Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 4. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:20 pm on 24 June 2020.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:20, 24 June 2020

Obviously, these are things that have to be balanced, and so we were very aware that there were a number of things that simply could not progress that were integral to infrastructure development in particular areas and we needed to bring those forward. And at the same time, we wanted to make sure that people had the best chance to be consulted and bring forward their views on that. So, we introduced a number of areas in which you could do a virtual consultation. We also, though, said that local authorities had to facilitate having paper plans in place, and facilitate people being able to see those where that was something that they wanted to do. 

I'd be the first to say, Mark, that that's not a perfect system, but we needed to do something in order to be able to ensure that these things were still happening, and that they weren't all completely on stop because, as you know, we're likely to be facing an economic downturn at the end of this pandemic, and if we'd absolutely stopped all development during this period, we would've been in an even worse position. So, it's about trying to hit the right compromise between getting democratic engagement in the planning process, which I've been committed to throughout my career, not just as a Member of the Senedd but as a lawyer practicing in that field—it's something I'm completely committed to. So, it was about trying to hit the right point of allowing it to proceed and still ensuring democratic engagement. 

If you have any specific examples where you think that that's not working, or you think that people have been specifically disenfranchised, I'm very happy to look at the specifics. Obviously, I'm not aware of them at the moment.