Planning Reforms: Greg Clark Admits Changes 'Could Have Been Clearer'

Greg Clark has admitted that there are flaws in the Government’s controversial proposals to reform the planning system.












Greg Clark MP, planning minister, signalled there would be changes to the National Planning Policy Framework.

In the first public debate since Prime Minister David Cameron intervened in the row earlier this week, the planning minister said that some of the proposals on brownfield land, housing targets and "sustainable development" could have been clearer.

The comments provide clues to how ministers are likely to amend the controversial National draft Planning Policy Framework, which has attracted fierce criticism from countryside campaigners, after a consultation closes in the middle of next month.

Mr Clark told a seminar at a London law firm organised by the British Property Federation that it was difficult to express the Government's intentions at the same time as reducing bureaucracy.

He said: “When you distil more than 1,000 pages to around 50 ... Inevitably it is the case not every thing is expressed in the clearest way possible but that does not signal malign intent or an intention to subvert the process."

Protesters have accused the Government of trying to rip up the planning system by removing protections for the countryside in favour of development.

Mr Clark strongly denied this suggestion and said that the Government was willing to listen to critics. He said: “This is a genuine consultation. It does not imply any agenda of the Government to change the nature of planning.”

Afterwards, Mr Clark told The Daily Telegraph: “Any consultation wants to make sure that everything are expressed more clearly. My view is that these safeguards are there and are clear to all, but if people think they are not we will respond to them.”

Mr Clark is pushing through plans to replace 1,300 pages of planning regulations in England with just 52 pages in the new NPPF.

The framework writes into the rules a new “presumption in favour of sustainable development”, without defining clearly what it means, leading campaigners to fear that large areas of England will be concreted over.

Mr Clark added: "The intention of the presumption in favour of sustainable development is not to provide a loophole where alien developments will be imposed on the community rather the NPPF wants to replicate the kind of policies a reasonable local authority would put in place."

Campaigners, led by the National Trust, have suggested the Government has tried to change the planning system so that it is biased in favour of promoting growth, rather than the environment.

The Daily Telegraph is also running a campaign called Hands Off Our Land urging the Government to reconsider its plans.

There was a breakthrough this week when Mr Cameron personally assured the Trust in a letter to its director general Dame Fiona Reynolds that the environmental benefits of developments would be assessed before new projects were given permission.

Mr Clark hinted at some of the clarifications that he was planning as part of the Government’s response to the consultation, which ends on Oct 17.

He suggested that a presumption to build on previously developed areas or “brownfield” sites, which is in current rules, would be written back into the guidance.

He said: “It was never my intention, and it certainly was not the Government’s intention, to depart from the obviously desirable situation in which derelict land should be brought back into use. That is always the intention.”

“If not mentioning brownfield at all leads people to conclude there is a different intention, then without pre-empting the consultation, that is something that I am hearing being said.”

Mr Clark also said he had been misunderstood over targets for local authorities to provide 20 per cent more land for building.

He said that this does not necessarily mean that more houses will be built, but simply that more options for development are made available. The intention was “not to have more homes built than the locality needs”, he said.

Mr Clark added: “Not every site that is earmarked for development turns out in practice to be developable. Problems arise. So you always need to have something of a buffer to make sure that the number you plan for is developable.”

He also admitted the “presumption in favour of sustainable development” was open to interpretation and needed further work.

He said: “I think the presumption in favour of sustainable development requires sustainability to be there, to be guaranteed but we will listen (to the consultation).”

Campaigners welcomed the softening in tone in the minister’s comments. Shaun Spiers, chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: “Mr Clark was acknowledging that there are clearly huge parts that can be improved. It helps the tone of the debate and it has good to feel that the minister is listening.”

Dame Fiona Reynolds, director general of the National Trust, told the meeting that she had been "horrified by the draft" because the document focused on promoting the economy over environmental concerns.

She added: "It’s good to hear Greg Clark's confirmation of the goal of balance and his warm words about genuine consultation. I now look forward to seeing amendments to the draft NPPF which deliver balance - this is what's now needed.”

