Planning Bill

I thank noble Lords for tabling these amendments which allow us to explore at length the details of how the IPC will work. I shall try to respond to all the questions that have been raised but if I do not succeed I shall certainly write to noble Lords. Amendments Nos. 6 and 8 seek to limit the commission to having two deputy chairs and to limit the overall number of commissioners to 15. We have set out that the commission should have around 35 commissioners. I explained at some length in my previous long reply that there are two reasons for this. The first and most obvious is the pressure of work. The impact assessment estimated that 35 commissioners would be necessary to handle the expected caseload of around 45 major projects a year, each one of which may take several months to look at. We expect that there will be spikes of activity throughout this period. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, referred to there being possibly 25 in one year. There will be more applications in some years than others. Therefore, we need to have a reasonably large base of commissioners who are able to give each application the level of attention that it deserves. I will try to respond to the important questions asked by the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Williamson. What are we looking for? We are certainly committed to ensuring that the commission comprises commissioners who demonstrate a broad range of expertise. However, I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, made that sometimes expertise can be obsessive. At all costs we want to avoid people who have axes to grind. We specified in the White Paper the fields that we were thinking of such as community engagement, planning, law, local government, engineering, economics, business, security, environment, heritage and health. These are generic competences as well as in-depth professionalisms. We could probably expand that list. It is not by any means finite but rather a first assessment of what we might be looking for. However, I think that the point the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, makes is that we will be looking for experience and temperament. We will be looking for people who are well used to being in the public eye and who can deal safely with often emotive situations. Therefore, we shall be looking for wisdom as well as expertise. These paragons exist and I am sure that the Secretary of State will be able to find them. However, we shall not cast them adrift. We certainly intend to provide training, particularly in the examination and testing of evidence, if there is a need for it. That point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, on Second Reading. The Bill also covers the provision of expertise and specialist advice. Paragraph 14 of Schedule 1 provides for arrangements for assistance, which could include specialist advice. We cannot expect the commissioners to cover every known discipline with regard to these projects but it will be for them to decide when they need the advice of outside experts, including legal advice. Bearing in mind that the Secretary of State will exercise the judgment we are discussing, I think that there is sufficient scope for us to get the people we need. I do not think that this will be an unwieldy quango in any sense. We are looking for the minimum number of commissioners who will be necessary properly to examine the details of applications for significant infrastructure projects. I am very gratified by what the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said about having brought forward the application process because it is important to signal urgency. As regards what he said about promoters waiting for guidance, I hope that noble Lords will enable us to pass the Bill and then we can proceed as quickly as possible with all the processes that will need to be put in place to achieve what we want. In the context of the other amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, which seek to ensure that the IPC’s decisions are fair, I do not think that there should be a problem here. When this was debated in the other place it was clear that there was no support for it across the House. We are in danger of creating unnecessary opposition here between efficiency and fairness, which would certainly not be beneficial to the operation of the IPC. To operate efficiently is to operate fairly. The Liberal Democrat spokesman put this rather well in saying: "““However, I am concerned that, if the Bill proceeds through the House and we are to have an IPC, limiting the number of its members may hamper its effectiveness””.—[Official Report, Commons, Planning Bill Committee, 15/1/08; col. 207.]" As regards fair decisions, that is part of the problem. We do not want to restrict the commission’s ability to look at applications from a number of angles and to restrict it treating them and the people who bring them forward and the local community fairly and objectively. However, I assure noble Lords that we know that the commission has to be sufficiently resourced to make proper, fair and timely decisions. Amendment No. 9 on fair decisions would widen the duty so that the Secretary of State must also have regard to the desirability of ensuring that the commission is able to perform its functions fairly. Indeed, this point was raised in the other place, as I say. On the basis that the explanation was given for why the amendment was otiose, I am content to rest on the same simple arguments. It is a basic tenet of administrative law that any public body, including the commission, must, in performing its duties always act fairly. To identify that it is required to do so weakens a very important assumption. As I say, if we added that to the definition, we would draw a distinction