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Standing Committee G
Thursday 16 January 2003
(Afternoon)
[Mr. Peter Pike in the Chair]
Clause 16
Local development documents
Amendment proposed [this day]: No. 89, in
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Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Amendment No. 196, in
clause 16, page 9, line 30, leave out subsection (2).
Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne): Perhaps you will allow me to say at the outset, Mr. Pike, that in your absence this morning the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) got a message that his wife was about to give birth, so he is not here. I am sure that we would all like to wish him and his wife well. We on the Conservative Benches have had to deal with a funeral, and those on the Liberal Benches have to deal with a birth, so if a Government Member is planning to get married shortly, and is missing for that reason, we shall have a full hand of such occurrences.
I raise that matter partly because I certainly want to send my best wishes to the hon. Gentleman, but also because a number of our forthcoming amendments are grouped with lead amendments under his name. My understanding is that it is perfectly in order for anybody to move such amendments, and from time to time it will probably be best for us to do so. The official Opposition might be many things, but we are not mind readers, so we shall do our level best to interpret some of the amendments. That is necessary because, as I understand the matter, the lead amendment must be moved in order to get to the amendments that are tucked in behind it.
The Chairman: May I clarify that? The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct: any member can move an amendment that has been tabled, and yes, the lead amendment is the key amendment. If a Member on the Conservative Benches has to move an amendment that he has not tabled, that is quite in order.
Mr. Wilshire: I am grateful for that, Mr. Pike.
I had just finished speaking to amendment No. 196 before lunch, and I had accepted that the way in which it was worded might not appeal to the Minister. However, what it seeks to achieve is important. Amendment No. 196 would leave out subsection (2), which states:
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''The local planning authority may also specify in the scheme such other documents as they think are appropriate.''
Amendment No. 196 seeks to make the point that for the local authority to say, ''This is what we want,'' is an enormously wide power, and I do not see why it should be. The documents are either necessary or they are not. The Minister might not want to delete subsection (2), and could argue that there is a need for it. The sensible alternative—we could consider it on Report—is for the local planning authority also to specify in the scheme such other documents as they have good reason to think are appropriate. There should be a test of reasonableness.
As the Minister was saying this morning, although we like to think that all local authorities are brilliant, or if they are not exactly brilliant now, they are getting better, there will be some, as he sadly conceded, that will drag their feet. In an imperfect world there will, I fear, be planning authorities that occasionally seek to act unreasonably. Either there should not be a provision that gives them a completely free hand, or, if the Minister thinks that it is a good idea to give them some discretion, that should be constrained by a test of reasonableness. Amendment No. 196 seeks to achieve that.
Amendment No. 88 raises some different issues and relates to subsection (1), which states:
''Documents which must be specified in the local development scheme as local development documents are''—
and there here follows a list of what such things are. Surprisingly, all that it can bring itself to say is:
''documents of such descriptions as are prescribed''.
I assume that these are documents to be prescribed by the Secretary of State, and, at the risk of repeating myself, I have to say that this is rule by diktat. The sole arbiter of all this procedure will be the Secretary of State who will prescribe it. I hope that we can discuss what sort of documents the Minister has in mind. It could be anything; there is no test of reasonableness. Curiously—although perhaps not so curiously for this Government—the Government think it necessary to go one step beyond, to say that the Secretary of State can do what he likes.
Clause 16(1)(b) speaks of
''the local planning authority's statement of community involvement.''
That is really a genuflection to political correctness, as I see it. It is most curious that this is the only statement mentioned, because the number of documents that could be listed is legion, yet the only one worthy of mention in the eyes of the Government is a statement of community involvement. Before I am accused of all sorts of things that I do not intend, let me make it absolutely clear that I am all in favour of a statement of community involvement—but why is it the only one listed?
Amendment No. 89 would amplify the list a little. It would have been possible to table all sorts of amendments adding all sorts of documents, but for this debate we are right to list at least those two. Earlier this morning, my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) said that it was important to remember, in the context of the listing of
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strategic planning statements, that there might be a region that did not have an elected assembly. As things stand, the strategic planning statements, documents and policies are more than likely to be decided on by people who have no democratic credentials. Indeed, some of those involved seem to have no grasp of the issues either.
My hon. Friend pointed out that in the absence of an elected regional assembly, this would be a sensible way of requiring a local planning authority to take on the role of making strategic planning statements. I wholeheartedly agree with that, but I anticipate that the Minister might be tempted to say, as he has in the past, that a local planning authority covers far too small an area for any regional or strategic thinking. However, an argument against dismissing the amendment is that he might consider the idea of charging joint committees of local planning authorities with the job. The joint committee could cover the entire area of the Government's artificial region—and they are artificial because the south-east, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley suggested, extends from Milton Keynes to the Isle of Man—or rather, the Isle of Wight. What on earth bits of Surrey, and bits of my constituency, have in common with the Isle of Wight when it comes to strategic planning, I do not know. The areas are so artificial.
If, however, we are to be forced down the route of strategic planning statements for areas, it is important that they be determined either by local planning authorities or by joint committees of local planning authorities. I know that the argument regularly trotted out against joint committees is that although the people on them may be elected, the joint committees themselves are not. At least, however, the members of a joint committee that has been formed to produce a planning statement will have been elected. Therefore the amendment standing in our name is worthy of consideration.
In reforming the planning process, we urgently need to emphasise transport plans. At the moment we tend to have wish lists that say, ''It would be a good idea if we did this.'' What they all too often lack is an indication of when that will happen and when it will be funded. Plans may make general statements to the effect that it would be nice to build a bypass here and a bypass there, and that we would need this, that and the other. However, without a coherent planning statement that makes it crystal clear which transport improvements will happen when, it is difficult to know when it will be best to release land for development, because no one will know when the roads and the railways will be available. It is therefore entirely proper that we should include a transport plan in the Bill.
