 House of Commons |
Session 2007 - 08 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Planning Bill |
Planning Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Alan Sandall,
Committee Clerk
† attended
the Committee
Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 15 January 2008(Morning)[Mr. Eric Illsley in the Chair]Planning BillFurther written evidence to be reported to the HousePB 25
TCPA
PB 26 Institute of
Historic Building
Conservation
PB 27 North
Lincolnshire Council
<++++>
Clause 1The
Infrastructure Planning
Commission
10.30
am
Mrs.
Jacqui Lait (Beckenham) (Con): I beg to move amendment No.
230, in
clause 1, page 1, line 4, leave
out subsection (1) and
insert—
‘(1) The Secretary
of State shall constitute an Infrastructure Planning Commission (in
this Act referred to as “the Commission”) as part of the
body corporate of the Planning
Inspectorate.’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 2, in clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end
insert—
‘(2A) The Commission
shall be appointed by the same means as the Planning
Inspectorate.’.
No.
40, in
clause 1, page 1, line 8, leave
out subsection
(3).
No. 16, in
clause 53, page 27, line 31, leave
out ‘single Commissioner under Chapter 3’ and insert
‘Planning
Inspector’.
No.
41, in
clause 53, page 27, line 35, leave
out ‘single Commissioner under Chapter 3’ and insert
‘Planning
Inspector’.
No.
42, in
clause 53, page 28, line 4, leave
out ‘single Commissioner under Chapter 3’ and insert
‘Planning
Inspector’.
No.
17, in
clause 54, page 28, line 7, leave
out ‘single Commissioner under Chapter 3’ and insert
‘Planning
Inspector’.
No.
43, in
clause 54, page 28, line 12, leave
out ‘single Commissioner under Chapter 3’ and insert
‘Planning
Inspector’.
No.
18, in
clause 54, page 28, line 26, leave
out ‘single Commissioner under Chapter 3’ and insert
‘Planning
Inspector’.
No.
44, in
clause 55, page 29, line 1, leave
out subsection
(7).
No. 45, in
clause 55, page 29, line 12, leave
out subsection
(10).
No. 19, in
clause 70, page 34, line 21, at
end insert
‘and who
shall be a member of the Planning
Inspectorate’.
Mrs.
Lait:
May I welcome you to your stint as Chair
of this Committee, Mr. Illsley? You missed
our interesting sittings last week when we took evidence. Now you have
the hard grind of the amendments. I look forward to your wise and sure
guidance.
This group
of amendments is key to our view of the Bill. Basically, they would
bring the commission within the Planning Inspectorate. I accept that we
may not have picked up every implication and change that needs to be
made to achieve that, but that is the tenor of our amendments. Should
they be accepted, I am sure that we could subsequently move to the
other changes that are required to ensure that the planning
commission is not created and does not cause extra cost to the
taxpayer.
I want to
put it firmly on the record that I do not think there is any
disagreement across any of the parties in the House, the various
interested bodies outside it and the residents and communities affected
by planning applications that the current system takes far too long. We
would all wish to see a much faster and speedier planning process. Our
argument is that the Government’s proposals will not do that.
Indeed, most people fundamentally believe that Ministers should take
final responsibility for large planning applications such as those
relating to infrastructure, and the proposals abrogate
that.
None of us
wishes to go through another Heathrow or Sizewell, which seems to be
looming on the horizon, or, as was often mentioned in
evidence, the north Yorkshire applications for improved electricity
connections. It is a sadness to us all that the 2005 planning rules
have not yet been thoroughly explored. Certainly the evidence from
where they have been brought in is that they have speeded up the
planning system quite considerably. The inspectors’ powers to
hold pre-inquiry hearings, which are limited but still considerably
greater than they were, have narrowed the grounds for discussion and
have prevented the endless repetition—it is regularly described
as watching paint dry—of the same evidence and cross-examination
on exactly the same point. Applications that have so far gone through
the process are being decided much more quickly.
It is
symptomatic of the Government that rather than wait and see how their
changes have improved things, they decide to make more changes before
there is any evidence that they are needed. We are concerned, as ever,
that no serious analysis has been undertaken of the improvements that
are already in the system.
We agree in principle with the
introduction of national policy statements to try to speed up the
planning process. I wish to stay in order, so I shall not digress at
great length on that issue, especially as we will come to it relatively
quickly, but we accept that if policy statements are in place, much of
the delay in planning applications would be removed because there would
no debate about policy. A large element of the time delays that we are
experiencing would be taken out once the policy statements are in
place.
I agree in
principle with the Government’s proposals that developers should
consult more effectively—I would probably go even further in
respect of pre-application consultation—but if planning
inquiries can be speeded up by the existence of proper pre-inquiry
hearings and if the policy statements are in place, why do we need the
commission? Why do we need to set up
a completely new body, made up of commissioners,
some of whom will come from the very experienced Planning Inspectorate
but many of whom, under the terms of the Bill, will not? The
organisation will have to be set up and there will be delays while that
happens. I suspect that there will be national planning policy
statement constipation as the Government try to get the statements
through the House given the number of applications that will probably
come forward.
We
heard conflicting evidence of the number of policy statements we will
need, varying from under 10 from the Local Government Association to
45-plus, depending on how many energy statements there are and how the
transport statements are set out. The combination of the delay while
the statements go through the House, the setting up of the commission,
the training of the commissioners, and the number of commissioners
proposed given the potential number of applications that will
be made, quite apart from legal challenges, will mean a stagnation in
major developments for some years. We have accepted the 2005 planning
rules, the policy statements, pre-inquiry hearings and the developer
consultation, but why can the Planning Inspectorate not conduct the
inquiries? Why do we need a new
body?
We heard some
interesting and powerful evidence last week. I do not
often agree with Friends of the Earth, but I agreed
with everything that its representatives said about the difficulties
that there will be with the commission. The Opposition have a
fundamental problem with the speed and the regularity with which
Ministers in this Government abrogate their responsibility for decision
taking, and the commission is another example of
it.
There
is a belief among the population that Ministers should make the big
decisions. As that is ingrained, I suggest that if that right and
responsibility is taken away, the body politic will not understand why.
Hence, there will be legal challenge after legal challenge. If we, as
Members of Parliament, are not elected to take responsibility for the
import of our decisions as legislators, the disconnect between the
voter and MPs and Ministers, about which we are all so concerned, will
only become greater, particularly with an issue such as planning, which
is of such importance to all our
constituents.
I
would challenge anyone in the Committee to say that the most important
issue to their voters on a continuing basis is not planning. They see
us, as Members of Parliament, as representing their views, both in
detail and in principle. If Ministers say that something is a
quasi-judicial decision, which technically it is, but outside this
place it is understood as a ministerial responsibility, it will not
satisfy my constituents whether it is quasi-judicial or whether it
takes into account other factors. I would be most surprised if any
member of this Committee felt that it would satisfy their constituents.
Therefore, there is a deep constitutional reason for Ministers not
abrogating their responsibilities for taking those major
decisions.
James
Duddridge (Rochford and Southend, East) (Con): Is my hon.
Friend saying that planning is fundamentally not a simply technical
issue? That is at the heart of the matter. A large degree of politics
is involved, and someone with broader skills than the technical ones
for planning should be brought in at
some stage of the process. Ultimately, that needs to
be at ministerial level. It is not simply a technical planning
matter.
Mrs.
Lait:
My hon. Friend is right. We must decide the
difference between the quasi-judicial role that all our Planning Acts
have given Ministers, in terms of making the final decision, and the
expectation and belief of our constituents that those decisions are
taken bearing in mind not only the quasi-judicial, but the reality of
the balance of the arguments on both sides and the factors that affect
them so directly. That is part of the fundamental reason why we believe
that the commission, if that is what we wish to call it, should be
brought within the remit of the Planning Inspectorate and should then
report to Ministers for their final
decision.
In setting
up this new body, we must also bear in mind that even if many of the
more experienced members of the Planning Inspectorate move over to
become commissioners or to staff the commission—quite apart from
the impact that that will have on the smaller planning deals that go to
them, and we can take out proposals that will no longer go to the
Planning Inspectorate because of the proposals on the local member
review board—there will be congestion for the smaller planning
applications. That is possibly why we have heard so much evidence
saying that various organisations would like to expand the definition
of a national infrastructure project, because they
can foresee this particular problem. I have great sympathy with them on
that problem, but the proposal is that there should be a wide range of
people on the commission who have experience other than in
planning.
10.45
am
Anybody who is
brought in would have to be trained in planning law. One assumes that
if they have not come through the Planning Inspectorate and are not
from the legal profession and in the planning Bar, they will have to be
trained quite intensively in planning law. They could come from
the environmental or the business sectors. Network Rail has stated that
it would like a rail engineer on the commission, and the nuclear sector
has said that it wants a nuclear engineer among the planning
inspectors.
Many hon.
Members among us have legal training and will know that the
commissioners will have to be trained in not just planning law, but
methods of dealing with witnesses. A problem that many of us have with
the Bill is about the right to be heard, the open forums, the
questioning of witnesses, and ensuring that people feel that they have
the opportunity of putting their case and of challenging those who have
a different view. Since the White Paper, the Government have moved from
the desire for a paper-based system to open forums. We managed to get a
slight concession when the Minister gave evidence last Thursday that
there would be the ability to cross examine in a small number of
cases—I am not quoting him precisely. The commissioners will
need all those skills on top of their original skills. They will be
rare birds, if we are able to find them. I have a suspicion that, with
the best will in the world, any decision that they make could be
challenged, sadly, on the grounds of whether they have the sufficient
skills and expertise to make those decisions.
There is also the potential for
conflicts of interest. In due course, we will come on to codes of
conduct and all the other constraints that will potentially be put on
commissioners. However, it will be very difficult to find people whose
background is not challengeable on the grounds of conflicts of
interest. I was peripherally involved in the debate on the single
casino and within the community that took an interest in that issue,
every member of the committee, bar one, was potentially open to a
challenge of a conflict of interest. I suspect that it will be very
similar with these
commissioners.
