Planning Bill

I am grateful to my noble friend for his trailer, if I may so describe it, because I think that the amendment I have tabled in this group is one of the most important that we shall discuss during the Committee stage of this Bill. Those who attended the Second Reading debate will recall that I made the point at col. 1178 that the whole process should have the ““credibility and authority”” of an affirmative vote in both Houses. The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh—I am sorry that he is not able to be in his place this evening—in his Second Reading speech used what I thought was a telling phrase when he referred to the ““moral legitimacy”” that national policy statements would otherwise lack. Indeed, he went on to say: "““It would make them much more difficult to challenge by special interest groups, and even those who oppose the plan ""would know that it was not simply a bureaucratic diktat, but had been examined and approved by Parliament””.—[Official Report, 15/7/08; col. 1214.]" That is what this amendment is mainly all about. The noble Lord, Lord Mogg, with whom I was discussing the matter earlier today, gave his warm support to this proposition, as did a number of other noble Lords, while the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, when we were discussing the Infrastructure Planning Commission on the first day in Committee, said: "““If one wants to close an apparent democratic deficit one should look to the way in which the NPS is handled in Parliament, rather than turning the IPC into an advisory body””.—[Official Report, 6/10/08; col. 20.]" Amendment No. 78 seeks to enshrine this in the Bill. It requires affirmative votes in Parliament instead of it just having a consultative role, and it should involve both Houses. The same points are made in Amendments Nos. 82 and 83, which no doubt noble Lords will wish to speak to. Amendment No. 78 goes on to provide that if there is no approval, formal recommendations could be made by what I suggest should be a Joint Committee. Here I make one point: the actual details of parliamentary committees are really not for Parliament itself but for discussion through the usual channels. I quite understand that—the same problem arose, as the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, will recall, on the statistics Bill. If no formal recommendations are made, the Government may table revised proposals unless both Houses reject the recommendations. That is the shape I am suggesting we might establish in this Bill. Parliamentary procedures and conventions have developed over the centuries and there is a whole range of ways in which Parliament can be asked to handle government proposals. Clearly the main means of doing this is for the Government to produce a Bill which goes through its stages in both Houses, is amendable at almost all stages and then becomes law with Royal Assent. That is not an appropriate procedure for a national planning statement. At the opposite end there are statutory provisions which simply require the Government to lay a proposal before Parliament with no subsequent procedure laid down. That might be appropriate for a report with recommendations but, again, it would be wholly inappropriate in this case. In between the extremes of legislation on the one hand and merely tabling a proposal on the other is a range of statutory instruments—negative, affirmative and so-called super-affirmative procedures. These become law. Yes, they are debated and, if necessary, can be voted on in both Houses, but there are no amendments and we have become accustomed, in almost every case, to having them confined to one-off, short debates lasting little more than an hour. A quite different approach involves Select Committees. There you can have wide inquiries, sometimes on proposals put up by the Government’s pre-legislative committees. I was privileged to serve on such a committee on the human fertilisation and, as it was then, the human tissues draft Bills. These are wide inquiries which can hear evidence and make reports containing recommendations, but they do not become part of the law and are not binding on Governments or anyone else. The only obligation is that a Minister is required to give a reply. Those are the existing procedures—I hope I have covered the main ones—but what do the Government propose here? They propose the publication of the statement, the consultation of Parliament, the entitlement of Parliament to propose amendments and, in the House of Commons only, under Clause 9 there are certain parliamentary requirements. It envisages a resolution of either House or, again, a committee of the House of Commons which can make recommendations. But, rather like the Select Committee reports, the only duty on the Government is to respond. The proposal in the Bill is that the establishing of a national policy statement remains entirely with the Secretary of State to decide on its form and content; it remains, to use the phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, a ““ministerial diktat””. Moreover, it applies only to another place to make recommendations, and even then Ministers are under no obligation to follow them. I do not regard this as an acceptable or appropriate way of handling these hugely important policy statements. It is essential that they must have the positive approval of Parliament before they can be applied by the Infrastructure Planning Commission. I see no reason why both Houses should not be fully involved in this process; after all, our roles are, in many ways, complementary. It is quite right that local and constituency interests should be of primary concern to Members of Parliament—who, of course, are also concerned about the national implications—but Members of this House, while always respecting the constituency interests of Members of another place, can sometimes bring a wider application of the law to bear on matters of national interest. At the end of Second Reading the Minister explained why she does not accept this. She said: "““However, requiring parliamentary approval of national policy statements, rather than ministerial accountability for them, would create an entirely different proposition and take us into unknown country””.—[Official Report, 15/7/08; col. 1236.]" I find that rather a strange statement. She then went on to quote her honourable friend—the right honourable John Healey, as he now is—who said in another place: "““Given that the policy statements are policy documents, they are closer to planning policy statements … which are not subject to parliamentary approval, than to legislation. I do not see a ready- made model or suitable precedent for a binding vote on such statements of policy. Unlike with legislation, we could be taken””—" this has been echoed by the noble Baroness— "““into unprecedented and problematic territory if the two Houses were to take a different view of the policy that might be contained in a national policy statement””.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/6/08; col. 574.]" On the question of what would happen if the two Houses disagree, this House—particularly following the report of the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham of Felling—has always recognised the supremacy of another place. We have asked that we should be entitled to have our say and our vote and then, if another place disagrees, we gracefully yield to it. That statement by Mr Healey was not right because the convention is that this House will always recognise the supremacy of another place. But is this taking the matter into unknown territory? That is a very strange proposition. One example of where this has happened in the past relates to two sections in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005—not so very long ago—legislation brought forward by the present Administration. It contains a provision which gives a power to the Lord Chancellor to issue guidance to the Judicial Appointments Committee as to its procedures for the selection of judges. Section 66 states: "““Before issuing any guidance the Lord Chancellor must … consult the Lord Chief Justice””," and then, "““lay a draft of the proposed guidance before each House of Parliament … If the draft is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament within the 40-day period the Lord Chancellor must issue the guidance in the form of the draft””." First, that applies to both Houses, not only to the House of Commons; secondly, it requires affirmative approval; and, thirdly, it is not a statutory instrument by any stretch of the imagination—it is a policy proposal put forward by the Government. It is an example of a government proposal being voted on by both Houses of Parliament. If the proposal is thought to be of sufficient importance—clearly that one was and I argue that this one is—it should require the approval of both Houses. These national policy statements will be hugely important proposals. The planning policy statements already have the force of law, as the noble Baroness made clear in one of our debates. She said that, "““planning policy statements are not optional; they are the law””.—[Official Report, 8/10/08; col. 266.]" This should apply even more firmly to the national policy statements, which are largely intended to take the place of the planning policy statements. As such, Parliament should have a positive, affirmative vote in each House.