Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

I have to admit that I did not expect to be stirred by the statements of the shadow Secretary of State, but her remarks about clause 7 would strike anyone who has been engaged with the planning system over the past many years as quite extraordinary. Pre-commencement conditions imposed by local authorities are a major cause of delay and also distract the officials who she complained were underfunded. One reason why they are over-occupied is that they are too preoccupied issuing absurd pre-commencement conditions that are not properly enforced and lead to massive delays in the process. I warmly welcome clause 7, and hope that the regulations introduced by the Secretary of State will be extremely strong on that issue and will be accompanied by measures to enable us to do in parallel what is currently done in sequence. It takes about two years on average from the time of the first application to the actual completion of homes. Other countries manage that in a year or less, and we could too if processes that are currently done repetitively and in sequence were done in parallel and singly. I hope that we will see those regulations as the Bill proceeds.

Those of us who have been involved with neighbourhood planning since the Conservatives first introduced the proposals—amazingly, nine years ago—are conscious of its huge success. We were told at the beginning that it would be a nimby’s charter, as the Secretary of State rightly mentioned. We were told by others that it would never grip the nation and that there would not really be any neighbourhood plans, but we find that they have been introduced in some 2,000 places. Judging by my constituency, that is the beginning of a tidal wave: more than half the villages of West Dorset intend to engage in neighbourhood planning, and that is increasingly the case for the towns as well. There is no doubt, as the Secretary of State rightly said, that the measure is far from being a nimby’s charter, but as communities engage in neighbourhood planning they wrestle with two conflicting issues: their desire to preserve the look and feel of the places in which they live, which is a reasonable human desire; and the desire that their children and grandchildren should be able to find a home in the locality. I do not know whether the Secretary of State has experienced this, but people have come to my constituency surgery in tears because they could not get a foot on the housing ladder. I cannot remember another subject that has provoked that kind of emotional intensity. For families who have grown up, in some cases over hundreds of years, in small villages where they simply have not been able to build, this is liberation. It has been brought about by neighbourhood planning, because the community feels that it can control the shape and character of what is built so that it is appropriate to the location. That is not something that can be judged from miles away: it is judged on the spot by the locals, and it is a huge success. I therefore warmly welcome clauses 1, 2 and 5, which are the guts of the Bill.

I want to make a few observations about things that I hope can be developed in Committee and on Report. Clause 5 deals with assistance for neighbourhood plans. I had hoped that it would be a little stronger and meatier. It simply requires local authorities to produce an explanation of what they will do to support neighbourhood planning. That is fine—there is nothing wrong with that at all—but I know local authorities, and I suspect that the Department does too, that will write any number of plans and do absolutely nothing. What is needed is the ability for neighbourhoods—in some cases, hard-pressed neighbourhoods that do not have much money; in other cases, neighbourhoods that are small parishes that do not have much money—to get on with the job of neighbourhood planning. I do not think that anyone can expect the public purse to meet those costs, so we need to examine the proposal introduced by the National Association of Local Councils for more of the community infrastructure levy to be devoted to neighbourhood plans, at least when they introduce local development orders, which are extremely effective. We should also look at the possibility of a loan arrangement, in which money from the community infrastructure levy for a neighbourhood plan is used to repay or defray the costs of engaging in the exercise.

It is not a simple exercise. In most neighbourhoods that I have visited up and down the country, and in my own constituency, hundreds of people get involved and it is quite a management exercise. Neighbourhoods can only do it if they employ one or two people who can put the vision up on the board, explain what is proposed, and go through the detailed process—the examination, the referendum and so on—which requires up-front funding. I hope that that can be looked at.

