John McDonnell
Planning & Compulsory Purchase Bill
Yesterday in Parliament, Mr Redwood spoke forcefully in the debate on the Planning & Compulsory Purchase Bill. He spoke against more bureaucracy at regional level in planning and urged the government to let local counties, unitary authorities and boroughs keep control. He stressed the importance of local communities deciding on what is right for their area. His full speech is laid out below.
Mr. Redwood : I support the Lords amendments and want to speak out against more bureaucratic control of the planning system at the regional level.
I was intrigued by the Minister's failure to respond to my earlier point. He tried to change the subject by saying that I had once supported a Government who had also allowed a Secretary of State to provide some guidance and to interfere in planning through unelected regional bodies and our elected councils. That is quite right, but the Minister should also know that I have always been against that system and have fought many battles against it on behalf of my constituents. I am sad that the Minister does not seem inclined to take advantage of the reformed legislation passing through the House to introduce more democracy into our planning system.
In common with my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman), I believe that there are already too many tiers of government. Like him, I would like to shed a tier or two of this country's government and get by with rather less of it. The most obvious area to remove is that of artificial regional government-regions that mean little or nothing to most of the people dragooned into them, and which are too extensive geographically. My hon. Friends have pointed out the long distances that people would have to travel to make representations in person. Regions also create tensions between the great cities and counties lumped together within them, as they jostle for position and try to have their interests properly represented.
David Wright: The right hon. Gentleman's analysis intrigues me. Does he believe that the whole regional planning guidance system should be scrapped and therefore that counties should interact directly with the Secretary of State, with no role for regional spatial analysis at all?
Mr. Redwood: The hon. Gentleman is quite right that I see no need for regional planning tiers in England. I believe that it would be much better if counties or unitary authorities and boroughs put forward their proposals and engaged in dialogue with the Secretary of State on important issues of national significance. We may also need a system that provides incentives to counties and districts to allow certain quantities of development. Such incentives could be built in to provide some balance in the system, so that communities could see some of the advantages of accepting more development, while retaining the ultimate right or power to forgo those advantages and opt for less development than a Secretary of State might wish them to have. I do not accept the view that without draconian powers from the centre and from the regions, nothing would ever get built.
We have already heard that the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) has been urging his local authority and the national system to build more. Several hon. Members have voiced similar opinions in previous debates on planning matters-they want more development in their constituencies, and that is often endorsed by their local elected authorities. That can be achieved through an electoral process and if a Secretary of State felt that the balance was wrong, he could, under my model, increase the incentives-perhaps financial incentives, allowing authorities to keep rather more of the tax revenue that would flow from greater development or allowing them to keep or develop the grants or extra money that comes through developer agreements-in return for the acceptance of further development. That would create a balance where both judgment and democratic rights were possible.
Mr. Hayes: I support my right hon. Friend on that point. In my experience, local people rarely oppose the building of anything lovely or useful; they oppose building that is out of scale or out of character with their community. As he says, people do not oppose development per se, but they usually oppose unsuitable development.
Mr. Redwood: That is my view. Having been a dweller both in London and in Berkshire, I know that if development proposals are made in my area in London, I often think that they are an enhancement, particularly if they will improve or replace old derelict buildings, or sites that have not been properly used or have fallen into disuse.
I am often in favour of an intensification of use, because I accept that I am living in a city where there are lots of facilities. However, if I am considering a proposal for a village in my Berkshire constituency that has already faced more development than it would like as a result of regional guidance in the past, I am often sympathetic to the case made by the parish and the district unitary authority that a limit should be put on development-particularly in the light of the Government's failure to provide more trains, boats, planes and roads for the transport links, and their failure to expand the hospital and school systems sufficiently, or rapidly enough, to accommodate the planned development that regional guidance may be urging, or forcing, on reluctant local communities and local authorities. As my hon. Friend implied, we need to consider the circumstances on the ground in each city, town, district, parish and village. Surely that is an argument for more democracy in our planning process, and more of it being returned to local communities through their elected representatives, rather than for more powers being taken away to the centre.
I am happy to speak out in praise of the nimbys. I remember being interviewed on that subject and explaining the kind of view that I am now setting forth about how the planning process could be reformed, with more local democracy, but also with reasonable amounts of development in the right places being encouraged and permitted. The interviewer thought that he had come to his clinching point when he turned to me and said, "But then, Mr. Redwood, you must be a nimby." I astounded him by replying, "But of course-and I suspect that you are too."
Indeed, I suspect that most Members of the House of Commons, too, are secret nimbys. We all have different thresholds for our nimbyism, but I suspect that even most Labour Members, who are about to vote against people's right to defend their local communities from overdevelopment, would, if under pressure themselves, turn out to be nimbys when pushed in the wrong direction. I wonder how many Labour Members would like an abattoir next door to them. I wonder how many of them would say, "How wonderful!" if a fireworks factory were to be sited next to their house. I wonder how many of them would welcome one of the asylum camps that the Government have a passion for and wish to dot around Conservative areas. I suspect that we would find that there was quite a lot of nimbyism in Labour then-and if there were not, Labour Members would not be speaking up for their many constituents who often rightly wish to defend their rural views, their quiet residential streets, their local amenity, or the beauty of their local parks and green spaces.
What we want from the Bill, and what the central Lords amendment is about, is a system that allows local communities to express their views on the scale, pace and nature of development, and then to have some chance of those being reflected in the underlying reality. I am not saying that people should have the absolute right to decide in each case. There are, of course, occasions when national issues and considerations have to be taken into account, and should properly be put before this House and be debated and reflected on through the right kind of procedure. There will also be occasions when matters need to be referred from the local community to the Secretary of State for adjudication. However, we do not want a new regional planning tyranny cemented in the concrete of this statute, unamended by their lordships' amendment.
I like the wit and wisdom of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat alliance-an unusual alliance, and not one that I would normally encourage. The wit and wisdom lies in the fact that the Lib Dems will dream on, thinking that the amendment from their lordships' House would mean elected regional assemblies having an influence over the planning process, whereas we Conservatives know that it should be an easy task for us to see off the threat of regional assemblies-an unnecessary and expensive level of government that the Government seek to impose. The amendment would mean an end to the statutory regional interference that the Government have in mind under the Bill if it is not amended as their lordships suggest.
I urge all those who wish their local communities to have a voice, all those who believe that a balance needs to be struck between the understandable wish to defend what we have and the need for growth and development and new ideas, and all those who do not believe in too much bureaucratic control and interference from a high level, to understand the importance of backing their lordships' amendment, and I urge them to join us in the Lobby.
