Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 434A: 434A: Clause 195, page 120, leave out lines 18 to 33 The noble Earl said: Amendments Nos. 434A and 434B have been tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Glentoran because they relate to the transfer of powers to the Welsh Assembly. That might sound strange, because my noble friend comes from and lives in Northern Ireland, but he is the opposition spokesman not only for Northern Ireland but also for Wales. So, with my Scottish background, I shall move these amendments on Wales on his behalf. Before I discuss the substance of the amendments, I register a protest that it was necessary to debate them at all. Clause 195 transfers primary legislative competence from this place to a subordinate legislature, the Assembly in Cardiff, yet the clause was not debated on the Floor of the other place. Due to the Government’s programme, any debate on this topic was restricted to a small Committee of Members. It should not be acceptable for Parliament to give away its powers without a full and proper debate in both Houses, not least the elected Chamber. On 12 December 2007, in Committee, Paul Murphy, a former government Secretary of State for Wales, said: "““I do not believe for one second that we should be rubber-stamping … legislation for devolution, because we would not be doing our job as Members of this Parliament. We must scrutinise such matters properly for the purpose of correctness, certainly, but also to establish whether we think that there is a case to be made for the particular powers, whatever they might be, to be devolved to the National Assembly””.—[Official Report, Commons, Welsh Grand Committee, 12/12/07; col. 27.]" If that was true then, it remains so now. We should not be in the business of handing away powers from this place for the sake of it. A strong case must be made for doing so. Why has the Assembly asked for these powers? What case has it made for needing them? My amendments would remove those parts of the clause which refer to proposed matters 18.2 and 18.3 under Part 6 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. Part 6 requires Welsh Ministers to produce a national spatial plan for Wales, to which local authorities must have regard when preparing their local development plans. That spatial plan sets out the policies that Welsh Ministers think appropriate in relation to the development and use of land in Wales. Proposed matter 18.2 will give the Assembly legislative competence, "““in connection with the review by local planning authorities of matters which may be expected to affect ... the development of the authorities' areas, or ... the planning of the development””," of such areas. Proposed matter 18.3 will give the Assembly competence to make provision in connection with local development plans and the removal of, "““requirements of any such plans””." However, the fact that Welsh Ministers have made an application for primary legislative competence does not automatically mean that such competence should be granted. I see no compelling case for the devolution of primary competence in respect of matters 18.2 and 18.3. As my colleague David Jones said in another place in February: "““The Welsh Assembly Government have shown themselves over the years to be both acquisitive in terms of power and highly centralising. I am concerned that the powers that they seek under the clause will enable them to operate in an even more highly interventionist manner as far as local planning authorities are concerned. I do not believe that it is a function of this Parliament simply to hand over primary powers to the Welsh Assembly unless a strong and compelling case has been made””.—[Official Report, Commons, Planning Bill Committee, 5/2/2008; col. 668.]" Will the Minister address both the substance of my amendments and my concerns about the lack of debate and scrutiny they have so far received? As a post script, when I was reading this clause, I noted with interest that it says that, "““‘local planning authority’ in relation to an area means … a National Park authority””." I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, would be very pleased with that, although he is not in his place. I beg to move.