Member

Lords amendment 33 requires the affirmative procedure for regulations to change the national scheme of delegation. This is fundamental. It is about whether Parliament will get to properly scrutinise any proposed changes to the degree to which citizen voices and the voices of their local representatives—councillors—are able to be heard in the planning process. This is a core element of local democracy and there is a real risk that, in bulldozing this through, the Government are aiming to achieve some minor cost savings for a few developers at a huge cost to democracy, creating a democratic deficit within the planning system. Greens are on the side of democracy and not on the side of developer profiteering, so we strongly support Lords amendment 33.