Oral Answers to Questions

Nadine Dorries Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The Deputy Prime Minister and I write to each other and speak to each other on a frequent basis. I will put it like this: what we both want to see is well-resourced local councils that have greater powers, greater devolution and less top-down bureaucracy than we had under the Labour party.

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Q5. This Friday, hundreds of Mid Bedfordshire residents, 24 parish councils, the Marston Morteyne Action Group and I will provide a very warm welcome to the visiting members of the Infrastructure Planning Commission who will be coming to decide whether to grant planning permission for the huge incinerator that Covanta wishes to put in my constituency. If we are truly the party of localism, will the Prime Minister give his assurance that the draft national policy statements that will guide the IPC in its decision will be amended so that the weight is given to the wishes of local people? If they do not want it, it should not be imposed on them.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. We can actually go a bit further than that: I can confirm in her own case that, yes, the IPC will be taking representations from local people, but of course as a Government we have committed to abolish the IPC, because we think that it is too much of a top-down, bureaucratic method and that there should be ministerial decisions that can take into account local opinion and be more democratically run.