Clause 3 - RPB: general functions
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
8:55 am
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No.6, in
clause 3, page 2, line 20, leave out 'may be expected to'.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) has asked me to move an amendment, which is a very risky manoeuvre and one that he may come to regret. I hope not; I think that I understand what is required of me, but I shall hear from him afterwards if I do not.
The amendment seeks to remove the words ''may be expected to'' from clause 3(2), so that it would read ''The RPB must keep under review the matters which affect'' rather than
''the matters which may be expected to affect'',
as it does at present. I think that the words ''may be expected to'' are either unnecessary or make the provision far too wide. The Committee can take its pick of which argument it prefers.
So far as I can see, something either affects a matter that concerns the RPB or it does not. To say that it may or may not affect it is unnecessary. I accept that the RPB must keep under review ''matters which . . . affect'' such concerns. That makes sense to me, and, I hope, to the entire Committee. It should not be difficult to know what matters do or do not have an effect. On the one hand, then, the argument is that the words ''may be expected to'' are quite unnecessary, and I should be interested to know why the Minister thinks that they add something.
On the other hand, an argument could be made that those words give planning bodies the right simply to announce, ''We think this might affect us, so we shall poke our nose into it''. I should be opposed to that. Who is to say whether such a matter will or will not have an effect? If someone on a planning body makes the subjective assessment that in their view, at some stage in the future, it may affect that body, then they will be able to become involved, interfere and take their remit as wide as they choose.
The Bill—this returns us to previous arguments—is about land use and town and country planning, not social engineering. I see ''may be expected to'' as another opportunity for somebody to get up to mischief, should he or she so wish, and to say that they will take their remit as wide as they like to interfere in whatever they like, dragging into that remit all sorts of matters that do not have any direct bearing on land use planning.
There are therefore two possible reasons for the amendment: either the words that it would delete are unnecessary, or they go too far. I invite the Committee to take its pick, but whichever reason appeals to them, I trust that they will vote for the amendment.