Planning Bill

I have a lot of ground to cover, so I shall turn now to the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham. Unlike the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar, he is clear about the welcome that he gives to the Bill. He rightly describes it as ludicrous and unacceptable that local planning inquiries have become the forum for national needs debates. Even the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington conceded that point. However, my right hon. Friend expressed the concern, which was shared by 12 other Members during the debate, that it would be the IPC, rather than Ministers, that would make certain decisions. Let me try to deal with that point, because it is clearly important to a number of Members. The national policy statements will provide the single permission regime within which the IPC will consider applications. I should like to clear up any misunderstanding about the present ministerial role in planning applications. Ministers in a planning role act in a quasi-judicial capacity at present, answerable more to the courts than to this House, and challengeable by judges rather than by Members of Parliament. I was asked why we shall not simply build on the present system. Major infrastructure projects give rise to unique issues that cannot, in our view, be solved by changes to the existing system. Whereas the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham, covers major infrastructure applications under the town and country planning regime, the Bill before us will cover applications under another seven regimes. In other words, it will provide a single, better, more predictable and more accountable system to replace the patchwork that we have at the moment. At present, projects are examined by a planning inspector but decided by a Minister, so two people have to go over the same information sequentially. It is right and proper that Ministers should set policy, but it is not clear that they are the best placed people to make the often very technical decisions about individual project applications. Above all, under the present system, Ministers are responsible for setting national objectives for infrastructure development. In some cases, such as highways, they are also the promoters of individual projects. They also take decisions on whether to approve planning applications. Under the new system, decisions on actual applications will be taken by an independent body of experts. That means that there will be a clear separation between policy making and project promotion on the one hand, and decision taking on the other, to ensure that decisions are taken in the most clear-cut way possible. That will clear, rather than blur, the lines of accountability.