Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr Alan Hurst (Braintree, Labour)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 47—Appeals (non-compliance with development plan)—

'1. After section 78, subsection (2), of the principal Act there is inserted—(2A) Where a local planning authority approves an application for planning permission and—

(a) the planning application does not accord with the provisions of the development plan in force in the area in which the land to which the application relates is situated; or

(b) the planning application is one in which the local authority has an interest as defined in section 316;

the persons who may by notice appeal to the Secretary of State against the approval of planning permission in the circumstances specified above are—

(a) any persons who have lodged a formal objection to the planning application in writing to the planning authority for the area in which the land to which the application relates is situated;

(b) other persons at the discretion of a person appointed by the Secretary of State for that purpose.''

2. Section 79 of the principal Act is amended as follows—

''In subsection (2), leave out (''either'') and after ''planning authority'' insert ''or the applicant (where different from the appellant).''

In subsection (6), after ''the determination'' insert ''(except for appeals as defined in section 78(2A) and where the appellant is as defined in section 78(2B)''.'.

Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

New clause 27 offers a qualified third-party right of appeal. The idea of third party rights of appeal has been batted around the various parties and organisations concerned with planning for several years now. There is a perceived unfairness in the current procedures for participation in planning. Prospective developers may appeal against the refusal of their planning application, whereas third parties cannot appeal against approval. Their only recourse for action is a judicial review. Extensive independent research has been carried out, initially supported by eight organisations: the Campaign to Protect Rural England, to which I am grateful for the wording of this new clause, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, WWF UK, the Civic Trust, Friends of the Earth, the Town and Country Planning Association, the Environmental Law Foundation and ROOM, the national council for housing and planning. They have subsequently been joined by the Ancient Monuments Society, the National Trust, the Ramblers Association and Transport 2000. That forms a heavy group of bodies.

The report published in January 2002 recommended that there should be an opportunity for those disadvantaged and aggrieved by planning approvals to seek redress in certain restricted circumstances. I certainly would not support a wide-ranging third-party right of appeal, but since the right

is limited to a certain set of circumstances and would help the planning system, I am happy to support it. The third parties that would be in the position to claim the right of appeal would be people directly affected by the development, nearby local authorities when the development is on the border of two local authorities, interest groups, statutory agencies and Government Departments. Not just the ODPM but other Departments could appeal against applications.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify that? I was half concentrating on something else and may have missed what he said. Did he say that one category of people with a right of third-party appeal would be those living in a neighbouring authority but near the existing application?

Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

No, I said those in neighbouring local authorities. If people were directly affected by a development, they could appeal wherever they lived, and they might be on the boundary. The new clause would also give neighbouring local authorities the power to appeal. There have been some problems where one local authority would not have approved an application, but it happened to be right on a boundary and the other planning authority chose to approve it. There is no right of appeal in those situations.

It is hoped that such a system does not mean that the planning system will grind to a halt, but that standards in planning authorities will rise because they will become accountable both for their approvals and refusals. At the moment, they are accountable for refusals but not approvals. New clause 27 sets out five categories in which a third-party right of appeal would apply; it would not apply to all approvals. It would apply where there is an approval despite a departure from the approved plan; I realise that such a case would be sent to the inspector, but we are providing another route.

That right would also apply to applications in which local authorities have an interest, to major applications, which we have referred to earlier, to applications that require an environmental impact assessment and to applications recommended for refusal by officers—that is, where refusal is recommended, the planning committee subsequently approves, and perhaps the Secretary of State is not minded to call the application in because it is relatively minor. The new clause would give the right of appeal in those circumstances.

Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield, Attercliffe, Labour)

When I look at the new clause, especially paragraph (e), it strikes me that it is rather unusual to bring up the issue of an officer recommending a refusal. Although, during the planning process, relatively minor matters are often delegated to officers, that aspect of the new clause would delegate to officers the right to activate a right of appeal for certain people on major applications. That would be a significant departure in the planning process, would it not?

Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, but let me turn his argument around. At the moment, there is a right of appeal by the applicant. One of the grounds on which someone would readily seek an appeal is if the officers

have recommended approval but the committee had turned the application down. Having seen a few desperate attempts by committees to justify why they have gone against their officers' advice—they must come up with some reasons—I know that spurious reasons are often given. The right therefore exists in the opposite direction; it does not exist for those who object to a scheme, only for applicants.

Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield, Attercliffe, Labour)

The hon. Gentleman is not quite right there. The right of appeal is not activated in the case that he has raised, where an officer recommends acceptance and the decision is made to refuse—although a recommendation might influence the success of the appeal, because the appellant can quote back the officer's recommendation. In the hon. Gentleman's example, the right of appeal is influenced by the officer's recommendation. There is a difference.

Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. An applicant can appeal under any circumstances. The new clause would just add some qualifications, and reduce the number of possible appeals from objectors. Applicants can appeal even if they have no chance whatever of winning, but they are clearly more likely to appeal if officers have recommended acceptance, and are more likely to win, because the planning officers probably got the law broadly right in the first place.

Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman is in danger of opening a can of worms. There is already a feeling that officers should be the servants of the local authority, and not working in opposition to the desires either of members of the public or of the local authority. Although I accept, and regret, that what the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) has just said is true—an appeal can be supported by an officer's recommendation to approve—would it not be entirely wrong to give the officer the power to seek to override the members, who are his employers?

Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood what I am saying. The new clause may not be perfect—I do not pretend that it is—but its aim is to lay down a set of circumstances in which a third party, not the officer, can appeal against a decision to grant planning permission. Where an officer has said that an application should be refused but the planning committee approves it, and where it is unlikely that the Secretary of State will call in, perhaps because of the scale of the scheme as much as anything else, objectors will otherwise have no recourse, even if they have been pretty hard done by.

I am not trying to set up a situation in which objectors can object to every approval granted by a planning committee, but to restrict the numbers to the worst abuses of the system. I, and those who tried to help me to draft the new clause, may not have got it right, but I am trying to lay down certain categories of situation in which people can object. This is not something that I have dreamed up. Others have been trying to get the third-party right of appeal right. Unless I have got it completely wrong, this group of amendments contains another new clause, tabled by the hon. Member for Cotswold, which seeks another route to including a qualified third-party right of appeal in the Bill.

My new clause is a stab at trying to come up with a third-party right of appeal. The Government are probably determined not to have any of these things in the Bill, but that is for them to justify. I hope that the Minister is encouraged to go away and come up with a system that might work, and allow objectors that right of appeal in some of the worst abuses of the planning system.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

Third-party right of appeal is controversial. Some people believe that there should be a third-party right of appeal, especially as a developer has a right of appeal but other parties who are affected by the appeal do not. The hon. Member for Ludlow advanced that argument. Others say that there is adequate community involvement—the Minister talked about this at great length—and that people who want to object to a planning application have adequate opportunity to do so. People in that camp usually add that introducing a third-party right of appeal will considerably slow down the planning process. They use as evidence the very general third-party right of appeal that exists in the south of Ireland.

The CPRE and others originally suggested the concept to me. They wrote a new clause, which is exactly the same as the one tabled by the hon. Member for Ludlow. I told them that it was too wide. One category in particular was too wide, and has already been subject to some discussion in Committee. Paragraph (e) says that where

''the planning officer has recommended refusal of planning permission, certain persons as specified in subsection (2B) below may by notice appeal to the Secretary of State.''

The planning procedure should be as open as possible. It should be democratic. We have a democratic planning system in this country because we have planning committees.

