A poor plan - developed with veep's lead - is subject to ratification (2,8)
I believe the answer is:
on approval
'subject to ratification' is the definition.
'a poor plan developed with veep's lead' is the wordplay.
'developed with' indicates an anagram.
'lead' says to take the initial letters.
The first letter of 'veeps' is 'v'.
'a'+'poor'+'plan'='apoorplan'
'apoorplan' with its letters anagrammed with 'v' makes 'ON APPROVAL'.
'is' is the link.
(Another definition for on approval that I've seen is " Subject to confirmation".)
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