Lord Grocott
In fully supporting what my noble friend said, my point may seem trivial, but I hope that the House will not think that. There is a pretty good tradition in this House that when there is a major Statement, a really significant Statement, 40 minutes, not 20 minutes, will be allowed for Back Bench contributions. I understand that a request was made on that basis but refused today.
It would be very difficult to think of a more significant Statement than the one we have had today. I cannot think of one. The Leader of the House has been around a lot longer than I have, and perhaps he can draw on one. It was a Statement by the Prime Minister for which he had specifically come back from his tour of Africa and, in the other place, it is being followed by a debate. They will have about six hours to discuss these major issues. We have had about 40 or 45 minutes.
It is no use saying that we had a debate last Friday. We did. I was not here, but I have read it, and it was an outstanding debate. There is no reason not to think that this House could make a substantial contribution to these hugely important issues. I should like an explanation from the Leader of the House why the tradition of major Statements having 40 minutes for Back Bench contributions has been ignored on this occasion.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is right to say that there have been such occasions. I do not know whether it is a tradition, but if it is, it is overwhelmingly on issues where this House has a particular expertise, which is why the past few occasions that I can remember have been on the future of this House. This is an important Statement, but it was no more important than many Statements that we take every week. The purpose of a Statement is to bring to the House at the earliest possible opportunity a change of policy or a statement by the Government, and that is what we have done. I can absolutely promise the noble Lord that this is not the last time that we shall be discussing this issue. Over the next few months—indeed, years—we will have plenty of opportunity to debate it, as we have done recently, not only last Friday but on another Statement only a week ago. It was on that basis that I did not see the need to detain your Lordships any longer.
It might interest the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to know that we offered the opportunity to the Opposition that we could sit tomorrow—Thursday—to have a debate, but that was rejected. It is a pity, because not only could we have had a debate on the press, but we could have risen earlier this afternoon and finished off the Localism Bill tomorrow.
I have heard these little complaints from noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite that we are working them too hard on the Localism Bill. But this is day 10 in Committee and it is 3.15 pm, so we have plenty of time to continue work on the Bill. It has long been known that the Government’s aim is to finish the Committee stage of the legislation today. That may prove to be impossible but, with a fair wind and the co-operation of the opposition Chief Whip, there is no reason why we should not finish. My sense is that those who have been sitting in Committee for the last nine and a half days would rather like to get on with it and to be heard. We are about to be off for six weeks. I share with the opposition Chief Whip the concerns that he has rightly for the staff of this House, who work incredibly hard for us. The good news is that from tomorrow they, too, like noble Lords, will be able to have a long lie-in and a rest. They do not need to come back and be bothered about this until September.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for sharing my concern. It is not just the staff of this House who will be affected, it is also our own staff. When the Order of Business has been well advertised and well known for some time, it is unreasonable to expect people to be here well past our normal finishing time. This is not wasting time; it is making a perfectly proper point. The House needs to be treated with the respect it deserves, and this Bill needs to be treated with the respect it deserves. It deserves good scrutiny. Driving us on to late hours at night on the last day I think is quite wrong.
I am sure the Minister has the votes in his pocket. That is why the Government are here and that is how they operate in this House, but it is quite wrong to do this. I urge him to at least encourage some reasonable discussions this afternoon about how we can draw this to a close. We are a co-operative Opposition, but it is our job also to act properly in opposition and do a proper job of scrutiny on Bills in the correct hours. I believe in that very strongly and I am sure the whole House does.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am very happy to have further discussions off the Floor of the House, and I am very keen that the House should behave and continue in a proper way. However, to me, the noble Lord’s protestations sound a little hollow given that we are about to take six weeks off.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
That is just not true. The noble Lord has not answered the point. How does he expect us realistically to deal with 36 groups of amendments, some of them very long, in less than four hours? That just does not seem to me to be the right way to set about business.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we have added our name to the clause stand part debate that was spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, in particular. Along with the noble Lords, Lord Jenkin and Lord Reay, and, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, we stand by the long-standing and fundamental principle that planning permission may not be bought or sold—a principle that was reinforced by, I think, the Nolan committee in 1997.
