Clause 16 - Local development documents
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
Mr Peter Pike (Burnley, Labour)
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Amendment No. 196, in
clause 16, page 9, line 30, leave out subsection (2).
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
Perhaps you will allow me to say at the outset, Mr. Pike, that in your absence this morning the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) got a message that his wife was about to give birth, so he is not here. I am sure that we would all like to wish him and his wife well. We on the Conservative Benches have had to deal with a funeral, and those on the Liberal Benches have to deal with a birth, so if a Government Member is planning to get married shortly, and is missing for that reason, we shall have a full hand of such occurrences.
I raise that matter partly because I certainly want to send my best wishes to the hon. Gentleman, but also because a number of our forthcoming amendments are grouped with lead amendments under his name. My understanding is that it is perfectly in order for anybody to move such amendments, and from time to time it will probably be best for us to do so. The official Opposition might be many things, but we are not mind readers, so we shall do our level best to interpret some of the amendments. That is necessary because, as I understand the matter, the lead amendment must be moved in order to get to the amendments that are tucked in behind it.
Mr Peter Pike (Burnley, Labour)
May I clarify that? The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct: any member can move an amendment that has been tabled, and yes, the lead amendment is the key amendment. If a Member on the Conservative Benches has to move an amendment that he has not tabled, that is quite in order.
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I am grateful for that, Mr. Pike.
I had just finished speaking to amendment No. 196 before lunch, and I had accepted that the way in which it was worded might not appeal to the Minister. However, what it seeks to achieve is important. Amendment No. 196 would leave out subsection (2), which states:
''The local planning authority may also specify in the scheme such other documents as they think are appropriate.''
Amendment No. 196 seeks to make the point that for the local authority to say, ''This is what we want,'' is an enormously wide power, and I do not see why it should be. The documents are either necessary or they are not. The Minister might not want to delete subsection (2), and could argue that there is a need for it. The sensible alternative—we could consider it on Report—is for the local planning authority also to specify in the scheme such other documents as they have good reason to think are appropriate. There should be a test of reasonableness.
As the Minister was saying this morning, although we like to think that all local authorities are brilliant, or if they are not exactly brilliant now, they are getting better, there will be some, as he sadly conceded, that will drag their feet. In an imperfect world there will, I fear, be planning authorities that occasionally seek to act unreasonably. Either there should not be a provision that gives them a completely free hand, or, if the Minister thinks that it is a good idea to give them some discretion, that should be constrained by a test of reasonableness. Amendment No. 196 seeks to achieve that.
Amendment No. 88 raises some different issues and relates to subsection (1), which states:
''Documents which must be specified in the local development scheme as local development documents are''—
and there here follows a list of what such things are. Surprisingly, all that it can bring itself to say is:
''documents of such descriptions as are prescribed''.
I assume that these are documents to be prescribed by the Secretary of State, and, at the risk of repeating myself, I have to say that this is rule by diktat. The sole arbiter of all this procedure will be the Secretary of State who will prescribe it. I hope that we can discuss what sort of documents the Minister has in mind. It could be anything; there is no test of reasonableness. Curiously—although perhaps not so curiously for this Government—the Government think it necessary to go one step beyond, to say that the Secretary of State can do what he likes.
Clause 16(1)(b) speaks of
''the local planning authority's statement of community involvement.''
That is really a genuflection to political correctness, as I see it. It is most curious that this is the only statement mentioned, because the number of documents that could be listed is legion, yet the only one worthy of mention in the eyes of the Government is a statement of community involvement. Before I am accused of all sorts of things that I do not intend, let me make it absolutely clear that I am all in favour of a statement of community involvement—but why is it the only one listed?
Amendment No. 89 would amplify the list a little. It would have been possible to table all sorts of amendments adding all sorts of documents, but for this debate we are right to list at least those two. Earlier this morning, my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) said that it was important to remember, in the context of the listing of
strategic planning statements, that there might be a region that did not have an elected assembly. As things stand, the strategic planning statements, documents and policies are more than likely to be decided on by people who have no democratic credentials. Indeed, some of those involved seem to have no grasp of the issues either.
My hon. Friend pointed out that in the absence of an elected regional assembly, this would be a sensible way of requiring a local planning authority to take on the role of making strategic planning statements. I wholeheartedly agree with that, but I anticipate that the Minister might be tempted to say, as he has in the past, that a local planning authority covers far too small an area for any regional or strategic thinking. However, an argument against dismissing the amendment is that he might consider the idea of charging joint committees of local planning authorities with the job. The joint committee could cover the entire area of the Government's artificial region—and they are artificial because the south-east, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley suggested, extends from Milton Keynes to the Isle of Man—or rather, the Isle of Wight. What on earth bits of Surrey, and bits of my constituency, have in common with the Isle of Wight when it comes to strategic planning, I do not know. The areas are so artificial.
