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Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
3.35 p.m.
The Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Lord Rooker): My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now further considered on Report.
Moved, That the Bill be further considered on Report.—(Lord Rooker.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Clause 20 [Independent examination]:
[Amendment No. 76A not moved.]
Clause 21 [Intervention by Secretary of State]:
Clause 22 [Withdrawal of local development documents]:
Clause 23 [Adoption of local development documents]:
Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 79:
- Page 13, line 15, leave out "(other than a development plan document)"
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 80 and 81. In Committee, I promised the Minister that I would return to the binding nature of the planning inspector's reports. Clearly, my position has not changed; here we are again.
I fundamentally believe that taking away the right of a local authority to question the inspector's report and, instead, to make it bound to it lock, stock and barrel, is wrong, however innocent a provision the Minister believes it to be. The local development documents will be produced locally, they will be consulted on locally and they may have an impact locally. It must be right, therefore, that the final decision on whether they are implemented is in the hands of the local authority. Issues of democratic accountability underlie this matter, and they lead me to believe that this must be the case.
We have had a very considerable quantity of representations on this matter from a number of organisations—including the Local Government Association—that remain extremely concerned about the whole process of the inspector's report being binding in relation to the local development documents.
The Local Government Association is concerned that there will be no final democratic accountability in this situation. There are known instances in which the inspector has made a fundamental error in the judgment. The Local Government Association wishes—as we do—to see this aspect of the plan reduced in line with the amendments that we have tabled. Amendments Nos. 79, 80 and 81 would remove that binding status. We see no reason why subsection (1) should differentiate between local development documents and local development plan documents.
Amendment No. 79 would remove the phrase,
- "other than a development plan document".
Amendment No. 80 leaves the local planning authorities to decide whether or not to modify the local development documents and to take into account the independent examination. Any modification is therefore down to the discretion of the local planning authority, rather that the inspector having the last and compelling word on the matter.
That is a wholly sensible review of the Bill and a wholly sensible amendment to it. It is one that is widely sought throughout local government and the various bodies that have taken an interest in planning and sent us briefings on it. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, this group of amendments includes Amendment No. 80, to which my name is attached, and Amendment No. 83, tabled by us. As the noble Baroness said, they go hand in hand with the first of her amendments, which would delete the provision that states in terms that the local planning authority must not adopt a development plan document unless it does so in accordance with one of the previous subsections. They provide that the document must be as originally prepared, if the inspector recommends that it be adopted; or with modifications recommended by the inspector. That comes to the same thing: subsection (4) provides that the inspector's report should be binding; the amendments remove that provision.
When we debated the matter in Committee at the end of January, the Minister's resistance to changing the clause boiled down to the scope for delay if the inspector's recommendations were not adopted. He said that,
- "inspectors' binding reports are a key to speeding up the plan making system and enhancing community involvement in it ... If a further inquiry into a modification is needed, that process can take six months or longer".—[Official Report, 27/1/04; col. 147.]
There is a fundamental difference of view between us about the democratic process: whether the inspector is likely to be regarded as the creature of the Secretary of State. I accept what the Minister said—either in Committee or on our first day of Report; I forget which—about the independent nature of the inspectorate and about how inspectors inspect the inspectors. That is why I used the phrase about being "regarded as the creature of the Secretary of State".
Even leaving that aside, the Government are enthusiastic for localism. The terminology with which all three Front Benches lived during the passage of the recent local government Act is all about freedom and flexibility. But in this instance, it seems that the local authority is not to be allowed to be responsible for its own decisions.
In preparing the local development document, the local planning authority must have regard to its community strategy and, indeed, those of its neighbours. One might say that local development plans are the spatial expression of the community strategy. As I said last time, one has to hold one's mouth straight to get some of those expressions out. There may be quite some scope for the inspector to skew the community strategy by his interpretation and application of it in spatial terms.
The Minister also explained that authorities must act on recommendations that are soundly based, but what if the local planning authority takes the view that they are not soundly based? What are we left with? Judicial review, perhaps, but that will take a lot more time than the process advocated by the noble Baroness and me. Of course, an application for judicial review must be made within six weeks of the decision, but that is not the same as a determination of the issue.
The Minister also said that the inspector could only recommend—or perhaps the term was "make"; I think that it meant "make"—a substantial change to the development plan document if people had had an opportunity to make representations or if it had been considered at the public examination and recommendation or debate supported it. But if the matter is controversial—and we are discussing such matters—there are likely to be views on both sides. We are not discussing clear-cut situations. If the inspector thinks that the development plan document should be significantly changed in some other way, the Minister said that the examination in public would have to be reconvened or the issue referred to the local planning authority.
At the weekend, I looked to see how that was prescribed. I may well have missed it, because the regulations are necessarily—this is not a criticism—detailed and complex, but I could not see where that was provided, certainly not in the Bill. It may be somewhere in the Bill where I did not recognise it, or in draft regulations where I have not spotted it.
