I beg to move amendment No. 140, in

clause 7, page 4, line 24, leave out subsection (1).

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 141, in

clause 7, page 4, line 28, leave out subsection (3) and insert—

'(3) The person appointed by the Secretary of State shall decide who will appear in person at the examination in public.'.

Although amendment No. 140 is the first in this group, it follows from the amendments in the previous group. As I accepted the Minister's assurance then, to save time I accept them in this case. I am not particularly interested in amendment No. 140 now, but I am interested in the Minister's response to amendment No. 141, because it would ensure that there was an opportunity for objectors to a draft revision of the RSS to be heard. The RSS may be more site specific than the existing regional planning guidance.

I realise that the Minister said earlier that the RSS was not intended to be particularly site specific but it could be more so than the existing regional planning guidance, and it could have an effect on individual

property owners. It is essential that they should have the right to state their objections in a proposal to the RSS. If that is not allowed, there is the possibility of legal challenge under the Human Rights Act 1998, on the grounds that the individual has not had the opportunity of a fair hearing of their objections.

The amendment would provide a caveat, that the person appointed by the Secretary of State shall decide who will appear in person at the examination in public. That is to allow the inspector to decide that not every person with objections could be heard in public if they are essentially the same objections. I am trying to be reasonable, and not to allow an objector's charter, to use that horrible phrase again. In respect of that clarification, because the RSS could be more site specific than the existing regional planning guidance, there may be need for compliance with the Human Rights Act to allow individuals to be heard. The best person to decide that is the inspector, who is appointed by the Secretary of State.

I entirely follow the hon. Gentleman. Amendment No. 140 was more or less dealt with in the previous discussion, but amendment No. 141 deserves a little more discussion, particularly in view of the inconsistency of the approach taken by the Minister on the new clause in my name, my proposals for an independent inquiry into local plan documents and the proposals for an independent inquiry relating to the RSS.

Clause 7(3) states:

''No person has a right to be heard at an examination in public.''

Had I spotted that earlier, I would certainly have tabled an amendment to delete it or considerably amend it, because it is totally contrary to everything that the Minister has said in Committee. I hope that he will say that if an amendment to that subsection were tabled on Report, he would be minded to accept it. That said, amendment No. 141, to which the hon. Member for Ludlow spoke , is entirely reasonable. In local plans and the RSS, the person who has the say as to who can appear before the inquiry must be the independent inspector.

Unless we have a statement from the Minister, there will almost certainly be a challenge, again under article 6 in respect of the Human Rights Act, which I have quoted to the Committee previously. That makes it clear that every person has a right to appear at an independent inquiry or tribunal. Clause 7(3) must be completely contrary to it. I wonder how the Minister or his boss, the Deputy Prime Minister, will be able to sign the certificate saying that the Bill is human rights compliant, because every Bill that goes through this place must have such a certificate. I think that there will be great difficulty with that while clause 7(3) remains in place, but I await with interest what the Minister has to say.

I am interested in the clause because what concerns me is the basis on which the inspector or whoever will decide who can appear. I assume that in this context the word ''person'' has its wider sense, which includes bodies corporate, rather than the narrower sense of mankind. The great concern that most people feel is that it is the big battalions, not the

little people, as they sometimes describe themselves, who have the say in these matters.

I am interested to know on what basis the Secretary of State anticipates decisions will be made if no one has a right to appear. Will it be some measure of the intensity of their opposition to the proposal under examination or, for that matter, their support for it? Will it be some measure of the extent to which they are affected by a proposal? One can well imagine that an individual will be 100 per cent. affected, whereas the local authority will be affected only in one corner by a similar blob, star or whatever symbols are used on the maps in a regional spatial strategy.

My hon. Friend's point is extremely pertinent. The RSS will hand down the housing targets and numbers. That is why individuals should be given every opportunity to object to those plans if they want to.

Indeed. I am particularly glad that my hon. Friend used those last few words, because the hon. Member for Ludlow, I think, originated the term ''objector's charter'' in Committee and I must ask what is wrong with or undemocratic about an objector's charter. Objection to proposals made by Government or quasi-Government bodies is the only power that individuals have. Surely we as the Opposition should be doing our best to support objectors, not to put obstacles in their way, whether the Government are composed of my right hon. and hon. Friends at some point in the next three or four years, or of Labour Members, which is the case at the moment.

