Housing and Planning Bill

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that the process and discussions between an applicant and an officer dealing with that application will have no impact at all on whether permission is given, he is mistaken. Process is important, and how an applicant engages with a planning officer can lead to an eventual decision on the application. Just because a committee may make the final decision and say yes or no, the idea that the process has no role to play in shaping that eventual final decision is fundamentally wrong.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that speeding up a decision and having another provider might mean that there is far less opportunity for local communities to be consulted and for proper research to take place on local history and conditions? Such things might not be done properly because the new providers are interested in speed and productivity as opposed to quality decisions.

[Mr Betts]

It is extremely worrying. The second point I was going to make is that we can all have views on occasions when the planning system does not work as well as it should, but nevertheless planning officers in a local authority have some understanding of their community—how it operates, what its needs are, who should be consulted and who should be involved in the process. My experience is that while there may be a minimum requirement for consultation, very often, as an application is considered, extra consultation is undertaken beyond that which is actually required to ensure that the views of communities and different interested parties are taken into account. My worry here is that someone parachuted in from outside, with no knowledge of an area but a track record of dealing with applications quickly, may not be as sensitive to the needs of a local community. If I was a local MP in an area with particular planning pressures and had concerns about getting those decisions right, I would be very worried about the scenario that is developing.

The point has been made that in the end decisions will be left to the planning authority. What does that mean? Many authorities now delegate a lot of less important decisions about schemes that are not major—individual extensions to an individual property, for example—to officers. Will decisions be delegated to an alternative provider, or will the alternative provider have to make a recommendation to a planning officer to take the delegated decision? The proposal is very unclear. What is the situation? If the delegated decision is taken by an alternative provider, the decision is not taken with any local democratic input whatever. Or, if a delegated decision is passed on to a council officer, who pays for the time of that officer? The fee will have all gone to the alternative provider.

Let us come on to the decision that goes to a committee. Who writes the committee report? Will the alternative provider write the report and put the pros and cons of the application for councillors to decide, or will it be a council officer? If it is a council officer, who pays for the council officer’s time? To what extent will there be liaison between the officer and the alternative provider? If it is not the council officer, an alternative provider is going to be appointed by the applicant to write the report for members of the planning committee. Does anyone think this might not affect the decision-making process? Of course it could.