If, however, we are to be forced down the route of strategic planning statements for areas, it is important that they be determined either by local planning authorities or by joint committees of local planning authorities. I know that the argument regularly trotted out against joint committees is that although the people on them may be elected, the joint committees themselves are not. At least, however, the members of a joint committee that has been formed to produce a planning statement will have been elected. Therefore the amendment standing in our name is worthy of consideration.
In reforming the planning process, we urgently need to emphasise transport plans. At the moment we tend to have wish lists that say, ''It would be a good idea if we did this.'' What they all too often lack is an indication of when that will happen and when it will be funded. Plans may make general statements to the effect that it would be nice to build a bypass here and a bypass there, and that we would need this, that and the other. However, without a coherent planning statement that makes it crystal clear which transport improvements will happen when, it is difficult to know when it will be best to release land for development, because no one will know when the roads and the railways will be available. It is therefore entirely proper that we should include a transport plan in the Bill.
For the same reasons, it would be wrong, for the purposes of this debate, to leave the determination of local transport plans to unelected people in some distant place—be it Milton Keynes, the Isle of Wight, Southampton, Brighton or wherever else the Government think it sensible to run an artificial region from.
The Government may not like the detailed wording of the amendments, and I can only repeat that the Opposition do not have the services of parliamentary draftsmen. However, our intention is to make it clear that we should not simply leave it to the Secretary of State to prescribe whatever documents he likes without at least setting out what they might be. If the Minister is not prepared to accept our suggestions, I hope that he will at least tell us what documents the Secretary of State might prescribe.
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)
Welcome to our proceedings, Mr. Pike. I am sure that they will be as much fun this afternoon as they were this morning.
Let me start by saying that Labour Members entirely associate themselves with the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) about the hon. Member for Ludlow and his breaking news, which he announced after our previous sitting. We all wish him and his wife Godspeed and the best of luck with their delivery. I shall resist the temptation to take up the trite remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Wansdyke (Dan Norris), who wanted me to make a crack about there being at least one Liberal Democrat who has enjoyed a labour experience. [Hon. Members: ''Oh.''] That is why I resisted. I will get a new joke writer, who will not be allowed to touch on the issue.
Unusually, the problem with the amendments is not the wording or the paucity of the draftsmanship—I feel like getting my violin out every time we hear about the Opposition not having an army of draftsmen to assist them. I am tempted to reply that they had one for 18 years, and they still did not do a terribly good job, so what they do now is grist for the mill. However, the difficulty with the present amendments is the substance, not the wording. As I shall explain, a core strategy—it would, I assume, roughly equate to the strategic planning statement, although the Bill does not elaborate on that—must be part and parcel of the local development documents that make up the development plan.
As regards
''the authority's Local Transport Plan'',
the term ''the authority'' is not defined, and we can only assume that ''Local Transport Plan'' means the existing local transport plan. As I shall explain, the provision would not apply to all authorities, and would effectively be a bidding statement. Furthermore, it would not be terribly useful, given that transport is clearly a key part of the core planning strategy, which is an element of the local development documents.
The first document proposed in amendment No. 89 is therefore already included in the Bill. I will elucidate further what the local development documents should incorporate, as I was specifically asked to do. The second document is not a planning document and would not cover all the authorities affected by the clause. Amendment No. 89 is therefore not appropriate.
Amendment No. 196 would remove the local planning authority's discretion to include such documents as it thinks appropriate in its local
development scheme. Again, there should be nothing terribly troubling about the proposal in the clause. It refers to additional documents that the local planning authority considers appropriate in the context of its local development scheme. They will not be part of the development plan, but they will be the rough equivalent of current supplementary planning guidance. It is more appropriate that they stay. If a local planning authority wanted to produce local development documents that were unreasonable or capricious, the Secretary of State could direct it to modify its local development scheme to prevent it from doing so, even though he supposedly has malign powers. There will be an inspection or review of the integrity of the local development scheme, as we have already discussed.
Regulations will determine which documents local authorities will be required to include. As I am rapidly learning, that is essentially what ''as are prescribed'' means. The first document will be the core strategy, which will contain the core policies for delivering the spatial strategy for the whole of the local authority's area. It will be supported by reasonable justification, as is the case for development plans at the moment. As I learned during my time on a planning committee, the paragraphs of reasonable justification that one rushes through, looking to get to the next policy involvement, are in many cases just as important and integral a part of the document.
The policy should be location specific, rather then site specific, and for that reason it may be more appropriately illustrated by a key diagram, although authorities may choose to illustrate it on the Ordnance Survey-based proposals map. Some of them may need to be expressed as criteria-based policies.
Secondly, site-specific policies and proposals including a proposals map for the whole of the local authority's area will be required. That should set out any details of any site-specific policies, outside the actual area plans. The map will be, as it is now, a proposals plan map that shows existing and revised designations of areas of land, such as conservation areas and green belt land. Everyone who has seen a unitary development map will know the sort of designations that there are.
