Deregulation Bill

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

I never thought that I would be taking issue with my noble friend Lord Rooker. I followed him as a Minister and found that we sometimes contradicted each other in minor ways, but having arrived in time for this amendment I want to make some cautionary statements about putting a growth duty on the inspectorate. There is a growth duty on the inspectorate, in effect, in the sense that there is a presumption for development in the planning system. That presumption for development is really important because planning inspectors have to arrive at a balance in their decisions. That is why we invest them with such authority. They are the arbiters of various pressures that go into deciding what is a good and sustainable development and what is harmful development.

There are ways of determining what is harmful development, for example, in relation to the financial, physical and historical environment. What worries me about my noble friend’s amendment is that if we were to put a growth duty specifically on to the planning inspectorate, we might disturb the ecology of the ability of the planning inspector to make such a balanced judgment. In the National Planning Policy Framework, we worked very hard to get the balance right. I could not agree more with my noble friend about the need for housing—my goodness, it is an open and shut case—but the presumption for development needs to be balanced against those protections that are absolutely essential to maintaining the other things that we need in this country, which is a care for open spaces; he is a great advocate of that. From my point of view, it is also about care for the historic fabric of this country, and we have the historic protections that are there explicitly to be taken into account to protect against significant harm.

I know that my noble friend says it is a probing amendment but we need to be really careful about putting explicit duties on to the planning inspectorate, which could damage its ability to make balanced judgments. Decisions do have to be made.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on getting this within the scope of the Bill. I recognise exactly the motivation as we are facing more delays in getting our housing industry going again than we ever anticipated. It is deeply frustrating for all parties, and anything that one can do to give an extra push in the right direction is desirable.

My speaking note points out, however, that the majority of the planning inspectorate’s functions do not fall within the definition of “regulatory functions” in the Bill. Further work would be required to establish whether the functions of the planning inspectorate which do fall within that definition are non-economic in nature and could be brought into scope. If the Government consider in the future that the planning inspectorate regulatory functions could be subject to the duty they will consult on the proposal to include those functions before a final decision is made. That is a rather po-faced answer to a very determined intervention. I think that the answer to the noble Lord is that we should all encourage him to keep pushing in this direction on all occasions. We all share his view to get housing construction going again, but this may not be the most appropriate Bill in which to give it that particular push. On that basis I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.