Clause 32
Planning Bill
5:00 pm
Clive Betts (Sheffield, Attercliffe, Labour)
This debate relates to one of the most important issues in the Bill. I have had help with some of the drafting from the Campaign to Protect Rural England. On some aspects of the Bill, I am much more enthusiastic and sympathetic to the Government’s approach than perhaps the CPRE is. Nevertheless, on the issue of who should make the final decision on an application that is being considered by the commission, I have come to a different view from that of Ministers. The amendment, therefore, together with other amendments that relate to later clauses, but are necessary for a consistency of approach, would substitute the Secretary of State for the commission as the final decision maker, as is the case under current town and country planning legislation.
This is a fundamental issue of accountability. The decisions that will be made concerning major projects will be major, which is why we are setting up a new procedure for dealing with national infrastructure projects. By their very nature, they are important matters. More than one individual in the commission will ultimately make the decision, but it is important that individuals are accountable, at least to an extent. They must be accountable in the sense that hon. Members know who they are. I doubt that many people could name a single member of the Planning Inspectorate, and I am sure that once we have a commission and the commissioners have been appointed, not many people in the House will know who any of them are. We know who the Secretary of State is, however, and we know who the Ministers are, if a Minister makes the ultimate decision because the Secretary of State has a particular conflict of interest under current legislation. The Secretary of State can be held to account in a number of ways: a debate in the House; written questions; and oral questions. The general methods that the House uses to hold Ministers to account can be used to hold them to account for decisions on matters that would be considered and recommended by the commission.
It is important that while Parliament will eventually approve a national policy statement, in the end it will be the commission that interprets that policy statement to decide whether a particular application should be approved. Therefore, ultimately, it should be a politician who makes the final decision on whether the interpretation by the commission is correct. I know that the response will be that in such cases Ministers act in a quasi-judicial manner, not as politicians, and I accept that. Under existing planning legislation, Ministers act in not a purely political way, but a quasi-judicial way—there is a difference. Nevertheless, they can still be held to account to explain how they have acted. That decision cannot be voted on in the House, a Minister cannot be second-guessed, and a Secretary of State’s view cannot be challenged by tabling an amendment to it, but at least the Secretary of State is can respond across the Dispatch Box in the Chamber, or by replying to a parliamentary question, and give reasons for a decision in a way that a commission cannot.
It will be interesting to hear from the Minister precisely how the commission might be accountable. If a Member tables a question asking for reasons why a particular decision has been reached, will the Secretary of State answer it, or will it be passed on to the commission? How can a commission answer a parliamentary question? We have struggled sometimes, when dealing with agencies, to get questions actually responded to properly. Some of those decisions will be very important, such as where a nuclear power station is located or whether one should be located in a particular place at all. We need to understand the nature of accountability.
I have great respect for my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government. He has taken the matters that have been raised very seriously. However, the Government must understand that it is not only groups such as the Campaign to Protect Rural England that have concerns. Many of my colleagues on this side of the Committee also share this type of concern.
If I ask my colleagues who are not fortunate enough to be members of the Committee for their impressions about what the Bill does, they say that it takes away accountability from politicians and passes it to a quango. However, it is a fact that there are good things about the Bill, such as the attempt to take major decisions on major infrastructure projects by using a better process—I believe that it is a better process. The fact that it is often characterised as being undemocratic is largely down to the fact that the Secretary of State is removed from the process at the end.