I can see that the amendment was an attempt to be helpful and potentially addresses one area of the concern that primacy has been given to financial considerations. However, it still raises the issue of why it is specifically mentioned and highlighted, even with the qualification, when other material considerations are not. Why does it not stand or fall like any other material consideration, subject to whatever case law produces and to guidance? I would support that proposition as well. I was very struck by the force of the arguments that came to us when this clause was introduced, as it was introduced very late in the day in the other place and there was no opportunity to debate it extensively. My understanding is that the test for planning obligations includes that it must be,
“relevant to planning … necessary to make the proposed development acceptable in planning terms … directly related to the proposed development … fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to the proposed development … reasonable in all other respects”.
I take the opportunity to refer to some correspondence from the Permanent Secretary at CLG—in this case with Nick Raynsford MP, although I think other MPs had a similar exchange. In relation to what was then new Clause 15, the Permanent Secretary stated:
“The Department’s policy position is that local finance considerations should be taken into account in the determination of planning applications, but only where they are material to the decision in hand. That is, where they relate to the use and development of land, and to the planning merits of the application in question. The Minister does not agree that the clause would cut across the fundamental role of planning in protecting the public interest, and it is not our intention to indicate that local finance considerations will always be material, that any specific weight should be given to them, or that they are any more important than other material considerations”.
This begs the question: why do we need this clause? What is it doing in relation to the new homes bonus that is so important to the Government, particularly given all the anger and concern that it has raised?
I am not sure that I would share in its entirety the encouragement of the noble Lord, Lord Best, for the new homes bonus. One can see that it is an important part of government policy, but after year 1 it will be funded by scraping off the top of the grants that local authorities get. The redistribution of those moneys is not particularly helpful. It also acts against regeneration because it is done on a net basis. Therefore, if you knock down existing properties to build new ones, nothing will flow from it.
Perhaps the Minister could give us an example of when receipt of a new homes bonus would not be a material consideration. The new homes bonus is always computed by reference to the development; that is how it is generated. Because it is calculated in this way, will the Minister give us some instances, to support the Government’s proposition, of when it would not be a material consideration? That would help us. It would be good to hear from the Minister why the Government feel that it is so important that this must be included in a new clause. What is it about the new homes bonus that would otherwise be a problem if the clause were removed?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. My first and pleasant duty is to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, to the opposition Front Bench. We did business the other day on his interesting question about Thameslink. Because it was topical, it required me to work pretty fast.
The Government are committed to increasing housing supply to meet housing needs and to supporting growth to boost recovery. Along with planning system reforms, we need better incentives for communities to support and accept new development. The noble Lord, Lord Best, touched on that in his valuable contribution. However, it is vital that we provide clarity on how such incentives relate to the statutory planning system. This is not a new phenomenon, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee pointed out. Voluntary agreements between landowners and local planning authorities to provide things needed as a result of development have been in use since 1932. Nowadays, Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 makes provisions for planning obligations. The use of planning obligations is regulated by statutory and policy tests. A developer cannot be made to sign up to a planning obligation, but planning permission can be refused if, without one, a particular development would be unacceptable in planning terms.
Community infrastructure levy powers introduced in 2010 allow local planning authorities to collect and pool mandatory developer contributions, based on charges per square metre of new buildings. While planning obligations must relate to the planning merits of the specific development that they relate to, community infrastructure levy funds can be used to support development across a wider area. The new homes bonus is even more flexible, as local authorities can spend it as they see fit. The Government’s hope is that the community infrastructure levy and the new homes bonus will encourage and support more ambitious development planning, by increasing the resources available for local authorities to spend in their areas over and above what they can reasonably seek as planning obligations.
