Clive Betts
Main Page: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
Barbara Keeley
No, there is absolutely not. I thank my hon. Friend for making that point.
Hon. Members will be interested to know the extent to which there is all-party opposition to these proposals in Bradford. The Conservative group leader on Bradford council also argued against the imposition of a shadow mayor in that city. In the same article, Councillor Anne Hawkesworth said:
“My colleagues and I are not supportive of elected mayors… We do not think that the proposals are suited to the needs of…Bradford.”
Last week, the same issue was reported on again, when the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) said:
“My view is that it should be for the councils to decide if they want to go down the referendum route. The referendum shouldn’t be imposed.”
The Opposition agree. Shadow mayors and referendums on having a mayor should not be imposed. In Bradford at least, it seems, there is Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative opposition to the Government’s proposals. However, there has also been opposition in other councils, including Leeds city council.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
While my hon. Friend is running through a list of authorities, will she also refer to Sheffield—now a Labour-controlled authority, of course? There has been cross-party agreement between Labour and Liberal Democrats, and all are opposed to any mayoral system at all, and certainly opposed to shadow mayors. I am sure that were there any Conservative councillors in Sheffield—which there are not—they would be joining in the opposition as well. Is it not a strange system in which a mayor’s legitimacy comes from being elected by the public, but a shadow mayor’s legitimacy comes from being the representative of most councillors on a council? In Sheffield, that majority of councillors are opposed to the proposals.
Barbara Keeley
Absolutely. I was not going to go through a complete list, but I welcome hearing about what has happened in Sheffield.
It seems that Yorkshire is turning against these proposals en masse, and there has been opposition in other councils—for example, in Leeds city council. The Yorkshire Post quoted its leader, Councillor Keith Wakefield, as saying that these proposals are
“not acceptable in today’s democracy… If people decide they want an elected mayor that’s what they should have, but do it following a vote… I think the idea of a referendum is OK where people have an opportunity to say yea or nay. What’s not right is putting you in a position where there’s been no vote.”
I understand that he would turn down the position whatever happens.
I hope that the hon. Member for Bradford East and his colleagues will support our amendment 41, and vote against the imposition of shadow mayors and referendums on their local councils.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
On the abolition of everything that is regional, which is clearly Government policy and has been for some time, the Minister has just indicated that the duty to co-operate was the central plank that would replace on some sort of strategic basis the regional dimension. With hindsight, does he think the Government gave enough attention and thought to how the duty to co-operate should be formulated and how it should work in practice? There seems to have been an awful lot of criticism from everybody with an interest in these matters about the Government’s position in the Bill.
Greg Clark
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. I know that as Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee, he has taken a great interest in these matters. I have always been clear that the Bill represents a major change and it behoves any Minister from whatever party to listen to representations and to seek to improve what is a different way of solving a classic problem—planning issues that have a larger than local dimension to them. The previous Government attempted a resolution through regional arrangements. We formed a view, for better or for worse. Some of us on the Government Benches thought that those arrangements should not have been entered into in the first place. Those on the Opposition Benches would reflect, I think, that the arrangements have had their day and should be replaced with a means of addressing larger than local issues that is robust and captures the need for strategic planning. I will go straight to the amendments that relate to that—Government amendments 144 to 158—and say something about the Opposition’s amendments as I do so.
We accepted that there was an opportunity to strengthen the duty to co-operate that was set out in the Bill as originally drafted. Indeed, I perhaps agree that a minimalist view was taken of that duty. We have replaced it with something that enjoys support from a wide range of groups, having reached a form that they endorse as a useful resolution to some of these matters. I pay tribute to the effort and work that many groups outside the House have put into strengthening the duty to co-operate. It would be churlish not to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, who approached these matters in a similar vein; the amendments tabled by the Opposition in Committee provided a basis on which to discuss these matters and to make progress.
The duty to co-operate will be significantly strengthened by the amendments that we, as promised, have brought forward. They are modelled closely on what we said was appropriate in Committee and what the Royal Town Planning Institute has proposed. As the professional planning body, it was the organisation that worked most closely on this, but a wide range of other outside bodies were involved, including the Wildlife and Countryside Link coalition, which includes the WWF, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Town and Country Planning Association. In particular, we have taken up their suggestions, which were echoed in some of the amendments tabled by the Opposition in Committee, to make clearer the application to cross-boundary issues and to the marine planning system, which needs to be addressed. We have also taken input from the Planning Officers Society, whose members will be charged with meeting the duty to co-operate. As a result of its suggestion, our amendment proposes to put a reference to county councils on to the face of the Bill. That deals with one of the hon. Gentleman’s amendments that he will no doubt talk to shortly.
