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Planning Bill

My Lords, I am well aware of the strong feeling about the role of the House as we have worked through this part of the Bill. I absolutely understand the genuine passions expressed so consistently, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. However, I need to remind the House that last week we resolved, on Report, not to accept the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, which would have provided for all CIL regulations to be made subject to the affirmative resolution of both Houses. This is a question not of what the Minister wants, but of what the House wants, and the House decided last week that it did not want affirmative regulations. This is not a political issue. While I understand the disappointment that has been caused, I think that the amendment would create more problems than it would solve. It would provide, alongside the affirmative procedure in the other place, for a 60-day period during which either House could debate or pass a resolution on the draft regulations, or refer the draft regulations to any committee for report. The Secretary of State would then have to respond to any debate, resolution or report before the other place could give its approval to the regulations. The amendment would control the circumstances in which the other place might approve any CIL regulations. Sixty days would have to pass and the other place could not approve regulations until the Secretary of State had responded to any debate, resolution or report. I will come to the procedural issues in a moment. On the practical details, I ask noble Lords to think about what would be involved. Part of the problem is that we do not know. The amendment risks turning the process for making CIL regulations into a long and complex one. It would permit this House to refer a draft of the CIL regulations to a committee to consider and issue a report. My noble and learned friend Lord Boyd asked some pertinent questions and some clarification was forthcoming. All I can see is that there would be considerable delay in making CIL regulations. The process would also apply to amendments to CIL regulations to close a loophole or to correct a minor error. We are looking at a long procedure every time that we try to amend CIL regulations. Throughout this process we have tried to balance fairness and transparency with greater speed so that we can put arrangements in place to raise the funding that we now so urgently need for local infrastructure. On timing, I indicated that the Government would not make the CIL regulations before autumn 2009. However, once it is right to do so, surely those regulations should be made promptly to enable charging authorities to generate additional revenue for infrastructure. The substantive response to the amendment rests on two arguments. The first is that—with the exceptions of delaying the other place’s affirmative resolution debate by 60 days and compelling the Secretary of State to respond to the debate or resolution—what the noble Lord seeks to achieve is already achievable. My noble friend Lord Howarth referred to last week’s debate and the Motion tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas. There is nothing to prevent this House from debating anything that it wants on a Motion, if it should so choose. There are two issues there. The amendment would also require the Secretary of State to respond to any debate, resolution or report made by either House. It is unclear what form this response would take. How useful would it be? Exactly what duty would be placed on the Secretary of State? What would it do to the relationship between the two Houses in terms of secondary legislation? I argue that, as noble Lords have emphasised in practically every speech, the role of our House is one of scrutiny and revision. My fear is that we would not have scrutiny and that this procedure would diminish the value of the scrutiny that we offer; it would dilute the notion of scrutiny. This would be a debate without powers to annul, at a time when we are absolutely insistent on the value of this House. What I said to the noble Lord in my letter was perfectly compatible with what I have just said and with my respect for this House. There is a genuine problem there with the role of this House. Secondly, my noble friend Lord Howarth talked about a constitutional change suddenly being imposed. This is my real anxiety. We are inventing a new form of parliamentary procedure for secondary legislation. This is a new convention, which raises fundamental issues about the relationship between the two Houses in considering secondary legislation.