Planning Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), with whom I share a rather bizarre niche interest in the form of both sewage and cockles, also for constituency reasons. Sewage is a problem in the north of my constituency, and cockles are enjoyed along the Thames. I was interested to hear about her constituency. I was concerned when I looked at the Bill and only came to understand it when I saw it through the prism of potential case studies. I found the speech by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) incredibly powerful in relation to Heathrow. Prior to the debate, I jotted down one or two issues and inquiries that I could foresee. I thought that Heathrow, Stansted or the lower Thames crossing would be an acid test of whether the legislation can work, and, quite simply, it has failed the test. There is a broad consensus that there is a problem with planning, but equally there is a broad consensus, demonstrated in the points raised, that the Bill creates as many problems, issues and confusions as it solves. In excellent and well-researched speeches, many hon. Members said that they have been confused about aspects of the Bill, that they need greater clarity and that it is not clear what is proposed. To push things beyond Second Reading and into secondary legislation is not good enough. That may be acceptable for the few people who have the privilege of serving on the Committee, but it is not acceptable for other hon. Members who want to debate such matters on the Floor of the House on Second Reading. The disturbing thread running through the speeches is that having more planning and more development, and doing it faster, is a good thing. The Bill will mean more development faster, but it will not necessarily be the right development—the development that our constituents want. My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) made an excellent speech covering Swampy, Napoleon and Cromwell. I am not going to delve further back in history, but the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington said that the Bill offers a generational opportunity. I suspect that if we look through Hansard we will see that someone said that in 2004. My right hon. Friend described this Bill as a declaration of failure in the 2004 Bill. Although I agree that it was a failure, I do not think that this Bill will be remembered in that way; it is more likely to be remembered by the problems that it incorporates in the future. I want to touch on five key points: the national policy statement, the IPC, climate change, the democratic deficit and the community infrastructure levy, which is perhaps one of the most concerning parts of the Bill. I am not inclined to support the Bill and expect substantial changes in Committee to make it reasonable. The right hon. Member for Streatham (Keith Hill) talked about maximising the NPS and minimising the IPC. I think that that is the right direction to take. The concept of having national policy statements is superficially alluring. It would allow us to remove some of the broader strategic and technical debates from a local level so that we do not discuss the merits of nuclear against other renewables, or other big issues that are not site specific, at every public inquiry. However, a number of planning issues focus on the interaction between different policy statements. For example, the interaction between airport and road policy is surely what is meant by integrated transport. Seeing such things in silos does not make any sense. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington talked about the reasons for introducing the Bill in terms of the problems of Heathrow. It would have been better to deal with that issue head on rather than simply having a Bill that may or may not cover such problems in the future. Coming from the Thames Gateway area in Southend, I was concerned that the lower Thames crossing would not be covered. I suspect that a Thames crossing between Shoeburyness in my constituency across to Kent would not be covered either. I am concerned about the IPC's structure and the costs involved. The Department's impact assessment makes it look like a well staffed operation. The chief executive will be paid £140,000, the chairman will be paid £150,000, the three deputy chairmen will each be paid £130,000—I do not know why such an organisation needs three deputy chairmen—and there will be 30 commissioners. From the excellent speech by the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams), I learned that one of the commissioners will be appointed by the Welsh Assembly. It will be interesting to know whether any of the remaining appointments will be as significant or whether the commissioners will simply be selected. The documentation makes cursory mention of a register of members' interests. It is incredibly important to consider the problems caused by conflict of interest that have been created in quangos in my area. More detail on the register should be in the Bill. We should also talk about people's experience before they serve on the commission. That needs to be registered and fully understood.