Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 16: 16: Schedule 1, page 139, line 20, at end insert— ““11A (1) The Secretary of State must appoint a person as the Solicitor to the Commission. (2) The Solicitor to the Commission— (a) is to be a barrister in England and Wales, an advocate in Scotland or a solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales or a solicitor in Scotland; (b) is not to be a Commissioner; (c) is to be a member of the Commission’s staff. (3) The Solicitor to the Commission shall advise the Commissioners on the exercise of their functions and in particular shall seek to ensure that the consideration of development consent applications is lawful and fair. (4) The Solicitor to the Commission’s terms and conditions of service are to be determined by the Secretary of State.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, when we think about how the commission will work and consider applications—and, more importantly, how the applicants themselves are to develop applications and present them in a fair and equitable way—the Bill as it stands is open to some question. The difficulty right at the beginning for any applicant is that they have to undertake a public consultation. Anyone who has been in the public relations business knows that if you want to get a particular answer you can go a long way towards predetermining it by how you ask the question. There is a broad suspicion—I put it no stronger than that—that applicants for planning permission and nationally significant infrastructure projects who have to undertake public consultations on applications will load the way in which they produce that system so as to colour the answer in their favour. It would in fact be remarkable if that did not happen but, if it were to happen, there is no question but that at some point someone would say that the consultation was not representative or fair. Then we would find ourselves in a judicial review situation. That is the purpose behind Amendment No. 16. Amendments Nos. 91 and 95 deal more specifically with the issue of the public examination of the application by a panel of commissioners or a single commissioner. Here the doubts are somewhat similar; there is no question but that at that point the cross-examination of witnesses in public hearings must be seen to be unbiased. The danger is that it might not be. One cannot afford to have a situation in which a request for an order for planning permission is granted when someone can say that the commission—the panel or the individual members—undertaking the cross-examination asked questions of members of the public appearing in the public session in such a way as to predetermine the answers. There is no easy answer to dealing with that issue, but it is a vital matter of public confidence; the public must have absolute confidence in this system if it is not to be distrusted. I am sorry that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, is not in his place, because he is much more of an expert in these matters than I am. He apologises, but he is involved in a consultation with a regulator; that date was set in his diary before the dates were set for this Report stage and there was nothing he could do to get here in time. Much as I might wish to do so, I could not keep my speech going long enough to enable him to arrive, nor would the House thank me if I did so. There is a vital issue of public confidence in the system. We have to ensure that the system not only is fair but is seen to be fair. Probably the people with the most expertise in this field—and there are a lot of them about—are the planning lawyers. I do not fancy myself as an advocate for what I would call the planning lawyers union, but they are very experienced and good at what they do and I would be surprised if one or two of them did not finish up on the commission. Of course, that is up to those who will ultimately undertake the appointments, but it might solve the problem. However, the solution that we have suggested of an independent legal adviser to cover these matters is likely to be seen as more equitable and fair in the interests of both sides of the argument. The issue is very much about public confidence in the system. Whatever we might have thought about our earlier debate, that was the principle behind the amendment that we moved. In the scale of things, this is a much simpler and more straightforward issue to understand. It is important to get the public outside to believe that the system is not loaded against them. Regrettably, there is already a large concern that the system that the Government are proposing will ride roughshod over all difficulties and objections and will speedily reach conclusions without particular consideration of equity. The Minister has gone a long way towards allaying that concern in her remarks. Government Amendment No. 94 also deals with this issue, albeit in a slightly different way. I look forward to hearing her reply, which I hope will cover exactly how she sees this paragon of unbiased and unprejudiced virtue working. I beg to move.