25/05/2010

Coalition Government to scrap IPC and regional plans

Today’s Queen Speech has confirmed that the Coalition Government will bring forward legislation this year to scrap regional spatial strategies and abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission. The speech set out a reasonably ambitious programme for an 18 month Parliamentary session, with a full 22 Bills promised to keep MPs entertained.
 
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will probably face the most difficult task as he looks to steer highly controversial constitutional reform through both Houses of Parliament. In particular the commitment to fixed term parliaments, a referendum on a new electoral system and the funding of political parties are highly sensitive and complex issues which could face significant opposition in both Houses.

The legislative programme also anticipates major battles with vested interests. The commitment to improve police accountability will be bitterly opposed at all levels of the police service. Business Secretary Vince Cable has one of the more controversial jobs of reviving Labour’s previous Royal Mail Bill, abandoned following a highly effective campaign by the Communication Workers’ Union.

The Decentralisation and Localism Bill

The most significant element of today’s Queen’s Speech for the property sector is the Decentralisation and Localism Bill which aims to devolve greater powers to councils and neighbourhoods and to give local communities control over housing and planning decisions. The Bill will largely carry out the proposals made in the Conservative Party Green Paper entitled: Open Source Planning.
 
It will abolish the Regional Spatial Strategies. It had been anticipated that ministers would have abolished RSS’s more quickly, using direct ministerial powers rather than legislation (which could take 12-18 months to get onto the statute book). This could mean that RSSs will survive for another year or two, although the Government may choose to twin track this reform more speedily.

The Bill will also abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission and replace it with ‘an efficient and democratically accountable system’, designed to provide a fast track system for major infrastructure projects. On the face of it, the proposed changes to the infrastructure planning process do not look significant. Much of the fast track structure established in the 2008 Planning Act by Labour will be retained.  But promoters of infrastructure projects will be anxious that the Coalition Government does not compromise with further amendments as the Bill makes it’s way through parliamentary scrutiny.  This week, IPC Chair, Sir Michael Pitt, tried to reassure applicants that already have schemes in the IPC process.

The Bill will also create joint local authority-business bodies known as Local Enterprise Partnerships to replace the Regional Development Agencies. Other provisions include empowering local communities to takeover local state-run services and to create new trusts designed to make it simpler for communities to provide homes for local people.

A test for the coalition

All told, the next 18 months will be fascinating in both Houses of Parliament. Conservative and Liberal Democrat backbenchers are already showing signs of irritation with the new coalition government. The test will be whether that translates into rebellions on controversial pieces of legislation.

For Labour and its new Leader, the tests are just as great. How will the party deal with the Royal Mail they previously supported in government but which was shelved because of backbench opposition? What will the party do on constitutional reform – favoured by a number of the candidates for Leader but unpopular with a lot of backbenchers?

For all three parties, the next 18 months threaten to be the most dangerously unpredictable period in British politics since 1931.

New face at DCLG: Andrew Stunell MP

Andrew Stunnell is the Liberal Democrat appointment to the Department of Communities and Local Government, taking on the position of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. He previously held the position of Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government from 2006 until 2007. He is seen as a ‘pragmatic localist’ and had a non political career as an architect.

Stunnell was elected to Parliament in 1997, on his fifth attempt. He became Deputy Chief Whip in 2001, serving until Charles Kennedy stepped down as Liberal Democrat Leader in 2006.

Stunnell has extensive experience in local government and was Political Secretary of the Liberal Democrat’s Councillor’s Association as well as a leading councillor himself, remaining a member of the Stockport Council for five years after becoming an MP.
 
Stunnell has spent the last thirty years advising Liberal Democrat councillors on coalition agreements with other parties at local authority level. For this reason, he was brought into the Liberal Democrat’s negotiating team that reached agreement with the Conservatives following the 2010 General Election.

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