Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Redwood and Heather Wheeler

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Redwood]

I beg to disagree. I entirely understand what the Government are trying to do. They are trying to warn certain potential users of judicial review that it is a fatuous process if it turns out that the original decision was perfectly reasonable, although there may have been some difficulties with the process. If too many decisions are subject to too much court examination continuously, it is often possible for a clever and well-paid lawyer to find something slightly inappropriate or questionable in the way in which a council or Government Department made a decision, although the decision itself was correct. It might be better if the money were not spent, and if the courts’ time were not taken up with applications when the position cannot be improved for a litigant who remains in dispute with the council or the Government, and who will not secure a reversal of the original agreement.

The bulk of the work to which the new clauses and amendment relate lies in the intricate and sometimes opaque drafting of new schedule 3, with which we non-lawyers are perhaps struggling a little. It is a complex piece of work, because it amends various pieces of underlying legislation. I have one or two queries with which the Minister may be able to help me, knowing as he does that I approve of what he is trying to do, and am merely trying to clarify some of the ways in which it would operate. For instance, I do not quite understand the logic of paragraph 4(7) of new schedule 3, which provides for new subsection (6) of section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to state:

“The High Court may not suspend a tree preservation order under subsection (4C) or (5)(a).”

That is not entirely similar to some of the other proceedings.

I am also interested in the timings. The period during which due consideration must take place seems generally to be specified as six weeks, but I wonder what the overall period will be when the High Court finds that the judicial review process should proceed. In the case of planning issues in particular, delay can impose complexity, blight and difficulty in the area involved, and if the end result is that the development goes ahead anyway, it becomes a real issue. I am sure that questions of timing and delay lie behind some of the work that the Government have been doing.

[Heather Wheeler]

I think that my right hon. Friend has hit on a very interesting point. It seems to me iniquitous to build in delay in cases in which the result could not have been changed in the first place. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain why he considers this to be such an important tidying-up mechanism.

[Mr Redwood]

I do wonder whether a period of six weeks is required. Presumably the proposal relates to a typical case in which those who are likely to object have followed the earlier processes of the application in great detail. After the original decision there may have been a planning appeal, and they will surely have all their arguments prepared and be ready to move before six weeks have passed. That period seems fairly generous in the circumstances. I wonder how much longer the process is likely to take, and how much High Court capacity there is for dealing with such cases expeditiously.

While I am keen to defend the green fields in my patch from inappropriate development, and am very accustomed to the techniques that we sometimes need to use for the purpose, I am also aware that we need land for building, and that people sometimes object to developments in certain locations that independent-minded people would deem perfectly reasonable. I suspect that in the case of applications of that kind, we might get into difficulties. I am pleased to see that you know exactly what I mean, Mr Deputy Speaker. When we seek to represent our constituencies, we all try to balance such considerations. I am strongly in favour of new growth and new development, but I am equally strongly against its taking place in certain localities where I would find it objectionable, as would many of my constituents.

Let me make two more brief points. I note that new schedule 3 proposes an amendment to the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990. It states, of course, that leave cannot be granted without the High Court’s approval, but I think that the main issue is whether it poses problems of a different kind, which, given that hazardous substances need to be controlled carefully, might make a more timely result even more crucial.

The new schedule also refers to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether any different considerations apply when someone’s property is the subject of compulsory purchase. I would expect a higher standard of proof, and more rights for people to object, to apply when the estate or the council envisages a better use for land that they own than when a piece of land which is near to where they live, but which belongs to someone else, has been subject to various planning processes and the owner wishes to develop it. I think that those are slightly different cases, and that litigants should be given more protection when they are subject, under the Act, to a compulsory purchase to which they object or which they do not welcome.

I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify some of those points.