New
Clause
29
Local
development orders: removal of requirement to implement
policies
‘(1) Section 61A of
TCPA 1990 (local development orders) is amended as set out in
subsections (2) and (3).
(2)
Omit subsection (1) (requirement to implement
policies).
(3) In subsection
(2) for “A local development order may” substitute
“A local planning authority may by order (a local development
order)”.
(4) In
paragraph 2 of Schedule 4A to TCPA 1990 (revision of local development
orders) omit sub-paragraphs (4) and (5).’.—[Jim
Fitzpatrick.]
Brought
up, read the First and Second time, and added to the
Bill.
New
Clause
30
Appeals:
miscellaneous
amendments
‘Schedule
[Appeals: miscellaneous amendments] (appeals: miscellaneous amendments)
has effect.’.—[Mr.
Dhanda.]
Brought
up, read the First and Second time, and added to the
Bill.
New
Clause
3
Geographically-specified
national policy
statements
‘(1) This section
sets out the requirements for national policy statements which make
particular reference to specific geographical areas under section
5(5)(d).
(2) Where a proposal
for a national policy statement is made by the Secretary of State with
implications for a specific geographical area, the Secretary of State
shall commission and fund an assessment by the relevant local planning
authority, or authorities,
of—
(a) whether the
proposal is consonant with the principles enumerated in the
authority’s local development documents as defined in section 17
of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act
2004,
(b) the likely impact of
the proposal on communities within the local authority
area,
(c) whether the proposal meets with the approval of
persons residing in the relevant local authority area,
and
(d) any other matter which
the relevant planning authority considers
appropriate.
(3) A local
authority area is within subsection (2) if any of the locations
concerned is in the authority’s area, or a neighbouring
authority’s area.
(4) A
“proposal” in subsection (2) shall be defined as in
section 7(3).’.—[Dan
Rogerson.]
Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Motion
made, and Question put, That the clause be read a Second
time:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes
10.
Division
No.
20
]
Question
accordingly negatived.
New Clause
4
Amendment
of the meaning of
development
‘(1) The Town and
Country Planning Act 1990 is amended as
follows.
(2) In section 55
(meaning of development and new development), in subsection (2)(a)
leave out “for making good war damage or works begun after 5th
December 1968”.
(3) In
section 336(1), leave out the definition of “war
damage”.’.—[Mrs.
Lait.]
Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Mrs.
Lait:
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time.
This is
another attempt to tidy up the statute book in relation to planning
issues. The new clause would remove from planning control the exemption
to repair war damage caused in the second world war and the completion
of basement works that were begun before 5 December 1968. I understand
why there was an exemption for war damaged buildings when the Town and
Country Planning Act was first introduced in 1947. We were keen to
repair the infrastructure, provide people with houses and buildings in
which they could work, and to generally repair the economy. However, as
I said when we discussed a similar issue, it is now more than 60 years
on. Have there been any planning applications to repair war damage in
the past 10 or 15 years under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990?
After 60 years, should there still be an exemption for second world war
damage? The only possibility of such an exemption being needed is that
in the process of developing a new building in or around
London or other big cities such as Coventry, an unexploded bomb is found
which has a consequential effect on planning permission. As to the
completion of
“basement
works begun before 5 December
1968”,
if people are
still waiting to complete them after 40 years, I have serious fears for
the state of the building above the basement. If the Minister can
explain why the provision is still on the statute book, I would have
some sympathy with the proposal. Otherwise, my feeling is that after
all these years we should be tidying up the statute book and getting
rid of legislation whose time has passed.
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local
Government (Mr. Parmjit Dhanda):
Having read
the new clause many times and having tried to get my head around it, I
have some sympathy for the proposal. However, as the new clause refers
to basements and whether they need development consent post-1968, I
must resist it, first, because it would not do what the hon. Lady hopes
it will and, secondly, because, as she rightly says, it will be better
to have clarity across the board in respect of developments and
basements. We will consult on the matter per se during the summer and
thus be able to provide more clarity about what is a permitted
development. I hope that having considered those two points, she will
withdraw the motion.
Mrs.
