My Lords, I do not intend to detain your Lordships’ House for very long on this; everything that needs to be said probably has been said. However, I want to add my voice in support of my noble friend Lord Borwick on Amendment 102D. This not because I think that this amendment is probably necessary; I am sure the Government have no intention of ensuring that developers can prejudice the decision that is taken by the local authority by choosing a contractor to undertake the work who will produce a report—which the developer has paid for—that is in the developer’s favour. Although I am sure that that is not the intention, it is a clear misconception that is accepted by a great many people outside this House. We need to make it perfectly clear that the designated people who are producing the planning report are doing it on a highly professional basis and that all they are doing is undertaking the mechanical work of processing a planning application. What they are not doing is prejudicing the decision that will be taken by the local authority. If they are prejudicing or influencing that decision, we are going slightly too far in the Bill. The decision on planning has to be a democratic decision that is taken by the councillors in the local authority. It could be argued that too often in local authorities those decisions are dedicated to officers, and ought to be retained by the planning committee and the councillors themselves.
I am looking forward to receiving the reassurance that I think many people in this Committee are looking for. All we are proposing is to provide additional resources to the council, however they are paid for, for the mechanical process of taking a planning application from its initial lodging with the council through to the point at which it is capable of being assessed by the planning committee. I agree totally with my noble friend Lord True that privatisation in that regard is fine, but privatisation which privatises the democratic decision is, in my view, unacceptable.
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