Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
YVETTE COOPER
MP, MS MICHELLE
BANKS AND
MS BERNADETTE
KELLY
11 JUNE 2007
Q1 Chair: Good afternoon. Minister, can
I welcome you to this session on the Planning White Paper and
start by asking you questions relating to housing. You realise
that we have a lot of topics to range across in this session.
The Barker report suggested that there might be greater use of
delivery bodies in delivering housing—and you will know
there have been criticisms lately about the Thames Gateway and
the incoherence of delivery there—and yet the White Paper
is not making any proposals at all to encourage further housing
supply through the use of urban development corporations. Would
you like to explain why?
Yvette Cooper: Thank you, Chair.
I should like to thank the Committee for doing this evidence session
today and introduce Bernadette Kelly and Michelle Banks who are
with me to provide additional help and detail should the Committee
want it. The Planning White Paper looks at the overall planning
system. It does not specifically look at housing because obviously
we have already set in train a whole series of pieces of work
around improving supply of land for housing development and improving
the planning system around housing. In particular we set out PPS3
in advance, before Christmas last year. We did not want the Planning
White Paper to re-open the whole debate about PPS3; we need people
to get on with PPS3, to start implementing it and to start bringing
forward more land for housing to enable the rolling supply of
housing that we need. We do take seriously the issue of delivery
vehicles. On the Thames Gateway we have already made a whole series
of changes, including appointing a chief executive of the Thames
Gateway, and I am very happy to get into a debate about the Thames
Gateway should you so wish, particularly around that. On the question
about delivery vehicles for other areas, there is a range of possibilities
that could be used. It varies from area to area as to which should
be appropriate and which should be used. We think there is more
scope for using some of the UDCs and things like that, but it
is also important for local authorities to play a strong role
in place-shaping as well. It is one of those things where you
can take decisions area by area, rather than having a blanket
approach that says, "such and such a delivery vehicle should
be used in every single area".
Q2 Chair: Are you saying that the
Department is keeping it under review?
Yvette Cooper: Yes. We are obviously
doing the work around eco-towns and new towns to higher environmental
standards at the moment. That obviously raises questions about
the appropriate delivery vehicles to support those. You may be
aware of discussions with Cambridgeshire about joint planning
committees and so on for the North Stowe development and different
delivery arrangements. It is an area we keep continually under
review, but on a case-by-case basis, to see what the most appropriate
delivery arrangements are for each area.
Q3 Anne Main: Reforming the current
arrangements, including the introduction of national guidance
for major infrastructure projects, is proposed because you believe
there is a pressing need to enhance various things. This was suggested
also in the 2001 Green Paper. If it is so pressing, why has it
taken the Government nearly six years to implement its previous
proposal?
Yvette Cooper: We have already
introduced a series of improvements to major Town and Country
Planning Act proposals. Many of those were introduced in the Planning
Act a few years ago and have certainly speeded up the timescale
for major cases that are decided under the Town and Country Planning
Act. This is a more complex area because you are looking at infrastructure
applications that often involve multiple consent regimes. There
may be some aspects that are affected by the Town and Country
Planning Act, and there may be others that are affected by transport
legislation, energy legislation and so on. It is a specific set
of applications that have very complex arrangements around them.
As I say, we do see them as building on the process of speeding
up the major developments and the planning process around what
was set out in the planning reforms a few years ago.
Q4 Anne Main: Is this a shift then
away from a developer-led proposal, say a rail-freight interchange
or something similar, towards Government identifying strategic
places for strategic infrastructure?
Yvette Cooper: That might vary
depending on the kind of infrastructure we are talking about.
There will be some areas where it is very much public sector led
in terms of the nature of the infrastructure provided.
Q5 Anne Main: Can you give us an
idea of which ones?
Yvette Cooper: A lot of transport
infrastructure is often public sector led because it is public
sector funded, for example; but it will vary according to the
kind of infrastructure proposed. The more that things are done
through a plan-led system, obviously the better it will be. We
are trying to set out a framework within which the private sector
can operate, and a clearer framework within which it can operate.
At the moment you will have a particular major infrastructure
inquiry that could end up debating for a very long time the need
or otherwise for a piece of infrastructure and so on. If you have
a national debate on the kind of infrastructure that is needed
that is government led—but which needs to involve Parliament,
local communities and local authorities across the country—that
is a much better framework within which the private sector can
put in applications.
