Planning Bill

Clearly, conservation areas must be protected. I thank my hon. Friend for giving me an opportunity to clear my throat. I am recovering from a very bad cold, but it is a pleasure to be here. [Interruption.] Thank you. [Interruption.] I feel the love coming across from the Labour Benches. If we were to end up with a situation where merely the pegging out of some ropes could create a criminal offence, that would be a clunking fist too far in terms of our legal system. Clauses 47 and 133 entrench the existing powers of the state to enter private property without warrant. Does that not pre-empt and make a mockery of the reviews of powers of entry introduced by the Prime Minister in his October speech on liberty? As a legacy of the past Governments of all colours, 266 laws already allow state officials to enter people's houses. Is it not time that we started to rein back on those powers rather than gold-plate them? We are pleased that the Government have dropped their discredited plans for a planning gain supplement. The Secretary of State has our support in wanting to reform the section 106 system on planning gain. If used correctly, it would help to energise and regenerate towns and cities throughout the country, but it will not have the support and confidence of local people and local businesses if the money generated is sucked away to a regional pot and is used to the benefit of people hundreds of miles away. Will she make a commitment that all revenue from the community infrastructure levy will be retained by local councils so that local people can receive the benefits of new building? It should not just be a slush fund to feed Government friends across the country. It must be about community improvements delivered locally, not a stealth tax. That brings me to two constitutional issues on which I seek clarification. Clause 164 will allow both the unelected regional development agencies and the unelected infrastructure planning commission to become charging authorities and to levy this new planning tax. This is the first time that a quango has been given tax-raising powers. Clause 169 makes it a criminal offence, not a civil one, if one cannot or will not pay. Is this not the modern equivalent of ship money: additional taxation imposed by an unelected body on pain of criminal punishment? A cursory glance at the murals on the walls between this Chamber and the other place would testify why our forebears were willing to lay down their lives to defend their principles. The provision in the Bill corrodes the cast-iron constitutional principle in the Bill of Rights of freedom from taxation by royal prerogative. As ship money goes, this is a modest flotilla, but it is a worrying trend. It is a further step down the road of local management of services, rather than the democratic delivery of services.