However, they are both new on the scene and questions have been raised over how such measures relate to the statutory planning application system; in particular, can they ever legitimately be taken into account in decisions on planning applications? The Government are therefore keen to clarify the legal position on this. Clause 124 provides this clarity by amending Section 70 of the Town and Country Planning Act to clarify that such considerations should be taken into account in relation to planning applications but only where they are material to the particular application being considered.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I think we have now had “imminently”, “soon”, and “very soon”. Can the Minister perhaps rank those concepts for us and be a trifle more specific?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, when I originally drafted my response to my noble friend, I put down the word “shortly”, but the note came from the Box that it should be “imminently”. Once I was told that something would happen “shortly” and we got the statutory instrument 10 years later. However, I can assure noble Lords that the NPPF will come much more rapidly.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked me for some illustrations and I have a few matters to draw to your Lordships’ attention. The first is the test for whether a consideration is material. Case law has established that to be material to the determination of a planning application, any consideration must relate to the development and use of the land, and to the planning merits of that application.
These are long-established principles. For example, back in 1970, in Stringer v Minister of Housing and Local Government, the classic statement was made that,
“any consideration which relates to the use and development of land is capable of being a planning consideration. Whether a particular consideration falling within that broad class is material in any given case will depend upon the circumstances”.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked for examples of where NHB or CIL is or is not material. Take a scenario where NHB and CIL funds pooled by an authority will help fund a new parkway station on the local commuter route. In determining an application for a major housing development on a site within the catchment of the proposed station, it would be perfectly reasonable for the local planning authority to have regard to—as a material consideration—the fact that the development would generate revenues which would contribute to the new parkway station that would serve that development.
Of course, matters relating to NHB and CIL will not be material in relation to every development. Using the same example, what if the new development was particularly aimed at the retirement market? The development would, as with executive homes, result in NHB and CIL funds which would contribute to providing the station. This would still be a reasonable use of the funds. However, the provision of the station would not be material to the determination of this application, because it would not relate to the planning merits of the development proposed. Equally, the provision of this station would not be material to the determination of an application for a similar sized executive housing development which would be in the same local planning authority’s area, but on a site far removed from the station, and whose occupants would not use that new facility—so it would not be relevant to the application. What I hope I am illustrating here is that local planning authorities will only be able to take matters relating to NHB and CIL into account where they fairly and reasonably relate to the planning issues that are relevant to the particular application they are considering.
These are, of course, only very simple examples. For most planning applications there will be a wide range of matters that might be material: local planning authorities will need to judge, with the law as their guide, which matters are material to the case in hand. They will then need to decide how to apportion weight between all of those matters that are material. Just because something is or is not material does not mean that it will always have a decisive bearing on the decision to be made.
Turning to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Greaves, ably moved by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, I thank the noble Lords most genuinely for this helpful suggestion. Despite its humble purpose, Clause 124 has clearly caused some to worry that it might in some way oblige decision-makers to give more weight to local finance considerations—but only where material—than to other material considerations, such as amenity or the environment. My noble friend’s suggestion is without doubt intended to provide reassurance on this point and it fully reflects the Government’s intention to leave the apportioning of weight to the discretion of the decision-maker. The Government are confident that the current clause achieves this on its own. However, there is merit in looking again at the wording to ensure that it does not inadvertently place local finance matters in any particular place in the pecking order of material considerations. My noble friend’s suggestion will be of great assistance as we continue to reflect on whether this clause best reflects our intentions. In the light of this, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, before the noble Baroness does so, may I just draw out the Minister a bit on one example? A local development plan has provision for 5,000 houses but is strapped for cash. It sees the opportunity for a cash incentive—which is what the new homes bonus is—because it needs to use some resources elsewhere in its provision of services. It therefore grants planning permission for 8,000 units, motivated by that cash incentive. Would that, all other things being equal, be a non-material consideration? Would it put in jeopardy the approval, because of the difference between that and the development plan?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Lord poses a good question that will help to illustrate the situation. He describes a situation where the planning application is for more houses than are provided for in the local development plan. The extra money arising from the NHB and the CIL from those houses can be taken into consideration if it is used in relation to those extra houses. If the money is going to enhance a railway station that would support those extra houses, it can be taken into consideration, but if it is to support perhaps a swimming pool on the other side of town, it cannot be taken into consideration because it is not relevant to the application.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Parminter’s opposition to the clause standing part reflects not just the concern of her organisation but the concern felt outside the House about the provision. Of course I will withdraw the amendment and I am grateful to the Minister for his agreement that the matter will be looked at again.