The map will also define the sites for future land uses, or developments and the areas to which specific policies apply. The map should also show the locations of any proposed or actual area action plan. Some authorities may choose not to have any area action plans. Such plans might need to be defined in more detail on separate, inset maps, which would show all the proposals in the area covered by the inset. The map should be Ordnance Survey-based.
Rather than submitting those two types of development plan documents separately, local planning authorities are free to include them in one integrated development plan document. In such instances, the end result would be similar to the proposed arrangements in Wales that we discussed earlier.
These are only two of the compulsory features of the local development plan. If authorities wish to propose area action plans, to which the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir S. Chapman) referred earlier, those too would be development plan documents that should be identified in the scheme. These plans will be for key areas of change or conservation. Site-specific area plans will be needed for areas in which there is a concentration of proposals for change. Such area action plans could cover a town centre plan, or a plan for a small town or village where change is anticipated or specific conservation measures are required.
The provision that amendment No. 196 would delete allows local authorities to prepare and include in their local development framework less formal documents that are equivalent to current supplementary planning guidance under the present system. These would include site development briefs and would be adopted through shorter, simpler procedures, but would be afforded less weight in the consideration of proposals for development. However, they may be a material consideration. By deleting the subsection, we would limit the effectiveness and strength of the local development documents that a local planning authority puts together.
Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet, Conservative)
I am partially persuaded by what the hon. Gentleman has said. I am full of admiration for the way that he is single-handedly carrying the weight of the Bill. I appreciate that very much. Although I am beginning to accept why amendment No. 89 might not be necessary, I do not know why subsection (1)(b), which requires
''the local planning authority's statement of community involvement'',
is necessary, as clause 17(1) states:
''The local planning authority must prepare a statement of community involvement.''
I am not sure why that needs to be stressed twice. Although I begin to take the Minister's other points, I think that it is unnecessary.
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)
That is because the statement of community involvement sits between the development plan documents, the compulsory nature of which I outlined, and the subsequent supplementary planning guidance, which can be a material consideration, but which is not a development plan. The SCI is included in the Bill, and affords duties to the local planning authority that did not previously exist. That needs to be said far more than simply—''Oh, by the way, the SCI is a document that is as much a statutory obligation as discretionary.'' The SCI is not strictly a development plan document, in the sense that it is not about land use planning or the spatial dimension, but it is a fundamental, statutory element of the process of drawing together the local development scheme. The SCI is a necessary document, but needs to be separated from the development plan and supplementary guidance.
Given both the core documents that deal with strategic planning as part of the compulsory elements of the local development documents and the nature of the local transport plan, amendment No. 89 is unnecessary. Also, ''authority'' is not defined—it is
not even ill defined—and will thus cover only part of the local planning authority. The rest of the amendment is not terribly useful either. Amendment No. 196 would unnecessarily restrict the efficacy of the local development scheme and framework that a local planning authority comes up with. For those reasons, I hope that the Committee will resist both the amendments, despite the eloquence with which they were introduced.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley, Conservative)
Several times in Committee, I have suggested to the Minister that there be probing amendments to inspire a response. We had a response, and it was helpful. It has clarified matters and has even given my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet—the expert sitting over my left-hand shoulder—some satisfaction. In the light of that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 197, in
clause 16, page 9, line 32, leave out '(taken as a whole)'.
Mr Peter Pike (Burnley, Labour)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 198, in
clause 16, page 9, line 33, leave out '(however expressed)'.
Amendment No. 229, in
clause 16, page 9, line 42, leave out subsection (6).
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I shall speak to all three amendments, even though amendment No. 229 was tabled by the hon. Member for Ludlow.
Amendments Nos. 197 and 198 touch on issues that we have dealt with before. I am grateful to the Minister, as I received a copy of the letter that he wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet, which addressed amendment No. 198 on the issue of ''however expressed''.
The Minister undertook to give us the legal precedent for ''however expressed''. That was helpful, and I thank him for doing so. The only problem is that the document I received contains what I know as a sheep-stealing argument. That is, would it be a good idea to reintroduce capital punishment for stealing sheep? The justification is whether we used to do that—there is a legal precedent for that punishment, therefore it is a good idea. All the letter does is give the precedent, but gets us no further on the question of why the provision is a good idea. I am sorry for that objection, despite the letter.
I now accept that it is not the first time in Christendom that ''however expressed'' has been used. However, I still contend that there is no need for it, and that there was probably no need in the past either. The letter contains several paragraphs on where ''however expressed'' can be found and some interesting background about previous legislation, which is not relevant to the debate. However, our attention is drawn to paragraph 17(3) of part II of schedule 2 to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which states:
''In this paragraph 'existing policy' means a policy or proposal the substance of which (however expressed) was contained in a local plan mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)(a).''