The
commissioners will be exceedingly rare birds to find. The nuclear
industry has a desire for a nuclear engineer to be among them. However,
the Government recently made a statement on an increase in the number
of nuclear power stations and there will be a national policy statement
on nuclear energy. They will be very difficult to find in the first
place because any nuclear engineer who becomes a commissioner will
probably be much better paid in the private sector. We will have a
problem of expertise, whereas people within the Planning Inspectorate
already have the skills. If there is a desire to widen the membership
of the commission, the Government would be well advised to start hiring
some of these experts and get them trained up through the Planning
Inspectorate.
We want
to bring these matters within the Planning Inspectorate because I
suspect that the number of commissioners required under the Bill will
not be sufficient, and we will come to that in greater detail. It would
be possible for the Planning Inspectorate to adjust its business and
processes to absorb the extra people who will be required to deal with
the national policy statements and the infrastructure appeals. If we
were to combine the potential number of infrastructure applications,
the eight-month timeline and the numbers of commissioners, someone will
fall down somewhere because it is difficult to see arithmetically how
the number of commissioners set down in the Bill will deal with the
number of applications within the timeline. Something is going to have
to give somewhere, and I suspect that the Planning Inspectorate would
be much better able to deal with it than any new commission.
The other area where the
skills and expertise of the Planning Inspectorate are regarded so
highly, but where the commissioners could run into problems, relates to
the panels. Anything from one to five commissioners could make up a
panel for any one application. Let us suppose that there is a big
planning application for a nuclear power station and let us say that it
will be in Sizewell, because my right hon. Friend the Member for
Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) has already said that he would
be happy to see a third Sizewell—although this is not the right
place or time to discuss whether others would.
Let us suppose that the
commission decided to have a panel of five experts in Sizewell. Under
the Bill’s provisions, the commissioners could be split on
different aspects. For instance, if a nuclear engineer—one would
assume that someone with nuclear expertise would be on that panel of
five—was asked to look at the safety implications, in the legal
challenge that would be raised by those against it he, and I say
“he” advisedly, could be accused of having a conflict of
interest for being in the pockets of the nuclear industry. I am sure
that he would not be, but that would be a
potential challenge. Equally, if the said gentleman
was put in charge of looking at the environmental aspects of that
planning application, those opposed to the plan would of course say,
“He does not know anything about it.”
I still cannot get my head
around how a broad cross-section of special expertise that comes
together in a panel could not be challenged by those who wish to do so.
The one thing that will slow down the rebuilding of our infrastructure
the most is legal challenge, because we all know how long it can take
to get things through the courts and the ingenuity of people when it
comes to finding a way to take their case one step further.
I referred fleetingly to the
right to be heard. The Planning Inspectorate currently has the skill
and, indeed, power to ensure that everyone has the right to be heard.
Members of the Committee will be glad to know that I am not a lawyer,
as I have already talked too long. [Interruption.] A Whip would
say, “Hear,
hear.”
I
am told that the right to be heard has been enshrined in British
law—I use the term advisedly—since mediaeval times, and
it is understood as the right to cross-examination. If the right to be
heard is to be reduced under the Bill, there will be considerably more
legal challenges, potentially both in relation to this House and under
the Human Rights Act 1998. The Planning Inspectorate, however, already
has the power and skills to ensure that everyone has the right to be
heard. One occasionally hears the criticism that the
inspectorate’s skills could perhaps be strengthened in that
area, but I do not wish to comment on that. If that is one of the
analyses, however, there is nothing to stop members of the Planning
Inspectorate getting that further training. However, if the commission
will in any way limit people’s right to be heard, the challenge
will be to the courts and the process will again slow up. The Planning
Inspectorate, which has the powers and the people
with the necessary skills and abilities, already exists, and I cannot
see why the commission needs to be set up if the Government do not
contemplate ending the citizen’s right to be
heard.
Mr.
David Jones (Clwyd, West) (Con): My hon. Friend makes a
powerful argument. In essence, she is saying that in the Planning
Inspectorate we already have a reservoir of talent and experience and
we should take advantage of it, not cast it aside. Does she share my
concern that the Planning Inspectorate already has the skills, both
legal and otherwise, to spot the potential pitfalls that can arise
during a long and complex hearing, which would not necessarily be in
the hands of those who might recently have been co-opted on to the
panel of the IPC? We run the risk of the nightmare scenario of not just
one but a series of judicial reviews during the course of a hearing,
which might considerably lengthen the procedure rather than shortening
it.
Mrs.
Lait:
I am most interested in my hon. Friend’s
suggestion. I envisaged many judicial review
applications at the end of a hearing but not the nightmare scenario of
such applications during a hearing. However, I absolutely agree with
him that the potential is there because of the challenge to the skills
of the commissioners. He makes a valid point.
The Government have brushed
aside the issue of legal challenges time and again because it is
something that no one wants to think about. At the risk of repetition,
everyone wants the planning system to be speeded up but legal challenge
and the opportunity to widen and open up channels for legal challenge
have not been sufficiently thoroughly explored, despite the
Committee’s evidence-taking sittings, because no one wants to
consider that the new system has the potential to increase greatly the
number of legal challenges, and, sadly, that has come through very
strongly to me. When one wants something so much, one never thinks of
the down side, and that creates an interesting psychological
impetus.
My final
point in considering matters relating to the Planning Inspectorate and
whether we need to set up the commission is that there is already a
planning inquiry commission—it was set up under the Town and
Country Planning Act 1968 and consolidated in the Town and Country
Planning Act 1971—which has never been used. It was set up with
exactly the same idea of speeding up applications for big
infrastructure projects, although not precisely in the way that the
Bill proposes, by the right hon. Peter Shore, who was then the Member
for Stepney and Poplar or Poplar and
Stepney.
11
am
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Jim
Fitzpatrick):
I think it was Bethnal
Green.
Mrs.
Lait:
He was a very eminent Member of this House who
scuppered it himself by saying that the planning inquiry commission as
set up in the Act did not allow the voice of local people to be heard
sufficiently. In 1990 the then Conservative Government resurrected the
idea because of increasing concerns about environmental issues. Again,
it has never been used and one suspects that that is for exactly the
same reason. The Government have fallen into exactly the same trap with
their IPC. It potentially limits the rights of local people to be heard
properly. I was rather surprised that we have a whole new Bill dealing
with this rather than, if the Government believe that some sort of
commission is the right way forward, simply an amendment to the 1990
Act to bring it into
line.
The gist of all
of these comments is that the commission is redundant. It would be
unnecessary if the Government accepted our amendments and if the
developer was required to consult and to act on the results of that
consultation pre-application, and if there was a pre-inquiry hearing of
greater extent than outlined in the Bill. The existence of national
policy statements is another factor. We agree with the Government on
the single consent regime. I remember in the mid-90s arguing that the
Electricity Act 1989 provisions on planning should be brought within
what is now the Department for Communities and Local Government, so I
have a track record on the single consent regime. I am happy to admit
that because it is nonsense that different Departments should deal with
planning issues. The Government have not been completely wholehearted
about that but they are nevertheless going in the right
direction.
There needs to be better
Government co-ordination. Terminal 5, for example, was scuppered
because of a statement made by the then Deputy Prime Minister
about motorways, which led to one of those horrendous
delays. If those 2005 rules were properly implemented and if there was
further training for people in the inspectorate and perhaps a widening
of the membership, we would not need the commission. That is the burden
of the
amendments.
Dan
Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD): May I add to the remarks
of the hon. Member for Beckenham in welcoming you to the Chair,
Mr. Illsley? It is the first time that I have served under
your chairmanship on a Public Bill Committee, but I have served under
your chairmanship on all-party groups. I know that you will keep us on
task and ensure that we stick to the timetable very
closely.
The
amendments focus on matters to which we shall return in the stand part
debate. They are a sensible step forward in terms of looking at what we
already have as a resource in the Planning Inspectorate before setting
up another quango and another bureaucratic
organisation. Such organisations all set out with noble aims to improve
the way that things are done and to achieve a high reputation among all
who come into contact with them. But what tends to happen with such
things is that if we get duplication and over-complication, those noble
aims are soon abandoned.
As the hon. Lady has said,
many provisions in the Bill stand up to scrutiny with
perhaps a little amendment. We will come to those in due course. The
evidence last week from those who kindly came to give us their views
showed that the commission was the element in the Bill with the least
support and which was felt to be the least
necessary.
Bearing
in mind that we will be having further discussion and that other hon.
Members want to speak, I will confine my remarks to saying that the
hon. Lady’s amendments are sensible in exploring what can be
done with the resources and the expertise that we already have. The
provisions elsewhere in the Bill could make use of that resource far
more effectively, rather than having recourse to a new body and a new
set of costs, which the Government will have to recoup
elsewhere.
Mr.
David Curry (Skipton and Ripon) (Con): It is a pleasure to
sit under your authoritative guidance, Mr.
Illsley.
Whenever I
discuss planning, I am always brought in mind of a conversation
on Audley End station, where one frustrated commuter said that he
wondered why on earth the station for Saffron Walden was so far from
the town, to which another sardonic commuter replied that he thought
that it was probably because people wanted it to be somewhere near the
railway
line.
Currently in
planning, we have a call-in, followed by an inquiry, followed by an
outcome, which is issued in the name of a Minister. However, the
Minister is accountable at that point only if there is a judicial
challenge to process. I know from my own experience that when Ministers
have to report difficult decisions such as this, the sheer amount of
bureaucratic energy that goes into making those decisions proof to
judicial
review far outweighs the input into the substance of the decisions in
the first place because of concerns about judicial
recourse.
The
important part of the Bill is not about the commission; it is about the
national policy statements. What changes the essential process is the
national policy statements. Who implements those decisions is a matter
of detail. National policy statements, by their very nature, will be
prescriptive if they are to mean anything at all. If there was a
national policy statement covering airport facilities, we all know that
there are only a handful of places to which that might refer; it is
inconceivable that it would not specify what was being talked about.
Equally, if we were talking about nuclear power plants, it is not
rocket science to know the sites which are being referred to, and the
policy statement would be very likely to be specific about such things.
If we were talking about major port development, we could all name the
handful of ports that the national policy statement would
concern.
If national
policy statements are to be effective, they will give a very strong
indication on the process to whichever body is taking the ultimate
decision. That body’s main task will be to organise and
orchestrate the consultation procedures—the mechanics of
finalising a decision that has been foreshadowed in the national policy
statement. Therefore, the commission is a matter of
detail.
