Infrastructure Planning Commission: Termination of Employment

Mr. Pickles
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether she will have the power to remove planning commissioners on the proposed infrastructure planning commission from their post before the end of their term of office for reasons other than misconduct.

Yvette Cooper
Paragraphs 5.56 to 5.61 of the White Paper, Planning for a Sustainable Future (cm 7120), set out the Government's proposals as to the personnel of the infrastructure planning commission. It is intended that members of the commission will have fixed tenure for periods of between five and eight years. The Secretary of State will have the power to remove a person from office as a member of the commission if she is satisfied that the person is unable, unwilling or unfit to perform the duties of the office. We do not propose that members could be removed because of the decisions they took.