To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will consider bringing forward proposals to make irreversible development, carried out without planning consent, a criminal offence.

My right hon. Friend considers that the concept of irreversible development, carried out unlawfully, is an unsatisfactory basis for a criminal offence.

Surely the Minister accepts that this issue concerns both sides of the House, not least his hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen)? Does he accept that in the case of opencast mining, where the effects are disastrous it should be regarded as a criminal offence?

Opencast mining is not irreversible. It is relatively easy to infill and make good an area after opencast mining. The hon. Member has not chosen a very good example. We debated the matter at length on an amendment in Standing Committee and at the end of the debate on the amendment, it was withdrawn without a Division.

Is it right that planning policy and the expediency of enforcing planning controls have hitherto been matters for local authorities and the Secretary of State, and not for the criminal courts? Do the Government wish to keep it that way?

My hon. and learned Friend puts the case very well. Those who are concerned with implementing planning legislation—the local government planning Bar and all the authorities concerned apart from district planning officers—agree with my hon. and learned Friend that criminalisation of planning matters is not the best way forward.