The decision
that we must take is whether we want that process to lie in the hands
of an existing body, the Planning Inspectorate, about which people moan
from time to time because they do not like the outcome of inquiries,
but which has a very high reputation for unimpeachable neutrality, or
to lie in the hands of a new body, staffed by experts in certain areas.
As we heard in our sittings last week, bodies will expect to have some
sort of representation on that board, in the same way that the Food
Standards Agency has people on its board who have expertise in and
links to particular parts of the food industry. I think that that has
worked very
well.
What would a
new commission do that a planning inspectorate cannot do if set up with
some coherent distinct or discrete element to deal with those
super-decisions, as we might call them? It is difficult to see what it
would deliver. Would it depoliticise the decisions? To all practical
purposes, the decisions are depoliticised already, because they are
issued in the Secretary of State’s name but we know that they
are the outcomes of the Planning Inspectorate’s work. The
Minister would have to have a huge degree of courage to overturn a
decision that had been recommended by the Planning Inspectorate. That
would have all sorts of judicial consequences, so the issues of
accountability are rather
difficult.
Would the
commission be compromised by the fact that it will deliberately be
staffed by experts? I would be slightly happier with the idea that it
would be staffed by people who were not experts,
because the experts should be there to advise them. I remember a
conversation I held with the chairman of Shell in which I asked him
which graduates he preferred to work for the company. He said,
“Classicists”. I asked, “Why classicists?”,
and he replied that they sell more petrol. I suppose that that
is not a particularly correct thing to say now that we hear of global
warming, but the comment was actually
made.
I prefer to
have sensible, well-balanced people with a broad knowledge, who can
then receive expertise on particular areas. The danger of saying,
“We must have someone who is an expert in the nuclear industry.
We must have someone who is an expert in the maritime industry. We must
have someone who is expert in power generation”—the
Minister was quite impressed when we agreed last week that we must have
someone who has good social skills and who can be regarded as a
community relationship expert—is that they will be
seen to be representing lobbies. Therefore, they will
take a long time to establish and, perhaps more importantly, to be
credited with a culture of absolute neutrality. On those grounds, there
is a good argument for saying that the radical step having been
accomplished, which is the national policy statement, it would be
better to let the existing body of well-known reputation and calibre
deal with the implementation and consequences than to go to all the
trouble and expense of setting up a new
body.
Accountability
and planning is a fairly tenuous business, and it is supposed to be.
There is no point calling it a quasi-judicial process if we expect to
apply to it the normal rules of accountability. The whole point is that
there is a sort of political ha-ha between the decisions and their
judicial accountability. The key will be the political challenges to
the drawing up of national policy statements. The improvements in
accountability will lie entirely in the input into the development of
national policy statements. We should have a significant debate on
that, because I am not convinced that the scrutiny ideas in the Bill
are very practical for the
House.
Therefore, the
commission will not be accountable and, in a sense, it will be even
more unaccountable than it is, relatively, under the present system. I
think that we should look, in preference, at building on the existing
Planning Inspectorate. I would be very interested to know what happens
overseas. I know that sometimes we are rather reluctant to take foreign
lessons in relation to what happens to us. My willingness to do that
from time to time has been one of my political problems, but how other
countries manage these things can often give us very good lessons. I
would be interested to know how many countries have the type of
autonomous body that is being envisaged, and how many have been able to
incorporate it into a structure which is on a continuum with the normal
planning
processes.
Therefore,
I think that the idea that we should build on the Planning Inspectorate
is perfectly valid. I think that we need to focus on
the planning policy statements, which are the real changes as far as
the Bill is concerned. The rest is a matter of detail. The commission
will be a very expensive detail indeed, and I would much rather stick
with the devil we
know.
11.15
am
Mr.
Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy) (PC): It is a
pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon and I
agree with much of what he has said. I also think that the present
system could be tweaked without having to go to the huge expense of
legislating in order to bring in the IPC. One of the
problems with the present Government is that they rush to legislate when
a perceived problem appears. We are always legislating in every area,
and some months later we consider whether it was wise to do so, and
that is possibly a very costly exercise.
The right hon. Gentleman said
that the IPC would need experts of various kinds and mentioned the
example of the nuclear industry. In my experience, experts on the
nuclear industry, and there are many, are either very much in favour of
or very much against planned developments, so a lot depends on what
kind of expert is put on the IPC to begin with because those on either
side might be biased in any event.
I will pause for a moment,
because I always thought that the Government, when they were in
opposition, did not like quangos. They went on ad nauseam about them
and how they were going to do away with every quango on earth. Now
probably the biggest example of an unaccountable quango ever is being
put in place at the cost of £9.3 million per annum, with a
set-up cost of £5 million according to the Government’s
figures.
Last week,
we heard from the Planning Inspectorate, whose representatives were
forthright in saying that the new rules and regulations were working
well. They are currently streamlining the process so that they are able
to truncate hearings when it is judged right to do so, and to offer
people the opportunity to be heard and to cross-examine, within
certain guidelines, so that, broadly, they can ensure a fair trial or
hearing. We heard that things are working well and that the new rules
and regulations have been in place for almost two and a half years. I
think that it is a bit early to try to legislate and that they should
have had more of an opportunity to bed down.
The right hon. Gentleman was
also right when he said that there are probably two crucial parts of
the Bill. The IPC is one, but it must surely be underpinned by the idea
of national policy statements. Last week, we had the nuclear statement,
and the right hon. Gentleman asked the Minister for Local Government if
that was actually a national policy statement. He responded that it was
not. I am not so sure that that could easily be adopted as a national
policy statement under the Bill without further ado, because if one
looks at the powers of the IPC, one will see that it will have
unprecedented powers to apply, modify or exclude provisions in primary
legislation and to amend, repeal or revoke the provisions of local Acts
and primary legislation when, according to clause 105, it is expedient
to do so. In every case, those decisions can be taken without
parliamentary scrutiny, and it seems that the right hon.
Gentleman’s only power will be to give a direction in narrow
circumstances where a revocation could be contrary to European law or
the European convention on human
rights.
I hope that I
am not being cynical, but when I read clause 13 I have a nasty feeling
that we are setting up a body to steamroller through
bad-neighbour applications, limit discussion and prevent locals from
having their say. If one looks at the examples of projects listed in
clause 13, one will see that it provides for the underground storage of
gas, pipelines, highways, airport facilities, rail freight interchange,
dam or reservoir extensions, waste water treatment plants and hazardous
waste facilities. Quite apart from the issue of the proliferation of
nuclear power stations, I do not want to see communities being
told, “You have no say in this, and you are going to have a
repository for nuclear waste in your village.” That sounds
far-fetched, but I have had dealings with those at Nirex
and have no respect whatever for them. In many
instances, they have been, to put it mildly, a bit economical with the
truth. Going back 20 years—
Mr.
Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman will of
course be aware that Nirex no longer
exists.
Mr.
Llwyd:
The body that took over Nirex does exist.
Is it the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management
now? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell
me.
Mr.
Reed:
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
subsumed the functions of Nirex by Act of Parliament last
year.
Mr.
Llwyd:
But the people who work in that new body are the
same people who worked in the previous one; that I can confirm. They
come from the same roots.
Mr.
Reed:
The technical experts are exactly the same; the
corporate face, the ethos, the functions and the whole way of doing
business—I am not here to defend the NDA, although its
headquarters are in my constituency—are entirely
different.
Mr.
Llwyd:
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should declare an
interest; I do not know whether he is sponsored by the NDA. I attended
one of its meetings— unfortunately, I did not pick up on the new
name—at which it said, “We are going to be open and
transparent now. We are going to enter into detailed discussions. That
did not happen perfectly under Nirex but it will from now on. We are
currently looking at five sites.” I asked where those five sites
were and the reply was, “Sorry, we can’t tell
you.” That is the transparency business. It has inherited some
of the worst facets of
Nirex.
The
Chairman:
Order. We are not debating Nirex or its
successor body. I ask the hon. Gentleman to return to the
amendments.
Mr.
Llwyd:
May I therefore refer to the construction of a
hazardous waste facility, which is listed under clause 13, and which
will be under the auspices of the IPC? Such facilities are bad
neighbours and people outside this House will be very worried about
attempts to limit local input. National policy statements are crucial
in that respect; perhaps they are the vehicle that will ensure that
people are heard properly and they are key if the Bill is to get off
the ground. I am very concerned about the matter, especially in view of
the recent announcement on the new wave of nuclear power
stations.
I accept
that in the past there have been long, drawn-out planning appeals,
which should have been curtailed. Day after day, there were long
cross-examinations, evidence sessions and so on, sometimes to no avail.
Having said that, planning law affects every one of us, potentially in
detrimental ways, so we must be very careful in our deliberations on
the Bill.
I agree that policy statements
are vital and we shall examine those proposals in great detail, but I
am concerned about the accountability of the IPC. It is all very well
saying that if the IPC gets something wrong there is always judicial
review, but according to the Wednesbury definition there can be a
judicial review only when conduct has been unreasonable. In any event,
judicial reviews are costly proceedings. Are we saying that if people
in a small locality felt aggrieved, their only recourse would be the
High Court? That would be an abominable
situation.
Mr.
Jones:
The hon. Gentleman mentioned accountability, which
is extremely important, and the fact that the IPC will have the power
to amend, modify or, in some cases, overrule existing primary
legislation. Does it not fly in the face of any meaningful
accountability that a member of the public who is aggrieved by such a
decision cannot go to a Member of Parliament who can go to the Minister
responsible and complain about it? There would be no one to complain
about such a decision.
Mr.
Llwyd:
That is a grave concern and I cannot for the life
of me understand why some form of reporting from the IPC to a Minister
with the appropriate responsibility is not built into the Bill. I would
be far more comfortable with that. I have tabled amendments to later
clauses regarding reporting to Parliament and laying reports before
Parliament annually to tease out whether there is any accountability in
these matters.
I
accept that the planning process has improved, but we could improve it
further. To say the least, at the moment I am a sceptic on the IPC. I
am very concerned about the nature of this beast and whether it will
ride roughshod over communities with no recourse to any sort of second
or third discussion.
I am grateful to the hon.