World Bank Warns Of 'Danger Zone' As Global Stock Markets Are Sent Tumbling

UK shares suffered their biggest fall in nearly three years today amid fears a global recession.

It came amid a warning from the World Bank of a 'danger zone' and last night's backfired attempt by the Fed in the U.S. to prop up confidence.

All leading global stock markets indices plummeted with the FTSE 100 down 4.7 per cent - a colossal slump of 246.80 points to 5,041.61, its biggest points fall since November 2008.

The fresh sell-off was primarily sparked by America's announcement last night of a £250billion rescue operation to prop up its feeble economy.













Taking stock: A Barclays Capital trader holds his head while working on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange, which has seen huge amounts wiped off the value of firms.

The Dow Jones slumped on opening and was down 3.4 per cent by the time of the close in Europe. It adds to a fall of 2.5 per cent on Wall Street yesterday. Germany's DAX closed down 5 per cent.

Fresh evidence also emerged overnight of a slowdown in China and a warning from the World Bank further added to the panic in equity markets.

President Robert Zoellick said the world was 'in a danger zone'.

'Europe, Japan, and the United States must act to address their big economic problems before they become bigger problems for the rest of the world,' he said at the annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. 'Not to do so is irresponsible.'

'Some developed country officials sound like their woes are just their business. But my confidence in that belief is being eroded daily by the steady drip of difficult economic news. The world is in a danger zone.'

Banks were among the biggest losers, now the norm in sell-offs, with Lloyds Banking Group shares down more than 10 per cent at 32.51p and Barclays off 9.4 per cent at 138.85p.

Miners also fell victim, due to the expected slump in demand for commodities, with Vedanta Resources shares plunging 13.3 per cent and Antofagasta down 12.7 per cent.

The huge threat facing the British and global financial system was laid bare last night as the U.S. took unprecedented emergency steps to aid the world’s largest economy.

Frightening evidence that the crisis in euroland is spinning out of control also emerged as the International Monetary Fund revealed that a £263billion black hole has opened up in its banks.

The turmoil on both sides of the Atlantic will spark fears that the world is heading for its worst economic crisis since the collapse of Lehman Brothers three years ago.

The Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, launched a £250billion operation to lower borrowing costs for businesses and for consumers in the U.S., selling its shorter-term securities to buy longer-term holdings.

Its move came amid escalating fears over the health of its banking system.

A trio of the country’s biggest banks – Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo – had their credit ratings downgraded by leading rating agency Moody’s. The UK is in danger of being caught in a vice caused by the problems on both sides of the Atlantic as the eurozone and the U.S. are our biggest trading partners.

The Fed is already engaged in enormous efforts to stimulate U.S. growth and has held short-term interest rates near zero since December 2008.






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It is under pressure to revive an economy that has limped along for more than two years since the recession officially ended.

As well as the rescue – the first of its type for 50 years when a much smaller exercise was undertaken – the Fed issued a grave warning about the ‘significant downward pressure on global markets’.


















Fury: People from all over the U.S. have gathered on Wall Street in New York to voice their frustration with the economy and banks.

It said this has been caused by the failure of the euro area politicians to take tough decisions to resolve the turmoil in the single currency area.

The Washington-based IMF echoed the Fed’s swingeing cricitism of Europe’s leaders for failing to rescue their banks and restore stability.

It said that if they do not do so quickly, lending across the region would dry up, accelerating the downward spiral which has brought growth to a shuddering and dangerous halt.

The IMF’s top financial stability official, Jose Vinals, said: ‘Sovereign [debt] risks have spilled over to the region’s banking system.

‘This has put funding strains on many banks in the euro area and has depressed their value.’ Since the euroland crisis flared up in Greece last year an astonishing 40 per cent has been wiped off the market value of Europe’s banks.

Mr Vinals called for an immediate bail-out of the banks across Europe even if this meant nationalising them.













Eurozone: Protesters hurl rocks at police during a violent demonstration against austerity in Greece, a financial crisis which continues to depress markets.

