Schedule 1 - Local development orders: procedure
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
4:15 pm
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the proposal in the amendment is not a sunset clause by any means. If it were, however, the sun would have gone down four years before, as we will see.
The amendment is completely erroneous and irrelevant. I entirely agree with the thrust of what hon. Members have said about local planning authorities needing to check regularly to ensure that local development plans are still appropriate. The amendment refers to a period of five years, but paragraph 4 of suggested new schedule 4A clearly states:
''The report made under section 34 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2003 must include a report as to the extent to which the local development order is achieving its purposes.''
In other words, these orders, like many other provisions, must be reviewed annually, and I do not understand why we would want to change from annual to quinquennial reviews. I should have thought that the Committee would be entirely pleased and satisfied with annual reviews, and would not want to extend the period by a further four years.