Member for Copeland for putting me right about Nirex, but I am still
concerned about some of the vested interests. I do not suggest that the
Government are hand in glove with them, but clause 13 is shot through
with vested interests and there are some very powerful players in the
current planning process. I hope that they will not skewer this
process, because unless we are careful the IPC will do whatever it
wants at their behest.
James
Duddridge:
It is a pleasure to serve under your
chairmanship again, Mr. Illsley. Clause 1 and this group of
amendments go to the heart of this Bill and the question of why we are
creating an IPC and moving away from the Planning Inspectorate. Could
the Minister explain some of the terminology used? What does a
commission do that an inspectorate does not? What does that change in
terminology mean? Why is this not an infrastructure planning
inspectorate? Is it really right to say that it is a planning body in
the sense that the national policy statements set out the framework and
go through Ministers and to some degree, although not enough, through
Parliament? Does it do future planning? That is not really the case, in
that it looks at propositions brought forward to it by, for example,
the nuclear industry, other private sector developers or quasi
public-private sector developers.
I am somewhat confused by the change from
inspectorate to commission, and about the use of the term
“planning” and whether that is the right
term.
We already have
the Planning Inspectorate. It is a fit-for-purpose body that could
easily do the tasks that are being assigned to the IPC. Not only is it
fit for purpose, but by creating a secondary organisation, we may build
into the system confusion, problems and
contradictions. It has the expertise, and there is a
limited amount of such expertise—I presume that someone cannot
serve on both bodies at the same time. There is a limit to the number
of planning experts. There is also the issue of the additional costs. A
cost basis for the IPC of about £50 million was bandied around.
That was based on 30 individuals as commissioners. That number has now
risen significantly. Will that figure of £50 million, which has
already gone up once, go up again? Perhaps the Minister could address
the issues of longer-term cost. Presumably, a new organisation will
involve new premises. Commissioners will largely be drawn from groups
such as the Planning Inspectorate and will have to move en bloc across
the country to this new head office. Again, those are unnecessary
additional costs that will cause a greater degree of
confusion.
Other
hon. Members have talked about ministerial decision making. While the
Minister is perhaps not making the individual decision, those decisions
are made in his name. For clarity’s sake, could the Minister
confirm that he or previous Ministers have not turned
down any recommendations from the Planning
Inspectorate? Alternatively, are their circumstances in which the
Minister does not give his approval, because the process has not gone
through, and in which the Minister asserts a greater degree of
ministerial responsibility?
It is important that our
constituents can come to us and that we can pay a visit to the Minister
responsible when our constituency is affected by
major infrastructure projects. I fear that Ministers and Departments
are abdicating responsibility to an independent planning commission, so
that they can say, “We as Ministers do not take these individual
decisions. We rise above that. We have national policy statements and
devolve responsibility for some of the detail to the independent
planning commission, with some site-specific national policy
statements.” I fear that that is an abdication of responsibility
because sometimes it is only when looking at individual decisions and
applications that the national policy statements come into focus. There
should be a greater degree of ministerial and political accountability
for those
decisions.
11.30
am
The
infrastructure planning commission will still be quite small, whether
it has 45 commissioners or more. There will be difficulty in getting
people with the right skill set, such as skills in taking oral
evidence. The point was raised that we will need commissioners with
broad social skills, rather than technical skills. I do not want to
suggest that people with technical skills do not have social skills,
but there is a great case for having generalists who receive specialist
advice, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon has
already
noted.
Planning is
fundamentally a political issue, which goes to the heart of some of our
communities. It is not simply a technical issue whereby a simple
calculation
can be made at the IPC that if the number is above 10 it is a good idea
for the community, and if it is below 10 it is bad. It is not that
scientific. There are highly political decisions to be taken,
particularly now that there is greater awareness of issues such as
climate change and sustainability, which challenge developers and
development generally. We are moving towards a situation in which there
is an understanding by politicians that planning and development is a
lot more complicated, a lot less technical and a lot broader. The
infrastructure planning commission goes in completely the opposite
direction to that in depoliticising the issues and looking at them in a
more technical
manner.
I believe
that we will have an opportunity to discuss this matter further in
relation to schedule 1, but I have concerns about challenges to the
appointment of commissioners that might strike at the heart of whether
the IPC is credible. Will
commissioners—
The
Chairman:
Order. The hon. Gentleman is out of order as he
is debating schedule 1 and not clause 1, to which the amendment
relates. Will he come back to clause
1?
James
Duddridge:
I thank you for that clarification,
Mr. Illsley. The point that I was trying to make is that the
IPC itself might lose credibility because of some of the issues that
will be raised under later provisions of the Bill. I know that there
will be plenty of time to discuss schedule 1.
Therefore, to conclude, I
believe that the Planning Inspectorate is fit for purpose. The
establishment of the infrastructure planning commission is not the
right way forward and will incorporate problems into an already complex
situation.
Mr.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con): As others have said, it is
a great pleasure to serve under you, Mr.
Illsley.
Before
saying anything else, I refer hon. Members to my entry in the
Register of Members’ Interests. I am a member of the Royal
Institution of Chartered Surveyors, as a lapsed surveyor. That is a bit
like being a lapsed Catholic, but without the guilt. Nevertheless, I
subscribe to what that organisation says about this important
issue.
No other
Member of this House has more cause than I to wish to see the planning
process speeded up. Hon. Members will remember the Newbury bypass and
the controversy that surrounded it. The Member of Parliament for
Newbury just after the war, Sir Anthony Hurd, started the process of
campaigning for that piece of infrastructure and it was not opened
until the late 1990s. It is worth looking at the inquiry process and
what was said in the planning
inquiry.
I will give
one example that relates directly to the amendments. There was a
bug—I cannot remember its name—that lived in one part of
the site and went to the other side of where the road would be, to
mate. Days were spent discussing that bug and eventually the chairman
said, “What are those things on either side of the bug?”
The expert replied, “Those are wings.” The chairman said,
“Surely it can fly to where it has to go to mate. Let us move
on.” That is an example of how planning inquiries can get bogged
down in seemingly
trivial matters. No one would want to see the process speeded up more
than I do, but I believe that the commission risks making the problem
worse and not providing the benefits that we want to
see.
I would like to
reiterate the question of costs that my hon. Friend the Member for
Rochford and Southend, East has just mentioned. I would like to tease
out from the Minister a further indication as to what he thinks the
running costs of the commission will be, bearing in mind that we are
hearing a variety of different figures for how many projects the
commission might take on in an average year. We heard
originally that perhaps it would be 30. My hon. Friend has quoted other
organisations saying that it could be as many as 45. One starts to
wonder what the costs will come down to. In a written answer from the
Minister, start-up costs are estimated at £5 million, which I
would concede is not a deal-breaker, but it is important to know the
basis of that £5 million. We have in place a Planning
Inspectorate, a structure, a system, which can easily incorporate
start-up costs and many of the on-running costs of the
proposal.
Leading on
from my earlier point, by including people as commissioners with vested
interests, coming from particular backgrounds, we risk increasing the
problem and creating a planning atrophy whereby the system will
stagnate as interests conflict. The Planning
Inspectorate has a degree of neutrality and a high
degree of professionalism. I do not believe that the process will be
cleaned up by the Bill’s current provisions.
I also believe that the
amendment will create other tensions beyond those of the proposed
organisation and the Planning Inspectorate, as it currently exists.
Another quango has recently been created, the Homes and Communities
Agency, which may well suggest that there should be a new eco-town in
some of our constituencies. Clause 13 specifically does not mention
housing as one of the IPC’s responsibilities, but if another
quango recommends an eco-town, it is sure as anything
that that will mean infrastructure requirements. Let us suppose that
the planning commission and the Homes and Communities Agency were
coming at this from different angles; that would be another cause for
planning atrophy to occur. In addition, the Government’s own
favoured development agencies also currently have responsibilities in
some of those areas. So who will make the decision? If it all comes to
a grinding halt, who will ultimately decide? Will the Minister be
subject to legal challenges? Will the proposals, as we have heard,
result in many more legal challenges and judicial reviews? Judicial
reviews could come at a fairly early stage in the process; they could
be held on the commission personnel and their
backgrounds.
Therefore,
many questions need to be answered and I hope that, in support of the
amendments, we can tease some of those answers out of the Minister. I
will state clearly that we believe that this is an important part of
the Bill that is taking planning in fundamentally the wrong direction.
I hope that the Minister can respond to the points that we have
made.
The
Minister for Local Government (John Healey):
I welcome you
to the Chair, Mr. Illsley. I have enjoyed serving under your
chairmanship previously and look forward to doing so again under you
and your co-chair, Sir John Butterfill. I am sorry that you missed the
evidence sessions last week, but I am sure that you have ensured that
you are fully up to speed and have read the minutes of
evidence.
The
evidence sessions were a useful addition. It was the first time that I
have been involved in a public Bill process of which that was a part. I
would like to record my thanks to those witnesses who gave verbal and
written evidence to the Committee. I think that it helps
our deliberations. We have had a good and detailed
discussion. Rightly, we have given significant consideration at the
outset of the Committee to the nature and purpose of the infrastructure
planning commission, although we have strayed on to some of the detail.
Nevertheless, it is a major area of the Bill and I realise that there
are some significant questions and concerns about it from some
quarters. It is therefore proper that in our first scrutiny sitting, we
give it this sort of
treatment.
I also
think that that the tone that the hon. Member for Beckenham used in
leading off the debate, and which other hon. Members
have used when contributing, has been useful. It has been serious,
searching and, essentially, constructive. I have made it clear from the
outset of this process that my interest is in getting the strongest and
best possible legislation in place to achieve the policy purposes that
we have set out. As the Minister responsible for the Bill, I hope that
hon. Members approve of the way in which we have handled the
development of the proposals from the White Paper to the Bill and of
the way in which we are prepared to consider the strength of the cases
and the evidence that people put to us for improvements. I am
determined that we will continue to do that throughout the process of
considering the Bill, along with my colleagues who are assisting me as
part of the ministerial
team.
Turning
specifically to the important points that the hon. Lady introduced, I
welcome the fact that she agrees in principle with national policy
statements. She is right that they will remove policy examination from
the consideration of major applications and she is right to say that it
is important that we do so. I welcome her agreement that the
pre-application consultation procedure is a good step forward, although
she may have suggestions for improving
it.
