'(1) Before an application can be made for planning permission and—

(a) the planning application falls within the definition of ''major applications'', as defined by a person appointed by the Secretary of State for that purpose;

(b) the planning application will be accompanied by an Environmental Impact Assessment;

(c) the planning application falls within other categories as set out by the Secretary of State in regulations, the applicant must consult on the proposed application.

(2) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provisions for the extent and methods of consultation to be followed by the applicant.

(3) Any costs of carrying out the application will be met by the applicant'.—[Matthew Green.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

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

The new clause might, at first, appear not to achieve what I am about to say that I hope to achieve—namely, to speed up the planning system. It might seem so because it appears to add another phase to the planning system for large applications, those requiring environmental impact assessments or any other categories that the Secretary of State would like to add.

I believe that the new clause would speed up the planning system because what slows it down more than anything else is the rejection of applications and the consequent appeals and public inquiries. Nothing is better guaranteed to ensure that a development will grind to a halt than its hitting that process. I understand that in many large-scale developments astute developers ensure that they undertake considerable pre-application consultation—not with the planners only, but with nearby residents and more widely—so that many objections that might be raised can be dealt with before they even submit a plan.

There is therefore a greater likelihood that the planning committee will accept the plan and, as the number of objections has been reduced, the planning committee is far more likely to be minded to accept the application and the officers' advice for it. The applicants in such cases are less likely to find themselves in a position in which they have to appeal to the Secretary of State.

The proposal would also help by reducing both the number of objectors and, perhaps if the development is not in the local plan, the possible grounds of appeal to the Secretary of State, which might give him the reasons for saying that he does not want it called in. It could also reduce the number of chances for a third party to seek judicial review. Although that is not as common, it can still be a problem.

This is not a complex new clause, although it is probably technically imperfect. I wrote it myself without any advice, so I can almost guarantee that. I have never written a new clause without advice. I hope that the Minister will tell the Committee whether the Government are considering the provision as a means of speeding up the process and whether that is a suitable route to go down. I would be only too happy to co-operate with staff at a later stage in the Bill's progress if the new clause is not correctly drafted.

I believe that no study has been done on speeding up the planning process, so I speak largely from anecdotal evidence. I freely admit that. The problem is happening more and more and I believe that it would be in the interests of everyone, particularly the developers, if the new clause were agreed.

I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Ludlow. I want instinctively to be helpful and sympathetic to his point of view. I would like to put a proposition to him, and if I have got the wrong idea I invite him to disabuse me of it. First, I do not know exactly what is his definition of a major application.

It is the Government's definition.

Where there is a significant application—if I may use that term—rather than a major application, the Secretary of State would, perhaps, although not as a matter of course, be likely to call it in so that he could determine it or have a public inquiry as necessary, rather than let it go through the normal, conventional process. I accept that an application can go through that process and the Secretary of State can call it in at any time. However, what the hon. Gentleman wants is brought about in practice by the Secretary of State's ability to call in the application. The hon. Gentleman nods in assent. He will be able to put me right.

Secondly—I accept that this point is germane only to the Greater London area—under the Act of Parliament that set up the office of Mayor of London, the Greater London Authority and the Greater London Assembly, certain significant applications have to be referred to the Mayor, although there are smaller applications relating to housing estates or the green belt. The Mayor has the power to authorise the local planning authority not to accept or prove the application—to say that the local planning authority should reject it. I have always thought that unnecessary, because if that course prevailed on an application and the Mayor required the local planning authority to reject it, the applicant would still have the right to go to the Secretary of State. That duplicates the planning system. We are here to speed it up within the bounds of fairness.

I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from and where he wants to get to, but is his new clause absolutely necessary? I would have thought that the existing town and country planning laws and regulations cover the matter by allowing the Secretary of State to call in an application.

