My Lords, the noble Lord has just pointed out some very germane issues that go to the heart of the concerns that led to this amendment. It seems to me that there is a lack of clarity about why we are trying to introduce a permission in principle proposition. Therefore, I very much support the concerns that my noble friend has raised in moving this amendment.
It would be slightly amusing, if it were not so serious, to watch the stately dance we have all gone through in getting to the point that we have. I have become an aficionado of the Delegated Powers Committee’s reports, which I would never have said before. In fact, I am waiting with bated breath for the next one. I do not know whether noble Lords have noted that a touch of irony has inserted itself into the titling of the committee’s reports: the first was simply called Housing and Planning Bill: Government Amendments, and the next was called Housing and Planning Bill: Further Government Amendments. I am
assuming that the next one will be called “Housing and Planning Bill: Even Further Amendments”. This stuff is getting more gripping than “The Archers” as the days go by, and that is entirely as a result of this being a half-formed principle with very little meat on its bones. We are all rather grappling with confusion about what the whole thing is aimed at.
I have real concerns that we are putting in the Bill an ability to grant permission in principle for any type of development in future if its sites are named in a qualifying document such as a local plan, a neighbourhood plan or a register. We already know that the Government have in mind not just a brownfield register but a small-sites register. Indeed, in her response to the Delegated Powers Committee, the Minister talked about wanting—“for example”, she said—the ability to extend the permission in principle proposal to retail or commercial sites. I kind of understand the argument that there is a need to pull something out of the hat to try to get housing sites through more quickly. However, so far, nobody has told me what the arguments are in respect of retail or commercial sites. Therefore, it seems rather rash if we pass legislation without being clear about the fundamental reasoning for changing something that is fundamental to the way that the planning process works. Indeed, were we to allow a proposal that permission in principle could be for any type of development if it were on a site in a qualifying document, we would be radically reforming the planning system.
The Minister says that that is in the interests of the plan-led system. However, staying with the Delegated Powers Committee, which is unconvinced by the Government’s arguments, I am unconvinced that it needs to be such a wide power. Indeed, it is such a wide power that the three statutory instruments that will follow to give additional flesh to the proposal are, in the case of the permission in principle provision, going to be by negative procedure. Therefore we will have no opportunity in this House to do very much other than confirm or reject. These powers are too wide and sweeping for a proposition that we ought to test on something for which there is an acknowledged need—for example, housing-led development. If my noble friend’s amendments are not quite right in their wording, I urge the Minister to recognise that there is genuine concern in this House about this proposal and to come back at Third Reading with amendments that would satisfy both the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and Peers around this House.