Clause 3 - RPB: general functions
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
8:55 am
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)
To the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman), may I say that the exposition about legal precedent or otherwise is on its way for clause 1? I suspect that we are chasing shadows because, as the hon. Gentleman will find out shortly, I can give him legal precedent for clause 3 without having to write to him. Amendment No. 6 would require the regional planning body to keep under review matters that affect development in its region, or any part of its region, and the planning of that development. The Bill confines that duty to matters that may be expected subsequently to affect the development of an RPB's planning.
There is absolutely nothing to be gained from amendment No. 6. If an RPB thinks that a matter affects the development of its region, it must keep it under review. That is not a licence to interfere with other bodies, but it is putting that duty on a statutory footing for the RPB. By using the term ''may be expected'', the RPB must also look ahead to see whether it can predict that future matters will affect development and must therefore keep them under review. Would that the world were simplistic and straightforward enough clearly to summarise in black and white every single possible matter that might affect the future of an RPB and its work, but life is not like that. In practice, an RPB will need to establish arrangements for keeping under review a range of matters, including economic development,
regeneration, housing and transport, to ensure that it has robust and comprehensive information.
I suspect that the hon. Member for Spelthorne is partly right and, following on from last Thursday, will be consistent in his detestation of anything that nudges things beyond the parameters of a simply focused land use function in the planning system, which is exactly what clause 3 is about. Clause 3 goes to the heart of spatial strategy, which is distinct in being more comprehensive than a structure plan or a unitary development. However good a job each RPB is doing, some circumstances affecting a region and its development will become clear only with hindsight. Similarly, circumstances that appear likely to affect a region's development may, in hindsight, not have done so.
The duty in clause 3(2) is modelled on—in essence, lifted from—the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which has stood the test of time. Amendment No. 6 would leave the RPB open to the risk of failing to discharge a statutory duty simply because what it expected to affect a region's development or the planning of that development did not do so.
Clause 3 provides the RPB with the tools, in the form of clear and sensible statutory duties, to do its job. The amendment would put every RPB at risk of failing to carry out its review functions properly. It is not acceptable, and I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw it.
I said at the beginning that the amendment is chasing shadows. There is nothing sinister, untoward or devious about the clause, which is rooted in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. I would not go so far as to say that the Bill is an attempt at social engineering, but if, like the hon. Member for Spelthorne, one is entirely against including anything other than land use, it would be entirely legitimate to oppose the clause root and branch—legitimate, but entirely wrong.
The clause is part and parcel of the development of spatial strategies rather than just narrowly defined land use and development control plans. Such strategies are at the heart of the Bill and at the heart of the comprehensive and integrated planning system that the country needs for the future.