Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill

HL Deb 27 January 2004 vol 656 cc100-67

3.8 p.m.

The Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Lord Rooker)

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Rooker.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]

Clause 16 [Local development documents]:

Baroness Maddock moved Amendment No. 91A: Page 9, line 28, at end insert— ( ) a strategic planning statement;

The noble Baroness said: This amendment to Clause 16 concerns local development documents. The aim of the amendment is to formalise the link between the local development framework and the regional spatial strategy, and to ensure that the local development framework takes account of transport, minerals and waste planning functions, which will be carried out by only the higher tier authorities. We believe that it is absolutely essential that local development frameworks bridge the gap between local and strategic planning by preparing a strategic planning statement. This statement should seek to integrate the strategic policies within the regional spatial strategy with the needs and the aspirations of the local community.

This issue was discussed in another place. When countering a similar amendment there, the Minister referred to the core planning strategy, which will be one of the statutory documents that will make up the development plan. The status of this document is not clear. Guidance and secondary legislation are quite likely to be the chosen ways to introduce this strategy. Many people, including the CPRE and other such groups, are concerned that this strategy will not address the need to bridge the gap between the regional spatial strategy and the local development framework. We would like to see a planning statement. We believe it is essential and that should be given a statutory footing to ensure that it has the status as a key tool in bridging the local and the regional planning issues.

Given that higher tier authorities are responsible for minerals and waste planning, it is vital that these matters are fully integrated into the local development framework, and that they are not carried out in isolation. I hope the Minister will be convinced at this stage of the need to have this important matter in the Bill. I beg to move.

Lord Hanningfield

Our names are added to this amendment. We have discussed the link between these strategies several times during the course of the Bill, and we are going to discuss the issue again. I would like to add our support to what the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, has just said.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, said she hoped I had been convinced by her argument. I am not convinced, sadly from her point of view. As I see it, the amendment would add a strategic planning statement as one of the documents that must be specified in the local development scheme as a local development document. The effect of this would be to require every local planning authority to produce a specific statement regarding strategic planning in their area. We think that is unnecessary. It will be covered by requirement that every local planning authority should have a core strategy. This will be set down in Part 2. We do not think that we should require every local planning authority to produce yet another planning document, especially if it is unnecessary. In this case it clearly is unnecessary.

As the noble Baroness anticipated, the core strategy will set out the strategic objectives and the key elements of the planning framework for its area. After all, the core strategy is the central document in providing a link with the strategic regional policy set out in the regional spatial strategy and local planning policies. It is a requirement that the core strategy, along with other local development documents, should be in general conformity with the regional spatial strategy. The core strategy, in providing the key strategic link at local level with the regional spatial strategy, will also need to take account of the needs and aspirations of the local community. That is one reason why local planning authorities will have to have regard to the community strategy in preparing its LDDs.

It is also important that due account is taken of local transport plans. That is why I am proposing local development documents. Local planning authorities will be required to have regard to local transport plans under the regulations made under Part 2. We do not see a value in requiring yet another document when the Bill and regulations will ensure that local planning authorities set out their strategy in a DPD and that the link with the strategic policies in the regional spatial strategy is already there and has been created.

It is not an essential document; it will not add anything, and in any event this issue can be more and better finessed in the regulations to be made under Part 2. I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment having heard that.

3.15 p.m.

Baroness Maddock

I am somewhat confused by the Minister's logic on this. On the one hand he is saying that the Government do not want an extra document; on the other hand he is saying that this document will actually be there and it will be called the core planning strategy, which is what I talked about in my opening statement.

The whole point of what I was saying is to make sure that it is on the face of the Bill. The Minister has just argued for not having a document which, as far as I can see, local authorities will have to have in any event. I listened to what he said and at this stage of the Bill I beg leave to withdraw the amendment but I am sure we will return to this.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 91B: Page 9, line 33, leave out "(however expressed)

The noble Baroness said: This takes us to an expression which we have already debated: the term "however expressed" as applied in this case to the authorities' policies in Clause 16(3). This was tabled before we debated another amendment in the context of regional spatial strategies, but it seemed to me helpful to ask one or two more questions about it.

When we debated what the term means earlier in the Bill, the Minister confirmed that it did not mean—I think I use his words correctly—"policy by mouth". He described the limitations in the context of Part 1, which deals with regional spatial strategies. Reading his explanation, it seems that it was more about what is meant by "spatial" than what is meant by the term "however expressed".

The Minister in the Commons said on the same amendment: the phrase … is necessary to get beyond the land use development and control elements of the documents and to gain the wider spatial dimension".—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee G, 16/1/03; col. 218.]

I wonder if the Minister could expand on that, because I am not entirely sure that I understand it. I can see that Mr McNulty might have had a point, but how one gets from there to "however expressed" I still find a little difficult. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm what this means and what it does not mean in the context of this part of the Bill.

I wonder too whether he can confirm the precedent that was referred to in our earlier debate, which Hansard records, as paragraph 17(3) of Schedule 2, part 2, to the 1990 Act. I do not think that that can be correct—or perhaps it was too late and I was not seeing straight when I tried to find the words in that part of the 1990 Act. I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

I do not think that there is much more I can add to what was said when we debated this on Clause 1. I do not see too much point in repeating the arguments. This expression is not uncommon in legislation. The noble Baroness said that she could not find it. She should be looking at paragraph 17(3) of part 2 of Schedule 2 to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. I think the noble Baroness said Schedule 3.

Baroness Hamwee

Part 2.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

Part 2, Schedule 2. My noble friend Lord Rooker tells me that the noble Baroness said part 3. That is where it is found. It is not an uncommon expression in legislation. Our view is that deleting it, as the amendment suggests—and I do not think the noble Baroness wants it deleted—would limit the scope of local development documents to those traditional policies delivered through the planning permissions process.

I thought that we had clarified that for the noble Baroness. Regrettably, it appears that that is not the case. There is nothing else to be said. I thought that I had made our position clear.

Lord Avebury

As, apparently, it causes difficulty to look up the provision in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, will the Minister kindly tell the Committee the context in which the words were used in that provision? Will he simply read out the provisions of paragraph 17(3) of the schedule that he has just mentioned? That would be helpful.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

I would love to be able to do exactly as the noble Lord asks, but I have not got the context with me. I shall probably have to drop the noble Lord a note, which I shall share with both opposition Front Benches or anybody else who is particularly concerned about that issue or the words as they are printed in the Bill.

Lord Tordoff

It may well be common usage in legislation, but we have still not heard from the noble Lord what it means.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

I made it plain at the outset that we gave an interpretation in our previous debate. I do not see much point in going over old ground. I am sorry that the noble Lord will not be happy with that answer, but that is the case.

Baroness Hamwee

I wonder whether I should weary the Committee with paragraph 17(3), which, as I read it, says: This paragraph shall not be construed as enabling any objections to be made to any part of a unitary development plan which consists of provisions of a local plan that are not subject to alterations as mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)". I am not trying to undo what is here; I am genuinely trying to answer the question that my noble friend Lord Tordoff put. I would welcome more assistance after this stage. If I may say so on a point that has been made and, I am sure, will continue to be made, whatever precedents there are, if the term bears explanation and bears fleshing out in the legislation, it will make the legislation easier to follow. I am not suggesting that it is the only precedent that can be found, but it is the only precedent quoted. The fact that it is buried in a schedule to the 1990 Act makes my point for me.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

Is the noble Baroness concerned that the expression is loose and woolly and enables things to be made up as one goes along? If it is, I am sure that we could clarify the point for the noble Baroness with a note. If that is the worry, I am sure that we can get to the root of it quite simply.

Baroness Hamwee

I think that I said in the previous debate that I was not sure whether we were talking about policies "however expressed" or "wherever expressed". The clause says: The local development documents must … set out the authority's policies". That is a very broad term. I know that we have talked about having regard—if that is the right term—to the community strategy and so on, but any local authority will have an enormous set of policies, and the authority's policies "however expressed" are to be taken as read into the development documents. It is both issues. What makes up a policy? What document does it need to be a policy? I accept that it should not be policy by word of mouth. What document incorporates the policies? Are we talking about an authority's policies in the round with regard to all its functions and activities?

Lord Bassam of Brighton

I shall try to clarify. We are talking about documented policies and the policies that are set out in the local development document. That is about as clear as we can be, and I hope that that helps the noble Baroness. If there is still a problem, we will produce a note that expresses the situation more perfectly.

Baroness Hamwee

The precedent would be helpful. I shall not pursue the point this afternoon. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 91C not moved.]

Lord Lucas moved Amendment No. 92: Page 9, line 34, at end insert— ( ) All the local development documents taken together are to be regarded as the "development plan" for the purposes of section 54A of the principal Act.

The noble Lord said: The thing about Committee stage is that one can start with the answer and move on to questions as necessary. I beg to move.

Lord Rooker

That is a nice precedent, and I am happy to comply with it.

Amendment No. 92 raises two important points. The first is whether local planning will be more effective if local planning authorities are restricted to preparing local development documents that are part of the development plan. The second is what the legislation for the development plan and the plan-led system will be under the new arrangements.

We think that our approach to the new planning arrangements is a practical one. It maintains the plan-led system, and it will ensure that the most important policies, including any site allocations, are in a development plan document and are, therefore, part of the development plan. It is also useful, as I said in an earlier debate, for local planning authorities to be able to prepare local development documents that are not part of the development plan. The official title of such documents is "supplementary planning documents". They will be able to expand on the policies in the development plan documents that established the initial policy framework. The supplementary planning documents will be faster to produce, and the procedures will be simpler. The difference is that there will be no independent examination. That was the key distinction between the two, as I explained with regard to another amendment.

We hope that local planning authorities will be able to respond more quickly to local needs and changes, via the supplementary planning documents, and fill in the finer points for action in smaller areas already identified in the development plan documents. They will cover diverse issues and can be in different formats, as the local planning authority wants. They could be, for example, practical advice notes, design briefs and other details on policy to assist developers and the community; they could be that kind of explanatory note. It is unrealistic to think that a local planning authority will not produce material beyond the development plan, the one that has been subject to independent examination. It will want to produce other "daughter documents", if you like, by way of explanation. They will be supplementary planning documents.

Everything must be clear and understandable, as the documents are there to help the public. The whole thing could be packaged together in the same loose-leaf folder-type arrangement, with two documents—the development plan and the supplementary planning documents. That is why I ask the noble Lord not to pursue the amendment. It will assist planning authorities to have the capacity to produce those other documents.

Lord Lucas

I found that immensely helpful. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 93 had been retabled as Amendment No.91C.]

Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 93A: Page 10, line 3, leave out subsection (7).

The noble Baroness said: I shall neither speak to nor move Amendment No. 93B. Amendment No. 93A would leave out subsection (7), which is another reference to regulations. The purpose of the amendment is not to oppose regulations, but we suggest that the definition of local development documents that are local plan documents and details of their form, content and production should be in the Bill, not in secondary legislation. At any rate, I wish to understand better than I have been able to so far what is meant by subsection (7).

At the moment, each local planning authority has a single development plan. In the future, we are looking at a package that will differ between authorities. Not every item will have the status of a development plan document. In Committee in the Commons, the Minister said that it was essential for the Secretary of State to have the power to make regulations to define which local development documents were local development plans to get a common standard among local authorities on form, content and timing. I have tabled the amendment to tease that out. I am unclear about what is meant by "content". It cannot mean the detail of the content—otherwise one would have exactly the same planning system across the whole country, and that would be a nonsense. In committee in the other place, the Minister, Mr McNulty, said: 'Form and content' means the formal shape that the documents should take and what should be included in them and it covers headings and sub-headings".—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee G, 16/1/03; col. 219.] That seems to be more about form than content. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me a little more on that point. I beg to move.

3.30 p.m.

The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara)

I should point out to the Committee that if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 93AA or 93B.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

I will describe what the amendments seek to achieve, which I hope will satisfy some of the noble Baroness's curiosity.

Amendment No. 93A would have the effect of removing the Secretary of State's power to prescribe in regulations which development documents are development plan documents, the form and content of local development documents, and the time at which steps must be taken to prepare those documents. The effect of Amendment No. 93B would be similar. The amendments would remove an important power for the Secretary of State to prescribe in regulation details associated with the identification and preparation of local development documents. In our view, development plan documents need to be separately distinguished. They are local development documents, which need to be independently examined before they are adopted by the local planning authority.

In order to allow for flexibility in the new system and to meet the need for clear policies, development plan documents may take different forms. Regulations may prescribe which development documents are development plan documents. Each authority must have a core strategy covering 10 or more years. There will be a proposals map, showing which land is to be developed or conserved. Authorities may choose to have one or more area action plan, perhaps showing in greater detail what will happen in areas where there will be much change or which are to be kept as they are. Those will be development plan documents, which, together with the regional spatial strategy for the area, will form the development plan.

We ask how, without clear criteria, people will know what documents will be examined and what documents will be part of the development plan. For example, we have made it clear that documents dealing with the allocation of land will be development plan documents. It is right that documents that affect property rights should be independently tested.

Authorities will also be able to set out more details of their main policies or their policies on accessibility or design. The documents to which that provision will apply will not be development plan documents. In the draft regulations we have called them supplementary planning documents, or SPDs. They will not require independent testing. To ensure that those elements are put in place within a reasonable time, each authority will have to prepare and stick to a project plan, setting out what documents it will prepare and a timetable for their preparation. That will be known as a local development scheme.

The point of having these provisions in the form of regulations is to make clear exactly what is required. Having them in regulations will also ensure that, in the light of experience, we can amend them and provide flexibility. We aim for a light touch in these matters and to provide local authorities with flexibility in creating local development documents. However, it is right, of course, that everyone should know what to expect and that provisions are contained in the Bill to cater exactly for those aims. A good example of that is to make clear what documents are development plan documents.

In our view, these provisions are necessary for a clear understanding of the new system. Having heard that explanation, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Lord Avebury

I suggest to the Minister that because many of the phrases that are said to occur in the regulations do not appear in the parent Act, it would be helpful to have a glossary of terms. In that case, anyone who is unsure as to exactly where the action plans fit into the general scheme could look up the terms in a separate list, instead of having to scrabble through the Bill while the Minister is speaking, only to find that his phraseology does not even appear there because it is in the regulations. I personally would find a glossary very useful.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

On this occasion I am instantly persuaded, not least because in reading through the Bill I have from time to time lost myself in the miasma of the terminology, as I am sure other Members of the Committee have. I shall consider the noble Lord's suggestion with a view to providing a glossary of terms, which I think would be very useful.

Baroness Hamwee

I am grateful to my noble friend. At a previous stage I asked whether the Government would consider engaging someone who knows nothing or next to nothing about the subject to check through whatever is eventually to be made available for the public. A guide to the terminology would be extremely useful. It is not adequate for it to be implied to us, or said to professionals or others outside the House, "If you tried harder, you would be able to understand it".

The Minister has quite reasonably commented on my amendment. It is my fault that the amendment does not make clearer what troubles me. I shall, of course, read what the Minister has said. I am not sure that it answers my questions. However, I shall not pursue the matter today and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 93AA: Page 10, line 4, leave out paragraph (a).

The noble Baroness said: As our discussion has developed, it has become clear that whereas we used to have plain, straightforward documentation within the unitary development plan, and perhaps the accompanying documents, we have a complete mess in relation to development plans and development documents. The Minister has rightly said that we shall need a glossary of terms for the miasma that we are now encountering, which is quite extraordinary. The more questions that we raise about these development plans and documents, the greater the confusion that arises.

Under this clause I have tabled an amendment—it is not entirely the same as that proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—to leave out paragraph (a), which potentially would cut out a loophole that exists in this legislation. Without this amendment, there is a danger that local authorities' policies set out in their local development documents will be disregarded in the regional spatial strategy or spatial development strategy.

We have had a good deal of discussion about regulations, and an enormous amount seems to be left to regulations. We will accept those, as long as they describe the form and content of the local development documents and perhaps the timing of the steps and the preparation of such documents. However, we are not willing to accept that the Secretary of State should have the power to decide which local development documents should be included as development plan documents.

The Secretary of State must make clear on the face of the Bill which documents will make up part of the development plan. As the development plan documents are either the regional spatial strategy or the spatial development strategy, depending on which is being considered, and as the Secretary of State has the power to decide which of the local development documents go to make up the development plan documents, there exists a possibility that the Secretary of State could decide not to include any of the local development documents and thereby discount the policies of the local authority altogether. If the position is as I have described it—I do not say that it is, but it could be—it would be entirely unsatisfactory, and I therefore look forward to the Minister's explanation. I beg to move.

Lord Rooker

If the only reason for the amendment is to ensure that the Secretary of State may prescribe none of the documents as local development documents, I may as well sit down. That would be a nonsense. It is not a remote possibility.

