'(1) Before section 294 of the principal Act (special enforcement notices in relation to development on Crown land) there is inserted the following section—

''293A Urgent Crown development: application

(1) This section applies to a development if the appropriate authority certifies—

(a) that the development is of national importance, and

(b) that it is necessary that the development is carried out as a matter of urgency.

(2) The appropriate authority may, instead of making an application for planning permission to the local planning authority in accordance with Part 3, make an application for planning permission to the Secretary of State under this section.

(3) If the appropriate authority proposes to make the application to the Secretary of State it must publish in one or more newspapers circulating in the locality of the proposed development a notice—

(a) describing the proposed development, and

(b) stating that the authority proposes to make the application to the Secretary of State.

(4) For the purposes of an application under this section the appropriate authority must provide to the Secretary of State—

(a) any matter required to be provided by an applicant for planning permission in pursuance of regulations made under section 71A;

(b) a statement of the authority's grounds for making the application.

(5) If the appropriate authority makes an application under this section subsections (6) to (9) below apply.

(6) The Secretary of State may require the authority to provide him with such further information as he thinks necessary to enable him to determine the application.

(7) As soon as practicable after he is provided with any document or other matter in pursuance of subsection (4) or (6) the Secretary of State must make a copy of the document or other matter available for inspection by the public in the locality of the proposed development.

(8) The Secretary of State must in accordance with such requirements as may be prescribed publish notice of the application and of the fact that such documents and other material are available for inspection.

(9) The Secretary of State must consult—

(a) the local planning authority for the area to which the proposed development relates, and

(b) such other persons as may be prescribed,

about the application.

(10) Subsections (4) to (7) of section 77 apply to an application under this section as they apply to an application in respect of which a direction under section 77 has effect.''

(2) In section 284 of the principal Act (validity of certain matters) in subsection (3) at the end there is inserted the following paragraph—

''(i) any decision on an application for planning permission under section 293A.''.'.—[Keith Hill.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government new clause 10—Urgent works relating to Crown land.

Government new clause 38—Urgent Crown development: Scotland.

Government new clause 39—Urgent works relating to Crown land: Scotland.

New clauses 9 and 10 contain the urgency procedures for Crown applications. New clause 9 inserts new section 293A, which applies to applications for planning permission. New clause 10, which is almost identical in effect, inserts new section 82B, which applies to applications under the listed buildings Act for works to buildings on Crown land.

I shall talk first about the circumstances in which the urgency procedure might be invoked, and then go through the provisions to describe how they will work. My remarks will be based mainly on new clause 9.

From time to time, the Crown—this will generally be Government Departments—proposes a nationally important development, the building of which is required more quickly than the normal procedures would permit. If the local planning authority is expected to approve the application, the appropriate authority will apply to it in the usual way and hope for a favourable decision within eight weeks. Difficulties arise with further-reaching or more controversial developments that the local planning authority is expected to refuse, which would lead to a public inquiry on appeal.

There are two ways of making significant savings in the time taken to process a planning application that the local planning authority might be expected to refuse. The first is visible in subsection (2) of new section 293A. Allowing the appropriate authority to make such an application directly to the Secretary of State eliminates the eight weeks that local planning authorities are allowed to determine an application, the time that it would take an applicant to appeal against refusal and the time that it would take the Secretary of State to recover the appeal under section 78. Instead, there is, in effect, an instant calling in under section 77.

The second way of saving time is hidden away among the implications of subsection (10) of new section 293A. Section 77(5), which is applied by subsection (10), entitles the parties to be heard at a public inquiry. Under section 77 and, by extension, new section 293A, public inquiries are governed by the Government's inquiry procedure rules, which will be amended in relation to applications made under the provisions to provide a shorter period between the start date, when the Secretary of State has all the information that he needs, and the start of the inquiry.

The period that is usually allowed is 22 weeks. We will consult on what the shorter period should be. Our aim is to have the shortest period consistent with giving the objector sufficient time to consider the appropriate authority's case and to prepare his own case. Our thinking is that 14 weeks, rather than 22 weeks, would be acceptable. The total time saved could therefore be about 18 weeks, 10 of which would be taken up in applying to the Secretary of State instead of waiting for refusal and appeal. Eight weeks would be taken from the lead-in to the inquiry. In other words, we expect the time from formal

application to the Secretary of State to the beginning of the public inquiry to be 14 weeks—three and a half months—instead of 32 weeks, as under the usual arrangements.

