Mrs Barbara Roche (Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Hornsey & Wood Green, Labour)

I beg to move,

That—

(1) during proceedings on the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill the Standing Committee do meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays at five minutes to Nine o'clock and at half-past Two o'clock;

(2) 12 sittings in all shall be allotted to the consideration of the Bill by the Committee;

(3) the proceedings to be taken on the sittings shall be as shown in the second column of the Table below and shall be taken in the order so shown;

(4) the proceedings which under paragraph (3) are to be taken on any sitting shall (and so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in the third column of the Table;

(5) paragraph (3) does not prevent proceedings being taken (in the order shown in the second column of the Table) at any earlier sitting than that provided for under paragraph (3) if previous proceedings have already been concluded.

Welcome to the Committee, Mr. Amess. I am sure that I speak for all hon. Members when I say how much we are looking forward to debating matters under your's and Mr. Pike's chairmanship. I have had the great pleasure of knowing you for some considerable time. You were extremely helpful when I first became a Member of Parliament. You will have no difficulty ruling over the Committee, given your background, some, though not all, of which I am familiar with. I had not before realised that you were a teacher, which will stand you in good stead, as will your being a father of five children—anyone who can get through that successfully will have no difficulty with the Committee. Your constituency is Southend, West. I know Southend well; there are places where people can sail on a day like today. There are not many Londoners who can say that they remember getting a sun tan on Southend beach, but I certainly remember doing so. We welcome you and your colleague, Mr. Pike, whose background as a Labour party organiser will equally ensure that he has no difficulty.

We have to discuss important subjects today and in the sittings ahead. We had a good debate on Second Reading. There is no doubt that the Bill, while technical in many parts, deals with issues that are of great interest to all our constituents. They are about the places in which we live, the environment and local matters that affect us. Many of us, myself included, receive many letters and representations from our constituents about planning issues, and our deliberations will be closely monitored by many outside groups and organisations. I look forward to our debates.

Mr David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)

I remind hon. Members that, under the Standing Order, the debate on the programme motion may continue for up to 30 minutes.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

I echo the Minister's kind remarks, Mr. Amess. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship and that of your co-Chairman, Mr. Pike. We will do our best to make sure that our proceedings are expedited in good order, although we shall oppose the Bill through every avenue that is open to us. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Bill with the Minister of State, her colleague, the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), and other members of the Committee. I hope that we will have a constructive debate, but it will be more constructive if the Government listen to our arguments and accept our amendments.

The genesis of the Bill lies in three excellent Green Papers issued by the Government. The major one, ''Planning: delivering a fundamental change'', sets the context from which the Bill derives. Paragraph 1.2 of the document states:

''England is one of the most crowded countries in the world. Only 8% of the land surface is urbanised, but over 90% of our population lives in urban areas. We need good planning to deliver development that is sustainable and which creates better places in which people can live and work.''

I do not believe that anyone who has anything to do with the planning system would object to that

statement—indeed, they would praise it. The purpose of the Bill is to improve the planning system. Conservatives do not believe that there is much wrong with it that could not be put right. The two aspects that are fundamentally wrong are that it is too slow and that planning authorities do not have enough staff with sufficient expertise.

It would be entirely possible and better to reform the present system than to conduct the root-and-branch reform proposed in the Bill. No Government can introduce an entirely new system and get it right first time. The Bill proposes fundamental change, and I guarantee that members of the Committee will one day be back in another Committee Room on another Corridor discussing another planning Bill to amend this one. It would be better to try to amend the existing system, but the Government have introduced the Bill, and we must debate it.

As I said, the Bill proposes fundamental change. It introduces the regional spatial strategy, which will draw powers from local to regional authorities. It also reserves huge powers for the Secretary of State, which is fundamentally wrong. Surely it must be right to keep planning at the lowest possible level. If one draws planning decisions away from local people, they will not have ownership of the outcomes. They will not be happy with decisions if they feel that they have been imposed on them by the region or, even more so, by the Government. I hope that, even if the Bill becomes law, in practice, the day-to-day practice will be that local authorities, as far as is humanly possible, will make the decisions. We will discuss the regional spatial strategy and the regional planning body under part 1, but we believe that they will draw power away from local people.

The Bill is premature. The Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill has not had Royal Assent, yet we are proposing a whole raft of planning policy for regional bodies that are not yet in place or are not likely to be put in place in some of the eight regions. We will end up with a mishmash of regional bodies delivering planning policy. It may be, although we hope not, that some areas will have elected regional assemblies. In other areas, regional chambers, the Government Office or the regional development agency will be responsible for planning. The country will be broken up into a mishmash of planning and other bodies. That is undesirable and will create further opportunities for Europe completely to dominate this country on a regional basis.

