Question: Some Labour MPs have said your proposals to overhaul the UK planning laws could lead to a Developers' Charter. How do you respond to that?

Lord Falconer: No, what we're after is a planning system that is confident that it's taking the right decisions; you only have a confident planning system if it's one that both a community and business think is taking the right decisions. If you had a system where there were big question marks about the results that it was producing because people didn't trust it, it wouldn't be a robust system. So it's got to be a system that has the confidence of both the people in the community and of the business community, otherwise it simply spawns further disputes which lead to longer delays. We want to remove the adversarial elements in the planning system.

Question: Local groups and environmental groups have said they're worried about the possibility that this could stifle their ability to protest about these plans. Would you consider their views and make amendments to these proposals?

Lord Falconer: It's a consultation period that's going on up until March18 and it's also worth emphasising that very many groups such as the CPRE (the Council for the Protection of Rural England) have welcomed significant parts of the green paper, so I don't think it's right to say that it's been, as it were, unreservedly condemned - far from it, there's a lot that's been welcomed but there're issues to debate in the consultation period.

Question: What are the costs of the current planning process?

Lord Falconer: The downsides of the current system could be portrayed as follows: where a business has a choice whether it develops here or in another country, then frequently, delays in planning will mean it will favour another country. That has a cost in both economic activity and jobs as far as the country is concerned.

Equally and separately, within Great Britain, because infrastructure changes take so long to get through the planning system, that means the infrastructure is not as good as it otherwise might be and the examples will be well-known to you - T4, T5, various rail proposals, various energy proposals - all take literally years, thereby slowing down the development of the infrastructure. Now what is the cost to the country of losing businesses that have a choice of dealing in one country or another? What is the cost to the country of the infrastructure being much worse than it might otherwise be? Well it's hundreds of millions, nay billions, of pounds. How much is that, it is almost impossible to work out accurately, but there plainly is a real cost in relation to that. Now those costs, that reduction in competitiveness, that reduction in productivity is what we wish to seek to remedy but we can't do it unless we have a system that the community as a whole has confidence in, because, as I said in answer to the first question, if the conclusions that the planning system comes up with are subject to yet further dispute, you won't get that increase in speed and quality that we're after.

Question: So in essence, we can't really afford another Terminal 5?

Lord Falconer: We can't afford a process which takes years and sometimes decades to reach conclusions that are absolutely vital to productivity; and it's not just about delivering the particular infrastructure change because if there are good reasons for an infrastructure change not to occur in the way suggested, then let's get rid of the blight that that causes the local community, and let's find an alternative as quickly as possible, rather than running for years and ending up in a cul-de-sac.

Question: Do you think the point that planning delays have had an effect on transport improvements has been made clearly enough during the whole transport debate?

Lord Falconer: Well I think it's an incredibly important point. I think people are aware of the delays there's been, for example, in the T5 inquiry because of the long time the inquiry took. I think, as well, people are obviously aware that if you want a new main line, it will have huge planning implications which, under the existing system, could take a very long time.

Question: You can change the laws and procedures but do we need to see a change in the culture of how local authorities, environmental groups, local groups and businesses all enter into the planning process? Would you like to see a less confrontational debate going on, and how could you achieve that?

Lord Falconer: Well you're absolutely right to say that simply changing the law on its own will not be enough; there must be a culture change and we've set about a debate on what changes are required. The one thing that is not up for consultation is that change is required: it is perfectly plain that the system is not working and that people are fed up to the back teeth with the way the system works. The challenge for us is actually to deliver that change.

Now I think a very good example of where change can be delivered by a culture change, is what central government itself does in relation to planning. Central government has a formal role in planning in that planning applications can be called in, or appeals recovered from the planning inspectorate if they are of national interest. There is a widespread feeling that that process takes too long, very frequently leads to inconsistent results both in whether to call in, and then once a call-in has taken place, what the result is. Remedying that process, making it work more consistently, more transparently and more efficiently is something within our power to deliver without legislative changes. So we are working at the moment on completely reforming the system of the way those cases are dealt with so that we can deal with it efficiently, quickly and clearly.