I have referred to the kinds of documents that should be covered in regulations. It is important to classify them as local development plan documents because they will be subject to independent examination. So there can be no equivocation about what is and is not subject to independent examination. What will not be subject to independent examination are the supplementary planning documents to which I referred in the debate on the previous amendment.

We want to cover the issue in regulations—which is the purpose of this part of the clause—to enable us to deal with changing circumstances and to adapt to them in the light of experience if that is sensible. I had hoped that the explanation given in the notes on clauses would have been satisfactory. There is no prospect of allowing the Secretary of State to pick and choose which local development plans will be the development plan documents; the regulations will set out the categories in advance. That is referred to in subsection (7).

The Secretary of State will not be allowed to pick and choose but it is important that we should classify the kinds of documents which will be subject to independent examination. If in the light of experience and circumstances we need to change that, it can be done by regulations without having to come back to primary legislation. That is the only purpose for this provision. Honestly, there is no hidden agenda to avoid classifying any of them as development plan documents.

Baroness Hanham

I thank the Minister for that reply. I still believe that there is a problem in not having the local development documents on the face of the Bill. If the regulations are to prescribe or indicate what the Secretary of State believes, presumably there could be the potential for more and more documents to be included under regulations. That means that this will not be the end of the story. One has to question the complexity of what we will end up with.

Baroness Hamwee

I wonder whether it is pertinent—or perhaps impertinent—to ask what documents the Government have considered as likely candidates but not included in their draft regulations.

Lord Rooker

Is that a question for me? I am looking at subsection (7). My speaking note on the amendment covers about 100 words in total. The amendment is very active and seeks to remove the Secretary of State's power to prescribe in regulations the kinds of local development documents that must be development plan documents. It is important that he should have that power in order to make them subject to independent examination. I have already covered the principle and benefit of having supplementary planning documents that are not covered by the requirement for independent examination.

We are covering the issue by regulation—that is all this little clause is about. Well, it is not such a little clause. I realise that. It does not go to the heart of the Bill in many ways. If experience shows that we need to move quickly by regulation to change the classification of certain documents, it gives us the flexibility to do so. That is all this is about.

I cannot embellish on it—although I am about to, having been handed a note. This sets out our policy on what documents the local planning authority should have. This is in the Green Paper and policy statement regulations that gave effect to that policy. I do not understand that. I shall stick to my original speaking note.

All we are talking about is having the facility and capability to change by regulation the definition of which documents should be covered by the classification of development plan documents and therefore require independent examination. Supplementary planning documents will not be covered by that requirement. They will deal with other matters. Over time, it might be thought more appropriate that issues raised in some supplementary documents should be subject to independent examination. They would therefore be reclassified as development plan documents. That would be carried out under subsection (7)(a), which the noble Baroness seeks to remove. I hope that I have made the case for retaining it.

Baroness Hanham

All we are asking the Government to do is to ensure that the documents that are to be included are on the face of the Bill. The Minister has said that the documents will be included in regulations and so, at some stage, people may decide to stir things up and have another go at what is or is not a development document and what will or will not go to an independent inspector. We shall come back to the issue of the independent inspector later. We are a million miles apart.

4.45 p.m.

Lord Avebury

Is it not clear that any document which concerns the development or use of land has to be a development document? As the Minister said, it is only documents that deal with the generality of planning policy and do not directly affect the use or development of land that can be supplementary documents. Having asked the noble Barnoess whether that is her undertstanding of the difference between the two, would it not be helpful if the Minister could at some point—not in answer to the amendment—give examples of the different categories of documents?

Barnoess Hanham

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention but it serves only to add to my perplexity about this. As I understand it, documents can be recategorised under regulations. The reason for having them included in regulations is in order that the Minister can recategorise them at will and probably without further consultation. As I said, we are a million miles apart on this. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 93B not moved.]

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 94: Page 10, line 12, at end insert "or

The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 94 seeks to make it clear that a document is a local development document either if it is adopted by resolution of the local planning authority or if it is approved by the Secretary of State. By this means it would be not necessary to obtain the Secretary of State's approval for a document if it had already been passed by a local planning authority. The Bill as it stands is ambiguous as to whether both the Secretary of State's approval and a resolution of a local planning authority are necessary, or only one of these.

I understand that the Minister in another place undertook to consider this matter further. I hope as a consequence that the amendment will be accepted. It would be absurd if the Secretary of State had to agree to every local development document. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister would be swamped with paper and, far from increasing speed and efficiency, the planning system would grind to a halt. It would be centralisation at its worst, with the Government sticking their nose into highly localised issues of which they have little knowledge.

Surely if a document has been adopted by resolution of a local planning authority as a local plan of development, that is enough unless it decides that it wishes it to be approved by the Secretary of State. I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

I understand that the amendment has been debated once, perhaps twice, in another place—first in Committee and then on recommitment in the Commons.

It seeks to insert the word "or" between paragraphs (a) and (b) of Clause 16(8). We believe that it is unnecessary. If Clause 16(8) is read together with Clause 22, which deals with the adoption of local development documents, and Clauses 20 and 26, which deal with the Secretary of State's powers of intervention and default, it is clear that paragraphs (a) and (b) of Clause 16(8) are not cumulative but alternatives. The provision simply states that there are two routes by which a document can become a local development document in its final form—it can be adopted by the local authority or, in the case of development plan documents only, approval must be given by the Secretary of State. Only one can apply to any local development document or part of such a document at any one time. Far from it being excessively onerous or bureaucratic, we contend that the process is clear. It is about alternatives not the accumulation of a position. There is possibly a misunderstanding, but I hope that that explanation provides some necessary clarity for the noble Baroness and that she will be able to withdraw her amendment.

Baroness Hanham

There are potentially two words missing from the clause. The Minister said that "or" is understood, but "and" could also be understood. Neither word is in the Bill. I cannot see any reason at all why the Minister is not leaping up and down to accept my amendment so that it is made abundantly clear that "or" is included. That is clearly what the clause means, and if that is so, why cannot we include the word? The clause could perfectly well be read as including "and". There are two paragraphs; (a) and (b), but it could also read (a) or (b)—the clause does not say which. I would have thought that, in the interests of clarity, it would be much more sensible to do as my amendment suggests and include the word "or". That would make it beyond peradventure so that people would not have to go rummaging through the rest of the Bill to find out what the clause means.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

If it helps, we will have another look at the drafting.

Baroness Hanham

On that basis, I will wait to see what the Minister comes up with, but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 95 not moved.]

Clause 16 agreed to.

Clause 17 [Statement of community involvement]

Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 95A: Page 10, line 16, at end insert "and shall consult during its preparation persons who appear to the authority to have an interest in matters relating to—

1. (a) the use of land;
2. (b) development; or
3. (c) the community strategy,

in their area

The noble Baroness said: Grouped with this amendment are Amendments Nos. 95B, 99A and 99B. Amendment No. 95A would include consultation provisions that an authority should observe in the preparation of its "statement of community involvement". I am suggesting that authorities should consult people who have an interest in the use of land, development, or the community strategy. I became increasingly confused about whether the statement of community involvement was a development plan document or was one for only limited purposes and whether it was subject to independent examination. Clearly, if it is not—although draft PPS 12 says that it will be subject to examination—there is more need for consultation in its preparation. There is clearly a need for consultation anyway.

The terminology in the amendment, the use of land; development", takes us back to our debate on the first day of Committee and on to Amendment No. 95B, which deals with the difficulty that some of us had about whether development in the context of this Bill was the same as that defined in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990—the Minister said that it was. Section 55 of that Act states that development includes, material change in the use of any buildings or other land", which could mean other buildings or other land.

Amendment No. 99A would make it clear—clearer than I am managing—that the statement of community involvement should be the subject of independent examination. Amendment No. 99B would leave out subsections (4) and (5) of Clause 17. The amendment probes whether subsection (5) refers only to the statement of community involvement. The clause states: But in section 19(5)(a)— (a) the reference to section 18 must be construed as if it does not include a reference to subsection (2)",

and—or perhaps that should be "or"— (b) the reference to section 23(1) must be ignored".

I once had a client who had a very difficult meeting with one of my colleagues. When he got back to his office he sent my colleague a bottle of aspirin. I feel that aspirin should have been dispensed by the Government before they got us into all this. I know that drafting sometimes has to be complex in order to be correct and precise, but many of us are left with our heads spinning. I beg to move.

Lord Rooker

We have moved on to a slightly different issue in Clause 17, so it may be useful if I make a few general points before commenting on the amendments. Community involvement in planning is crucial. It is one of the new elements in the Bill. The statement of community involvement is an innovation—there is no question about that. We want an accessible and transparent planning system in which people can participate at the beginning, not wait until something turns up on their doorsteps. We genuinely believe that community involvement will lead to a better outcome. There is no doubt that communities can get wound up and invigorated and thereby create better decisions.

I want to make it abundantly clear that the purpose of community involvement is not to stop development. It is of course a challenge in that respect but we think that the investment is worth it. The best local authorities and developers recognise that it is a much better and more efficient way of going about development. Our approach is based on people having access to information and being able to express their ideas or participate in the process of developing the local documents. We do not simply want a checklist approach that encourages the minimum compliance.

There must be boundaries to the process, because we do not want consultation to be used as a reason for putting off decisions. The local authority is the decision maker at the end the day. Although they may not always like it, local councillors are the ones making the decisions. They sometimes like to be able to say, "We would rather turn this down, let it go to appeal and let the Minister decide", because that would make it easier to face the local community. However, they would be likely to take that view only if there had not been a genuine community involvement in which people understood the issues. There is a requirement on local authorities and councillors to show leadership in this process.

We are developing several principles to underpin our approach to the statement of community involvement. It must be fit for the purpose of making arrangements for the different levels of planning. We want to create early participation so that the system is front-end loaded. We want to recognise differing needs, especially those of hard-to-reach groups in the community. People must be kept involved, so the statement should not be a snapshot. It must also ensure that people know when they can participate and when is the appropriate time for their participation to be effective. There must be proper planning of the community involvement process. It is a key innovation.

The statement of community involvement is a statement of the local planning authority's policy for involving interested parties. It will describe how the local planning authority will implement the minimum standards in regulations and will include any extra measures that the local authority intends to adopt. Of course there will be an independent examination of the statement of community involvement. Certain benchmarks would be looked for in a sound statement of community involvement. It should show that the local authority is meeting its legal requirements, so that we can avoid any unfortunate disputes. It should set out the strategy and how it links to other initiatives. It should identify the groups of people who need to be involved and the mechanism for getting them involved. It should show how the results of the consultation and the involvement have fed into the process for preparing the local development documents; that is a valuable point.

Now that I have made those general points, I shall deal with the amendments. Amendment No. 95A requires the local authority to consult interested parties on the statement of community involvement while it is in preparation. We agree on the need for involvement. There is no difference between us on that. This will happen because the statement of community involvement is a local development document and therefore subject to the consultation procedures, which are in the draft regulations and guidance. It is also subject to statutory independent examination, as we have described earlier. Therefore, the consultation requirement is not needed on the face of the Bill. It will happen. It is implicit in the process that we have set up.

The consultation arrangements in the regulations include consultation with specific bodies and the opportunity for anyone to make representations when the statement is submitted for examination. The Bill provides the opportunity for anyone who has made representations to be heard at examination. There is plenty of scope for involvement.

Amendment No. 95B adds a few words to Clause 17(2). I understand the point made by the noble Baroness and, while we do not think we need the words suggested, I shall look at this and come back to her. She makes a fair point.

Amendments Nos. 99A and 99B come from the Benches opposite, although they have not spoken to them. They would mean that the statement of community involvement was not subject to public examination. I am not casting aspersions on a probing amendment but we cannot exclude the statement of community involvement from the examination process. It is very important to test it, to make sure that it is sound and to allow representations to be heard. It is not intended to put extra burdens on the local authority. However, it is right that a policy on community involvement is subject to testing in front of the community. I hope that there is general agreement that this innovation is a good idea. I have given a general view of how we intend to operate this part of the new policy. I hope that colleagues find this explanation helpful.

4 p.m.

Baroness Hamwee

The Government should issue a Minister to give an explanation with every copy of the Bill that is sold. It would be much easier than reading the clause.

I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation and, in particular, for his comments on Amendment No. 95B, which pick up a point initially raised by my noble friend Lord Greaves. The general description of the objectives and nature of the statement of community involvement made my point for me on Amendment No. 95A. I think that I have followed the process which ought to require that what I am suggesting happens anyway. I am grateful for the Minister's response. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 95B not moved.]

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 96: Page 10, line 21, at end insert— (2A) A statement of community involvement shall not seek to impose any greater obligation upon an applicant for planning permission than that contained in or made under the planning Acts, or support the refusal of planning permission because of a failure by an applicant to comply with any such obligation.

The noble Baroness said: This amendment is designed to prevent a statement of community involvement imposing additional obligations on applicants for planning permission or the refusal of planning permission because a developer has failed to carry out non-statutory consultation. Does the statement of community involvement impose consultation obligations upon developers? Do they have to have a consultation on each development or is it just the local authorities? I see the Minister shaking his head but he may like to respond to that.

On the whole, we are highly supportive of involving communities in the planning process. Indeed, my own local authority already undertakes considerable consultation on individual applications and on its strategies; the statement of community involvement will be an add-on. We recognise that the involvement of the local community and those affected by developments may not be universally as well provided and we understand the Minister's requirement for a statement of community involvement.

However, it is important that we also keep an eye on the burdens that such statutory consultation will create. We must ensure that the costs of producing a statement of community involvement do not grow to such a level that they outweigh the benefits. In this context, given the amount of documents that will go to independent scrutiny or to independent inspectors to be looked at, presumably there will be a vast increase in the bureaucracy in the appeals section in order to deal with the mammoth amount of paperwork. That is an aside to the amendment, but I could not resist raising it at some stage. I beg to move.

Lord Rooker

The noble Baroness has raised an important point and it is fair to get it on the record. We attach great importance to community involvement in applications. Local authorities and developers must work closely with communities on planning applications. Effective community involvement at the early stages can increase the quality of the decision. That takes time, but it is better to get decisions right, rather than having them dragged out to appeal.

The point I must make is that the statement of community involvement is a statement of the local authority's policy. That is what it is about—the local authority's policy. The provisions of the Bill do not place any direct obligations on developers or other persons who wish to take part in the planning process. It is not a backdoor route to placing unnecessary burdens on those interested in the planning process. It is not intended to do that. The Town and Country Planning Act and the general development procedure order set requirements on a local authority to publicise planning applications and to take into account representations received. There are different publicity requirements for different types of application.

I hope that I have said enough to show that we are not making extra burdens. So far as appeals are concerned I cannot speak for the Planning Inspectorate, but I understand that it has great aims to increase vastly its productivity.

Baroness Hanham

Well, there is a thing—to increase the Planning Inspectorate's productivity over and above what it does already and to get its decisions out even more quickly. That would be even more excellent.

I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of this as there has been some concern that there would be a statutory requirement on developers to provide a statement of community involvement before each major development. That is what one expects them to do, to ensure that they have some support from people round about; but, of course, that does not always happen. It is reassuring to know that this is not what is expected with this. It is quite clear from what the Minister has said that the statement of community involvement is a policy statement on how consultation on planning applications by a local authority will take place. With that explanation, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 96A: Page 10, line 21, at end insert— (2B) Persons shall include town and parish councils, businesses and business organisations and residents, amenity and environmental groups in their area, whether or not incorporated.

The noble Baroness said: We have touched on this matter already; the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, mentioned it. I shall outline some slightly different groups from those that she included.

The proposed amendment sets on the face of the Bill a list of the groups that should be included in the preparation of a statement of community involvement. Clause 17(2) says that the statement of community involvement should be a statement of the authority's policy to, persons who appear to the authority to have an interest in matters relating to development in their area".

It is an extremely broad definition. Clause 17 would benefit from this amendment, which would clearly set out the groups that must be covered at a minimum. That would include town and parish councils, businesses, business organisations, residents' amenity associations and environmental groups in their area regardless of whether they are incorporated. Any statement of involvement that failed to incorporate the views of these groups would necessarily be incomplete. It is important that the Bill emphasises that a diversity of soundings must be taken. I beg to move.

Lord Greaves

Amendment No. 96B, which is in the same group as Amendment No. 96A, covers very similar ground. I shall therefore be extremely brief in speaking to it. It would be extremely helpful if the Minister could make it absolutely clear who is included as persons thought "to have an interest" in the matter. I look forward to his reply.

