Clause 67
Planning Bill
3:00 pm
David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)
I normally find myself in agreement with my Cornish friend, and the fact that this time I am not sure that I do probably means that the Minister is about to accept the amendment. If the commission is to work, it must operate on the basis of collective responsibility, which means that the decisions must be indivisible. The trouble is that if commissioners get a reputation for voting in a particular way, like the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, the minute that they are appointed to a case, the first thing that will happen is that their past history will be wheeled out and presumptions made about how they are likely to react.
I see the obvious attractions of recording and publicising votes, but I also see the drawbacks in terms of developing collective wisdom, with individual commissioners being separated out and comments being made about the appropriateness of certain appointments to carry out certain tasks. It is a conundrum to which, happily, I am not in the position of having to provide an answer, but the Minister is, and I am interested to know what it is.