise the hon.
Gentlemans point, and I do not want the order to end up
covering cases in whichsimply coincidentallythere is a
development in the same area as one that is completely unrelated yet
happens to have occurred in the previous five years. The hon. Gentleman
will appreciate, however, that there are also cases in which the
planning applications for major developments are submitted in phases.
Individual applications concentrate on a section of the plan, but the
overall development may be extremely significant, so that overall
strategic importance needs to be considered.
We believe
that the existing definition of negative powers has not caused problems
and we are therefore inclined to retain it, particularly as people are
used to working with it, but I have asked officials to consider that
and examine the cases that are emerging in practice. I am happy to
examine further representations from boroughs if problems are being
caused in
practice.
The
hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington also asked some broader
questions about the schedules. May I say to hon. Members that as far as
possible we have replicated the criteria for the negative powers,
because that allows for consistency and a simple standard, and tends to
simplify the planning process? However,
we recognise that in some areas the categories have been designed around
the negative powers and therefore might not apply as appropriately to
the positive ones. So we envisage certain adjustments and changes and
will listen to the consultation responses to ensure that we give best
effect to our policy intention, rather than produce confusing or
perverse consequences owing to the way in which we have replicated the
approach to the negative
powers.
4.45
pm
Hon. Members
asked about propriety, which is important. The Mayor will indeed be an
individual decision maker and we have made it clear that he cannot
delegate his powers to someone else if, for example, he has a conflict
of interest, financial interest or development conflict. He will be the
decision maker in the same way as a Secretary of State, but there will
be some applications on which he should not and cannot make a decision,
such as those on certain Olympic developments because he has clearly
championed the Olympics. That is one of the reasons that the Olympic
Development Agencys powers will not be one of the areas in
which he can take control of decision makingclearly he cannot
play both roles. That is
important.
Michael
Gove:
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and for
that clarification. As well as championing the Olympics, the Mayor has
championed tall buildings. Yet the Bill contains a provision for him to
intervene on planning applications for buildings more than 30 m
high10 storeys. If the Mayor cannot intervene in Olympic
planning applications because he has, in technical terms, a
predetermined view, why on earth should he be given the freedom to
interfere in tall building applications when he has, in planning terms,
an explicitly predetermined
view?
Yvette
Cooper:
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the process
contains a series of safeguards, which I shall spell out to Opposition
Members. It is important that decisions be taken fairly, that people do
not take them on matters in which they have a personal or financial
interest, where they have not considered all the evidence or where they
could be said to have prejudged the application. In the current
process, those safeguards apply to planning committees and the
Secretary of State and are in common law as well as codes of
practicethey are not in primary legislation. The Mayor must
abide by that common law in precisely the same way as Secretaries of
State and planning committees. He must also have a clear code of
practice to ensure transparency in the way in which he
operates.
Mr.
Hands:
But if those safeguards are so
strongfrom what the Minister says, they sound very
strongwhy is it still necessary to exempt the Olympics? My hon.
Friend the Member for Surrey Heath asked about the difference between
predetermination in Olympic applications and those for tall
buildings.
Yvette
Cooper:
The issue around the Olympics is that there is no
need to include it. We did not make a specific decision that, because
of the Olympics and propriety issues, we need additional safeguards or
consideration. We do not think that there is any need to include the
Olympics because, given the Mayors championing role, he should
not be taking those decisions. There is a series of reasons for that. I
do not think that it is about providing extra special
protectionthere is simply no need for the Mayor to have that
role. Obviously, he will have to take his own decisions to ensure that
in other cases where he is playing the role of champion he should not
take over the planning application process and go against those common
law safeguards, which will be in his code of conduct as well. Whether
that prevents him from taking over policy issues is a different matter
because, for example, the Secretary of State could be said to champion
issues such as the green belt, zero-carbon homes and so on. Nobody
argues that because the Secretary of State has championed those
policies it is inappropriate for him to be the decision maker in an
appeal. That is the difference in practice.
Robert
Neill:
Will the Minister help me? I have been following
her argument carefully and I understand what she is saying, but I am
concerned about a practical matter. She said earlier that the Mayor
would not be able to delegate his planning powers. I agree that,
equally, there are certain circumstances in which on the face of it,
applications that pass the test and should be determined by the Mayor,
should not be, because of the championing role. But who then would take
the decision? Would it go upwards to the Secretary of State or should
somebody else deal with it? The Mayor has no junior
Minister.
Yvette
Cooper:
Indeed, so the borough would take the decision
unless the Secretary of State called it in for some reason. The issue
is simply about the Mayor having to choose under which circumstances he
can exercise the powers that the Bill specifies. The Bill does not
simply operate as a constraint on the cases in which the Mayor can
intervene; there is also the common law and issues about
propriety.
Hon.
