Clause 2 - Regional planning bodies
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
3:30 pm
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. He has explained amendment No. 271 better than I can, so I move quickly on to the next amendment.
Amendment No. 272 would provide that the regional authority may carry out those functions only if a referendum has been held. This is an important clause. We believe that regional planning bodies should not be created until a referendum has been held and voted for in the affirmative. It is a question of democratic accountability. Regional bodies are almost exclusively made up of indirectly elected members. No one knows who they are. They are not accountable to anyone, or are only slightly accountable. The granting of such huge powers to largely unaccountable people is a democratic deficit.
I hark back to our previous debates on whether the regional spatial strategy is the Secretary of State's policy until there is an elected regional assembly. I hope that we never have elected regional assemblies. If
we do, the whole democratic position will change. Until then, we have a democratic problem: the Government are rushing ahead with the regional planning agenda, in which we do not believe. They should carefully consider the democratic legitimacy of that.