That is exactly my point. The relevant information is either in the plan or it is not. The phrase ''however expressed'' is unnecessary. If I read the provision without those words, leaving out what the Minister wants us to keep, it still makes perfect sense. We have been told where it was used in the past, and another example has been provided of that, with which I will not burden the Committee. Perhaps I asked the wrong question when I asked for the legal precedent. We should have asked for the legal justification and the reason why it was necessary to use the phrase in the past. I have seen no explanation to persuade me. I still want to press amendment No. 198, because we still have not been told why the words ''however expressed'' are needed in the Bill.
Amendment No. 197 would omit ''taken as a whole''. Subsection (3) states:
''The local development documents must (taken as a whole) set out the authority's policies''.
What is wrong with saying, ''The local development documents must set out the authority's policies''? I do not see what the words ''taken as a whole'' add. The documents either set out the policies or they do not. If they do not, they have not met the requirements of the Bill. Will the Minister have another stab at telling us why we need this verbiage? Surely good legislation is brief legislation. Racking up extra phrases just because it was done in the past is relying on a sheep-stealing argument. I am not impressed with it.
The hon. Member for Ludlow has done us a favour. I feel chastened that I did not think of the point myself. Amendment No. 229 would leave out subsection (6), the first words of which are:
''Regulations under this section may prescribe''.
I have hunted through the rest of the clause for the creation of regulation-making powers. Nowhere in clause 16 do I see the grant of powers, which would presumably go to the Secretary of State, to make regulations. Where is the authority to make the regulations in subsection (6) to be found? If there is no authority there is a hole in the Bill and it will be necessary, if the Government want to persist with the matter, to provide somewhere in the Bill for the Secretary of State to make regulations with respect to section 16.
At least subsection (6) says that the regulations ''may'' prescribe various matters. That is some progress. The draftsmen had calmed down a bit by then and were less draconian in their approach. Perhaps they should be reprimanded by the Minister for failing to provide a jackboot on this occasion, given that a little discretion is allowed. I am grateful for small mercies. However, I became very suspicious on reading paragraphs (a) to (c) of subsection (6), which set out what can be prescribed. The heart of the matter is paragraph (b), under which, if any regulations exist, the Secretary of State will be able to prescribe
''the form and content of the local development documents''.
I find that extraordinary. Here we have a Bill that sets out to establish that local authorities must be allowed to produce local development plans. The purpose of the Bill, so the argument runs, is to devolve power to local government. The Secretary of State will tell the authorities, ''Go away and develop the local development document—but when you do, this is what you must put in it. It does not matter what you think or what you find, or what the local circumstances are. Here are my directions as to the content of the plan.''
What is the point of having local government if the Secretary of State says what is in the document? The Secretary of State's power to prescribe the plan's content is amazing. I hope that the Minister can tell me that the provision means something other than its content: he might mean its typeface, its number of pages or the quality of its paper. If, however, it means that the Secretary of State can prescribe the plans words, we might as well as go home. We will be wasting our time if the Secretary of State is to write every local plan by determining what goes in and what stays out.
The hon. Member for Ludlow has done us a huge favour by suggesting that we should delete that power. Unless we can be reassured that ''content'' has a meaning other than that in my dictionary, I am bitterly opposed to subsection (6).
Subsection (6)(c) also concerns me. It states that by regulations, which do not appear to exist, somebody—presumably the Secretary of State—may prescribe
''the time at which any step in the preparation of any such document must be taken.''
This morning, we have spent a lot of time being told by the Minister that our proposals to put timetables into the process were wrong and inappropriate, but now we have discovered a timetable. He told us why our amendments to impose timetables were wrong, and now he will have to argue why an amendment taking out a timetable is wrong, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say.
Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet, Conservative)
In relation to amendment No. 229, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne—I almost said my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow—and I shall not detain the Committee.
I hope that my point is not thought to be flippant, but I want to return to amendments Nos. 197 and 198, which would delete unnecessary phrases. I was grateful to be told that there is a precedent for the phrase ''however expressed'' in the principal 1990 Act. In the gentlest possible way, I want to remind the Minister that when we were in Standing Committee on the Greater London Authority Bill, that Bill introduced for the first time—in other words, there was no precedent—the horrific word ''chair'' to describe what I would prefer to call the ''chairman'' of the assembly. A ''chair'' is an inanimate object—incidentally, my surname is ''Chapman'' rather than ''Chap''.
Where it suits the Government, they forget precedent and bring in a new word, which creates great emotion among Government and Opposition Members. If I could wave a wand and ask the Minister to do something between now and Report, I would ask him to go through the Bill to see what phrases he could take out of it. He could take out many phrases, which would reduce the size of the Bill and take nothing away from the Government's intentions. I hope that he feels that he can at least accept amendments Nos. 197 and 198.
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)
I shall probably resist the hon. Gentleman's delightful invitation to do even more work filleting the Bill's language, although I might accept it on a subsequent Bill. We had great fun on the Greater London Authority Bill, but it was a tad unkind to describe the current chair of the GLA, Trevor Phillips, as an inanimate object, although I am sure that is not what the hon. Gentleman intended to do.
