Greater London Authority Bill

I entirely endorse the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field). I hope that he will appreciate why I will not follow through his points specifically, but they were well made and they stand very much on their own. The debate operates at two levels. First, there is an argument of principle and philosophy as to whether the Mayor should have positive planning powers. There is a disagreement between the two sides of the House about that. We have rehearsed the arguments at some length and I do not intend to go into further detail. I believe that the Government are, for all the reasons that have been rehearsed in the past, making an error, but I want to move on to the second level of the debate. If we go down that route, it is absolutely crucial to do so with care in ways that are workable and also to maintain public confidence. When it comes to giving the Mayor those powers, there is the strong principal objection of remoteness, but there is also the question of confidence, which links the two levels. Concentrating planning powers in a one-man elected Executive has to be handled carefully because of questions of remoteness and probity. I hasten to add that to say that is to cast no aspersion at all on the current incumbent of the office; it is a fact of life that extra care has to be taken. That is why, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) said, it is crucial to write directly into the Bill the transparency in the process of handling planning applications. I explained why that was important when I intervened on the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), but I will not waste time in restating that at length. The key test is that if the public are to have any confidence in the process, they must be sure that it cannot be changed at the whim of any individual Mayor. There must be clarity and certainty about how to go through the process. That same principle applies to the conflict resolution procedure, as highlighted by many leading academics, such as Tony Travers, who has been quoted a number of times both in Committee and on Second Reading. He understands a great deal about this matter and he rightly highlighted the issue of conflict between the two tiers as something going right back to the days of the Greater London Council. It was one of the things that has undermined the good working of London governance. Planning is the one area above all others where there is a risk of conflict, so spelling out precisely how it is to be resolved is crucial. That leads, in turn, to the third strand, which is the question of the definition of ““strategic””—the most likely area in which conflict will arise. I have always enjoyed my sparring in various venues with the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford). I particularly appreciated his contribution tonight. It is significant that there have been only two contributions from the Government Back Benches. One, at any rate, really added something to this debate. I say nothing of the other. The fact is that, even though I disagree with him at times, the right hon. Gentleman is widely respected on both sides of the House as someone who understands London government and its workings. I agree in broad measure with his successor’s tribute to him earlier. Let me say in all sincerity that if the Government take anything away from this debate, they should take the comments of the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich about the definition of ““strategic””. Even if they reject everything that my hon. Friends and I have proposed, I hope that they will take that on board. It was as effective a forensic demolition of a statutory instrument as I have ever encountered—a hugely powerful and immensely persuasive piece of work. The right hon. Gentleman has rightly ripped a flawed statutory instrument apart, and it would be no shame on the Government—it would be a proper part of our process—if they said that they would go away and change that statutory instrument, even if they did nothing else that has been urged upon them. If we are going to have this system, we must make sure that it works. For whatever reason, the current statutory instrument will not deliver the purpose, nor will it achieve the Minister’s objective. I take her at her word, as she said in Committee that it was her desire and intention that only a small handful of cases should be considered by the Mayor. For all the reasons adequately and eloquently advanced by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, the current draft order will not achieve that. The mission creep point is all the more important if we are to achieve the Minister’s own desired and stated objective. I cannot emphasise that too strongly. The other elements of mission creep are set out in our endeavours to define some parameters. We have done that, but it is always a problem when someone of the extraordinary mental agility of my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) is not here, because he can carry these things in his brain, while lesser mortals like some of my hon. Friends and me have to work it out on a piece of paper. We sought to construct a number of alternatives that would set out a scheme to define in a workable fashion what was meant by ““strategic””. That could also be done by order, but we want to press our argument that the definition should be included in the Bill. The issue is so fundamental, and the risk of conflict so great, that at least the parameters of what ““strategic”” means should be in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham dealt with many of the early new clauses and amendments, and I shall not repeat her arguments. I want to pick up on the last three of the amendments in the group, however—amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 7. Amendment No. 5 deals with enforcement. This relates to an odd provision in the Bill, which runs the risk of damaging the architecture to which the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich referred, because this is an area in which the Mayor could become involved in service delivery. The Bill, as drafted, will enable a statutory instrument to make provision for the Mayor to undertake planning enforcement. I see absolutely no need for that, even if we buy the basic principle of the Government’s argument. Even if it were thought appropriate for the Mayor to have the power to call in and decide on certain applications, there is no reason why he should also be responsible for the planning enforcement that would follow. It is perfectly logical that, as a strategic authority, he should determine such questions, but the service delivery element—the planning enforcement—should be carried out by the London borough in which the development would be situated. I do not relish the idea of any Mayor of London having a planning enforcement division with a lot of enforcement officers. That is clearly undesirable, and a recipe for bureaucracy. The Government would be sensible to think again about this provision, without damaging the overall scheme of the Bill. It seems anomalous that it should be there. Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 touch on the other hugely sensitive issues of planning gain and section 106 agreements, which are often the elephant in the corner in these discussions. It is inconsistent with a devolutionary argument to say that because a development is classed as strategic, the Mayor should be able to appropriate the planning gain from it. There has been a lot of controversy in the history of planning gain and section 106 agreements. Some of us are old enough to remember section 51 agreements. I see the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich smiling in mutual recollection of such distant times—