Lord Rooker

I think that I can satisfy the Committee on both the generality and the specifics. In the draft regulations we have covered many of the bodies that would be specific consultation bodies; there is a list on page 5 of the regulations. As I said, the statement of community involvement is a statement of the local authority's policy on involving people. We have made it clear that local authorities would be expected to tailor their statement of community involvement to the specific needs and character of their areas. That applies to development of the statement itself. It has to be fit for purpose and, as I said, it should identify the groups relevant to the local area that should be involved.

We think it impractical to list on the face of the Bill the groups that may lay a claim to having an interest. Obviously the statement has to meet the legal requirements. One needs to look at the statement of community involvement alongside the legal requirements in our draft regulations for consultation on local development documents. Specific and general bodies must be consulted. "Specific bodies" include relevant authorities, which includes parish councils as well as other authorities; general bodies including bodies representing the voluntary sector; business; bodies representing the interests of disabled people; ethnic, racial or national groups; and religious groups. It is a fairly comprehensive list.

Any person can make representations on a local development document. So the statement of community involvement must show how the local authority intends to consult with the bodies listed. On the other hand, even if a body is not specifically listed, it can still make representations on the document. The statement has to show how that can take place even if it is for an individual.

There are consultation and notification arrangements for planning applications in the general development procedure order. Parish councils are among those who must be notified. Of course, they can make representations under these arrangements. We are not changing the position at all.

Finally, I remind the Committee that the statement of community involvement has to be tested at the public examination. So if an interest group thought that it should have been included with the statement of community involvement but had been omitted from the draft, it could make representations to that effect. So there is a process for ensuring that you get on the list. If you are not on it to start with, you can still make representations.

Baroness Hanham

I think that that is an eminently sensible reply. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 96B not moved.]

4.15 p.m.

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 96C: Page 10, line 21, at end insert— (2C) An enterprise zone authority, urban development corporation, housing action trust or the urban regeneration agency shall prepare a statement of community involvement with respect to any functions falling within subsection (2) which it has power to exercise.

The noble Baroness said: I have tabled these amendments to make sure that where there are urban development corporations, and in fact any other bodies with development control powers, they should also have to prepare statements of community involvement. I had a quite interesting experience the other day when someone pointed out to me that the electricity companies have development powers in the Energy Bill. I presume that that applies also to other—I was going to say statutory undertakers, but that is no longer correct—people who provide energy. The Minister may like to respond to the point. If so, however, those also would be included in my amendment. I can see no reason why anyone with development control powers should be excluded from making a statement of community involvement.

Why should a council have to prepare such a statement and any urban development corporation or anyone else with development powers not have to do so? Community involvement is a vital exercise when developing local plans. In keeping with the Government's overarching desire to have a transparent and fair planning system, will the Minister concede that that is a reasonable revision—or perhaps tell the Committee that the Government have no plan to disapply this clause for urban development corporations? The point is even more important when one considers all the development that will take place under the sustainable communities plan which affects vast swathes of the country. Moreover, as I said, the electricity companies will also have development powers in the Energy Bill. I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

I make no apology for agreeing that we need to have strengthened delivery methods for delivering our objectives in the growth areas. The issue is selecting the right type of vehicle and ensuring that each one fits the need. We absolutely agree that there must be consultation on proposals. We consulted fully on proposals for the Thurrock UDC, and we are now consulting on proposals for the London Thames Gateway, Milton Keynes and west Northamptonshire.

The amendment would require an enterprise zone authority, urban development corporation, housing action trust or the urban regeneration agency to prepare a statement of community involvement where it has the power to exercise any function under Clause 17(2). Those functions are preparing local development documents and determining planning applications. It is only fair to say that, as they stand, the amendments would not work. As I think we have discussed, for the purposes of the process of preparation, a statement of community involvement is treated as a local development document. So it would have to allow those bodies to prepare local development documents in order for them to prepare a statement of community involvement. However, I accept the noble Baroness's point of principle. It is very important, but it is not so much a matter of the technical drafting of the amendments.

The bodies in question can be given powers to determine planning applications. They would have to determine the application in accordance with the development plan drawn up by the relevant local authority unless there were other material considerations. So the framework within which the delivery vehicle operated would have been subject to the involvement processes that have already been discussed.

Perhaps I may take each of the delivery vehicles in turn. A local authority can be invited by the Secretary of State to prepare a scheme for an enterprise zone under Schedule 32 to the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980. Where an enterprise zone scheme is adopted, planning permission is granted automatically for development specified in the scheme. So an enterprise zone scheme is actually owned by the local authority.

As far as the process of consultation goes, the critical point is when the scheme is proposed. It is inconceivable that a proposal for a scheme would not be considered in a local development document. The statement of community involvement covers that process. Indeed, Clause 25 of the Bill requires local authorities to revise relevant local development documents if an enterprise zone scheme is designated. Secondly, the legislation for enterprise zones contains requirements for draft schemes to be publicised and for representations to be made and properly considered.

If an urban development corporation is given the powers to determine applications as a local planning authority, then it also follows that the requirements placed on a local planning authority in respect of procedures to follow when determining the application apply also to the UDC. As we have already discussed, there are requirements for publicity, the notification of planning applications and enabling representations to be made. Those will apply also to a UDC. UDCs also have to draw up a code of conduct for consultation with the relevant local authorities in their area.

We are quite clear that community involvement is key to the successful operation of UDCs and we agree with the view that UDCs must ensure that local community thinking is put at the heart of UDC programmes. We will ensure that UDC guidance and targets reflect that. Thurrock Council, for example, will be fully consulted on the guidance.

The Urban Regeneration Agency is now part of English Partnerships and we are consulting on a proposal to make an order to give the URA planning powers in respect of an urban development area in the Milton Keynes growth area. As with a UDC, if the URA is the local planning authority for the purposes of determining planning applications, it will have to meet the requirements for consultation. Again, notwithstanding the legal requirements, we are emphasising absolutely the need for that delivery vehicle to involve the community. English Partnerships already has a strong track record on the matter.

The existing housing action trusts were set up in 1992 to 1993 and have well established arrangements for consulting their tenants and stakeholders. Indeed, one could argue that they would not operate effectively without such arrangements. Therefore, any proposals to make them prepare formal statements of community involvement would be addressing a problem that does not exist. Furthermore no HATs have been given planning powers and we have no plans to do so. The noble Baroness has raised an important point of principle, even if the amendment does not work. But I reiterate our absolute commitment to ensuring that the delivery vehicles meet the spirit of the statement of community involvement philosophy for community involvement, even though the existing arrangements are more than sufficient to ensure that we do all that we can to import the full SCI process into the legal framework under which they operate.

So, I am grateful for the amendment. It has given us a useful opportunity to make a statement of our policy and intent and to clarify some of the confusion that the noble Baroness may have had about our approach. She asked about electricity companies having development powers. Utility companies cannot make decisions, but they may have permitted development rights for operational works. I do not think that their scope for development goes any further than that.

Baroness Hanham

I am grateful for the detail of the Minister's reply, which I shall read and ensure that it covers all the points that have been raised. I would be grateful if he could take my point about the electricity companies a little further, because my reading of that clause in the Energy Bill was that they did have development powers. If they did, and it were specific to the electricity companies, they would need to be encompassed somewhere in the general points that the Minister has described.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

That is an interesting point. My understanding is that they have limited permission rights which are essentially there for operational reasons. However, if the reading by the noble Baroness of that clause is right, we might well want to look at what the electricity companies might have to do to ensure that there is adequate community consultation. She made a useful point which I will happily pursue and respond to.

Baroness Hanham

On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 97 to 99B not moved.]

Clause 17 agreed to.

Clause 18 [Preparation of local development documents]:

Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 99C: Page 10. line 41, leave out paragraphs (b) and (c).

The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 99C, which is another probing amendment, would leave out from Clause 18, which deals with the preparation of development documents, subsection (2)(b) and (c). I do not really wish for that, but merely seek to understand how the reference lies with a later part of the Bill. Subsection (2) states: In preparing a local development document the local planning authority must have regard to … the RSS for the region … if the area is outside London; [or] the spatial development strategy if the authority are a London borough or if any part of the authority's area adjoins Greater London".

We find that in Clause 23(1) and (2) the local development documents have to be "in general conformity" with the RSS and the spatial development strategy. Clause 23(2) requires opinions to be requested about conformity. I am not seriously suggesting that the planning authority should not have regard to the RSS of the spatial development strategy, but can the Minister help us with the nice distinction between the processes that a planning authority has to go through to be "in general conformity" as distinct from "having regard to"? I beg to move.

Lord Rooker

I accept, as the noble Baroness said, that this is a probing amendment. It would remove the requirement for local planning authorities to have regard to the regional spatial strategy or spatial development strategy for any part of its area when preparing the local development documents.

The planning system is based on a framework of national policies, the regional spatial strategies and the local development documents. Each level in that structure needs to have regard to the strategic levels above. That provides for sensible vertical integration within the system. We need to ensure that local planning authorities consider all the relevant strategies and policies affecting development in their areas; and they need to ensure effective links between local and regional planning to ensure the best planning outcomes. Spatial strategy is all about that integrated approach.

The use, development and planning of land at local level cannot, or should not, occur in a vacuum. To achieve sustainable spatial results the local development documents must have regard to the relevant regional strategies and policies. Planning policy statement 11, which we discussed earlier, ensures that the regional spatial strategy should set out sufficiently clear sub-regional objectives and policies to enable those people preparing the local development documents to consider any key strategic sub-regional implications of proposed development. For example, transport issues in the local development documents should be consistent with, and informed by, the regional transport strategy, which will be an integral part of the regional spatial strategy.

Therefore, the amendment would severely weaken good planning for the local authority's area. It would also weaken the regional spatial strategy, if that was not taken into account at local level. The amendment contradicts what has been said about the need to strengthen regional planning.

The general conformity provides a link between the regional and local level. It ensures, for example, that the regional spatial strategy, or, as appropriate, the mayor's spatial development strategy, is properly translated into policies at the local level. Without a general conformity requirement which exists at present in relation to the strategic—

Hang on a minute. I have an acronym in my notes which I refuse to read out.

Noble Lords

Oh!

Lord Rooker

I have not done that once, yet, and I am not going to now. I apologise. I shall have to get around this. The acronym must refer to the—

Baroness Hanham

Have a break.

4.30 p.m.

Lord Rooker

I cannot. There has to be a test of a general conformity. Without that, the strategic planning cannot be effectively delivered. We need that test in any effect.

Once the ground rules have been set, the local planning authority can prepare its own policies and proposals reflecting its community involvement and appraisal of sustainability—it will of course need to do that—provided that the local development document remains in general conformity with it. That is a test of general, not detailed, conformity. We shall make it clear in the final version of planning policy statement 12 that the Government's policy is that only where a local development document would cause significant harm to the implementation of the regional spatial strategy should the local development document be considered not to be in general conformity.

I shall read out the final paragraph of my briefing anyway. The chain of conformity between the local development document set out in the draft regulations simplifies the application of the test of general conformity. The core strategy should generally conform with the spatial vision and strategy in the regional spatial strategy or the spatial development strategy. As we move down the chain of local development documents, we would expect fewer interventions in respect of general conformity.

Having put all that on record, I expect a lot fewer amendments on Report. I am sorry about the hiatus, but I was faced at short notice with an acronym that I did not like. I hope that I have given a satisfactory explanation of why it would be dangerous to remove the need for local planning authorities, in preparing the local development documents, to have regard to the spatial development strategy or the regional spatial strategy for any part of their areas. The tiered levels need to be linked.

Lord Avebury

Having listened carefully to the Minister's explanation, I am none the wiser. My noble friend asked him what I thought was a perfectly simple question, which was why, if we have the provision in Clause 18(2), we also need that in Clause 23(1). If the local authority has done what it is told to do in Clause 18(2)—if it has had regard to "national policies and advice" and, the RSS for the region"— surely that means that it must be in conformity with the RSS. Surely that must be so unless what the Minister said means in effect that, having had regard to the RSS, the local authority has decided to ignore it, so that the development documents that it produces are not in conformity with it. I do not know whether that meaning can be ascribed to "have regard to".

Lord Rooker

I will be happy to give more detail on Clause 23 when we get to it, but there is a test of general conformity. Obviously the amendments are probing—I do not say any more than that—and colleagues may be opposed to the principle of the test of general conformity. However, I do not think that they are. The general conformity test provides an important link between the regional and local level. That link may be considered unsatisfactory.

I have said that it is a test of general conformity, not detailed conformity. We will make it clear in the final version of planning policy statement 12 that the Government's policy is that only where a local development document would cause significant harm to the implementation of the spatial development strategy or the regional spatial strategy should the local development document be considered not to be in general conformity.

In Clause 18(2), there is a need to have regard to that as part of the process of preparation. In Clause 23, conformity is when the document is prepared, so it is a check at the end of the process. That is the best explanation that I can give at the moment, but if there is more to be done on the matter I can deal with it when we come to Clause 23.

Baroness Hamwee

I would put it the other way round from my noble friend. If there has to be general conformity—we are certainly not suggesting that there should not be—what does "have regard to" add? I cannot help thinking that if Clause 18(2)(b) and (c) were not there, and if we had tabled an amendment to include that on the way to general conformity the local planning authority should have regard to those items, we would have been told that that provision was unnecessary. The Minister clearly has some sympathy with that point of view.

My serious point is to understand whether the local planning authority needs to do something particular at the relevant stage that complying with Clause 23 does not of itself provide. The Minister was quite right, of course—it was a probing amendment—and in the absence of any more paper winging its way to him I had better beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 99D: Page 11, line 3, at end insert— ( ) the local transport plan for their area;

The noble Baroness said: I shall move the amendment, but I think that I recall the Minister explaining the situation a bit earlier, so forgive me if I am covering repeat ground. When preparing local development documents, local authorities should have regard to, the local transport plan for their area". That is what the amendment suggests formally. I think that I remember the Minister talking about that.

In reality, authorities will take transport plans into account, but there may be some reluctance to include them where a document might have been prepared by a county council. I do not know whether there is any sensitivity about that. Surely the county council's strategies on transport, education, housing, health, employment and major investment would all be worth "having regard to". I beg to move.

Lord Rooker

As the noble Baroness said, I have covered the matter previously. We agree with the intention behind the amendment, but we do not think it necessary. The nature of the relevant documents can alter, even in the space of a few years. I am told, for example—I was not aware of it precisely—that local transport plans did not exist until 1998. It is better to set out only a broad framework in the legislation, because the Secretary of State has the power in Clause 18(2)(j) to prescribe other matters to which authorities must have regard.

Annexe B of draft planning policy statement 12 also makes it clear that, under the new planning system, the integration of transport and spatial planning is central to the development and delivery of effective local development frameworks. To deliver integration, local development documents should be consistent with the local transport planning policies for their areas.

We agree with the intention, and that intention will be carried out in practice, but it is not necessary to put it in the Bill in such a way.

Baroness Hanham

I appreciate that the Minister had covered the ground earlier, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Maddock moved Amendment No. 100: Page 11, line 7, at end insert— ( ) the housing strategy prepared by the authority under the Local Government Act 2003 (c. 26);

The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 100, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 101 and 102. I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in whose name Amendment No. 101 is tabled, is not in his place, so it might be appropriate for me to keep my comments to myself; I do not know.

I may get a similar answer to the answer to the previous amendment. The purpose of my amendment is to ensure that the local authority has regard to its own housing strategies in drawing up the local development document. The content of local housing strategies and local plans overlap. The local housing strategy is underpinned by local assessment of housing needs, and local plans deal with the amount and location of new housing for private sales and affordable housing. Unfortunately, housing planning departments are often inconsistent, and sometimes we see conflict. I hope that this amendment will create a strong incentive for authorities to reconcile their planning and housing policies.

If there is improved clarity for authorities and their stakeholders, there will be fewer disputes. This is especially important in respect of planning applications for housing developments. We know, from the Minister's statements on many occasions, the importance of addressing the shortage of housing in this country. That is why I am so keen to get this in the Bill. We also need a culture of positive planning for housing. We need to reinforce the mutual importance of planning and housing in achieving sustainable development.

There are various reasons why this is important. Most of us believe that areas with a good mix of housing types, affordable rented, shared ownership, and owner occupier, create more stable neighbourhoods. Often when housing developments come forward, a combination of public and private funding is needed to create affordable homes. Local plans that consider local housing need to create a better basis for local authorities, housing associations and private developers to reach agreement. The Government want to see that.

Lots of reasons have been given for the problem of delivering local housing, and many believe that the delivery of affordable housing is being hampered by inconsistencies between the local plans and the housing strategy. This gives the opportunity for all sorts of appeals against decisions. The choice and range of affordable housing could be managed much more successfully if housing and planning strategies were put together. I hope that the Minister will understand and at least agree with the sentiments behind Amendment No. 100.

