I agree. It will ensure that important information is provided where it should be provided, within the community.
Lords amendment 15, which amends clause 8, constitutes a direct response to points made with passion and persistence by Lady Parminter, and also by the English National Park Authorities Association, about the precise drafting of our proposal to accelerate the roll-out of superfast broadband coverage. The amendment will ensure that we retain important safeguards that will continue to protect our national parks and other protected areas.
I hope that the House will support Lords amendment 8, which will simplify the process of making local development orders; Lords amendment 16, which will reduce the
period of grace for the registration of town and village greens from two years to one; Lords amendment 23, which will remove ambiguity from development consent orders; and Lords amendment 24, which will enable the Mayor of London to delegate his planning responsibilities.
Let me now deal with the important issue of permitted development rights for home owners. The proposal in question was not part of the Bill as introduced in the House of Commons. I overheard one of my right hon. Friends expressing a desire to vote against it and claiming to have voted against it persistently during all the Bill’s stages in the Commons, but I must point out that this is the first occasion on which it has been before us. It stems from an amendment tabled by Lords True, Tope and Lytton, and I know that it has engaged the interest of many Members of the House of Commons as well. I am grateful for the opportunity to debate the way in which the planning system strikes a balance between the rights of home owners to improve their homes and the right of the state to specify the improvements that they are allowed to make.
Let me now quote, with considerable approval, from a document which states:
“No one today would assert that property rights should be unrestricted but…those restrictions must always be justified and remain as limited as possible… many planners who have grown up with the view that the property owner is only one stakeholder among others. There are too many who act as if they believe that most people cannot be trusted to make decisions themselves without the superior advice and judgement of professionals. Some councillors, too long on planning committees, react to a restatement of the inherent rights of property by fearing loss of control! It is that word which is the key.
Too much planning has become development control… the time and trouble that has been spent on dealing with planning applications for extensions and additions, porches and garages…cannot be seriously said to have been cost-effective.”
Those are the magnificent words of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), together with those of John Gummer, in the wonderful Quality of Life policy group report, published in 2007.