Planning Bill

I entirely agree. Any national policy on airports is in fact solely about Heathrow and Stansted. Any significant expansion has been ruled out for Gatwick, but there is currently a huge argument about Stansted. I should, perhaps, point out that I live 12 miles from Stansted's central terminal; that is where my family home is. Plans to expand Luton have been abandoned, and the discussion is now about Heathrow. Once again, one does not have to be a prophet to know about such matters. The national policy statement is so close to the planning decision that it is difficult to see a real distinction between the two. On consultations by the developer, I am always suspicious of anything that talks about stakeholders. North Yorkshire's bid for unitary authority status was based on detailed consultation with the stakeholders who all said that it was a very good idea, but the public did not think it was a good idea at all. The public are not the same as the stakeholder. The public are the public as individuals, not the public constructed into representative bodies. We must be careful that such consultations are real. What about the decision makers themselves? There might be 45 cases a year—one for every working week, setting aside the inevitable gap over the summer holidays. If the commission has added expert panels—there might be an energy, aviation or water panel—in practice we will ask perhaps three or four people to deal with the cases. They will take a huge degree of responsibility, and they are appointed people. They will not have the quasi-judicial status of the inspectorate even if the Government wish to endow them with that quality. How will they be chosen? Will that be like the process for selecting members of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England? Will they be nominated for a certain period? Will they be subject to parliamentary confirmation hearings? If Parliament is to be given a new role, it seems a good idea for them to have to submit themselves to parliamentary hearings. Is the expertise required a planning or policy expertise, or is it more important for there to be submissions of a representative nature, following on from the remarks on community engagement? I sometimes think that it is a pity that Sir Michael Lyons is now otherwise engaged, as he served so many useful purposes for the Government when they were in a bind. What is clear is that the commission will not sit on any matter as a college, but it will endorse panel decisions. It is difficult to see it not endorsing them. To whom will it at the end of the day be accountable? One element of the proposals requires particular explanation. The Secretary of State told us in a written statement of 27 November that"““the Bill will make it clear that any person who registers an interest can give oral evidence at relevant stages of the inquiry.””—[Official Report, 27 November 2007; Vol. 468, c. 13WS.]" Yet at the same time we are to have a statutory timetable on inquiries and decisions of perhaps nine or 12 months. How are those two needs reconcilable? We all know that if our constituents come to us and say, ““We object to this development, it has been rejected by the council and there will be an appeal,”” we say, ““Don't agree to a written exchange. Make sure you go for a public inquiry, because you will get your voice, that will push the whole procedure back and the developer might walk away at the end of the day.”” So what happens if the objectors are sufficiently organised to make sure that 10,000 people register their interest? How do the Government intend that their promise that those people's voice will be heard will be compatible with the speed of the decision making which we have been promised? I do not think the Select Committee will necessarily be of huge assistance in practice. First, there is beginning to be a huge overload of work and commitments, especially if we are to have regional Select Committees as well; the Government have gone rather quiet on that idea, however, so I am not sure where we are on it. They might regard dealing with such matters as their role; if there is to be a major development at Heathrow or Stansted, for example, the relevant regional Select Committee might think that that is much more its business than that of an inter-group, as it were, whose membership is drawn from other Select Committees. How will those involved avoid being swamped by the demand to be heard? What distinct marketing niche can be offered? We need to know what is envisaged on the reservation to the Secretary of State of decisions on exceptional projects. In a sense, the whole structure exists to deal with exceptional projects. I find it difficult to see at what stage something becomes so extra exceptionally exceptional that is goes to the Secretary of State for a decision. What is the factor X that sends something back to Whitehall? On the community infrastructure levy, the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) explained that on aspects of the Bill, he was confused about whether we were talking about a levy or a tax. I share that confusion, but I shall not draw my confusion to the attention of the House, because his confusion will serve for us both. I hope that both our confusions will be simultaneously enlightened. Of course, we welcome the abandonment of a planning gain supplement, but it is important to know how the roof tax, as I suppose we will end up calling it, will work in practice and what the relationship will be between the infrastructure levy and the site-specific levy. I understand that they will both be wrapped up in the much-maligned, but extremely useful, section 106 agreements. It is important that social housing, more of which has been built as a result of section 106 agreement planning gain than of any other mechanism, should be maintained. How widely will the infrastructure needs be assessed? Will that be done on a local, area or regional basis? The regional development agencies are to have competence in this regard. Let us remember that a few months ago the Government were explaining their views on the role of regional bodies and regional agencies, but they are removing accountability to regional assemblies. We do not yet know how RDAs will be made accountable, given the huge new planning competence with which they are being endowed by the Government. There is an argument for some sort of cross-border use of funding. It applies particularly in places bordering metropolitan areas—travel-to-work areas where people go from rural areas into the metropolitan ones. I do not take an ideologically hostile view of such proposals, but there is a good explanation of why it matters to local people if that is to be how the money is used. We must ensure that the new needs are being met. The emphasis is that they must be new infrastructure needs; this is not about all the old deficiencies. It is sometimes not easy to make a distinction between a long-time aspiration and a specific infrastructure need that flows directly from the development taking place. How will the scheme work on brownfield sites that have been assembled by compulsory purchase orders, which are themselves governed by a statutory provision, where developers might turn out to be the occupiers? How confident are we that local authorities have the capacity to manage the rather more complex system? All of us have encountered severe problems in the manning of planning departments. An army of itinerant antipodeans seems to park for periods in planning departments as part of a world tour. I hope that some sort of guidance will be available—the industry is talking about having some sort of body to help with this—because if local authorities are to have discretion on what levies they raise, it will be important to have some lubrication of the process to ensure that it works smoothly. Finally, may I make a small plea? Nothing discredits the planning system more than people who deliberately bend the rules by getting planning permission for A and then doing A and a bit more, such as developing the site a little more densely, making the roof lines higher than suspected or doing something thinking that they can always obtain planning permission later. Local authorities are extraordinarily reluctant to take such matters up, because they think that doing so will be expensive or a barren sort of passage. People rightly get extremely upset when they see that someone has deliberately decided to play fast and loose with the system—we all know that some businesses seem to specialise in doing that—and that there is no, or infrequent, redress. We want the system to have credibility and legitimacy, but there are huge questions about the legitimacy of the mechanism that is going to be erected. An enormous amount will depend on the people involved, the manner in which they take decisions and the decisions that they take in the early period. If the final decision-making power is to be removed, despite all the apparatus of consultation, the citizen must feel that when a decision is taken it sticks. Decisions that remain more local must be much more rigorously enforced, so that a decision taken is what finally appears. That is a niggly point, but credibility and legitimacy are essential to a system that seeks to mediate between interests that are often difficult to reconcile and that on some occasions may not be reconcilable. Those cultures are hugely important in making the system work well.