‘The worst thing that you can have are banks that cannot get funding,’ he warned.

Mr Vinals blamed inaction on ‘weak politics’. Failure of leadership on both sides of the Atlantic has led financial markets ‘to question their resolve’.

The IMF estimated the direct exposure of the banks to the struggling PIIGS – Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain – to be 200billion euros (£175billion). But when the banks’ lending to each other is taken into account the number climbs to 300billion euros (£263billion).

Britain moved to bail out its banks three years ago in the wake of the Lehman collapse when the government took big stakes in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group and effectively nationalised Bradford & Bingley.

The IMF accused European leaders – German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicholas Sarkozy – of failing to address problems full on.

The euro area needed to act ‘decisively and expeditiously’ to resolve the sovereign risks to the world economy and the spill over to the weak banks.

If there is to be a recovery in Europe then the ailing banks ‘need to have sufficient muscle to support economic recovery through lending’, the IMF said.

A leading IMF official acknowledged that in Britain the Project Merlin agreement between the banks and the Government meant that lending was taking place.

But the official made it clear that the targets need to be revisited on a regular basis and that lending to small and medium sized enterprises needs attention.

RIGHTMINDS

RUTH SUNDERLAND: 'The financial crisis that had its genesis in the banking system was always going to spread to sovereign nations. Now we are indeed entering a new and dangerous phase, and the really worrying thing is the utter and abject lack of convincing leadership, the absence of any big world figure with a convincing vision of how to get out of this awful mess, and what the world might look like when we eventually do. Share markets have been incredibly febrile so the FTSE 100 and other indexes are quite likely to bounce back. But this is a deep and real crisis. The eurozone is facing an existential crisis and the US as the world's dominant economy, is staggering under a mountain of debt.'

Meanwhile, disappointing news about China's economic prospects emerged overnight.

A key survey by HSBC revealed factory output in China fell for a third month running in September, sparking fears of a slowdown in the world's second biggest economy.

Cameron Is Railroading His NHS Bill Through Parliament

After a political fix with Nick Clegg, Cameron is denying MPs their constitutional role to scrutinise this waste-ridden legislation.












David Cameron and Nick Clegg meet nurses and doctors at Guys Hospital in London.

After a politically turbulent summer, coalition MPs might have been hoping for a quiet first week back in Westminster. But as Save the NHS protests and vigils are held across the country, the House of Commons begins two days of crucial debates on the hugely unpopular health and social care bill.

Despite the unprecedented pause and the NHS Future Forum's demolition job of the bill, the chorus of criticism has grown again as doctors, nurses, patient groups and health experts have digested the detail of the reorganised reorganisation and concluded that the government is failing to properly safeguard the NHS.

During and after the so-called listening exercise, David Cameron made much of his willingness to pause, listen and reflect. Nick Clegg, meanwhile, boasted of major concessions to the original plans – plans he himself had signed off last year. In reality, what happened in June was a political fix, more concerned with the future health of the coalition than the future of the NHS, and a fix that has acted as a smokescreen around the detail of the repackaged bill.

The changes to the bill have left it more complex, more costly and less likely to help the NHS change to meet the financial and service challenges it faces. Meanwhile, many essential elements of the long-term Tory agenda – to break up the NHS and set it up as full-scale market – remain in place and need further challenge.

The revised bill will mean more bureaucracy, more complexity, more cost and more waste. It creates at least five new national bodies to manage the NHS, centralising power into unelected bodies. Having promised to "abolish the bureaucracy", the government is trebling the number of statutory commissioning bodies from 163 to over 500.

The scale of change reflects the Tories' long-term plan to set up the NHS as a full-scale market and break up the NHS as a national public service, with patients seeing the services on which they depend subject to the lottery of where they live.

The government's response to the NHS Future Forum promised that the role of the secretary of state in providing the health service, established since 1946, would be restored. However the key wording of the founding act is still changed. Legal analysis commissioned by 38 Degrees confirms what Labour has argued: that the national duties of provision will be weakened and broken up.

