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Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 204: 204: Clause 49, page 27, line 29, leave out ““Commission may give advice”” and insert ““Secretary of State may by regulation make provisions about the giving of advice by an existing government body appointed for this purpose”” The noble Lord said: The Bill provides that the IPC should give advice to those who wish to submit a planning application to it on what the planning application should contain and the process by which the applicant should develop the final application. That, to me, is another one of these wretched cases of somebody acting as judge and jury in their own court. This group of amendments has one purpose solely: to give a third party—in this case the Secretary of State—the power to give the IPC guidance on exactly what advice it should or should not give. I am well aware that there is one subsection that gives the Secretary of State power to intervene if it is thought necessary. We do think it is necessary and that the clause should be drafted slightly differently so that the Secretary of State advises the IPC on what it is to do and the IPC then passes that on. In that way, the advice is seen to be independent of the commission. This is another part of ensuring that the IPC is independent. If that framework is, so to speak, established by the Secretary of State, then it will give the commission a greater degree of freedom from involvement in the applicants’ actual work. If it is seen to be giving applicants advice, it could be advising them to put in the application in a form which suits it. It could be argued that the commission would be leading the applicants. That would be neither desirable nor good. I beg to move.