If I may, I shall clarify my comments. Development control and planning committees are swayed by the scale and number of objections. When the Secretary of State decides to call in an application, that does not affect his decision but may carry some weight. Anecdotal evidence is that when extensive pre-consultation takes place, the scale and number of objections when the application is made are dramatically reduced because many of the difficulties and misunderstandings have been ironed out and in some cases the developer is able to make amendments to the application which satisfy many of the objections.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I understand his position better than I did when I intervened. I have made my point and he has made his eloquently. I shall listen to what the Minister has to say.

In my experience, larger applications almost always have an environmental impact assessment. In fact, any planning officer worth his salt would be well advised to require such an assessment and they almost always do as a matter of course. If they are to make a recommendation to their planning committee, they must have something on which to justify that recommendation and an environmental impact assessment makes that easier. That is particularly so because larger applications are likely to be more controversial and to be decided by a committee rather than under delegated powers to planning officers.

The hon. Gentleman may misunderstand my new clause, or perhaps I have not drafted it correctly. The environmental impact assessment requirement is just another way of defining the types of scheme that ought to come within the new clause: those that might require an environmental impact assessment are defined as major or come under any other definition of the Secretary of State. Those are the schemes that should be required to have a pre-consultation phase. I am not saying that they require an environmental impact assessment. It is the other way round. Those that require an environmental impact assessment should have a pre-consultation phase.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for intervening and he has clarified the matter a little.

One of the plus points about the Bill is the introduction of pre-application discussions. Planning practitioners to whom I have spoken wholly welcome that. They are a little worried about the delay and the cost, but in terms of getting the planning system to work, a pre-application discussion is thoroughly good. Again, any developer of larger schemes, which are likely to be controversial, would be foolish just to bang in an application without any pre-application discussion. When I was practising in planning matters, even with smaller applications I would almost always ring up the planning officer and say, ''What do you think?'' and would get an instant reaction.

I want to make it clear that I am suggesting discussions not with the planners, which is being introduced in other ways, but with the immediate neighbours and the wider public. With larger schemes, hundreds and sometimes thousands of objections can be significantly reduced. The new clause would introduce consultation with the wider public.

I think that the hon. Gentleman is talking not about an environmental impact assessment, but about a statement of community involvement, which is different. The statement of environmental impact—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman may put his head in his hands, but that is how the new clause is drafted. The environmental impact assessment is about the effect that a large-scale development will have on the environment of an area. I am looking at new clause 26, which I will read out clearly so that the Committee is aware of what the hon. Gentleman has actually written:

''Before an application can be made for planning permission and—

(a) the planning application falls within the definition of 'major applications', as defined by a person appointed by the Secretary of State for that purpose;

(b) the planning application will be accompanied by an Environmental Impact Assessment''

That seems to me pretty clear, and I am trying to explain to the hon. Gentleman exactly what an environmental impact assessment is.

I know what it is.

Okay, I will explain to the Committee what an environmental impact assessment does. Then perhaps by debate we can get the new clause where we want it.

An environmental impact assessment, particularly of a larger development, is an assessment of that development's environmental effect on the whole area around it. Take, for example, a supermarket being built on a greenfield site. It is easy to see that such a supermarket would have an effect as far as land use is concerned and on the environment of the town in which it is located. I know what the hon. Gentleman is about to say.

As I said earlier, I am no expert in drafting clauses. Thanks to the hon. Gentleman's—one might say—correct reading of my new clause, I realise that it is missing the word ''or'' at the end of paragraphs (a) and (b). I apologise for not writing it correctly. I think that the Minister knows where I am coming from and I am sorry that by missing out two words I have led the hon. Member for Cotswold down the wrong route.

I shall illustrate the hon. Gentleman's problem with a story from the very first time that I came into this House. I was paired—an unusual event as not everybody was paired in those days because there were not enough Labour MPs to go round. I offered to vote for one of my colleagues and I said, ''You owe me a bottle of whisky.'' ''I do,'' he said, and the next day he produced a miniature bottle of whisky. ''Let that be a lesson to you,'' he said. ''Words in this place mean everything. Words are what they mean. You should have said a full-size bottle of whisky.''