I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is trying to achieve in Amendment No. 101, and I have a great deal of sympathy with it. Often, we build affordable housing, and it quickly becomes unaffordable after a period of a few years. There are one or two schemes around the country where people have tried to do something about it. It is an issue that must be dealt with. However, it is not an issue that can be dealt with in this Bill. Planning authorities do not really have the main role in determining the price of property, but the noble Lord raises an important issue. Local authorities often do not provide the new housing, and again it is therefore difficult for them to control the price of property.

I agree with Amendment No. 102 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best. The noble Lord has a lot of experience in these matters. If my own amendment were accepted, because housing need assessments are part of local housing strategies and they underpin them, the matter would be covered by Amendment No. 100. I will listen with interest to what both noble Lords say about those amendments. I beg to move.

4.45 p.m.

Lord Lucas

I was waiting for the noble Lord, Lord Best. My amendment does not have the same practical applications as that of the noble Baroness, Lady Maddox—at least not at the moment. It follows on from my own research and from Kate Barker's interim report. She has effectively demonstrated the economic disadvantages that flow from increasing housing prices. If I remember the figure correctly, GDP is £10 billion less than it would have been if we had not had that phenomenon. We all know that the Chancellor is concerned with the effect that the dynamics of our housing market have on our possible entry into the euro, that it is something that is now big enough and difficult enough to affect the way in which our economy flows. Perhaps people are starting to get obsessed with housing as the right place to put their money because they are not as confident as we would like them to be in financial investments and in the stock market.

These are real economic disadvantages. Investing in housing and relying on an increase in the value of housing is not an economic good—it is speculation. At the end of the day, it must end. We have somehow convinced ourselves that rising house prices are beneficial. Over the past 20 years the result has been that the average household has been able to afford a house 20 per cent smaller than used to be the case. It is a lot more valuable, but it is smaller. We ought to see housing as something that we use, rather than as an investment.

The people who are winning out of this are the landowners, the people who are selling their land into the market, and the people who in other ways are involved in land speculation. It is nice that some people are winning out of this, but it is not where we should be trying to direct economic benefit. We are also in the business of transferring wealth from the young to the old. We are putting ever-increasing burdens on young people, who are trying to build up their interest in property with an expanding family, or just wanting to live better. They are finding it harder and harder to afford the sort of house that they would like.

The people who are benefiting are those who are downsizing. We are transferring wealth from the young to the old. For many in this House, that may be a good idea, but it is not a good idea for the economy as a whole. As Kate Barker develops her ideas and they gain support from the Treasury and from other branches of the Government, we will see some determination to do something about this, to try to find a way of ending this endless spiral of house prices.

In this amendment I propose that the benchmark that we should aim at is retail price inflation. That way, with us all doing, with any luck, slightly better than retail price inflation over the years, we can look forward to being able to afford bigger, better, nicer houses, rather than being able to afford smaller houses, which is what is happening at the moment. It would have many economic benefits too, as Kate Barker has demonstrated.

How are we to achieve this? We cannot achieve it, as the Chancellor is finding, through operating the big levers of state. The property market is not responsive to that—it is only part of the economy anyway. So many other influences come to bear. He cannot stick up stamp duty forever; he only has some blunt instruments. What is needed is something that bears on the supply of property. Demand is essentially generated by people and is, to some extent, out of the Chancellor's control. Government and local government have a substantial effect on supply. It is planning policies that determine how much, and where, land is available for development and how much gets developed. If we can have some lever on supply, we have some hope of maintaining over time a reasonably steady house price. Obviously, many influences, demands and considerations come to bear on whether planning permission should be given in any individual case. However, if you include an objective alongside those such as design and sustainability that house prices should remain steady, and if that is held to over time, people will not pay high prices for their houses. If you say, "Today is the bench-mark date. We will not allow, by and large, house prices to run far ahead of inflation", why should someone pay a price 20 per cent above that bench-mark? They know that if they do they will lose money in 10 years and that the planning authority will probably take action to reduce the price. People will not be inclined to chase house prices in the knowledge that they will lose money.

By that demonstrative action, the Government could have a very calming effect on people's expectations of the return that they will get from investment in housing. Without having to pull vast levers and shift vast amounts of money around, one will alter people's belief and understanding of what investment in property is supposed to entail. I do not expect the Government to make any motions on that today, but it is a direction and a subject that I hope to have the opportunity to explore over the next couple of years, until we get around to doing something about the Barker review and its consequences. I shall be delighted to hear what the Minister says on the matter today. If he is entirely opposed to the proposal, at least it will stop me wasting my time.

Lord Best

I speak in complete support of the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Amendment No. 102, tabled in my name, would amend Clause 18 to require the local planning authority, when preparing a local development document, to have regard to "meeting housing needs". That is a slightly broader approach to that taken by Amendment No. 100, but it shares that amendment's aim of putting housing on the face of the Bill.

Why should housing receive such attention? The reason that the amendment is necessary flows from the importance in the planning system of meeting housing need. That is one of the key purposes for which we have a planning system and is one of the key reasons for the Government to seek to reform that system through this Bill.

I underline points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, about the necessity for easing housing shortages, which is a core motive behind the Government's desire to reduce the delays and hassles that often characterise UK planning at present.

I welcome hugely the Government's commitment to address the dramatic decline in housing supply at a time of growing housing demand. As Kate Barker of the Bank of England shows in her brilliant interim report for the Treasury, to which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, referred, there is a gap, growing by about 39,000 homes each year, between the number of new homes built and the number of new households formed each year. UK housing output is now back to the levels of the 1920s, yet household formation, caused principally by all of us living longer; the growth of single-person households, comprising those who have not married or who have divorced; and international migration, particularly for jobs in London, remains on its upward path. The resulting shortages create economic and social problems: acute house price inflation and volatility in all areas of high demand; the worsening phenomenon of the two-hour commuter journey, so ruinous to family life for many in the south of England; the impossibility of recruiting teachers, nurses and other key people needed in many parts of the south east and west; the pricing-out of local people from many rural areas; and homelessness and overcrowding back to record levels.

The gap between housing supply and demand is destined to keep growing unless the barriers to supply are successfully addressed. Planning is not the only reason for housing output falling so far behind, but it represents a significant ingredient. Achieving housing objectives is utterly dependent on the planning system, yet this Bill does not mention the meeting of housing needs as a key consideration for any of the participants.

By making "meeting housing needs" formally a consideration in statutory forward plans, my amendment would ensure the connection between housing and planning. It would underpin the Government's good intentions for, a step change in housing supply as set out in its excellent Sustainable Communities Plan of last year.

The amendment does not create a legal obligation on local planning authorities that could be enforced in the courts, but it represents a foot in the planners' door for housing champions, not least those in local authorities who must draw up the local housing strategy, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, and the subject of Amendment No. 100. My amendment would mean that planners would have to consult housing colleagues, providing a chance for joining up those strategic objectives.

The amendment is not just about affordable housing, although I hope to return to that subject later in the Committee's deliberations; it is about identifying and addressing shortages in the whole housing market—requirements for owner occupation, rented housing and housing such as shared ownership in between. A full housing market assessment would be an essential part of the pre-production strategy of the local development framework.

There are precedents for requiring planning authorities to have regard to specific issues. The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 requires consideration, and thereby draws attention to, the conservation of the natural beauty and amenity of the land". The Environment Act 1995 specifies wildlife and cultural heritage and, opportunities for … enjoyment of the special qualities of certain areas". The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill will require, in Clause 38, that anyone exercising a planning function shall take on board the sustainable development agenda.

The Minister may argue that planning guidance can cover all that. However, even in draft planning policy statement 12, the guidance that covers local development frameworks, there is no reference to linking housing and the local housing strategy to local development documents. That would buttress the PPG3 guidance on affordable housing and the PPG7 guidance on rural issues, which covers housing. Planning policy statement 12 mentions issues relating to the community strategy to which the plans should have regard. The list includes transport, education, health and waste management but, to my surprise, it excludes housing.

By putting "meeting housing need" on the face of the Bill, the amendment would fill a gap, sending out a strong signal that planning is as much about housing as anything else, and that those with planning and housing responsibilities need to work together. It represents a unique chance to join up policies in the huge task of ensuring, at the very least, that the growing deficit between the number of new households that want a home and the number of homes built does not rise inexorably at its present alarming rate.

Lord Monson

I wish to comment on Amendment No. 101, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which is interesting. This time last year I would have supported wholeheartedly the noble Lord's proposition that, in an ideal world, house prices should rise no faster than the rate of inflation. However, a few months ago, several noble Lords were discussing, as people do, the horrendous rise in house prices in London, not on the Floor of the House but at the long table. The noble Lord's colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, forcefully made the point that it was illogical to expect house prices to rise no faster than inflation: rather, one would expect them to rise in line with average earnings. Most of us conceded that the noble Baroness was talking good sense. After all, as people become gradually richer in real terms over the years, they naturally want to spend more of their money on their homes and can afford to do so. Over a 25-year period, one expects average real earnings to double at least. But I would refine the noble Baroness's assertion by substituting post tax earnings for earnings pure and simple.

It is easy to forget that 25 years ago, in January 1979, the top rate of tax on earned income was 83 per cent. Most merchant bankers, bond dealers, City of London solicitors, captains of industry and so on paid tax at 83 per cent, or at least 75 per cent. Now, as we all know, thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, the top rate is no more than 40 per cent. That, together with the internationalisation of London—tens of thousands of people, most of them wealthy, pouring into London and settling here—explains why house prices in the more desirable parts of London, and even some of the less desirable parts, have not merely doubled or trebled, but at least quintupled in real terms.

I agree with the proposition that one should discourage people speculating on ever-rising house prices. It makes life intolerable for younger people. Those of us with children and grandchildren will be well aware of this. However, I think the noble Lord is being over-ambitious in trying to link house prices to the RPT. He might possibly come back at Report stage with an amended version of the amendment, substituting the average earnings index for the retail prices index.

5 p.m.

Lord Rooker

I do not wish to be discourteous, but this is the longest debate that we have had this afternoon, and I could give the shortest possible answer to it. It is in the last paragraph of my speaking notes. However, it does not fully cover the points of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I appreciate that his amendment is in a different league from the other two.

The Bill already gives noble Lords what they want. Under Clause 18(2)(a), the local planning authority must have regard to national policies, and so would have to have regard to planning policy guidance 3 policies on housing, and to any policies on planning change. There is a requirement on the face of the Bill for the local authority to have regard to national policies, including housing policy in the broadest sense, where such policy statements exist. That is a positive point. It would be discourteous if I did not give more detail on that matter.

There are some key issues to be discussed. I was in Bedfordshire today, discussing with local authorities in the Milton Keynes/South Midlands growth area some of the issues relating to growth. We need to grow in a planned, sustainable way in order to meet many of the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, and the noble Lord, Lord Best. The list covers policy documents and strategies that may impact on local planning policies. Clause 18(2) covers a number of matters to which the local authority should have regard.

Amendment No. 100 would require the local planning authority to have specific regard to housing strategy prepared under Section 87 of the Local Government Act 2003. We agree that the local authority should consider its housing and planning strategies together as a matter of course. They must do so. Our new planning arrangements would strengthen the links between housing and planning, as well as with other important strategies and policies.

The effective integration of strategy is a key objective of the new system. The local planning authority must take into account other relevant policies and strategies at local and regional level. We now have regional housing policies through the work of regional housing boards. Planning has a key role in contributing towards us achieving the successful, thriving and inclusive communities that we want. We must learn the lessons from the past, when we built what were sometimes unsustainable communities.

We have just finished consultation on updates to planning for housing guidance set out in planning policy guidance 3. There were entitled Supporting the Delivery of New Housing and Influencing the Size, Type and Affordability of Housing Consultation has now been closed, and we hope to publish a final policy statement this summer. Planning policy guidance 3 already places great emphasis on the links between strategies, and this has been strengthened in the updated version.

I do not wish to fob off noble Lords—I would not dream of doing that—but we are going to get a fairly large housing Bill later in the Session, so we are going to be able to debate some of the key issues relating to housing. This planning legislation is not the most appropriate mechanism for listing all the local strategies. If we were to do that, the legislation would become difficult to change; the nature of the documents could change as well. We have set out only a broad framework in the legislation, describing the relevant documents in general terms, and leaving it to the policy statements of good practice guidance for specific documents.

This deals with all the issues raised, except possibly the specific point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I understand why he has raised it, but I admit that I do not have an answer for him today.

The reference to community strategy in the clause is an exception to the rule. It is a statement of an authority's strategic vision for the area and the context of all the subject-based strategies, policies and programmes. Our draft guidance on local development frameworks in planning policy statement 12 proposes various strategies to be considered. I will ensure that the final version of the document includes appropriate references to housing strategy. That is an important point. Under Clause 18(2)(j), the Secretary of State has powers to prescribe regulations, matters which authorities must have regard to. We have been consulting on these regulations.

The clause deliberately does not specify policy objectives such as those set out in Amendments Nos. 101 and 102. Policy objectives can be transient, although in this case they are not. We are setting out broad principles. It would cause problems if we had to change primary legislation every time we wanted to change a policy objective.

What noble Lords are asking for is in the Bill. Local authorities must have regard to national policies, and those national policies on housing are being set up now. They are being updated and consulted on. In the department's general guidance there are the policies that relate to the sustainable communities plan, and these may apply both to the wider growth areas of the south-east and the market renewable pathfinder areas of the north. I will have more to say about that matter in a few days. National policies will then be enunciated on how we intend to implement them.

As the clause is drafted, local authorities must have regard to those national policies. Therefore, what is required by the amendments is covered in the Bill, although not in the specific terms.

Baroness Maddock

I thank the Minister for his reply. Very often, delivery of housing takes a long time. People dispute decisions. I shall read carefully what the Minister has said. I hope that that will reassure me that developers will not be able to appeal because the local authorities are not clear enough in what they are doing.

I am grateful to the Minister for saying that he will "beef up" the guidance to ensure that housing strategies are mentioned. The noble Lord, Lord Best, did not disappoint me when he too raised that issue. It is important to ensure that local authorities get the message that their plans must be consistent. If they are not, we shall encounter the same problems of delivery on the ground and many appeals by developers.

I shall read carefully what the Minister has said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 100 A to 102 not moved]

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 102ZA: Page 11, line 12, at end insert— (2A) For the purpose of the exercise of its functions in this section, a district council in an area where there is a county council must seek the advice of that authority. (2B) The authority must give the district council advice as to the exercise of the function.

The noble Baroness said: This is a small amendment which seeks to achieve the opposite of what was agreed by the Minister earlier. County councils should be able to pass their views upwards. We seek here to ensure that the district council is in a position to advise the county council so that the district council's plans are taken into account in structure plans, or whatever ultimately is done by the county council, to be sure that, as far down the line as possible, the views of the authorities are reflected in the regional spatial strategy and all the plans which go with it. I beg to move.

Lord Hanningfield

I rise to add a word to what has just been said by my noble friend Lady Hanham. This amendment has been sponsored by the County Councils Network and is, I repeat, in line with the Government's own amendment providing that the counties will now have to advise on the regional spatial plan. It is only right that county councils should also reach downwards and advise on district plans. It is obvious that the Government should accept the amendment because it is totally in line with their own earlier amendment which is now part of the Bill.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

The amendment is not completely in line with what we have agreed. We have set out our position on this. Amendment No. 109H would in effect make county councils in whose areas there are district councils local planning authorities for the purposes of Part 2 of the Bill. I do not know whether that was the intention of noble Lords opposite, but that is what the amendment would achieve. Amendment No. 102ZA would require district councils to seek advice from county councils when preparing their local development documents, and in turn it would require county councils to give that advice. So the amendment is a little more of a straitjacket.

We have made clear our views on the role of county councils. Obviously it is sensible that county councils and other authorities with strategic planning expertise should make available to the principal planning authority their advice on strategic issues, but to have the same requirement for preparing local development documents is not as sensible. District councils have long experience of preparing local plans without a statutory requirement to seek advice from county councils. No doubt district councils will benefit from information provided by county councils through their survey functions, and regulations will require county councils to make that information available to district councils as the local planning authority.

County councils will be involved with every local development document as part of the statutory consultation process, and can form a joint committee with one or more of the district councils in their locality to prepare local development documents in partnership.

Given all that, it is difficult to see what constructive purpose might be served by Amendment No. 109H. Part 2 makes it clear that local planning authorities are responsible for preparing local development documents. Specifying that county councils are to be local planning authorities would cut right across that and for that reason is not acceptable.

While we want to see a constructive relationship between the two levels of local government, we cannot have the situation outlined in one of the amendments whereby, in effect, we would have two local planning authorities. That is not tenable and I am sure was not the intention of noble Lords opposite.

5.15 p.m.

