Clause 4 - Assistance from certain local authorities
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
10:30 am
Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet, Conservative)
I would like to go a little further than my hon. Friend in supporting amendments Nos. 115 and 114. The measure transfers—I use that word advisedly—the planning powers and functions of county councils and other local authorities to regional assemblies or regional planning bodies. However, it is essential that county councils keep all their powers and functions unless and until regional assemblies come into being. It is wrong that the powers of directly and democratically elected county councils, metropolitan district councils and so on should be taken away from them and given to a body that is not democratically elected. I hope that the power of what I am suggesting will not be lost if, having made that fundamental point, I sit down again.