Q6 Anne Main: Given that you have
just excluded more the rail and transport side, there has obviously
been a lot of speculation in terms of the possible new Government
approach towards nuclear power stations. Is that the type of infrastructure
that you would imagine, after public debate, in relation to which
the Government would decide appropriate locations?
Yvette Cooper: The approach that
we have set out in here is that the Government would set out a
national policy statement (NPS). That would need to be properly
debated, and it would vary from area to area as to how far you
go in terms of determining specific locations. Some national policy
statements might be very locationally specific and may be about
"this area here, that area over there", which is key
in terms of the kind of infrastructure that is required. Others
may not be very locationally specific at all. Actually, it is
not for me, as Planning Minister, to set out which national policy
statement will have different levels of locational specificity
because that will depend on the particular infrastructure and
the ministers and the departments drawing up that national policy
statement.
Q7 Anne Main: I can understand this,
but I just want to tease it out a little bit more, Minister. You
would not want to be specific yourself, but I am sure that there
would have to be certain policies, such as in relation to energy,
that you would feel had to be determined nationally.
Yvette Cooper: Some will have
very clear specific locations and others will not. It will vary
and need to be set out very clearly within the national policy
statement how far they think locational specificity is an important
thing to be consulted on as part of the national statement, and
how far that needs to be discussed at regional level, at local
level and so on. It will vary from one kind of infrastructure
to another. Once you have set out your national policy statement,
then the proposals set out here allow for the independent commission
to determine a particular application and whether or not it should
go ahead.
Q8 Mr Betts: It seems to me that
there is potentially a very fundamental change here in our whole
approach to planning. At present, based on the planning system,
the planning officer receives an application from a proposed developer
and he looks at it in the light of the local development framework,
the regional strategy and national planning guidance, and decides
whether that is an appropriate place to put something, whether
it be a power station or a wind farm, an extension to an airport
or a new airport. Here, are we getting to a situation where the
planning system almost says, "Here is the national strategy;
we are going to need a certain amount of power generation capacity
and a certain amount of airport capacity; which is the best place
to put that capacity?" The planning system is now slightly
different; you are not looking at an individual application; you
are looking at where the best place would be to locate a new power
station or a new airport capacity, for example, in the country.
Yvette Cooper: The planning system
already does that in different ways. For some kinds of infrastructure
it might do that at regional level as part of the RSS discussions;
for some kinds of infrastructure it may look at it as part of
local development frameworks and so on; so there are already discussions
that take place with different degrees of specificity about the
appropriate locations for different kinds of development. Those
discussions may not take place, frankly, as effectively as they
need to. The difficulty that I have in answering these questions
is that it will depend from one kind of infrastructure to another
how many of those kinds of debates you have. If you are talking
about major transport infrastructure and major links from one
location to another, the location is quite important and the location
will be quite clear, but there will be other kinds of infrastructure
where it is not, for example infrastructure that would be geographically
dependent; for example reservoirs or wind farms.
Q9 Mr Betts: Are we not moving slightly
to a different position? Currently, with each individual planning
application you look to see whether the site applied for is appropriate.
Are you not almost moving to a situation—and it might be
wind farms, for example—where there will always be conflicts
between the need to generate a unit of energy as against the potential
eyesore impact of a wind farm, where there will be a requirement
on the planning system now not necessarily to ask if that site
is absolutely appropriate but whether it is the least inappropriate
of all the various options to put wind farms if we are going to
hit the Government's target of 20% renewables by 2020?
Yvette Cooper: First, I should
clarify that on a lot of the wind farm proposals we are currently
not proposing that they should be decided by the IPC. Where they
are currently decided by the local planning authorities, that
should continue to be the case. The role of the Infrastructure
Planning Committee (IPC) will still be to decide in relation to
an individual application whether it is an appropriate site for
that application or not, and to look at the locational issues,
what the local environmental impact might be, what the local cost
benefits and so on will be. The IPC will still have to play that
role in the planning process, just as planning applications are
determined at the moment. They will still have to have those debates
and community consultation, and that kind of analysis and decision-making,
in exactly the same way that the current process does.
