Infrastructure Planning (Decisions) Regulations 2010

My Lords, I reassure the Minister that I intend to make a very much shorter speech than I did last week when he and I confronted each other about the carbon emissions target scheme. Like my noble friend Lord Bates, I have one or two questions. However, I shall preface them with one remark. I have rarely read as silly a leading article as that in the Times last week about the Infrastructure Planning Commission. It was treated as a joke that is wasting everybody’s time and money. I do not share that view. Some of us were privileged to have a good meeting with Sir Michael Pitt recently, which I set up, and we were very impressed by the way in which he is setting about getting the commissioners and staff together. My noble friend Lord Bates has already set out that the Conservative Party dislikes the concept of an appointed body, which apparently would not be accountable to anybody, taking these very important decisions. I shall not add to what he said. I am satisfied that the arrangements that will be in place in due course if there is a change of government will preserve much of the essence of what is involved in the Planning Act, although there will be changes necessary to reflect the policy. For the Times to suggest as it did that the whole thing was a complete farce and a waste of time struck me as being the silliest article I have read in that newspaper for a long time. I would like to think that that message might reach Sir Michael Pitt. I do not disagree with the regulations. However, the Explanatory Memorandum raises one or two issues. Paragraph 8.1 states: ""The consultation document also consulted on other instruments which are planned to be made in January 2010"." Are there any other statutory instruments that have not yet been, but which might be laid to come into effect by 1 March when the system is due to start? I totally understand what the Minister said in explaining why these regulations are necessary for the purposes of the four matters mentioned in the body of the measure, but are we expecting any more? My second question follows from that. The Minister referred to a number of other matters that are automatically applied to the IPC because they apply to things such as Ministers and other public bodies. Is the department producing for the IPC and the applicants a list of all these things to which the IPC must "have regard to"? Those are the words in the regulations. The applicants to the IPC will have to do a great deal of preparatory work, for instance in consultation, before they can submit their applications to the IPC for unified consent. It would be highly desirable to have a clear guide for them on all matters, not just in this statutory instrument but in the others to which the Minister referred. He made it perfectly clear in his speech that this was not an exhaustive list. There must be a large number of other matters to which the IPC has to have regard, stemming from earlier legislation that applies to the town and country planning system generally. It may be that sufficiently experienced advisers can be employed to draw up the list, but I cannot help feeling that it would help the purpose that the Government have in mind if such a list for the applicants could be provided. It may exist somewhere on a website, but I would like reassurance that there will be something of that sort. As I understand my party’s proposals on this—they have not yet been fully published—it is intended that much of the same procedure for the application should be applied. However, the main, very important difference is that the IPC would not make the decision. The decision would be taken by the Secretary of State, who is, after all, accountable to Parliament. No doubt these things will become clearer. I am only a humble Back-Bencher and I do not have much to do with these detailed considerations of my party’s manifesto. However, I think that these things will be considered. So far as I have understood the matter, much of what applies at present will apply equally under the new arrangements, with the notable exception that the Secretary of State will make the decision. After all, that is already a provision in the Planning Act 2008. Under that, the Secretary of State can make the decision. That change was made in the other place when the Bill was going through. People had in mind, for instance, the third runway at Heathrow. They felt it was quite wrong that the Minister should, as it were, hide behind an IPC if a decision of that sort was to be made. The Government made an amendment to the Planning Act to allow the Secretary of State to make decisions in these cases, so that measure already exists. I am in no doubt that there will need to be further legislation if the proposals are to be implemented. However, that does not affect the carrying over of existing legislation that already applies in the Town and Country Planning Act to applications which are being considered by the IPC, or perhaps by its successor. That seems to me to be important, but I come back to my question, will there be a comprehensive list of all those matters to which the IPC has to have regard? The applicants would find that very helpful.