The short answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Spelthorne is clause 87(1)(a). The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet said that I should have clocked the Isles of Scilly question, which nearly always appears at the back of Bills. Making general prescribing powers through regulation is a common feature of legislation: in this case, they are built into the Bill in clause 87(1)(a).
I cannot ask my hon. Friends to support the amendments, which would not achieve the objectives sought by the hon. Member for Spelthorne. My powers of persuasion may have failed miserably in respect of the appropriateness of words and phrases in the Bill. In respect of my letter, the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet asked for precedent—not for a rehash of my justification for the phrase—and that is precisely what he got.
We believe that amendments Nos. 197 and 198 are not useful. Local development documents must be taken as a whole in respect of the development and use of land. When subsequently applied to specific purposes, the policies in the documents should be viewed as interlocking and taken as a whole. That is the measure against which applications should be determined and is preferable to picking and choosing.
I fully accept much of the annoyance of parliamentary counsel and other lawyers that the language is clumsy. If we start from the premise that English and Welsh legislation is written in English, we are in for a deeply unsatisfactory experience in Committee. The phrase ''taken as a whole'' is necessary to bind all the elements in the local development documents together.
In respect of amendment No. 198, the phrase ''however expressed'' is necessary to get beyond the land use, development and control elements of the documents and to gain the wider spatial dimension, largely for the same reasons as suggested when we debated clause 1.
Amendment No. 229 would remove the specific power of the Secretary of State to make regulations to set out
which descriptions of local development documents are development plan documents'',
the ''form and content'' of such documents and so forth. It should reassure hon. Gentlemen to know that neither the Deputy Prime Minister nor I want to write everybody's local development documents. The regulations are definitely not about allowing the Under-Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister to insist on the content and substance of every local development document in the country. We do not want such a power.
The prescriptions in subsection (6)(a), (b) and (c) are simply an attempt to secure some consistency across the country in respect of the descriptions, the form and content—what needs to be in them rather than the substance—and the time taken in preparation. I alluded to timetable regulations this morning in rejecting their application to various parts of the process.
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
Before the Minister moves on from the issue of content, he has not answered the point. He said that neither the Deputy Prime Minister nor he wants to prescribe the content. I take him at his word and I am glad to hear that, but why, then, does he want the power in the Bill? The Minister says that he does not want it, but he is not prepared to take it out. He should be thinking of a different word from ''content''.
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)
I think that ''content'' will suffice. What I should perhaps have added to my statement that neither the Deputy Prime Minister nor I want or seek a power is that it will not be made explicit in regulations that we have the power to write the content of local development documents. ''Form and content'' means the formal shape that the documents should take and what should be included in them, and it covers headings and sub-headings.
I am assured that the provision means that I will not be up until all hours writing Spelthorne's local development documents and that, when the Bill receives Royal Assent, I will not be issued a blue pencil that allows me to rewrite documents. The provision is simply about achieving consistency, which is very important.
As hon. Members with any experience of planning know, it is important to distinguish clearly between development plan documents, with all that they entail, and documents that are supplementary to them, which may include material planning matters, not least because the non-development plan documents, or supplementary planning guidance, and the other elements that will be part of the local development documents that we shall introduce, will not be subject to independent testing. They are not as rigorously examined as development plan documents but are still important, in that they capture all that is necessary for the local development framework of particular areas.
I have already dealt with policies, proposals, area action plans and other site-specific elements such as the SCI. It is important that we achieve some common standard among local authorities of form and content
and the timing at which particular steps are taken in the preparation of documents. For that reason, subsection (6) must remain in clause 16. The hon. Member for Ludlow may have done us a service by prompting a debate to tease out greater clarity on our intention, but the subsection is important to the integrity of clause 16. For those reasons, I ask the Committee to resist amendments Nos. 197, 198 and 229.
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I have listened with interest to the Minister's comments. In the past, I have often been told to look further in a Bill, and I have always said on such occasions that it would be sensible if general definitions and general powers were laid out. Certainly, general definitions appear at the beginning of the Bill. The general powers would be much more useful at the beginning than at the end. In due course, we shall deal with clause 87. I am grateful to the Minister for giving me the opportunity to reflect upon it now. It enables me to table an amendment to rename clause 87, entitled ''Regulations and orders'', the jackboot clause, because it is where the dictatorial powers lie. However, that is for another day.
Let me deal with the Minister's attempt to explain why the verbiage is necessary. He said that it was necessary to take the measure as a whole. I would have thought that self-evident, but the Minister considers it necessary to spell out the obvious aspects of ''as a whole''. If we are to have legislation that spells out the obvious, which seemed to be his argument, I am surprised that the Bill does not include a requirement that all plans be written in English. It is self-evident that they should be written in English, and the Government do not think it necessary to say so, but the Minister is busily saying that even though something else is self-evident, he wants it left in the Bill.