Baroness Hanham

I hear the Minister's reply. What we sought was to ensure that county councils seek advice from district councils. However, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply which I shall read in HansardI beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 102A: Page 11, line 17, after "must" insert ", in addition to complying with section 38,

The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 102A would provide that the local planning authority should cross-refer Clause 18(5) with Clause 38, covering the general overarching duty towards sustainability. We shall discuss that clause in detail later today. I am sure that sustainability will require more than an appraisal. We want to see it being "mainstreamed" into all that is done by a local planning authority and so I wonder whether appraisal is enough. When one details certain mechanisms, there is a risk that sometimes they will be regarded as the only ones required.

I have tabled the amendment in part to understand whether, under the provisions of Clause 19, the inspector undertaking the independent examination is required to consider the sustainability appraisal which the local planning authority must carry out. I do not suggest that appraisal is not a good thing, but stressing the importance of observing sustainability principles in everything one does in the same way that, by analogy, local authorities mainstream qualities issues is the way one wants to go. I beg to move.

Lord Cobbold

I do not support this amendment because I have problems with the concept of sustainability. However, I intend to raise those when we reach Clause 38.

Lord Rooker

There is an easy answer to this amendment: it is not necessary. It seeks to make explicit something which is already implicit in how the legislation will operate. Clause 38 places a duty on those responsible for preparing local development documents and therefore applies to local authorities. In exercising their functions, Clause 38 provides that local authorities must consider how the policies and plans set out in the documents they prepare under Clause 18 contribute to the achievement of sustainable development; that is, they must prepare them with a view to contributing to the achievement of sustainable development.

Local planning authorities must comply with Clause 38 in preparing their local development documents. There is no argument about that. Should one want further clarification, a reading even of Clause 36 covering interpretation makes it clear. A local authority development scheme, must be construed in accordance with section 14", covering the local development strategy. Moreover, subsection (2) states that local development documents, must be construed in accordance with section 16". In other words, there are cross references throughout the Bill. In preparing the documents, local authorities must comply with Clause 38, the sustainable development clause.

Under Clause 18(5), to which the amendment seeks to add the wording, the proposals in every local development document will be subject to a sustainability appraisal and a report of the findings will be prepared. What that provides is a process to test draft policies against the achievement of sustainable development. We intend to publish draft guidance on this for consultation in March. I cannot say whether it will be in early or late March.

The amendment is well intentioned. However, I hope that I have demonstrated that the amendment seeks to add unnecessary words to the Bill. The process will operate as implied in the Bill as drafted.

Lord Avebury

With great respect to the Minister, he did not address my noble friend's question on how Clause 38 would read back into the independent examination of the local authority's activities in producing the development plan documents. In every case, the development plan document has to be subjected to an examination. That is provided for in Clause 19. However, Clause 38 is in a separate part of the Bill. My noble friend asked whether the examination has to cover the local authority's responsibilities under Clause 38 or is limited to whether it has complied with the obligation in this clause to conduct an appraisal. That is somewhat less onerous.

Lord Rooker

Perhaps I may answer that although I am not a lawyer. The provision may be in a different part of the Bill, Part 3, but the clause reads: This section applies to any person who or body which exercises any function … under Part 1 in relation to a regional spatial strategy; … under Part 2 in relation to local development documents; … under Part 6 in relation to the Wales Spatial Plan". It is implied that the local development documents will be subject to independent examination. Therefore, the independent examination has to take account of Clause 38, the sustainable development clause.

With respect, although the provision is in a different part of the Bill there is a direct link back to Part 2 of the Bill.

Baroness Hamwee

The purpose of the independent examination, as described in Clause 19(5), does not refer to Clause 38. However, like the Minister, I had understood Clause 38 to apply over the whole because it is expressed as being necessary in order to do almost anything under the Bill.

My question related to whether the Government expected the independent examination to extend to the appraisal process. The Minister may well tell me that it is a matter for the inspector to assess whether Clause 38 has been complied with. We shall see as we gain experience of the legislation—perhaps. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, expresses a little scepticism. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 18 agreed to.

Clause 19 [Independent examination]:

Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 102B: Page 11, line 31, at beginning insert "they consider

The noble Baroness said: In moving the amendment, I speak also to Amendments Nos. 102C to 102G and Amendment No. 102DA standing in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham.

The purpose of the independent examination is expressed in Clause 19(5): to determine whether each document satisfies certain requirements and is sound. Amendment No. 102B proposes that the authority must not submit a document unless it has not only complied, but thinks that it has complied, with certain requirements. I can hear the Minister responding that the authority would not submit a document stating that it had complied unless it believed that it had done so.

However, I became a little puzzled—it must again have been late at night—about the purpose of Clause 19(2). Could the regulations referred to in Clause 19(2) in any way override Clause 19(5)? Can any regulations override what Clause 19(5) sets out to do?

Amendment No. 102C provides that the Secretary of State will decide whether the examination is to be in the form of a public inquiry or an informal hearing. Clause 19 does not spell out the nature of the examination. I seek clarification. Is it for the inspector to determine the form of the inquiry; or is it for the Secretary of State perhaps in regulations to do so?

In future, a range of documents will be covered. Some may believe that a full public inquiry is required rather than an informal hearing. Given the importance of some of the documents, one could say that there is a strong case for subjecting them to the full inquiry process. We are all aware of the implications for all stakeholders (I hate that word)—the owners of property, those who propose to develop, and those who have an interest in any area.

On Amendment No. 102D, I am sure we shall be told that if someone is appointed to carry out an independent examination, it is implicit that that examiner is independent of the Secretary of State. I should like to explore that a little. The examination is independent. I do not want it thought that by deleting the adjective which applies to examination I oppose such independence. However, it seems to me that the carrying out of the examination cannot be independent unless the person carrying it out is also independent. I do not know whether the Government have anything to say about that. The Minister may already have said today that he cannot comment on the planning inspectorate—which moves us out into another pigeon-hole.

Amendment No. 102E proposes that the examination under Clause 19(5) should be sound "in all material respects". I am not sure whether the term sound is used elsewhere in legislation. If it is not, experience and precedence will grow up as to what is meant by sound. Of course, the term "material" is well understood in the planning world. Although it might seem frivolous to suggest that it does not matter if a document is unsound in a respect that is not material, because of the importance of the subject matter, it is important to be as clear as possible in the Bill.

Amendment No. 102F proposes that examinations should also look at whether the documents include "achievable mechanisms for implementation"; I know that that is not very elegant wording. I am sure that all Members of the Committee with experience of planning would have swiftly come up against the reality that however great one's policies, unless there are mechanisms to implement them, they are fine words but no more than that. It is appropriate to ask an inspector to look at whether the policies and proposals can be implemented.

Finally, adding to the criteria that the examinations should address, Amendment No. 102G proposes that the development plan document should also be "robust". I have in mind here that there should be resources to carry that out. A policy or proposal is all very fine, but it may be pie in the sky without resources, and should not be taken forward in a serious fashion. Perhaps I should say that the aspiration should be there to carry it out, but that it needs examination as to whether the local planning authority is being realistic in its proposals. I am delighted to be able to leave the last amendment in the group to the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. I beg to move.

5.30 p.m.

Baroness Hanham

I have tabled one amendment in the group, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, touched on. Amendment No. 102DA questions the meaning of the phrase, "it is sound". That is a very novel use of the phrase, which gives no guidance to the examiners about what ought to be taken into account. I am not sure whether it has any legal connotation; I wonder whether it has appeared in legislation in the past. Perhaps the Minister would kindly give us examples of what might be classified as a sound or an unsound development plan document. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has identified, Clause 19 is flawed in many ways. I cannot see that this particular aspect brings anything to the subject at all; it just adds a degree of vagueness and ambiguity.

Lord Rooker

I look forward to getting to the answer to the question posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. We have moved on to an important clause relating to independent examination. As drafted, Clause 19(2)(a) provides that local planning authorities must not submit a development policy document for independent examination unless they have complied with the regulations under Part 2 of the Bill. Amendment No. 102B would allow planning authorities to submit a document if "they consider" that they have complied.

All authorities must comply with the regulations as a mandatory requirement. We are confident that local planning authorities will be able to satisfy themselves that they have complied with the regulations. That should not be a matter of opinion, so it would not be sensible to add those words to the Bill.

Amendment No. 102C would expressly require the person appointed by the Secretary of State to hold the examination to decide whether the examination will be in the form of a public inquiry or an informal hearing. As drafted, the Bill effectively provides for that. It is not necessary and it would be too prescriptive to state it explicitly. We have published the draft guide to procedures and code of practice, which sets out what the available options for hearing representations will be.

The options that the inspector will have to choose from will be informal hearings, "round table" discussions, and formal inquiry sessions. When a person wishes to appear at the examination, the draft guide also sets out the criteria that the inspector will take into account when deciding the process to be followed.

We expect that the guidance in the final code of practice will be sufficient to provide the necessary level of certainty and clarity to the process. We do not think that rules and regulations in this area will be needed. It is necessary to retain the flexibility to take account of evolving best practice that guidance provides.

Amendment No. 102D would expressly require the person appointed by the Secretary of State to be independent of him. That is already an implicit requirement: Clause 19 provides for an independent examination. The person appointed to hold the examination will be an inspector employed by the Planning Inspectorate who is experienced and trained in dealing with the independent examination of planning matters.

Amendment No. 102DA would remove the test of whether the development plan document is sound. That would limit the purpose of the independent examination to assessing whether the development plan document satisfies the procedural requirements of the Bill. The test of soundness is a central principle in the new system. To remove it would undermine much of the ethos of the Bill. It is entirely unnecessary to do so.

I do not know whether the term "sound" has been used before in legislation. That is not to say that I do not know, but that I am checking: I have just been told that I do not know. I do not want to leave colleagues wondering whether I will receive another note: we do not know whether the term "sound" has been used before.

Under the current system, the primary role of the public local inquiry is to consider objections made to draft local plans or unitary development plans. Other parts of the draft, which are not the subject of objections, are outside the remit of the inquiry. However, the fact that a policy or proposal has not been objected to does not always mean that it is not deficient in some way.

Clause 19 provides for the scope of the independent examination to be wider than at present. The inspector will look at how the document has been prepared having regard to the regulations, guidance and the statement of community involvement. He—often it will be a she—will consider all the representations made on the entire document, and not just those parts on which representations have been made. That is, the document will be looked at in the round. Is it fit for the purpose? Is it a sound document? Even though there are areas where there have been no objections, the inspector is still entitled to test the entire document.

Amendments Nos. 102E, 102F and 102G seek to amplify what an inspector should consider in examining whether a development plan is sound. Paragraph 4.4.8 of draft planning policy statement 12 sets out what the test of soundness involves. The amendments do not add to these. We see no reason why we should add to the Bill in any way. The inspector must of course act reasonably at all times, so if something is trivial or irrelevant it need not be considered. Adding the words, "in all material respects", "and includes achievable mechanisms for implementation" or "and robust" to Clause 19 is unnecessary. The requirement that plans should be robust and have clear mechanisms for implementation is already set out in planning policy statement 12.

To sum up, there is a definition in paragraph 4.4.8 of planning policy statement 12 (on page 28) that sets out the criteria for soundness. Planning policy statement 12 also makes clear that the examination into the soundness of the plan includes whether the proper procedures have been carried out, including the sustainability appraisal and the strategic environmental assessment that is required under the European directive on strategic environmental assessment.

As regards the specific question that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked me, the reference to regulations in Clause 19(2)(a) is to the regulations covering the procedure for preparing the development policy document. The examination could find under 19(5)(a) that the authority had not complied with these regulations. I hope that is a helpful explanation and a good and sound answer to her original question.

Baroness Hamwee

The issue of whether the term has been used in legislation before is an important one. We have been referred to precedents in other debates on this Bill and I am not sure that I am entirely comfortable—I do not mean today—having to leave the matter hanging. It may perhaps be difficult to confirm a negative. I appreciate that. But it would be more comfortable if one were clear on this matter.

Lord Rooker

I am obviously uncomfortable: I have given an unsound answer. I will cause a search to be made for Parliamentary Counsel—that is the person who I need to ask about this matter regarding where this term has been used before. It is a fairly simple question to which there should be a straightforward answer.

Baroness Hamwee

The Minister is robust and has mechanisms for implementation! I thank him for his response and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 102C to 102G not moved.]

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 102GA: Page 12, line 7, at end insert "and reasons

The noble Baroness said: I am two pages ahead of myself. In moving this amendment I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 103D, 108ZZB and 113C. All these amendments refer to the publishing of reasons.

Amendment No. 102GA requires the local authority to publish the reasons for the recommendation of an independent examiner; Amendment No. 103D requires a local planning authority to publish reasons for withdrawing a document; Amendment No. 108ZZB requires a planning authority to publish its reasons for making a request or a revocation; and Amendment No. 113C requires the Secretary of State to provide reasons.

As the Bill stands, the person appointed to carry out the examinations must make recommendations and give reasons for the recommendations, but the local authority need only publish the recommendations and not the reasons. It is consistently seen throughout much of the Bill that anything that is done in the form of recommendations should be published and the reasons given. Generally there is much to be gained from giving and publishing reasons: it makes the decision-making procedure much more open and predictable, and that logic certainly applies here. I beg to move.

5.45 p.m.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

There are four amendments in this group. The short reply would be, in terms of the amendments: yes, no, no, yes. I had better explain why. We are happy to accept the spirit of Amendment No. 102G and give it reasonable consideration because it was our intention to do so. We do not think Amendment No. 103D is necessary. Regulations will require authorities to publish a statement whenever a local development document is withdrawn. We would expect authorities to explain their reasons for withdrawing the statement. We will emphasise that in the guidance.

We reject Amendment No. 108ZZB simply because we expect it will rarely be necessary for the Secretary of State to use the power of revocation. In those circumstances we do not consider it necessary to require local planning authorities to publish their reasons for requesting revocation. However, where the reason is not obvious it is a matter of good practice that we would expect the local planning authority to make clear why the local development document is to be revoked. That is something we can clarify when we revise draft planning policy statement 12.

Amendment No. 113C follows on from the first amendment and, as I have made clear, we are quite content to accept the spirit of that amendment and bring something back having given it more consideration.

The Bill, with its regulations and guidance taken together, will in our view provide transparent and robust arrangements for the regional local plan process. We want to ensure there is more of that transparency in the Bill, so I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for moving the amendments. We are working in comity on this one, with a measure of agreement. If the noble Baroness is happy to withdraw the amendments today, we will come back having considered how we can perfect Amendments Nos. 102GA and 113C, though we may find that we do not have to do very much more to them.

Baroness Hanham

I am always nervous when the Minister is at his most conciliatory, but I will quit while I am winning. His reply suggested that the Government will bring back amendments. If the Minister would be kind enough to let me know what decisions have been made about putting them into regulations or introducing amendments, I would be most grateful.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

Just to help the noble Baroness, perhaps in bringing back our own amendments we should ensure that she has an early draft so that it is understood what we are trying to achieve and that we achieve the same objective as is sought in her amendments.

Baroness Hanham

I am definitely quitting while I am winning. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 19 agreed to.

Clause 20 [Intervention by Secretary of State]:

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 102GB: Page 12, line 9, leave out subsection (1) and insert— (1) If it appears to the Secretary of State that it is expedient to do so for the purpose of avoiding—

1. (a) any inconsistency with current national policies or the RSS, or
2. (b) any detriment to the interests of an area outside the area of the local planning authority,

he may at any time before the document is adopted under section 22 direct the local planning authority to modify the document in accordance with the direction.

The noble Baroness said: In moving these amendments I would like to make it clear that I shall not move Amendment No. 103B but I will move Amendments Nos. 102GB and 103C. Amendment No, 102GB in this group is tabled to provide some clarity. We believe that the Secretary of State should be given some parameters when deciding whether to have a local authority modify its local development documents. Contained within this amendment are all the necessary reasons for the Secretary of State to give a direction.

Subsection (1) is too loosely phrased. Local authorities, when preparing their documents, need to know exactly what factors the Secretary of State would consider unsatisfactory. If the Minister is not content with this amendment, then maybe he can identify other circumstances in which the Secretary of State would wish to direct a local authority.

I have tabled Amendment No. 103C because it is not necessary to include subsections (7) and (8). The Minister will know that, in such circumstances, the Secretary of State is obliged, as a matter of public law, to consider relevant matters.

I would also like, if I may, to use the amendment to voice my concern at some of the woolly language in the Bill. We discussed that with regard to previous amendments. In subsection (7), I think, the word "thinks" slips in. I am sure that nobody should be allowed to think in legislation; they might be allowed to "believe", but I am sure that thinking is beyond them. I beg to move.

The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Turner of Camden)

If the amendment is carried, I cannot call Amendment No. 102H, owing to pre-emption.

Lord Rooker

The noble Baroness might get an answer to the amendment that she did not move. The way that the notes are drafted means that they are inclusive. Sometimes, it is easier if the amendments are grouped.

