Planning Bill

My Lords, I oppose the amendments, and I do so for the reasons that I explained before when we spoke about these matters. I draw attention to the fact that I have interests in the nuclear industry. I am concerned about the apparent elevated status that ministerial involvement in this process seems to be accorded. Under the present planning system I cannot imagine even a Government whom I support, confronted with an unpleasant decision 18 to 20 months away from a general election, grasping that nettle and courting unpopularity in their constituencies. Frankly, in the unlikely event of the Liberals ever securing a place in government, I imagine that, faced with such a choice, they would do the honourable thing and resign, because their ability to grasp nettles of any kind is virtually unknown. I therefore draw an analogy in this instance with the MPC, a body set up with the express purpose of denying ministerial political involvement by the Treasury in virtually every circumstance in the determination of interest rates. I offer the House the information that the interest rate has today been cut by 1.5 per cent, a cut of such magnitude that no politician would ever have had the guts to make it. Even with the respect that I have for Alistair Darling, a friend of many years’ standing, I do not think that any politician would have taken a chance like that. I do not think that the IPC is about taking chances, but it is about taking necessary decisions which at times might be popular and which at times might, equally importantly, be unpopular. Frankly, in my 40 years and more of political involvement, the degree of courage shown across the political spectrum has not been of an order to indicate that political accountability would enable people to make that kind of decision. It is near hypocritical for people to tell us that Ministers like taking unpopular decisions and that they will go boldly on and take the consequences. They do not do that. They certainly do not do it in council groups where, as I understand it, there is no political involvement in the planning committee and there is no attempt by Whips to interfere, or so I am told. Certainly, no one would ever put anything on paper—conversations never took place and meetings were never held. We know that these things happen and that little councils sometimes come to decisions for daft reasons, in the almost certain knowledge that the applicants do not have the resources to appeal. Where the applicants do have the resources to appeal, they appeal and appeal and appeal, and the infrastructure gets into a dreadful state. We are not able to sustain the kind of economy or the kind of environment that is becoming ever more important in these sorts of debates. There is a large dose of hypocrisy in what is being said today. I think that the amendment will be defeated and the proposers will be quietly satisfied, because they will know that they will not have to deal with that kind of problem in the future and that it will be left to the IPC to do so.