Words are everything and one has to interpret what is on the Amendment Paper. I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but he is requiring an environmental impact assessment as well as a statement of community involvement.

I am not.

Well, that is how I read it. What the hon. Gentleman wants may well be reasonable, but it amounts to a statement of community involvement. We have to be careful how many environmental impact assessments and statements of community involvement we have because the test of the Bill will be whether it speeds up the planning process. Of course in the larger, controversial applications we have to take people with us and it is paramount that the planning system be completely open and democratic. That delicate balance between it being open and democratic, and consulting on everything has to be

made. I feel that under the new clause that delicate balance is perhaps unnecessarily in favour of consultations about consultations.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ludlow for tabling the amendment. I understand the intention behind the amendment and I support it. Indeed, in many ways, that intention goes to the heart of a key element of our package of reforms. But I have to say—and there is always a but—the amendment is unnecessary. In explaining why, I hope to demonstrate how central to the Bill the Government's commitment is to greater public engagement at all stages of the planning process. That public engagement will create a faster and more seamless and efficient planning process.

Our reforms are intended to lead to a planning system that promotes community involvement, with clear opportunities for people to make their views known and participate fully. We have been clear since the planning Green Paper that we want more effective pre-application consultation as part of that reform, and that is exactly the point that the hon. Gentleman is driving at in his amendment.

We want a planning system that is transparent, so that information is easily available and easy to understand; promotes clear opportunities for participation; is accessible and reaches out to the community, including groups that, in the past, have not engaged easily with planning; and has clear accountability for decisions through the democratic process.

Most people become engaged in the planning process only when applications likely to have a direct impact on their lives are made. However, the hon. Member for Ludlow is absolutely right—the best local authorities and good developers already involve communities in plan-making and significant planning proposals. On the evidence, that process is valued by those who participate and by people who have shown that they want to be involved in the issues. Members of the public are often unaware both of their rights and of how to best put their views to influence decisions.

Ensuring community involvement is a challenge, but it also offers the local community the opportunity to have an important say in what sort of place they want to live in. Under the new planning system, the wishes of local people included in the so-called local development framework—the folder of local development documents that will collectively deliver the spatial strategy for the local planning authority's area—should be, and are, reflected. The views of local people have always been an integral part of the planning process. The case for the community's voice to be heard is clear. Public involvement is valuable as a key element of an open and participatory democracy. Involvement improves the quality and efficiency of decision-making by using local knowledge and minimising unnecessary and costly conflict, to use the words that the hon. Member for Ludlow spoke in moving his amendment.

The Minister alluded to a paradox to which I referred—the difficulty of finding

the balance between community involvement and speeding up the planning system. On the face of it, the two are contrary to each other. I note that although there is to be community involvement in the local plan-making process under the Bill, there is none in the regional spatial strategy. I believe that an amendment has been tabled on that very point. Does the Minister believe that any community involvement other than that already provided for in the present planning system is needed in individual applications? Having included community involvement in the plan-making process, is there a need for additional community involvement at the individual application stage?

First, I am not persuaded by the hon. Gentleman's premise about the contradictory nature of community involvement and smoother process. It is exactly the thrust of the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Ludlow—and, indeed, it is the Government's approach—that early engagement is likely to create a more seamless process.

As for extra involvement in individual applications, it really depends on the scale of the application. For a major application, one would, in any circumstances, expect considerable community involvement as the plans for that site developed. [Interruption.] Let me just add to that observation, inspiration having winged its way as it ineffably does in Committee. The statement of community involvement refers primarily to local authority policy with regard to significant applications. Therefore, we are considering larger-scale applications, and the Government's desire through our planning reform package is to encourage greater public engagement in those more significant applications. As the hon. Gentleman knows there is already ample opportunity for the public to engage in individual applications.

