New clause 11 - Enforcement in relation to Crown land
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
5:28 pm
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)
Welcome to the Chair, Mr. Pike. I also welcome the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) to the Committee's proceedings.
New clause 11 is another example of the Crown being treated differently. I understand that it is difficult to start serving criminal proceedings on the Secretary of State. One could imagine all sorts of possibilities, but as for notices, which I accept can be served under subsection (6), I think that on the whole the Crown ought to be subject to most provisions of the planning Acts and that there is not enough of a stick in relation to the Crown.
The Crown should never need to face the possibility of a local planning authority serving enforcement notices or taking steps for criminal proceedings. If the Minister for Housing and Planning is right that one could expect Departments to uphold the law to the highest possible extent, one would expect the relevant provision never to be used. If it is used, something must have gone pretty badly wrong, and if things have gone that badly wrong the Department ought to be subject to the full rigour of the law. I therefore have some difficulty with the new clause.
I would like clarification on new section 296B(1), which refers to
''the extent that an interest in land is a Crown interest or a Duchy interest.''
I assume that ''Crown interest'' includes Her Majesty's private estates, but the Bill does not explicitly say that and I wonder whether it should be put right. Other than those few comments, I am happy to let the new clause go through.