I shall comment on one or two of the points that he has made. On his example of the parkway station, the reaction around me was, “But that would enable development, and moreover it seems to be suggesting that economic growth is more important than the provision of extra housing”. It may be an interesting example but it has not quite yet convinced us.
The Government put the clause in the Bill in order not to allow uncertainty to linger. However, guidance can be produced quite quickly. It can be issued on the day that the Act comes into force or it can precede it. Although I understand that the Government wanted to reassure people, there are other mechanisms for doing so.
The Minister said that it was important to provide clarity. I hope that I have helped at any rate to suggest that the clause does quite the opposite—instead of clarity it provides more confusion and concern. We will ensure that my noble friend Lord Greaves is aware of the praise for his amendment. I beg leave to withdraw it.
Earl Attlee
If the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, wants to weary the patience of the Committee, he is perfectly entitled to move Amendment 168.
Amendment 168
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I understand that point but it seems to be being proposed that the outcome of an appeal is somehow prejudged, and that some will have satisfactory outcomes with which we are happy but others will not. I pick up the proposition that the planning inspectorate colludes to try to achieve government policy in respect of renewables. As I have said before, I was a Minister in CLG for a very short period. All Ministers get the opportunity—if that is the right word—to deal with inspectors’ reports. Certainly, my experience of probably no more than half a dozen such reports is that they were very thorough and very balanced. Some recommended that an appeal should be accepted, others did not. My experience is that a professional approach was taken to the matter. I certainly did not detect any perceived pressure on the inspectorate to achieve one outcome rather than another, so it is rather unfortunate to suggest that the opposite is the case. I am very well aware that supermarkets push their luck through the planning system but they get knocked back. That seems to me to validate the process that we have.
Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Reay, and other noble Lords who have taken part in the discussion on this amendment. It is accepted practice that all parties to an appeal should normally meet their own costs, but cost awards may be made by the planning inspectorate if a party behaves unreasonably. There are no special circumstances that apply to onshore wind farm appeals compared with appeals against other forms of development, nor is it clear why there should be. This proposal to require appellants to pay all parties’ costs for onshore wind farm appeals will treat wind farms differently from any other types of development. It would create pressure to extend the provision to other types of development. What will it achieve? Is it meant to encourage more proposals for wind farms to be refused, irrespective of their merits? Local planning authorities will already consider whether a proposed wind farm is acceptable in terms of their development plan and other considerations. These can include national planning policy and relevant planning issues raised by local communities.
I appreciate that wind farms can be controversial, but that in itself is not a reason to refuse them. Wind farm developers, like local communities, should expect a level playing field. Local planning authorities should be confident in refusing development that is clearly contrary to an up-to-date development plan, and defending their decision at appeal. It is our intention that local plans will become more prominent in decision- making, and there should be a presumption in favour of sustainable development at the heart of the planning system.
I have just been handed a note that the Minister is to revise the costs awards circular—circular 03/09—to make sure that it is clear that where a local planning authority refuses a development proposal on the grounds that it is contrary to an up-to-date development plan and there is no issue of conflict with national planning policy, there should be no grounds for an award of costs against the local planning authority.
I trust that with these remarks the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Reay
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his concluding remarks, although I am rather surprised that he should have received this as a last-minute piece of information from his officials considering that this amendment has been down for quite a considerable amount of time.
I am grateful for what he said; I would like to study the implications of it. I can understand that he does not wish to make any distinction between wind farm developments and any other form of planning application. That really relates to the issue of renewable development which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said was no matter for this Bill. He might say that to some of his noble friends when they try and introduce an obligation to pay more attention to climate change and what should be done about it, because that is an example of exactly the same thing.