That leaves us
with the hon. Lady’s two principal questions, which other
Members have echoed. I will try to deal with them.
Why should we have the infrastructure planning commission and not the
Planning Inspectorate? The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East
argued that the Planning Inspectorate is fit for the purpose that we
envisage. As I hope he will understand from the comments that I make,
the Planning Inspectorate is not fit for the purpose that we have for
the IPC. That was also argued by the planning inspectors who came
before us in the evidence session last week. It might be worth
revisiting the minutes of the evidence
sessions.
James
Duddridge:
The Minister says that the Planning
Inspectorate is not fit for purpose, but could he give the evidence,
perhaps later in his comments, as to why it could not be made fit for
purpose at a cost and in a process that is more effective than that of
setting up a brand new organisation?
John
Healey:
If the hon. Gentleman feels that I do not meet
that test or answer those points in my remarks, he may intervene again
and he can return to the issue in further
debates.
Why should
we create the IPC? Essentially, there is a degree of consensus about
the problems in the current process, particularly when dealing with
major infrastructure projects. We see three main benefits in setting up
the IPC. First, it will improve the speed and efficiency of the system,
which the hon. Lady was concerned about. At the moment, major projects
are examined by the planning inspector, often subject to inquiry, and
then decided on by Ministers. That means that,
sequentially, there are two processes and two separate bodies going
over the same ground. With some decisions, the process can involve more
than one Minister from more than one Department. That adds complexity
and a potential delay, particularly when Ministers look for
clarification or go back for further information on key points. The
IPC, set up and operating in the way that we propose, will deliver the
principal benefit of a faster and more efficient planning
system.
11.45
am
Secondly,
we believe that the IPC will lead to better-quality decisions. I think
that all Members recognise that the big, nationally significant
infrastructure projects, for which this is solely designed, are often
uniquely complex and involve some significant technical questions, and
we at least need to question whether Ministers are best placed to
determine such questions. That is the purpose behind the proposed
commission and its composition, which we shall examine in detail in our
subsequent
scrutiny.
Thirdly, we
see greater clarity and transparency as the benefits of the IPC. As my
hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town will know, that is
because, in transport-related projects such as highways, we can have a
situation in which an Under-Secretary in the Department for Transport
is responsible for policy, oversees the proposing and generation of
proposals for major applications and, ultimately, decides and
determines them as well. To us, that seems to be a potential confusion
of roles, does not help the degree of clarity or certainty and, as a
result, will not help the proper degree of accountability that the
system for such important decisions should
have.
Mr.
Llwyd:
On that point, can the hon. Gentleman distinguish
between the situation that he has just described and that in which he
might make a national policy statement, which will have to be followed
by the IPC without
fail?
John
Healey:
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will realise that
we are now dealing with the IPC and that the introduction of national
policy statements for the first time is a significant introduction,
which we will deal with under part 2 of the Bill. Those policy
statements will be rightly proposed by Ministers and rightly subject to
wide public consultation and detailed scrutiny in Parliament. Only then
would they be approved and stand as national policy statements. They
will then set what is essentially the single policy framework and the
principle source of reference for the IPC when it
considers major infrastructure applications. The IPC will therefore
operate within that policy
framework.
Mr.
Curry:
Does the Minister accept that there must be a
significant number of cases in which the policy framework in practice
prescribes the detail of the development, because there are
areas—I cited airports and nuclear power stations—where
the national policy statement does everything but
sign off the development? I do not understand where the improvement in
process lies.
John
Healey:
The national policy statements will be properly
produced and introduced by Ministers and will be subject to detailed
parliamentary scrutiny. Some may include locationally specific elements
as part of the framework within which the IPC will
oversee the preparation of applications and manage their consideration.
However, it will still have the important role of determining that
application: first, is it consistent with the framework of the NPS;
and, secondly, does the potential national benefit and its consistency
with the national policy statement outweigh any potential local
concerns or disadvantages? It is quite clear that the IPC is not there
to rubber stamp any application that happens to be in a particular site
that could be mentioned in the national policy statement. It has an
important role in the process that we propose for it. I fully expect
the IPC not just to say, “Yes” to certain applications,
but also rightly to say, “No”, despite having a role in
ensuring that the quality of any applications that come before it meet
the standards that it sets.
Mr.
Curry:
I do not want to stray too much on to the subject
of policy statements, but so much of what we are discussing depends on
it. It is almost a pity that we are not looking at that first. Will a
national policy statement be amendable in the course of parliamentary
scrutiny? The Select Committees will scrutinise, but they do not amend,
as such. Will it be amendable by the
House?
John
Healey:
The Secretary of State and I have made it clear
how seriously we take that element of the process of
the production of national policy statements. That is not only because
Parliament’s role is important, but because, to the extent that
Parliament plays an active, strong role in scrutiny by potentially
debating and revising national policy statements, the statements will
be stronger, more authoritative and a better basis for determining any
individual applications that may follow as a
result.
We have made
it clear that we would expect to and would be required to consult
widely as Ministers on any potential draft national
policy statement. We would expect Parliament to give that close
scrutiny. Ultimately, it is for Parliament to determine the
arrangements that it sets up to do that, but we are proposing and will
seek a quadrilateral Select Committee to discharge that
function.
I
suspect that the Select Committee will take evidence, come to its view,
publish a report, and, no doubt, have recommendations for the ways in
which the draft national policy statement can be improved or amended,
or whether it should be reconsidered. Ministers will inevitably take
that carefully into account, as we always do. We will make any
revisions that we think may be justified at that point, but—the
right hon. Gentleman knows the procedures of the House better than I
do—it is also open for Select Committees to regard a particular
policy area or report
that they have produced seriously enough to want a debate on the Floor
of the House. It is also open for Parliament to choose to vote on such
things. All those matters are not for us as the Government, or for me
as the Minister responsible, but for Parliament. I am keen that the
House takes an early look at them, and I am seeking to meet, as soon as
possible, the Leader of the House and the Chairs of the four Select
Committees which we believe have an important expertise to bring to the
parliamentary scrutiny of the national policy
statements.
Mrs.
Lait:
I find the Minister’s comments
interesting, and we will, undoubtedly, pursue them. However, may I take
him back to his concern about what he believes is a conflict of
interest for Ministers when dealing with matters set out in clause
13(1) and its 13 paragraphs as to what are nationally significant
infrastructure projects? I have just looked quickly down the
list—
The
Chairman:
Order. The hon. Lady is jumping ahead into
clause 13 and infrastructure projects. The Minister talked about
national policy statements, but we are still debating clause 1 and
amendments relating to the planning commission. May we come back to the
amendments?
Mrs.
Lait:
Indeed, with pleasure, Mr. Illsley. I was
about to come to the relevance of the amendments. The Minister raised
the issue of the perceived conflict of interest for Ministers and the
reason for establishing the
commission.
Our
argument is that of the 13 nationally significant infrastructure
projects listed in clause 13, Ministers are technically involved in
only two, both of which are in transport. One is roads, because the
Highways Agency is a wholly funded Government agency. The
other is railways, because Network Rail is
essentially—[
Interruption.
] I have said on
the Floor of the House that it is a nationalised industry, but,
technically, it is a company limited by guarantee. However, the way
things are going, it will very quickly be nationalised.
In only two of the 13 does
that conflict of interest exist. To create a national planning
commission for two conflicts of interest is a very expensive exercise
in
self-indulgence.
John
Healey:
The hon. Lady should check the record. At no point
did I say that there is a conflict of interest. I said that there is
scope in our proposals for introducing greater clarity, a greater
separation of roles and, therefore, a greater ability to hold to
account.
On why we
are not using the Planning Inspectorate, the planning inspectors
explained in their evidence to the Committee that they are appointed by
the Secretary of State to make decisions on her behalf or to make
recommendations to her on major projects, such as the ones that we are
considering for the IPC. At the heart of what we are doing is the wish
to create a distinction between policy making and decision making in
major projects. Developing the Planning Inspectorate would not allow us
to deliver that separation. I shall come on to a couple of other
reasons for that, but I do not believe that the Planning Inspectorate
system as it currently stands is the right way to deal with those major
projects.
On the hon. Lady’s
concerns about why we should not let the 2005 reforms play through, I
hope she remembers the Eddington report into transport and the Barker
report into planning and housing. They were clear in their analysis
about the weaknesses of the current planning system. Both inquiries
clearly said that simply fine-tuning or tinkering with the current
system would not be up to the job of delivering the housing that we
require, in Barker’s case, or of delivering the transport
infrastructure that we need, in Eddington’s
case.
The energy
White Paper, along with the work that we have done on the importance of
energy security and the commitments that we have made on the challenge
of climate change, require us to look for reforms if we want to meet
this country’s obligations on climate change. We want to deliver
a better balance of energy sources for the future, including renewable
sources, and we want to make them more secure. We want to secure the
same sort of economic success that we have seen in the past 10 years,
as global pressures become much greater. To achieve those aims we will
need a better planning system that will help us to deal with those big
challenges. Major investment in infrastructure will be required in all
those
areas.
Mr.
Curry:
Before the Minister moves on, will he comment
further on those reports? The Government treat the Barker report as if
it is a re-write of the Old Testament. A lot of things in the Barker
report were not right. It asked for yet another shot at the planning
gains tax, which I am delighted to say the Government have rejected.
Some of the points that she made about land being hoarded by developers
and some of her reasons for the absence of a sufficient rate of house
building have not been sustained in
practice.
John
Healey:
My point about the Barker report related to those
matters on which she was absolutely right. She was concerned about the
performance of the planning system, and right in her criticisms
and suggestions for some of the major reforms that were
required.
12
noon
Dan
Rogerson:
I am sure that few hon. Members would dispute
that there are problems with the planning system and issues that need
to be addressed. The question is whether the IPC is one of the
solutions that we need to resolve those problems. Does the Minister
feel that that aspect of the current proposals was not as well
supported, whether in those reports to which he referred or in the
evidence last
week?
John
Healey:
I was quite encouraged by the evidence. The core
case and requirement for the IPC was strongly supported by a number of
significant witnesses. Clearly some disagreed, which is only to be
expected, and
others, like members of the Committee, have questions about how it might
work and some of the detail, which is part of the purpose of our
scrutiny.
