| Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
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Mr. Touhig: Where appropriate, steps will be taken to take account of cross-border planning matters. That happens already, and will continue to happen as a result of this Bill. Mr. Edwards: Perhaps my hon. Friend will direct the hon. Member for Ludlow to clause 56(5)(c), which refers to
Mr. Touhig: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that; he is welcome to join our team any time. Mr. Clifton-Brown: The hon. Member for Monmouth has not read the Bill properly. Clause 56(5) relates to local plans, not to the Wales spatial strategy. However, it would be helpful to have on record the mechanism that the Minister expects to be put in place to deal with the sorts of issues that the hon. Member for Ludlow has raised and the sorts of issues that I have raised—waste management, flooding, transport and so on. How will cross-border issues be dealt with? Mr. Touhig: I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but I thought that I had explained that the Bill contains provisions that will allow the widest possible consultation on cross-border issues that arise during the development of the Welsh spatial plan. There is no need to follow the line that the hon. Gentleman advocated earlier. In Wales, we have a unitary system of local government. It works quite in harmony with the Welsh Assembly. The Assembly will work closely with local government and other interested parties to prepare the spatial plan. It will look to local government to put the plan into effect and to ensure that it is properly consulted on, discussed and approved. The Assembly, in its plenary sessions or through its Committee structures, will undertake the role of scrutiny. In many respects, that will be similar to the processes that Parliament undertakes. If they wish me to, I will happily write to hon. Members to set out the Assembly's procedures for public consultation on any steps that it plans to take. Mr. Clifton-Brown: To ensure consistency between England and Wales, will the Welsh Grand Committee of this House have a role in examining the planning system in Wales? Mr. Touhig: There is no reason why, in the annual Welsh day debate, any hon. Member could not raise any matter. However, I will undertake to write to the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members to explain the way in which the Assembly carries out public consultations on major steps that it is about to take. Column Number: 431 Public participation is encouraged and forms part of the work of the Welsh Assembly.The proposed new clauses are neither necessary nor appropriate. They are ill-thought-out and hasty. They attempt to introduce to the planning system in Wales provisions that are designed specifically for England. We can see how hastily the proposals were put together if we consider subsections (3)(c) and (d) of new clause 26. They would require the Wales planning board, which the party opposite wants us to set up, to consider, when preparing the Wales spatial strategy, the spatial development strategy for London—but only if Wales and Greater London adjoin each other. I have spent some time going through the map of the United Kingdom, and I cannot find any point at which the boundary of Wales attaches to the boundary of London. Sir Sydney Chapman: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: it is nonsense in that respect—although these provisions have been copied. However, in parts of London, many people think that Wales does adjoin London—think of the Welsh rugger club. Mr. Touhig: I take the hon. Gentleman's point. Reference was made earlier to the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, who is not here. I know that he would want a separate and independent Wales, but I do not think that, even in his wildest dreams, he would have territorial ambitions to take the borders of Wales up to the borders of Greater London. A Welshman looking across from Penarth head into the Bristol channel could see those two wonderful islands, Flatholme and Steepholme. Flatholme is in Wales and Steepholme is in England. That Welshman may have territorial ambitions to bring both islands under Welsh ownership, but no Welshman would have the same ambition towards the Isle of Dogs, thereby ensuring a territorial link between Wales and the Greater London area. Matthew Green: I warn the Minister against making assumptions about where Plaid Cymru might want the Welsh border to be. After all, one of their heroes is Owain Glyndwr, who made a tripartite pact with the two Percys to split England and Wales into three parts. If the Percys had been successful in the battle of Shrewsbury, large parts of the midlands would have been added to Wales. The Minister assumes that Plaid Cymru want the border to remain as it is, but history shows us that the Welsh have territorial ambitions. The Chairman: Order. Let us remember that the white rose was beaten by the red rose, the emblem of the house of Lancaster. Mr. Touhig: I remind the Committee that the Tudors united all of them. I will not follow the temptation offered by the hon. Member for Ludlow. New clause 26(3)(d) is even more intriguing. When preparing a revised Wales spatial plan, the Wales planning body—which the Opposition want us to create—should have regard to that plan if any part of Wales ''adjoins Wales''. That is too testing for 4.55 in Column Number: 432 the afternoon. It demonstrates how ill-thought-out the Opposition's amendment really is.Sir Sydney Chapman: Like the mis-spelling of ''compulsory'' or ''satisfied'', it is a typographical error. The Chairman: Order. Let us return to the main clause stand part debate. Mr. Touhig: Clause 54 introduces a statutory framework for the National Assembly to prepare the Wales spatial plan. It provides a statutory basis for the innovative work already undertaken by the Assembly in producing the first Wales spatial plan. The plan will set out the broad pattern of development and land use most likely to secure the Assembly's stated policy objectives. The plan will place a statutory duty on the Assembly to prepare, approve and publish a spatial plan for Wales. There will be no Welsh equivalent to the regional planning bodies in England. The Assembly will fulfil that function. It will be required to carry out full and widespread consultation on the plan—it has a good record on public consultation. Consultation will take place across a range of organisations in the public and private as well as the voluntary and environmental sectors. The clause prevents the Assembly from delegating the function of approving the plan. The Assembly will be required to keep the plan under review and revise it when necessary. Wales is not a large country and does not have the huge population to which the hon. Member for Cotswold referred earlier in our debate. However, the proposal is a coherent strategy for dealing with planning throughout Wales. It is the right approach to adopt to tackle our difficulties and reform our planning system. Question put and agreed to. Clause 54 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
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| Prepared 23 January 2003 | |
