My Lords, Amendment 13 and this group of amendments are about money and the extent to which local planning authorities will be recompensed for work that they do which is related to applications that have been referred to the Secretary of State as relevant applications. Amendments 14 and 23 in this group also stand in my name and other amendments in the group stand in that of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie.
Amendment 13 is an even more classic traditional amendment, which seeks to leave out “and”. However, the grouped Amendment 14 is rather more significant. It also concerns connected applications. If somebody lodges a connected application with the Secretary of State and the latter, after due consideration, decides that it is not a connected application and sends it back to the local authority—as the Minister assured us would happen when we discussed the previous group of amendments—what happens to the fee that has been paid when that application was lodged and submitted? Is that fee returned with the application to the local authority or is it returned to the applicant and the latter is told to make a new application with an appropriate fee to the local planning authority? This is a technical issue but one that needs to be cleared up.
Amendment 23 refers to Clause 1(6), which, again, is where the Secretary of State takes over an application as a relevant application from a designated authority and gives directions,
“requiring a local planning authority or hazardous substances authority to do things in relation to an application made to the Secretary of State under this section that would otherwise have been made to the authority; and directions under this subsection—
(a) may relate to a particular application or to applications more generally; and
(b) may be given to a particular authority or to authorities more generally”.
One can imagine that it is most likely to happen in the case of the local planning authority which has been designated and which will still be in existence. As lots of local work has to take place, perhaps on consultation or whatever, that authority is instructed by the Secretary of State, no doubt after discussions, to carry out that work. It seems to me that this is a perfectly reasonable way in which the new system might work: namely, that the planning inspectorate has somebody dealing with applications in a particular authority, but dealing with them through that authority’s staff. Perhaps this would be a way of giving support and training to help that authority become more efficient.
In an extreme form, one might imagine the Planning Inspectorate putting its own man in the town hall and that person handling those applications with the help of the council’s staff. It would be interesting to know whether the Government are considering that scenario in relation to designated authorities and relevant applications or whether they will try to run all this—all the local consultation and all the rest of it, including the fact-finding on the ground—through somebody based in Bristol, presumably living in a local hotel for the duration. It would be interesting to know how the Government see this working.
Whatever happens, if the local authority has to do work in relation to an application for the Secretary of State and the Planning Inspectorate, it will cost money. However, the fee for the application will have gone to the Secretary of State. Therefore, my proposed new subsections (6A) and (6B) suggest ways in which an appropriate amount of that money should be handed over to the local authority to enable it at the very least to cover its costs. Otherwise, we will have a poorly performing authority, on the Government’s criteria, which may be robbed of its major source of planning income—the major applications—and is struggling to keep going with its staff. It is very difficult to downsize an authority by, say, 20% if you have only three planning staff. How will this work? How will the Government ensure that authorities are not severely financially affected by being designated? I beg to move.