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman should hold his fire, because I suspect that significant amendments on part 6 will suggest that documents should not be written in English only.
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I shall enter into debate on Welsh matters with some trepidation. However, in the absence of an amendment that documents should be written in Welsh, it is self-evident that they will be written in English. The Minister may like to reflect on that. If he were to spell out every obvious thing, the Bill would be five times as thick as it is.
The more I listened to the Minister's comments, the more convinced I became that I was right and he was wrong. He sought to invent a new definition of ''content.'' In the end, he referred to headings. I thought that he really meant the scope of the document and I have no difficulty with that, but he insisted on ''content'' and said that that could mean approximately what ought to be included here.
As the Minister helpfully cited precedent, let me helpfully cite precedent too. If he were to go to the newsagent on the corner by Portcullis House and buy a box of Dairy Milk chocolates, he would find inside a list of the contents, which would describe what was in the box. If, when he came to munch his way through
his chocolates, he found that the description of the contents did not match what was in the box, the manufacturers would be liable to be prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. There is a precedent in law that suggests that ''content'' means something exact. The contents of a box of chocolates are exactly what is in the box and no more or less. It is not a case of someone saying, ''If you are lucky, you might find the following chocolates,'' or, ''The box might contain fudge, but it might not.'' That is not what the contents are about; that is the scope. It is fine to say, ''Some of the things that we make will be in the box,'' but such a statement is not a statement of the contents.
I urge the Minister to reflect, because he says that he does not want the power to prescribe the contents, but, to me—and in my dictionary—''contents'' means simply, ''exactly what is in here.'' He might mean an index, or all sorts of other things. I support his argument that it would be helpful to ensure that all plans are roughly the same. However, whether he likes it or not, unless he is prepared to change ''content,'' he will be kept up all night writing Spelthorne's plan. I will like what a Conservative council writes, but he might not and might therefore say, ''I have the power to control the content.'' He has not persuaded me on that point. I urge him to talk to the lawyers and the draftsmen to find out whether they are persuaded, even if he is not, that this is a clumsy way in which to do something reasonable. Unless he changes the wording, he will either run foul of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 or be writing plans all night.
I have listened carefully and thought about the matter, and I do not want to vote on the single point of ''content'' with all the other amendments. I would consider returning to the matter on Report, as a separate issue on its own, when perhaps we might vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 230, in
clause 16, page 10, line 9, at end insert 'or'.
Mr Peter Pike (Burnley, Labour)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
No. 199, in
clause 16, page 10, line 10, at end add—
'(8) Decisions on whether to approve documents as required by subsection (7)(b) must be taken within 6 months of the adoption of the resolution required by subsection (7)(a).'.
No. 202, in
clause 18, page 10, line 42, at end insert—
'and approved by the Secretary of State under section 16(7)(b)'.
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I am sure that the hon. Member for Ludlow will not mind me moving his amendment, which is the lead amendment. The others stand in my name. Initially, when I considered his amendment, I thought, ''What is the significance of adding the word 'or'?'' I hope that I do the hon. Gentleman justice. I will explain my understanding of the matter and I am sure that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong; indeed, he will enjoy doing so. Subsection (7) states:
''A document is a local development document only in so far as it or any part of it—
(a) is adopted by resolution of the local planning authority as a local development document;
(b) is approved by the Secretary of State under section 20 or 26.''
As with other legislation, the wording implies ''and,'' even though ''and'' is not included. Thus subsection (7) implies that for the conditions to be fulfilled both paragraphs (a) and (b) have to be met. I imagine that the hon. Gentleman wants it to be one or the other. It would be helpful to have on the record that ''and'' is implied. We need to know why the Minister considers that it should be both rather than one or the other. When the hon. Member for Ludlow returns, he will be able to read the Minister's reasons for resisting the amendment.
Amendment No. 199 seeks to introduce a timetable into subsection (7). The document is local only in so far as it is adopted by resolution and/or approved by the Secretary of State. The amendment seeks to impose a limit on the time by which resolutions are passed or approved by the Secretary of State. Secretaries of State have been known to sit on matters for a long time. For instance, the inspector sat on the terminal 5 public inquiry report for a long time, and so did the Secretary of State.
I do not equate the local planning exercise with public inquiries into major infrastructure projects, but the same principle applies. The process of taking decisions—of acting upon the work that has been done, which can sometimes take a long time—needs to be timetabled. The Minister may think that six months is unreasonable; he may say that it should be only a few weeks or even, on occasions, as long as 12 months. I am not deeply wedded to it being six months. I am trying to get the Minister to consider the principle of having a time limit, on having to say how long it should take to complete the process of approval.
I hope that the Minister will at least accept the spirit of the amendment, although he may want to come forward with his own version on Report. However, it is important that we do not have an open-ended time scale that would allow people to sit on documents for ever.
Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet, Conservative)
I want to be as brief as possible. I want first to refer to amendment No. 230, tabled by the hon. Member for Ludlow. My hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne correctly pointed out that subsection (7) requires that the document is a local development document only in so far as it is
''adopted by resolution of the local planning authority as a local planning document'',
and is
''approved by the Secretary of State under section 20 or 26.''
I go along with my hon. Friend, and say that it ought to include ''and'', which is implied, as well as ''or''. However, I wish to make a further point.
I am sorry to have to return to the matter, but in an attempt to make the Bill no longer than it need be I put this simple point to the Minister. If a document has not been adopted by resolution of the local planning authority, it cannot go to the Secretary of State to be approved by him. The provision is quite unnecessary, unless the Minister can persuade me
otherwise. Why do we need subsection (7)(a)? It could be dealt with simply, and without ambiguity, if the clause stated that a document was a local development document only in so far as it or any part of it had been approved by the Secretary of State under sections 20 or 26.
I turn to the matter of placing time restraints on the Secretary of State. Not only is six months the right maximum, but it is essential, to achieve fairness, that restraints and challenges are imposed on the Secretary of State as well as on the local planning authority. I shall not rehearse the arguments—we heard them earlier—but I am sure that the provision would command greater respect if self-imposed time restraints were placed on the Secretary of State.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley, Conservative)
I rise, with some hesitation, to take issue with the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet. I accept that English is, near enough, my second language, but one matter that rather disturbs me is that the word ''or'' would be a double-edged sword. The Minister will not like a provision enabling the Secretary of State's intentions to be overridden at the beginning. On the other hand, it would be possible for the Secretary of State to override the local authorities' decisions, forcing them to accept his wishes whether or not they had adopted such a plan.
I support my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne, however. We have consistently hammered the point, and I hope that we shall continue to do so, about the need for timetables to be imposed on Ministers if they are imposed on authorities. In this day and age when they are dictated to so much, local authorities understand timetables. They must work to them much more than the Government do. It is important that they know where they stand early on.
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)
I welcome the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown). I am very pleased that he managed to get back for at least part of our deliberations today. His colleagues will explain why the hon. Member for Ludlow is absent, but I ask hon. Members not to pursue partisan remarks about that, because he has good reasons. We could have a row with Plaid Cymru, whose representative has yet to grace us with his presence at all, but that is by the by.
The debate on amendment No. 230 has been interesting and I am minded to give the matter further consideration, given the strength of feeling about it. I suspect that the word ''or'' would be superfluous, but if the amendment is withdrawn I shall certainly consider it further. When clause 16(7) is read together with clause 22, which deals with the adoption of local development documents, and clauses 20 and 26, which deal with the Secretary of State's powers of intervention and default, it is clear that paragraphs (a) and (b) of clause 16(7) are not cumulative—so it would not be appropriate to link them with the word ''and''. The word ''or'' would be superfluous, I suggest; one or the other would happen. Either, as I think the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet said, the local development document would be adopted by
resolution of the local planning authority—there being nothing wrong with it and the Secretary of State having decided that there was no need to intervene, give direction or call it in—or it would go along the other route, and be approved by the Secretary of State following a call-in and subsequent discussion. Both would not happen, but neither are they alternatives. I shall certainly think about the use of the word ''or'', but I suspect that examination of clauses 17, 20 and 26 will reveal that it would be unnecessary.
Amendments Nos. 199 and 202 are, I think, based on a misunderstanding of the current and proposed planning system. Under the current system, when a local plan, UDP or structure plan is adopted by the local authority, that is it. It is not then subject to a process of approval by the Secretary of State. I can draw on my nasty metro-centric, non-rural experience of being involved once or twice in the UDP system. When the document is formally adopted by the borough, that is the end of it. Amendment No. 199 would put a six-month limit on the Secretary of State to do something that he is not obliged to do under either the existing system or the new one.
Perhaps the provision should establish a six-month period in which to read the document or to decide whether it should be used to prop up a table, rather as a copy of ''Dod's'' is being used to prop up a rickety table in the middle of this Room. No duty exists, so there is no need to impose a time limit. The Secretary of State has no role after the adoption of a UDP, and the existing state of affairs will prevail under the new system.
Even though the amendments are unnecessary, the issue has come up once or twice before, so I shall spend a minute or two discussing the principle of setting a deadline for the Secretary of State to approve LDDs, whatever the trigger point might be. It would not be sensible to set a deadline for the Secretary of State in this matter, because the length of time that he will need to consider an LDD will vary, depending on the point of preparation that it has reached when he issues the direction to call in the document; the subject matter of the LDD; and the reason for the call-in. That is a straightforward and, I hope, obvious point. Similar issues relate to the Secretary of State's default powers. It would not be sensible to try to impose in primary legislation deadlines for every possible scenario or outcome.
