Clause 14 - Local development scheme
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
8:55 am

Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move amendment No. 228, in

clause 14, page 8, line 35, at end insert

'within 8 weeks of receipt of the scheme'.

Mr David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 126, in

clause 14, page 8, line 36, after 'direction', insert

'can only be made after a period of 12 months has elapsed following the issuing of a draft direction and after all representations from the local planning authority, other interested parties and the general public have been fully considered at a public enquiry and'.

Amendment No.127, in

clause 14, page 8, line 43, at end insert—

'(d) a timetable for preparing the scheme.'.

Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

Amendment No. 228 seeks to ensure that the preparation by a local authority of a local development scheme is not delayed because the authority has to wait for the Secretary of State to decide whether to issue a direction to make appropriate amendments to the scheme. I am sure that the Secretary of State has no intention of ever causing a delay, but we want to include such an assurance.

There are areas in which the Government have imposed time limits on themselves. The Bill introduces a timetable for decisions by the Secretary of State in relation to appeals against decisions on planning applications and the failure of the planning

authorities to take decisions. That is in schedule 2. The idea behind the amendment is that the Government's intention should apply when the Secretary of State is considering whether to direct a planning authority to make changes to its local development scheme. Otherwise, the process will be left in limbo while the authority waits to hear whether it may proceed or whether it must make changes. The amendment is straightforward.

I shall leave the Conservatives to speak to the other two amendments, which are essentially about timing. The purpose of the substantive amendment is to set the Minister a time limit. He might say that eight weeks is not right, and the limit should be 10 or 12 weeks—or even, dare we hope, six weeks. We would welcome an indication [Interruption.]. The Minister is going to disappoint me again, I can see. There was I, thinking that this was a new day, a new dawn—

Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)

A new shirt.

Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

Yes, a new shirt.

I think that I shall leave my argument there.

Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)

All I shall say is that the principle argued by the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) has my support. The other two amendments would do the same thing. I echo what he has said in that the choice of time limit in amendment No. 126 is, in a sense, arbitrary. I opted for a certain period, and am happy for the Minister to say that he agrees in principle but does not like the period that I have chosen. I shall not go to the stake over it. In my experience, all of our mailbags from time to time contain letters complaining bitterly about the length of time any part of the planning process will take. My experience of the terminal 5 inquiry leads me to conclude that never again should we allow a part of the planning process to have no time limit.

There will always be those who seek to exploit the system to grind things to a standstill and prevent a decision of any sort being taken. At the end of such processes, there comes a point when even the people who were against the plan would rather have a decision in favour than just go on and on with no decision at all. Battle fatigue sets in and the time scale is dreadful. Every time I noted an open-ended system in the Bill, I was tempted to table an amendment stating that there should be a time scale of some sort. Therefore, I support in principle what the hon. Member for Ludlow says.

My amendments are slightly different. Amendment No. 126 follows on from clause 14(4):

''The Secretary of State may direct the local planning authority to make such amendments to the scheme as he thinks appropriate.''

Subsection (5) states:

''Such a direction must contain the Secretary of State's reasons for giving it.''

That has to be right. Amendment No. 126 would ensure that the Secretary of State does not arbitrarily give direction to make such amendments as he thinks fit, and then not explain why. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to say, ''I am minded to

instruct you to do this for the following reasons.'' There would then be a period during which public discussion about his amendments could take place. He would have to make the amendments in draft. I am not a parliamentary draftsman, so I care not about the niceties of my wording.

In principle, there must be a period after the Secretary of State has decided something should be amended. Instead of simply saying, ''amend it'', the Secretary of State must say, ''I am going to make you do this, but we are going to consult on it first.'' In my amendment, that consultation period is 12 months, but it could be 12 weeks for all it matters. There are two principles behind the amendment. First, there must be some consultation on a direction before it is made, and secondly that period of consultation must be strictly time limited. Amendment No. 126 would ensure that, and if the Minister wants to accept the spirit and the principle of it, I would be delighted with a better wording than the one I have chosen.

Amendment No. 127 would amend subsection (7). The amendment states that the Secretary of State ''may'' set down a timetable. On reflection, if I were able to table it again, I would suggest that he ''must'' do so. I hope that the Minister accepts that the principle is right. There should be some means of saying how long the process will take, and some method of enforcing the time limit.

