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Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 86: 86: Clause 66, page 39, line 9, leave out ““the prescribed form”” and insert ““writing to each of the following— (a) the chief executive of the Commission; (b) the person appointed to chair the Commission, where the ex-Commissioner is not the person appointed to chair the Commission; (c) the lead member of the Panel, where the ex-Commissioner is not the lead member of the Panel”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Amendment No. 86, and Amendment No. 87 in Clause 80, remove unnecessary delegated powers in the Bill. Clause 66 provides that if a commissioner was, immediately before ceasing to be one, serving on a panel that has not concluded its business, he may, provided that he makes an election in a prescribed form, decide to continue as a panel member until the panel completes its work, unless he is no longer a commissioner because the Secretary of State has removed him from office. Clause 80 is a similar provision to allow a single commissioner to continue dealing with the application, though ceasing to be a commissioner. We consider it essential that commissioners should be able to finish cases that they are working on before standing down, to ensure that the consideration of applications for development consent for nationally significant infrastructure projects is not unnecessarily disrupted by changes in personnel. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, tabled amendments in Committee challenging the Government to explain why the requirement that the, "““election … is effective only if made in a prescribed form””," was necessary. She felt that that was a little too prescriptive. Although this amendment was not debated in Committee—the noble Baroness kindly agreed not to move it, along with a number of other amendments, so that we had more time to debate the bigger issues that the Bill raises—I saw the point that she made and I agree with her. Amendments Nos. 86 and 87 therefore remove these instances of delegated power and provide that the election is effective from Clauses 66 and 80 themselves, if notified in writing to the chair and chief executive of the commission, as well as to the lead member of the panel where the outgoing commissioner is examining the application as part of a panel. Whenever we are able, we seek to minimise the use of delegated power in this Bill. I hope that the noble Baroness feels that we have met the issue. I commend these amendments to the House. I beg to move.