Members have raised questions about the Mayor taking decisions on his
own. We must recognise that Secretaries of State are individual
decision makers, and that they can take decisions on their own, in the
bath or while shaving, as the hon. Member for Surrey Heath suggested. I
caution hon. Members about the idea of having to take the decision in
public, because we could end up with an awful lot of people having a
boring time while the Mayor sits and ponders matters. Important issues
have been raised about whether evidence should be heard in public.
There is no substantial issue in principle about the Mayor being an
individual decision maker, however, as those provisions exist in our
current system.
The
Mayor would not be able to take over an application on the basis of
small concerns about section 106 disagreements; any takeover would have
to be on the basis of an applications significant impact on the
London plan. It would be hard to argue that a limited section 106
disagreement had a significant impact on the London plan. That is the
crux of the decision making. The resources from the section 106
agreement would go to the organisations responsible for providing those
services, just as they do normally.
It is sensible to provide for a
positive power that matches the negative power. It will apply only to a
small number of cases, and we will continue to consult on the order and
how we ensure that we get the details right. The provision will help
with the delivery of the London plan, which is important, and it will
allow a sensible, strategic approach to an important capital city that
requires good planning for its economy and its housing
market.
Mr.
Hands:
I made a specific point, which the Minister has not
answered, about the compatibility of the process with the Human Rights
Act 1998.
Yvette
Cooper:
We believe that the legislation is compatible with
the Human Rights Act, and one of us has signed a declaration to that
effect. The hon. Gentleman knows that there is an obligation on every
public body to interpret the legislation in compliance with the Act,
too. There are some interesting issues about being able to hear
evidence in public, and the taking of the decision in public may be
impractical. We do not require the Secretary of State to take her
decisions in public, with people sitting around her as she does so. The
legislation before us complies with the Human Rights Act, and all
powers would need to be exercised in compliance with
it.
Mr.
Pelling:
The current Mayor would be very happy to take
those decisions in public. Does the Minister think that he has shown a
misjudgment as to its practicality in expressing that
view?
Yvette
Cooper:
If the current Mayor wants a load of people with
him as he pores over documents, he is welcome to do so. We are cautious
about requiring it in legislation, but it is important to provide
transparency of process. I am not sure how much transparency there is
in sitting in a room and watching someones face twitch while
they read particular pages of a document. That is slightly different
from a public committee. Nevertheless, the Mayor will have some scope
to choose how he interprets certain aspects of the Bill. With that, I
urge hon. Members to allow the clauses to stand part of the Bill, and
to reject new clause
12.
Michael
Gove:
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship
again, Mr. OHara. I begin by giving notice to the
Committee that we would like to press new clause 12 to a Division at
the appropriate moment later in the Committees proceedings. I
would also like to give notice that we are disappointed that the
Minister, after the force of logic deployed earlier in the debate,
still feels that she has to stand by the clauses and has not recognised
how poorly drafted they were by those whom she charged with that
duty.
I want to
mention three things in emphasising why we feel that it is important to
insist that the clauses be removed. First, I congratulate the Minister
on noting that the hon. Member for Ealing, North had managed, in the
debate this morning, to mention seven members of the Aberdeen football
team who won the European Cup Winners Cup in 1983. She pointed out that
he still had four to name. I have to correct her on a point of
factit is always painful for me to do so. There are in
fact five whom the hon. Gentleman still has to name because, as she will
be aware, there was a late substitution that materially affected the
result of that football
match.
Stephen
Pound:
The hon. Gentleman is defending his position much
in the style of Neale Cooper. Does he realise, in using the tactics of
Eric Black and Peter Weir and being slightly more aggressive, that he
should actually be retrenching rather than attacking? Done
it!
Michael
Gove:
Like me, Mr. OHara, you will be
delighted to know that the hon. Gentleman has managed to write himself
into the history books by managing to mention in the course of one
days debate on the Greater London Authority Bill all 12 members
of that winning team. For the consideration of the Committee, I have
produced a research paper on what happened to every member of the team.
I shall not go into those matters now, but I would be happy to share it
with hon. Members
afterwards.
I want to
raise two points briefly. The first is the Maginot line argument, and
the second is the Minister falling at the first hurdle
argument. In the order that has been laid for our consideration as part
of the clauses, the Government have gone into some detail as to what
might be termed a strategic application. Indeed, several of the
categories mentioned would seem to anyone to qualify as strategic:
aircraft runways, heliports, railway or tram stations crossing over or
under the River Thames. All of us would acknowledge that those were
strategic. It therefore seems as though a defence has been created in
the order against the arbitrary exercise of mayoral powersthat
we have an effective defensive line, as it
were.