I return to the terminal 5 example. There was a lot of exhortation to resolve the matter, but there was no timetable. I am sure that at some later point we will discuss whether one can impose timetables. It is perfectly possible to do so because in my experience as a chairman of a planning committee involved in planning appeals, and of being an MP, there rapidly comes a point where objectors become repetitive. After the first 20 per cent. of the time taken by the inquiry, nothing new is produced, but the system goes on and on. I see no reason why we should not have a timetable. If the Minister likes the idea of amendment No. 127, but not the wording, I am not going to the stake over that either.

Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley, Conservative)

This is the first time that I have had the delight of being on a Committee that you are chairing, Mr. Amess. I have noticed that you have the ability to look interested in our speeches; I do not know whether that is the reality. I offer the apologies of my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), who has been delayed because of a funeral; he will be here as soon as possible. Today will be lighter because I will spend a lot of time moving cobwebs and trying to get up to speed. I will be using my hon. Friend's notes, and his handwriting is difficult to read—my own is appalling—so the result will be rather intriguing.

I support the amendments, but perhaps from a slightly different angle from my hon. Friend. It is already apparent that local authorities are sitting on their hands and that really concerns me. According to the private building sector, many local authorities that are agin development are waiting to see what comes up. The private building sector especially hates delay,

as do the Minister, his colleagues, and, in particular, the Deputy Prime Minister. The number of private house-building starts was appallingly low last year and it is not likely to be any better in the coming year. That trend is likely to progress and the Minister should support anything that we can do to speed everything up.

The local development documents are a key part of the clause. That seems straightforward until one turns to clause 22, which we will not be able to discuss because the guillotine will come down with a clang and we will all go home, leaving a good amount of the Bill untouched. Clause 22(2) and (3) make it clear that above all the local authorities is the Secretary of State's inspector. There are two problems with the Secretary of State's inspector. First, he will add to the delay and secondly—this is not strictly relevant, but I hope that a little leeway will be allowed—he will be able to dictate to local authorities. If the Secretary of State's inspector comes up with an arrangement that is not acceptable to the local authority, bearing in mind that the local authority knows its own conditions, position, and local demands, it can reject the inspector's decision, although that is rare. The difficulty with the proposals is that the local authority will have to do what a remote individual dictates. That overrides democracy. I hope that the Minister will give us his reaction because I would love to know his justification. If the amendments are not agreed, it would be sensible for the Minister to accept the principle behind them and to make a change somewhere in the Bill.

Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet, Conservative)

I too support all three amendments, not least amendment No. 228, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Ludlow. He will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that he is echoing an amendment put to me by the Law Society, so he has the legal establishment on his side, as well as Conservative Members of Parliament.

The Government have imposed timetables on themselves in relation to certain town and country planning matters. That is welcome for the reasons that my hon. Friends gave. There are good precedents for that, and eight weeks is the right period. If an applicant submits a planning application to his local planning authority and eight weeks pass, he may deem that it is undetermined or that it has not been accepted and he can start the process of appealing to the Secretary of State. If I were a planning consultant, I would not advise an applicant to follow that course because an appeal to the Secretary of State can take many months. However, since the great Town and Country Planning Act 1947, it has been written into law that after an eight-week period, the applicant may conclude that the non-decision can be appealed against.

Then we have another example. I do not want to bore the Committee, but it is important to remember this one. If a planning application is turned down, the applicant has six months to decide whether to appeal against the decision. I believe that that could be reduced from six months to three without any problem. Let us remember that the main objective of the Bill is to speed up the planning system. Therefore,

it is good that amendment No. 228 would insert a time limit of eight weeks. Schedule 2 gives the Secretary of State the right to impose timetables on various parts of what is proposed in the Bill.

I welcome the amendment and hope that the Minister, who I know is generous, will look favourably on it. It will be good for the Government, because it will show that they are serious about ensuring that they play their part in speeding up the planning process, provided that the quality of decisions or the fairness of the system are not affected. To impose the timetable in that way and for that reason would be welcome.

Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)

I fully accept the reasons why the hon. Member for Cotswold is not here. He had the courtesy to write informing me that he would be absent, for which I am grateful. I am also extremely grateful that the hon. Member for Ludlow has toned his shirt down, so that we do not have to endure the purple of previous occasions.

As hon. Members have said, amendment No. 228 would require the Secretary of State to make any direction requiring a local authority to modify its local development scheme within eight weeks of receiving the scheme. I think that the hon. Member for Spelthorne was being modest as amendment No. 126 would radically curtail the Secretary of State's power to direct a local planning authority to amend its LDS, for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman has outlined. Amendment No. 127 would add an explicit provision for the Secretary of State to prescribe the timetable for preparing the LDS.