The bulk of new sections 293A and 82B deals with the advertisement of the application, the provision of information, making that information available, and consultation. Most of this is self-explanatory, so I shall touch only on a couple of points that need clarification.

As set out in new section 293A(4)(a), the regulations made under section 71A of the principal Act deal with the environmental impact assessment. This means that if the development requires an environmental statement, that statement should be provided to the Secretary of State at the outset. This provision is absent from new section 82B(4) in new clause 10 because environmental statements are not required for listed building consent or conservation area consent.

In new section 293A(9)(b), the Secretary of State must consult certain prescribed persons as well as the local planning authority. Those persons would be statutory consultees, such as the highway authority, for example, if the development affected a highway.

New clause 9(2) is a consequential amendment that adds decisions on section 293A applications to the list of decisions taken by the Secretary of State in section 284(3) that will not be questioned in any legal proceedings, save under section 288. The list already includes decisions on call-ins under section 77 and recovered appeals under section 78.

The system that the new clauses create could deliver a decision on a controversial application in about seven months, rather than 11 months, from the start date to the conclusion of the inquiry. However, members of the Committee may well be wondering what we propose for Crown development that is required more or less immediately. We propose a new permitted development right in the general permitted development order for developments that are so urgent that they cannot wait for planning permission to be granted. That will enable the Crown to undertake what we might call emergency development whenever it is required, but with the proviso that it must be followed by a planning application within a certain time—possibly within six months, but we intend to consult on that.

Finally, the Committee will have noticed that there is no provision for an urgency procedure for hazardous substances consent. That is because we cannot envisage a situation where the Crown would want such consent independently of a planning application for the storage facilities. We have therefore not provided an urgency procedure in relation to the hazardous substances Act. I ought to point out that new clauses 38 and 39 make the same changes to the equivalent Scottish legislation. The amendments take account of the fact that applications under those procedures will be made to the Scottish Ministers; and the Scottish Executive will be considering changes to subordinate legislation along the lines that I have indicated for England and Wales.

I believe that that completes the picture on urgent applications.

At the outset, and before getting into the detail of the new clauses, the Minister said nothing about how to define the conditions in new section 293A. They are, in subsection (1)(a),

''that the development is of national importance'',

and, in subsection (1)(b),

''that it is necessary that the development is carried out as a matter of urgency.''

My worry is that all controversial applications will somehow fall into that category, and that will allow the expedited procedure to take place without the need to make a full planning application. We have a planning system, and, as we discussed this morning, we are going to bind the Crown to it. It therefore seems that the overwhelming expectation would be that planning applications should be made.

The Minister said this morning that the procedure would be followed only if the local planning authority expected to approve an application. If an application is controversial, how will the authority know whether it is about to approve it? The planning officers may make a recommendation, but the planning committee may take a different view. We need to hear a little more about how the Minister intends to stop Departments using the provision as a convenient mechanism to circumvent the planning system.

As the Minister said, the urgent procedure can be put into effect through different mechanisms. At the end of his speech, he mentioned permitted development rights for urgent matters. I would rather that the procedure was followed in almost every case, because retrospective planning permission would have to be given after the permitted development right was carried out. At least the matter could then be examined in public. Some might say that it would be too late, but at least it would be publicly examined by the local planning authority. My worry is that, for controversial applications that use either the Secretary of State call-in procedure or what I call the section 293A procedure, local people—those who might be most affected by large controversial applications—will not have the opportunity to make proper representations.

I refer the Minister to subsection (9)(b), which provides that the Secretary of State must consult

''such other persons as may be prescribed''.

The only ''such other persons'' that the Minister mentioned was the highway authority. Normal planning law refers to a number of other statutory consultees, which I would expect to be consulted if it were relevant, such as the Environment Agency, English Nature, English Heritage and the Countryside Agency. Will the Minister confirm that, were it relevant, those other bodies would be consulted?