Lait:
If the Government want to take up an Opposition
amendment, except in rare circumstances, they are always happy to
change the wording, so the barrier to their accepting the new clause
would be removed immediately. May I assume that the summer consultation
to which the Minister refers is the Department for Culture, Media and
Sport’s consultation on heritage buildings, or can we look
forward to a separate consultation? Will it also include the war damage
and the basement issues, or do they remain as two separate issues in
his
mind?
Mr.
Dhanda:
To my mind, the consultation will take war damage
into account. The hon. Lady makes a personal point about clarity.
Reading the new clause brings to life the fact that the area is much
more complex than most people probably realise. I hope that that
answers her
question.
Mrs.
Lait:
I accept the Minister’s assurances and look
forward to the result of the consultation. On that basis, I beg to ask
leave to withdraw the
motion.
Motion
and clause, by leave,
withdrawn
New
Clause
14
Amendment
of Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act
1990
‘(1) The Planning
(Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 is amended as
follows.
(2) In section 67(2)
(publicity for applications affecting setting of listed buildings)
after “situated” insert “or online on its own
website”.’.—[Mrs.
Lait.]
Brought
up, and read the First time.
Mrs.
Lait:
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time.
The new
clause would bring the conservation business into the 21st century. It
proposes that publicity for applications affecting listed buildings
should be online on a website, and if the Minister will accept it we
can move on very
quickly.
Mr.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con): I will take just 30
seconds. I mentioned this earlier. My local authority calculates that
the cost of giving publicity to applications is around £63,000
on an annual basis. Multiplied across England and Wales, the change
would save £10 million in public money. It would be welcomed by
many small local authorities which are strapped for cash at the
moment.
Mr.
Dhanda:
New clause 14 would amend section 67 of the
Planning (Listed Building and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 relating to
the publicity requirements for planning applications affecting the
setting of a listed building. The intention of the clause is to allow
local planning authorities to advertise such applications on the
internet rather than in local newspapers.
Section 67(1)
of that Act provides that the Secretary of State may prescribe
publicity requirements for applications for planning permission in
cases where the local planning authority considers that the development
would affect the setting of a listed building. Regulation 5A of the
Planning (Listed Building and Conservation Areas) Regulations 1990 sets
out the specific publicity requirements for applications affecting the
setting of a listed building.
The local
planning authority is required to publish in a local newspaper and on
site a notice indicating the nature of the development and naming a
place where the application and related documents can be inspected.
Where the local planning authority maintains a website for the purpose
of advertisement of applications, the notices must also state the
address of a website where the application and related documents may be
inspected. More and more authorities have these websites, and
that is making and will continue to make a
difference.
There is
therefore no need to change the primary legislation in the way proposed
as the publicity requirements for applications affecting the setting of
listed buildings could be changed by amending the planning regulations
of 1990. We appreciate that, as the hon. Gentleman described, local
planning authorities incur costs from advertising planning applications
in local newspapers rather than on line. We will consider this issue as
part of the review and simplification of the General Development
Procedure Order 1995 referred to in the planning White Paper. I hope
that the hon. Lady will therefore withdraw the
motion.
Mrs.
Lait:
On the grounds of the Minister’s assurance, I
shall be happy to do so. I look forward to reading the consultation
document next summer. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
motion.
Motion
and clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause
17
Decisions
of Panel and Council (duty in relation to electromagnetic
fields)
‘(1) This section
applies in relation to an application for an order granting development
consent if the decision-maker is a Panel or the
Council.
(2) In deciding the
application, the Panel or Council must ensure that it does not expose
any person to any risk to their health arising from exposure to
electric and magnetic fields with a frequency of between 30 and 300
Hertz.’.—[Mr.
Benyon.]
Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Mr.
Benyon:
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time.
The
new clause is fundamental and asks how far we are prepared to take
risks with public health resulting from new developments. My name sits
in solitary splendour on the new clause and I hope that I can persuade
hon. Members on both sides of the Committee to support it. It would
impose a duty on planners to consider health risks arising from
extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields. I am sure that all
members of the Committee know what those are, but if they would like
some help, the cross-party inquiry into childhood leukaemia provided a
very good definition in its paper published in July 2007. It
states:
“Both
electric fields and magnetic fields are created by the generation and
transmission of electricity. The term EMF is used to describe the
mixture of these fields to which people are exposed. Major sources of
EMF in our environment include High Voltage Overhead Transmission
Lines... electricity
substations”.
