Tynwald has rejected a call to revoke a rule change preventing national politicians from debating live planning applications.

The rule change which widened sub-judice restrictions to cover live planning applications was approved in July last year.

In the last sitting of Tynwald in the current parliament, Glenfaba and Peel MHK Kate Lord-Brennan tabled a motion calling for standing orders to be amended to remove the provision so that questions about live planning applications and related matters of policy, costs and related decisions are not ruled out of order.

Mrs Lord-Brennan said she had supported the rule change at the time as it ‘seemed like it made sense’.

But she said: ‘In effect bringing in this parliamentary rule has meant it has shut down a range of questioning you may reasonably expect.

We are being hampered in way you would not perhaps want as a constituency MHK.

‘I don’t think anybody would wish that the system of parliamentary rules could effectively be used tactically by government.’

Ms Lord-Brennan said her motion wasn’t only about the ‘obvious’ applications, and was carefully not to mention them by name.

She said that revoking the rule was the ‘least we can leave the next house’.

Arbory, Castletown and Malew MHK Jason Moorhouse said he’d had two questions about the Mooir Vannin offshore windfarm ruled out of order as sub-judice.

Onchan MHK Julie Edge said: ‘We should not be silenced on things of public importance.’

But Gary Cluit MLC said that while seeking greater accountability, the motion risked severely compromising the legal integrity of the planning system.

The standing orders committee had proposed the rule change on live applications last year, saying it was necessary to avoid the Minister for Environment, Food and Agriculture and the chair of the Planning Committee being put in an ‘impossible position’.

Douglas North MHK John Wannenburgh had tabled a motion for the June sitting that referred to the application for the new visitor centre beside Laxey Wheel which was about to come before the planning committee for a decision.

Douglas Central MHK Chris Thomas had also raised questions and concerns over Manx Development Corporation’s Westmoreland Village development.

Planning committee chairman Rob Callister said there was a clear difference between tabling questions and motions which could seriously influence a planning decision, and giving constituents an honest view of where you stand on a particular issue.

Attorney General Walter Wannenburgh said it was a matter of public interest that ‘the independence of decision-makers is protected.’

DEFA Minister Clare Barber said the current arrangements protect applicants and objectors equally, as well as protecting decision makers, who she said must approach each case with an open mind, and public confidence that decisions are made through ‘proper statutory process rather than through political pressure or parliamentary intervention’.

She said it struck the ‘correct balance between democratic scrutiny and fair decision making’.

The motion failed to carry by five votes to 16 in the House of Keys and 0 to nine in the Legislative Council.