Standing Committee G
Thursday 9 January 2003
(Afternoon)
[Mr. Peter Pike in the Chair]
2.32 pm
The Chairman: We are quorate, so we can commence the sitting. However, before we start, the Committee may like to know that a slightly larger Room has been found for us—several hon. Members raised that point this morning. As of next Tuesday, we shall meet in Room 16, which will be more convenient. Clause 1
Regional Spatial Strategy
Amendment moved [this day]: No. 47, in
clause 1, page 1, line 7, leave out 'however expressed'.—[Mr. Clifton-Brown.]
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold): I welcome you formally to the Chair, Mr. Pike, although I did welcome you in your absence this morning. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship and we shall do our best to cause you the least possible trouble.
When this morning's sitting was adjourned, I was moving amendment No. 47 and arguing that the words ''however expressed'' are unnecessary—they are overly precise and fussy and they leave a great deal to interpretation. What does ''however expressed'' mean? I should have thought that we had perfectly adequate procedures whereby that the Secretary of State can give a direction in writing in the normal way. The words are therefore otiose; they can mean anything to anybody. Without those words, subsection (2) is completely objective and factual. To insert them is to make the subsection subjective.
Do the words ''however expressed'' mean that the Secretary of State's policies can be sent by e-mail? The Government are keen on e-government, so I assume that they do mean that. Do the words mean that policies can be sent through a speech that the Secretary of State might make—if he says it in a speech, it is a direction—or do they refer to a more old-fashioned way of delivery, such as carrier pigeon? Had we proposed an amendment putting the words into the Bill, the Minister would strongly have urged his hon. Friends to reject it because it was unnecessary and added confusion.
This simple amendment would give the Bill much greater clarity, and make the statement of the Secretary of State completely objective, rather than subjective as it would be under the Bill as drafted. If the Minister accepts the amendment, we can move on quickly.
Matthew Green (Ludlow): I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Pike. I look forward to serving under your chairmanship.
I support the amendment. Although it deletes only two words, the more I read it, the more interesting it
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becomes. ''However expressed'' could mean anything, for example, the Minister could change his policies for the region in response to a question from a journalist on regional television. The Minister will say that that is not what the Bill intends, but including those words leaves matters open to interpretation. The current Secretary of State might not choose to misuse the proposal, but there is a danger in leaving in law something that could be misused by a future Minister. I doubt that the Government want that to be part of their legacy. I am sure that the Minister will agree to some tightening of the measure, because as drafted it is somewhat open-ended.
Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet): I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) in welcoming you to the Chair, Mr. Pike.
When I read subsection (2) I was filled with amazement. At first I thought that it was included to meet the needs of the Deputy Prime Minister, whose speech has a unique style, but the words do not add to the clarity of the clause. The subsection as drafted is open to abuse and gives the Secretary of State carte blanche—I always like to use a French phrase when I disagree with something. I should be interested to know why the words are necessary and I hope that the Minister will enlighten us. I want to know, too, why they are in brackets: is it a typographical error? Was it in the first draft especially for the Deputy Prime Minister and left in unintentionally? Seriously, I should be interested to know if there is a precedent for the phrase, in brackets or not. Has it been used in any other legislation in this Parliament?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Tony McNulty): I, too, welcome you as one of our co-Chairmen, Mr. Pike. We had great fun yesterday on a regulatory reform order, and I am sure that we shall have fun during the passage of the Bill.
In my six or seven years as a Member of Parliament, I have sat on the Government Benches—never on the Opposition side—in various capacities from Back Bencher, Parliamentary Private Secretary—
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley): You will.
Mr. McNulty: I may well do so. It depends on longevity. I have found that it is always funny little things like this amendment that delay Committees. We will take our time over it rather than being in a hurry. The key phrase in the clause is not ''however expressed'' but what it follows it:
''in relation to the development and use of land within the region.''
That goes to the heart of the approach suggested this morning by the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire), who gleefully dismissed the Bill and the planning system as being essentially about land use. That is not the case. The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 was and is a glorious piece of legislation of which the country should be proud. I do not say that merely as a planning anorak—I believe that it was a cutting edge piece of legislation for its time. However, through the Greater London Authority Act 1999, which included the spatial development strategy for
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London, and in this Bill, we want to move on from the 1947 Act to a real spatial strategy approach.
If we were to leave out, ''however expressed'', the alternative route for drafting would be to put in an telephone book-long list that would be all-embracing in terms of a spatial strategy, and we would have to do far more work than that involved in revamping PPG11. Far from being otiose, or over stuffy or precise, and given the vagaries of drafting English and the lexicon of language that the lawyers like to call English, that phrase, in parentheses, gives us a shorthand way of saying that the regional spatial strategy must set out the policies of the Secretary of State.
In the legalese, ''however expressed'' simply means that, rather than everything being construed as focused on land use in a narrow statutory policy, circular and guidance-fashion, it should be expressed in the broadest way possible à la PPG11. Far from being too precise, those two words will allow the RSS to reflect, as widely as possible, all the spatial dimensions beyond a narrow focus on land use, in which consideration of the granting or refusal of applications for planning permission or listed building or hazardous substances consent would be the primary purpose. That is complementary to the notion behind clause 1 and to making the regional side of our planning RSS-based. It also falls into the context of the debate we had on amendment No. 133. The phrase, however clumsy, will allow the RSS to reflect all those other strategies and dimensions at regional level that the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) mentioned earlier.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: I would be grateful if the Minister addressed the amendment, in which we are not arguing about whether the Secretary of State can allocate powers in relation to development and land use within the region. There are clear mechanisms established in relation to how the Secretary of State can allocate those powers.
Why do we need the words, ''however expressed''? Will the Minister answer the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) on whether there is any legal precedent for the phrase? Moreover, it is not clear in the clause whether, ''however expressed'' refers to the RSS or to the policies of the Secretary of State. Will the Minister clarify those issues?
Mr. McNulty: I shall certainly return to the point about precedent, if the winged messengers on my left permit me to do so. With the best will in the world, I do not carry information about such matters in my head. As for the second point, the phrase is very precise and specific. It is saying that the RSS must reflect the policies of the Secretary of State, however those policies are expressed. That is my reading of it.
It might be helpful if we were to dwell briefly on how a spatial strategy differs from a land-use strategy, and the advantages of the provisions in the Bill over the provisions in the amendment. Spatial planning is about what can be built where and in what
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circumstances, and about how the consequences of development will be managed and the particular social, economic and environmental objectives met. All those elements are at the core of the existing PPG11, which is the foundation of our regional planning guidance, and they will be contained in the renewed PPG11. Although we are concerned with development and use of land, spatial policies are not only about the granting and refusal of planning permission, and they need not be entirely or directly expressed in traditional land-use terms. Spatial planning is not a new idea. It is contained in the Greater London Authority Act, on which the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet spent the best part of three months in Committee with the rest of us, which was a great delight.
The PPG11 note on regional planning—I have yet to establish what RPG11 is, but I shall inform the hon. Member for Cotswold when I find out—published in October 2000 set out advice on the adoption of a spatial strategy, which extends beyond land-use issues as one of the ways of strengthening the role and effectiveness of regional planning guidance. Such a strategy deals with traffic management and other policies that go beyond land use. Such policies should be included in the RSS because they can have a direct impact on the level of traffic in an area and thus quality of life, air quality, public health and so forth.
2.45 pm
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