Q10 Mr Betts: I am not quite sure
what has changed then.
Yvette Cooper: What has changed
is that you look at the level of need as part of the national
policy statement. At the moment, when you have an application
that comes in, for example, for a new airport or for an additional
terminal at an airport, or a major piece of infrastructure, the
debate at the planning inquiry will include not only whether it
is an appropriate location, but whether there is a need for this
type of infrastructure at all. Probably an individual planning
inquiry is not the best place to be deciding whether or not there
is an overall need; and whether or not there is an overall need
for an additional airport or an additional piece of infrastructure
is something that should be decided, debated and scrutinised at
national level first.
Q11 Mr Betts: To be absolutely clear,
at the next stage, when looking at whether a site is appropriate
to meet that need, will there be any element of saying it is the
best site to meet that need?
Yvette Cooper: I think this is
a really interesting issue. In other parts of the planning system
we have a sequential test, for example when we look at retail.
I think that this is one of the issues that we need to explore
as part of the consultation. The IPC will need to look at a whole
series of things. You would expect the developer, when doing a
developer's consultation, to have looked at alternative locations
for this particular piece of infrastructure; and the IPC would
be able to refuse to consider an application that had not had
appropriate consultation by the developer. We are introducing
a new obligation on the developer to consult local people and
local communities. That might be a stage at which they would look
at alternative locations, but this is an area that we need to
explore further as part of the consultation on the White Paper.
Q12 Mr Betts: Some might go beyond
an immediate vicinity. It might be that there is a decision to
be made about whether you expand Heathrow or Stansted or Robin
Hood Airport. Those are trade-offs that a developer is not necessarily
going to do, because they are going to have a vested interest
in the particular project they are committed to.
Yvette Cooper: Again, the difficulty
in answering the question is that it will vary substantially from
one kind of infrastructure to another. You could envisage a national
policy statement around ports for example that might look at regions
and criteria for locations and what a national approach to ports
might be. That might therefore have an impact. You would have
those debates about appropriate locations or at least appropriate
regions and things like that as part of the debate around a national
policy statement. However, when the IPC then has to consider an
individual application, it will all be about asking if this particular
application about this particular expansion is appropriate or
not; or if this particular development is appropriate or not for
that particular site. The balance between how much is looked at
as part of a national policy statement and how much is looked
at by the IPC will vary from one area of infrastructure to another.
I am very conscious of not being able to answer in precise detail
the Committee's questions on this, and I recognise that, and that
is partly because it will vary from policy area to policy area,
and individual ministers for those policy areas will have different
views about how specific they should be. It is also because we
need to consult further on the proposals in the White Paper and
take people's views on the way in which those locations should
be properly debated and how much should be done as part of the
NPS, and how much should be done at a later stage.
Q13 David Wright: You say, Minister,
that it varies between policy areas. What happens if there is
a windfall provision of land, for example, within a policy area
that totally changes the national framework and the national approach?
How would ministers then step back along the line and review the
national framework? Planning opportunities come forward, do they
not: tracts of land become available; options become available
that change the dynamic of the debate? How do you step back in
the process in terms of timing?
Yvette Cooper: We have said in
the White Paper that national policy statements would need to
be reviewed probably at least every five years; that there would
need to be a process by which new evidence could be brought forward.
So if local communities thought there was new evidence material
to a particular national policy statement, they would be able
to put that forward and put it to the Secretary of State. We do
recognise that there will be areas where things will change in
terms of policy, in terms of technology, in terms of land availability
and so on; and there will need to be a process to address that.
Q14 David Wright: You are saying
there will be a trigger mechanism in the system for developers
who are promoting schemes, and local residents, to come back and
request a review of the national statement.
Ms Kelly: There will be a mechanism
that allows people to present new evidence, which they may argue
means that all or parts of the policy statement should be reviewed,
and then the relevant secretary of state would need to take a
view as to whether that evidence was so material as to require
a review of all or part of the national policy statement. It does
not necessarily mean that people would have a right to demand
because, obviously, these policy statements are intended to provide
some long-term certainty, and having them constantly triggered
for review would undermine that purpose. There would certainly
be a provision for people to bring forth evidence; the Secretary
of State would need to consider it, and decide whether or not,
in the light of that evidence, a review was merited.
