Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Lord True and Lord Thomas of Gresford

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

I wholly support everything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, just said, and what the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, said in introducing this debate. The matter that concerns the Delegated and Regulatory Reform Committee is on page 9 of its report, at paragraph 54. Not only is the power “very wide” in scope, but it,

“is to make whatever provisions—including ones amending and repealing Acts of Parliament … We note that it has become standard practice for provisions of this type to be included near the end of a Bill”.

This is appearing all the time. It is really an insurance policy: “We might make a mistake, and if we make a mistake we do not want to have the trouble of admitting it; we will just get some secondary instrument through Parliament, and that will be all that we have to do”. That is not a sufficient justification for such a wide power.

The committee suggested that at the very least, the power could be restricted by some type of objective test of necessity: to where it is necessary—to “where we have made a mistake” if you like—or to where something important has been omitted. We need something that gives substantive limitation to such a widely expressed power.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I will speak briefly, although I feel rather rash in doing so after the compelling interventions we have heard. As I understand it, this power applies to any enactment, not just, as the noble and learned Lord said—I am sure misspeaking—to what is in this enactment. My position is as a lay person, but also someone who was for a long time in the usual channels, interested in the drafting of legislation and how that was done by a Government whom I opposed for 13 years. I have to say that we would have looked a little askance at this sort of thing in those years in opposition. I understand the innocent intent and perfect integrity of the present Ministers involved, but the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, rather anticipated my thought: if clear drafting instructions are given on what is required to be enacted and a Bill is properly drafted by expert draftsmen, there should be no need for the sweeping brush to be around afterwards. That is really how legislation should be presented to Parliament.

This is the second piece of planning legislation we have had in a year. I submit that there has been time to think through these things, but it is the wider point that concerns me. This is not an ad hominem, or a criticism of Ministers here, but this will become a practice—I was struck by that paragraph in the Delegated Powers Committee report. It will become part of the constitution if Parliament continues to accept, in Act after Act, that Ministers of the day can be given power to change any other enactment as a result of something that arises out of their further ruminations or representations on it. I hope that my noble friend will consider this carefully.

The other thing I would say, in the broader context of planning and the challenge of getting more housing and more things done, is that there is immense distrust out there—anyone who lives with the planning system knows the distrust and fear that people have that the system is loaded against them. The system is actually fair, and bends over backwards to try to be fair, but if government arms itself with powers to change the rules if something does not quite work out as might have been intended in the first place—instead of building that consent for new planning and new development that I want, and which I know the Government want—it may add to the sense, so eloquently expressed by my noble friend Lady Cumberlege, that the system is loaded. That must be something to avoid. Although my main objection is on the wider constitutional principle, as a practitioner—a local authority leader who has to stand between the forces of government and popular feeling—and as a layman, I argue that we should be particularly cautious in the context of this legislation.