Monitor, meanwhile, remains an economic regulator with the power to enforce competition law, fine hospitals 10% of their turnover, or direct commissioners to open up all services to competitive tender.

Far from getting on with real reform in the NHS, we have had a wasted year of chaos and confusion, which is set to drag on as the government forces through the biggest reorganisation in NHS history. £850m will be spent on redundancies, while 2% of PCTs' budgets, almost £2bn, is being held back from patient care to cover the costs and risks of the reorganisation.

All of this is taking place at a time when NHS finances are being squeezed and when all efforts should be dedicated to making sound efficiencies and improving services. It is high cost and high risk, and Labour continues to believe that many of the changes the NHS must make could largely be achieved without legislation and huge internal reorganisation.

Having done his political fix with Clegg, Cameron is now railroading his bill through parliament with a procedural fix. Limited time for debate and the lack of a new impact assessment means that MPs are being denied their constitutional role to properly scrutinise his plans for the NHS. They are being asked to judge the recommitted bill and over 1,100 amendments in rapid time and without the full facts at their disposal. By rushing the parliamentary process, David Cameron is forcing through bad legislation that will lead to more waste, cost and confusion in the NHS.

Christian Activists Poised To Win Concessions On Abortion After 40 Years

An influential network dating back to Mary Whitehouse's Festival of Light looks likely to capitalise on David Cameron's big society.












An anti-abortionist protest in 2007. Today, a new health bill is likely to give churches a bigger voice in abortion counselling.

Cliff Richard was a supporter while other luminaries included Mary Whitehouse, Salvation Army leaders and senior clergy. Even Prince Charles sent his "good wishes".

But despite tens of thousands of Christians taking part in September 1971's Nationwide Festival of Light, a month-long campaign against Britain's "moral breakdown" and the permissiveness ushered in by the previous decade, it eventually ran out of steam. After torches and hilltop bonfires were lit around the country, the culmination was a spectacular Trafalgar Square rally.

Exactly 40 years on, however, the Christian network it evolved into is quietly wielding political influence alongside other social conservatives, while gearing up to play an increasingly significant role in the provision of public services under the umbrella of David Cameron's big society agenda.

What's more, the possibility of the first major change to abortion rules for more than 20 years now means it is on the brink of chalking up its most significant victory to date.

An amendment that Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries and Labour's Frank Field have put forward to the health bill would strip abortion providers such as Marie Stopes of their pregnancy counselling roles, opening them up to tenders from "independent" organisations. And now the government has confirmed it will change this key area of the rules anyway.

Bids will almost certainly come from the network of pregnancy counselling centres (CPCs) linked to churches and run by CareConfidential, which became an independent entity in July after spinning off from Christian Action Research and Education (Care). A charity tracing its roots back to the Nationwide Festival of Light, it funds MPs, provides them with interns and has lobbied hard on issues including gay rights, abortion and embryology research.

Other bids could come from the anti-abortion charity Life, which runs its own CPCs and, separately, was appointed by the public health minister, Anne Milton, in May to an expert forum advising the government on sexual health.

Supporters of existing abortion rights and those eager to preserve secularism in public services are, to say the least, rattled, while Labour's frontbench spokeswoman on public health, Diane Abbott, suggests a more profound trend.

"I think that the myriad of encroachment on a women's right to choose that we are currently seeing is best understood in the context of the American phenomenon of so-called 'culture wars'," she said.

"The point for the British politicians pursuing the abortion issue is not just the amendments themselves but that they see it as part of a general approach to politics which has worked so well for the right in America."

As Abbott and others see it, social conservatives in the UK have been borrowing from the tactical playbook of the US Christian right, establishing a network of organisations across a range of fronts and rebranding their traditional "pro-life" language (Dorries and Field's campaign to change the law on abortion is called "right to know").

Certainly, many often-interconnected individuals and organisations pursing a Christian agenda dot the political and legal landscape. Crucially, the Tories now have a strong socially conservative current. David Cameron himself has expressed support for a review of the legal time limit on abortion, as have rising stars of the party such as Louise Mensch.