I am more concerned than that, however. I do not see how local people are to be consulted or how they

can give their views under the Secretary of State procedure. That is important, particularly as we are trying to make the planning procedure more democratic and open.

I am puzzled as to why we need to follow the procedures, set out in new clause 4, in relation to listed buildings. Why should the Crown be in a different position from anyone else? If the property is being looked after, there should not be an urgent need to change the procedures. The property should have been properly maintained and the normal planning procedure should have been followed. We are back to what was said this morning: on the one hand we are binding the Crown, but on the other we are allowing it to get out of other things when it suits us. That is curious.

New clauses 38 and 39 apply the same principles to Scotland, and I have no questions in relation to them. The issues are complicated, so I would say to the Minister that we do not want to use these heavy-handed clauses except when it is strictly necessary. I did not gain anything from the Minister's explanation. Will he expand on what is meant by matters of national importance and matters of urgency?

I, too, have considerable concerns about the definition of national importance. My thoughts turned immediately to a crisis such as foot and mouth disease, and the necessity to dig burial pits on Crown land, which previously did not require planning permission, but now would. However, I understand from the Minister that extra-urgent cases would come under permitted development. It clearly would not take seven months to get permission to dig large pits for the burial of animal carcases, so what development of national importance would require an 18-week gain? It struck me that there might be issues of national security that needed to be dealt with quickly. That brought me back to the previous clause, and I should like the Minister to confirm that an application could be urgent and could also come under new clause 7—an urgent application could be made, and the Government could appoint a lawyer to speak on behalf of objectors. If an application were processed quickly and people were not able to know a great deal about it, there could be problems. I should like the Minister's confirmation that the two clauses can apply concurrently.

The other point is that there is little in the clause to cover how people can object and, more importantly, how they are to find out about an application. Potential objectors often take some time to realise the implications of a planning application. There is a case in my constituency concerning a council that has spent two years planning a new business park—I would not want the Minister to comment on it; it will probably end up on his desk anyway. Going by the objectors' letters, most of them only spotted the application in the last month so, although the council went about it in an open and accountable way, one would imagine that the plan is being rushed through.

My concern is that, with the faster procedure, many members of the public will believe that their views have no weight. If the procedure is to bypass the initial stages—the warning stages for many people—and if the calling in is to happen early, because it was going to be called in anyway, objectors will not have time to put their cases together. Extra steps should be taken in those instances to ensure that people are aware of the scale of any application and of any reasons to object to it. Presumably, people will still have a right of objection because they will be able to write to the Secretary of State outlining their views and perhaps to appear at the quickened public inquiry.

In seeking to be helpful, we need to consider whether, when the Government need some planning permission quickly, they have created a situation whereby people's rights to object to a planning application have been trodden all over, and whether we need some safeguards to ensure that people are aware of what is planned on their doorsteps.

I shall make three comments on the four new clauses. First, I share the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) about the possible abuse of urgency procedure. I am yet to come across a situation where someone builds without planning permission and subsequently finds out that planning permission is needed—although that can be done accidentally. However, I suggest that that is not possible on significant applications. In my years of experience I can think of only a handful of cases in which retrospective application has not been granted, and I can think of no possible situation in which the case is claimed to be matter of urgency or national importance, yet the Secretary of State, who would presumably be part of the Department that needed to effect such works in the national interest, would be likely to turn it down. It is stretching naivety to say that we do not know that the provisions are giving a sweeping power to the Secretary of State.

Secondly, although I stand to be corrected if I am wrong, I firmly believe that the Secretary of State already has the power to call in any planning application for determination by himself, albeit after a planning inquiry. If so, why do we need to have added provisions under which the person who wants the development can go straight to the Secretary of State? Ministers talk to each other, so surely the Department can put the application to the local planning authority. The Secretary of State will know that it has been put and can therefore call the application in for determination in a shorter rather than a longer time. I merely ask the Committee to remember the existing situation, because a complication might be prevented if the Government were to use the existing provisions rather than new ones. However, I accept that such matters are complicated, and that I may have missed a point.