As I have explained, the LDS is essentially a project plan. It will set out what local development documents the local planning authority proposes to prepare and what they will cover, in both subject matter and area, and which documents the local planning authority proposes should be development plan documents and which should not. The LDS will also say whether any document is to be prepared jointly with another planning or other authority and will set out the planned timetable for that. The LDS is central to tackling the real problems caused by the current system, which takes more than five years—sometimes as many as 10—to put a plan in place.

We must face the possibility that some local authorities—perish the thought—will propose inadequate local development documents or an unacceptably slow timetable for preparing them. It may help the Committee if I give an example. One document to be included in the LDS is the authority's statement of community involvement, which I hope we shall discuss later. We all want authorities to put their statement of community involvement in place as soon as possible, but we must be able to safeguard local communities in the event that any authority decided to drag its heels in getting its statement ready.

I assure the Committee that the power to direct changes to an authority's LDS would be used only as a last resort. The local planning authority will need to hold discussions on the draft scheme with the relevant Government office at an early stage. Where there are problems—for example if the timetable were

unjustifiably slow—we would expect them to be resolved without having to use the last resort of a direction.

Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley, Conservative)

I am afraid that the Minister's speed-reading of his briefs is causing me increasing concern, because hundreds of local authorities throughout the country will refer to the various Government offices, and the offices will refer back to Ministers. The whole timetable has suddenly started to look longer and longer. Can the Minister give us some idea what he expects that timetable to be? In what sort of detail will the Department consider the schemes, and how long does he think they will take to come back? Can local authorities assume, when they have submitted a scheme, that if there is no response after a certain time it has been confirmed, or do they have to sit and wait for a reaction?

Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)

As I shall go on to say, much of that will be dealt with in regulations. I face a dilemma: I am extremely comfortable with the guillotine, but I am very much of the idea that parliamentary scrutiny is first and foremost the domain of the Opposition rather than the Government. If I slow down considerably, I do not want to be accused of somehow delaying Committee proceedings all the more. Therefore, hon. Members will have to endure what I do not think of as unnecessary speed-reading. Opposition Members might wave if they want me to slow down, and I shall be more than happy to.

Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley, Conservative)

It is like going to the dentist.

Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)

I shall not refer to dentists at all. That would be an unnecessary attack on people's present or previous occupations

If the scheme submitted by the local authority were unsatisfactory in some way, the first step would be discussions with the authority on what changes were necessary to remedy its deficiencies. Much of that already prevails in the course of the development and discussion of assorted plans.

The underlying aim would be to conclude such discussions as quickly as possible, but it might take longer than eight weeks. Opposition Members were at least honest enough to admit that the proposed limit was completely arbitrary. I am told that they were not terribly fussed as to whether it was six, eight or 10 weeks. It is not terribly helpful to say that just because the determination period for planning applications is eight weeks, eight weeks is appropriate. I do not follow that argument at all.

Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

The point is not that eight weeks should be specified but the principle that there should be some limit. For the purpose of probing, we specified eight weeks, but it could be 10 or 12. Perhaps the Minister would indicate what he thinks is a reasonable time frame and table an amendment to deal with it.

Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)

I shall come to that point in a moment.

One needs to turn the question around and ask what the purpose would be of building into the Bill a delay for the Secretary of State. We want such matters to be concluded as quickly as possible but, as I said, it

may take longer than eight weeks. The amendment would not be in anyone's interest.

An unintended or unforeseen consequence of being locked into an eight-week period could be to make it more likely that the Secretary of State would intervene. That would happen if discussions with the authority, however well they were going, had not reached a satisfactory conclusion within the eight-week period but the Department felt that it had to intervene and direct—that would be their only chance to do it—rather than simply continue with the more informal route.

It would benefit no one if the process of settling a local planning authority's LDS were to drag on. The Committee will recall that one of the main purposes of the scheme is to help speed up the unacceptably slow process of plan making. I am grateful that the amendment seeks to do that, but my fear is that it will not have that effect. We have constantly said that speed plus quality and efficiency is the real goal of the Bill, not simply speed. The artificial deadline that the amendment would create would not be acceptable.

Equally, we do not accept amendment No. 126. The Secretary of State may wish to discuss with interested parties the changes that should be made to the scheme, but it would be completely ridiculous to require 12 months to elapse and a full public inquiry to be held into what is essentially a project plan.

Amendment No. 127 is unnecessary because regulations are already provided for under clause 14(3)(b), which deals with the time at which the scheme must be submitted to the Secretary of State.