Of the new crop of Tory MPs elected last year, 12 are members of the Christian Conservative Fellowship (CCF), an influential grouping inside the party. The CCF was founded by MP David Burrowes and the influential blogger and activist Tim Montgomerie, who edits the powerful grassroots Conservative platform ConservativeHome.

MPs from a range of parties also unite on the All-Party Pro-Life Group (APPG). It receives monthly funding from Care, which also (according the most recent register) provides interns for Burrowes and other five other MPs: Sharon Hodgson, Fiona Bruce, Andrew Selous, Gavin Shuker and Gary Streeter.

Beyond parliament, a energetic lobby on issues such as abortion, euthanasia and others exists in the form of groups such as the Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF) and Lawyers Christian Fellowship (LCF).

The latter backed high-profile legal actions taken by Christians such as Lydia Playfoot, the teenager who (unsuccessfully) took a case to the high court alleging that she had been discriminated against when a school banned her from wearing a ring symbolising chastity, associated with the UK offshoot of the US Christian Silver Ring Thing movement. Her case was funded through donations gathered through the LCF's sister group, Christian Concern for our Nation, whose members created Nadine Dorries's website for her 2008 campaign to restrict abortion.

The Silver Ring Thing is also one of the groups on a new umbrella body, the Sex and Relationships Education Council, along with Lovewise, Life, Right to Life and Evaluate (an off-shoot of Care).

Nine parliamentarians attended its launch in May in parliament while the education minister, Michael Gove, sent a message saying he was looking forward to working with the group.

Gove, whose support for faith schools has already endeared him to the Christian right, reminded the launch that the Tories had ensured the Labour government "were stopped when they wanted to remove parents' right to remove children from inappropriate lessons".

Secularist concerns that the big society idea could lead to faith-based groups playing a direct role in provision of sex education were already heightened in April. The Tory-controlled Richmond council awarded a contract for counselling of school-age children to the Catholic Children's Society, which requires its counsellors to "uphold and promote the Catholic ethos of the agency".

Another hub is the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) thinktank, founded by former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith and Tim Montgomerie. Although not necessarily faith-based – David Blunkett joined last year – its advisory council includes Field and a key social conservative, Philippa Stroud, who was also involved in its founding.

Formerly the CSJ's executive director, she was appointed as a special adviser to Duncan Smith after he became secretary of state for work and pensions. She was a director at CareConfidential while her husband, David Stroud, is a leading figure in Newfrontiers, an evangelical church network that has played a key role in supporting the Christian charity's network of crisis pregnancy centres.

Montgomerie admits to nervousness at how easily the network of politically engaged Christians could be portrayed as a conspiracy, adding relationships owe more to the "two or three degrees of separation" in politics.

"There isn't a secret meeting where we all plot," he adds, stressing differences between the UK Christian right and its US equivalent.

Faith-communities in the UK, for example, are at a different stage in terms of acceptance of homosexuality, he says, although opposition remains "an article of faith" to many. He emphasises the value UK Christian activists attach to causes such as social justice and international development, rather than focusing entirely on thornier "conscience" issues such as abortion. That said, he casts the "significant" Christian impact on the Tory party as "natural, organic and very real" and a product of 13 years of opposition. He counts Duncan Smith, "a very serious Catholic", as the third most important figure in government.

Montgomerie agrees that a moderation of language and positions by Christian civil society groups has led to the point where they are in position to make the most of the opportunity presented by the big society, or "the opening up of a monopoly".

In some ways, Care and Life exemplify this eschewing of past confrontational tactics for a more discreet approach to influencing public policy.

In other ways they do not. For example, in correspondence between Life and Anne Milton, released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act, Life used language at odds with the conciliatory public words it later used to describe its engagement with pro-choice groups on the sexual health forum.

"We are reducing the amount of abortion. Abortion providers are not. On the contrary, they promote abortion. It is obviously much in their interests to do so. And yet they receive hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money every year," wrote Jack Scarisbrick, Life's chairman.

