Planning Bill

My Lords, what has happened to casinos since then? Well, who was right? If the Government had been confident of their policy about casinos, of course they would have brought the order back, but the original policy is in tatters and the idea of a giant casino has disappeared from view. If I may say so, the noble Lord has not chosen a very good example. The noble Lord, Lord Woolmer of Leeds, was cross because the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh—who, I am sorry to say, has left the Chamber—referred rather unwisely to the moral authority of Parliament. That is not a phrase that I would ever have used. I served for 23 years in the other place and have now just about topped up 23 years here, so I have seen both sides clearly. Parliament has authority and the legitimacy of a parliamentary vote. At the risk of being tedious, I repeat what I said on a previous occasion. When I was Secretary of State for the Environment, I faced a challenge from local authorities, led by the extreme left—some by the Militant Tendency. No doubt noble Lords will remember those occasions. Those authorities were challenging the Government; they were challenging the authority of the Secretary of State; they were demanding that I withdraw the rate support grants, remove the capping on rates and a number of other things. At the end of a long meeting attended by 35 of them, led by Mr Blunkett, I said, ““I can’t do those things. They have been approved by Parliament. Are you challenging Parliament?””. Of course, the whole thing faded away. They realised that Parliament had decided; it had cast its votes in support of the rate support grant settlement; it had approved legislation on rate capping and that was that. What do we have here? We have national policy statements on which there is a considerable process of consultation with Parliament—the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness now makes it clear that that includes both Houses. Last time, the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, said that there was a tendency at the other end of the building to conflate Parliament with the House of Commons, but of course we are part of Parliament as well, so we should certainly have that power. Then the thing is approved. What happens then? If one looks at the chart produced by the CBI, we finish up with judicial review, because it will then be a decision by the Secretary of State. If a decision is taken by Parliament—provided that the procedures have been properly gone through and there is no conflict with European law, and so on, and it has been properly voted on—it is inconceivable that any one would take to judicial review a national policy statement. One has to remember that the growth of judicial review in the past 20 years has been enormous. I have here the figures provided by Professor Anthony King in his book on the British constitution. Under the heading, ““The Judges Come Out””, he cited the figures. He says that, "““the number of applications for judicial review has soared in recent decades. In 1981 a total of 356 non-criminal applications for judicial review were made; in 2005 the total of such applications was 5,131””." This country should not be ruled by the judges. The judges have a distinct role in ensuring that the law is upheld, but if Parliament makes law, it should not be challenged by the judges. If the Secretary of State takes decisions, they are and frequently have been challenged in the courts. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, will no doubt have been warned of the danger of a challenge by environmental groups on nuclear policy. These decisions were taken not by Parliament but by Ministers, and what happened? The courts held that the process had been flawed, and Ministers had to start all over again. This is what I am frightened of if we leave the national policy statements as ministerial statements without the full sanction of a parliamentary vote. The House decided this morning that the planning commission is to be the deciding body, and my noble friend’s amendment was decisively rejected. However, as a number of noble Lords have said—it was said this morning by the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, and in a previous debate by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull—if one wants to looks for democratic legitimacy, one should look to the national policy statements and not to the commission.