On the timetable for preparing the scheme, one option may be to prescribe that each local authority must have submitted a scheme to the Secretary of State within six months of commencement of part 2. We will consult widely on that and other issues that will be dealt with in regulations later in the year. There must be some time limit but, as with many such matters, it would be more appropriately put in regulations than in the Bill.

Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley, Conservative)

I thank the Minister for that explanation, but he sat down before he answered some of the questions.

The Minister has put a timetable on local authorities, which are used to working to timetables on, for example, their budgets. Even if they were assured when they submitted their plans that they would get an indication of the timetable and whether it was likely to change, clearly, a Minister or the Secretary of State could have given those indications in the preliminary discussions, which the Minister has assured us will take place. Will he indicate what timetable he anticipates because there is a great concern that hundreds of local authorities will put in plans?

Unless the Minister is going to bring in the private sector to help his Department to look at the plans, its staffing level and costs will go sky-high. Local

authorities will need an indication in order to keep to their timetables.

Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)

I accept some of elements of those points. I do not necessarily accept the point about staffing because, as with the discussion and deliberations on regional planning guidance, much of the work is done by people in Government offices who are well placed and in situ. I suspect that the timetables will depend on the issues, and asking about them is like asking how long is a piece of string. I hope that the plans can be turned round in three to four weeks, but it will depend on the quality and substance in the local development scheme provided.

As I have said, there will be a period in which local authorities will discuss the draft schemes with Government offices, which will cover the timetable as well as the content. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is determined to turn round as rapidly as possible ministerial interventions such as call-ins.

Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley, Conservative)

I always want to be helpful. Surely the Minister agrees that, in the majority of cases, he is unlikely to call in or have important discussions, particularly if the preliminary discussions have been dealt with. Like the article 14 approach, it would be reasonable to write to local authorities to say that their plans are unlikely to be called in if they have not heard from him within a certain period of time. That would free the majority of local authorities to get on with planning and working with applications under the new scheme.

Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)

I am not entirely sure about the detail and substantial parts of the process, but what will prevail will not be terribly different from what the hon. Gentleman has described. All schemes must be sent in draft to the Secretary of State, and it would not be terribly useful on the part of the Department if there were not the informal feedback and engagement about which the hon. Gentleman has talked. Prescribing that within definitive time limits and going on to define the process in the Bill would not be terribly helpful, and I can assure him that the overall timetables will be a feature of the regulations after commencement of part 2.

We have already dealt with much of the meat of the amendments, but it is more appropriate to deal with those issues by the flexible route of regulations rather than in the Bill, given that we are entirely unaware of the scope or substance needed to deal with local development schemes that fall down, are inappropriate or need a lot more work. I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, much of which we hope will be dealt with at the informal stage, in which indications can be given both ways. In those circumstances, we did not think it appropriate to include those sorts of time limits in the Bill, and I ask him to withdraw the amendment.

Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)

As the Minister will have expected, I found his response fascinatingly unhelpful. He says that the whole purpose of the Bill is to speed up the process but our amendments are wrong because they will speed up the process, which is a curious argument.

The Minister also advanced the argument that speeding up the process will be better done by

regulation. At the risk of repeating myself, it seems to be a recurrent theme of the Bill, and of many others produced by the Government, that things are better done by regulation rather than legislation. The objection to that is quite straightforward: it avoids parliamentary scrutiny. When one does not trust the Government to do what is in the best interests of the British people, one is not in favour—at least, I am not—of giving them even more power to do as they like.

I am grateful to the Minister for one thing. By way of objection to amendment No. 126, he said that it would radically curtail the powers of the Secretary of State.

Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)

I thought that the hon. Gentleman would like that.

Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)

I have to admit to a failure. When I tabled the amendment, it had not occurred to me that it would radically curtail those powers. The Minister has advanced the best possible argument in favour of my amendment. My arguments were are important, and he has sealed the case in favour of them. I am sure, however, that that will not be a reason for him to vote for the amendment.

The Minister said something else right and perceptive—that it is the Opposition's role to scrutinise. I notice that, thus far, the Committee has not been graced with a speech from Government Back Benchers, if I remember rightly.

Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley, Conservative)

They are writing next year's Christmas cards.

Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)

Quite. It is perfectly clear that the only scrutiny that this Bill will get will be from the official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats.

