New Clause 49 - Local development plan
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
6:00 pm
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh, Conservative)
I would have referred to that. Unfortunately, the policy does not have a convenient TLA—three-letter abbreviation. Having heard the Minister go through all of that, can any member of the Committee imagine themselves in a situation in which a controversial planning application has been made in their constituency and a public meeting is convened by angry residents? The hon. Member concerned must stand up in front of said residents, all of whom want to understand how the process works because they will want to object to the application. He or she will then have to take 200 angry residents through the system. Would anyone actually want to have to take people who are not necessarily experts in planning law through the system and explain what the Minister has laid out?
There are ways that the present system can be improved. The Minister did his best, in his very relaxed style, to take the Committee through the system. I do not say ''relaxed'' in any pejorative way at all; he has a very confident manner in Committee, but does anyone who heard the description and summary that the Minister provided in 45 minutes of how the system is actually intended to work believe that it actually provides a more simplified system, as the Minister would have the Committee believe?
I said that I would be brief. Therefore, with those few remarks, I shall say TTFN.