4.45
pm
There
is growing evidence of an association—I use that word
carefully—between increased risks of childhood leukaemia and the
location of homes and schools. Childhood leukaemia is the most common
of all childhood cancers. There are 500 diagnoses a year and, while
survival rates are improving, its incidence has doubled since the
1970s. I would be the first to concede that there could be many factors
behind that, but there are certain milestones in the evidence that the
Committee should consider, and the Bill provides a good vehicle for
making radical changes.
In 2005, the
Draper report, which was a ground-breaking piece of research funded by
the Department of Health, found that children living within 200 m of
high-voltage power lines from birth had a 69 per cent. increased risk
of developing childhood leukaemia. That is nearly 70 per cent., which
is a very high number indeed. In 2005, in response to that report, the
Health Protection Agency set up the stakeholder advisory group on
extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields, which made
recommendations to the Government on practical, precautionary
measures.
My new clause
seeks, as a precautionary measure, to reduce the public’s
exposure to EMF from sources such as high-voltage power lines. In April
last year, SAGE reported that a ban on building new homes or schools
within a specified distance of high-voltage lines was “the best
available option” for obtaining a significant reduction in
exposure to EMF from power lines. The cross-party group also defined
extremely low frequency EMFs as having a frequency of between 30 and
300 hertz, and that is in the new clause. The Health Protection
Agency has since recommended that the attention of local planning
departments should be drawn to that
evidence. We are also
assisted by a report from the World Health Organisation, which reported
on the issue last year and made a number of recommendations. The first
of two main recommendations
stated:
“When
changes to existing ELF sources are contemplated, ELF field reduction
should be considered alongside safety, reliability and economic
aspects.”
The second
recommendation
suggested:
“Local
authorities should improve planning of ELF EMF-emitting facilities,
including better consultation between industry, local government, and
citizens when siting major ELF EMF-emitting
sources.”
I am sorry to
burden the Committee with jargon, but we have a situation where the
Government are rightly shaping their opinion on the growing body of
evidence. It would be a mistake to have to revisit the issue at a later
stage when the Government will have to respond further to that growing
body of
opinion.
Many
of us in the room are parents, and some of us have become parents
recently. It is an extremely sensitive issue. It is hard to contemplate
the experience of a family when a child is diagnosed with childhood
leukaemia—there is not only the suffering of the child, but the
fear and misery for the family. I do not want to play on the heart
strings of the Committee, but want to look in a completely
straightforward and scientific way at the direction in which the
science is moving. Concern is felt across the House, and early-day
motions 403 and 1784, which address the issue, have received 233 and
146 signatures respectively.
I finish by
making two key points. First, the Government want to set national
policy statements that the infrastructure planning commission will have
to use when making decisions. There is an opportunity to include a
recognition of the association between electromagnetic fields and
childhood leukaemia, and to make applicants and the IPC recognise those
factors in national policy statements. Secondly, it is extremely
expensive to re-route a power line, and all relevant stakeholders in
the application, including the Government, should address that key
issue at the planning
stage.
Chris
Mole:
The hon. Gentleman took great pains to assert that
he was going to use the term “association” and yet the
usual basis on which we make judgments is cause and effect. Cleary
there is no evidence of cause and effect that is demonstrable in
statistical terms because there can be relationships between two
measurable factors that are not necessarily causally linked but exist
in the same location for different reasons. That is why there has to be
a science that does not move; new evidence might be gained but there
has to be evidence of cause and effect before a decision to legislate
is
taken.
Mr.
Benyon:
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the words of the
Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for
Bristol, South (Dawn Primarolo). She is responsible for dealing with
that matter. She wrote to the charity Children with Leukaemia,
saying:
“This
issue obviously needs serious thought and we will be in touch with you
once we have shaped our thinking in the light of all the advice that
has now emerged.”——[Official Report, Housing
and Regeneration Public Bill Committee, 17 January 2008; c.
353.]
It is clear from that that the Government
recognise that there is a huge shift in the evidential basis for the
assertion that there may be an association. It ill behoves us to say
that there is no risk and that we should therefore just forget about
it. It is of fundamental importance and massive concern to families up
and down the country. The point is that if it can be included in the
national policy statements and be dealt with at the planning stage, it
does not have to be revisited later, when looking at re-routing,
burying power lines or moving an electricity sub-station. There is an
entirely practical cost element and an element based on emerging
evidence. In addition, the Government are rightly thinking in that
direction as well, all of which point towards including the new clause
in the
Bill.