We have already taken the first step in relation to that which is, from now on, we're going to give reasons when we decide not to call in cases because one of the aspects of the system that most upset communities is 'why didn't the secretary of state intervene in particular cases?' Where he does intervene, then there's a public inquiry, and the whole thing is examined in public. Where he doesn't intervene he hasn't, in the past, given reasons. That means there hasn't been that transparency that allows people to see how the system is working in practice. So we've changed that, we've announced on the same day as we produced the planning green paper, that from now on we will give reasons why we didn't call in cases. But that's all part and parcel in relation to call-ins effecting a real culture change in the way that they're operated, because I think the one thing we've got to demonstrate is that we can actually deliver change and the call-in process is an area over which central government has got direct control; therefore it must prove it can do it.

Question: When it's an issue like planning which can raise passions, how can you try and change the culture when sometimes it's a specific local issue and it is being passionately contested?

Lord Falconer: We change the culture first of all by demonstrating in those bits of the system where we are involved, we are determined to be transparent, involving, high quality in the decisions that we make and doing it within a reasonable time. We show it can be done.

Question: What's your message to the other players in the process?

Lord Falconer: The message to the other players is that they too must start to approach the planning system on the basis that people expect decisions within a reasonable time, that they expect community involvement at the earliest possible stage and they expect quality decisions. We will demonstrate that we can do it, we will make those changes in the law that are required to deliver it, but we will then provide leadership to ensure that it actually happens on the ground.

Take a very good example - you referred earlier on to the adversarial nature of planning: one of the things that was most often said to me before we published the green paper was 'nothing upsets communities more than hearing for the first time about a major planning application when they see small adverts stuck on the sides of telegraph poles'. They then discover that the developer and the local authority have been talking for months about the proposal without it ever being public, they become understandably suspicious and hostile to the scheme and an adversarial situation very soon develops. The community needs to be engaged much earlier on by the developers so that suspicion is reduced and the community can see their voice influencing the nature of the development. Because the more you see what you say having an impact, the less you are suspicious. In the proposals we make, we say in local development frameworks there must be a statement of what community involvement is required before application, and we say if you do involve the community, before the formal application is made, that will very much carry it in your favour in an application.

Now those sorts of changes change the culture: from being an adversarial one where what the community seeks to do is stop the development come what may, and the local authority and the developer are then raised against them, to one where there is a genuine consensus reached as early as possible coupled with the sense that the process will operate within a reasonable time. So there is no point in just simply seeking to make it all process and no substance.

Question: What's the stake if you fail to make these changes, make these reforms?

Lord Falconer: If we don't make these changes then I believe, first of all, necessary infrastructure changes will take much longer, our competitiveness will be reduced and I think the community will feel less involved in the process of what happens to the land in their area than they do at the present. Because it's not just business that is turned off by the current system. I don't know if you ever went down to the T5 inquiry, but what you would see if you went there was a battery of very expensive lawyers and experts - transport, noise specialists etc - all engaged at a very high and very costly level. The people who are most able to engage in that debate are the commercial interests or big public sector players like local authorities. For the community, they get cut out by that process just as much as business gets frustrated by its slowness and its inability to come to a clear conclusion. So what's at stake is not just competitiveness and productivity, it's genuine community engagement.

Question: So under this new process in a sense you're addressing an issue of the public feeling powerless which knocks on to voter apathy?

Lord Falconer: We're trying to establish a system whereby the public's views are taken into account. People's views are taken into account where there's a process that's transparent and has a beginning, a middle and an end. One of the extraordinary things about the current system, for example, is that it's based, rightly, on a plan-led system i.e. 'have a plan that will determine what happens in the area for the next decade or whatever' and yet because of the long, drawn-out complexity of the system, there are, I think, 40 local authorities out of about 300 who, despite the fact that they have had an obligation for a plan for the last 10 years, haven't managed to produce one. It's a system where, although it might have started off with the intention of empowering the community, has ended up with a totally disempowered community, unable to influence what happens in the area.

