Clause
14
The
HCA as the local planning
authority
Mr.
Wright:
I beg to move amendment No. 22, in
clause 14, page 6, line 35, leave
out ‘functions’ and insert
‘all relevant functions, or
specified relevant
functions,’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss
Government amendments Nos. 23 to
29.
Mr.
Wright:
I shall be brief. Amendments Nos. 22 and 27
clarify the drafting. They allow the Bill to make it clear which
non-local planning authority functions may be conferred upon the agency
under the designation
order.
Amendment No.
23 ensures that some non-local planning authority
functions may be given to the agency concurrently with the existing
body—for example, keeping registers of enforcement notices.
Amendments Nos. 24 and 29 highlight the general power later in the Bill
that would allow a designation order to a supplementary, incidental and
consequential provision.
Amendment No. 25 adds section
330 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to the list of functions
that may be conferred upon the agency in relation to a designated area.
This function gives local authorities power to require information as
to interests in land for the purpose of making any order or issuing or
serving any notice or other document under the 1990 Act.
Amendment No. 26 removes
section 76 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas)
Act 1990 from the list of functions that may be conferred upon the
agency in relation to a designated area. The provision does not
actually confer functions on anyone other than the Secretary of State.
Amendment No. 28 inserts a new power to amend by order the definition
of “planning-related provisions” or “relevant
functions”.
As
I said, these are technical amendments that clarify matters in the
Bill, and if hon. Members are still with me—that is, if they are
awake—I ask them to support the
amendments.
Grant
Shapps:
I draw the Minister’s attention to
Government amendments Nos. 23 and 27, which are connected. Amendment
No. 23 refers to
“the
functions concerned instead of, or concurrently with, other
persons”.
Will the Minister define who “other
persons” are in that context, as it seems to be missing from the
description? Government amendment No. 27 might reveal something of the
answer, to give him a helping hand. It refers to relevant functions of
London borough councils and the common council of the City of London. I
suspect that those might be the “other persons”
described.
The concern
is that these proposals could set the HCA up in direct competition to
others, such as the London Development Agency and the Mayor of London.
That conflict could take many different forms including direct
competition. The end concern is that there could be delay and confusion
about who ultimately is responsible. We have good evidence that, when
that happens, it causes all kinds of problems. One has to look only as
far as the Thames Gateway to see the kind of mess, confusion and delay
that can occur when the lines of authority are not clear.
Perhaps the Minister could explain those two points. One is
about who the “other persons” are in Government amendment
No. 23 and the other is about Government amendment No. 27, which seems
to set up conflict. Is that a deliberate move? Is that the intention or
is it intended that the HCA take on additional powers and ride over the
responsibilities of the local
authorities?
I note
that in Sir Simon Milton’s evidence to the sitting on 11
December he
says:
“There is
a suspicion on the part of some councils that the view will be that if
you do not deliver what the Government tell you to deliver on housing
numbers your planning powers will be removed and given to the HCA. That
would be completely unacceptable to local government as a
whole.”——[Official Report, Housing and
Regeneration Public Bill Committee, 11 December 2007; c. 6,
Q5.]
In addition to that point,
Government amendment No. 27 also raises the question over the
powers of the London Development Agency and the Mayor of London, and
how they will
interact.
Lembit
Öpik:
Although I do not expect the Minister to
repeat the comments that he made in the previous debate, he can surely
see that this clause, the previous clause and the associated amendments
are connected. It seems to me that Government amendment No. 23 serves
to do exactly what the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield just highlighted
by creating a potential conflict and an opportunity to sidestep the
existing processes. I know the Minister’s argument because he
made it in the previous discussion. I do not expect him to repeat it,
but I put on record my considerable concern that a malicious Minister
could easily use this power, with the amendments, to sidestep a local
authority and exert the will of Government on it, regardless of the
wishes of local
people.
Mr.
Syms:
My comments are more general, so do you want me to
wait, Mr.
Gale?
The
Chairman:
It is all
right.
Mr.
Syms:
Thank you, Mr. Gale. We now have the
HCA as a local planning authority. There will
presumably be a local planning committee to undertake that role. Who
will be appointed to that planning committee? I am interested to know
where the HCA will find its
members. There will evidently be local councillors elected within a
designated area. Would they be used or people from outside? I would
like some indication of who will carry out the functions of the HCA
under the clause. When there is a planning committee, I presume that it
would be not the main board members who are appointed, but people at a
lower level. Under which standards body would they come if they had an
interest to declare or if there was the perception of something going
wrong? Would it be the local government standards body? I would like
more
detail.
Mr.
Wright:
I hope that I can clarify things for the hon.