I do not know why the word "thinks" is in subsection (7). I shall find out if there is a previous example of the word "think" being used in primary legislation. As the noble Baroness has raised the matter, she deserves an answer.

Amendment No. 102GB would enable the Secretary of State to direct a modification of a local development document only when that was needed to avoid any inconsistency with current national policies or the regional spatial strategy or any detriment to the interests of an area outside the local planning authority's area. He would not be able to direct changes, if he thought the document unsatisfactory. It is a well established principle, enshrined in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990—the principal Act—that the Secretary of State should have powers to intervene in local planning.

The powers in Clause 20 are modelled on the Secretary of State's current powers in Section 18 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The amendment would unacceptably constrain the Secretary of State. Along with Amendment No. 103C, which I shall address later, it would dilute the Secretary of State's intervention powers, and there is a risk that they might prove to be inadequate. The Secretary of State needs to be able to direct a change to a local development document, not just on the grounds of inconsistency with national policies or the regional spatial strategy. A spatial policy document may, for example, be worded opaquely, so that no one would be able to agree how to implement it. A development policy document might not be sound, or the local planning authority might not have met the statutory requirements in Clause 19(5)(a). The power is an important safeguard in a system with binding inspectors' reports.

Amendment No. 103B would mean that, if the Secretary of State had called in a development plan document for his approval, he may further direct that the document was to have no effect until he had approved it. A document may be called in because there were problems with it, and they need to be solved before it becomes part of the development plan. The Secretary of State needs to be able to call in all or part of a development plan document, if the local planning authority has not complied with a direction to modify. That is the main circumstance in which we see the power under Clause 20(4) being used.

If the decision has been taken that a document or part of a document must be called in for the Secretary of State to approve, the document should have no effect, until it is finally approved by the Secretary of State. That should be an automatic consequence of a call-in, rather than the onus being on the Secretary of State to direct that a document may continue to have an effect.

Amendment No. 103C will probably not be moved. The Secretary of State may need to call in a development plan document because the local planning authority has failed to take account of all relevant matters. It would be wrong to require the Secretary of State to make the same mistake, in fact. We need the safeguard that the Secretary of State can consider all matters, regardless of whether the local planning authority has done so.

I hope that that is a satisfactory explanation of why the powers are in the Bill. As I said, they are modelled on powers in the principal legislation.

Baroness Hanham

I thank the Minister for that reply. He raised the question that we will probably now move on to in other amendments about the binding nature of the inspector's powers. I thank him for his explanation, particularly about the factors included in the Town and Country Planning Act. That matter had escaped me, but I am grateful for his reply, and I shall read Hansard. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 102H and 103 not moved.]

Baroness Maddock moved Amendment No. 103A: Page 12, line 33, leave out paragraph (d) and insert— (d) the document may be taken into account for the purposes of development control by the authority until the Secretary of State has approved, modified or rejected the document or (if the direction relates to only part of the document) part of the document

The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 103A would enable development plan documents that have been agreed by a local planning authority but are still subject to a direction by the Secretary of State to be treated as material considerations for development control purposes, while someone is waiting for the final decision by the Secretary of State on the document.

Any development plan document agreed by a local planning authority should reflect the authority's intention for the area covered by the document. The only obstacle to its adoption is the intervention of the Secretary of State. The outcome of the direction may be modification of the document. In the interim, it would be reasonable for the local planning authority to use it as a basis for development control decisions. If nothing else, it would encourage the Secretary of State to proceed speedily with his intention in the matter. I beg to move.

The Deputy Chairman of Committees

If this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 103B, owing to pre-emption.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, explained perfectly the effect of her amendment. It would allow planning applications, for example, to be considered against policies that the Secretary of State then finds so flawed as to warrant rejection. It could create considerable chaos. To our way of thinking, that is unacceptable.

We expect that, in common with the current system, draft local development documents may be material considerations in development control decisions. The weight to be attached to them in decision making may increase, the further they proceed towards adoption. That is right because the closer that a document gets to adoption, the more the likelihood of it changing decreases. However, that general position should not apply to development plan documents that the Secretary of State has called in. A document will be called in only if the Secretary of State considers that it warrants it and thinks that it should not proceed to adoption without further consideration.

The Secretary of State may approve, approve with modifications or reject a called-in document. He may decide to approve a document without further modifications, but that cannot, obviously, be known in advance. It is important that development control decisions are based on sound policies. The power of call-in should not be used lightly, and I assure the Committee that the Secretary of State will exercise the power only in exceptional circumstances. Because of that, we do not think that it would be sensible to allow documents that have been called in to be taken into account in what can be sensitive development control matters.

For those reasons, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Maddock

I hope that the Minister is right and that the Secretary of State will not call in lots of documents. If that is to be the case, there is less need for the amendment. My noble friend and I will ponder what the Minister said, but, at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 103 B and 103C not moved.]

Clause 20 agreed to.

Clause 21 [Withdrawal of local development document]:

[Amendment No. 103D not moved.]

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 103E: Page 13, line 7, leave out subsection (2).

The noble Baroness said: With the other amendments, we begin to move into the question of the binding nature of inspectors' decisions. Amendment No. 103E deals with why a local authority, even after it has submitted its development plan, should not be allowed to withdraw it again if for some reason it believes that it needs to be modified or contains some measure that it does not like. I appreciate that it can do that at any time until the moment it lodges the document. However, it cannot do so once the inspector has begun to consider the document. My amendment would ensure that it could withdraw that document at any time.

Amendment No. 103F seeks to leave out, (other than a development plan document)", because it does not seem to make sense. A local planning authority may adopt a local development document other than a development plan document. I should welcome the Minister's explanation of the difference between the two.

Amendment No. 104 replicates an amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee; namely, to insert a sub-paragraph (c) to allow a local planning authority to take account of any recommendations made by the person appointed to carry out the independent examination of the document.

Amendment No. 106, which seeks to leave out subsections (2) to (4), brings us to the question why a local planning authority can only adopt a development plan document if it has effectively been authorised by the inspector.

There is a great deal of concern that local development plans will be constructed by local authorities on the basis of consultation and will then go forward to an inquiry. As matters stand at the moment, the inspector's recommendations are for a unitary development plan. With this situation, the inspector's recommendations are binding. That begs the question why the views of the local authority and those of the local community should be overridden by the inspector and that he should be able to insist on the developments and on the recommendations being made after he has put them forward.

Amendment No. 106ZA is a major amendment, which seeks to challenge the position of the binding recommendations. The amendment proposes that where the inspector has made a decision, it should not in certain circumstances be absolutely final and that there should be an opportunity for the local authority in effect to appeal those decisions and have a number of factors re-examined. The essential point is that these development plans are put together for local consumption, for local development control, after consultation with local people and the statement of community involvement has been lodged, and that there should be at least some route whereby local authorities can go back to the inspector with questions and obtain a redetermination of what has been said. I beg to move.

6 p.m.

Lord Rooker

The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, has asked some important questions on this group of amendments. I therefore hope that she will forgive the length of my reply.

As the noble Baroness said, Amendment No. 103E would extend an authority's ability to withdraw a development planning document after its submission for independent examination. It would also remove the power of the Secretary of State to direct that the development planning document be withdrawn after its submission for examination. Our view is that no authority should need to withdraw a development planning document once the examination has started, provided that it has done its job properly. The development planning document should be submitted in the form in which the local planning authority wants to see it adopted.

As the pre-submission processes are expected to be thorough, each authority should have sufficient scope to address any difficult issues and prepare a sound plan. The withdrawal of a development planning document by an authority during or after the examination would undermine the investment that it had made in the preparation of the document. It would also be a waste of community investment and effort in the plan-making process. The withdrawal of a development planning document after submission for examination will, of course, slow the process. That is why the power to do it is restricted to the inspector and the Secretary of State.

However, the Bill caters for situations in which a withdrawal is necessary. As presently drafted, subsection (2)(a) allows the independent inspector to recommend a withdrawal. Representations could highlight, for example, serious defects in the development planning document that the examination and the inspector's recommendations may not be able to rectify. It is right that in such a situation there should be a mechanism for withdrawing the document. That is the ultimate purpose of the Secretary of State's power under Clause 21 (2)(b)to direct a withdrawal, although it is likely to be exercised following a request from a local planning authority.

There should be no scope for a local planning authority to be able to withdraw a development planning document, after its submission for examination, in an attempt to avoid recommendations emerging from the examination. I am not suggesting that local planning authorities would do that, but we do not believe that there should be any scope for them to be able to do it. The Secretary of State will not use that power without serious consideration. He is obviously under a general duty to act reasonably and will consult local people and organisations before directing that the document be withdrawn.

Amendments Nos. 105, 106 and 106ZA raise the issue of whether inspectors' reports should be binding on local planning authorities. Taken together with our other reforms, inspectors' binding reports are a key to speeding up the plan-making system and enhancing community involvement in it. Binding reports will cut out the stage at the end of the process following the inquiry, referred to as the modification stage. If a further inquiry into a modification is needed, that process can take six months or longer.

The new approach for authorities and interested parties is that we want all the options and ideas that could form part of the final document to be clear for everyone to see at the outset. There is an incentive for early discussion and decisions, rather than leaving key matters to be settled right at the end of the process. Binding reports will not mean that local communities will have fewer opportunities than they currently have to influence the content of the document. Under our new approach, the community will be involved in preparing the documents from the start of the process. Authorities will no longer be able to fail to act on an inspector's recommendations that are soundly based on an independent examination and representations made.

Concern has been expressed that an inspector may make changes to a development plan document that had not been considered at the examination. However, the inspector will be able to recommend a substantive change to a development plan document only if people have had an opportunity to make representations on it, or it has been considered at the examination itself and the representations or debate support it. If the inspector believes that a development plan document should be changed significantly in some other way, that could happen only if the examination is reconvened to consider the matter; otherwise, the matter would have to be dealt with by referring the development plan document to the local planning authority for further consideration.

Our key concern is having up-to-date plans. This is best for communities and has been the policy that we have clearly set out from the beginning. Amendment No. 106ZA would add a new stage to the process. It would give the authority a power to ask the inspector to reconsider any of his recommendations or the need for further changes. The authority would be able to do this if it considered that circumstances had changed; if the inspector had made an error of fact; if, in interpreting a policy, there was a legal error in a recommendation or the reasons for it; if the proper procedure for the examination had not been followed; or if a recommendation was unclear.

The inspector would have a duty to reconsider whatever the authority requested. He would have the power to make further recommendations, revise or expand on his reasons and, indeed, reopen the examination or invite further representations. So if a problem is raised there should always be a way of addressing it. There is no question about that. We believe that serious mistakes will rarely happen but, if they do, we have put in place a number of safeguards.

If people believe that an inspector has made a simple error of fact or omission, they can ask the local planning authority to bring the matter to the attention of the planning inspectorate, which will obtain the inspector's views. If necessary, the inspector will issue an addendum report to correct the error or omission.

Under Clause 20, the Secretary of State will have the power to direct changes to a development plan document or call in the document before it is adopted and make modifications to it if needed. If a local planning authority felt that the inspector's recommendations were unreasonable it could ask the Secretary of State to consider using these powers.

Finally, any person who is aggrieved by the adoption of a development plan document will be able to challenge the document under Clause 109 on the ground that it is not within the powers of the Bill or that a procedural step has not been complied with. We believe that these safeguards cover the ground and minimise the risk that they will be used to frustrate the delay in the plan-making process.

I have given a long explanation but this is an important issue. As with one or two other provisions, it is an innovative part of the Bill. It is a part of the new process that the inspector's report shall be binding. I hope therefore that my explanation has been satisfactory.

Lord Greaves

The Minister rightly says that this is an important part of the Bill. It introduces a substantial change in the balance of power between central government, as represented by the inspector, and local government, as represented by the local planning authority.

At the moment, in existing local plans the inspector's recommendations are simply recommendations; they are not binding on the local authority. The local authority considers the inspector's report and his recommendations and decides what to do about them. The Minister said that this causes a delay, on average, of six months. But if a local authority is forced to accept changes that it believes to be fundamentally wrong, the delays involved later—when planning applications are made and so on—may have to compensate for that saving of six months.

But, putting that on one side, the Minister is saying that, for the sake of saving six months in the system, local authorities—elected local councils—are to be deprived of the right to say that they do not agree with the recommendations of the inspector. At the moment, as I understand it, the inspector's report is to the local authority and the local authority then decides what to do with it. This is similar to other aspects of the Bill where inspector's reports are to the Secretary of State. There will be occasions when the Secretary of State will not agree with an inspector's report on a compulsory purchase order or a planning application and so on.

This is a fundamental issue. It is a fundamental removal of the powers that a local council has at the moment but which it will not have in the future. So my first question is whether the Minister really believes that this centralisation of power is justified?

Secondly, does he not understand that local communities which are told what has to happen—which are told, for example, how a particular piece of land has to be zoned and so on—in one of the new documents will be very angry indeed that such decisions are taken by one man, the appointed inspector? They will have no influence over him, other than making representations, as opposed to the local authority that represents them, whether or not they agree with it.

Thirdly, why does the Minister continue to use the word "recommend" in relation to the decision of the inspector when he will no longer be making recommendations to the local council but instructing it? Why does not the Bill include the word "instruct" rather than "recommend" in the convoluted way in which compulsion is set out in the wording of the Bill?

Finally, what will be the situation if, having received the inspector's report, the local authority says that some of the matters in it are so wrong that it is not going to adopt the local plan? Clause 22 states three times that the local planning authority "may" adopt a local development document. It then states that it must not adopt a development plan document unless it does so in accordance with subsections (2) and (3).

The clause does not state that a local planning authority "must" adopt the document. So if compulsion is involved, why does it not state "must"? What will happen if the local authority resolves to reject the inspector's report and the whole local development document, lock, stock and barrel, because of some of the recommendations made by the inspector?

6.15 p.m.

Viscount Ullswater

I tend to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. We started off by saying that regional planning guidance would now become the regional spatial strategy and we are moving in exactly the same direction on this issue—the reports of inspectors will become mandatory in the same way that regional planning guidance was in the first instance. Does the Minister believe that the balance is right between what will now be statutory and the implementation of the inspector's report on what is a locally agreed document?

Lord Rooker

By and large, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has got the message. I did not try to sugar coat it. I explained that this was an innovative part of the process. He has got me absolutely bang to rights—there will be a change. We do not seek to gloss over that.

However, I take exception to one matter that he described. I do not see that there will be a gladiatorial contest, as the noble Lord put it, and that the inspector is there to represent central government. That is not the case legally. That is not how the inspectors are appointed or trained to function. They simply do not have the role, as he put it, that they are there to produce a binding report on behalf of central government and to knock out our friends in local government; therefore it is the end of democracy as we have come to know and love it. That is an exaggeration—although it is my exaggeration and not that of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves.

But, yes, there will be a fundamental change. It is not being made simply to save six months. There is, however, one point that I did not raise—mainly because it stated "if needed" in my brief and I thought that I would wait and see; it is rather a long speaking note. I do not—as I understood the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, to say—call into question the sincerity or competence of the inspectors, but problems with inspectors' reports on development plans are rare under the present system. Of 15 complaints about either the conduct of the development plan inquiries or the contents of the inspectors' reports over the past two years, only one was found to be justified. So it is quite rare.

Lord Avebury

How was it found to be justified?

Lord Rooker

Let me put it this way, we have inspectors watching the inspectors. They are not called that, but inspectors employed on development plan inquiries are very experienced, regularly trained and closely monitored by the advisory panel on standards. There is a panel of people. I met them when I was planning Minister and they brought one of their reports to me. They inspect the inspectors. They report to the ODPM and we publish the reports. Indeed, we publish everything. There is therefore a check. There is a method of complaining.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market

Does the Minister accept that there is every difference in the world in the way in which one deals with what might be called a rogue planning decision—and I accept, after 14 years' involvement in planning, that they are rare? I think that my noble friend Lord Greaves was referring to this when he mentioned centralisation. In the creation of its plan, a local authority will of course have regard to national policy, but its prime focus and locus will be its locality and what it sees as best. That decision will be informed by the views of the local people whom it represents. However, the processes that planning inspectors will go through will be guided by government guidance—by national policies. Therefore, they will not be so cognisant of what is happening locally.

It is intriguing that, in the debate on an earlier set of amendments, the Minister made a rather scathing reference. He said that we all know local authorities that do not want to make a decision locally so they pass the buck to the inspector. However, it is precisely because that is not the case that we have more value in the current system. In the end, the buck stops very firmly with the elected local authority.

