LABOUR PEER:  YOU CAN’T TRUST THE PEOPLE

Liberal Democrat Peer, Lord Tyler, who speaks on rural affairs in the House of Lords, has condemned the ‘complacency and arrogance’ of the Government’s approach to planning. 

Speaking in a debate on the Planning Bill, he said, “We all know how in any community a planning issue of a major development can stir a feeling of frustration and concern, which is probably never reflected in any other process in our democracy… it is very important that we know who will ultimately be accountable for decisions.” 

But a Labour Peer, Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan retorted that “in my 40 years and more of political involvement, the degree of courage shown across the political spectrum has not been of an order to indicate that political accountability would enable people to make that kind of decision.”

Commenting after the exchange, Lord Tyler said:

“This demonstrates a striking difference of approach between Liberal Democrats on the one hand and the Labour Party on the other.

“We trust communities and their elected councillors to take decisions on planning applications that affect local people.  The Labour Party simply fears that communities will ‘get it wrong’ by voting against the interests of big developers.

“The Government is seeking to speed up the planning process by bulldozing through local democracy, and they will not even allow their own Ministers to retain final decision making power over large nationally-significant applications.

“Their answer to resolving difficult choices is to subcontract the responsibility to so-called ‘independent’ bodies, which cannot be held to account for the decisions they take.

“This is a bad Bill that will lead to yet more frustration in communities up and down the country, especially in rural areas which feel alienated from urban decision-making.”

You can view the full exchange at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldhansrd/text/81106-0004.htm