For the same reasons, it would be wrong, for the purposes of this debate, to leave the determination of local transport plans to unelected people in some distant place—be it Milton Keynes, the Isle of Wight, Southampton, Brighton or wherever else the Government think it sensible to run an artificial region from.
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The Government may not like the detailed wording of the amendments, and I can only repeat that the Opposition do not have the services of parliamentary draftsmen. However, our intention is to make it clear that we should not simply leave it to the Secretary of State to prescribe whatever documents he likes without at least setting out what they might be. If the Minister is not prepared to accept our suggestions, I hope that he will at least tell us what documents the Secretary of State might prescribe.
Mr. McNulty: Welcome to our proceedings, Mr. Pike. I am sure that they will be as much fun this afternoon as they were this morning.
Let me start by saying that Labour Members entirely associate themselves with the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) about the hon. Member for Ludlow and his breaking news, which he announced after our previous sitting. We all wish him and his wife Godspeed and the best of luck with their delivery. I shall resist the temptation to take up the trite remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Wansdyke (Dan Norris), who wanted me to make a crack about there being at least one Liberal Democrat who has enjoyed a labour experience. [Hon. Members: ''Oh.''] That is why I resisted. I will get a new joke writer, who will not be allowed to touch on the issue.
Unusually, the problem with the amendments is not the wording or the paucity of the draftsmanship—I feel like getting my violin out every time we hear about the Opposition not having an army of draftsmen to assist them. I am tempted to reply that they had one for 18 years, and they still did not do a terribly good job, so what they do now is grist for the mill. However, the difficulty with the present amendments is the substance, not the wording. As I shall explain, a core strategy—it would, I assume, roughly equate to the strategic planning statement, although the Bill does not elaborate on that—must be part and parcel of the local development documents that make up the development plan.
As regards
''the authority's Local Transport Plan'',
the term ''the authority'' is not defined, and we can only assume that ''Local Transport Plan'' means the existing local transport plan. As I shall explain, the provision would not apply to all authorities, and would effectively be a bidding statement. Furthermore, it would not be terribly useful, given that transport is clearly a key part of the core planning strategy, which is an element of the local development documents.
The first document proposed in amendment No. 89 is therefore already included in the Bill. I will elucidate further what the local development documents should incorporate, as I was specifically asked to do. The second document is not a planning document and would not cover all the authorities affected by the clause. Amendment No. 89 is therefore not appropriate.
Amendment No. 196 would remove the local planning authority's discretion to include such documents as it thinks appropriate in its local
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development scheme. Again, there should be nothing terribly troubling about the proposal in the clause. It refers to additional documents that the local planning authority considers appropriate in the context of its local development scheme. They will not be part of the development plan, but they will be the rough equivalent of current supplementary planning guidance. It is more appropriate that they stay. If a local planning authority wanted to produce local development documents that were unreasonable or capricious, the Secretary of State could direct it to modify its local development scheme to prevent it from doing so, even though he supposedly has malign powers. There will be an inspection or review of the integrity of the local development scheme, as we have already discussed.
Regulations will determine which documents local authorities will be required to include. As I am rapidly learning, that is essentially what ''as are prescribed'' means. The first document will be the core strategy, which will contain the core policies for delivering the spatial strategy for the whole of the local authority's area. It will be supported by reasonable justification, as is the case for development plans at the moment. As I learned during my time on a planning committee, the paragraphs of reasonable justification that one rushes through, looking to get to the next policy involvement, are in many cases just as important and integral a part of the document.
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The policy should be location specific, rather then site specific, and for that reason it may be more appropriately illustrated by a key diagram, although authorities may choose to illustrate it on the Ordnance Survey-based proposals map. Some of them may need to be expressed as criteria-based policies.
Secondly, site-specific policies and proposals including a proposals map for the whole of the local authority's area will be required. That should set out any details of any site-specific policies, outside the actual area plans. The map will be, as it is now, a proposals plan map that shows existing and revised designations of areas of land, such as conservation areas and green belt land. Everyone who has seen a unitary development map will know the sort of designations that there are.
The map will also define the sites for future land uses, or developments and the areas to which specific policies apply. The map should also show the locations of any proposed or actual area action plan. Some authorities may choose not to have any area action plans. Such plans might need to be defined in more detail on separate, inset maps, which would show all the proposals in the area covered by the inset. The map should be Ordnance Survey-based.
Rather than submitting those two types of development plan documents separately, local planning authorities are free to include them in one integrated development plan document. In such instances, the end result would be similar to the proposed arrangements in Wales that we discussed earlier.
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These are only two of the compulsory features of the local development plan. If authorities wish to propose area action plans, to which the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir S. Chapman) referred earlier, those too would be development plan documents that should be identified in the scheme. These plans will be for key areas of change or conservation. Site-specific area plans will be needed for areas in which there is a concentration of proposals for change. Such area action plans could cover a town centre plan, or a plan for a small town or village where change is anticipated or specific conservation measures are required.
The provision that amendment No. 196 would delete allows local authorities to prepare and include in their local development framework less formal documents that are equivalent to current supplementary planning guidance under the present system. These would include site development briefs and would be adopted through shorter, simpler procedures, but would be afforded less weight in the consideration of proposals for development. However, they may be a material consideration. By deleting the subsection, we would limit the effectiveness and strength of the local development documents that a local planning authority puts together.
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