My colleagues have greater planning expertise than I do. We will debate the Bill with great vigour and rigour and take every opportunity to try to improve it. We do not like the system of programme motions. It is wrong to be constrained to a certain number of sittings, because no one knows which parts of the Bill will be controversial or how long it will take to deal with them. Even more than that, the Government have redefined the programming procedure. Knives mean that we have to leave certain sections of the Bill after a certain number of sittings, whether we like it or not. That seems wrong. We should spend longer on especially controversial parts of the Bill. If a part of the Bill is uncontroversial, we should quickly move on

to more controversial parts. I register a protest about the sittings motion. We do not like the procedure; it is undemocratic. If we are sitting on a Committee, we are adult enough to make our own decisions as to how long we should take, and on what matters we want to debate.

Finally, I make one housekeeping point. It seems that under our new hours, we shall all have to get up earlier in the morning. I do not mind that—I am perfectly happy to be here at 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning. However, if we are to be here at 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning, let us ensure that the other housekeeping functions of the House are kept up. This morning, there were no notices along the Corridor showing which Committee Room we would be sitting in. Yesterday's notices were there, but not today's. I do not criticise any officials, but we must think about such matters. When I left Portcullis House, the Vote Office was not open. I would be grateful if you would pass the matter on to Mr. Speaker, Mr. Amess. I will raise the matter myself if necessary. People will have to get up earlier in the morning so that the housekeeping functions keep up with the earlier hours of Committees.

We shall oppose some of the Bill with great rigour. We do not like the timetable motion. Having said that, we shall operate in the Committee as congenially as we can and shall try to produce a better Bill at the end of the 12 sittings.

Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet, Conservative)

I echo the words of the Minister for Social Exclusion and Deputy Minister for Women and of my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) in saying what a delight it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Amess. If I may extend the goodwill, this is the first time I have had the pleasure of serving on a Committee that is led by the two Ministers present here today. It is probably the first time that they have worked together on such an important Bill.

I must express my reservations about the timetable motion, but before I do, I understand that it is the proper and correct convention that a Member taking part in the Committee, as in the Chamber, should declare any possible interests. I have considered my interests carefully. They are not financial, but as I said on Second Reading, they are a form of reverse financial interests. I am a fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute, and a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. I have to pay those two prestigious institutions a considerable amount of money in annual subscriptions. For the record, I also have the privilege of being an honorary member of the Landscape Institute—which is tangential to the matters we shall discuss; an honorary fellow and past president of the Faculty of Building; an honorary fellow of the Architecture and Surveyors Institute; and an honorary member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. If I have forgotten any, I shall mention them at a later stage.

I shall put my quarrel with the timetable motion as succinctly and crisply as I can. The Bill has only 90 clauses, which is fewer than many measures that we examine in Committee, although it does have six schedules. Those 90 clauses and six schedules are,

however, complex, and fundamental in proposing radical changes to the town and country planning system, and in their procedures for compulsory purchase orders. Time is needed to examine the clauses and schedules in great detail. I shall mention a few, to demonstrate the radical changes proposed.

In part 1, regional spatial strategies are introduced, which is a pretty new concept. Part 2 then deals with local development and the crucial loss of powers that the county councils will suffer. Part 3 provides for the new concept of a development plan and the proper introduction of sustainable development. I repeat one point that I made on Second Reading, which is that I hope that even at this late hour the Government will consider including a definition of sustainable development. Part 4 is about development control and the simplified planning zones. Again, that is a new concept, although it echoes the simplified planning zones and old enterprise zone concept of the early 1980s.

I find part 5 intriguing. It is entitled ''Correction of errors'', which refers to the slight errors that are sometimes made in drawing up development plans. However, I wonder whether part 5 should be a part of every measure introduced by the Government. That is a serious point because of the limited timetable that is imposed on all Bills in Committee. This may be an argument for another day, but it is true that much legislation that passes through the House of Commons is not properly examined because of the constraining time factors and so has to be examined in the other place.

Part 6 provides for Wales. I hope that my mathematics is as correct as my geography. I am assuming that Monmouth is part of the Principality, and if so, four Committee members come from the Principality. I am sure that they will have much to say about the provisions that relate to Wales. Part 7 moves us on to the important issue of compulsory purchase and the new concept, of which I am broadly in favour, of lost payments. Of course, there are also the ''Miscellaneous and general'' provisions.

The Bill also contains six schedules. Schedule 1 is about ''Local development orders: procedures'', which is again a complex issue. Schedule 2 is the ''Timetable for decisions'', and schedule 3 contains ''Amendments of the planning Acts'', which refers to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Schedule 4 contains amendments to other Acts, and I have counted at least 12 that need changes made to them. They include such pieces of legislation as the Gas Act 1965, the Leasehold Reform Act 1967, the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968, the Finance Act 1969, greater London legislation, the Land Compensation Act 1973, the Highways Act 1980 and the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.