Q15 Emily Thornberry: Minister, I
would like to go back to the statement you made that already within
planning there are, for example, regional spaces strategies decision-making,
but that they are really site-specific. They quite often will
identify, for example, that in the east of England we could do
with a rail freight terminal, but it is not site-specific. Then,
if one is granted, is it up to the developer, if he still wishes
to, to go ahead and put in more—or will the Government now
be more prescriptive and say, "We do not actually need another
one in eastern England, we need one somewhere else in another
quadrant for around London"? Is that the shift of emphasis—which
is what we are looking for—or would it still be the position
that if a developer wants to come up with two or three in the
east of England—blow the fact we have already got one—if
it fits the site and fulfils the need to get freight off roads,
you would still say "that is fine"? I want to know if
there has been a shift in emphasis.
Yvette Cooper: Again, it will
depend on the kind of infrastructure we are talking about, so
it is conceivable that a national policy statement might do precisely
as you say. It might say, "For this particular kind of infrastructure
we need one in each region" or "we need a particular
kind of thing that has got locations attached to it"—not
necessarily site-specific locations but broad areas; or it might
have much more locational detail. It would be possible under this
framework we have set out to have a national policy statement
that did precisely that. It would also be possible to have a national
policy statement that was much broader. In this we are trying
to set out a framework that can be used in different ways for
different kinds of infrastructure according to the issues that
faced that kind of infrastructure.
Q16 Emily Thornberry: So you do envisage
some scenarios where that is a possibility with this new structure?
Yvette Cooper: You could do that
within this structure.
Q17 Mr Hands: What sort of timeframe
would you expect to see for a national policy statement to be
drawn up and for consultation to happen? You talk in the White
Paper about there being parliamentary scrutiny, perhaps by a select
committee, but will the statements actually be voted on by Parliament
and will there be a democratic decision to adopt that national
policy statement?
Yvette Cooper: We have not set
out precisely the form that parliamentary scrutiny should take.
We would obviously be interested in the views of the Select Committee
on that. We have identified the Select Committee as potentially
playing a role in the parliamentary scrutiny. We have not taken
a view on that at this stage and will wait to hear what the responses
are to the consultation; but we do think there should be a parliamentary
role in terms of setting out the national policy statements.
Q18 Mr Hands: Can I raise an issue
that has been raised with me by the London umbrella group, the
Amenities Society? They have raised with me the danger, not with
the current Secretary of State, but a secretary of state of the
future, who might make rather sudden and arbitrary decisions around
a national policy statement to justify a particular project going
on somewhere. What kind of protections will there be against a
secretary of state proposing rather sudden and often arbitrary
changes?
Yvette Cooper: You would have
to have a clear process for a national policy statement. You would
have to have a clear consultation process. You would have to set
out what the parliamentary process was. We are not doing so at
this stage because we want to hear responses, but that does not
mean you have it as an open-ended issue. You clearly have to set
it out and we would want to take all of this into account in drafting
the legislation. We have also set out the point at which you would
expect it to be possible to have legal challenges to the national
policy statement, to ensure that it has been properly consulted
on, has been through proper due process and so on. Clearly, there
would need to be protection against arbitrary changes and short-term
changes in the national policy statements, but that seems possible
to do.
Q19 John Cummings: I will be very
brief because you have touched on the matter already with Greg.
The 2001 proposals for parliamentary involvement in planning for
major infrastructure was not pursued. Can you tell the Committee
what the reasons are now for reappraising parliamentary involvement,
and do you propose that the relevant select committees should
be required to scrutinise national policy statements and to do
so within a specified time frame?
Yvette Cooper: I think we would
be slightly cautious about sitting in front of the Select Committee
and telling the Select Committee that we were requiring it to
do anything. We are not at this stage setting out the way in which
parliamentary scrutiny should take place, and we are interested
in views on the form of that parliamentary scrutiny. It would
be very difficult and inappropriate for Parliament to have a role
in individual planning decisions. Those are effectively quasi
judicial decisions and need to be taken in a particular way to
ensure fairness to all sides. However, in terms of shaping the
overall national policy against which individual decisions are
taken, we do think that there should be a stronger role for Parliament
in shaping that national policy.
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