Planning Bill

As the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has raised the spectre of the amendment, I shall put on the record some of the arguments we addressed in the note that we sent to him. The amendment would allow a person to enter into a planning obligation agreement with a local planning authority on an area of land in which it has no interest. The noble Lord alluded to the fact that it fails to address the purpose of Section 106 agreements, which is to create covenants that bind land. Planning obligations are created to run with land so that they can be enforced against both the original covenanter and his or her successors in title. Allowing someone without an interest in land to restrict development or the use of land, or require payments to be made to an authority through a Section 106 agreement, creates an unfair expectation on the land for those who have an interest in it, whether current or subsequent. That was the key reason why we had a problem with the amendment. If the intention of the amendment is to allow some kind of obligation to be created, a contract agreement can be made between the applicant and the local planning authority without bringing Section 106 into it. The noble Lord asked me specifically about compulsory purchase, but I am not briefed on that in the context of the amendment. I have a note that says that if a Section 106 agreement is not attached to particular land then there is no difference between it and a normal contract governed by normal contract law. Therefore, the promoter must hold land before a Section 106 agreement can be concluded. That seems to meet the point in relation to compulsory purchase. With the noble Lord’s agreement, I should like to read what he has said and see whether there is any way to make that even clearer so that he can go back to the people who were concerned about this issue and address the point properly.