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Standing Committee G
Thursday 16 January 2003
(Morning)
[Mr. David Amess in the Chair]
8.55 am
The Chairman: Order. I am delighted that we have moved to another Room, but there seem to be a number of teething problems. Apparently, everything will be put right by the afternoon. Hon. Members will have seen that, because of the heavy Committee work load, the Official Report for the afternoon sitting of Tuesday 14 January will not be available until later today. The Editor of Hansard apologises for that.
I also have to announce that because of an error at the press, amendments Nos. 336 to 351 in the name of Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown appeared twice in the papers issued yesterday. The duplicates have now been deleted.
Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne): On a point of order, Mr. Amess. I am grateful for that clarification; we thought that you might be allowing us to debate everything twice.
The Chairman: That is wishful thinking, and the Chair will not allow it. Clause 14
Local development scheme
Matthew Green (Ludlow): I beg to move amendment No. 228, in
clause 14, page 8, line 35, at end insert
'within 8 weeks of receipt of the scheme'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 126, in
clause 14, page 8, line 36, after 'direction', insert
'can only be made after a period of 12 months has elapsed following the issuing of a draft direction and after all representations from the local planning authority, other interested parties and the general public have been fully considered at a public enquiry and'.
Amendment No.127, in
clause 14, page 8, line 43, at end insert—
'(d) a timetable for preparing the scheme.'.
Matthew Green: Amendment No. 228 seeks to ensure that the preparation by a local authority of a local development scheme is not delayed because the authority has to wait for the Secretary of State to decide whether to issue a direction to make appropriate amendments to the scheme. I am sure that the Secretary of State has no intention of ever causing a delay, but we want to include such an assurance.
There are areas in which the Government have imposed time limits on themselves. The Bill introduces a timetable for decisions by the Secretary of State in relation to appeals against decisions on planning applications and the failure of the planning
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authorities to take decisions. That is in schedule 2. The idea behind the amendment is that the Government's intention should apply when the Secretary of State is considering whether to direct a planning authority to make changes to its local development scheme. Otherwise, the process will be left in limbo while the authority waits to hear whether it may proceed or whether it must make changes. The amendment is straightforward.
I shall leave the Conservatives to speak to the other two amendments, which are essentially about timing. The purpose of the substantive amendment is to set the Minister a time limit. He might say that eight weeks is not right, and the limit should be 10 or 12 weeks—or even, dare we hope, six weeks. We would welcome an indication [Interruption.]. The Minister is going to disappoint me again, I can see. There was I, thinking that this was a new day, a new dawn—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Tony McNulty): A new shirt.
Matthew Green: Yes, a new shirt.
I think that I shall leave my argument there.
Mr. Wilshire: All I shall say is that the principle argued by the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) has my support. The other two amendments would do the same thing. I echo what he has said in that the choice of time limit in amendment No. 126 is, in a sense, arbitrary. I opted for a certain period, and am happy for the Minister to say that he agrees in principle but does not like the period that I have chosen. I shall not go to the stake over it. In my experience, all of our mailbags from time to time contain letters complaining bitterly about the length of time any part of the planning process will take. My experience of the terminal 5 inquiry leads me to conclude that never again should we allow a part of the planning process to have no time limit.
There will always be those who seek to exploit the system to grind things to a standstill and prevent a decision of any sort being taken. At the end of such processes, there comes a point when even the people who were against the plan would rather have a decision in favour than just go on and on with no decision at all. Battle fatigue sets in and the time scale is dreadful. Every time I noted an open-ended system in the Bill, I was tempted to table an amendment stating that there should be a time scale of some sort. Therefore, I support in principle what the hon. Member for Ludlow says.
My amendments are slightly different. Amendment No. 126 follows on from clause 14(4):
''The Secretary of State may direct the local planning authority to make such amendments to the scheme as he thinks appropriate.''
Subsection (5) states:
''Such a direction must contain the Secretary of State's reasons for giving it.''
That has to be right. Amendment No. 126 would ensure that the Secretary of State does not arbitrarily give direction to make such amendments as he thinks fit, and then not explain why. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to say, ''I am minded to
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instruct you to do this for the following reasons.'' There would then be a period during which public discussion about his amendments could take place. He would have to make the amendments in draft. I am not a parliamentary draftsman, so I care not about the niceties of my wording.
In principle, there must be a period after the Secretary of State has decided something should be amended. Instead of simply saying, ''amend it'', the Secretary of State must say, ''I am going to make you do this, but we are going to consult on it first.'' In my amendment, that consultation period is 12 months, but it could be 12 weeks for all it matters. There are two principles behind the amendment. First, there must be some consultation on a direction before it is made, and secondly that period of consultation must be strictly time limited. Amendment No. 126 would ensure that, and if the Minister wants to accept the spirit and the principle of it, I would be delighted with a better wording than the one I have chosen.
Amendment No. 127 would amend subsection (7). The amendment states that the Secretary of State ''may'' set down a timetable. On reflection, if I were able to table it again, I would suggest that he ''must'' do so. I hope that the Minister accepts that the principle is right. There should be some means of saying how long the process will take, and some method of enforcing the time limit.
I return to the terminal 5 example. There was a lot of exhortation to resolve the matter, but there was no timetable. I am sure that at some later point we will discuss whether one can impose timetables. It is perfectly possible to do so because in my experience as a chairman of a planning committee involved in planning appeals, and of being an MP, there rapidly comes a point where objectors become repetitive. After the first 20 per cent. of the time taken by the inquiry, nothing new is produced, but the system goes on and on. I see no reason why we should not have a timetable. If the Minister likes the idea of amendment No. 127, but not the wording, I am not going to the stake over that either.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley): This is the first time that I have had the delight of being on a Committee that you are chairing, Mr. Amess. I have noticed that you have the ability to look interested in our speeches; I do not know whether that is the reality. I offer the apologies of my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), who has been delayed because of a funeral; he will be here as soon as possible. Today will be lighter because I will spend a lot of time moving cobwebs and trying to get up to speed. I will be using my hon. Friend's notes, and his handwriting is difficult to read—my own is appalling—so the result will be rather intriguing.
I support the amendments, but perhaps from a slightly different angle from my hon. Friend. It is already apparent that local authorities are sitting on their hands and that really concerns me. According to the private building sector, many local authorities that are agin development are waiting to see what comes up. The private building sector especially hates delay,
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as do the Minister, his colleagues, and, in particular, the Deputy Prime Minister. The number of private house-building starts was appallingly low last year and it is not likely to be any better in the coming year. That trend is likely to progress and the Minister should support anything that we can do to speed everything up.
The local development documents are a key part of the clause. That seems straightforward until one turns to clause 22, which we will not be able to discuss because the guillotine will come down with a clang and we will all go home, leaving a good amount of the Bill untouched. Clause 22(2) and (3) make it clear that above all the local authorities is the Secretary of State's inspector. There are two problems with the Secretary of State's inspector. First, he will add to the delay and secondly—this is not strictly relevant, but I hope that a little leeway will be allowed—he will be able to dictate to local authorities. If the Secretary of State's inspector comes up with an arrangement that is not acceptable to the local authority, bearing in mind that the local authority knows its own conditions, position, and local demands, it can reject the inspector's decision, although that is rare. The difficulty with the proposals is that the local authority will have to do what a remote individual dictates. That overrides democracy. I hope that the Minister will give us his reaction because I would love to know his justification. If the amendments are not agreed, it would be sensible for the Minister to accept the principle behind them and to make a change somewhere in the Bill.
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