I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Marlesford for his support, and to the noble Lord, Lord Judd. I entirely agree with him: planning is a matter of getting the balance right. The party opposite is rightly proud of what the planning system has achieved in this country. It has preserved the countryside from, among other things, ribbon development and inappropriate high-rises. All of us are now proud of that consequence, and it is extremely important that we succeed in the future in maintaining the balance that is implied by that, and that we do not give overriding consideration to some overarching concern like renewable energy. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I have a deal of sympathy with the position of the noble Lord, but I am constrained by our Front Bench position. A proposition which gives more power to the Secretary of State to dictate is something we would draw back from. The noble Lord made some crucial points, however. We are already concerned about what the withdrawal of regional spatial strategies has done to strategic planning and affordable housing. Until the noble Lord spoke I had probably not focused sufficiently on its impact on Gypsy and Traveller families. It will be interesting to see if the duty for authorities to co-operate produces anything like a solution. I suspect that it will not.
The Government are focused on financial incentives as part of their approach to housing. I do not think the new homes bonus would bite directly but perhaps it is interesting to pursue whether financial incentives for local authorities would encourage them to do what they should be doing, which is to take and make available their share of provision for this disadvantaged section of our community.
Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, it would be impossible to respond to my noble friend's amendment without paying tribute to his lifetime's support to Gypsies, Travellers and those in housing need.
The previous Government's model of top-down pitch targets has not delivered. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of caravans on unauthorised developments increased from 728 to 2,395. That is the caravan count published by DCLG. Local authorities are best placed to assess the needs of their communities, including Travellers. Our proposed planning policy asks local authorities to set targets for Traveller sites that are underpinned by a strong evidence base. The policy set out clear consequences for those authorities which do not make available land to meet the need that they have identified. The duty to co-operate will ensure that local authorities continue to work together on strategic issues. It will require local planning authorities, county councils and other public bodies to engage constructively, actively, and on an ongoing basis in the planning process. Local authorities will be required to demonstrate compliance with the duty as part of the public examination of local plans. If an authority cannot demonstrate that it has complied with the duty, its plan will not pass the independent examination.
A policy-led approach is a more appropriate one through which to address provision of sites through the planning system. The national, regional and local need for accommodation for Travellers would be a relevant material consideration for the decision-maker in any event. The planning, compulsory purchase and town and country planning Acts require that planning decisions are made in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Any consideration which relates to the use or development of land is capable of being a material consideration.
On Amendment 182, which is linked with Amendments 170B and 170C in the Marshalled List, the majority of new Traveller sites are small, private ones provided by Travellers themselves, not local authorities. That meets community aspirations on tenure, and their small size can aid integration with the settled community. A duty for local authorities to provide sites would therefore not be appropriate.
That was the finding of a recent Equality and Human Rights Commission report, entitled Assessing Local Authorities’ Progress in Meeting the Accommodation Needs of Gypsy and Traveller Communities in England and Wales: 2010 Update. The DCLG-chaired, cross-government ministerial working group on Gypsy and Traveller inequality includes a work stream to encourage new development of small, private sites and better publicity of the success of existing small private sites. That work was included following consultation with members and representatives of the Travelling community, among whom there is a consensus that such site accommodation is preferable to public sites provision.
The planning system is therefore the key place to deliver the provision. The Government published our proposed new planning policy for Traveller sites on 13 April. It tells local authorities to use a robust evidence base of local need, to set targets for sites and identify land to meet those targets. The draft policy is out to consultation. When I got the notes, they said until 6 July, but it has been pushed on to 3 August, so if noble Lords want to give their views, they are welcome to do so and have until 3 August. Local authorities are subject to a statutory duty under Section 225 of the Housing Act 2004 to carry out an assessment of the accommodation needs of Gypsies and Travellers residing in or resorting to their district when they are undertaking a review of housing need in their district under Section 8 of the Housing Act 1985. All local authorities prepare Gypsy and Traveller accommodation assessments under that duty, and some, such as Somerset County Council, have begun undertaking new assessments of need for Travellers residing in or resorting to their areas.
