Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Brexit Minister (in respect of his law officer responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:32 pm on 5 March 2019.
Counsel General, you'll have heard it said before that access to justice is a bit like owning a Rolls Royce—everyone can have one. And I think our planning system is a bit like that at the moment. I've recently had inquiries where large development companies, represented by QCs and a host of expensive experts, are stood against the Ramblers' Association and local citizens. And it seems to me—. Why are they paying those vast amounts of money? Well, the first thing is they can. Some of our housing development companies are robbing the population, exploiting the shortage of housing. The fact that one particular company is recently reported as making £66,000 per house as a profit—no wonder they're able to pay their chief executive £32 million per annum. So, it seems to me that we have a system that is being bought up by those who stand to make enormous profits out of it, and the issue is not about the procedural fairness of the process, but the ability of people to be fairly represented and to have a fair say within that process. And I think those of us from all parties who engage in this process will see a gross injustice. The planning system has been bought up by the incredibly wealthy corporate companies, and what I'd ask is not so much the fairness of the process, but perhaps the mechanism of representation. Why isn't it the case that one of these big housing development companies, who stand to make tens of millions of pounds out of their developments, should also pay into a fund to enable local representation of local communities and local groups, because, until something is done, we have a gross unfairness within the system?