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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I shall try to respond to some of the thoughtful points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. When I left university I started my working life in the planning department of a local authority, so I have huge respect and great affection for local authority planners. I enjoyed working there and I hope that, in relation to my tenure at English Partnerships, people would always say that our organisation treated with democratic and professional respect those colleagues who we encountered in local authorities. I shall try to address some of the fundamental points that have been raised, because they are important points of principle. I begin with skills. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said earlier that the planning system has been well developed since 1947, and of course it has, but it is a fact that we have a tremendous shortage of experienced and competent planners right across England and an acute shortage in certain parts of the country. I was flabbergasted some five or six years ago when I visited two or three boroughs not far from here, where I found that the whole development control function comprised of one or two postgraduates from Australia or New Zealand who were on a gap year. That was it; that was the whole professional cadre in two or three large boroughs. To say that we were short of experienced planners would be to somewhat understate the case. When Iain Wright in another place said that he was trying to do something about capacity he was not overstating the position. It is terribly important when we talk about very complex planning applications, or even straightforward development control, that the agency can help them if local authorities want that. I do not regard what the Minister in another place said as being glib or ill thought through. He very much reflected the seriousness of the current situation. Equally, I do not believe that the solution suggested by the noble Baroness in terms of cross-boundary working is necessarily as straightforward as it might appear. Certainly in many parts of the country where the need is great for cross-boundary subregional, social and fixed infrastructure it is very important that we achieve close working. Sometimes that was simply not possible because of the different political complexions and views of authorities, or sometimes turf politics. That was difficult and in some situations we held up meaningful good-quality development for a long time. I do not necessarily accept that local authorities just all get together. I hope that I am correct in saying that for the five Olympic boroughs the planning authority is the Olympic Delivery Authority and not the individual boroughs. The Olympic Delivery Authority is a statutory body.