If I may indulge in a spot of anecdotalism—to cite one of the neologisms of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight—my first interface, as we say these days, with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) was when I appeared before the town planning sub-committee in the London borough of Lambeth to object to the construction of an old people's home behind my home. Lo and behold, the chair of that particular august body, the town planning sub-committee, was none other than Councillor Mandelson who would later become the right hon. Member for Hartlepool. I know from direct experience that opportunities for public engagement and individual applications are there and can be very well used.

If I follow the thrust of the Minister's arguments he is saying that the new clause is unnecessary because the statement of community involvement produced by the council will set out that that sort of thing should happen in relation to large-scale schemes anyway. If that is what the Minister is saying it might have been helpful if he had published the draft guidance—I hope that he has not done so already—relating to the statement of community

involvement, which would have meant that I would have avoided reaching this point.

If the draft guidance shows that in the case of such schemes a council would be expected to write policies that would achieve what I have set out to do into its statement of community involvement, my efforts have all been in vain. Perhaps it has already been published and it has passed me by somewhere in the ether.

No. The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly fair point. As the Committee will be aware, we have endeavoured to let it have as much as possible of our proposals for guidance in draft form. We have not been able to supply that to the Committee, but it is our intention to bring it out in the very near future, and Committee members will be the first to receive those drafts. The answer to the hon. Gentleman's intervention is watch this space—the details will be set out in the guidance in due course.

I thank the Minister for giving way. The moment may have passed, but I am provoked beyond all human endurance to ask out of curiosity who won in the matter of Mandelson versus Hill.

Not for the first, or last, time it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool.

I wonder what that did for the right hon. Gentleman's career.

The statement of community involvement is enshrined in the local plan process in clause 17 of the Bill, but I cannot see a similar enshrining in the Bill of a statement of community involvement in the regional planning process. Considering that it is far more strategic than the local plan process, I ask the Minister why that inconsistency exists.

I do not think that it is an inconsistency. It is a matter of the significance of developments in relation to the local community. It is our absolute conviction that local people have a right to play a part in big decisions about their immediate localities and communities. Remember that the regional spatial strategy is broader, and more strategic in character by definition, and because it is more strategic it will have less direct immediate impact on localities and individual communities. Nevertheless—[Interruption.] No, it is okay, I actually know the answer—[Laughter.] The Committee will be delighted to discover that the note supplements rather than contradicts the information that I was in the process of conveying.

The hon. Gentleman will remember from his earlier involvement in discussions about the regional spatial strategy that it is intended that key agencies will be heavily involved in its development, under the auspices of the regional planning body. However, we do not envisage such direct linkage, for all the reasons that I have given.

To satisfy the Committee's possible curiosity, I ought to add that the message that has been conveyed to me says that consultation at regional level is already in draft regulations and guidance that have just been published, so the hon. Gentleman can examine in some detail exactly what we intend to suggest in relation to consultation by the regional planning bodies.

I am grateful to the Minister for that elucidation and am glad that agencies are expected to be involved in drawing up the RSS. However, if the volume of correspondence that I get from some of my lucid constituents is anything to go by, I am certain that some people in the Cotswolds will wish to make representations on the RSS. I hope that that will be fully provided for in the regulations.

I am certain that those who wish to make representations on the RSS will have ample opportunity to do so. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman and his constituents in the Cotswolds.

I was trying to describe the advantages of greater involvement by local people in the planning process, which is central to our purpose and, I rather think, the intentions of the hon. Member for Ludlow. Such involvement will serve the purpose of educating the participants not only about the needs of their own communities in a wider sense, but about those of the business sector. It will also serve to engage people in local government, which is an extremely valuable aspect of the process as well. Involvement is also likely to assist in promoting social cohesion by encouraging links within communities and giving local residents a stake in decision making.

Again, to allude to an observation that the hon. Gentleman made, we want to encourage developers to work with communities on proposals for developments before they submit their applications for planning permission. That benefits both developers and local communities, since any areas of potential conflict can be dealt with before the proposals are finalised. Where an application for a proposed development has been discussed with the community in advance, we expect it to have a much easier passage during the formal planning process.