I have much sympathy for what my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight said. Planning officers are employed by the local authority, and they are there to exercise their professional judgment and to make recommendations, but it is the planning committee, particularly on larger and more controversial applications, that should make the final decision. We would be handing over more powers, and planning officers might say, ''We don't like this sort of development, but we don't really know what to do with it. Let's go in the direction of a third-party right of appeal. It'll probably result in a public inquiry. That's the way to go.'' They would, in a sense, be shying away from having to make a decision on a controversial application. For those reasons I do not like the proposals in paragraph (e).

Local planning committees need to consult local people carefully. If people disagree with planning officers, that is thoroughly healthy, particularly if they are able to give good reasons should the case go to appeal. If, having heard the professional opinion of the planning officers, the committee overturns that advice, it usually has good democratic reasons for doing so.

Having said that, I do not want my remarks to be misinterpreted. We need to employ more planning officers and to give them greater esteem and status. There is no reason why a chief planning officer should not have the same status as a chief education officer or a chief social services officer. I do not in any way wish to denigrate the planning profession—after all, I am a member of that profession. However, it is healthy when local democracy works. For that reason, I do not go along with paragraph (e).

Paragraph (d) states:

''the planning application is accompanied by an Environmental Impact Assessment''.

That seems slightly contrary to the previous new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Ludlow, in which he argued for environmental impact assessments to become more universal. Paragraph (d) would mean that, wherever possible, the applicant would try to get away with submitting an application that did not include an environmental impact assessment so that he would not become subject to the provisions. In the case of most of the larger and more controversial applications, the planning authority is likely to demand an environmental impact assessment in any case, if it is doing its job properly. I do not go along with having a third-party right of appeal in the case of the category covered by paragraph (d).

Paragraph (c) states:

''the planning application falls within the definition of 'major applications', as defined by a person appointed by the Secretary of State for that purpose''.

Most really major, controversial applications will either be called in, or, if they are really big applications, they will come under the major projects heading—or whatever it is called. I am referring to major inquiries such as terminal 5. Such applications will not fall under this category.

That leaves us with the categories covered by paragraphs (a) and (b), which I have included in new clause 47. These are the two categories to which the third-party right of appeal should be limited. I apologise to the Committee and the Minister because I would have liked further to refine paragraph (a) as it appears in new clause 47. Where it states:

''with the provisions of the development plan'',

I would have liked to see—if I had more time—the words ''the local development scheme and local development documents which are adopted as defined in section 14 of this Act.'' Some local authorities do not have an adopted local plan. Clearly, there cannot be a third-party right of appeal involving an application being contrary to the plan if that plan has not been adopted and is not in force. I would also like the third-party right of appeal to apply to the new plans introduced by this Bill, rather than existing plans. So, I would have a modified paragraph (a).

Paragraph (b) states:

''the planning application is one in which the local authority has an interest as defined in section 316''.

Of all the categories, this is the most meritorious. There have been cases in my constituency where the

local authority has owned land and given itself permission to build a large number of houses. It has a pecuniary interest in getting planning permission for such land, but the project was not called in or subject to a public inquiry. They were very controversial cases: such matters were unsatisfactorily handled. I have great sympathy with my constituents who live next door to such developments. I would have liked them to have had a third-party right of appeal.

I am talking about a limited category of third-party right of appeal. I hope that it would be used only in controversial cases, because if we were to start to use it as a general rule, we would slow down the planning process. I have said to the Minister on several occasions that the acid test of whether the Bill is a success is whether it speeds up the present planning system. If it does not, Hill's Bill will have failed: if it does, I will buy him a drink.

Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet, Conservative)

I want briefly to echo a few points made by the hon. Member for Ludlow and my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold.

Third parties already have rights in certain planning applications—for example, when the Secretary of State calls in an application for determination and there is a planning inquiry. In general, they have the right to be heard in the most significant cases, and long may that continue.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ludlow on introducing this new clause—as I congratulate myself and my hon. Friends on bringing new clause 47 to the attention of the Committee. The hon. Gentleman is at pains to say that he does not want third-party rights to be spread too widely. If they were more than very tightly drawn, they could bring the whole planning process to a grinding halt—in extreme cases, things would take years to be decided.

