Mr Angus Kerr (Department of the Environment): As the Committee will know, commencement orders are not normally required to be laid before the Assembly. However, during the Consideration Stage of the 2011 Act, the then Environment Committee tabled an amendment that provided that any order commencing Part 3 of the 2011 Act, which is the part relating to planning control:
"shall not be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, the Assembly."
The provisions in Part 3 of the 2011 Act cover the range of planning control powers, including defining development, setting the framework for processing and the determining of applications for planning permission. The Committee's amendment was to ensure that appropriate governance measures were in place when responsibility for the majority of planning decisions transfers to councils, and the amendment was approved. Members will be aware that the Local Government Act 2014 has now introduced a new modern statutory framework for governance for the 11 councils and a new ethical standards framework. That includes the mandatory code of conduct, which we were talking about earlier. As we said, part 9 of the code includes a planning element and comes into effect on transfer in April 2015. We believe that this, associated with the ongoing capacity building that we talked about, will equip councillors with the knowledge and skills needed to carry out their new role and will give them have the confidence, as well as the competence, to make sound planning decisions from day one.
The order will initially commence Part 3 of the 2011 Act for the purpose only of conferring powers to make regulations and orders. That will ensure that the Department has the enabling powers that are required to put in place the detailed proposals for subordinate legislation necessary to introduce the reforms to the planning system and those that have been going through the Committee in recent months. The order will also commence Part 3 of the Act for all other purposes from 1 April 2015, thus enabling the transfer of responsibility for the majority of planning decisions from central government to the new councils.
That the Committee for the Environment has considered the draft statutory rule, the Planning (2011 Act) (Commencement No. 2) Order (NI) 2015, and recommends that it should be affirmed by the Assembly.