I rise to support my noble friend’s amendment and congratulate him not only on the way he exposed the ambiguities in the Bill but on how he introduced the argument on protection and balance. That is an argument I want to pursue. The amendments that we have just debated have totally exposed the fact that the language of the Bill is a morass of ambiguity. I am thinking of terms such as “have regard to” or “not automatically”, and the suggestion that it should be up to the regulators to interpret the Bill as will suit their best purposes.
In this amendment, we are giving the Government an opportunity to do what they say that they want to do: to have a clear intention of purpose with regard to regulation; to put in the Bill exactly what they mean by
their expectations of regulators; to show that they understand what regulators do, can do and should do; and to put clarity into the Bill that leaves no one in any doubt about the limits to what they can do.
I want to talk about balance and growth in another context—in relation to the built environment and the protections that surround our environment. That is a parallel argument to the one that my noble friend made. One danger of the ambiguity is that it introduces an additional requirement for growth, although the Government say that it is complementary. Will that additional requirement sit alongside or above the existing growth duties that regulators have to implement and which they are bound by law to do? With the National Planning Policy Framework, the Government very wisely embraced the advice of statutory bodies such as English Heritage, which retained the essential point about planning law—that it is a balance between development and protection of landscapes and precious spaces, the ancient and characterful environment with which we all live.
The need for appropriate development in the right place and time is not in dispute, but it is balanced with the need to protect and sustain what this country is uniquely known for. We already have a presumption for growth in the National Planning Policy Framework; in short, we have a duty to promote growth. But that is balanced by a requirement to protect our precious landscapes and the heritage of our built environment. The balance has worked well, and it was very gratifying that, after a lot of discussion, when the National Planning Policy Framework was introduced, it repeated and reflected those traditional, tested balances that had been in the previous planning law. The statutory agencies know how to do that, in the full knowledge that there must be scope for development and a response to housing pressures and the need for infrastructure, but there is also a prior duty to protect what they are there to protect.
All this amendment does—I urge the Government to think about this, because they will get themselves out of a real problem if they do—is to make clear beyond doubt that the duty to promote growth must be consistent with the proper exercise of existing regulatory functions. Everything that I have heard the Government say, in their letters, suggests that it is what they want. So what is the difficulty about putting a clear, unambiguous, crisp statement in the Bill? It is vital that we have that assurance, because it will tell all the practitioners and the country as a whole that the Bill does not change or challenge that balance, and it does not override the scope of the functions of protection. It does not create an unnecessary diversionary distraction in the shape of another growth duty.
If the amendment is not accepted, that will send the opposite signal. It will send a signal to the developers, for example, that there is an imperative of growth, which is undefined—we have, perhaps lost the argument that sustainable growth should have been specified; that would have been infinitely more acceptable and sensible—and that that imperative can be taken to override the other protective functions.
I think that there will be a chilling effect on regulators, because if it is up to them to try to interpret what is meant by a duty to “have regard to” something in the
exercise of their proper functions, they will always be looking over their shoulder. They will always know that there will be a challenge from people who think there is a higher imperative— in many cases, an inappropriate economic imperative.
The local and national authorities will suffer from the same fear—that they are getting it wrong. They will be faced with a further layer of confusion. We all know that what the planning system needs above everything else is certainty. This provision will introduce another layer of uncertainty, and will have perverse consequences. It will cause further delays while people argue about whether the regulator has had proper regard to something. For that reason, it would hand greater scope and power to developers. My great fear is that the balance, which the noble Lord spoke about in relation to health and safety, will also be compromised or lost in relation to the protection of the environment.
We have had a very successful planning system to date, which has been supported by all Governments. The regulatory bodies are extremely experienced, well intentioned and well practised in their duties. Without the simple and incontrovertible logic of the amendment, which spells out what the Government themselves want to achieve, we will introduce more confusion and delay. So I hope that the Minister will listen seriously to the arguments for it.