In any event, I return to the fundamental issue. The nub of the argument is that development plan documents are a matter for the local planning authority, subject to the Secretary of State's nuclear option under Clauses 21 and 27. The amendments tabled by the noble Baroness and me together do not just improve the Bill, which we all seek to do, but necessarily rebalance where decisions and responsibilities lie. I support the amendment.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I understand why the noble Baronesses have returned to the matter on Report; there are strong feelings about it. However, they are partly based on a misapprehension.
We have been clear from the outset that one of the key elements of our planning reforms is for the recommendations of the independent inspector, following an independent examination, to be the final stage of preparing the development plan document. The noble Baronesses have a different position. By implication from the amendments, the opposition parties want to retain the status quo. The two speeches that we have just heard encapsulate the fact that, taken together, this group of amendments would remove the important innovation of binding inspectors' reports on development plan documents.
At the same time, however, through Amendment No. 79, they would muddle up the provisions for adopting local development documents that are not development plan documents—in other words, supplementary planning documents. That is because there is no independent examination of the supplementary planning document. That list of documents and how they interact with one another will probably be the subject of a team meeting later in the week, if I explain that inadequately today. But the fact that such reports are not subject to independent examination could cause confusion. A local authority could not take account of the inspectors' recommendations on such reports, because there would not be any—that is the whole point.
The picture that has been painted is that of the local authority's legitimate wishes versus the uninformed wishes of a creature of central government, with the community's views squeezed out. That is not a fair picture of what we propose. First, the key feature of the new system is front-loading. The planning authority will reach decisions on key matters early in the plan-making process. The local planning authority will start by identifying and taking interested parties' ideas and views on all the potential options, and will then decide what it thinks best for its area. Its job is to devise policies and proposals for the development plan document for the area, fully involving the community in the process. Representations made to the authority on its preferred options will be considered by the local authority. No inspector will be involved at that stage. From that consideration, the authority will prepare its development plan document to submit for independent examination.
We believe that the local authority is well placed to do that. It knows its local area best. The procedures that we are introducing will ensure early debate and decisions. There will be a strong disincentive for anyone to put off raising controversial proposals in the hope that they will have a better chance of succeeding if sprung on people at a late stage. That applies equally to local authorities or others, such as developers, or if an authority wishes to avoid coming to a difficult or potentially unpopular decision. It will not be able to do that under the proposed system.
Secondly, the investment by the community and others in making representations on a development plan document, and participating in the independent examination will now always be worth while. There will be a positive action, and people will put investment into it. No longer will the community and
others face the unjustifiable position in which all its input is taken forward through the inspector's recommendations and then ignored by the authority, which can do something entirely different. That would undermine our intention to give communities a greater say in plan-making and secure buy-in.Finally, the independent inspector's job is to determine whether a development plan document satisfies the legal requirements on its preparation and whether it is sound. The starting point will be that the development plan document that the authority has submitted is sound unless there is evidence that it is not. Anyone seeking a substantive change to a development plan document will need to show that it is unsound without the change and that the change will render it sound. That includes the inspector as well. Therefore, changes that the inspector recommends will not simply be his view rather than the local authority's. The changes will be needed to achieve a sound plan and be tested against the criteria for soundness that the plan itself must meet.
If, as a result of his consideration of soundness, the inspector believes that the development plan document ought to be changed significantly, that can happen only if the examination is reconvened, or if the development plan document is referred back to the planning authority for further consideration. If there is still insufficient evidence for the inspector to recommend a change that he thinks should be made to a development plan document, he will not be able to recommend that change in his report. If that happens, the inspector will be able only to advise the authority of his view that it should revise its development plan document or prepare a fresh one to take the matter forward. Those principles will be set out clearly in the final version of planning policy statement 12.
The binding inspectors' reports are a key mechanism for speeding up the plan-making system. They are not a procedure for keeping the public out or for keeping out anybody who has views on a plan—far from it. They are pulled in early in the system to get their five pennyworth, as it were. They are also a device for making sure that major changes are not sprung on the public at the last minute. We think that the system will be faster. We want the process to be fairer, but we also want it speeded up.
I shall give some examples of when an inspector may consider that a development plan document meets the test of soundness. The plan must generally conform with national or regional policy. That is self-evident. Secondly, the plan must be supported by a sound evidence base. It is important for the authority to provide that. The local planning authority must comply with its own statement of community involvement, and it must undertake a suitable sustainability appraisal and a strategic environmental assessment.
The amendments are in direct contradiction to our policy on the issue, and I hope that they will not be pursued. I also hope that I have explained—albeit briefly, because we discussed the matter in Committee—that it is not our intention to use the binding statement to undermine the local authority. It
is a test to ensure that the plans conform to the legal requirement, which ought to be possible for a local authority to produce anyway.
They will benefit the public; they will allow earlier involvement in the process; and they have the added advantage of ensuring that either a local authority or a developer cannot spring something major, new and controversial on the public at the last minute, when there is no time for it to be considered. In that sense, this is not a question of the creature of central government versus the democratically elected local authority. It is not that kind of arrangement, and I hope that I have explained the position sufficiently to persuade the noble Baronesses to withdraw the amendments.
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