To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list each instance when a Secretary of State has re-examined a planning decision once granted as the result of local public opposition, other than as the result of a court decision.
Once my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has issued a decision on a planning application or appeal, his jurisdiction ends. He can re-determine a planning decision taken by himself only if that decision is quashed by the courts. The Secretary of State has powers to revoke a planning permission under section 276 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971. My rt. hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), then Minister for Housing and Planning, set out the Government's policy on revocation in his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) on 20 December 1989 at column 329.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what response his Department has received on the draft planning policy guidance consultation on (i) housing, (ii) regional guidance and structure plans and (iii) the countryside and the rural economy.
Several hundred responses have been received to each of these draft guidance notes. Comments are now being analysed, and final versions of the notes will be issued in the spring or early summer.