Clause 1 - Option to make planning application directly to Secretary of State

Part of Growth and Infrastructure Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 3:00 pm on 22 November 2012.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Nicholas Boles Nicholas Boles The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government 3:00, 22 November 2012

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East. I apologise to the people of Harrow West and East, and to my hon. Friend.

On the question of conditions, it is absolutely right that conditions should be designed and suggested locally, which is why local authorities will be able to recommend appropriate conditions to the Planning Inspectorate as part of their representation on an application.

The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich asked whether performance standards would apply to the Secretary of State. He was not quite right, although I accept that he did not have a great deal of time, even with lunch, to read every word of the consultation document. Paragraph 72 makes it clear that the planning guarantee of 26 weeks will apply:

“A similar 26-week limit would in future apply to the Planning Inspectorate where it is determining planning applications submitted to it directly as a result of the proposals in the Bill.”

If he looks a little further down, paragraph 74 says that planning performance agreements will, of course, be taken into account and excluded from the scope of the planning guarantee. By that we mean not only planning performance agreements agreed before the submission of the application but planning appeals subject to bespoke timetables. I hope that reassures the right hon. Gentleman a little.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s amendment about applying the standards, there will be full transparency, as is currently the case with the Planning Inspectorate, and, I can assure him, enormous embarrassment if the Secretary of State proves slower than the authorities whose work we are picking up. I assure him, for fear of his wrath and poking fun at me in the House, that there will be lots of pressure if that happens.

The right hon. Gentleman and several other Members asked why the timeliness of applications has declined in recent times. There is no mystery. We face a completely different financial environment in all aspects, all branches, all tiers of government than was previously the case. It may be appealing, at some level, to some local authorities to make decisions on the resourcing of their planning departments—despite the fact that they receive grant revenue and fees for planning applications—which undercut the ability of those departments to perform as they should. One can understand why they might do so, because, of course, most authorities are very concerned about services for vulnerable people in their areas and absolutely want to protect them, and we applaud that desire. It nevertheless remains their statutory duty to conduct planning—that is why they are given the grant—and to do so within the time lines.

It is interesting that many authorities subject to the same constraints—I understand that the hon. Member for City of Durham has been expecting me to say this—have managed not just to maintain their performance  but to improve it while facing similar cuts. They simply have to be more innovative in working out how to run a planning department; innovative as North Tyneside authority sounds as though it is being by bringing in the efficiency of the private sector to serve the public interest and politically accountable decision making, which I know is what is happening in North Tyneside.