I shall be very clear. The reason I shall be going through the Lobby to vote against the Secretary of State’s motion today is that I believe that decision should be taken by local communities and local authorities, as the other place suggested. Instead of being decided from the centre, it should be decided locally.
That is the reason why, for example, Richmond council called them “very foolish proposals”, and why the leader of Sutton council said that the Government’s proposals were
“a recipe for disaster....If this is allowed to happen it will set neighbour against neighbour and split communities”.
It is why the leader of Bromley council spoke about
“an uncontrolled planning free for all, causing major problems for future generations”
which would
“undermine the rights of our residents to voice their views on what will affect their immediate surroundings”.
And it is why Councillor Mike Jones, who leads on the Local Government Association in this field, said:
“All this policy will do is give a green light to the unsightly and out-of-place small scale developments which have already been turned down because of legitimate local reasons.”
The right hon. Gentleman made an argument about article 4. It is an argument that the Planning Minister made when he appeared before the Select Committee back in October, although as we have heard, article 4 is designed to deal with particular problems in particular places. The right hon. Gentleman said he could not find any examples of people who had been able to claim compensation against their councils, although a fair point was made that councils are reluctant to find themselves in that position. It was rather strange, therefore, that back in September the Secretary of State went to great pains to say about councils that do use article 4:
“If they do that, then a member of the public can seek damages against them.”
That sort of suggests that he was saying, “Well, if you don’t like what your council is doing by using article 4, you can always try to get some compensation.”
2.30 pm
Given the slight contradiction there appears to be, even on the Front Bench, between the Secretary of State and the Planning Minister, will the Secretary of State clarify when he winds up whether he would give consent in every case to applications from local authorities to use an article 4 direction to cover their whole area and exempt themselves from the permitted development rights? If he says no, it is not a remedy. If he says yes, he is making the other House’s case for it, because what it has proposed is a much simpler way of achieving the same effect: namely, giving the local authority the right to opt out of the permitted development right proposal in respect of residential dwellings.
I will keep my remarks brief, because many Members wish to contribute. I simply say to the Secretary of State that it is quite clear that his proposals have not been thought through. We know that they will not achieve the boost to the economy he suggested they would. They have engendered an enormous amount of concern and opposition from Members of the House, organisations, local authorities and others.
I listened extremely carefully to what the Secretary of State chose to describe as his “honeyed” words. To be honest, I was expecting something much more significant. In truth, there was nothing there. He has had all this time, since the consultation closed, and he has been well aware for months of the concern that the proposals have created among many of his right hon. and hon. Friends. With great respect, it is not good enough for him to come along today and say, “Okay, I get the message. Honestly, I am sure that we can work this out. Believe me.”
We have a simple choice today: we have the Lords amendment, which simply states that if a local council does not want to do this, it does not have to; and we have whatever might appear in the other place next
week—I cannot say what that is, and neither can any other Member, because the Secretary of State has not shared with us his thinking on that. On that basis, I urge all Members to accept what the other place has proposed and solve the matter once and for all by rejecting the Secretary of State’s motion and giving local councils the power to take these decisions for themselves, because that would be the localist thing to do.