Planning Bill

My Lords, I oppose these amendments, which seek to make the IPC a referral body. I have carefully listened to the debates in Committee and have, of course, read Hansard. I have reflected on the arguments through the prism of my 35 years of experience in the planning arena where, for the most part, I was on the receiving end of decisions made on planning applications. I have become more and more convinced that the Government’s architecture for the new planning approach—separating policy-making from decision-making—is correct. The years of delay inherent in the old system, which have been rehearsed many times in this House, are threefold but interlinked. First, the tangle of policy, which took much time to unravel; secondly, the lengthy processes in use at the inquiry; and, thirdly—and this is the point in question today—the delay involved in a Minister taking a decision following an inspector’s report, which often took as long as the inquiry itself. The Bill seeks to solve all these problems and, I believe, does so satisfactorily. Let us not forget that all the delay and expense which the old system created have a deterrent effect on developers and funders alike at the very time when so much of our infrastructure is in urgent need of replacement. The amendments would reduce one of the elements of delay by referring back a decision of the IPC to a Secretary of State, with the lorry-loads of material gathered at the hearing going back to be trawled through by officials for a final decision by the Secretary of State. This is in the name, as I understand it, of the principle of democratic accountability. However, in Committee, this argument for accountability was shown to be quite misplaced. A Minister reaching a decision fulfils a quasi-judicial function. He is constrained; he must act independently; he is not open to parliamentary persuasion; he is not a free agent. It is said that the IPC is unaccountable, but, as the Minister pointed out on the first day of the Committee stage, while the commission is unelected, that does not mean that it is unaccountable. It will operate within statute, within the powers given to it. It will be appointed by a Secretary of State to whom it will report. Senior appointments are subject to pre-appointment scrutiny, and it will make full reports which will be the subject of judicial challenge. Indeed, the independence of the commission, with its body of experts, is a strength, not a weakness, and it will come to be welcomed by the public because it will not be seen to be a rubber stamp and it will not be a judge and jury. The late Lord Denning once said in relation to a Housing Act inquiry that it was infinitely better that the man who heard the evidence and the arguments should decide the case, but that Parliament had decreed otherwise. Here, in this new system, the body which hears the evidence, finds the facts and balances the arguments will be just that, and we should welcome it. I oppose the amendments because they will bring the dangers of additional cost and delay without any corresponding benefit.