I shall leave the hon. Member for Ludlow to respond on his amendment. On amendment No. 126, I can readily accept various points about drafting. In view of the explanation that has been given, I can accept that a public inquiry would be a cumbersome addition to the process. What concerns me, however, is that that is the only argument that the Minister used against the amendment. I began by saying that I was not wedded to the wording. Saying that the part of the amendment that proposes a public inquiry is wrong does not negate the amendment's principle. I will willingly lose the public inquiry.

Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley, Conservative)

My hon. Friend will find in clause 22(2) and (3) that even if there is not a public inquiry, a lone civil servant inspector inquiry is already in the Bill.

Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)

Yes. Trying to produce an argument against amendment No. 126, the Minister said that there would be consultation. If that is the case, and the Minister wants it, what is wrong in principle with an amendment that requires consultation? When trying to dismiss the amendment, the Minister was, in a sense, accepting its principles bit by bit. Yet he was not prepared to say that something could be gained by accepting its principles and rewording it to the draftsman's satisfaction.

I can accept another of the Minister's points on detail. He rightly said that such schemes could take

five to 10 years to prepare and the Secretary of State might wish to intervene because proposals are inadequate or because the local authority is too slow. I can accept as a detailed argument against amendment No. 126 that there is a distinction between ''inadequate'' and ''too slow''. If intervention occurs because someone is too slow, and the system requires consultation on that, we will have played straight into the hands of the people who are not acting quickly enough, by making the process even longer. I can accept that, but it does not argue against the amendment's principle. It would be perfectly possible for parliamentary draftsmen to find a form of words to enable the amendment to say that if the reason for intervention were that the plan was inadequate, there must be consultation.

I accept that there should not be consultation if the reason for intervention is that the process has taken too long. I know that the amendment's details need to be thought through, but the Minister has not yet, to my satisfaction, advanced an argument against the principle of putting such requirements into the Bill. He has said only that he would prefer to do that by regulation. I have shown why that is wrong. If his only reason for objecting to the spirit of amendments Nos. 126 and 127, let alone the amendment of the hon. Member for Ludlow, is that he prefers to make such provisions by diktat not democracy, that is not sufficient to oppose the amendments.

Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

I listened carefully to what the Minister said, which was rather confusing, really. He said that one effect of amendment No. 228 was that it would create delay by having a maximum time limit, which is interesting. There is an argument against maximum time limits for almost any case in any Bill. The Minister also contended that it might encourage intervention by the Secretary of State. Whether or not it does that, it is probably a matter of whether the actual time period is right. What we would not want is endless discussion between the local authority and the Government office, and through the Government office the Minister. That is not in anyone's interest.

The Minister said ''Leave it up to me. I'll know when to intervene. Don't put in a timetable.'' I am sure that the current Minister will be very good at doing that, but we have to ensure that we create a system that does not rely on individuals being in post. People can change over time, and we have to create a situation that will ensure that the process works and works on a reasonable timetable, and that there is a degree of certainty in the process.

The problem without some sort of timetable is that the local authorities are to some extent left in limbo, at the point where they are waiting for a decision by a Secretary of State. Therefore, it is in a sense only fair that the Secretary of State, while demanding certain timetables of local authorities, is prepared to adhere to timetables himself.

I have not been convinced by the Minister's responses, and I encourage members of the Committee to support amendment No. 228.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 7.

Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 128,

in clause 14, page 9, line 3, at end insert—

'not later than 5 years after the formal approval of a scheme.'

I shall not detain the Committee long, as the amendment goes over much the same ground as previous ones, but in a slightly different context.

Subsection (8) provides that

''The local planning authority must revise their local development scheme—

(a) at such time as they consider appropriate;

(b) when directed to do so by the Secretary of State.''

My hunch is that we shall have a bit of a rerun of the ''We'll do all this by regulation nonsense''. But let us hear what the Minister has to say. In the previous debate, he said that he was unhappy, because plans were taking five to 10 years to produce. I support him in that, in that if the plans are to have a real, practical use, they are needed as quickly as possible, and that sort of time scale will not be helpful. But circumstances change quickly these days—indeed, I think, at a faster rate as time goes by. Therefore, it seems to me that the same arguments can be applied. I accept that we want to do something about councils that are being too slow. If five to 10 years is too long for the plan to be developed, a period of more than five years before it is revised would also be too long, as the Minister said.

As I listened to the previous debate, I concluded that when we came to amendment No. 128 the Minister would leap up and say that we did not need to discuss it because he would accept it. However, he has not done so and I suspect that when he has done a little speed reading he will adduce an argument against even this attempt to introduce a timetable. It might just speed things up and although he says he wants to speed things up, he does not. I think that we shall have the same argument all over again. If a plan is to be any good, it must be kept up to date and be relevant to changing circumstances.

