Planning Bill

At the outset, I draw attention to my interests as declared in the Register of Members' Interests. I also want to refer to the fact that I am honoured to be an honorary fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute and vice-president of the Town and Country Planning Association. I welcome the Bill, which contains a number of important provisions that will improve the planning process. Planning is often a highly controversial issue, and those who are involved try to reconcile conflicting interests—social, environmental or economic—and to find appropriate and sustainable solutions to the development needs of our society without prejudicing other interests. That is not always easy, but it is vital as part of a democratic society that seeks appropriate solutions. Some people find it difficult to avoid condemning planning, the planning system and planners at every opportunity as slow, cumbersome and expensive. Although I am sure that we can all point out individual examples of unduly protracted or bureaucratic processes from our constituency experience—indeed, one of the key purposes of the Bill is to address precisely that problem—I do not subscribe to the view that planning is an inherently negative process. On the contrary, good planning has played a vital role in enhancing the quality of our cities and their economic success and protecting our environment, including the countryside, from inappropriate and damaging development. We owe a great deal to the effectiveness of the planning system, which has operated broadly in its current form for the past 60 years. Having said that, I am aware that there are areas where the system has not worked as well as it should have. That is certainly true of major infrastructure projects. I have no doubt that all hon. Members can cite, as the Secretary of State did in her opening remarks, examples of necessary projects of national significance that have been subject to extraordinary delays. To give a slightly more local perspective, my experience of the process with the Thames Gateway bridge is deeply depressing. The project dates back to Abercrombie more than 60 years ago, when the need for a crossing over that part of the Thames was identified. The current planning process has been going on for approximately three years. I spoke about it to my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Keith Hill), when he was still a Minister, and the scheme is currently completely parked. It has been subject to one inquiry, which reported, and a further inquiry has been instituted. Even assuming a fair wind, it is expected to take a further two to three years to reach a decision. When I say that we are considering a bridge across the Thames in a stretch of 13 miles where there is no fixed crossing between Blackwall and Dartford, which is the focus of one of this country's, if not Europe's, biggest regeneration schemes—the Thames Gateway—it becomes immediately clear that it is preposterous that we find securing such necessary infrastructure so hard and so slow. My hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government will be alarmed because he knows that the Bill does not remedy the problem. As I read it, the definition would not include the Thames Gateway bridge, so the Bill would not expedite it. I personally support the measure, but the Government will have to consider matters slightly more carefully to ascertain what more can be done to expedite the process when regionally significant issues, such as the Thames Gateway bridge, are outside the definition. My hon. Friends will understand that I shall not press for restrictions on the infrastructure that the Bill's definitions cover and I should like the Government to give further thought to widening them in specific cases. While we are considering definition, I would welcome my hon. Friend the Minister's views on railway schemes, which hybrid Bills have traditionally tackled. I have some experience of such Bills, having served on the Select and Standing Committees that considered the Channel Tunnel Bill in 1986-87, and taken a close interest in the recent Crossrail Bill, which has just completed its Public Bill Committee stage. My experience of such Bills is generally positive. They have allowed an opportunity for aggrieved or interested parties to seek amendments—we were delighted that the amendment to the Crossrail Bill on Woolwich station was accepted—and they deliver major infrastructure schemes in a much shorter time scale than is likely under traditional planning inquiries. I am therefore a little apprehensive that the Bill, if I interpret it correctly, ends the use of the hybrid Bill procedure for such railway projects. I will miss it if it goes.