My Lords, we have Amendments 20, 21, 22 and 24 in this group. Amendment 24 simply requires the Secretary of State to reimburse the local authority any costs it incurs,
“in carrying out directions given under subsection (6)”.
From that point of view we are being somewhat more ambitious than the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, who is simply looking to share the fee.
In Committee in another place, the Minister was taken to task over the rather strange wording of this provision under which the Secretary of State can give a local authority or hazardous substances authority a direction to do things in relation to an application. Such a loose and potentially open-ended obligation obviously gives rise to uncertainty about resources and costs. Later amendments require that there must be set out in regulations the range of responsibilities
which can be imposed on a local authority under these provisions. The Minister in the Commons prayed in aid the planning performance and planning guarantee consultation, which has been much referred to this afternoon. As we have discussed, that consultation has now ended. We may know the outcome by the time we get to Report. The consultation suggests that a small number of administrative functions will need to be carried out locally, including: site notices and neighbour notification; providing the planning history of the site; and notification of any cumulative impact considerations, such as where environmental impact assessments or assessment under the habitats regulations are involved.
The local planning authority would remain responsible for maintaining the planning register. The discharge of any planning conditions would remain the responsibility of the local planning authority. If this is the range and type of functions envisaged, they should be clearly set out and subject to some process. At the very least we need something clearly on the record but the Bill is much more open-ended than this and needs to be constrained.
As for reimbursement of costs, I anticipate that the Government’s response will remain that planning fees will go to the Secretary of State or the Planning Inspectorate and there will be no need for any sharing of these. The logic seems to be that as planning is a loss-making activity for local authorities, notwithstanding the recent increase in fees, they will be relieved of this loss and in any event are funded by way of grant for these activities. Will the Minister update us on the position of grant support for local authorities under the current government settlement, given the draconian cuts that they have endured?
Amendments 21 and 22 seek to make sure that the authority which can be instructed “to do things” is in fact a designated authority and that the applications concern designated authorities. I seek clarification on that point.
7 pm