This is a time to be radical. The present planning system has been operating for well over 50 years: some people say that the Housing, Town Planning, etc. Act 1909 was the first planning legislation. We now have an occasion to reassure the minority of people who think that the planning system is skewed in favour of developers, the local planning authority, and so forth. We could seriously look at extending the rights of third parties. New clause 47 is the route down which we should go: that is why I put my name to it. If a planning application that breaches the adopted development plan of a local planning authority is approved, and a local authority within the local planning authority or the local planning authority wants to change the existing approved scheme, it is perfectly reasonable that the third parties should have rights to ask why and get the thing examined.

I feel my second point just as intensely as my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold, and I applaud him for the way that he put it. If we are to remove the charges and innuendoes that there is bribery and corruption, where a local authority has a vested interest in getting development on a plot of land, third-party rights ought to be introduced to ensure that the whole situation is above board.

I applaud the hon. Member for Ludlow for new clause 27, although, on reflection, I am not so sure

about paragraphs (c), (d) and, particularly (e). That could lead to the chairman of the planning committee calling in the planning officer and saying, ''Look, you do realise that if you are seen to be advising us to go one way and we choose to go to the other, you are going to be the cause of a lot of expenditure.'' However, noble the sentiment, that might bring unfair pressure to bear on the planning officer or his staff. I warmly applaud new clause 47 and ask the Government to think sympathetically about it. It would bring them great credit if we were able in this narrow, but important, area to extent the rights of third-party interests.

Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)

There is absolutely no doubt that one of the greatest inequities in the planning system is the ability of local authorities to give themselves planning permission. The local authority on which I serve gave itself such permission on many occasions. Many county councils that are not normally planning authorities are wont to give themselves planning permission for the development of, for example, school playing fields. In many cases, county councils are accused of securing the closure of schools to give themselves permission for development. I have no doubt that qualification (b) in both new clauses is entirely justified as a reason for a third-party right of appeal.

I take it that the ''or'' in the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Ludlow applies just to the first two paragraphs and that (c), (d) and (e) are ''ands''—in other words, all three qualifications must be fulfilled, as well as either (a) or (b).

Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

Once again, I have probably missed out a few ''ors''. I tabled some corrections to spelling mistakes during the first Committee stage in January. Those were turned down. I would never expect an amendment or a new clause to be accepted by the Government in the form that it is written. If it were, I would be stunned.

Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)

If the hon. Gentleman is putting in more ''ors'', we are all rowing in the same direction. If there should be an ''or'' between (c) and (d) and between (d) and (e), that would make his new clause slightly more acceptable. I now understand the explanation that he gave for paragraph (e) earlier on. The planning officer does not trigger the third-party appeal—he is the hurdle in the way of that right of appeal.

So many of the justifications put forward by the hon. Member for Ludlow resonate with real residents in real places. In saying that the word ''or'' should be included, the hon. Gentleman is telling me that that the new clause does not provide a means of preventing a right of appeal, although many developers will do their best to avoid putting in an environmental impact assessment, for example. It is, in fact, a means of permitting a right of appeal. I am beginning to get the message. I am glad to have that assurance.

I support the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold, and what he said about it not according with the development plan. That seems to be a matter of consensus among all hon. Members on the Opposition Benches and is an essential and

entirely justified requirement. I can give examples from my constituency, where the development of a wind farm is outside the development plan. There is no mention in that plan of a wind farm—certainly not for the site on which the local authority has approved the development of a wind farm. Perhaps I have should not tempt the Minister too far in this direction, because I believe that there is either a request for the

Minister to call in the case, or an ombudsman case against him for not calling it in. I feel that that entirely justifies a third-party right of appeal, and I am happy to see it in both the new clauses, and so I am pleased to support them.

Debate adjourned.—[Paul Clark.]

Adjourned accordingly at Six o'clock till Tuesday 21 October at ten minutes past Nine o'clock.