Mrs.
Lait:
The Minister referred to the Barker and
Eddington reports. My sense of timing may be
incorrect, but given that we still have not seen the impact of the 2005
planning changes and that nobody has done any analysis of them, were
Barker and Eddington not published before the process had even been
established? How could they comment on the changes on a process that
had not been worked
through?
John
Healey:
I was going to deal first with the hon.
Lady’s point on whether Ministers should be doing this. It was
also made by other hon. Members. I was then going to come on to the
2005 reforms. I can switch the order if she prefers, but perhaps she
could give me a little longer to proceed with my points. She can come
back later if I do not cover her
comments.
I
understand the arguments that hon. Members make about Ministers. I
understand Members’ fierce pride in this place and the
importance that they place on the ministerial accountability to it.
However, as I tried to explain in evidence last week, when taking
decisions on planning as Ministers in the Departments with those
responsibilities, we act less in a political role. Indeed, were we to
make decisions on a political basis, they would readily and rightly be
challenged legally, as they often have been when Ministers have tried
it in the past.
Ministers make decisions in
that capacity in a quasi-judicial role, strongly
constrained—rightly, many would say—within the legal
framework of the planning process. That means that if I as a Minister
in the Department for Communities and Local Government make a planning
decision, I am accountable not to Members of this House or to
Parliament. I am not challengeable for that principally in this House;
I am challengeable principally through the
courts.
John
Healey:
Principally, I am accountable to judges and juries
and not to this House for those decisions that I take. I may have to
explain it to the House, but ultimately I am accountable to and
challengeable through the judicial process, not the political and
parliamentary process.
James
Duddridge:
I put it to the Minister that he is wholly and
totally wrong and that he is accountable to the electorate, who will
kick him out if he and his colleagues get it wrong. I was going to ask
whether an oral question can be asked on an infrastructure project, but
I think that after I indicated that I wanted to intervene, he
distinguished between the word “explain” and words that
he had used previously. One has to explain, but that is not the same as
being accountable to Parliament. Does he believe that he is indeed
accountable to Parliament collectively?
John
Healey:
Of course I am accountable to Parliament: I am a
Government Minister and that is the nature of our work. The right hon.
Member for Skipton and
Ripon made an interesting point when he asked whether the Government
think that the politics can be taken out of planning by having the
decisions made by the IPC, and the answer is that we clearly do not.
Politics is an inevitable part because for all of us politics it is, in
the end, about trying to balance those competing pressures and
arguments, such as environmental, economic and social concerns, and
that is precisely what the planning process does. It is a process that
is set out in statute, is quasi-legal and ultimately, if a Minster
makes a planning decision, it can be challenged and overturned in the
courts, not in Parliament, whatever political pressure that Minister
might be subjected to for those decisions in this
place.
Mr.
Llwyd:
This is an interesting discussion, but I
take issue with the Minister on one point. When acting in a
quasi-judicial capacity as a Minister on planning, he is of course open
to scrutiny from the courts. If he were to make an entirely improper
decision, which I do not think that he would ever do, would not he be
accountable to
Parliament?
John
Healey:
I am not certain what the hon. Gentleman has in
mind when he refers to acting improperly and I find such a hypothetical
situation difficult to contemplate.
Mr.
Llwyd:
I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not
understand because I know that he is a very decent man. Let me give him
an example. Let us say that a Minister came under pressure from someone
to do something that he should not do or, worse still, was in some way
beholden to a vested interest to do something—I cannot think of
any current example, thank God. In circumstances in which a Minister
might behave improperly, surely he would be accountable to Parliament.
When he acts quasi-judicially, his decision is viewed in the courts
only if one gets through the gateway of having acted unreasonably,
according to the Wednesbury principles. I am talking about conduct that
would be criticised in this place, and he would be accountable to
Parliament, would he
not?
John
Healey:
I have been lucky enough to be a Minister for
seven years, and we are of course subject to criticism in this place.
The essential point is that the system means that any planning
application decision would be overturned not here, but through the
courts, and that fact remains. Proposing that the Planning Inspectorate
acts as the body responsible for the decision would not get over the
problem of separating policy making and decision making, or the problem
that the system would have two or more people separately and
sequentially going over the same ground, which risks introducing delays
and uncertainty, particularly where further information or
clarification is required.
The 2005 rule changes have
generally been regarded as an improvement. However, they only apply to
major infrastructure projects that are submitted under the Town and
Country Planning Act 1990. They do not apply to any major
projects—highways, ports, railways, gas pipelines or water. They
have not yet been used as there have been no major infrastructure
projects to which they would apply. As I explained, the rule changes do
not apply to the other consent regimes that we are trying, first, to
marshal through the national
policy statements, and then to ensure that there is a single process for
the decisions to be taken through the
IPC.
Tom
Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): Does the hon.
Gentleman agree that those changes could also be applied to other
regimes?
John
Healey:
First, as I explained, we do not know
how the rule changes will work with major
infrastructure projects. Secondly, we take the view, especially in the
context of the major challenges that we face in the areas I mentioned
and reflecting on some of the concerns expressed by Eddington and
Barker, that more thorough reform is required. We need a single consent
regime, separation between policy making and decision making, national
policy statements and better developed projects for major
infrastructure before they are considered as an application. We also
need more streamlined but more accessible processes for making those
decisions. The Bill lays out an overall set of reforms, of which the
IPC is one element, which will have the impact that we seek for the
future.
We are not
proposing to end the citizen’s right to be
heard, as the hon. Lady suggested; precisely the
contrary. I shall not stray too widely as we will return to the matter
at a number of points in the Bill. I simply say that our proposals and
the system that the Bill sets out strengthen and widen the scope for
the public to put their views in the consultation and lead-up to the
national policy statements, in the pre-application process before a
major project even comes to the IPC, and then in the conduct of
the examination of the application by the IPC.
You may wish me to deal with
the matter when we discuss in schedule 1,
Mr. Illsley, but there are clear rights for the public to be
heard at specific-issue hearings and in open hearings. All hon. Members
have experience of the current system of the public wanting to make
their voices heard, and they will agree that the system is complex,
often intimidating, lengthy and dominated by barristers; it is
expensive as well as
professionalised.
It
is a misapprehension and a misrepresentation of an important principle
to say that the right to be heard is equivalent to
the right to cross-examination. In respect of cross-examination,
members of the commission will test the evidence for themselves, just
as members of Select Committees do. They will be able to draw on
experts to advise and assist them if they so require. If they believe
that it will help them in conducting their hearings or if they believe
that it is necessary to ensure that the views of certain interests are
not disadvantaged, they have the scope to invite participants to
cross-examine those giving
evidence.
To be
clear, we do not expect cross-examination, especially led by
professionals who currently make a good living from
it, to be the principal method of conduct, but the Bill does not outlaw
cross-examination. It gives the commission scope to use
cross-examination in those circumstances where it has a role to play in
the commission’s hearings.
12.15
pm
Mrs.
Lait:
As the Minister says, we will return to this subject
regularly. My question is whether, in his desire
not to employ my learned friends, the Minister believes that the
commission will have the clear skills that are required for
cross-examination. Does he believe that there is any role for lawyers
in cross-examination in front of the commission, or that the honest
complainant has sufficient skills to conduct a valid cross-examination
that would allow the complainant to feel that all the issues about
which they were concerned had been properly teased out? Is he outlawing
the presence of lawyers in cross-examination at
hearings?
The
Chairman:
Order. Before the Minister responds to that,
could I ask him to be very brief, and to save the bulk of his comments
for the later part of the Bill, when we will discuss
cross-examination?
John
Healey:
The principal responsibility in testing the
evidence before the commission will be for the commissioners conducting
the hearing. We will look at that area in detail. They will be guided
in the way that they do that, but given discretion where they think
that it may be
required.
I will now
move on to the hon. Member for North Cornwall’s amendment. I
congratulate him on his new job, leading for the Liberal Democrats on
the Front Bench. He was right to thank the witnesses
who appeared before the Committee. Beyond that, I think that he was
still warming up in the fairly brief comments that he made. If I missed
any questions or points that he put to me, I am sure that he will let
me know.
Like other
members of the Committee, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon
brings great experience to these matters and to the Committee’s
scrutiny. He loyally supported the position of his Front Bench on the
amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Beckenham.
As he rightly said, most of these matters are ones of detail and are
perhaps for subsequent examination under other amendments that we will
consider.
The
hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy who speaks for Plaid Cymru said
that the Planning Inspectorate was the answer. He was worried, first,
about the cost and, secondly, about the fact that we were having to
legislate. On the latter point, I hope that I answered the concern
about the 2005 rule changes, but, even if we were looking to use the
Planning Inspectorate, primary legislation would be required in many
cases.
I do not think
that the hon. Gentleman was present for the evidence session in which
we covered the question of cost. We estimate the running costs of the
commission to be around £9 million. Last year the budget for the
Planning Inspectorate was more than £56 million. Up to 35
commissioners will be required to run the commission. Inspectors for
the Planning Inspectorate, both those who are salaried and those who
are consultant, total over 400. We estimate that the commission will
hear up to about 45 cases in any one year. Last year, the Planning
Inspectorate not only received but decided more than 900 separate
inquiries on appeal. That should give him a sense of scale and
proportion for the commission. It may also cause him to question
whether it is plausible that a body charged with
such traffic and work could develop the kind of
expertise and give the kind of consideration that we
require for such very important few major infrastructure project
applications.
Finally, if the hon. Member
for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy reads Hansard tomorrow, I think he
will find that he slightly overstated his case. He suggested that the
commission was the biggest quango ever put in place. I was Minister
with responsibility for adult skills at one point, responsible for the
Learning and Skills Council. I have rather lost track now, but I
believe that the budget of the Learning and Skills Council is about
£9 billion in the current
year.
Mr.
Llwyd:
I very much appreciate the way in which the
Minister is dealing with this issue and the tenor of the debate. Can he
explain to me once more where the direct line of accountability between
the IPC and this place or a Minister is? I have read the Bill and I
cannot find it. Perhaps he could me help me on
that.
