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Local Government and Planning (Parkland and Windfall Development) Bill

We have had an interesting and worthwhile debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) on introducing a Bill on an important issue. I come largely to praise the Bill, not to bury it, but I have a few concerns about the detail. I am happy to support the Bill on the ground that, if it were introduced, even in its present state, it would leave us in a better position than we are in now. I would like to improve it in Committee, but we should not lose sight of the Bill’s considerable merit in moving us in the right direction. We should support the Bill’s general thrust. I, too, have many concerns about referendums. My main criticism of the Bill would be that it seeks at all levels to bypass the local authority. In some ways, a referendum would bypass the local authority and in others we would still end up with central Government control over the planning system. I would rather see us move in the direction of giving much more responsibility to local authorities for planning matters in their areas rather than relying on either a referendum or on central Government control over planning. That is my main criticism, but the Bill still moves us in a better direction. I genuinely believe in local democracy. I believe in localism and I am delighted that the Conservative party under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) is moving in that direction. I support it wholeheartedly. If we really believe in localism, local democracy is what we should support. There is no more emotive issue for local authorities to discuss and decide than planning. It raises people’s hackles and it is the issue that most people living in a local area are concerned about. If local democracy and local councils are to mean anything, we must give those councils responsibility over local planning decisions. Local council elections are a key feature of local democracy, but if we take planning issues away from councils and put them to a referendum, we will get even lower turnouts than in many local elections. I prefer decisions on planning to be taken mainly by the local authority, and in particular in respect of residential developments, by local authorities alone. I do not accept that central Government or a planning inspector from Bristol can know better than the local democratically elected council what is best for a local area. I thus prefer moving away from the idea of referendums towards giving local authorities the responsibility for taking decisions. I hasten to add that I am not against referendums per se and there are sometimes circumstances in which a referendum is appropriate, as the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Slaughter) said. On issues of constitutional importance, referendums are very important. I greatly favour a referendum on our continuing membership of the European Union. I suspect that it may be a while before we get one, but referendums should be confined to such issues of national importance rather than being conducted willy-nilly for every planning application. Once we start down the track of holding local referendums for some planning applications, there will be a clamour to extend the process to all of them. The whole system could get out of hand. I completely disagree with the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush about developments in gardens. He tried to blame the problems on laws that date back to the mid-1980s when the issue was not a problem. I wish that Labour Members would look to the future rather than the past, and deal with current issues rather than blaming everything on previous Governments, which gets us nowhere. We are where we are in terms of planning—[Interruption.]