Mr.
Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy) (PC): I support the
new clause. The hon. Gentleman ought to be congratulated on tabling it
and on his arguments in favour of it. It is all very well talking about
cause and effect, but surely where public health is concerned
precautionary principles should take precedence over such balancing
acts. There is a body of scientific opinion in favour of that kind of
clause and he is right. If we take a precautionary line, we can avoid
further health risks and/or
costs.
It
is a perfectly proper new clause and should have been in the Bill all
along because we all know from our postbags how big a concern it is
whenever one of those power lines is proposed anywhere near a school,
for example. We are very busy bees at that time dealing with various
complaints and so on, all of which could be avoided. I fully support
the hon. Gentleman and I hope that the Minister will give the matter
further thought and perhaps come back with something that might
accommodate people’s
concerns.
John
Healey:
I congratulate the hon. Member for Newbury on both
his interest and his ingenuity in tabling the new clause. It is similar
to one that was floated in the Bill on the Homes and Communities Agency
just over 10 days ago. The serious point—and I am sincere in
this—is that he is part of a significant all-party push behind a
concern to have a more firm science base, which as my hon. Friend the
Member for Ipswich says needs to be more clearly established, and to
see a suitably stronger Government policy response. He has given that
process a significant shove.
The hon.
Gentleman talks about the risk from extremely low frequency electric
and magnetic fields. I am advised, for ease of reference, to call those
fields ELF EMFs, which I will. The hon. Gentleman is right that the
main sources of those fields is power lines, but ELF EMFs are also
emitted by electricity sub-stations, household wiring and electrical
appliances around the house. They are by no means confined to the
situation that concerns him.
The hon.
Gentleman touched on this, but guidelines are in place. The Health
Protection Agency has, with additional advice, looked at how those
should be beefed up. It has provided that advice to Government, and, as
he said, we are rightly shaping our opinion on that at the moment. We
need to do that, but legislating in advance of coming to a conclusion
about understanding the extent of the risk and, therefore, what is
necessary is a little premature.
One point of
comfort to the hon. Gentleman is that we are clear, and ministerial
colleagues have made clear, that any precautionary measures that we
conclude are going to be required as a result of the concern and the
potential risk of ELF EMFs will be implemented at the national level.
Therefore, the specific duty that he wants to put on the infrastructure
planning commission is probably not the right way to proceed and is
probably jumping the gun. However, as I said, he has given the debate
an important shove and helped to raise its profile.
Returning
to the response that the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and
Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool
(Mr. Wright), gave on the Housing and Regeneration Bill
about 10 days ago when the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood
(Mr. Hurd) moved a similar new clause, as the junior
Minister with responsibility for housing and planning, he agreed to
meet the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood. I do not believe that that
meeting has taken place yet and the hon. Member for Newbury may wish to
join it. That seems a sensible way of bringing those two interests
together. He may also wish to know that my right hon. Friend the
Minister of State, Department of Health, whom he quoted, is due also to
see my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate), who chaired
the all-party parliamentary inquiry into these things, which also gave
significant support to the impetus. On that basis, I hope that he does
not feel that he needs to press his new clause to a Division. Again, I
pay tribute to the way in which he raised the issue in
Committee.
Mr.
Benyon:
I am grateful to the Minister for his remarks.
Right from the outset, however, I should say that I should not be
congratulated. The wonderful organisation Children with Leukaemia is
excellent at bringing to the attention of hon. Members on both sides of
the House the devastating affects of that illness, the science that
relates to it and the experts’ direction of travel. I take the
Minister’s point that there may be other opportunities to raise
the subject. My co-conspirator, to whom he referred, is my hon. Friend
the Member for Ruislip-Northwood. He was on that cross-party inquiry,
chaired by the hon. Member for Dartford. If I can tag along with him to
meet the Minister, I will.
I shall
consult Children with Leukaemia and see whether there is another way in
which we can make progress on this and continue the path of travel
towards a consensus, as well as some form of legislative action, which
will give great comfort to many people across the country.
Motion and
clause, by leave,
withdrawn.
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