20 Jul 2001 12.20 pm
Dr. Ashok Kumar (Middlesbrough, South and Cleveland, East): I congratulate the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon) on their fine maiden speeches, and I look forward to their future contributions. Like my hon. Friend, I pay tribute to his predecessor, Robin Corbett, who is now in the other place. I have known him for more than a decade, and he has been a good friend and a great campaigner on many issues. I am sure that he will make the same contribution in the upper House.
I want to say a few words about the operation of the planning and licensing system, and how it has affected a democratically elected councillor in Teesside. I am aware that proposals have been made to look into the operation of the planning process and the court system, and especially to consider how to streamline the appeal process and how to make the court process more effective.
Last year, a major retailer, the Safeway group, applied for a liquor licence on a site in Low lane, Middlesbrough, on the boundary line of my constituency. The application raised strong objections in that pleasant residential part of Middlesbrough. There are a number of schools in the vicinity: Acklam Grange secondary school, King's Manor secondary school and St. David's comprehensive school. Further afield there is Coulby Newham secondary school, whose catchment area is affected. All those schools had concerns about the increased ability of their pupils to access liquor. Local residents were also unhappy about the proposal.
The proposal was for the sales point to be a mini-market on the site of a large garage and filling station. Many people felt that having an outlet for alcoholic drink on a site almost solely accessed by motorists drove a coach and horses through any attempts to cut down on drink driving. In their initial hearing, the magistrates took those objections fully on board, and the application was refused. Safeway, as is its right, lodged an objection to that refusal. That was when the fun began.
My colleague and friend on Middlesbrough borough council, Councillor John McPartland, had represented his constituents faithfully in their objections. He formally
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asked to be an objector, and to be allowed to speak at the appeal hearing on his own behalf and on behalf of Kader ward community council. He was to appear at the hearing with Mr. John Bate, the head of Acklam Grange school, as his key witness. There was an exchange of correspondence between Councillor McPartland and the solicitors acting for Safeway, Messrs Cartwrights of Bristol.
In that exchange, the spectre of a possible application for costs against Councillor McPartland as an individual was suddenly raised by Cartwrights. That naturally alarmed Councillor McPartland, and in my view he correctly took advice from the Court Service, which was bleak and to the point. The Court Service itself took advice from His Honour Judge Fox QC, who stated:
"Mr McPartland may continue to object, and in addition to giving evidence himself, may call the other three people as witnesses with or without them having given notice of what they may say, although it would be fair and courteous to the appellants so to do.
Alternatively, all four people may object afresh, in which case they should notify the appellants of their objections.
The principal difference would be that if they were separate objectors and the appeal were allowed each could be liable for the appellant's costs. If only Mr McPartland objected and he lost, he could be ordered to bear the whole of the appellant's costs."
On receiving that advice, Councillor McPartland withdrew his objection. As he put it in a letter to me:
"This potentially placed me in a position of possibly facing bills that I couldn't pay, as I am a retired teacher living, principally, on my teacher's pension. But of course that is not the real point. The real disgrace is that an elected Councillor was unable to represent the people who elected him because the present state of law in the country could make him pay dearly for that privilege, in opposing the commercial plans of a massive concern such as Safeway".
The practice of applying for costs is well established both in courts and in planning appeals. It serves as a deterrent to a planning committee or licensing body so that they do not make decisions that are frivolous or that fly in the face of established and agreed plans and policies. However, on the occasions when such applications were made and granted, they were against a corporate body, such as a local council or planning committee, but not against an individual. In all my years of political experience, I have never before come across such an implicit threat to an individual objector.
This matter should be re-examined in the review of the planning and court procedures that I mentioned at the beginning of my speech. To remove such a threat against an individual, while retaining it for a corporate body, will not lead to the appearance of a flood of frivolous or malicious litigants mounting cases against a planned development or a liquor licence. It will mean that a councillor such as John McPartland can represent his or her constituents adequately and fully with the fear of punitive costs banished from their mind.
We are talking about the balance of forces between massive multinational corporations and the individual: the balance of forces and resources between highly profitable companies with deep and well-lined pockets and local people who do not have the comfort of such institutional, financial and legal backing. That means that all must be equal before the law, but that is not the case at present: some are far more equal than others. I want the Leader of the House to take up that point. It needs to be addressed
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and I hope that it will be considered when our Government undertake the proper review of the planning and licensing system.
I look forward to an outcome that will satisfy Councillor John McPartland and others in similar situations, and indeed everyone who wants to ensure that the ordinary man and woman can have their say at the bar of public opinion.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... 720-11.htm
