Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 347: 347: Clause 113, page 58, line 6, at beginning insert ““Except in a case within subsection (5A),”” The noble Baroness said: I shall endeavour not to rattle through this group of amendments. I am not trying to make it more difficult for noble Lords to follow the argument, and I will try to slow down. We have been taking rather big bundles of amendments, with the consent of the Committee. This group of amendments is by way of a response to the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee concerning the formalities for making orders granting development consent and parliamentary scrutiny regulations affecting the framework for decisions on applications. I shall deal first with the committee’s recommendations on formalities for orders and the amendments for accepting them. The recommendations relate to Clause 116, which confers on the IPC and the Secretary of State limited powers to include legislative provisions in an order granting development consent. These powers are likely to be exercised to facilitate transport projects, particularly in the case of railways. The legislative powers may be exercised also where land is being compulsorily acquired and provision needs to be made in relation to compensation, or where provision has to be made for the mitigation of injurious effects of public works in connection with the statutory defence to nuisance proceedings. Clause 217 currently provides that an order granting development consent is not exercisable by statutory instrument. There is generally no requirement that an order be laid before Parliament, although in relation to certain special types of land the order is subject to the special parliamentary procedure. In its 12th report of this Session, however, the DPRRC recommended that orders made in exercise of the legislative powers should be contained in a statutory instrument. It recommended that such an instrument should be laid before Parliament, but should not be subject to any parliamentary procedure. By way of background, I inform the Committee that the proposal for orders containing legislative provisions to be made by the Secretary of State by statutory instrument would not represent a radical departure from existing procedures. Orders under Sections 1 or 3 of the Transport and Works Act, Sections 14 or 16 of the Harbours Act 1964 and compulsory works orders under the Water Industry Act 1991 must all be made by statutory instrument, because such orders may contain legislative provisions. The main effect of requiring orders of the Secretary of State to be made by statutory instrument would be to apply the procedural requirements of the Statutory Instruments Act 1946, which cover numbering, printing, publication, citation, classification—as local or general—and sale. We fully accept that these procedures are appropriate in the case of orders granting development consent containing legislative provisions. What is more, we agree with the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that it is an omission for there to be no express requirement in the Bill for Parliament to be notified of changes to legislation which it has previously enacted. We have given careful consideration to precisely how the committee’s objectives might most sensibly be achieved. The Transport and Works Act 1992 requires that a copy of the order, and associated plans and books of reference, be deposited in the office of the Clerk of the Parliaments. As noble Lords will know, the Clerk is, among other things, the custodian of the records of Parliament stored in this House. His records include a collection of plans and books of reference in connection with schemes authorised by private Acts. The House of Lords Record Office should therefore continue to maintain a comprehensive record of key documents relating to major transport schemes. We do not want the commission to separate the legislative provisions from the other provisions in an order such as the granting of development consent, which would be unhelpful to the Clerk and introduce unnecessary complexity if there were required to be two orders in respect of a single project. Amendments Nos. 347 to 349 will therefore insert a requirement in Clause 113 that an order including legislative provisions be made by statutory instrument. A copy of the order must be deposited in the office of the Clerk of the Parliaments along with the latest version of any plan submitted to the commission by the applicant and the statement of reasons for the decision to grant development consent. Amendments Nos. 355 and 357 relate to the correction of errors in an order containing legislative provisions. The amendments insert into paragraph 1 of Schedule 4 provision equivalent to the new subsections inserted into Clause 113 by Amendment No. 348. The effect is that a development consent order containing legislative provisions will be able to be corrected only by means of another statutory instrument. Amendments Nos. 391 and 392 insert into paragraph 2 of Schedule 6 provision equivalent to that inserted by Amendments Nos. 355 and 357, so that non-material changes to development consent orders required to be made by statutory instrument may be made only by a further statutory instrument. Amendment No. 393 inserts equivalent provision into paragraph 4 of Schedule 6 in relation to changes to and revocation of such orders. Amendments Nos. 449 to 451, which amend Clause 217, make it clear that the affirmative procedure for parliamentary scrutiny does not apply in relation to orders granting development consent. Amendments Nos. 352 to 354 insert additional words into Clause 114 to specify the day on which the six-week time period for filling a claim form begins to run in the case of an order made by statutory instrument that corrects, changes or revokes a development consent order. This is the day on which the order making the correction, change or revocation is published. Amendment No. 453 is our response to the other recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, relating to the new development consent regime. This amendment relates to Clauses 101 and 102, which set the framework for decisions on applications for orders granting development consent. These two clauses confer on the Secretary of State the power to prescribe in regulations additional matters to which regard must be had when decisions are taken. As the Bill is currently drafted, negative resolution procedure is specified for scrutiny of any such regulations. The committee has pointed out that regulations under Clauses 101(2) and 102(2) would set out a significant part of the framework within which decisions will be taken. For example, regulations could be made that would require the commission to have regard to matters relating to design in particular cases or to matters relating to the preservation of any listed buildings. We agree that regulations made under this power would be significant and therefore in line with the committee’s recommendations, Amendments Nos. 451 and 453 adopt the affirmative resolution procedure for regulations made under these subsections. This change is straightforward and I anticipate that it will be universally welcomed. I beg to move. On Question, amendment agreed to.