It is the function of Back Benchers to protect their constituents—and, by extension, individuals throughout the country—from the Government. It is not our function to assist the Government. Therefore, an objector's charter is exactly what we should be trying to add to the Bill.

I am not trying to achieve that by supporting this amendment. I am trying to draw out from the Minister the basis on which people will have the right to object. In fact, they will not have that right—he has said that they will not have the right, at least to express their objection in a meaningful sense in front of an inspector. What rights do they have? How will the Minister decide?

If my fellow Back Benchers and I want to do our jobs properly, we should promote an objector's charter. If that were to stand in the way of change, I would simply say, ''All change is for the worse''—I am unsure whether I have quoted Lord Eldon or my illustrious predecessor the Duke of Wellington.

As the unfortunate originator of the term objector's charter in this Committee, I say to the hon. Gentleman that I cannot agree that it is the role of Back Benchers or Opposition parties continually to find ways to slow down the system of government.

Order. That is far too philosophical a discussion.

I am grateful not to have to go down that road, not because I would not be perfectly happy to go down it, but because I was not travelling along it. My point is that it is the duty of Back Benchers of all parties to protect our constituents from over-mighty Governments of all political colours, rather than to prevent Governments from getting their business through. That is why I support the amendment, but I would like the Minister to give further information.

This has been a lively little debate, and I will address some of the detail of it in due course. The hon. Member for Ludlow is right that amendment No. 140 covers the same ground as amendments Nos. 136 and 138. I am glad that he agrees. There is no point in rehearsing the discussion about this.

I will begin by challenging the premise of the hon. Gentleman's arguments in support of amendment No. 141. He asserted that the regional spatial strategy may be more site specific than RPG and could affect individual property owners. That is wrong. PPS11 makes it clear that the regional spatial strategy should not be site specific. I will elaborate on that in due course.

The effect of amendment No. 141 would be to remove the provision that no one has the right to be heard at the examination in public, and instead to specify that the person appointed by the Secretary of State should decide who will appear in person.

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight was most agitated. He seemed to be offering a prescription for obstructionism not to the Government but to local planning authorities, whose administrations are of a variety of party-political hues. His remarks would not be welcomed in those few authorities that are administered by the Conservative party. My own authority is administered by a Lib Dem-Tory coalition. We have seen plenty of that kind of collusion in the course of our proceedings.

Uncharacteristically, the Minister is being unkind to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight.

We can take it.

I can take it; we can all take it. However, it was worth pointing that out for the record. Not for the first time, the Minister is adopting an inconsistent approach. Surely, if he was arguing in vigour, as he was, that everybody has a right to appear in person at every inspection of every local plan document, it must be right that everybody who wants to do so may appear in person for a much more important plan, the regional spatial strategy. He cannot have it both ways. That would be totally inconsistent.

I really and truly believe that the hon. Gentleman has got it wrong in this regard. Local plans will impinge far more directly on individuals than regional spatial strategies, which are, by definition, of a broad, strategic nature. As I have said repeatedly and mean to say again, they will not be site specific. To that extent, although I accept that any individual may have a view about the overall strategy being articulated in the RSS, at the same time there will

not be the direct material interest that justifies the rights of an individual to attend the examination in public of a local development plan.

Perhaps I have lost the plot. Since when has a material interest been the criterion according to which somebody can object to a local plan? I have never heard of that concept before. Let me give the Minister an example of why I think that he is wrong. Let us suppose that one of my constituents who lives in the Cotswold area of natural beauty wanted to object to the number of houses that were being imposed on the Cotswold authority that, because of planning designations, would have to go into areas that were not designated as an area of natural beauty. He would have a perfectly good reason—it would cause a big change to the area—if he wanted to object to the RSS giving the Cotswolds that number of extra houses.

I have conceded that an individual might have a broad view about the contents of an RSS and might wish to make representations. There is nothing in the provisions to preclude that individual from being heard. It is just that there is not an axiomatic right for him to be heard in these matters. Let me continue, and then I shall answer some of the issues raised by Committee members.

It is our conviction that the amendment would not enhance the drafting of the Bill. Notwithstanding the libertarian protestations of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight, our proposals pursue time-honoured arrangements established by Conservative Governments of the past, in common with the arrangements for current, non-statutory RPG and structure plans. An examination in public into draft revisions to RSS will not be an examination of all the submitted proposals, nor will it be a hearing of all representations. That is appropriate, I repeat, because the purpose of an RSS is to provide a broad development strategy for the region rather than to identify specific sites for development in which individuals might have a direct interest. Therefore, we do not consider it necessary for there to be a right to be heard at the examination. The Bill needs to be clear on that point.

