Built Environment: Design Quality

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rawlings]

The Design Council remains the UK’s national body for design, but under the proposed option it would no longer be within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Instead, it would operate outside the public sector, retaining its charitable and royal charter status. The proposal would reduce the Design Council element of BIS and refocus its activities—which cover, I imagine, what the noble Baroness was talking about. However, the key programmes that are valued by stakeholders would be preserved.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I remind my noble friend that, during the passage of the Planning Act 2008, amendments were made, often at the insistence of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, and undertakings were given by the then Minister about the importance of incorporating good design, not least for the benefit of disabled people, into the future planning system. Can the Minister give an undertaking that those amendments and undertakings will be carried over into the new planning legislation of which my noble friend has already spoken?

[Baroness Rawlings]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for his question regarding the national planning policy framework. We will make an announcement about the framework and how best to take it forward as soon as it has been agreed. The implications for specific areas of planning policy, including design and related surroundings, will become clear during the process. Design for disabled people, especially with regard to the Olympics, is very much in the department’s thinking.