Given my response, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for drawing attention to the duty to co-operate. However, I do not attach any great confidence to that when you consider what has happened in the Essex region. Basildon has a large number of Gypsies and Travellers, more than it would have been asked to provide for under the previous Government’s system, and other local authorities within the county have done nothing whatever. Although this duty has been passed, there is no method for compelling the other local authorities to comply with it, so I do not consider it very effective.
I am most grateful to my noble friend for his reply and for the kind remarks that he made about the work that I have done over the past 47 years on behalf of Gypsies and Travellers. If I do not get anywhere with this Bill, it will be a major disappointment. We have been here before, in 1994, when the 1968 Act was torn up. For many years after that, hardly anything happened at all. We were beginning to make some progress under the previous legislation. My noble friend said that the figures between 2000 and 2010 show that there was an increase in the number of unauthorised encampments and developments. However, looking at the last three years, the number was beginning to decline as a result of circular 01/06 and the obligations that had been placed on local authorities to carry out a detailed assessment of the numbers of Gypsies and Travellers who should be accommodated because they were residing in or resorting to the area. That was followed by extensive public inquiries and the redistribution of the obligation between the local authorities in an area.
Now the Government have decided—the Minister reiterated this—that local authorities are to be required to set targets for Traveller sites. I am asking why they would bother to do that when they have already done it. They have consulted experts and arrived at figures that have been validated by these public inquiries. Therefore, I am afraid that I do not attach very much confidence to what my noble friend said. Although I will comply with his request to cut my remarks short on this occasion, I intend to return to this issue on Report. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, as ever, we come back to this whole business of things being decided locally. I thank noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. This is my third appearance today and I am having, once again, to suggest that these amendments are not ones that the Government wish to support at this stage. Planning has got a key role to play in creating the conditions for economic recovery. We should not lightly agree to any measures that add uncertainty, cost and delay to recovery and growth. Development that is permitted after consultation with communities and consideration by the local planning authority should not have unnecessary hurdles placed in its way. A similar amendment seeking a community right of appeal was considered in the other House. In the relatively small number of cases where a decision is made that grants planning permission that is not in accordance with the development plan, it is only right that the locally elected planning authority should make that decision and not the Planning Inspectorate. The local planning authority is ultimately responsible for exercising its judgment in reaching a decision. Safeguards are already built in to the system of decision-making. Applicants will have invested considerable time, money and effort in preparing their proposals. They should expect the local planning authority’s decision to be a corporate one and not subject to challenge by other members of the council.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Reay, that the plan should be the starting point for the determination of a planning application. Legislation already provides for this. Local planning authorities should feel confident in defending planning decisions made in accordance with an up-to-date plan, if challenged at appeal. Where appeals are made, the Secretary of State must operate within the law. As a decision-maker, he is entitled to take other material considerations into account when reaching his decision. This is essential if we are to ensure that the planning system creates the conditions for economic recovery and sustainable development. Material considerations may change over time and should not be tightly defined, as this amendment seeks to do. The amendment on determination of appeals goes too far. It is unnecessary and will have a negative impact on growth and sustainable development. I hope the noble Lord appreciates why we do not therefore accept it.
The noble Lord put it to me that I might be tempted. Words have been spoken about why there may be changes in position—I am not aware whether there are any such changes, but I understand what has been said and accept it. All I would say is that at 5 pm on 20 July, I do not think I am in a position to say that we will accept this. However, the rest of July and August beckons and I do recommend that noble Lords use it well. If they believe that they have got concerns that can be drawn to the notice of the Government about ways that this Bill may be still further changed, I recommend that they use their endeavours. This is, as I have said before, Committee stage, but I trust that in the circumstances at the moment, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Reay
I will say one thing in reply to what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said about planning officers. I have no intention of denigrating planning officers. They do an invaluable job and can be highly impressive. However, their job on the whole is to advise the democratically elected planning authorities. The amendment would put them in quite a different position, unlike the position that they normally occupy. However, in view of what the Minister has said, I am happy, for the moment at least, to withdraw my amendment.