It is now and will continue to be for the person appointed by the Secretary of State to select the participants at the examination in public. That is made clear by draft PPS11 and there is no need to say so in the Bill. I therefore urge hon. Gentlemen to withdraw their amendments.

I am obliged to the Minister for his courtesy in giving way. Could I posit a contrary case? We have already established that housing will be controversial when we put these measures into practice. I shall give a different example. Let us say that in a regional spatial strategy with transport as part of its overall purview there is a proposal to build a new motorway. The motorway will travel across several counties in the region, and a proposed route has been included in broad terms in the strategy. Many people could be directly affected by the proposal, and

they would want to make representations about the RSS to an inquiry.

To take another example, let us say that the RSS includes a proposal to expand a regional airport. Many thousands of people could be affected by that.

Order. I call Mr. Hill.

The hon. Gentleman is making a perfectly fair point. In such circumstances, it would be a reasonable expectation that such interested individuals would appear at the examination. In fact, we are not discussing a denial of the right to appear but simply a requirement that not every person will have the right to appear on the basis of having made a representation. That is absolutely in accordance with existing practice.

I appreciate the distinction that the Minister makes, but given that these will be regional public inquiries—if I can use that idiom—has the Minister considered the many people who would feel that they had a strong reason for making a representation? The scale of the inquiry could be very large and the duration very long to allow people to feel that they had had a fair bite of the cherry.

I dare say that that is potentially the case. Let me set out for the benefit and, I hope, the satisfaction of the hon. Gentleman the guidance on the selection of participants. For the general information of the Committee, paragraph 18 states that

''the choice of participants will flow from the matters selected for examination. The main criterion for selecting participants will be the significance of the contribution they can be expected to make to the discussion, having regard to their knowledge and expertise and/or the views they have already expressed. The Panel will ensure it does not invite so many participants as to preclude meaningful debate.''

That seems entirely sensible, and the hon. Member for Cotswold should go along with it. It would be reasonable to assume that the cases identified by the hon. Member for Rayleigh would fall into the category of those who have a significant contribution to make. Therefore, it would be a reasonable expectation that they would be invited to present evidence.

I must curb the Minister on the word ''significant''. What is significant to one person may be more or less significant to someone else. That is why everyone has the right to be heard at a local planning inquiry. The same principle should apply in this case. Some people are more intelligent than others, and some are more articulate. Regardless, if they feel something strongly, they ought to have the right to be heard whether or not their contribution is significant. Clause 7(3) states:

''No person has a right to be heard at an examination in public.''

That is a denial of some people's human rights.

I do not know where the hon. Gentleman is coming from. In an earlier debate, he was completely against the right of every person making a representation to be heard, but now he is telling us that everybody should be heard. The hon. Gentleman alluded to human rights. Let me just say that an RSS would not contain policies that were site specific. Therefore, it would not affect an individual's property rights. To that extent, there is no conflict with the Human Rights Act. Indeed, the Government

would not introduce legislation that was in conflict with that Act.

I thank the Minister for giving way again. To return to my earlier example, which he was kind enough to admit had some validity, if someone builds a motorway that runs along the bottom of one's property, that undeniably affects one's property rights. The point that I am trying to get across to the Minister is that given some of the inquiries into county structure plans that there have been in the past, an inquiry into the regional spatial strategy of a region with, say, six counties would produce, in effect, six county structure plan inquiries rolled into one. This will be a mammoth exercise, which could affect millions of people, especially given some of the examples of roads or airports that I was trying to cite. Have the Government fully thought through the scale of that undertaking, the resources that would be required to do the thing properly and the time that it would take?

The hon. Gentleman waxes most eloquent, but I fear that he has chosen a bad example. Motorways and trunk roads are subject to a separate statutory inquiry under the highways legislation. The issue will simply not arise in connection with the RSS. I rest my case.

If the Minister's advisers advise him that the RSS will not be any more site-specific than the existing regional planning guidance, who am I to say that they are wrong? They probably have more legal brains than I do, so if they are confident that they will not end up with challenges under the Human Rights Act, it is on the Government's head if they have got it wrong. I have listened to what the Minister said. It really comes down to whether or not the legal advice is correct. If it is, the Government have nothing to worry about. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.