Thirdly, the purpose of the Bill, as I understand it, is to speed up the planning system where that can be done within reason. The Minister will assure us—and I shall accept what he says—that the purpose of the Bill is to speed up the planning process, without taking

away fairness, be that fairness to the applicant or fairness to third parties. We must get the balance right.

The Minister explained how under the current proposals the time that it takes for a planning decision on a significant application to be taken could probably be reduced from almost a year to 14 weeks. I am persuaded that in those exceptional circumstances, it is quite reasonable to expect third parties to make representations within the time frame suggested by the Minister, after consultation with the appropriate bodies. However, we may question later whether the Government are trying to speed up the planning system too arbitrarily and unfairly. In my view, the Government have got it right on this occasion and in this context, but I remain concerned about Departments' ability to use the new legislation, if it goes through, to claim that almost anything is urgent or of national importance.

My hon. Friend has a good point. The Secretary of State has the power to call in applications. Surely the normal expectation would be that a proper planning application is made, that all the statutory consultees are consulted, and that local people are able to give their views in the usual way. The Secretary of State has the power to call in an application either before or after a decision is made by the local planning authority. He already has huge powers. Would my hon. Friend agree that the normal expectation would be to go through the local planning process rather than the new procedure?

That is a fair point; indeed, it is the one that I was trying to make. Why should we not keep the present system and adapt it as necessary, rather than introducing an automatic right to go to the Secretary of State, who presumably would then have the responsibility of seeing that the application was published in newspapers, thus giving it publicity? I would be interested to hear whether the Minister, on reflection, feels that he could adapt the present situation rather than introducing a new procedure.

We have had an important debate, in which hon. Members have raised proper concerns about civil liberties. If such considerations cannot be raised in this place it is difficult to know where else it would be appropriate to raise them, and I respect the concerns and observations made by my colleagues.

As I said before—it was almost an ex cathedra utterance—in all such matters we expect Crown bodies to adhere as far as possible to the letter and the spirit of the law. They are Crown bodies; no other bodies should better observe and more greatly respect the law, and we expect that respect to inform all their actions. Although we understand the concerns that have been expressed about potential abuse, we expect proper observance of the law in all circumstances.

I shall deal next with some of the specific points raised by my colleagues in the course of our exchanges.

I take to heart what the Minister has just said, but I am sure that he will know from his long political experience—as I do from my 12 years' experience as a Member of Parliament—that the bigger the organisation, the more difficult it is to get it to change its mind. That is where Departments

go wrong. If a Department were determined about a particular application, it would use this procedure-—and it would be very difficult for the ordinary citizen to get it to change its mind. I worry about the whole procedure. Despite what the Minister said—and he is absolutely right to say that Departments should uphold the law—I am still suspicious that Departments will use the procedure for the sake of expediency, even when it is not strictly necessary.

I have two immediate responses to the hon. Gentleman's point. The first is that any decision taken in this process is subject to judicial review and is therefore subject to the usual processes of the law. The second response is that, notwithstanding the expedited procedure, we are still considering a full procedure whereby objectors can make representations and in which there will be adequate time for them to do so, so there are safeguards.

The hon. Member for Cotswold asked about the definition of urgency and the importance of a proposed development. As the amendment indicates, it is up to the applicant Department to exercise that judgment and to take that decision, but I reiterate that any such decision or judgment is subject to judicial review and the rigours of the law.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about statutory consultees. I reassure him that other statutory consultees must be approached. I cited the example of the Highways Agency, but that is only one such example. We expect those statutory consultees to be specified in regulation.

The hon. Gentleman was also exercised about the inclusion of listed buildings in the provisions. We included listed buildings to allow for the possibility that it may be necessary to carry out such urgent works, although we do not expect there to be many such occasions. I am not entirely sure that I can wholly disclose the source of my information on such matters, but in an immediately previous incarnation I had responsibility for the security of the buildings that we are now in. The Committee will remember that certain works were implemented in these buildings immediately after 11 September 2001. Barriers were installed, and new arrangements were later put in place in New Palace Yard. I believe that all members of the Committee would agree that the Palace of Westminster is a listed building, but that those were urgent works and it was absolutely right and proper to carry them out at the earliest opportunity.