In the past, I have plucked figures from the air and said that I did not really mind what they were, but on this occasion five years seems a reasonable period after which there should be a review if circumstances have not forced one sooner. If the Minister wants to say that the situation should be kept under review every two years, I would listen to his argument and might be prepared to change the amendment, but if he accepts no time limit other than that dictated by the Secretary of State's, I cannot accept such an argument. I can accept an argument that sets a different period, but

surely there must be a cut-off point beyond which no one is allowed to drag their feet.

Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet, Conservative)

I fully support my hon. Friend on amendment No. 128 and, although we have moved on, I must express disappointment at the Minister's reaction to the previous amendment. For clarification, I gave two examples of eight weeks and six months for an applicant to decide not to appeal. My hon. Friend was on to a good point in suggesting five years because that is the period after which local planning authorities feel they should revisit their existing unitary development plans. Local development frameworks will supersede unitary plans and so on.

I want to make a slight revision, although I cannot do so formally. It might have been more appropriate for the amendment to require the local planning authority to revise its local development scheme and submit it to the Secretary of State—presumably revisions must go to the Secretary of State—within five years of the original scheme or previous scheme being approved. That would provide a definitive period. Otherwise, the local authority, new regional planning board or local planning authority would have to start the process well before the five-year period was up.

That would be a nice amendment to my hon. Friend's amendment, but he is on to a very good point. I am disappointed that the Minister turned down the suggestion in the previous group of amendments of putting fixed periods in the Bill, especially when I welcome the Government's decision to impose timetables elsewhere on the Secretary of State. I particularly draw the Minister's attention to the meaning and words in schedule 2.

Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)

Much of what the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) has just said goes to the heart of the flaws and failures of the amendment. There are two key elements. The first is the notion of reciprocity. Leaving a restriction on the Secretary of State without a commensurate duty for local planning authorities at least to begin the process of revision within the five-year period is not acceptable. It is not acceptable also because there is no subsequent escape route. A local authority could keep its head down for five years and submit nothing for the reasons suggested by the hon. Gentleman. There would be no recourse for the Secretary of State in any way, shape or form under the amendment.

The Secretary of State's power to intervene will be exercised only, as half alluded to by the hon. Gentleman, when the local authority fails to revise its local development scheme, which is no small matter and is one of the troublesome elements of the unitary development plan system. Clause 18 subsequently makes it clear that local development documents must be prepared in accordance with the local development scheme, so an out-of-date scheme could mean that local development documents are also not being prepared as necessary, which is also unacceptable.

In the new system, schemes should be kept under constant review, and it is likely that revisions will

happen far more often than they do currently. I would expect, in some cases at least, some annual review or revision. That would clearly depend on the complexity of a particular area and the way in which it was developing. I accept what the hon. Member for Spelthorne said about the five-year limit's being not necessarily appropriate, and that he would not die in the ditch over it, but given the overall sweep of the new system, restricting the Secretary of State, as amendment No. 128 would do, is inappropriate and would not achieve what the hon. Gentleman wants. The Bill does that better as it is.

One key flaw of the amendment is that the Secretary of State would have nowhere else to go. If he did not issue a direction within a set period, there would be no mechanism by which the local authority could be compelled to revise its scheme. As constant revision, responsiveness and flexibility are at the heart of the new planning framework, that would undermine the whole approach. The local planning authority must also submit an annual report on the scheme's operation, as we will see when we reach clause 34, so we will know whether the scheme is up to date. As the amendment's starting point is to secure revision within five years, we do not think that that is acceptable and it would not necessarily achieve the hon. Gentleman's aims for the reasons that I have outlined. The point is covered elsewhere, so I urge him to withdraw his amendment.

Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)

This is becoming a curious morning. On two occasions, the Minister has attacked an amendment's detail, even though I had said that I accepted some of his arguments. The same is true again here, and some of the Minister's comments on the detail of amendment No. 128 need to be considered. It is curious that in both cases he has responded by saying that the principle is good but attacking the detail and urging the Committee to vote against the amendment. I have tried to make it clear on both occasions that I am not deeply wedded to the wording, so if the detail is wrong but what we are trying to achieve is correct, it baffles me why the Minister is not saying that the Committee is on to something and he wants to see whether there is a better way of working before he comes back to the point on Report. Instead, he says that we must turn the principle down because the detail is wrong.