The combined effect has been to create a much stronger duty to co-operate that covers all authorities and a proposed list of prescribed bodies that themselves would be subject to that duty, because planning matters clearly concern not only local authorities, but other public bodies. I know from speaking with councils up and down the country that one of the frustrations is that they sometimes feel that they have not had the full and enthusiastic co-operation of other public bodies in producing plans that are clearly relevant to them.
I have placed in the Library of the House our draft list of bodies to be included in addition to local authorities. They include the Environment Agency, the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission, Natural England, the Mayor of London, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Homes and Communities Agency, primary care trusts, the Marine Management Organisation, the Office of Rail Regulation, the Highways Agency, Transport for London, integrated transport authorities and highways authorities. I think that it is absolutely right that those public bodies should be required to give every co-operation to local authorities in producing strategic plans that are larger than local plans for their area.
We also propose in these amendments an enabling power that will require all bodies that are subject to the duty to co-operate to have regard to the activities of other bodies when preparing plans that may not have a public character. Foremost among these are local enterprise partnerships. We intend to identify local enterprise partnerships as bodies that the prescribed bodies with the duty to co-operate must take into account and with which they will need to co-operate fully.
The duty to co-operate applies to the preparation of all development plan documents and, in particular, it requires engagement to maximise effectiveness. This cannot be a minimal engagement that simply responds to a questionnaire, which it was feared the original formulation might lead to. There must be active engagement to maximise the effectiveness of all relevant development plan documents. It applies to all strategic issues, which will be interpreted as issues that cross at least two local authority planning areas. It refers to sustainable development, because we know that the environment, in particular, does not stop at local authority boundaries and continues way beyond them, so it is absolutely right that there should be a requirement to co-operate on that. Infrastructure requirements typically go beyond local authority boundaries as well. It requires consideration to be given to the preparation of joint plans and development documents. In particular, I hope and expect that local enterprise partnerships will use their planning powers to pool some of their policies relating to the development of the economy so that they will have attractive, appealing and clear pro-growth policies, especially in areas where there is a need to attract new employers.
The crucial test of the duty to co-operate is the soundness of the plan. If the inspector finds that the duty has not been complied with, the plan will be unsound and cannot be adopted. Therefore, there is an absolute safeguard that this is not just a voluntary activity, but that it is absolutely at the heart of plan making, and rightly so, because the strategic level is very important to emphasise.
The amendment, which is the product of extensive consultation with the professional bodies and some of the other representative bodies, anticipates and deals with many of the amendments that Opposition Front Benchers might be minded to move. If I have time at the end of our considerations on this group, I will respond to the remarks of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington. In particular, amendment 293 deals with the inclusion of county councils, and that is covered by our amendments. He will have heard me mention integrated transport authorities and the marine planning organisations in the list of prescribed organisations that I intend to publish. Sustainable development is very clearly marked there and is explicitly referenced, as are local transport plans and marine plans.
On this new clause, I can do no better than quote the briefing on that which the Royal Town Planning Institute made available to Members:
“The RTPI has worked closely with the Government on strengthening the arrangements for planning at the larger than local level and believes that the amended Clause 90 should be supported.”
It states that the Government are
“to be congratulated for listening on this issue.”
I hope that we have been able to discharge the commitments that I made in Committee to establish a replacement for the regional arrangements that is rather more robust than the original version.
Let me turn to some of the other new clauses and amendments tabled by hon. Members. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), who chairs the Environmental Audit Committee, has asked that at this stage we consider the specific question of whether a definition of sustainable development should be included in the Bill. New clause 2 has been tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and her colleagues, and those on the Opposition Front Bench have tabled some amendments relating to this matter. I will give an indication of the approach I would like to take on this, because it is an area that, as many Members know, is close to by heart. I completely agree that the purpose of planning is to promote sustainable development and that all plans and decisions should reflect that.
New clause 2 captures where we should be, and I certainly undertake to give my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole most of what she seeks. As was always intended, we will bring out a draft national planning policy framework in July, which will have sustainable development at its heart. It will set out what we mean by sustainable development.
Greg Clark
I have given clear assurances at the Dispatch Box that this is not what the RTPI perhaps suspected or what the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich clearly suspected: that this was some grand plan to—as he put it—buy and sell planning permission. That is not the case. There is no change in the dispensation.
Greg Clark
I give way to the Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee.
Mr Betts
I want to get down to practicalities. Given that these matters are now material considerations, is it not the case that when an application comes before a local planning authority, the officer of that authority will have a responsibility to explain in their recommendations precisely what financial considerations there are and how much will be gained by the authority and the community from granting the application? That is completely different from any present requirement on any planning officer to explain any financial matters before the planning committee makes a decision on an application.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Before the Minister replies, I want to say that this is a very important point, and I am allowing the interventions to run longer than normal because of its complexity. Can we bear it in mind, however, that we still have a lot of business to get through?