Clause 77 - Loss payments: supplementary
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
4:45 pm
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)
With great respect to the Minister, I must say no, it does not. She quoted section 333 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, but I do not know whether she quoted all of subsection (3). It says:
''Any statutory instrument containing regulations made under this Act (except regulations under section 88 and regulations which by virtue of this Act are of no effect unless approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament) shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.''
I do not know why the 1990 Act makes an exception of section 88, which has to do only with planning permission in enterprise zones. Anyhow, that subsection shows that all sorts of legislation specify sometimes a negative, and sometimes an affirmative resolution. If there must be secondary legislation, it should be subject to affirmative resolution unless there is a cogent reason otherwise. Under the affirmative procedure, the Government face a higher threshold in getting changes to regulations through Parliament. Once legislation is in force, I would like there to be as few changes as possible.
The Minister made mischief about my comments on Wales under amendment No. 462. I was merely trying to probe the Government on the dichotomy in their thinking. The Government are prepared to give fully devolved functions to the National Assembly for Wales, but for some reason they do not trust England's eight regional assemblies, and they reserve huge powers for the Deputy Prime Minister. However, we have debated the amendments at length and there is no point in carrying on the debate, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 77 ordered to stand part of the Bill.