Greater London Authority Bill

I shall give a tiny bit of context, which we already know. London needs to respond to huge population and economic growth and we need an increased rate of residential and commercial development to respond to that. The planning system is clearly crucial to that. London First was very concerned about the proposal to give the Mayor positive planning powers—indeed, originally it was against those proposals. There was no desire to give the Mayor in spirit strategic direction, but there were deep concerns about how that would work in practice. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, touched on some of the bureaucracy concerns. London First is deeply concerned about how the measures will work in practice and has spent a great deal of time over the past six months or so discussing with all parties—developers, the national Government, London government and the boroughs—the detail of the draft Mayor of London order and the Bill itself. In that context, I want to comment on one amendment in particular but also on some of the others. We have been working very hard to create a simple system which leaves as much as possible of the planning process with the boroughs and gives as much clarity as possible to the developers about how the process will work. They have the obvious concerns about the ping-pong effect between London government and the boroughs. As the Bill stands, we feel broadly that the consensus has been reached and that it is extremely dangerous to tweak bits because certain parts of it will break off. Amendment No. 93, which would add a geographic test, causes me great concern. It would simply add complexity. Various words are recommended—““substantial””, ““sound””, and so on— but they simply obfuscate the process. The simpler and fewer the words in the relevant section, the better. I support the provision as it stands. I believe that what Amendment No. 91 is seeking is sufficiently covered in current legislation, guidance and case law and that it is not necessary. On Amendment No. 95, if the Mayor is to be the planning authority, I should have thought he would need the right to enforce, although I hope that that would in most circumstances be delegated to the borough. I am deeply concerned about the second half of Amendment No. 93. As I said about proposed subsection (4A), I fear that it will add to the complexity of the matter. I agree with proposed subsection (4B), which covers the change in the thresholds for the City of London. The City is a special case—it is certainly one of the better planning authorities in London—and these proposals seem appropriate.