Planning Committees: Reform Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Kieran Mullan
Main Page: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)Department Debates - View all Kieran Mullan's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(3 days, 15 hours ago)
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Matthew Pennycook
It is progress, Madam Deputy Speaker.
We do need to speed up the process of local plan development. In a way that the previous Government never did, we are going to adhere to the timelines we are setting for local plan development—for new-style local plans to come forward—and we need to ensure that individual planning applications are made in a timely manner, within the set timelines, to give certainty to the sector that what they bring forward can be built out if they put an application in.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
May I say gently to the Minister that he has been passed a bit of a dud here? I think that experienced Labour Members know that, which is why not a single long-standing Member on the Minister’s Benches has stood up to defend this specific policy this afternoon. Is that because Labour Members, like most MPs, know that the local planning committees they have been involved in and seen make important decisions on a regular basis? They cannot be replaced by planning officers, because those officers are not embedded in local communities. Does the Minister really think that planning officers can replace local councillors on important matters such as this?
Matthew Pennycook
I say to the hon. Gentleman that 96% of planning application decisions are already made by planning officers. What we are saying is that there is a way to streamline the system that we want to test views on, which will ensure that the most significant and controversial applications still come to elected members, but that we get the full use out of trained planning officers, who are embedded in their local communities and are cognisant of what a local plan requires.