John
Healey:
I will endeavour to do so. The IPC will always be
required to operate within the framework of national policy statements,
which is an innovation. I will not go over the authority that national
policy statements will have, given the process that we propose for
them. If Parliament sets up the sort of Select
Committee and scrutiny arrangements that we
anticipate for the consideration of national policy statements, then
clearly I would expect that Committee to take an active, direct
interest in the IPC, including wanting to hear from it directly. It
would be able, therefore, to call the chair of the commission and the
commission to account for their work and the decisions that they
take.
The IPC will
be subject to freedom of information legislation. It will be subject to
investigation, should the circumstances arise, by the
Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. Ultimately, the
Secretary of State will have powers in certain circumstances to remove
commissioners because of the conduct of their work. Finally, to pull
together and reflect the work that the IPC will do, it will be required
to publish an annual report. That report will be laid via the Secretary
of State, because that is the required process in the House, and be
made available to
Parliament.
Mr.
Jones:
I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation,
but where would a member of the public who is aggrieved by a decision
of the IPC, specifically with regard to its draconian powers to modify
and override primary legislation, go in those circumstances other than
to the court at perhaps enormous
cost?
John
Healey:
The short answer is that they would, as now, have
to challenge through the courts. There is no change to that and we are
not proposing
one.
The hon. Member
for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy was concerned about us somehow limiting the
local input. He will see during the detailed scrutiny of various
clauses of the Bill that we are increasing, not decreasing, the
opportunities for those who may be affected to make their views known
and to register their
concerns.
In summary,
we are aiming for greater clarity. We are aiming for greater certainty
and accountability in the way that the process will work through the
IPC. We are
looking to separate policy making, which is rightly a
matter for Ministers, and is subject to public consultation,
parliamentary scrutiny and challenge, from decision making, which we
believe in this limited number of cases requires an independent expert
commission.
The
Planning Inspectorate would not do the required job in relation to this
part of the reforms. I hope that hon. Members will agree that this has
been a useful and extended opening debate. It deals with an important
area of the Bill, in relation to which specific and principled concerns
have been raised about the proposed IPC. I hope that the hon. Member
for Beckenham will not feel it necessary to press her amendments to a
vote. If she does, I will have to ask my hon. Friends to oppose
them.
Mrs.
Lait:
I thank you for your leniency, Mr.
Illsley, despite your best efforts, in allowing us to range fairly
widely on this issue. I remember that when I looked at the amendments
and the structure of the debate, I thought that if we were to start
with a discussion on the national policy statements we might be able to
keep much more in order.
I am also grateful to my hon.
Friends and colleagues on the Opposition Benches for bringing out so
many of the points of detail. Despite the Minister’s helpfulness
and reasonableness, I still have serious concerns about the
establishment of the IPC. I will not repeat the arguments, but one of
the areas that I did not focus on, and am grateful to
colleagues for raising, is accountability. On a detailed point, to
which we will doubtless return, the Minister referred to the IPC
reporting to Parliament. My reading of the Bill is that just the
accounts will be reported to
Parliament.
John
Healey:
If the hon. Lady re-reads the record tomorrow
morning, she will see that I said that the annual report that the IPC
will be required to produce will be available to
Parliament.
Mrs.
Lait:
I am very grateful. The report might be available to
Parliament, but as I understand it, that is not laid down in the Bill.
Unless the Minister has tabled an amendment that I have not yet read,
the IPC is not obliged to report to Parliament; the requirement relates
only to its
accounts.
John
Healey:
The hon. Lady will notice that there are no
Government amendments to clause 1 or schedule 1, or to clauses 2, 3 or
4.
Mrs.
Lait:
The Minister is absolutely correct. I was
thinking that there might have been a weasel
amendment somewhere else that covers this point. Doubtless we will come
back to it. I am planning to do so during the debate on schedule 1, so
I will not press the point any further. I think that the Minister
realises that Opposition Members still have serious concerns about
accountability.
I
must confess that I still do not think that the Minister has fully
explored another key point. Doubtless many fine brains in the
Department and he himself have spent many hours trying to work out
whether it was possible to amend the responsibilities of the Planning
Inspectorate, and to amend the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 so
that the 2005 planning
rules could be brought within the Planning
Inspectorate. We are all agreed that we want the national policy
statements. There is no problem about having a planning Bill. But I
wonder whether the single consent regime could have been created
without the IPC and administered by the Planning Inspectorate. I am
still not convinced that the Planning Inspectorate could not be beefed
up with the skills that the Minister deems important. I am still not
convinced on the issue of the right to be heard and we will definitely
return to it. I am still not convinced that the need for clarity and
accountability can be delivered by the IPC, but not by ministerial
responsibility, as the Minister sees
it.
I am increasingly
concerned about the disconnect that could emerge between the IPC and
the electorate. At the moment, although technically the Minister makes
his decisions on quasi-judicial grounds, the electorate believe, deep
in their collective psyche, that they are properly heard by those in
the political system whom they entrust with the responsibility to make
such decisions. The IPC does not in any way, shape or form replace
that, even though there are national policy statements and we agree
that those are a good thing and that they cover many of the areas of
any infrastructure
application.
For
those very broad reasons, quite apart from the smaller ones, many of
which we will discuss later, I continue to propose a vote on amendment
No. 230.
Question
put, That the amendment be made:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 9, Noes
10.
Division
No.
1
]
AYESNOES
Question
accordingly
negatived.
12.30
pm
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following: Amendment No. 3, in clause 1, page 1, line 8, at end
insert—
‘(4) This section
shall come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may by
order made by statutory instrument
appoint.’.
Clause
stand part.
Amendment
No. 46, in clause 179, page 101, line 1, after ‘section’,
insert
‘1(4),’.
Mrs.
Lait:
I shall address my remarks to amendments Nos. 1 and
3 because No. 46 is consequential. Should the amendments be successful,
other consequential amendments can be made.
Amendment No. 1 deals with
something that was raised en passant in our first debate. It would
limit the role of the commission to those conferred to it under the
legislation. Amendment No. 3 is designed to introduce the Bill’s
provisions by statutory instrument so that, on reflection and with more
experience, and once we have seen the impact of the 2005 rules and
other changes that there may be by the time the legislation
commences—draft policy statements, for example—we could
have another debate about its content, preferably on the Floor of the
House, to decide whether it is necessary. That would be sensible.
Indeed, I will argue that the clause is not necessary.
Opposition Members have raised
the issue—there are amendments on this—about the measures
that state that the commission can have conferred on it the powers
under any other Act. That is a draconian power to give to an
unaccountable body such as the commission. It is not beyond the wit of
man or woman to work out that there are many Acts that the
commissioners could invoke to drive through an infrastructure project
that they believe to be important against legitimate and popular
opposition. Indeed, it is not beyond the wit of man to see that it
could be used by people who are applying for an infrastructure
development that may be contrary to their interests. We have tabled a
simple amendment to ensure that the commission could act only under the
terms in this Bill. We need not spend much longer exploring that issue
in detail, as it is fairly simple.
I have explained our reason
for wishing the measures to commence by statutory instrument, rather
than by ministerial fiat, so I shall address the principle of the
issue—the existence of the commission, on which we had a
wide-ranging debate. The commission is not necessary. We have suggested
various changes and we could give further consideration to the Planning
Inspectorate, focusing on what powers it should have and how its remit
could be amended. We could save the taxpayer money on the setting up of
that new quango. We should focus on how to simplify and speed up the
system by using the single consent regime and all the other things that
we are doubtless likely to discuss. However, I do not want to be pulled
up by a Chairman again for ranging too widely, and I understand his
concerns. We have gone through most of the reasons why we do not think
the commission should be set
up.
Robert
Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): I am grateful to my
hon. Friend for giving way; it will enable her to get her breath back.
Does she agree that it is significant that the Planning Inspectorate
itself set up new rules—the major planning rules in 2005? It was
apparent in the evidence session that many of those rules, which are
designed to speed up the process and crystallise the issues to reduce
needless cross-examination, have not yet been tested fully in practice.
Is not a further advantage of our amendments that they would limit the
application of the Bill and give time for further reflection? That
would give the Government an opportunity to see how the rules have
fully worked out, as they will have been tested through subsequent
appeals, and it would enable them to find the means by which to achieve
efficiency without
significantly eroding the rights of individuals, in
particular the little people, in these matters. We have already
expressed concerns about
that.
Mrs.
Lait:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. He is
right. The Government are legislating far too hastily before those 2005
planning rules have been worked through and we have serious experience
of them. The Minister suggested that they were governed by the Town and
Country Planning Acts, and we would be happy to consider amending that
legislation by statutory instrument. We would not have to sit here for
the next three or four weeks, debating these matters in great
detail. All the Government need to do is introduce a statutory
instrument to amend the Town and Country Planning Acts so that the 2005
rules encompass national infrastructure
issues.
Another
pertinent issue is the prediction—my prediction; I am happy to
admit to it—that it will be some time before the national policy
statements come into place. We heard from the Minister that it is
likely to be 2009 before we get the draft nuclear energy policy
statement. That may be the first national policy statement down the
line, unless the Government try to drive through the airport strategy.
It will be some considerable time before the statements come into play,
so it will be some considerable time before applications are made to
the planning commission. There is plenty of time to review the
’05 figures and the effectiveness of the ’05 rules, which
would allow us coherently to create the required legislation. I believe
that Ministers want to bring the Bill into play in ’09, which
gives us plenty of time to determine whether the planning changes are
working well, and indeed to go through a statutory instrument
process.
We would be
much happier if the clause were not part of the Bill. The planning
commission will not be able to deliver the infrastructure developments
that are so necessary, and the clause will hinder their
development because of the learning curve that the commission will
experience and the legal, human rights, Aarhus and accountability
challenges that it will face. It does not even look like we will
receive a proper report from the commission each year. We will get its
accounts, but not a report. As somebody who is used to reading reports
and accounts, I do not regard a report to Parliament to be exactly the
same as a report of accounts.
We will have an unaccountable
body, which will not necessarily deliver the benefits to the planning
system that the Minister wants. It will allow Ministers yet again to
abrogate their responsibility for taking the decisions that the British
public expect them to take. That is possibly the worst insult to the
British public that the Government have heaped on them in a very long
time.