Lord Rooker

With respect, I must say that it is precisely the case. The noble Baroness said that that is not the case, but it is. It does happen. As I said, councils must give leadership. Planning officers and councillors must give leadership on this matter. They take decisions about planning matters close to their localities. Members of Parliament do not do that, so there is a lot more pressure on councillors to give a lead. Sometimes, that can be burdensome. One way of dealing with that is to refuse the decision, let it go to appeal and then complain saying, "It's nothing to do with me Guv. It was the inspector and the Secretary of State". The noble Baroness has a lot more experience in local government than I have, but I know that that has happened.

However, the point that I was making was that such problems relate to the inspectors' report on development plans. They are very rare. I do not think that this is a matter of centralisation. Inspectors must follow a set of rules. They must follow the guidelines, look at national policy and look at this legislation as we have gone through it. They must act reasonably in that process. In the most extreme cases, if a decision is perverse and the Secretary of State has not been involved, it is always open to a local authority to seek a judicial review of an inspector's decision, even though it might be reluctant to do that. I realise that that is the nuclear option, but it is always there. Therefore, I do not accept that this is over-centralisation. It is an innovation in the planning process, designed, as we have said all along, to get faster decisions but to be no less fair.

Lord Greaves

Does the Minister understand that there is a very real difference between these situations? An inspector may behave unprofessionally or incompetently or not carry out the due process of the inquiry process. Perhaps he does things wrong technically and people are not allowed properly to put their views forward or present their case. That situation would therefore fall into the 1 per cent of cases.

On the other hand, issues about the use of land are often, when it comes down to it, a matter of opinion. All the factors may have been considered, government advice and the views of local people taken and so forth, but ultimately, many decisions come down to opinion. They are 50:50 cases in which a decision has to be made one way or the other. Under those circumstances, it is not a question of the inspector being wrong or incompetent: it is a matter of principle. Should the elected local authority responsible to local people—and responsible for the provision of jobs as well as the use of land—be the final arbiter, as it is now? Or, should the decision be in the hands of one man or woman who may or may not represent central government? Whoever they represent, they do not represent the electors of that area. The Minister is not facing that fundamental principle.

Lord Rooker

I have faced it. The answer is that the decision should be independent. It rests with the inspector.

Lord Greaves

We fundamentally disagree about that, and we may return to the matter. However, will the Minister answer my question? What happens if the local authority is so incensed or believes that the inspector's decision is so wrong that it refuses to adopt the local planning document?

Lord Rooker

I will take advice and return to the matter later, but, off the top of my head, I suspect that, as the decision is binding and mandatory, there is no choice in the matter. An independent decision has been arrived at. If there is no legal challenge to it, local authorities can be incensed, but it would stand.

Lord Greaves

Where in the Bill does it say that the decision is binding and mandatory?

Lord Rooker

We have just been debating that. Surely, the noble Lord has been on his feet complaining about the inspectors' reports being binding. That is what he has been complaining about for the past 10 minutes.

Lord Greaves

The Minister said that it was binding, but as far as I can see, Clause 22 uses the phrase, may adopt a development plan document", three times. That does not sound binding. Therefore, I am far from clear about what this legislation means in practice, should the nuclear option be reached.

Lord Rooker

I direct the noble Lord to Clause 26, which will answer his question. The Secretary of State should be able to approve a development plan document after the examination of the binding report. I will put a couple of paragraphs on the record because there is a power in Clause 26. There may be times when, after due process of examination, an inspector recommends in his binding report a change that the authority does not want to implement. If the authority decides not to adopt the development plan document, the Secretary of State has the default power in Clause 20(9) to approve the document. Without that power, all the work put into the document by the authority, the inspector and those involved in its preparation and examination would be wasted, and the area would not have an up-to-date plan. The report is binding. There is a default power and it is tough, but it is a much better system than the one we have at the moment.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market

Does the Minister stand by his earlier comments that this is not a centralising measure?

Lord Rooker

I absolutely stand by those comments.

Lord Greaves

I am grateful for that explanation. I am sorry that: I have not memorised clauses that we have not yet discussed. I have read them, but clearly have not understood everything in great detail. It is clear that, should it come to the nuclear option, there is a centralisation of power, with central government and the Secretary of State taking the decision as opposed to the local authority, which holds the power the moment. However the Minister protests, he cannot get away from that.

Lord Rooker

I am not buying that at all. We have spent most of the day going over how these documents are put together, with the statements of community involvement, and much greater involvement by the community than ever before—from the very beginning, not the end. Therefore, I will not accept or leave unchallenged the charge that the system is being centralised, that local communities are not involved and that there is no consultation. Indeed, some would argue that this part of the Bill has "consultationitis". I do not accept that this is centralising the system.

Baroness Hanham

My amendments have generated a hive of activity. This matter may raise its head again at a later stage. The Minister said several things that caused me great concern. He rightly pointed out that local authorities and those who run them have a power of leadership. The changes that the Government made to the management of local authorities—changing the structure into cabinets—gave greater responsibility to councillors and made it their duty to undertake precisely that role of community leadership. Once we have been through this process of discussion about the plans, the community leadership role has been invoked by the local council, and it has agreed that it now has a local plan that is right, having had that scrutiny. Is the Minister listening? This is not terribly exciting, and he can read it tomorrow, but I shall say it anyway.

Having had the scrutiny of the local community, the local plan should, we believe, include an inspector's view as regards the unitary development plan. However, unlike the arrangements for the unitary development plan, the inspector will make the final decision that that is a final document. The local authority will finally have to adopt a document as amended, changed and recommended by the inspector. The Minister says that that is to speed up the process. If taking local responsibility away is the price for speeding up development plans, then the Government have got it wrong. We have to try to build back into the Bill the right of the local authority to have the final say in its development plans.

The Minister has been discussing the consultation process and how wonderful it will be with a statement of community involvement. However, no amount of statements of community involvement will have the slightest effect if there is not a proper process of consultation. As I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, will remember, consultation was one of the matters that held up the unitary development plans. One of the fundamental parts of the unitary development plan was the requirement for local consultation and local involvement. Indeed, I have sat deep into the night at many a unitary development plan meeting ensuring that the local residents—all four of them—had a proper and constructive role in developing the local development plan.

The other point is that the inspectors do not always get it right. They do not have the local knowledge. However hard one tries, there are always complaints about inspectors, even in the planning applications appeals process. They wander in and make completely off-the-wall decisions that bear no relation to what is going on. I have received many such examples, but I shall give only one. The local planning inspector for Birmingham City Council recently recommended that the unitary development plan should remove key employment sites from the plan. That was contrary to both the current and the emerging regional planning guidance. Key development sites are fundamental. They are part and parcel of what ought to be known. To have a recommendation that they be taken out shows a rank disengagement, if nothing else, with the process. There are all kinds of examples that I could quote and I am sure that I shall quote them next time we come to this matter because they are there.

The Local Government Association does not have many reservations because it has had a lot of input into the Bill. However, this aspect, a binding inspector's recommendation, rattles everybody in local government. I hear what the Minister says, I do not agree with him and we shall return to this matter at a later stage. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 21 agreed to.

Clause 22 [Adoption of local development documents]:

[Amendments Nos. 103F to 106ZA not moved.]

Clause 22 agreed to.

6.30 p.m.

Clause 23 [Conformity with regional strategy]:

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 106ZB: Page 13, line 31, leave out "local development" and insert "development plan

The noble Baroness said: There are a number of amendments in four groupings that relating to Clause 23. It will therefore come as no surprise to the Minister that we have concerns about Clause 23. We particularly want to go into detail with this Clause to prevent local development documents having to be in general conformity with the regional strategy. We have had a lot of discussion on regional strategies and on the current and future role of regional planning guidance. As things currently stand, local authorities are not required to follow the Secretary of State's policy. The planning guidance is guidance. The new policies lead us into areas where again there is no choice whether a local authority or a planning authority follows guidance: it has to take account of it and it has to be part of the regional strategy.

The first group of amendments, Amendments Nos. 106ZB to 106ZN, confines the duty to be in general conformity only to development plan documents, not to all local plan documents; that is the duty to comply. Development plan documents are defined in Clause 36(3) and at present the obligations of general conformity apply between development plan documents, structure plans and local plans. Our view is that it is unnecessary to apply the obligation to other local development documents. The relative unimportance of general conformity of non-development plan documents is shown by Clause 23(2)(b) and Clause 23(4)(b) where there is discretion whether the local planning authority asks the regional planning body or the mayor for an opinion on conformity. That is the first group for Clause 23. I beg to move.

Lord Rooker

As the noble Baroness said, we have reached another clause about which there is some concern. I have a longer note for the beginning of the group than for the others, which I hope puts the clause in context. I shall address the issue of general conformity as a concept and why we think it is important.

General conformity provides an important link between the regional and local levels. It ensures that the regional spatial strategy or the mayor's spatial development strategy, as appropriate, is properly translated into policies and proposals at the local level. Without a general conformity requirement, as exists at present in relation to the spatial development strategy, strategic planning cannot be delivered effectively. Once the ground rules have been set in the regional spatial strategy, the local planning authority can prepare its own policies reflecting its community involvement and appraisal of sustainability, provided that the local development document remains in general conformity with it that is, the regional spatial strategy. As I said in response to an earlier amendment, this is a test of general, not detailed, conformity.

We shall make it clear in the final version of planning policy statement 12 that it is the Government's policy that it is only where a local development document would cause significant harm to the implementation of the regional spatial strategy that the local development document should be considered not to be in general conformity.

The chain of conformity between local development documents set out in the draft regulations simplifies the application of the test of general conformity. The core strategy should generally conform with the spatial vision and strategy in the regional spatial strategy. As we move down the chain of local development documents we would expect few interventions in respect of general conformity.

Other development plan documents must be in conformity with the core strategy. Supplementary planning documents, which we have referred to several times, are dependent on the parent development plan documents. They depend on them and are supplementary to them. So, provided that a core strategy is in general conformity with the regional spatial strategy, the other development plan documents and the supplementary planning documents are likely to be in general conformity too.

It is important to provide that the supplementary planning documents—that is, those that do not go to independent examination—should be in general conformity as a safeguard in case the chain of conformity to which I have referred does not work. Although supplementary planning documents should not allocate land, it can contain policies as well as the guidance, examples of which I gave earlier.

We have provided in draft regulation 13 that the policies in a supplementary planning document should be in conformity with the policies in the core strategy and with the policies in any other development plan document. Although that is fairly clear, I will read it again. We have provided in draft regulation 13—on which we have been consulting—that the policies in a supplementary planning document should be in conformity with the policies in the core strategy and with the policies in any other development plan document. Otherwise it would hardly be supplementary. It is a daughter document to the main document.

That requirement may not be a sufficient safeguard in every case against a local planning authority trying to slip policies into a supplementary planning document to get round the constraint of the development plan document policies having to be in general conformity with the regional spatial strategy. Although that will be construed as an attack on local government, it is not. I really mean that. Nevertheless, because of the new system, we need to have this safeguard against any local planning authority trying to slip policies into part of a document that does not conform with the general regional spatial strategy.

We have to check whether that is the case. To help do so, the clause requires the local planning authority to request the written opinion of the regional planning body, or the mayor if appropriate, if the document is a development plan document, and it enables the authority to do so if the document is a supplementary planning document. That is an entirely sensible arrangement and I can see no benefit in deleting those powers. The arrangement is straightforward and not centralist. It is not an attack on local democracy. With that explanation, I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.

Baroness Hanham

The more I hear the Minister say that the arrangement is not centralist the more I know that it is. Anyway, I think that the word is "centralising"; at least that is the word that I would use. Although I hear what the Minister says, this is yet another area where local government is being stitched up one way or another. This whole system of plans and their relationship to the regional spatial strategy is of the greatest concern, particularly now that the Minister says that part of it is intended to stop local government slipping—slipping!—policies into daughter documents. Now there is a thing. Who would think that anyone would do that? If the whole of this paraphernalia is to prevent that, then I think we have a tower of Babel that we may need to knock down at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hanham Moved Amendment No. 106ZC: Page 13, line 32, leave out paragraph (a).

The noble Baroness said: I am in some difficulty about this amendment which I shall state quite frankly. The amendment relates specifically to Clause 37—on which I should like to have a discussion at the appropriate time. It is all about the relationship of the London development plan to the development plans of London boroughs. The amendments in this group remove the requirement for local development documents to be in general conformity with the regional spatial strategy. As a result, it leaves unaltered London's position with regard to a spatial development strategy. I will not be any more enigmatic than that; we will reach that provision later. The Minister's reply may be helpful, but I needed to pick up the point now. The purpose of the amendments is to leave the London position unchanged. I beg to move.

The Deputy Chairman of Committees

If this amendment is agreed to I cannot call Amendment No. 106ZD because of pre-emption.

6.45 p.m.

Lord Rooker

I shall attempt to reply to the point now although I am quite happy to return to it when, as the noble Baroness says, we reach the other clause. My notes do not deal with every amendment, but I hope that she will get the general gist of the position when she reads Hansard tomorrow. I will try not to repeat the general points that I made on the first group.

Amendment No. 106ZE seeks to remove the requirement that the local planning authorities outside London must request the written opinion of the regional planning body on the general conformity of a development planning document within the regional spatial strategy and the requirement that it may seek this opinion in respect of a spatial planning document. It also seeks to remove the regional planning body's duty to provide this opinion to the Secretary of State and the local planning authority. As I said, that is an entirely sensible arrangement to help assess whether the development planning documents are in general conformity.

Amendment No. 106ZL would give a power to the mayor and the regional planning body to give an opinion on the general conformity of a local development document, irrespective of whether the local planning authority asks for it. That is unnecessary as it is already provided for by Clause23(5).

As to Amendment No. 106ZB, where a regional planning body expresses an opinion that a development plan document is not in conformity, it is right for that to be taken as a representation seeking a change to the document. That ensures that the regional planning body may appear at the independent examination.

Because I want to help the noble Baroness, and particularly because she will be returning to the issue, I shall put on record a question and answer in my notes which she and her advisers can consider before deciding how to proceed. The question is as follows. Why does the Bill not allow for the local development document to be treated as being in general conformity with a submitted regional spatial strategy revision or an altered or modified spatial development strategy as the Greater London Authority Act provides for in relation to a spatial development strategy at present? I understand that that is known as the "permitted assumption".

We did give that serious consideration. I appreciate the concern raised about what happens when two levels of planning are out of sequence. However, to give undue weight to a submitted regional spatial strategy revision before it had been subject to examination could prejudge that examination. It could also call into question the role of the examination in checking the soundness of the draft revision, including whether it had been prepared on a sufficiently inclusive basis and subject to adequate participation.

As the noble Baroness says that she wants to return to the issue when we reach Clause 37, I hope that those comments are helpful when they are read in conjunction with my comments on the other amendments.

Baroness Hanham

I thank the Minister for his reply, and I apologise—I think I have caused a lot of confusion in my own mind as well as his. As a result I shall not move the other amendments to Clause 23. I think that we will be able later to refer to both aspects. Clause 23(1)(b) is linked to Clause 37(2). I will deal later with Clause 37(2), and we can try then to untangle this spider's web. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 106ZD to 106ZR not moved.]

Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 106A: Page 14, line 20, leave out subsection (8).

The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 106A, which is grouped with Amendment No. 106B, would leave out subsection (8) of Clause 23, which covers ground that we may have already touched. Leaving out subsection (8) would remove the Secretary of State's power of intervention in relation to the conformity of local development documents with their regional spatial strategies. I did not write the following words. They come from the Law Society: That power is both superfluous and will only serve to undermine the co-operative relationship between regional planning bodies and local planning authorities".

That puts a slightly different cast on the issues that my noble friends have dealt with. It directs that it is not necessary for the document to be in general conformity, which I assume is what is meant by subsection (8), because the provisions that it has to be in conformity can be ignored. This is in danger of giving all of us migraines. Is it something to do with the independent examination? Is it in the Government's mind that the inspectors should give appropriate weight to those different criteria? I hope that the Minister's speaking note will help us.

Amendment No. 106B would leave out subsection (9), which provides that if there is not a regional planning body, its functions must be exercised by the Secretary of State. That takes us back to the fifth minute of the debate on the first amendment on day one. I would almost say "QED", but I look forward to the Minister's defence of the devolution that is contained in the Bill. I beg to move.

Lord Rooker

I think that I can give the noble Baroness a satisfactory answer on the two amendments. Amendment No. 106A would remove the Secretary of State's power to direct that the opinion of the regional planning body on the general conformity of local development documents be ignored. Amendment No. 106B would remove the duty of the Secretary of State to give an opinion on general conformity if there is no recognised planning body.

I hope that there will not be a case where a regional planning body acts irresponsibly in its consideration of general conformity. But there could be cases where it tries to tie down the local planning authority to too great a detail of conformity, perhaps to the letter of some out-of-date policy which has not yet been amended by revision of the regional spatial strategy.