In conclusion, we will be scrutinising a Bill that is a labyrinth of complexity that would make the Byzantines drool with envy, and we need plenty of time to examine it. You may be able to confirm this at an appropriate time, Mr. Amess, but I understand that the afternoon sittings are open ended. However, I

think that we will need more than 30 hours to conduct the scrutiny of the Bill that Parliament expects.

Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)

I look forward very much to serving under your chairmanship, Mr. Amess, and that of your colleague—I will greet him at the appropriate time. The Minister made one or two observations in which she chose to speak on behalf of us all. If I can pluck up enough courage to speak on behalf of all Members who have taken off their jackets, I will say that I hope that you did not mind, as we should have asked first. I trust that that is order.

There is a tradition in the House that the usual channels do not normally contribute to debates. Unfortunately for some people, the rule does not apply to the Opposition, so I will choose my words to say what a pleasure it is to work with the usual channels on the Government Benches. The hon. Member for Wansdyke (Dan Norris) cannot answer back, so I will not take advantage of him. Some Committee members may not know that I learned about planning in Wansdyke as the chairman of its planning committee when it was a separate authority. If my home of 44 years must be represented by a Labour Member, which I regret, I am glad that it is the hon. Gentleman rather than some of the worse ones that I have come across. I hope that he will in due course be a member of my Whips Office rather than somebody else's. It has been a pleasure to meet up with him for the first time since he has been in the House, and I look forward to working with him.

The Minister said, rightly, that being a teacher might stand you in good stead, Mr. Amess. I started off as a teacher. After 15 years as a Member of Parliament, I think that I would rather have to keep a classroom under control than this place, so perhaps it is not quite as straightforward as was suggested. As for having five children, I have not managed that many. However, my son, who is now 32, occasionally says that bringing up children is a doddle compared to trying to live a father who is an MP, so even having five children might not be as useful as the Minister seems to think. I have not enjoyed the pleasures of Southend beach, though if the Committee finishes early, I might use the time to take a look at it.

It might helpful if I declare a non-interest—my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) declared a reverse interest. Mine is that for five years when I was a member of a council, I was the chairman of the planning committee. That might be useful to the Committee, though hon. Members might get tired of some of the anecdotes—they are 20 years old.

The Government's Green Papers start with the premise that planning is wonderful, and my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold seemed to suggest that that is self-evidently right. However, when I was the chairman of the planning committee, I approached all such matters by saying that it was the democratic right of the individual to do with his property what he chose, unless there was a good reason to prevent it. I therefore do not start from the premise that it is good to have planning and to decide what people should be

allowed to do. We are in the business of deciding what we should take away on behalf of society. As the Committee proceeds, I shall at every opportunity challenge anything that takes something away from the individual's rights over their property, so that it is justified and a good argument is given. That is one of the reasons why I think that we do not necessarily have enough time.

Another of my concerns is that I hope that there will be a lot of consideration given to the countryside. Both of the Ministers are from urban areas, although that is not a criticism—they cannot help that. Although fewer people live in the countryside, it constitutes a greater part of the country. It is tempting to concentrate on overcrowded, urban development and such difficult problems and to forget that the same legislation applies to a huge portion of the country where the arguments are entirely different.

Also relevant to my involvement in the Committee is that I shall enthusiastically support anything that the Government decide to do to stop the monstrosity of planning inquiries that go on and on. When it is finished, part of terminal 5 at Heathrow will be in my constituency. I would welcome anything that can prevent the gross waste of money and the uncertainty. There came a point when all that people in my constituency wanted was a decision. The majority of my constituents want terminal 5 and are glad of it, but everybody got to the point at which they would rather have been told no than to go on for year after year of blight, uncertainty and difficulties. The Government of the day, be they Labour or Conservative, must address that absurdity whereby a few people—the head-in-the-sand, knee-jerk, ''We're against everything'' brigade—are allowed to put at risk the prosperity of a community, or threaten through delay a business that employs thousands of people.

In a dry summer, some 20 per cent. of my constituency—the reservoirs around Heathrow—is underwater. Unfortunately, at the moment, somewhat more than 20 per cent. is underwater because of the Thames. The issue of flooding should occupy our time, and loom large in the questions of what sustainable development is and how one can control what happens elsewhere.

The programme motion is wrong, and I encourage the Committee to reject it. We must give a Bill of this sort the most thorough examination. It is tempting for a Government with a large majority to say, ''This is all nonsense. There is no need to talk about it. We've thought about it, we have a majority, so why are they just going through this?'' It is the duty of Her Majesty's Opposition to examine thoroughly every last syllable, every last word, and certainly every last clause. The House should not pass legislation unless it is justified. I long for the day, although I doubt that it will ever come, when I can be a candidate at a general election and promise in my manifesto that I will not legislate during the next Session of Parliament. That would be wonderful, but it is not going to happen. A Government, especially one with a large majority, must be made to justify everything that they want to do.

