I agree with my hon. Friend, and for the people of Battle Hill this will be not a fun experience at all but a very serious one that will keep their concerns going. That is exactly what the Secretary of State is doing with planning matters in the Bill, and it is why there is such great concern about his proposals.
Local councils, on average, determine householder planning appeals in fewer than eight weeks and non-householder appeals in fewer than 13 weeks. Currently, the averages for such determinations by the Planning Inspectorate are seven weeks and 17 weeks respectively. If the Planning Inspectorate is given additional responsibilities, as set out in the Bill, to take over the designation of failing councils and in setting the viability of affordable housing requirements, that could lead to further delays and worse decisions.
Moreover, by stripping a designated failing council—whatever that might be—of its powers, the Bill will enable developers to have their applications decided by the Secretary of State, without being reviewed by the local authority and with no right of appeal against the Secretary of State’s decision. No wonder the Local Government Association has misgivings about the Bill. There is nothing in it to say what criteria will be used to define a failing council, as has been said a number of times today. The LGA would, quite rightly, rather central Government gave support to councils that might have performance issues ahead of any intervention. I fully support the LGA in its premise that it makes more sense adequately to fund locally accountable decision making than to fund a quango, such as the Planning Inspectorate, to make such decisions.
It is well documented that planning is not the problem for growth. What is actually needed is investment to build houses and infrastructure, and the Bill does not provide scope for real growth. It will weaken the ability of councils to negotiate with developers on desperately needed affordable housing within local developments under section 106 agreements, with, as my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) and the shadow Minister have said, an estimated loss of 35,000 affordable homes a year being built—a statistic that does not bode well for the 4,500 people on the waiting list of North Tyneside council.
With the Bill, the Secretary of State is reneging on his promise to let councillors and communities run their own affairs. May I say as an aside, Madam Deputy Speaker, that that undemocratic attitude is rubbing off on one of his favourites? The elected mayor of North Tyneside, who now, having only 12 members on a council of 60, with 43 Labour members and four Liberal Democrats, has at great expense to the people of North Tyneside engaged counsel to put a new interpretation on the powers of elected mayors, so that she can ignore the two-thirds majority rule. So our mayor, like the Secretary of State, has become something like a dictator, taking decision making away from the majority of democratically elected members and, ultimately, the electorate.
There are many more problems with the Bill, but the fact that it will make the planning process far less democratic and will seriously threaten future housing and infrastructure development, with no real growth—except, as the shadow Minister said, in the Secretary of State’s powers—tells me and, I hope, the House that the Bill should not get our support.
5.49 pm