In such instances, Clause 23 allows the Secretary of State to override the opinion of the regional planning body, or to exercise the function of determining general conformity where there is no recognised regional planning body. That provides an important safeguard for local planning authorities in the preparation of a local development document. We fervently hope that it will not happen, but suppose there is a regional planning body which excluded its non-elected members and thereby lost recognition from the Secretary of State. If there was not that provision, there would be a vacuum and the local planning authority would be left in doubt over whether its development planning document was in general conformity.

That is the only example I have. I realise that I am now a hostage to fortune, having said that. The minute I said that I knew, because questions were asked about regional planning bodies and "non-elected" members. They are so called because they are elected not to local authorities but to other bodies. So they are legitimate but not the same as local government people. I have to say that the example I have given is not a good one, because it is raising issues with which I have been uncomfortable this afternoon.

So, just in case a regional planning body for some reason lost its recognition, we would need such powers to support the local planning authority. I hope that helps to explain such matters, which we will return to at another time.

Lord Avebury

The Minister gave the example that the Secretary of State thinks that the RPB has said, perhaps unnecessarily, that the document is not in conformity with the RSS, because it has been looking at an out-of-date document. Would it not be simpler to have a procedure whereby the Secretary of State could just refer the matter back to the RPB, instead of saying that he could ignore what it says? If one wants the RPB to have a useful function, the Secretary of State should not be able to cross out its decisions.

Lord Rooker

Yes, but one of my opening sentences was: I hope there will not be a case where the regional planning body acts irresponsibly in consideration of general conformity". "Acting irresponsibly" would probably only apply if the matter had been referred back and the body refused to change, listen to or take account of the issue. In other words, it is a long stop. It is not the first port of call in trying to deal with the problem. I am sure that that is the case. If it is not, I shall certainly come back to the House at another stage and make the matter clear. It is a long stop. It is not the first thing that would happen. Naturally, if there is an issue, referring it back—asking the body to look at the matter again—ought to be the sensible thing to do. It is only if they act irresponsibly and refuse to take notice that there is a problem that we would use the powers. However, I am happy to have a look at the matter—it seems a sensible way to proceed.

Baroness Hamwee

I had not thought about a body becoming unrecognised or undesignated. How bad does it have to be? Clause 23(3)(a) is ignored in that situation. That says that the regional planning body has to send its opinion to the Secretary of State. But what happens to Clause 23(3)(b), under which the regional planning body sends its views to the local planning authority? Perhaps those are the last vestiges of some function left with the regional planning body in its relationship with the local planning authority, because the Secretary of State would rather not have that dialogue. I am sure that I am missing something, because the argument is hard to follow. It is not immediately obvious why the whole of Clause 23(3) is not ignored in the situation that the Minister has described. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, said that we are to return the whole clause at a later date. I am hesitating in case the Minister wishes to comment.

Lord Rooker

I have probably made the dangerous mistake of reading the Bill. Clause 23(3), as I understand it, is effectively a time-limit mechanism. It says: Not later than the end of the period prescribed for the purposes of this section the RPB must send its opinion to", those two bodies. So there will be a period prescribed for the purposes; that is, body regulation—so subsection (3) imposes a time factor. It is a time limit in which the RPB has to do something.

Baroness Hamwee

My query was that Clause 23(3) is to be ignored if there is no recognised regional planning body. That relates not to the whole of Clause 23(3), but to only a part of it. That was what was confusing me. I think that hot towels need to be prescribed for the next round. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

7 p.m.

[Amendments Nos. 106AA and 106B not moved.]

Clause 23 agreed to.

Clause 24 [Revocation of local development document]:

[Amendment No. 107 not moved.]

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 107A: Page 14, line 27, after "the" insert "reasonable

The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 107A, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 108BA, 108ZZAand 108ZB. The amendments are designed to firm up the woolly language of Clauses 24 and 26. Amendments Nos. 107A and 108ZZA refer to Clause 24 on revocation of local development documents. Amendment No. 107A adds a reasonableness test to a request by a local authority to the Secretary of State to revoke a local development document. That provides for an objective test so that a local planning authority cannot arbitrarily or without good reason request the revocation of a local development document.

Amendment No. 108ZZA is a drafting amendment which simply replaces "document" in line 29 with "documents". With that amendment, Clause 24(b) would state that the Secretary of State, may prescribe descriptions of local development documents which may be revoked by the authority themselves". That makes grammatical sense and tallies with Clause 16, which is entitled, "Local development documents".

Amendments Nos. 108ZB and 108BA refer to Clause 26 on the Secretary of State's default power. Amendment No. 108ZB ensures that before the Secretary of State holds an independent examination, he must think that a local planning authority is significantly failing or omitting to do anything necessary for it to do. That would act as a bulwark against unnecessary Secretary of State interference—something that we have all been trying to prevent all evening—if there were only a minor failure or omission on the part of the local planning authority.

Amendment No. 108BA adds another reasonableness test. This time, a local authority would have to reimburse the Secretary of State only for any reasonable expenditure that he incurs under the clause. It would seem sensible to have that safety net added in the Bill, not only to put a limit on the amount that a local authority will be liable to pay to the Secretary of State, but so that the Secretary of State is aware of the need to keep a cap on the costs generated in that way. I beg to move.

Lord Rooker

The noble Baroness talked about making the Bill more grammatical, but I am not so sure that the central purpose of the Bill is to be grammatical. I know that that will count as an attack on parliamentary counsel, but it is not. Bills should be clear and understandable.

It is a glib cliché that Ministers trot out, and I always resented it when I heard it in the past, but it is true that all authorities are under a duty to act reasonably. That is a legal duty, and there is no need to specify it in the Bill. Amendment No. 108ZB would restrict the Secretary of State's power to prepare or revise a development plan document to cases when he thought that a local planning authority was significantly failing or omitting to do something that it needed to do in connection with preparing, revising or adopting a development plan document.

The advice that I have is that, in view of the duty to act reasonably, it is quite unnecessary to qualify the reference in Clause 26 with "significantly". The Secretary of State would not prepare a development plan document himself because the local planning authority had failed in some insignificant way.

Amendment No. 108ZZA would alter the Secretary of State's power to prescribe descriptions of local development document which may be revoked by the authority itself to apply to documents. The amendment is unnecessary, as in legislation the singular includes the plural. I never knew that before, although I knew about gender—that "he" means "she", which is very difficult to explain to people outside.

Amendment No. 108BA would require Clause 26(5) to state expressly that any expenditure that the local planning authority must reimburse to the Secretary of State was to be "reasonable". That is in respect of the Secretary of State exercising his default power. Where the local planning authority fails in its duties to prepare, revise or adopt a development plan document, it is essential that the Secretary of State should have a power to step in and carry out those functions. Where he exercises that power, it is only reasonable that he should be able to charge the local planning authority for the work that he has to do. There is nothing new in that principle. Therefore there is no need for Amendment No. 108BA. The Secretary of State must always act reasonably.

The amendments are therefore unnecessary, and I hope that they will be withdrawn.

Baroness Hanham

We learn something every day. Plural for singular and singular for plural—so long as that is in legislation, it is fine. I am sorry that we cannot make the reference to "documents", which would make more sense, but there we are.

It will not have escaped the Minister's notice that we are all struggling to get the Secretary of State out of the whole equation. I thought that I would state that plainly. Every time one sees the Secretary of State doing something, we are all going to try to get rid of it one way or another. On the whole question of reasonableness, I am sure that a number of my colleagues have stood at the Front Bench with amendments to take "reasonable" out, so I have to be careful.

Lord Rooker

This is a point that I should not make, because I am only causing trouble for myself. I simply invite the noble Baroness and all her researchers to have a look at how many times my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister—the Secretary of State referred to in the Bill, but not by name—has been taken to court and found to act unreasonably. Then she should compare that with the record of the present Leader of the Opposition.

Baroness Hanham

I am sure that it is extremely important that a Secretary of State act reasonably under all circumstances.

The whole point of the clause concerns the Secretary of State's intervention when a local authority is refusing to make or has not made a development plan, which I guess is probably quite unusual. That has to be carried out only if there is a significant failure to act, which would presumably be only after an enormous amount of effort to get an authority to do so. "Significant" is a word that I would quite like to see in the Bill, but I hear the Minister's response. I will think about it further but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 108 to 108ZZB not moved.]

Clause 24 agreed to.

Clause 25 [Revision of local development documents]:

[Amendment No. 108ZA not moved.]

Clause 25 agreed to.

Clause 26 [Secretary of State's default power]:

[Amendment No. 108ZB not moved]

Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 108A: Page 15, line 21, leave out subsection (4).

The noble Baroness said: The amendment was grouped with Amendment No. 102H, which I did not move. Given that this is another filleting amendment, I feel that I would not have done the job if I did not at least move Amendment No. 108A and also speak to Amendment No. 108B, which are a further provision in the Secretary of State's default power set out in Clause 26. I apologise, because I hoped that it would not cause mayhem if I did not move Amendment No. 102H. I was rightly stopped, because I was not moving it. I should have sent a note around.

Amendment No. 108 A allows the Secretary of State to prepare or revise a development plan document, or in a generous mood, approve a development plan document. I assume that that is the document that is referred to in Clause 26(4)(a), because it is the document that is referred to in Clause 26(1). Clause 26(4)(a) does not say that all of this is dependent on the Secretary of State taking the view that a local planning authority is not doing what is necessary. The Minister will say that that must be the case, because it would be daft for the Secretary of State to intervene if that were not so.

I am sure that we will come back to this area, but I would at least like an assurance that the powers given to the Secretary of State in Clause 26(4)(a) are dependent on him taking a view that the local planning authority is failing or omitting within Clause 26(1). If it is not dependent on that, the Secretary of State could take the view that he does not like what the local planning authority is doing, that he does not agree with their approach or policies, and that for reasons that he does not have to justify, he does not want to support them.

Unless the clause is read as a whole, it does not say—I am sorry, it does say the section applies if he thinks that—perhaps I am going wrong in this. The Minister will tell me off. It is another power given to the Secretary of State, in circumstances that we are all making entirely clear that we are not comfortable with.

There is a financial penalty attached. That is distasteful, and slightly odd in a local government finance regime, where most of the money comes from the Secretary of State in the first place. If he thinks that the local authority is not doing the job properly, it may well say that it cannot afford to employ enough planning officers. It must reimburse him in connection with what he does in preparing or revising the document. There are references to reimbursement, or payment between authorities, elsewhere in the Bill. For a local planning authority to have to dig into its little coffers to pay the Secretary of State, who has rather more at his disposal, seems odd in the least.

I apologise for that rather confused introduction of these two amendments. I did not even have any notes, because when I put these amendments down it was so obvious to me that these were appalling provisions that should be taken out. I thought that the justification would come to me the moment that I stood up. I beg to move.

7.15 p.m.

Lord Rooker

The two amendments that the noble Baroness has spoken to, Amendments Nos. 108A and 108B, would remove Clauses 26(4) and 26(5). These are the Secretary of State's powers to prepare or revise a development plan document and to charge the local planning authority for the work. The devolved power in Clause 26 is similar to the power under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It is hoped that the Secretary of State will not have to use it. The Secretary of State has not acted in place of a local planning authority in this way in recent years.

Where the local planning authority fails in its duties to prepare, revise or adopt a development plan document, it is essential that the Secretary of State should have a power to step in and carry out these functions. When he exercises this power, it is only reasonable that he should be able to charge the local planning authority for the work that he must do. There is nothing new in this principle, and I cannot for the life of me see why it is being objected to. If the local authority has refused to do the work, it still must be done and paid for. Otherwise, it would be a way for local government to offload its financial duties back to central government.

The development planning document will form part of the development plan under Clause 37. Development must take place in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Without the safeguard of the Secretary of State being able to prepare, revise and approve the development plan document, a local authority might be left without an up to date development plan. This causes uncertainty for everyone, communities and developers alike. We do not expect that the Secretary of State will need to use these powers very often, if at all. They are most likely to apply where an authority does not, and has no plans to, prepare or revise a development plan document, even though the authority's existing policies are significantly out of date.

I have no examples, because I cannot conceive of authorities acting so irresponsibly. They are default powers, similar to those in the principal Act, namely the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. They are not new, they are not a precedent, and, with respect, it is wholly reasonable that if the work has to be done by the Secretary of State, it must be paid for.

Baroness Hamwee

My concern is more fundamental than the knock-on effect of payment. There are other places in the Bill where, "if such and such, then such and such" and we do not have the interposition of either the local planning authority or the Secretary of State thinking that they are "such and such". Obviously, he must take a view as to whether the local planning authority fails or omits to do anything. He must be reasonable in that. However, this default power is dependent on his judgment. I remain uncomfortable at the prospect of a local planning authority having to seek judicial review of that decision. That is what this would boil down to, if it did not want him to intervene.

Lord Rooker

The noble Baroness said that if after a local government annual settlement, when local authorities have had their due amount of money under the revenue support arrangements to carry out the functions that they are supposed to carry out, and they refuse for some reason to carry out a function that must be done, the Secretary of State must make sure that that is carried out but that he is not entitled to charge for it. Surely she does not mean that. The local authorities have been paid to do it. They will have their grant money to carry out their functions; therefore, I cannot see what is so unreasonable about a default power in the most extreme circumstances, if that must be done. Someone must pay for it. In effect, the local authority has already paid for it through its revenue support settlement.

Baroness Hamwee

We all know full well that the Secretary of State would just withhold it the following year. We have all been there, have we not? We will return to the issue of the Secretary of State's powers. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 108B and 108BA not moved.]

Clause 26 agreed to.

Clause 27 [Joint local development documents]:

Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 108C: Page 16, line 4, leave out subsections (6) to (9).

The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 108D, which is grouped with Amendment No. 108C. Amendment No. 108C would leave out subsections (6) to (9) of Clause 27, and Amendment No. 108D would leave out subsection (11).

My point is not unrelated to the previous few exchanges. Clause 27 relates to local planning authorities coming together to prepare joint documents. That may be a fine thing, but I am not challenging that, as it is not the issue. If local authorities are given the power to agree to prepare joint documents, is it necessary to spell out in legislation what will happen if the agreement falls to bits? Subsections (7) to (9) apply if a local planning authority withdraws from an agreement. Is it not up to the parties to any agreement to work out what to do in a series of circumstances?

Does the Secretary of State so fear that local planning authorities will get into a mess that he must prescribe for such a situation in the Bill and make regulations on a corresponding joint local development—another great phrase that is ripe for acronymisation? We have been told often enough that we should not include more than is reasonable on the face of the Bill. My point relates to local authority autonomy. If they are big enough and capable enough to agree to write joint plans, I suggest that they can reach an appropriate agreement without help. I beg to move.

Lord Rooker

Clause 27 enables two or more local planning authorities to agree to prepare one or more joint development documents. Sometimes agreements about joint working will break down. I realise that joint working between local authorities happens at present. I do not know what happens in planning, but in my first couple of years as Food Safety Minister I was gratified by the enormous amount of co-operation and joint working in environmental health and protection, of which, as a big-city boy, I had not been aware. It worked extremely well in many parts of the country.

However, sometimes joint agreements break down. Amendments Nos. 108C and 108D would remove the provisions that cater for that. The clause provides that, if that happens while the joint document is being prepared, any steps taken in preparation of the joint document can count as steps taken towards the preparation of a corresponding document prepared by an authority or authorities party to the joint agreement. Regulations will define a corresponding document as one that does not relate to the area of an authority that has withdrawn from the agreement, and that has substantially the same effect on the areas of the authorities remaining in the agreement as the original document. That seems sensible; otherwise authorities would be throwing away all the work that had been done.

Amendment No. 108D removes the Secretary of State's power to make regulations in which a corresponding document is defined. The clause requires any independent examination into a joint document, under way when a joint agreement breaks down, to be suspended. However, the clause, together with the draft regulations, provides that an authority that was party to the joint agreement can, within three months of its suspension, ask the Secretary of State to direct that the examination be resumed in relation to a corresponding document. It is important to ensure that work undertaken on a joint document is not wasted unnecessarily if an agreement breaks down. If work had been done between two authorities and then one pulled out for various reasons, it would be ludicrous if the other authority could not proceed on the positive basis of work that had already being done. That would be a waste of expertise, local government resources and public money.

The amendments would prevent a reasonable course of action. Therefore, they are not acceptable. I hope that they will not be pursued.

Baroness Hamwee

I think that I can accept that argument in respect of subsection (9). But my main point remains: if planning authorities come together to work as the Minister described, they ought to be trusted to make arrangements for getting out of their agreement. After all, that is always a consideration before entering an agreement. However, having made the point, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Rooker

I beg to move that the House do now resume. In doing so, I suggest that the Committee stage begin again not before 8.30 p.m.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

House resumed.