A former employee at Care meanwhile insists that this "politically savvy" group relentlessly lobbies behind the scenes, drawing up lists of sympathetic MPs and briefings. It views the network of crisis pregnancy centres as being able to give it "the authority" to campaign on abortion.

"People support Care to the tune of a couple of million quid a year and there are individuals who see Care make a difference primarily in parliament. That is their big appeal."

"Their latest tactics are a new development. The have obviously seen an opportunity in the big society."

He adds that while the charity has visibly softened its hardline language over the years, its grassroots are still hugely suspicious of secularism.

"They look back wistfully to a bygone age when the nation was supposedly more Christian and we did have criminalisation of homosexuality, abortion was much more restricted. They do want to turn back the clock."

New Libya May Refuse To Extradite Yvonne Fletcher Murder Suspect

Diplomat suspected of killing police officer in 1984 at London embassy could escape extradition, but might be tried in Libya.












Police officers try to revive PC Yvonne Fletcher after she was shot outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984 during an anti-Gaddafi protest. Libyan officials say the suspect might not be extradited.

The justice minister of the Libyan rebels' National Transitional Council (NTC) said on Friday a post-Gaddafi government would "not give any Libyan citizen to the west", in an apparent blow to British hopes of putting on trial the suspected killer of Yvonne Fletcher, the police officer shot dead 27 years ago outside the Libyan embassy.

Mohammed al-Alagi also ruled out the return to the UK of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing but released in 2009 on compassionate grounds.

"Al-Megrahi has already been judged once and he will not be judged again," he told journalists in Tripoli. "We do not hand over Libyan citizens, [Muammar] Gaddafi does."

Alagi added: "We will not give any Libyan citizen to the west," a comment that appeared to rule out the extradition of the man suspected of shooting Fletcher in 1984.

Earlier on Sunday, the foreign secretary, William Hague, played down suggestions that the NTC would not work with British officials in their the hunt for her killer. He said: "When chairman [Mustafa Abdel] Jalil … was with us in London in May he committed himself and the council to co-operating fully with the British government on this issue."

Hague was responding to a report in the Sunday Times that quoted two NTC officials saying nobody would be sent to the UK to face trial for Fletcher's killing.

"Libya has never extradited or handed over its citizens to a foreign country. We shall continue with this principle," said Hassan al-Sagheer, a member of the NTC.

Another NTC member, Fawzi al-Ali, was quoted as saying: "According to our laws, no one can be handed over unless there are special agreements to do so."

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said that, at present, Libyan law prohibits the extradition of its own citizens. It does, however, allow for its nationals to be tried in Libya for crimes committed overseas.

Guma el-Gamaty, the NTC's UK co-ordinator, took part in the anti-Gaddafi protest that Fletcher was policing when she was shot.

He distanced himself from the views expressed by Sagheer and others, insisting on Sunday that it was too early to draw any conclusions. "Nobody can rule out anything at the moment; the possibility [of a British trial] is there," he said. "But first of all investigations need to be concluded. Somebody has to be identified as the killer … Obviously everyone wants justice; it's just a matter of when and how and whether the actual killer has been identified."

Gamaty added that, as with the Fletcher case, the issue of an eventual return to Scottish jail for Megrahi was "a decision for a future Libyan government". The whereabouts of Megrahi, who was given a hero's welcome when he returned to Libya two years ago, are unknown.

No one has ever been charged for killing Fletcher, who was 25 when officials inside the Libyan embassy opened fire on the anti-Gaddafi protesters outside.

Embassy staff were subsequently allowed to leave Britain, but diplomatic ties with Libya were severed.

Those seeking justice for Fletcher, however, were given a boost on Friday when it emerged that the Crown Prosecution Service had heard a witness account that identified a junior diplomat, Abdulmagid Salah Ameri, as the possible gunman.

On Saturday, the international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, said the emergence of a new suspect would be raised with the NTC. The government would, he said, be pursuing the case "in every way we can".