Planning Bill

We now turn to matters pertaining to part 9 of the Bill, including a number of measures that we hope will streamline and speed up the planning system. I understand that those policies were generally welcomed in Committee, although a number of hon. Members had queries on how some things might work in practice. We propose six sets of Government amendments that will make the provisions clearer and easier to use. I will try, in a thematic way, to cover the issues raised and the way in which we deal with them in our amendments, and to respond to the amendments tabled by the Opposition and by some of my hon. Friends. First, clause 149 enables the regional assembly to delegate its regional planning functions to the regional development agency. The clause is effective only where the regional assembly chooses to use it and the RDA agrees. Moreover, it enables only delegation, not transfer of planning functions. I know that concerns were expressed in Committee, and have been expressed since, that we may be accused of pre-empting the new legislation required to implement the sub-national review proposals. That is absolutely not the case. I would like to make it absolutely clear that the clause leaves unchanged the ultimate responsibility for regional planning to regional assemblies, whose membership is predominantly drawn from elected local government. Amendments Nos. 300 to 308 would replace references to the regional development agency with"““a local authority for an area within its region (whether singly or jointly)””." First, regional assemblies can already delegate planning work to local authorities so there is no need for legislation to that effect. Secondly, those changes would mean that they were not allowed to delegate to the RDA, even if they wanted to, because RDAs are currently precluded from doing such work. Amendments Nos. 311 to 313, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts), would mean that a regional assembly could delegate its work to the RDA, but if the Secretary of State were undertaking the same functions, she would not be able to do so. Under planning legislation there is a reserve power for the Secretary of State to act as the regional planning body. This is, of course, a last resort to be used if there were a very serious problem, such as the collapse of the regional assembly. In such a case, the Secretary of State may want to involve the RDA and the amendments would prevent that from happening.