Clause 12 - Survey of area
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)
We are now moving on to part 2, which will be the Bill's Waterloo. It is horrendously confusing, with different documents, frameworks and plans, all with competing authorities, all of which must be revoked, revised or renewed. It is not just me saying that; Friends of the Earth—I do not always agree with them, but they make a good point—say of the local development framework:
''The new local planning framework proposed in the Bill is complex and costly, extremely confusing in legal terms and ineffective in generating public involvement. Local Development Frameworks will require three yearly replacement, annual reviews and continual updating.''
We then come to the most important part:
''The administrative burden will be huge and make effective public consultation impractical. Instead of one plan with policies and a map''—
that is exactly what is proposed for Wales; why we have to impose all those different policies, frameworks and documents on England I cannot imagine—
''England will have a series of documents, including core policy, action plans and statements of community involvement. These documents are intended to have differing legal weight in decision-making and may have different adoption process. It is not clear what problem the Government is trying to solve through this new framework but the result is a confusing mess. The starting point for any effective planning system is structural simplicity.''
I have already cited Bernard Shaw in that respect. I cannot understand why the Government have come up with such a confusing system.
The Confederation of British Industry states:
''The Bill sets out broad powers to revise or revoke documents. It is important that an appropriate balance is struck between the flexibility to ensure documents can be revised and kept up to date and the certainty needed by business and others to be able to plan for the longer term.''
That is the context for the clause and the amendments. I call it a system of chaos and confusion.
Amendment No. 87 was suggested to us by the Council for the Protection of Rural England. It would increase the profile and importance of non-statutory historic sites in local planning and, by extension, help to ensure that adequate expertise and resources would be directed towards their care and protection. I am sure that everyone on the Committee agrees with that. Those sites are important parts of our national heritage. Damage has been done to them in the past. Surely they need greater protection. If so, it is right to accept the amendment.
The Council for the Protection of Rural England comments:
''Non-statutory historic sites and monuments are an irreplaceable asset to the countryside and to urban areas, contributing to the character and historical resonance of their surroundings for visitors and those who live and work there.''
The CPRE believes
''that the recording and protection of these sites and monuments, registered in the Sites and Monuments (SAMs) register, would benefit from statutory recognition. The relatively low importance attended to such sites and monuments has in many cases contributed to a reduction in (often already inadequate) resources allocated to their protection by local authorities.''
If the Minister intends to resist the amendment, he will have to make a good case to show why it should not be in the Bill. At what stage will the subject I have raised be considered?
My hon. Friend has tabled many other amendments, but I should like in particular to discuss amendments Nos. 42 and 43. These concern matters that must be considered when the local development plan is being drawn up—or am I getting myself confused? Incidentally, perhaps the Minister could tell us what has happened to the local development framework, which was highly trailed in the Green Paper, ''Planning: delivering a fundamental change''. I do not see the words ''development framework'' mentioned in the Bill. Instead, there are now to be local development schemes, local development documents and local development plan documents. Again, perhaps the Minister will explain to us precisely how those three mesh together.
If my understanding is correct, one could imagine a series of concentric circles. The local development scheme would be the largest, because that is the all-encompassing scheme. The local development documents would be in the next circle and finally, the local development plan documents would be the smallest circle—the kernel. If I am correct, that is a sketch of what is in the Government's mind. Quite why we need all those documents and plans, when we could have just one plan to be adopted, revised, revoked and all the other things that the clause allows for, I cannot imagine.
Amendments Nos. 42 and 43 would insert into the Bill what might be contained in the documents. We feel that it is a key point that generation of employment in an area—its economic well-being and prosperity—should be a material matter to be considered. That is covered by the suggested new paragraph (g) that amendment No. 42 would insert in subsection (2). Our proposed new paragraph (h) would insert a reference to the role played by an area in the economic and social life of the nation. We are much more sensitive to social activity and social inclusion than we used to be. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us at what stage in the development of the plans that issue will be considered.
Finally, amendment No. 43 would insert a new paragraph (c) in subsection (3), relating to the effect that relevant changes would be likely to have on the economic and social development of the nation, or on
its planning and development. It is intended to deal with those two matters together. We need a little bit more certainty. The quote that I read out from the CBI shows that businesses are concerned about the uncertainty in this area of the Bill. I hope that the Minister will be able to show how this complex area of the Bill will work. The Bill will have failed entirely if it does not produce a faster, more comprehensive result than the previous system.
One of the criticisms of the present system is that structure plans, unitary development plans and local development plans take too long to produce. It would have been possible to come up with a mechanism for speeding up the preparation of those plans under the present system, but the Government have decided to rip up the entire present system and introduce an entirely new, complex one. If the Bill results in a slower, more complex, less tidy result, it will have failed. That is the real challenge. The Bill has to stand the test of time. I predict that this area of the Bill will fail and that we will shortly be returning to amend it.