On this occasion, the Minister might have misunderstood what we are debating. He said that the amendment would restrict the Secretary of State. I know why he does not want in principle to restrict the Secretary of State and why he is in favour of giving the Secretary of State as many dictatorial powers as he possibly can. I make no apologies for seeking to restrict the Secretary of State but I am blowed if I can see how amendment No. 128 does that. As the Minister was speaking, I was thinking that I should have tabled an amendment to remove subsection 8(b), which says ''when directed to do so by the Secretary of State''.

If I sought to remove that, the Minister's argument would be correct. Such an amendment would restrict the Secretary of State. However, amendment No. 128 does not do that. It leaves alone the Secretary of

State's power to direct, so the argument about restriction is spurious. All the amendment would do is add another condition to provide that there must be a point at which the investigation starts again.

The Minister made one fair point. I am prepared to accept that the amendment's wording means that a local authority could drag its feet and say that it would not start an investigation until five years had passed. That is a perfectly acceptable objection, but I am not a parliamentary draftsman. I am but an Opposition Member who has to do his level best without the resources of government. The Minister can only say that he has consulted the thousands of experts who surround and support him, that the Member for Spelthorne is on to a good idea in principle, and that the Government have a form of words that will help to speed up the process, but that because the detail is wrong, the principle need not be considered.

It is interesting that the Minister said that he thought on reflection that the plans should be kept under constant review. In that case, why does the clause not say so? Instead of saying that the review must take place at such time as the authority considers appropriate, it should jolly well say that the matter must be kept under constant review. If the Minister does not say now that he is prepared to table an amendment to that effect on Report, he will not be surprised to discover that we will table one for him. If we do, I sincerely hope that, having said that it is a good idea, the Minister and his hon. Friends will vote for the amendment.

Mr David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)

Is the hon. Gentleman seeking to withdraw his amendment?

Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)

You can tell why I am in the Whips Office and not on the Front Bench, Mr. Amess. Much as I would love to press the amendment to a Division, we have explored it and I have explained that there will be an avenue for returning to it on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley, Conservative)

I wish to register a protest at this point. There is much in the Bill to protest about at various other points, but as I have said, the guillotine will prevent us from doing so. This clause, however, emphasises some things that I am deeply concerned about.

When the consultation paper was announced with great fanfare, Lord Falconer spoke to the all-party Back-Bench Committee that is interested in these matters, and he gave a fascinating display. He started by saying that he had been a Minister with responsibility for planning for six weeks and that he fully understood planning. I will not describe the reaction of ex-planning Ministers and others present, except to say that they smiled gently. Lord Falconer said that he would speed up procedures, and a number of ex-Ministers wished him the best of luck—we are beginning to see why there is a difficulty.

The Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee was then involved, and we had a fascinating time. Perhaps one of the most fascinating mornings was when a Minister from the Welsh Assembly appeared before it to explain her position. To my amazement, I found that I very much agreed with what she said, which was about employing a light touch, changing a little but not much and essentially leaving things as they were and moving ahead.

As the Welsh Minister went out the door, Lord Falconer came in, and he said that there should be a complete change, everything had to be turned upside down and a new scheme had to be introduced. The clause is an example of that, but it will not speed procedures up; it will slow them down.

Worse than that is the over-the-top central direction to local government. I always feel that the term ''local government'' is out of date: it might be local, but it is no longer government. People are dictated to from above. The Secretary of State essentially directs the local planning authority on what documents it has to produce, the subject matter, the geographical area and the timetable for preparation and review. He does not have his own timetable. Included in those documents are the local development documents, to which the clause alludes.

The crunch comes at clause 22. It means that local councillors, having been elected by the local people, sit on the local planning committee, which puts these things together and submits them to the mayor. However, in many instances, the mayor will be diametrically opposed to the local authorities. If we continue with what is in clause 14(3)(c), there will be a central diktat to each of the local authorities, but we are already seeing examples of difficulties in this respect. Some London boroughs are deeply concerned about the prospect of the present Mayor of London using the clause to impose a diktat on their local plan. First and foremost in that respect is the problem of tall buildings. As I mentioned on Tuesday, some London boroughs accept the need for clusters of tall buildings in their areas; others, for good reason, do not. We face the possibility that the Mayor of London—and perhaps, elsewhere, the Secretary of State through the individual civil servant referred to in the provision—will directly dictate to the local authority, overriding the wishes of voters who have elected their councils, some of which have been of the same political complexion for some time.