I can offer the hon. Member for Spelthorne some comfort, however. Given the importance that we attach to timely revisions of plans and up-to-date policies, the Secretary of State will proceed as speedily as is consistent with full and proper consideration of the issues. In a broader context, outside the Bill, hon. Members will know that there have been self-imposed deadlines on the Ministers in the Department who are responsible for planning to turn round applications that have been recovered or called in. We are talking about the tail end of a very lengthy process, so we are committed to turning round such applications as rapidly as we can. We certainly try to do that.
I will consider whether, as a consequence of the Bill passing through both Houses of Parliament, there should be a self-imposed duty on Ministers in the broadest sense in respect of any call-in of LDDs. That would be appropriate only if there were that element of power, limited though it is, coming back to the centre in what is, after all, a fully fledged decentralising planning Bill. With those assurances, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I am grateful to the Minister: at long last, we seem to be making a little progress. Two offers to reconsider on one group of amendments is a joy that I had not expected to come my way. It perhaps grieves me slightly that his first offer—he clearly said that he would come back and do something on Report—related to an amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Ludlow. It is perhaps my misfortune that I achieve my greatest successes when using someone else's amendment, but I believe in learning new tricks from all sorts of people.
I suppose that, having moved a Liberal amendment, I should now rush out and issue press releases, taking the credit not only for moving it so eloquently and persuading the Minister but for picking it up in the first place. The hon. Gentleman would surely have done that to me in true Liberal Democrat fashion had the roles been reversed—[Interruption.] It is always the case that Government and Conservative Members squabble about many things, but as soon as there is a chance to beat the Liberal party over the head, there is support on both sides of the Committee. At least I have got one thing right in the course of these proceedings.
I am also grateful to the Minister in another respect. I may put more words into his mouth than he would wish, but I think that I heard a little movement towards the idea of timetables. He might not like to call them that, but let us be thankful for small mercies. I welcome what he said, and I do not want to spoil the offer by being churlish about it, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)
I am grateful to you, Mr. Pike, and to all the other members of the Committee for your indulgence in allowing me to be absent this morning for the important funeral of a very long-standing neighbour, and the father of my best man, in Suffolk. I was very pleased to be able to attend and I am particularly grateful to my colleagues, who must have had a hugely increased work load in standing in for me and dealing with all the amendments.
In a sense, it is a little indulgent of me to want to participate in the stand part debate, because I have not heard the whole debate on the clause, so I apologise if anything that I say is repetitious. Having said that, I want to participate because these provisions are some of the most important in the Bill. We have dealt with part 1, which deals with the regional aspect, and we
now come to part 2, which deals with the local aspect.
One of the major problems with the present planning system is the delay in producing the local plan and the structure plan. The new system is designed to replace the local plans. I worry that we will replace one system that does not work with another system that will be even slower. It will be slower because of the scheme introduced in clause 14, the documents introduced in clause 16 and the planning documents introduced in clause 18, covering all the consultations and timetables, and the Secretary of State's powers of revision, revocation and renewal. Before we accept clause 16, I hope that the Minister will assure Opposition Members on and, more importantly, planning practitioners in the widest sense, that his proposals will work in a more streamlined way than the present system, allowing more consultation with less central involvement. However, I cannot see how the new system—the introduction of those three separate elements to replace one element—will work better. I fear that we will pass this legislation in the knowledge that it will slow the whole system down.
The planning system is vital for the economic growth of this country; for individuals who wish to carry out small developments on their own houses; and for individuals, partnerships and businesses that wish to carry out larger developments. The Green Paper makes it perfectly clear that 90 per cent. of all planning applications are eventually refused; it is the remaining 10 per cent. of controversial applications that we are setting up a system to deal with. It will take a long time to deal with those controversial applications. I know that the Bill contains powers for the Secretary of State to intervene to try to make things quicker, and powers that allow the inspector to intervene. However, I suspect that we will rue the day that we agreed to this clause.
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)
I simply do not agree with that. With the local development scheme and the local development documents inside and outside the development plan, and with the other elements in the clause that will prescribe what comprises the local development documents that are part of the development plan, I feel that the proposals for the ways in which applications for planning permission will principally be judged in any area action plans involving major change or conservation will, by the time everything is explained through regulation as well as through the Bill, give greater clarity, speed and flexibility to a planning system that is rooted in a wider spatial dimension that goes beyond land use. As I have said before, the Bill will also set out the matters to which the planning authority must have regard when preparing the LDD. We must not forget the sustainability appraisals that must govern the proposals in each of the local development documents; or the requirement for LDDs generally to conform with the regional spatial strategy or the spatial development strategy in London; or the requirement for the authority to prepare an annual monitoring report on the implementation of the local
development scheme; or the provision for authorities to work together, which we will come to shortly.
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right to suggest that the local development documents are a key element of the Bill and the new system. However, with all that is in clause 16 and subsequent clauses, I firmly believe that the regional spatial strategy and local development framework two-tier planning system will work effectively. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 16 ordered to stand part of the Bill.