LAND OF INTERESTED PLANNING AUTHORITIES AND DEVELOPMENT BY THEM (Hansard, 19 June 1991)

§ Mr. Soley

I beg to move amendment No. 127, in page 28, line 29, at end insert— '(9) Notwithstanding the provisions of this section, the local planning authority shall exercise its powers in its full council in cases where the committee (or sub-committee) that would normally exercise delegated planning powers is also the committee (or sub-committee) promoting the development.'. Again, I shall be brief. The amendment deals with cases where the local authority is promoting a development. The amendment requires that in such cases the local authority should exercise its powers in full council. The amendment would ensure closer scrutiny of proposals by local authorities to grant themselves and others planning permission on local authority land and would demonstrate that justice was done. The issue is whether a local authority can allow a development on local authority land. If it grants permission simply in a committee, it does so in a closed system. The committee is open to the public in many cases but its proceedings are not openly commented on by other councillors who are not on the committee.

This issue has exercised the Government before. On 25 July 1990 the Department of the Environment issued a press release. It said: The Government now intends to let local authorities continue to deem themselves planning permission for their own development. This will enable (for example) county councils to continue to provide temporary classrooms without applying for permission to the district council. But there are to be three safeguards. Proposals will have to be fully advertised, decided in public by a committee not responsible for land management, and reported to the Secretary of State if they conflict with the development plan. The amendment is exploratory. It seems to us that there is at least a case for considering that applications should come to the full council when a local authority gives itself planning permission for development on its own land. That is the force of the amendment. I recognise that it is not always easy to structure such a measure, but it seems to us that there is at least an argument for it and we would welcome the Government's view.

§ Sir George Young

There is an issue here and the hon. Gentleman opened it up in his speech. His amendment would require a self-application by a local planning authority, promoted by the committee which would otherwise determine such an application—normally the planning committee—to be decided instead by the full council.

We consulted on this matter a year ago. We asked local authorities about deemed planning permission. We canvassed two options on this point. We proposed either that a service committee should not be able to determine self-applications relating to land and buildings under its control or that all such self-applications should be determined by the full council, which is the effect of amendment No. 127. After considering consultees' comments on this point, the Government concluded that the first option was the better one.

There were two reasons for this. We were persuaded by the argument that the planning committee was usually the better forum for taking planning decisions. This argument was put to us by the Association of Metropolitan 386 Authorities, the Association of County Councils, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Royal Town Planning Institute and English Heritage. They convinced us that the planning committee was less likely than the full council to be influenced by non-planning matters such as political or financial considerations.

Secondly, there was the question of delay. Planning committees usually meet more often than full council. Indeed, in the shire counties it is common practice for the full council to meet only quarterly. So we decided simply to make provision that the committee or sub-committee promoting the development proposal could not also determine the planning application. We intend to achieve this in regulations which we shall be making under new section 316, and we propose to consult on those regulations before making them.

The amendment would require that the development proposals promoted by the planning committee be determined by full council. That is undesirable for the reasons that I have just mentioned. The regulations that I have mentioned will prevent a planning committee from determining its own self-applications but will otherwise leave it to the local planning authority to decide how the application should be determined. It may want to put such an application to the full council or to a policy committee or other special committee. I think that that is a better and more flexible solution. I hope that, on reflection, the hon. Gentleman will not press the amendment.