Dan
Rogerson:
I kept my remarks brief on the previous group of
amendments on the understanding that we would have
this debate about whether the clause should stand part. Many of the
points that I could have made have been made well by other hon.
Members, but I shall explore the concept of which the Minister has been
a firm advocate.
There is a clear distinction
between the role of elected politicians in determining policy and the
role of determining applications, which should be done by an
independent body once the policy has been set. On
site-specific policies, it is difficult to have such a hard and fast
distinction between those two aspects of planning, but if one were to
extend that argument, it might have profound implications for the way
in which the Government view the role of local authorities in deciding
planning applications. Many issues are decided using delegated
authority by officers in local authorities, when the planning policy
has been set by elected members, but the most significant projects for
a local area, as judged against the local development framework, which
will have been set by elected members, are determined
by elected members. Although the public and objectors or supporters of
the scheme may not be happy with the final result, they know that they
can put their arguments to a committee of elected members, and they
accept that that is how a planning system must
work.
John
Healey:
I am not following the hon. Gentleman. What is the
committee of elected members to which such views on a particular
application can be put?
Dan
Rogerson:
I am referring to how planning works locally. I
am trying to get across to the Minister the principle that an elected
person, be they the Secretary of State or elected members locally, has
responsibility in a quasi-judicial system and is seen to have that
responsibility. The Secretary of State has argued that the courts are
the only method of challenge under the current system. However, it is
clear that people feel that the Secretary of State and, as the hon.
Member for Rochford and Southend, East said, the Government
collectively can be held responsible for key decisions. We shall return
later to national policy, on which there are a number of issues to
resolve.
12.45
pm
Having
re-examined the written and oral evidence that was
presented to us last week, I see clear agreement that much could be
improved in how significant projects are handled in the planning
system. There is concern about unifying the consent regime, about the
time taken to determine applications and, more significantly, the
transparency of the timetable for doing so and whether it will be stuck
to. I am sure that we shall return to that later in our
deliberations.
Such
matters can be resolved in other ways, and I have still to hear a
strong argument from the Minister that decisions must
be taken by the infrastructure planning commission and that we need to
set up a further quango, however much smaller it is than the others
that he has dealt with. It is an extra complication that we do not
need. That is why, although much can be agreed on to improve the
planning system, the commission does not have the support of the
Liberal Democrats. Will the Minister give us an example of why he
believes it is such a crucial part of the Bill, and why the other
improvements that he suggests could not be made in its
absence?
Tom
Brake:
As my hon. Friend said, the infrastructure planning
commission is the major sticking point for us in the Bill. We could
half-heartedly have attempted to enhance its legitimacy and
accountability, but our view is that it cannot be fixed, so a more
sensible approach is the big bang approach—to scrap it
altogether.
Although
the Minister is articulate and has put a strong case on a number of
aspects of the Bill—national
policy statements, the need for a single consent
regime and the need for pre-consultation—he has failed to
demonstrate a need for the infrastructure planning commission. There
was nothing on Second Reading to convince us. Yes, there were
supporters of the commission in the evidence sessions, but equally
there were numerous strong, vocal opponents of it, and the Minister has
not demonstrated today an overwhelming need for the new quango. I, and
I suspect other Opposition Members, are left with the uneasy feeling
that the commission is mainly about distancing Ministers from difficult
decisions.
The
Minister rightly identified the need to address the speed of the
planning process. Will he respond to what was said by, for instance,
Friends of the Earth: that because of the
commission’s lack of legitimacy, there is likely to be a
significant increase in legal challenges and, it hinted, illegal
challenges, or a second wave of Twyford Down protests up and down the
country, because people will not feel that it is accountable when it
takes decisions on their behalf? What assessment has the
Minister’s Department made of the potential impact of such
demonstrations on the speed with which planning decisions will be
taken? His principal concern may be speed, but everything that he has
said about the Bill and about the improvements in the rate at which
applications will be addressed could be completely demolished by large
demonstrations and legal or illegal challenges up and down the country.
It is incumbent on the Minister—I hope that he is listening to
this point—to confirm that his Department has carried out a
substantial risk assessment of the issue and can quantify the impact. I
hope that he can demonstrate to us that, having taken the risk of
demonstrations into account, he still thinks that his proposals will
speed up the planning process. I hope that he will be able to respond
at least on that specific point.
Robert
Neill:
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair,
Mr. Illsley. I am sorry that I was unable to be here earlier
in the debate, but I am familiar with the issues that were raised from
the evidence sessions.
I want briefly to follow on
from the point made by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington.
The reason for our great concern about this part of the Bill and for
our fundamental objection to it—it is the reason that we are
spending so much time on this—is that it changes the balance
between the citizen and the state and removes certain of the
opportunities that citizens currently have to make objections. That is
said to be in the greater good, because there is a need for national
infrastructure, which we all concede, as well as a need for speed and
efficiency. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham said, however,
all of that can be achieved by other means. Not for the first time, it
is the draconian means by which the Government seek to solve an
accepted problem that give us difficulties, and that goes right to the
heart of the Bill.
The issue of legitimacy has
been mentioned, and I hope that the Minister will return to the
observations of the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, because
legitimacy and a measure of consent on the part of those who are
subject to the rule of law are fundamental to the workability of that
law. If we arrive at a point at which ordinary people feel that they
have not had a fair crack of the whip, there will be legal challenges
and, to some degree, the sort of direct action that none of us want to
see.
As an
insomnia cure, I glanced through the impact assessment, which is
actually a very useful document. I do not mean to denigrate those who
drew it up, but it is also a jolly good doorstep, given that there are
about 234 pages of it. None the less, it does not adequately address
the impact on human rights and legitimacy issues—indeed, they
are not really addressed at all, as far as I can see. I am sure that
they are looked at somewhere and I hope that the Minister can flesh out
how the Government will deal with them.
In our debate on the previous
group of amendments, the Minister used the well-known and frequently
repeated argument that the planning system is held up too much by the
wiles of the lawyers. Perhaps I should declare an interest in that I am
a lawyer and have the odd wile, although I have never done much in the
field of planning, apart from when a planning officer took altogether
too much money under circumstances in which he should not have done,
but that is not quite the issue that we are dealing with. However, the
Bill has the potential to become a lawyers’ charter, and instead
of lots of planning lawyers being employed in inquiries,
we will have lots of administrative law lawyers
conducting judicial reviews. What it comes down to is that virtually
everything will be subject to judicial review, and we will simply
change the type of lawyer who gets involved in the inquiry—we
will not save any money or time. The whole solution is fundamentally
ill-conceived.
The
other danger of the proposed solution is that it entrenches the
position of the big battalions—the people who will have the
resources to go to judicial review. However, the little people—I
do not think that I have any interest to declare in that respect, but I
will do so if you so guide me, Mr.
Illsley—
Alun
Michael:
I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman or I could
escape the description of little people, so I will let that pass.
However, it sounds as if his threat on behalf of the legal profession
is: “It doesn’t matter what people do or how you try to
bring sense into the processes, we will get you in the
end.”
Robert
Neill:
The right hon. Gentleman betrays an extraordinary
degree of cynicism that I would never have expected from one who comes
from a principality that has produced so many fine lawyers in recent
times. The truth is that lawyers are only employed because there are
clients who are aggrieved enough to employ them. That is the reality.
It is the aggrieved people who will set in train the judicial reviews.
That is the bit that the Bill does not adequately
address.
My point is
that the little people will have the biggest difficulty in mounting a
legal challenge: it will be tougher for them, rather than tough for the
corporates or the well-organised bodies. It might
have been different if the Minister had been prepared to say,
“We’ll look at an extension of planning aid”, or
something of that kind, to try to assist such people. The Bill is
pretty silent on that point.
I regret
that we are wholly unconvinced about this element of the Bill. The
Government, not for the first time, have highlighted a problem on which
they could have achieved consensus, but they have gone down a
needlessly dirigiste, cumbersome, over-ambitious and over-elaborate
route to solve it and have, therefore, thrown away the opportunity to
have the consensus that they could have had and which would have
carried a great deal more weight and legitimacy in the
country.
In
defence of these changes, people say, “Well, Ministers
aren’t really accountable because they act
quasi-judicially.” But that is not the way that the public see
it, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham has said. Although
Ministers can be judicially reviewed, as councillors can—it is
essentially a legal process—the public perception of that
initial decision being taken by somebody whom they can either directly
or indirectly remove is important. If a council keeps getting
judicially reviewed, its reputation will not be terribly good and the
electorate have the ability to get rid of the councillors. In the same
way, if a Minister gets such a reputation—it has happened, in
one or two cases, that Ministers are for ever being judicially
reviewed—there comes a point when a reshuffle takes place and
they are no longer a Minister. Even among politicians, if someone gets
it wrong often enough they get JR’d. That discipline ought to be
there.
James
Duddridge:
My hon. Friend is making an ample case on
behalf of the little people. I hope that I will be large to his little,
making it little and
large.
My
hon. Friend has talked a lot about the representation of little people,
but paragraph 13 of schedule 1 states:
“The Commission may
make arrangements with such persons as it thinks appropriate for
assistance to be provided to it...The arrangements may include
provision for the payment of
fees.”
Does that
reassure him in relation to little people being involved in the process
early on? Will he probe the Minister for details of
that financial assistance, particularly from the perspectives of laying
on extra cost and giving representation to people who perhaps cannot
afford good but expensive lawyers such as
himself?
Robert
Neill:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. If I were still in
practice, I would ask him to send that comment to my clerk to put on
our chambers’ website. But I do not think that I can do that, in
the circumstances.
My
hon. Friend raised an interesting point. It is not clear and the
Government have not made it clear whether that passage in paragraph 13
of schedule 1 refers to assistance to people who are trying to make
representations or submissions or to what one might term a consultancy
arrangement for the commission. In the evidence-taking sessions it was
said that the commission is having to buy in skills to assist it with
its deliberations. Paragraph 13 could be about that, because the
commission, which will need a range of expertise that may not be
readily available, might want that provision included so that it can
help itself. If so, I should be saddened because it certainly would not
assist an aggrieved party, whether little, medium-sized or any other
size, and would mean the commission buying in, in effect, what it could
have had anyway if it had gone through the Planning Inspectorate
process.
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.
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