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Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 27: 27: Clause 221, page 130, line 26, at end insert ““, and (c) shall not be made unless, before approval by the House of Commons, a period of 60 days has elapsed, beginning with the day on which the regulations were laid. (3) During the period of 60 days— (a) either House of Parliament may— (i) debate, or pass a resolution relating to, the regulations, or (ii) refer the regulations to any committee for a report; and (b) the Secretary of State must respond to any such debate or resolution or to any such report of a committee before the House of Commons gives its approval to the regulations under this section.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, last week noble Lords divided on an amendment that would have given both Houses of Parliament, in our bicameral legislature, the power to approve the regulations to be made under Part 11—the CIL regulations, which the House has just debated. The Bill seeks to restrict the power to another place. As a number of noble Lords said in the debate that has just ended, the whole business of CIL depends on regulations. The word ““regulations”” appears on every page of Part 11, sometimes many times. If the amendment is not carried, this House will have no say in that at all. Last week, the amendment was defeated by just six votes, with the consequence that although this House has spent many hours debating Part 11—at Second Reading in July, in Committee of the whole House, last week on Report and today at Third Reading—we are to have no role whatever in relation to the many sets of regulations that will fall to be tabled. Of course last week’s vote must be respected. I respect it; I accept that it will be for another place—and that place only—formally to approve those many regulations. However, I find it surprising that the noble Baroness has taken this line. She has been full of praise for what this House has done to the Bill, including to Part 11, and about the contribution that noble Lords have made. I have in my hands a letter that she sent to me only a few days ago, which states: "““I thought the debate was outstanding, and I continue to learn a great deal from the collective wisdom of the House””." That is what we can bring to bear on this matter. The amendment recognises, of course, that the actual approval of the regulations must now rest with another place. We seek to provide opportunities for noble Lords to bring their ““collective wisdom”” to bear on the process. This House has always recognised that certain financial matters are open to the claim of privilege by another place, and I do not seek in any way to challenge that. The purpose of the amendment is to provide, between the tabling of the draft regulations and their approval by another place, time for both Houses to consider them and express their views, and for Ministers to respond. I emphasise ““both Houses””—this House as well as another place. In other words, this House should be consulted, even if we do not have power to approve the regulations. Anyone who listened to the last debate will realise just how much of CIL will depend on the regulations. How much each House might use that opportunity is not for the Bill, of course, but for discussions between the usual channels. The amendment does no more than offer several possible ways of doing it. If the amendment is carried, as I hope it will be, it will be open to the other place to accept it or redraft it in a form acceptable to parliamentary counsel. Alternatively, another place might choose to draw a distinction between the regulations that bear directly on the charging of CIL and the rest, which are of a more administrative nature. That distinction was made in paragraph 26 of the Delegated Powers Committee’s report, which referred to ““matters referred to”” in certain clauses which are ““not obviously financial””. That must be for another place; it is not open to me to table an amendment to make that distinction. The important point for us this evening is that another place will not be given the chance to decide what to do unless we return the Bill to it with this amendment in it. What lies behind my concern is the increasing tendency of the other place to regard references to ““Parliament”” as meaning the House of Commons only, a point made on the Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull. I am sorry that he is not in his place; I drew his attention to the fact that I was going to quote him. He said: "““I am beginning to think that the other place has got into the habit of conflating the word ‘Commons’ and the word ‘Parliament’, when they are two different things””.—[Official Report, 14/10/08; col. 660.]" As I said a moment ago, we are a bicameral legislature and that must never be forgotten. We had a striking example of the tendency with the statistics Act last year. The Act provided that the new statistics authority was to be accountable to Parliament. The Liaison Committee of this House unanimously recommended that that should be via a Joint Committee of both Houses. That was accepted by noble Lords, but Ministers in the other place interpreted the Act to mean accountability to the House of Commons alone. Despite appeals from the then Leader of the House—the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton—the proposal by this House was simply rejected. Tonight we have another example. I accept that it is for the other place to assert its financial privilege, but that should not exclude this House having a role in the consideration of the CIL regulations. There may be honourable and right honourable Members in another place who want further reforms of this House, but that should not lead to the exclusion of this House from any role with respect to the regulations to be made under Part 11. I beg to move.