The problem, as
we all know, is that one can always move around defensive lines. The
Maginot line can be outflanked. The Ardennes in this Bill, as it
werethe area that is thickly wooded but can be penetrated by a
determined attackeris in article 8 of the order, which states
that
the Mayor may
... if he considers that any of the issues raised by the
development
would
have
a significant
impact on the implementation of the spatial development
strategy,
determine
that planning application. The Mayor can say, Well, it may not
meet any of the criteriaso carefully laid down by the
Government in their orderbut I believe that it will
have a significant
impact.
As the
Minister has conceded, a significant impact is a lesser
threshold than going to the heart of the London plan or the spatial
development strategy, which is the test that she introduced on Second
Reading. Despite the fact that she insists that she does not always
agree with the Mayor, the Mayors desire to have more planning
powers has been acceded to by the fact that we already have a weaker
order than we were promised on Second
Reading.
What
does that mean in practical terms? I mentioned this morning a
development in Commerce road in Hounslow that the Mayor took a view
ona negative view, as it happens. That development could have
been
decided in one of two ways, depending on the interpretation of the
London plan. The Mayor said that the development deserved to go ahead
because it fitted with the London plans requirement for more
affordable housing. Many of us might choose to agree with him. However,
in supporting that planning proposal, he undermined another part of the
London plan, which is the requirement for strategic employment land to
be made available in that part of London. There were two irreconcilable
aspects of the London
plan.
5
pm
There will be
many planning applications and many areas of potential development
where an irreconcilable balance between aspects of the London plan may
arise, and the Mayor will be able to decide which aspect he considers
likely to have a significant impact on the London plan. The licence for
him to intervene will be considerably greater than a casual reading of
the order would lead us to believe. In that respect, we simply cannot
support a transfer to the Mayor of powers that would give him the
opportunity to interfere in a significantly greater number of planning
applications than that on which he has already chosen to express an
opinion. We rehearsed at length this morning the reason why the Mayor
might wish to interfere in planning
applications.
Having
dealt with the Maginot line, I want briefly to discuss falling at the
first hurdle. These comments relate to the Ministers admission
during her remarks on the Olympics and tall buildings, when she got
herself into an uncharacteristic fankle. For the benefit of the hon.
Member for Ealing, North, fankle is an old Scots word
that manages to combine both tangle and twist, but with a particularly
parochially appropriate and alliterative
power.
The
Minister got herself in a tangle and a twist, much as I almost did in
that etymological diversion, on the question of the Olympics and tall
buildings. She said that the Olympicsand, for that matter, the
Thames Gateway development, but particularly the Olympicswere
taken out of the order because the Mayor has a view on them; he is a
champion of the Olympics and we cannot have him interfering there. But
we can have him interfering in all sorts of other areas where he has a
predetermined view. The Minister cannot have it both ways. Either the
Olympics can be included because we can trust the Mayor to deal with
themthe Minister mentioned common law and other
guaranteesor it cannot be included if we cannot trust him.
Indeed, this Mayor or a future Mayor cannot be trusted if they have
expressed an
opinion.
Yvette
Cooper:
Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the
Olympics and the ODA refer to specific sites, whereas policies on tall
buildings, zero-carbon buildings and affordable housing apply across
London as a whole? Those policies affect the city as a whole, as
opposed to something that affects individual sites, which was the issue
that he raised at the beginning, and the provenance of the
ODA.
Michael
Gove:
I fear that the Minister probably is not as familiar
with the order as she should be, because if she were aware of precisely
how tall buildings are dealt with in it and in the pre-existing one,
she would
recognise that tall building legislation does apply to specific sites:
those that are adjacent to the Thames and those that are in the City of
London. The order is geographically specific, and it includes other
details.
I take the
Ministers point, but her Department has a generalised policy
on, for example, zero-carbon development, and the Secretary of State
exercises his or her power on specific planning applications within
that framework. The Minister introduced the Olympic exception, as it
will become known hereafter, so she is the person who has erected the
hurdle, and she is the person who will fall at it. We cannot allow the
clauses to become part of the Bill when they have such a weakly defined
and contradictory order as their basis, and that is why I reluctantly
confess that we shall vote against
them.
Tom
Brake:
The Minister made a valiant but ultimately
unsuccessful attempt to convince Liberal Democrat Members that there
was no possibility of mission creep in respect of the Mayors
planning powers. His track record so far is one of intervention in
matters that are of a non-strategic nature, and she is giving him scope
to intervene to a greater extent in such matters. Therefore I shall
certainly join the official Opposition in voting against the
clauses.
Question
put, That the clause stand part of the
Bill:
The
Committee divided: Ayes 10, Noes
6.
Division
No.
13
]
AYESNOES
Question
accordingly agreed to.
Clause 30 ordered to stand
part of the Bill.
|
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | |
©Parliamentary copyright 2007 | Prepared 17 January 2007 |