I now revert to my proposition that we expect all Crown bodies to adhere as far as possible to the letter and spirit of the law, because I also happen to know that the House authorities also fully consulted English Heritage and Westminster council, so we can see that such bodies do try to observe the proper procedures and to consult appropriately. We expect that with regard to every measure, whether it relates to secret developments or urgent ones.

Hon. Gentlemen may have asked if the provisions are to be used when the local authority is expected to

approve an application. No, of course not. They are used during the pre-application discussion—which, although I am a novice in these areas, I understand is absolutely normal—when it becomes apparent that an objection is likely. Nevertheless, I reiterate that an equal and lengthy process is envisaged in relation to these procedures. Local people will have the opportunity to make representations. Indeed, they will have three and a half months to object, to get their representations together and to proceed to an inquiry. In that sense, nobody could reasonably argue that rights are being trodden all over, to quote the hon. Member for Ludlow, to whom I shall return in due course.

Will the Minister clarify something that he said? He mentioned pre-application discussion, which is an important issue because it has wide connotations within the Bill. The discussion normally takes place with the officers of a local planning authority—but planning committees sometimes overrule the decisions of their officers, even when they have made strong recommendations. A Crown body might believe that planning permission was to be granted, but that advice would not bind the committee. What would happen in that case? If the committee turned the application down, would the Crown body immediately revert to using this procedure?

I fear that the occurrence that the hon. Gentleman identifies is a common one, in that the officers of a local planning authority might propose, but it is up to elected members, protecting the desires of the local community, to dispose. It happens that officers' recommendations are overturned. However, there is a limit to ''whatifery'' in this situation. We are envisaging developments of some dimension. I do not want to encourage discussion of the examples that I might be tempted to place before the Committee—but let me whisper that if, for example, the Ministry of Defence were to propose the installation of training facilities for a new weapons system, planning officers would have a sense of how their committee members were likely to respond. If we were considering, say, the extension of a runway at an air base, local planning officers would be likely to be able to report the feelings of the local community if those feelings were not evident from other sources. Finally, I risk going down a dangerous path in saying that if the Home Office were to propose a new or extended detention facility, from prison downwards, it would be pretty apparent what local opinion was likely to be. The short answer is that we would expect common sense to prevail and the correct judgment to be made about local sensitivities in a sensitive situation. With regard to pre-application discussions with officers, the normal Crown body appeals procedures apply.

The hon. Member for Ludlow asked me to confirm whether an application could both be urgent and come under the provisions of new clause 7. The answer is yes, it could. The hon. Gentleman raised legitimate concerns about the involvement of local communities when he asked how people could be expected to find out about an application. Without being flippant, however, I have to say that if it were a secret

development we would not expect them to do so; we have discussed that already. We have set out both here and in previous debates the procedure that would be adopted in situations involving national security.

May I take the Minister back to his hypothesis that plans for a new prison or detention centre might be expected to be refused by a local authority and would therefore be fast-tracked. Not all aspects of a new prison would necessarily need to be secret. If an application goes through the normal planning procedure, it is published in the local press and plans are lodged with the local council. In such circumstances, members of the public can see what is proposed. If that initial stage is removed and applications go straight off to the Secretary of State, what steps will then he take to ensure that the public have access to the plans and can discover their scale and extent, so that they can raise reasoned objections, rather than simply saying, ''I don't want it because it's next door to me.''

Let me remind the hon. Gentleman of our earlier debate on proposed new section 293A. Local people will know about proposed developments because they will see notification of the planning application. New section 293A also includes an advertising provision. Subsection (3) deals with applications in connection with such developments, and subsection (8) deals with the provision of documentation. I reiterate that there will be an initial period of three and a half months during which representations can be made.

The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet expressed understandable anxiety about sweeping powers being introduced and the possibility of their being abused. We should remember that the Secretary of State has call-in powers, and that we need the expedited process precisely because it will be needed in situations of national urgency and security. We still expect the whole process to be fairly lengthy—but it will be seven months, not 11. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's general support for the proposals.

I have dealt with most of the issues that have been raised during this important debate, and I again urge the Committee to support the new clauses.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.