Gentleman. With regard to the points made by the hon. Member for Welwyn
Hatfield on Government amendments Nos. 23 and 27, my strong feeling is
that they work together, are complementary and not in conflict. The
persons referred to in Government amendment No. 23 are the bodies
listed under the relevant functions within Government amendment No. 27.
I hope that that is clear. I do not think that it raises conflict,
because Planning Acts impose functions on the local planning authority
and other bodies, which are listed in Government amendment No. 27. I
have mentioned the importance of the whole planning framework with
regard to what the agency does. The intention of the amendment is to
clarify which other persons those will be.
Grant
Shapps:
I want to ensure that we are absolutely clear.
Does that mean that Government amendment No. 23 refers to Government
amendment No. 27 and the persons are, specifically, the London
Development Agency, the Mayor of London and London
Councils?
Mr.
Wright:
Yes, that is certainly my impression of the
Government amendments and I am more than happy to look to the skies to
seek inspiration. If there is anything on which I have misled the
Committee, I will certainly let them know in this afternoon’s
session. I am looking to the skies, but they are very cloudy today and
I cannot see much when I look outside, so I shall come back to that if
I may.
The hon.
Member for Poole asked some interesting questions about governance and
raised an incredibly important point about who would sit on the
relevant planning committees. My strong understanding is that board
members of the HCA would do so, along with co-opted outside members.
They are likely to be local councillors from the relevant areas. We
would expect the HCA board to establish suitable arrangements so that
the committees can accommodate such instances and address matters such
as good governance, good practice and the avoidance of conflict of
interest.
Paragraph 9
of schedule 1 provides for instances when employees or members of the
committee must disclose the nature of their involvement. The agency
will also have the ability to appoint people who are not employees or
members and to co-opt such bodies to such committees as they consider
appropriate. However, it is important to point out to the hon.
Gentleman that they must gain the Secretary of State’s consent
in those circumstances, which will help to maintain integrity in all
external appointments. I think
that it shows the difficulty in this whole issue of planning designation
and how extremely rare that will be, and it goes back to the point that
I made earlier about opportunity costs and the resources of the
agency. It is still
cloudy outside, so I suggest that I need to go and have a look, perhaps
in St. James’s park, but I hope to be able to provide
clarification to the Committee this
afternoon.
Amendment
agreed
to.
Amendments
made: No. 23, in clause 14, page 6, line 40, after
‘(3)’ insert
‘—
(a) may provide for the
HCA to have the functions concerned instead of, or concurrently with,
other persons who have
them,
(b)
’.
No.
24, in
clause 14, page 6, line 43, after
‘(5)’ insert
‘, or section 274(1)(d)
in its application to an order of a kind falling within this
section,’.
No.
25, in
clause 14, page 7, line 3, leave
out ‘section 188’ and insert ‘sections 188 and
330’.
No. 26,
in
clause 14, page 7, line 5, leave
out ‘, 55 and 76’ and insert ‘and
55’.
No. 27, in
clause 14, page 7, line 8, at
end
insert—
‘“relevant
functions” means functions
of—
(a) a district
council, a London borough council, the Common Council of the City of
London, or any other body which is a local authority within the meaning
of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990
(c. 8),
(b) a district
planning authority (within the meaning of that Act),
or
(c) a hazardous substances
authority (within the meaning of the Planning
(Hazardous Substances) Act 1990
(c. 10)),’.—[Mr.
Wright.]
The
Chairman:
Before we move to amendment No. 2, in the light
of the previous debate, I shall ask the Clerk to indicate to
Mr. Benton that it is unlikely that it will be necessary to
have a stand part debate on that clause. I inform the Committee of that
now in case hon. Members wish to take advantage of an opportunity to
raise other issues arising from the clause.
Amendment
proposed: No. 2, in clause 14, page 7, line 10, at end
add—
‘(8) Before exercising
its powers under this section the HCA shall undertake formal
consultation with the local authority and organise public information
and consultation meetings with local community organisations and local
people, in respect of any development in the designated area.’.
—[Grant
Shapps.]
Grant
Shapps:
The amendment is very much along the lines of some
of the issues that were raised this morning, particularly in relation
to clause 13, and relates to the extent to which the HCA will have to
consult with local authorities. We have heard what could be described
as a lot of warm words from the Minister about how the HCA, under the
Government’s leadership, would widely consult on a whole variety
of matters.
There is
a concern, however, certainly on this side of the Committee, that that
is not written on the face of the Bill to the extent that it should be.
The amendment
intends to rectify that problem by ensuring that some formal
consultation must take place before the HCA acts. Again, that must be
seen in the context of a powerful new agency that has functions right
across the piece. Not only is it the planner, it can now effectively
be the landowner, and we will find out later in the Bill that it can be
expected to be the
operator. It being One o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned till this day at Four
o’clock.
| 
