| Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
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Mr. Clifton-Brown: I apologise to you, Mr. Pike, and to the Committee, for not being present when my hon. Friend started to introduce the new clause. Some of us were outside discussing matters to do with the Committee through the usual channels.
11 amMy hon. Friend's new clause would strengthen the expectation that retrospective planning applications would normally be refused. On Tuesday, the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) stated:
I replied that
We should move towards a situation in which retrospective planning applications are not automatically granted; in fact, the expectation should be that they would not be granted. In the Cotswolds and elsewhere, canny developers carry out developments that they know perfectly well would Column Number: 330 not get planning permission, and once they are built, the planning committee is more sympathetic because the development exists and it would be difficult to take it down.I give as an example the very first constituency case with which I dealt. A constituent had built an entire house without having the materials approved by the local planning authority, which was a condition of the planning application. I supported the local authority in telling him that he had to pull the house down. He did so, and rebuilt it with proper Cotswold stone, as had been required. Legislation to that effect should be on the statute book. Local planning authorities should get tougher with people who carry out unauthorised developments. Apart from anything else, there would be less need for retrospective planning applications, because people would not carry out such developments if they knew that sanctions existed that could be enforced by the local planning authority. I have a great deal of sympathy with the new clause, and hope that the Minister will, too. Yvette Cooper: The new clause would require local planning authorities and the Secretary of State to consider retrospective planning applications as if the development had not been undertaken, and to take no account at all of any of the circumstances arising from the fact that it had, including financial consequences to the developer, the home owner or anyone else. I have a great deal of sympathy for the sentiment behind the new clause. Clearly, the planning system must be fair. It must not unfairly reward people or developers who play the system—so I have considered the new clause very carefully. I understand the points that hon. Members have made, but I do not believe that it would be advisable to legislate in that way. The new clause would require local planning authorities and the Secretary of State to ignore material considerations. That would be contrary to section 70 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which requires regard to be had to
It also would be contrary to the principles of administrative law, which require a decision maker to have regard to all relevant matters. In other words, the new clause would not allow the Secretary of State or local planning authorities to take account in any way of the practical or personal circumstances that might arise. Hon. Members may argue that the Secretary of State and local planning authorities should not take account of such circumstances. After all, those circumstances would not have existed if there had been a prior planning permission application. There may be many cases in which, for reasons similar to those outlined by hon. Members, I would agree that personal and practical circumstances should not be given particular weight in the decision. Developers might be playing the system, or there might be other circumstances. Column Number: 331 It causes considerable difficulty, however, to argue that it should never be possible to take account of personal circumstances connected with the development. The ability to take into account those material circumstances allows decisions to be proportionate. For example, telling someone who has nowhere else to go to knock down their home because it was built half a metre higher than planning permission allowed, when they could have used permitted development rights to do the same work later on anyway, would be considered disproportionate. I recognise what hon. Members are trying to achieve. All communities would feel that people who undertake unauthorised development should not thereby be placed in a more favourable position than those who seek planning permission in advance. They should be made aware that there are obstacles and dangers involved in developing first and seeking permission later. I set out the figures in discussions of earlier clauses. The success rate of 85 per cent. for retrospective applications is, as the hon. Member for Cotswold said, slightly lower than the success rate of 88 per cent. for applications submitted before the development has taken place. For major developments, the success rate for retrospective applications drops to 76 per cent. It is also worth taking into account the fact that retrospective planning applications make up just over 3 per cent. of the total number of applications processed. We must resist the new clause for the reasons that I explained in relation to the material circumstances. However, I would like to consider retrospective planning applications—the 3 per cent.—further as part of our work on the enforcement review. I want to consider the nature of the problem and how big it is. There will be cases in which applications are retrospective because somebody simply did not realise that they needed planning permission, where the development is perfectly sensible, and planning permission would have been given normally—and it is right that it should still be given. It is also right to encourage retrospective planning applications to be made. Once a retrospective application is made, it allows local authorities to impose conditions on the development and brings it within the planning system. If someone says, ''Well, we're not even going to bother putting in a retrospective planning permission application,'' there are no restrictions, and the only alternative is for local planning authorities to serve enforcement notices and go down the enforcement route in an attempt to argue at appeal that conditions ought to be imposed. That route can be far more time-consuming and costly to the local authority than simply inviting a retrospective application. We do not therefore want to discourage retrospective planning applications—but I do want to go a bit deeper into the nature of retrospective planning permission to assess how great the problem is. Mr. Clifton-Brown: I want to raise two points. First, if 85 per cent. of retrospective planning permission applications are successful, that proves the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight, who Column Number: 332 said that far too many of them are automatically granted. Secondly, if a development is clearly against the plan, retrospective planning permission could be applied for and refused, that decision could be appealed against, enforcement action could be taken and that could be appealed against, then a judicial review could take place. Some persistent developers can use the system and through that mechanism prolong for a very long time the period before they have to knock the building down. In some cases, that period is not months but years.Yvette Cooper: The hon. Gentleman's second point is about the nature of the enforcement system and the time it takes. That is certainly something we are considering as part of the enforcement review. It is not necessarily specific to retrospective planning permission or to the new clause; it is a broader point about the speed of enforcement, and I do have some sympathy with it. I do not think that we can simply argue that because 85 per cent. of applications receive permission, that means that they are automatically given permission because they are retrospective. I want to look at the figures more closely. They may well include many cases of minor applications, for example, when people did not realise that they needed planning permission for the work. I shall look more closely at that, and at the community perception that such matters are not handled fairly. It is important that the planning system is not only fair, but seen to be fair. I recognise the issues that hon. Members have raised, but the problem is not simple to resolve, because many different kinds of case are being picked up. Mr. Turner: The Minister has been helpful, and says that she wants to examine such matters. Does she expect to be able to do so during the Bill's passage, before it leaves the other place? Yvette Cooper: As I said at an earlier stage, we had hoped to respond to the enforcement review before the end of the year. I can undertake to write to the hon. Gentleman and let him know how far it will be possible to examine the matter, and the time scale over which I will be able to do so. I am responding to the concerns that he has raised in this debate and have not had a chance to discuss them further with officials, so I simply do not know how far it will be possible to consider them, or what time scale will be needed. I shall write to tell him what sort of matters we shall look into and what time scale will be involved, but I cannot give him a more detailed answer at this stage. On that basis, I ask him to withdraw the new clause.
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