The Bill contains a number of proposals that should help to take that objective forward. For example, the planning checklist, which is proposed in the planning Green Paper, provides a mechanism that will enable developers to focus on pre-application consultation. The planning checklist was widely welcomed, and clause 41 will enable local planning authorities to issue standard checklist forms.

There are statutory requirements for publicity on planning applications. Arrangements for publicising applications for planning permission, listed building consent, and conservation area consent are not consistent, however. In the July 2002 policy paper, we said that we would standardise application and publicity under the different consent regimes. We therefore intend to consult later this year on possible changes in publicity requirements to bring the three regimes into line, and to consider whether any simplification is appropriate. Clearer publicity arrangements will obviously facilitate more effective involvement.

The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet was absolutely right in his remarks about major applications. Clause 43 deals with major infrastructure projects. As the hon. Member for Cotswold pointed out, the amendment also refers to major applications. The new major infrastructure

project inquiry rules will continue the Government's policy aim of encouraging community involvement in the planning process. The intention is to encourage most involvements as soon as projects have been called in, to allow pre-inquiry work to concentrate on identifying the relevant issues and clarifying which of them might be resolved before inquiry.

We want communities to engage with the planning process from the beginning. In any large-scale development, it is in the interests of both developer and community to engage with each other at an early stage, including through local meetings. Any guidance that the Government produce on major infrastructure projects will highlight the value of such communications.

The Minister mentioned that clause 41 will create the checklist, as he called it. In my quick reading of that clause, the only thing that I can see is where subsection (1) says:

''Provision referred to . . . includes provision as to—

(a) the form and manner in which the application must be made'',

which is the substitute for section 62(2)(a) of the 1990 Act. That appears to be what the Minister is referring to, but unless I am wrong that does not enable a local authority to say that pre-application consultation is required. Just before the Minister mentions regulations, I cannot see anything in that subsection, which introduces new section 62, about regulation, although I can see that just after that there is a reference to tree preservation orders and regulations controlling the display of advertisements.

It is simply impossible to write everything into the Bill as one intends. However, I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that the provisions in clause 41 create the framework to permit the introduction of the regulation that will bring in the use of the checklists. Of course, my words in this Committee in my ex cathedra capacity will confirm the Government's intention that that should be the case.

I draw the Committee's attention to the fact that the Bill also includes provision for local planning authorities to introduce local development orders. Those are orders made by the local planning authority that expand on the permitted development rights set nationally, which we debated in an earlier sitting. They give permitted development rights to developers who bring forward proposals in line with a policy in a development plan document.

A local planning authority will be required to produce a short note—a ''statement of reasons''—justifying the making of a local development order. It will then be required to comply with the same publicity and consultation requirements that are being established for development plan documents. The authority will have to consult any body that, in its opinion, would have been a statutory consultee for the planning application for the proposed development being permitted by the local development order. The authority will not be able to adopt a local development order until the specified deadline for comments has passed, and will have to take into account any representations received. I add that to the debate as

a further assurance to the Committee of the Government's commitment to make the process as open, as transparent, as accessible and as involving a process as possible.

With regard to our commitment to greater community involvement, we think it right that local people should have a say in big decisions about their local communities. We expect a greater understanding and acceptance of the case for development, where it is desirable, to arise from that process. I think that that is the point behind the proposals of the hon. Member for Ludlow. The measures that we are introducing and the more effective community involvement that they are intended to produce serve to make the hon. Gentleman's proposals unnecessary, and I implore the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the new clause.

I think that the Minister is imploring me to withdraw the new clause on the grounds that regulations about statements of community involvement and draft regulations about how councils will make development orders will achieve everything that I seek to achieve through new clause 26. I return to my earlier point: if those draft regulations had been in place beforehand, I might not be speaking now. I hope that the regulations come out rather promptly, perhaps before Report, so that if they fail at the pre-consultation stage, we shall have the time and opportunity to return to the issue—although in view of the Minister's words, I am sure that they will not fail. For the moment, given the Minister's assurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.