Clause 2 - Regional planning bodies
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
4:00 pm
Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)
I am inclined to agree with the reasoning behind the amendments. If the Government are to proceed with the Bill as drafted, it must include those subsections. They allow the Government to give the planning powers to an unelected body, from which the Government can take away those powers. I do not want the Government to give them to unelected bodies; I only want the Government to establish them when there is an elected regional assembly. However, if the Government are to do so, the Conservatives' amendment would prevent them from taking those planning powers away from a regional chamber, a regional development agency or, indeed, the Government office and giving them to the elected regional assembly, which might come along later. I could not support that, because the powers must be in the hands of elected people.
The clause and the proposed amendments highlight the fact that the Government are seriously intending to set up RPBs that are not elected. They are going to establish them in the regions before the elected regional assemblies are in existence.