Question: Another aspect of planning law, following on from September 11, where a number of cities and a number of countries are looking at the issue of tall buildings in cities - what do you make of this debate?

Lord Falconer: Well, in relation to planning in individual towns and cities, in a sense, first of all it must reach the local authority to decide what view it takes about tall buildings. There's an inquiry, just closed in terms of the hearing, going on in relation to a tall building in the City: that will eventually come to this department as a planning application, so it's probably better if I don't comment until I've seen what the inspector says in relation to that.

Question: As the Minister for Housing and Planning what more can you do to provide affordable housing for key public sector workers in London and the south east?

Lord Falconer: There's a Starter Homes initiative which set aside 250 million pounds to help key public sector workers get homes in areas of great difficulty, but the planning system's got a very important part to play in it and accompanying the documents on planning there was a document about 'planning gain' which is where a developer agrees with the local authority that he will make a contribution to the local infrastructure or local needs as part of the terms on which he is granted planning permission.

Affordable housing is one very commonly extracted gain for a community when agreeing to development. We, in the green paper that accompanies the other green papers on planning gain, identify that one needs to make more of a planning gain system; one also needs to make it clearer. We have in mind a tariff of fees being set which will include fees that can be used to pay for extra affordable houses in areas of high demand. That will obviously help public sector workers as well as other sections of the population that aren't able to find housing in areas of high demand. So we think making the planning gain system work better, making it more transparent, making it focused and better on providing more affordable houses, is vital for that but doing it in such a way that it doesn't choke off development.

Question: Meridian Delta, the consortium who've bid for The Dome say they face a 17-month planning delay. Is this a key example of the problems of delay within our current planning process?

Lord Falconer: I don't know how long the planning system will take in relation to Greenwich to deal with Meridian's application. Remember there's a whole range of applications that would have to be dealt with. I hope that Greenwich, and the applicants in that case, can work together to deal with it as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Question: In the process of selling off the Dome, what are the key lessons that have been learnt?

Lord Falconer: In relation to selling off the Dome, there's still some work to be done to make sure there's a deal. The process that was adopted from February of last year was basically to talk to those players in the area (not the geographical area but in the field of land development and in the use of places like the Dome, for example using them as leisure facilities, which is how it is going to be used) there's the question of talking to them, finding out what is possible, working hard to ensure that those negotiations take place in a free, confidential way to ensure they're not driven by what happens when people comment on bits of them.

The three things that we were focusing on were 'value for money', 'long term future for the Dome', and thirdly that it is 'sustainable and deliverable in terms of the regeneration of the Greenwich peninsula'. And these things take work: it is probably the biggest land deal in central London for many, many years.

Question: Were you surprised by the length of time it took?

Lord Falconer: Having regard to where we've got to, which is namely an exclusive bidder who is of the quality that they are, with the resources that they have, with the quality proposals that they have, it's perhaps not surprising that it took 11 months to get to that phase, because that sort of deal, that sort of development, that sort of quality does take time.

Question: You received a lot of flak for the Dome and now Stephen Byers faces a similar type of flack for the railways. How does it feel to be at the receiving end of this sort of press hounding?

Lord Falconer: I wouldn't say it was necessarily press hounding. I think there are obviously legitimate issues in relation to the Dome. The critical thing is 'is one pursuing the right course in relation to the policy that one is adopting?' In relation to the Dome, there were obviously difficult issues that had to be resolved. For example, in relation to the sale of the Dome - they take time, but I think it was time well spent. And ultimately, one will be judged by the long-term result, so one will be judged by the quality of the use to which the Dome is put and the quality and the sustainability of the regeneration that occurs in the Greenwich peninsula. Those are difficult things to make a judgment about immediately because they are prospective, they are in the future.