The Secretary of State can intervene when the scheme is submitted and perhaps again annually when it has to be monitored, but we do not know what will happen then. The Minister has not dealt with any of the local authorities' difficulties: he has not helped them with the timetable; he has not explained how the procedures will develop; he has not advised whether they will receive a light or heavy touch; he has not clarified how much detail is expected. They are deeply concerned, which only contributes to further delays.

As I asked earlier, how will the Secretary of State manage it all? Under the clause, hundreds of documents will be sent to him regularly and

monitored annually. Unless his Department is vastly increased, he is unlikely to do a decent job. I suspect that he does not even have the democratic right to do so?

The hon. Member for Ludlow mentioned the significance of different Ministers. With me as Minister, it would be a light touch, with a few exceptions. It will inspire the Minister to go over some of the aggro of the past when I point out that we are debating his Bill. What worries me is that certain Ministers—perhaps a Transport Minister—could be involved. Transport in this country is in a shambles, but the Secretary of State responsible for many of the changes was the one who will be the Secretary of State if he is still there before clause 14 comes into force—[Interruption.] I shall bring myself back into order, Mr. Amess.

The clause highlights a constant theme throughout the Bill—central control, central dictation, and central delay. The element of dictatorship reminds me of countries that believed in five-year plans and five-year leaps forward. Why is it that what is good enough for Wales is not good enough for England?

Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet, Conservative)

Clause 14 introduces the development schemes and development documents that replace the unitary development plans and local plans of existing local planning authorities. I appreciate that local development schemes will draw on the Secretary of State's guidance, regional spatial strategies and the required survey of areas under clauses 12 and 13.

Two points have not yet been covered. First, local development documents should include design guides for some sites of local or strategic significance. When I read the Green Paper many moons ago, much was made of action plans, which were intended to make provision for detailed design briefs. Action plans seem to have been dropped . I do not know why, but I would appreciate the Minister's assurance that detailed design briefs are to be encouraged in at least some local development schemes.

The Minister saw fit to ensure, with his majority behind him, that all the amendments we tabled to clause 14 were rejected. That is the nature of democracy, and I cannot quarrel with that. However, I believe that, wherever practicable, putting time into the requirements both on local planning authorities and the Secretary of State is a good thing. I would be reassured if the Minister, in his reply, could give an undertaking that the guidance notes that he and his successors will publish from time to time will advise and recommend time scales that should be strictly adhered to.

I do not apologise for reiterating the fact that the main objective of the legislation is to speed up the planning process. I have to judge this clause on whether it achieves the simplification of the proposed plan-making regime. My own judgment is that it will do nothing to simplify, speed up or improve that regime, compared with the existing regime of local planning authorities, unitary development plans and local plans.

Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)

The entire purpose of clause 14 is to set down the needs and requirements for development of the local development scheme.

When the hon. Member for Spelthorne characterised the arguments on this and the previous clause he left out one key detail. He summarised what I had said as being that there were some good ideas in what the Opposition were saying, but that the details were wrong, so hon. Members should vote against the amendments. The key element that he missed out was that I said that the amendments were unnecessary because, in essence, although perhaps not in the areas that the hon. Gentleman wanted, their important elements were already in the Bill or will be in subsequent regulations. I shall not make a habit of correcting the wilful and daily misinterpretation by the Opposition of what I have said, but I thought that I should on this occasion.

The hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) is right that the clause is important with regard to the local development scheme and all that flows from it. We believe that it will improve transparency, and that people will see for the first time what documents must be prepared and what the timetables are. It is not just about speed. Certainly, area action plans and elements such as design can be incorporated into the local development documents as outlined, but the scheme that we will discuss subsequently revolves around the local development scheme, its extent, and what is and is not in the development plan.

I was intrigued by much of what the hon. Member for Mole Valley said. His speech seemed to me, without my beginning to cast doubt on your role as Chairman, Mr. Amess, to wander very close to being out of order at various stages, and to consist mostly of chasing shadows. If any of the hon. Gentleman's colleagues in London local government fear that the Mayor will determine their local development schemes by some sort of diktat, they need not worry. The Mayor has no role in determining the substance or integrity of the local development schemes of London boroughs, and there is no intention that he should. Local development schemes are key to what we are trying to do at the crucial local level to complement what we do at regional level. In that context, for obvious reasons, clause 14 is a crucial part of the Bill. I commend it to the Committee, and ask that it stand part of the Bill.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes 4.