Clause 2 - Regional planning bodies
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
8:55 am
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that clause 2 is fundamental to the development of the Bill. Under subsection (2), permission is given to develop subsequent regulations and criteria for membership of the regional planning body, as we discussed last week. The criteria currently envisaged for the membership or establishment of RPBs, against which they will be judged and duly recognised, consist, as outlined in the Green Paper, of whether the RPB and the steering groups that are proposed to manage preparation of the revised strategy are sufficiently representative; whether the RPB will consult a sufficiently broad range of regional stakeholders, including through focus groups or planning forums; whether the RPB will work sufficiently closely with all groups to ensure delivery of the strategy; and whether the RPB will be able to take a sufficiently strategic regional view, addressing difficult regional choices where necessary.
Under clause 2(6), if the membership of the body changes—for example, if someone leaves for whatever reason and someone else joins—there is no need to re-recognise or, indeed, derecognise the body. As I understand it, a simple change of membership is permitted in the spirit of what the RPB should consist of and in the context of the criteria in the Green Paper.