Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 443: 443: Clause 205, page 129, line 3, at end insert— ““( ) CIL regulations should make provision for it to be an offence for any applicant for development consent to seek to influence the decision by making improper donations.”” The noble Lord said: This amendment seeks to outlaw what I refer to as improper donations, but which in practice are known as good-will payments, and now I believe in some cases are called community funds, as one euphemism seeks to replace another in the age-old fashion. These are the payments which developers seeking planning permission for onshore wind farms are in the habit of distributing to entities in the locality where they are making the application. The developers have discretion as to what sum they offer, to whom they offer it and at what moment they offer it. The practice is now commonplace. The CPRE published a table only last week that detailed 35 such cases and says that such payments are now routinely offered by at least three of the principal wind power generating companies with each development they bring forward. The sums offered can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds over the life of the project. At one point, it looked as though the Government might be considering the regulation of these payments. They stated in the 2007 planning White Paper that: "““Developers are not prevented from making goodwill payments to individuals; however, any such payments would be outside the planning system and cannot directly influence or be taken into account by a local planning authority in its determination of any planning application””." No local authority in England has apparently got an official policy towards such payments, perhaps because the Government have said that they should be outside the planning system. But of course these payments are designed to influence the planning process and can, in fact, directly interfere with it. For example, near to where I live, developers are applying for permission to build a large wind power station at Armistead in Cumbria. They offered £19,000 to redo the tennis court belonging to the youth club in a local village. This offer was accepted by the trustees of the club, two of whom were parish councillors and one of whom was married to a parish councillor. These councillors then had to absent themselves from the discussion on the proposal at the parish council meeting. As a result, the meeting lacked a quorum and the parish council was unable to deliver an opinion on the proposal to the district council. That is an example of interference in the planning system. The time has come to regulate this area. The current situation provides too many opportunities for abuse. It also creates a highly divisive situation among local communities as developers, having already enriched selected farmers and landowners with the largesse supplied to them by the poor, unwitting electricity consumer, proceed after that to enrich selected elements among the local community. As the Government will no doubt have noticed, this issue is gaining traction. Last week there was a 20-minute discussion on the subject at midday on Radio 4 following the publication of the CPRE paper. So I hope the Government will do something. The Minister explained today that wind turbines would not be liable to CIL. My point is that the present substantial contributions to the local community made by the developers should be regulated and that the current lawless and disturbing situation should not be allowed to continue and develop unchecked. I challenge the Minister to justify the Government’s present policy on this. To do so could be said to be the point of this probing amendment. I beg to move.