between acting effectively and acting fairly. If the commission were to act in an unfair manner it would, like every other body, be open to legal challenge and held to account in the courts. Its decision could be overturned, which is hardly effective. Therefore, a fair commission will be an effective commission. I understand that the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on the eight-year limit to appointments is a probing amendment, and we do not want to accept it. However, I hope that I can reassure her about the intentions in this regard. We certainly intend that all commissioners appointed by the Secretary of State will be appointed according to the code of practice of the Commissioner for Public Appointments and that up to three commissioners will be nominated by Welsh Ministers. The commissioners will be appointed for a fixed term of between five and eight years, although any commissioner can resign if they give three months’ written notice to the Secretary of State. The purpose of this is to ensure the independence of the IPC such that Ministers can remove commissioners from office before their appointments end only on the grounds of misconduct or incapacity. It is important that commissioners are not constantly looking over their shoulders, wondering whether they might be reappointed. The IPC will be an important body with regard to reappointments, making decisions on projects of national significance. It will be vital in the course of what it does that such decisions will not be affected by an inability to reappoint commissioners when it is right to do so. It is entirely possible, when a commissioner comes to the end of an appointment, after a full and open competition, that he or she is still the most appropriate person for the position. Should the Secretary of State be restricted from making a reappointment that may limit the range of expertise that the IPC can call on? I do not believe so. All appointments will take into account guidance from the Commissioner for Public Appointments, which recommends an upper limit of 10 years. Essentially, we are looking for consistency and the ability to introduce new blood. Amendments Nos. 22 to 25 concern the code of conduct. The main point that was brought up about the code of conduct is that the IPC issues the code, rather than the Secretary of State. Given the importance of the personal integrity and impartiality of the commissioners, Ministers decided that the Bill should include an explicit duty for the commission to prepare a code of conduct. In the other place, my honourable friend John Healey said the Government did not consider a similar amendment necessary. We believe that, as an independent body, it sends the signal of independence for the commission to take responsibility for its own code of conduct. Like any public body, the commission would be expected to follow best practice when drafting a code of conduct, as well as keeping it under review. We have also included in Clause 2(2)(b) a safeguard that allows the Secretary of State to direct the commission to include those matters. The noble Lord asked me what those ““other”” matters might be. I cannot find my note, so I shall write to him on that point, if he will forgive me. That is not an entirely new concept, and I am sure that noble Lords will be reassured that the parallel that we are drawing is with the judicial code of conduct, which is overseen by the Judges’ Council. It was set up in 1873, so it has worn well as a parallel. It is chaired by the Lord Chancellor, and all the judges of the Supreme Court were members. The current Judges’ Council includes representatives from all areas of the judiciary, including the House of Lords. The primary function is to broadly represent the judiciary as a whole, which will inform and advise the Lord Chief Justice on matters as requested, from time to time. One of its functions is to maintain and develop a judicial code of conduct. With that splendid example, I hope that noble Lords will accept that this is something that we want and which serves the visible independence of the commission. I have been rescued, so I shall not have to write. The other kinds of things that Ministers would expect the code to include are the key principles necessary to ensuring that all stakeholders, promoters and interest groups have confidence in the impartiality and integrity of the process. That might include objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, leadership and integrity. Those are fairly common things to find in codes of conduct, including local government codes of conduct, as I recall. The other issue raised was the register of commissioners’ interests. The code of conduct requires the commissioners to disclose financial and other interests in accordance with the procedure established under Clause 3. I think I have picked up most of the questions. Finally, I reiterate that the IPC will be subject to a number of accountability mechanisms. The chair and the deputy chairs will be subject to pre-appointment scrutiny by a Select Committee. Parliament will have a strong role in scrutinising the performance of the commission. Before I address the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—I am grateful for her advance warning, because they are rather technical—I will take up the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, about what sort of projects the single commissioner would do. The best example is probably a small road application. In itself, a critical road junction would not require the full panoply of the three-person panel approach, but because of its significance in that it plays a critical part of the road in question, it therefore becomes a national infrastructure project. It goes to a single commissioner because it is limited in character.