Clause 1
Planning Bill
10:30 am
Jacqui Lait (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Beckenham, Conservative)
May I welcome you to your stint as Chair of this Committee, Mr. Illsley? You missed our interesting sittings last week when we took evidence. Now you have the hard grind of the amendments. I look forward to your wise and sure guidance.
This group of amendments is key to our view of the Bill. Basically, they would bring the commission within the Planning Inspectorate. I accept that we may not have picked up every implication and change that needs to be made to achieve that, but that is the tenor of our amendments. Should they be accepted, I am sure that we could subsequently move to the other changes that are required to ensure that the planning commission is not created and does not cause extra cost to the taxpayer.
I want to put it firmly on the record that I do not think there is any disagreement across any of the parties in the House, the various interested bodies outside it and the residents and communities affected by planning applications that the current system takes far too long. We would all wish to see a much faster and speedier planning process. Our argument is that the Government’s proposals will not do that. Indeed, most people fundamentally believe that Ministers should take final responsibility for large planning applications such as those relating to infrastructure, and the proposals abrogate that.
None of us wishes to go through another Heathrow or Sizewell, which seems to be looming on the horizon, or, as was often mentioned in evidence, the north Yorkshire applications for improved electricity connections. It is a sadness to us all that the 2005 planning rules have not yet been thoroughly explored. Certainly the evidence from where they have been brought in is that they have speeded up the planning system quite considerably. The inspectors’ powers to hold pre-inquiry hearings, which are limited but still considerably greater than they were, have narrowed the grounds for discussion and have prevented the endless repetition—it is regularly described as watching paint dry—of the same evidence and cross-examination on exactly the same point. Applications that have so far gone through the process are being decided much more quickly.
It is symptomatic of the Government that rather than wait and see how their changes have improved things, they decide to make more changes before there is any evidence that they are needed. We are concerned, as ever, that no serious analysis has been undertaken of the improvements that are already in the system.
We agree in principle with the introduction of national policy statements to try to speed up the planning process. I wish to stay in order, so I shall not digress at great length on that issue, especially as we will come to it relatively quickly, but we accept that if policy statements are in place, much of the delay in planning applications would be removed because there would no debate about policy. A large element of the time delays that we are experiencing would be taken out once the policy statements are in place.
I agree in principle with the Government’s proposals that developers should consult more effectively—I would probably go even further in respect of pre-application consultation—but if planning inquiries can be speeded up by the existence of proper pre-inquiry hearings and if the policy statements are in place, why do we need the commission? Why do we need to set up a completely new body, made up of commissioners, some of whom will come from the very experienced Planning Inspectorate but many of whom, under the terms of the Bill, will not? The organisation will have to be set up and there will be delays while that happens. I suspect that there will be national planning policy statement constipation as the Government try to get the statements through the House given the number of applications that will probably come forward.
We heard conflicting evidence of the number of policy statements we will need, varying from under 10 from the Local Government Association to 45-plus, depending on how many energy statements there are and how the transport statements are set out. The combination of the delay while the statements go through the House, the setting up of the commission, the training of the commissioners, and the number of commissioners proposed given the potential number of applications that will be made, quite apart from legal challenges, will mean a stagnation in major developments for some years. We have accepted the 2005 planning rules, the policy statements, pre-inquiry hearings and the developer consultation, but why can the Planning Inspectorate not conduct the inquiries? Why do we need a new body?
We heard some interesting and powerful evidence last week. I do not often agree with Friends of the Earth, but I agreed with everything that its representatives said about the difficulties that there will be with the commission. The Opposition have a fundamental problem with the speed and the regularity with which Ministers in this Government abrogate their responsibility for decision taking, and the commission is another example of it.
There is a belief among the population that Ministers should make the big decisions. As that is ingrained, I suggest that if that right and responsibility is taken away, the body politic will not understand why. Hence, there will be legal challenge after legal challenge. If we, as Members of Parliament, are not elected to take responsibility for the import of our decisions as legislators, the disconnect between the voter and MPs and Ministers, about which we are all so concerned, will only become greater, particularly with an issue such as planning, which is of such importance to all our constituents.
I would challenge anyone in the Committee to say that the most important issue to their voters on a continuing basis is not planning. They see us, as Members of Parliament, as representing their views, both in detail and in principle. If Ministers say that something is a quasi-judicial decision, which technically it is, but outside this place it is understood as a ministerial responsibility, it will not satisfy my constituents whether it is quasi-judicial or whether it takes into account other factors. I would be most surprised if any member of this Committee felt that it would satisfy their constituents. Therefore, there is a deep constitutional reason for Ministers not abrogating their responsibilities for taking those major decisions.