Greater London Authority Bill

Noises from the wings. I wonder whether, in bringing forward this order and these clauses, the Government are indicating that there is some failure in the London plan process. We have a hierarchy of documents, about which we have heard in the context of the previous clause. Does it reflect some failure in the process or a determination to allow the Mayor to intervene to a far greater extent than Parliament envisaged when it put the primary legislation in place? Paragraph 8(1) of the draft order uses the phrase, "““significant impact on implementation of the spatial development strategy””." Paragraph 8(3) refers to consideration of the targets in the spatial development strategy. I have considerable doubts whether the referral of planning applications, which is envisaged, should be the mechanism for implementing the London plan. If the hierarchy is working properly, the appropriate method is negotiations with the boroughs on their suite of documents. I know that the Mayor has provided many of your Lordships with briefing on this and other parts of the Bill. I do not dispute that he has dealt with a number of important matters in that briefing, but I doubt whether the Bill can address them. He refers to the low rate of planning approvals at 75 per cent—and here I say that I doubt whether the Bill should address them. What are we to understand from that comment other than that the Mayor would approve applications that the boroughs would not approve? They are, after all, working to development plans that conform to the spatial development strategy, so there is confusion there. The Mayor refers to lack of speed. Many noble Lords who have been in local government will be accustomed to the argument about speed versus quality, and it has been said that the proposed new arrangements will add to the procedures and the time that is taken. He refers, too, to affordable housing, and I agree that there is a desperate need. However, he refers to the number of completions, which, if noble Lords will forgive the pun, I do not think is a complete issue. I do not think that the number of completions can be said to show that a borough is failing. The picture is no doubt very complex. To take a position that I do not much like to admit to, developers could decide not to proceed with a scheme because of the social housing content. These things are complicated. There is an argument that the Mayor will intervene in a small number of cases, and I dare say that that is so. The process will mean—as I think it already does—that developers know what the Mayor can do; they know what is in his mind and take that into account before an application is ever made. They take steps to preclude their application reaching that stage. In part that is a good thing, but I am not sure that the logic stacks up. The Mayor also says that the system is clear—and I have written an exclamation mark against that. The vast majority of planning applications will remain with the boroughs, we are told. Well, yes, of course they will—because most applications are really very tiny. He says that the London Assembly has the power to scrutinise his decisions. That is true, but it is after the event—and, in any event, is scrutiny the appropriate tool with which to deal with a quasi-judicial decision? He also says that if the Mayor took over a large number of applications, there would be resource implications that would have to be agreed by the Assembly, suggesting that the Assembly can stop that happening. We have already debated the inadequacy of the Assembly’s powers to limit the Mayor’s budget. To sum up, along with London councils the majority of the Assembly—and here I take off my Liberal Democrat hat or at least add to it my Assembly hat—does not support the exemption of planning powers. It says that if they are to be extended, the Bill should be amended to ensure that intervention is limited to genuinely strategic planning matters. That point of view was expressed nem con.