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Clause 14
Local development scheme
Matthew Green: I beg to move amendment No. 224, in
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
No. 123, in
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No. 225, in
Matthew Green (Ludlow): On a point of order, Mr. Pike. I note that, in your provisional selection, amendment No. 225 appears both in the group under clause 14 and as the lead amendment in the group under clause 17.
The Chairman: You may not be reading the revised list, Mr. Green. Your list should have the word ''revised'' at the top. The provisional list was corrected yesterday.
Matthew Green: Thank you for that clarification, Mr. Pike.
We seek to ensure that where two-tier district and county councils remain, they should work together, where needed, to produce producing the local development scheme. We have already established that the new local development schemes go beyond land-use planning and are intended to be a sort of spatial development strategy. Local development schemes will encompass transport, education, housing, health and employment issues, and investment strategies can play into those schemes.
Although the two-tier structure still exists in places, the authority that delivers many functions is the county council, not the district council. It would be slightly perverse if the district council, in drawing up its local development scheme, did not consult county councils to ensure that it took their views into account.
The amendments would ensure that local and planning authorities at district level have regard to assistance offered by county councils in areas that affect them. That falls short of formal partnership, and I hope that the wording reflects the Government's preferred way to deal with the matter. They have often said that they do not want to formalise arrangements. We heard about the example of Brent and an adjoining London authority, which was obviously a two-tier area. I hope that the Government will like the style of the wording. It certainly suits the themes that the Minister has talked about.
The amendment has been worded to be future-proof. It should deal with any eventual set of circumstances concerning local authorities. As we heard from the hon. Member for Spelthorne, there has been a considerable history of change in local government. Every few decades or so, the Government, whoever they may be, decide to change the whole system.
The amendments would ensure that districts use county council assistance, where it makes sense, in drawing up local development schemes. The amendments are broadly along lines suggested by the Local Government Association. The hon. Member for Cotswold may mention that when he speaks to his amendment, which would achieve the same result as mine.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: Clause 14 concerns the local development scheme. At the beginning of this sitting, I
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was slightly premature in launching into a description of various local development schemes, documents and plan documents. Having described them, I do not need to repeat myself, except to say that I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm my understanding of the concentric circles in which the local development document encompasses local development documents, which further encompass local development plan documents. His helpful piece of paper ''Development plan system: Overview of current and proposed new system: What the Bill does'' confirms that.
That piece of paper also confirms what I said earlier. Local development frameworks, a term widely used in the Green Paper ''Planning: delivering a fundamental change'', do not appear in the Bill. The piece of paper explains that the term will be used in guidance as a collective term for all LDDs, SCIs, and so on. Another form of terminology is creeping in, which will further complicate the entire process because it will be used in general guidance. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that.
The hon. Member for Ludlow spoke to his amendments. I prefer my own, but I would say that, wouldn't I? I dislike his amendments for using the word ''deem''. I am always suspicious when that word appears, because it gives the local authority, the Government or the Secretary of State an almost all-encompassing power of whose meaning they can give the sole interpretation. Should a case then come to judicial review, they need merely say, ''We deemed this, or the other''.
I am not being unkind to the hon. Member for Ludlow, but simply telling him the facts of life. I always like clarity and simplicity, and I believe that amendment No. 123 would provide it. The hon. Gentleman himself said straightforwardly that it would clarify the powers of local planning authorities and county councils—the same old chestnut. Typically, county councils deliver 80 per cent. of local government services, particularly, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, in the important areas of transport, education, housing, health, employment and major investment strategies.
It is inconceivable that when important local documents are drawn up the county council should not in practice be consulted on them. I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify that point because it is not in the Bill.
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Asking local planning authorities at district level to have regard to assistance offered from the county level in the same area, which is short of a formal partnership, seems to be consistent with the Bill and the Government's thinking. I would have thought the Minister would have no problem in confirming what I am saying and in accepting our amendment. I look forward with great interest to his response. I hope that this time we can get not half a loaf but a whole loaf.
Mr. McNulty: The hon. Gentleman should not take what happened on clause 13 as an unhappy precedent for the rest of our proceedings. Amendment No. 224 requires the local planning authority to make use of
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''the assistance of any other local authority whose area comprises any part of the area of the local planning authority''
in carrying out its duties to repair or maintain a local development scheme where it is deemed appropriate. The respective hon. Gentlemen have gone through amendments Nos. 123 and 225. The only point that emerged was that, as the hon. Member for Ludlow said, amendment No. 225 is more specific to clause 17 and the statement of community involvement rather than the local development documents, but it was appropriate to place it in this group in the provisional selection.
I am confident that local planning authorities may wish to seek assistance from other local authorities whose areas cover part of theirs. I ask why on earth they would not do so in the context of the framework's development. I am also confident that local planning authorities will want to consult such authorities about their local development schemes before submitting a draft to the Secretary of State.
It is clear that they will need to do so where they are dependent on those other authorities for information and advice necessary for the preparation of the relevant local development documents; for example, in the two-tier areas, relevant survey data may be collected by the counties or there may be a need to ensure proper liaison with work on the local transport plan. We have already talked about the role county councils may play in keeping matters relevant to local planning under review.
Furthermore, there may be occasions where joint local development documents need to be prepared with a county council through joint committee arrangements—we will come to that matter. For all those reasons we intend to encourage such consultation.
The Bill makes it clear that preparing and maintaining the local development scheme is the local planning authority's responsibility. Clarity is important as it reflects the authority's responsibility for the scheme and the local development documents to be produced under it. Specifying that the local authority should obtain assistance from other authorities where deemed appropriate could blur that clarity and is hardly appropriate for legislation as opposed to guidance.
No value would be added in requiring a local planning authority to specify assistance in its local development scheme. The local development scheme is intended to be a project plan to be kept under review and updated as necessary. It would set out the local development documents that the local planning authority proposed to prepare, and their area and subject matter; it would also specify which of those the local planning authority proposed should be subject to statutory procedures, and which not. In the transitional period, it would show which sections of the old local plan or unitary development plan still comprised part of the development plan, and whether any of those documents were to be prepared jointly with another planning authority or authorities.
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Finally, it would set out the planned timetable for preparing the documents.
Adherence to the overall scheme laid down by the local planning authority will form part of the best value assessment indicators against which the performance of the local planning authority will be measured. Local planning authorities will be required to produce an annual report on progress in preparing the local development documents against the targets set out in the scheme. The matters to be set out in the scheme are, rightly, clear and definite. It would not be appropriate for assistance from other authorities, which may of course be given informally ad hoc, to be listed in the local development scheme, and I therefore urge the hon. Member for Cotswold to withdraw the amendments.
I am in a slight dilemma now, given the time; I could say much about amendment No. 225, which would make specific provision for assistance from other authorities. It relates to the statement of community involvement and although it is rightly included in this group I think that I shall keep my powder dry until we reach clause 17.
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