Planning Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) and to learn of his interest in cockles, which he shares with the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith). After her graphic speech, I do not think I will be eating cockles again for a while. Reform of the planning system is an admirable objective. The current system appears sometimes to be cumbersome, expensive and, at times, virtually incomprehensible. It could certainly do with some simplification and refinement. If anything, we need to strengthen, not weaken, the voice of local communities. In Leckhampton on the edge of my constituency, there were recently 700 objections to a planning proposal, which was duly defeated. Almost identical planning proposals have now been submitted and those 700 objections now count for nothing. In Charlton Kings on the edge of my constituency, we now face a concerted assault on the Cotswolds area of outstanding natural beauty, which most of us would have assumed was sacrosanct. However, the signals coming from Government are so mixed that developers are now eyeing up the AONB. Back gardens across Cheltenham are now being treated as brownfield sites and tilting the scales too far in favour of overdevelopment. I still find it odd that simple values such as ugliness and beauty still count for nothing in our planning process. The system needs reform and refinement but, in its way, it works. Local communities do come together to oppose unpopular developments. They trust the system enough to spend enormous time and effort on planning inquiries. My father Don Horwood spent the last years of his life fighting many planning inquiries on behalf of the Leckhampton greenland action group, which carries on that proud tradition of using the current system to represent community interests effectively. Such community action is sometimes inconvenient for Governments, and even more inconvenient sometimes for commercial interests. But that is democracy. If democracy does not sometimes make life inconvenient for those who have wealth and power in our society, it is not working. My worry about the Bill is that it makes life far too convenient for both Governments and unelected authorities as well as commercial interests. First, let us look at the powers of the Secretary of State. The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), who is no longer in his place, mentioned aviation and the ability of the Secretary of State to incorporate wholesale existing policies such as the Government's aviation policy into the structure of national policy statements. On my reading of the Bill, this seems to be possible without going through the consultation process set out in the Bill, which will apply only to new national policy statements. So a decision to promote growth in aviation could be used to promote critical decisions such as Heathrow's third runway. Would not it be useful to be able to cross-examine the evidence for that runway? In a debate last week, I cited Friends of the Earth's insight that the cost of carbon in relation to the decision was three times lower than that recommended by the Stern report. It looked on the surface as though the Government were fiddling the cost of carbon to give a green light to a project that actually will help to defeat their own objectives on climate change. I raised that question in the debate. The Minister on that occasion chose not to answer the question, but instead to read out excerpts from Gillian Shephard's memoirs. That demonstrates the limits of parliamentary cross-examination, but at least the current planning process does offer cross-examination rights, which can be very useful in exposing the weaknesses—especially the environmental weaknesses—in major projects. In that system, people would not get away with reading excerpts from others' memoirs by way of an answer. Under the process described in the Bill, however, cross-examination can disappear altogether, in favour largely of a process of written submissions—and also, perhaps, of open-floor contributions, which sounds to me like a sop, in which people are entitled to stand up and say their piece but are then patted on the head, shown the door and never heard from again. Under the Bill, the Secretary of State has other unprecedented powers, for example, the ability to designate new areas of nationally significant infrastructure without resorting to further primary legislation. The planning White Paper addressed such new areas and chapter 2 related to nationally significant infrastructure, which included:"““Building new water, waste disposal and recycling facilities, and constructing new housing developments””." If even recycling and housing are to come within the remit of what is nationally significant infrastructure, it might be quicker to list the things that are left out. There is also a clear temptation for the Government: where they fear political controversy, they can simply declare the issue a matter of national significance and close down key opportunities for debate and challenge. At least the Secretary of State is elected, however. The scariest part of the Bill, which has rightly been condemned by Members of all parties—I have been encouraged by the number of Labour Members who have criticised this—is the unelected and unaccountable infrastructure planning commission. As I mentioned in an earlier intervention, its powers are extensive. It can pick and choose how to apply, modify or exclude provisions in other primary legislation. The list of that primary legislation is long: it includes the Green Belt (London and Home Counties) Act 1938, the Coast Protection Act 1949, the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979, the Harbours Act 1964, the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990—indeed, the list of legislation within the reach of this essentially unaccountable body goes on and on. It can also repeal or revoke local Acts that are also, in their own way, primary legislation. Let us consider the basis on which that drastic power can be exercised. Clause 105(6)(b) makes that clear—it is when it appears"““to the decision-maker to be necessary or expedient””." That is not a very high test. It is also unclear if the infrastructure planning commission will actually be accountable at all to Parliament, or even to a Minister, on individual decisions. I entirely support the earlier remarks of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) who was concerned about the ultimate unaccountability of the body. That is an alarming prospect, and the commission should be either removed from the Bill altogether or reduced to the status of an advisory body to the Secretary of State. As many Members have said, the Bill is something of an invitation to non-violent direct action, as people might feel so excluded from the process that they consider the only ethical option open to them to be to protest and have their objections heard, especially as in environmental terms the Bill also offers many grounds for concern. The Bill could lay the foundations for a hugely damaging set of policies that deserve to be thoroughly challenged, from transport strategies that could foster increasing car and plane use to a new generation of nuclear power stations that could leave a poisonous legacy to our descendents. Organisations such as the Campaign to Protect Rural England have pointed out further weaknesses in the detail of the Bill. The sustainability appraisals required for each national policy statement are unspecific in their quality and depth. The CPRE suggests that they should be in accordance with the EU strategic environmental assessment directive, but there is no evidence of such rigour in the Bill at present. If all that were not concerning enough, the Bill may not even achieve the Government's more worthy objectives. They want to speed up the planning process, but as the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) eloquently said in relation to terminal 5, delays on major projects are often due to delays at ministerial level, poor developer applications or even funding issues. The Secretary of State's opening remarks made reference to the cost savings that the Bill is designed to achieve, but most of those are not in government. The cost savings that she identified seem to derive from shorter time scales putting a smaller burden on the private sector. Such savings do not derive from the changes in the Bill and could be achieved, for instance, by providing the Planning Inspectorate with much better resources to speed up the current process. The savings to Government will be largely offset by the costs of setting up and running the infrastructure planning commission. The Government's impact assessment estimates those to be £5 million to set it up and £9 million a year to run it. The Bill looks expensive, ineffective and, above all, undemocratic. Perhaps the Minister will be able to answer its final mystery. What exactly is it about the Town and Country Planning (Major Infrastructure Project Inquiries Procedure) (England) Rules 2005 that is so inadequate? Only two years ago, the Government produced those procedures, which were supposed to strike a fair balance between a full exploration of the various issues involved and providing the necessary speed for major infrastructure projects. They allowed for cross-examination, and for it to be limited in some cases, so they went some way towards allaying the Government's fears about the process running out of control. If the Government are to insist on forcing through this Bill, which is proving unpopular on both sides of the House, they must explain why only two years ago they got their proposals so badly wrong.