Guillotining Committees is not done for the benefit of good legislation, but for the convenience of the

Government and the parliamentary timetable. Someone sits down somewhere and says, ''We need to have this through by Easter, this through by Whitsun and that through before the summer so that we can have a nice, quiet, orderly life. It would be awkward if the legislation that we propose is so bad and so controversial that it is held up, and we find towards the end of the session that we have not dealt with any of it.'' That is the logic of the guillotine and of saying that our Committee should have only 12 sittings. It has nothing to do with the Bill or good planning or improving development in this country, but everything to do with the convenience of the Labour Government and their Back Benchers who want to go to the cinema or the theatre of an evening. That is why my colleagues and I oppose to the programme motion.

It is fundamentally wrong to say, ''We have 12 sittings, and this is how we are going to use them.'' The Programming Sub-Committee sat yesterday, which you will know as you were chairing it, Mr. Amess. For your sins, there was a vote at the end of the sitting, which has not happened before. I shall come to the reason. I thank the hon. Gentleman who pointed me towards the usual channels, which made it possible for me to talk to the parliamentary counsel who had written the guillotine motion. I discovered that it is not what the Government wanted. They wanted a guillotine at the end of every sitting so that they could control us completely and tell us, ''We will talk about this until 11.35 am and about that until 5 pm, and that will be that.'' They wanted to pay no mind to how important the subject might be.

At least some common sense appears to have prevailed. At the Programming Sub-Committee yesterday, the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) asked the obvious questions why the knives were where they were, and why those chunks had been chosen. He received no answer. This morning, the Minister of State came to the Committee and formally proposed the motion. She provided no explanation why the Government believe that it is sensible to guillotine the sittings in such a way. What has led them to the conclusion that we can consider part 1 in three sittings? It may be possible, or even sensible, but it is not god enough simply to say blithely, ''We have such a big majority that we will vote for it anyway. It does not matter, and we don't have to bother to tell you.'' We have had no explanation as to why the motion is in that form. I oppose it in principle and in detail, and because the Government could not be bothered to tell us what they want us to support. If they were prepared to tell us, I might be prepared to reconsider my opposition. I am happy to see the motion committed to paper, and will give the Minister a couple of minutes to try to do at the end of the sitting what she should have done at the beginning.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

On a point of order, Mr. Amess. I have studied the Bill in considerable detail. It contains 22 order-making powers for the Secretary of State. To my knowledge, we have not yet seen the draft of any of those powers. I ask the Minister, in a non-partisan spirit, if we can see drafts of those powers as soon as possible for the good housekeeping of the

Committee and so that we can consider the Bill properly in context and, if necessary, table appropriate amendments in good time, so that they are not starred when we come to the appropriate section of the Bill.

Mr David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)

That is not a point of order for me, but it is on the record and I am sure that the Minister heard it.

Question put:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes 3.

Mr David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)

I shall make a few preliminary announcements before we start to examine the Bill. I am not sure whether we shall always play to a packed audience, but we could investigate the possibility of obtaining a slightly larger Room.

The point made by Mr. Clifton-Brown about the early start is not a matter for me, but no doubt it has been heard by the appropriate channels.

Sir Sydney Chapman asked about afternoon sittings and it is correct that they are open-ended, so, in theory, we could sit until 1 am the next day.

I remind the Committee that there is a money resolution in connection with the Bill and copies are available in this Room.

I also remind hon. Members that adequate notice should be given of amendments. As a rule, my co-Chairman and I do not intend to call starred amendments, including any that may be reached during an afternoon sitting.

Mr. Speaker has asked that members of all Committee be reminded to switch off their mobile phones.

Some hon. Members have asked about taking off their jackets. I am surprised that anyone would wish to do so in this inclement weather, but hon. Members may feel free to remove any article of clothing within reason.

Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)

On a point of order, Mr. Amess. You referred to afternoon sittings. I understand that one of the reasons for the change of hours in the House was to make it easier for hon. Members to get away from this place. On Thursdays the House rises early and will rise at 6 o'clock today. Have the Government indicated whether we shall sit beyond that time? My assumption at the moment is that we shall not. The Opposition would be happy to do so, but some colleagues must catch trains, aeroplanes and so on and if you have any indication that we may sit later, perhaps you would share the information with the Opposition so that we can make the necessary arrangements to be here late.

Mr David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)

That is not a point of order for me, but it has been heard and I am sure that there would be discussion through the usual channels.Clause 1 Regional Spatial Strategy