I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) on securing the debate, which is much prized. It is an example of his assiduous, hard-working and caring role as a Constituency Member that he has raised this matter which he feels is of great importance to his constituents.

My hon. Friend has raised a number of points in relation to the town and country planning process. It will be helpful to set them in the context of the legislative framework which we have applied for many years. I know that my hon. Friend will understand that I can make no comments about the merits of the proposal which is the subject of our debate or about the case for calling it in for determination by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. That would prejudice his consideration of the current application for a call-in and might also prejudice his consideration of the matter if it is called in. As a consequence, I will confine myself to the facts as I understand them. However, my hon. Friend can be assured that I have listened attentively to what he has said and his points will be considered carefully before a decision is made on whether the application should be called in.

Parliament has made local planning authorities responsible for day-to-day planning control, including the determination of planning applications and the initiating of enforcement action. For most categories of development, the local planning authorities are the district councils, but county councils also have limited functions as planning authorities.

Whatever reservations there may be about individual decisions from time to time, the basic premise that most planning decisions should be taken locally has never been seriously challenged. Local authorities are generally best placed to exercise the discretion that Parliament has judged appropriate in taking planning decisions. Development plans drawn up with public consultation provide an important framework. Central Government publish general advice on a wide range of planning issues through planning policy guidance notes and circulars. However, we believe that unless there are exceptional circumstances, it is for people with local knowledge to look at individual proposals and to decide them in the way that best meets local requirements.

My hon. Friend does not, I think, dissent from that, but he has questioned local planning authorities' deciding planning proposals that they themselves have originated and in particular the position of the county council in relation to the district council. Again, that is not a haphazard system, but one which our legislation has recognised for many years under successive Governments. If elected local authorities are fit to draw up development plans and to judge the vast Majority of planning applications, it would be odd to say that they were not fit to judge their own development proposals. It is, of course, right to require them to adopt certain procedures to ensure that the public and the full range of interests represented by the authority have the opportunity to contribute to the consideration. The regulations provide for this in certain circumstances and we are considering how to improve the detail of the procedures. As I have already said, day-to-day planning control is for local planning authorities and it is not the role of the Secretary of State to become involved in that as a general rule.

However, there are two circumstances in which Parliament has seen a role for the Secretary of State. The first is in relation to the need for an applicant who is aggrieved by the decision of the local planning authority on his application to have a right of appeal. In practice, the great majority of appeals are now decided by inspectors appointed by the Secretary of State for that purpose.

Again, I think that the great majority of hon. Members would not dispute the need for a right of appeal. Nevertheless, there are people who argue that local planning authorities' decisions best reflect local circumstances and should not be overruled by the central Government or their appointed planning inspectors. That is a point of view which I understand, but which I should not commend against a background in which Parliament, when removing the unfettered right of a land owner to develop his land as he wished, thought it right to enable a land owner to get a second opinion if the local decision on his application was adverse.

Others argue that if developers have the right of appeal to the Secretary of State against a local planning authority's decision, so should other interested parties. That argument minimises the fact that it is the local planning authority's role to represent the general public interest. The more practical implication is that if such a wide-varying right of appeal existed, the likelihood is that the whole planning system would become totally bogged down.

The second circumstance is that planning legislation has given the Secretary of State the power to take applications out of the hands of local planning authorities and to decide them himself. It is quite clear against the background that I have described that it was intended that it should be an exceptional power and that it should be used only when there are no other ways in which the individual applicant may consider the case himself through the planning process. There is always a danger that if the regulations are overused by the Secretary of State, he will find that his business and duties in planning will become bogged down.

Regulations provide that if local planning authorities are minded to approve a proposal, but judge that it involves a material departure from the provisions of the development plan, they are required to refer the matter to the Secretary of State for him to decide whether he thinks it fit to call in the matter for his own decision.

It is possible for the Secretary of State to direct that a certain category of development should be referred to him if local planning authorities are minded to grant permission. Such a direction has been issued, for example, in respect of a large-scale retail shopping development. The Town and Country Planning (Shopping Development) (England and Wales) Direction 1986 applies when proposals include areas of gross shopping floor space of not less than 250,000 sq ft or 23,325 sq m. The Secretary of State may receive representations in the light of which he may decide to require a particular application to be referred to him for decision.

Successive Governments have adopted the policy that individual decisions should be taken out of the hands of local planning authorities only if they raise issues of more than local importance. It follows that decisions to call in will not be frequent. It also follows that in looking at whether to call in, Ministers do not consider the planning merits of the proposal, but only whether the kind of issues that need to be decided are more appropriate for consideration in a wider than local context by the Secretary of State. I should make it clear that when it is decided to intervene in a local authority's own proposed development, the local authority is required to apply to the Secretary of State for planning permission. The kind of questions that might be asked in the context are whether the proposal could have wide effects beyond the immediate locality, whether it could give rise to regional or national controversy and whether it could conflict with national policy.

I turn, briefly, to the case of the medicentre proposal at the Heath hospital, Cardiff about which my hon. Friend is concerned. The proposal is being processed by South Glamorgan county council under regulation 4 of the Town and Country Planning General Regulations 1976. The project consists of a high specification, purpose-built research centre on land within the site of the University hospital of Wales.

My hon. Friend made certain representations about the proposal to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in the course of a discussion last month. Following further approaches from my hon. Friend, a direction was issued to South Glamorgan county council on 11 December requiring it not to approve the proposal until the Secretary of State had had more time to consider whether to call in the matter for his own determination.

I emphasise that in taking that step, we have not formed any view on the planning merits of the proposal. What now needs to be established, in accordance with our usual policy, is whether the proposal raises issues of more than local importance or whether the matters in question justify a departure from the policy that matters of local importance should be dealt with by local authorities.

I assure my hon. Friend that we look forward to receiving any further written representations that he has in addition to the cogent case that he has put before the House today. Such representations will be considered as quickly as possible in deciding whether we should call in the application. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising an important constituency point. I look forward to receiving further representations, if he has any, in addition to his important arguments today.