Finally, clauses 1 and 2 are long overdue. In retrospect, we should have introduced them right at the beginning, in the 2010 legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and I were both involved in that, and it is great to see weight being given to post-examination, as in clause 1, and it is absolutely right that post-referendum neighbourhood plans should go into local development plans even if the local authority does not, for one reason or another, complete the task of introducing them. That is an excellent provision in clause 2. However, my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) made a point that is highly relevant. As the Secretary of State said, there are too many local authorities that have not yet introduced new-style local development plans. Unless the neighbourhood plan is couched in terms of a new-style local development plan with a proper strategic grip it is impossible to formulate the right kind of neighbourhood plan, which must conform to the strategic considerations of the local development plan. In some cases, I fear, local authorities have discovered that they can stymie the ability of neighbourhoods to produce neighbourhood plans simply by being recalcitrant about producing new-style development plans.

Given that, in clause 7, the Secretary of State is rightly taking powers to make regulations relating to pre-commencement conditions, I think he should at least consider the possibility of taking further powers to force local authorities to produce new-style local development plans, or else simply to allow a neighbourhood plan to stand in as the development plan for that neighbourhood, sui generis. Either would do, but I think that something must be done to address the problem raised by my hon. Friend.

Having said that, I will end by saying that the Bill is a progressive piece of legislation which should be welcomed throughout the House and throughout the country, because it may help our children and grandchildren to have the homes that they need.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)]

This has been an excellent debate, with contributions from 18 colleagues on the Government Benches. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) got to the heart of the matter: the interaction between neighbourhood plans and local plans, and particularly the issue of the five-year land supply. We will want to return to that issue as the Bill goes through Parliament.

We should be honest that there is a tension here. On the one hand, clearly we cannot expect our constituents to put a huge amount of work into neighbourhood plans if they do not hold weight in certain situations. On the other hand, if there is a local authority that either does not have a plan, or that has a wholly deficient plan that does not meet housing need in its area, any Member of this House who cares as passionately as we do about building the homes this country needs cannot allow such a situation to persist for years and years. That is a difficult issue, and I think that the suggestion of a mix of carrots and sticks is probably the right way to address it.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

Does my hon. Friend think that there is at least a potential for the NPPF to be used as the reference point under those circumstances?

[Gavin Barwell]

I certainly do, and I think that there are ways we could look at addressing the issue, either through the Bill or through policy changes. I am very conscious of what the problem is, and I am sure that we can work together to find a solution as the Bill goes through.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers) spoke passionately about the green spaces in her constituency. She also sought reassurance on pre-commencement conditions, which I can provide. The consultation paper states:

“This measure will not restrict the ability of local planning authority to propose pre-commencement conditions that may be necessary—for example, conditions in relation to archaeological investigations or wildlife surveys.”

So there is protection there.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) spoke with his customary passion about the importance of custom build. My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) asked about support for groups producing neighbourhood plans. We have made £22.5 million available between 2015 and 2018. I can reassure him that that money will go directly to the groups doing the relevant work.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) said that the view of his constituents was, “Enough housing, infrastructure required.” I half agree with them; it is absolutely right that we must get a much better linkage between the provision of infrastructure in return for taking more housing, but I cannot agree that we have enough housing in this country. We need more housing, but the infrastructure must go with it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), who is such a fantastic advocate for his constituency, spoke with passion about the difficulties it is facing. It is certainly the case that neighbourhood plans must be consistent with the relevant local plan, but he tested the issues in relation to the green belt. If he will forgive me, I cannot talk about the particular plan, because it may well cross my desk at some point, but if I can talk in the generality, we would expect inspectors to test the figure for objectively assessed need and to test whether the circumstances in which an authority seeks to change green-belt boundaries meet the test in the NPPF, which is that they should be exceptional circumstances.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I am not proposing a moratorium, because I think it is essential that we build houses in this country and, as I have said, neighbourhood planning has produced more housing than was expected.

There is a real danger that if we undermine public support for neighbourhood planning we will undermine the principles of localism and will not get people to participate in neighbourhood planning in future. As I have seen in my constituency, neighbourhood planning, about which people were slightly cynical in the first place but became enthusiastic, is now being described in a very detrimental way, and some communities are saying that they will not go ahead with neighbourhood plans.

[Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

I very much agree with my right hon. Friend, as he knows, and he is making an impeccable defence of the position, but may I urge him to correct one tiny point? It was never envisaged in the first place that there would be a sequence that involved a neighbourhood plan first and a local plan second. It was, on the contrary, envisaged that all local authorities would proceed immediately towards the new-style local plans. It is a gross dereliction of duty on the part of those that have not thus proceeded. He is therefore right, and my hon. Friend the Minister is right, to press forward with new-style local plans everywhere without delay.

[Nick Herbert]

Yes, I agree with my right hon. Friend. The authorities should come forward with the plans. It is also true, though, that sometimes the plans have not come forward, as in mid-Sussex and in Arun, because they have been sent back by the inspector, and the inspector, in causing delay, has allowed a situation where the housing number increases. That then puts at risk all the areas that created neighbourhood plans with an allocation that they thought was accurate according to the original assessment in the draft plan, but now is not so. It is not just the fault of local authorities that plans have been delayed, and it is undesirable that we have a situation where the cart has come before the horse.

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[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend puts the argument eloquently. That is exactly what my constituents feel. The west midlands has less green-belt land than many parts of the country, which is another reason why there should have been a much more holistic and imaginative approach, rather than this appalling scheme.

Amendments 28 and 29 offer the Government a chance to show good faith with regard to our 2015 election manifesto. I do not propose to trouble the House by pressing them to a Division, but I warn the Government that if they do not accept the principle behind what I am saying, if not the amendments, not only will they have great difficulty on house building, because they will not be trusted on the green belt, but I have no doubt that the other place, which has a strong history of looking at these matters, will oblige this House to think again.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I rise with three purposes, the first of which is to support my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), whose new clauses I have put my name to. The purport of what he said is clearly right. Those of us who were in on the birth of neighbourhood planning and believe in it are troubled by things that have happened more recently, among which are those that he described. Clearly some remedy is needed.

The only thing that I want to add to what my right hon. Friend said so clearly and well is that the written ministerial statement that we have now seen is an admirable way to deal with those issues. Clearly we will want to ensure that the statement is observed in the observance and not in the breach.

[Gavin Barwell]

It may help the House and my right hon. Friend if I let him know that I have written today to the chief executive of the Planning Inspectorate and to chief planning officers across the country to draw their attention to the guidance.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am delighted to hear that. I wish I could be absolutely confident that the inspectorate will always listen to the guidance it receives from Ministers, but I hope that it will on this occasion. If it does, I believe that the written ministerial statement will do the trick that we were trying to perform with the new clauses. If it does not, I am sure the Minister will come back with further evolutions of planning policy, of which, effectively, the written ministerial statement is a part.

Secondly, I want to refer briefly to the powerful speech made by the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) on new clause 1, which relates to clusters. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), I usually do disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), amiable and enthusiastic though he is, and this is one of the many occasions on which I disagree with him profoundly. It is a very sad spectacle to see our fellow citizens—I have watched them do this—moving from payday lending shops directly into betting places. Nothing could be more deleterious to the things that this Government hold dear and that my party has fought for over many years—since the days when my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) first brought out “Breakdown Britain” and “Breakthrough Britain” to try to restore the stability of family life and workfulness in households that suffer all too often from a desperate effort, as part of a chaotic lifestyle, to improve their lot through betting, which is a snare and a delusion.

It is extremely reprehensible that there has been a focus on building payday lending and betting shops right by each other. It is also extremely reprehensible that betting shops have been built in the poorest areas. If they were built in the middle of the richest areas of our cities, one would object to them much less, because people there can afford to bet. I am therefore very much on the side of the hon. Member for Hyndburn and those, including hon. Friends of mine, who have signed his new clause to try to ensure that the Government come forward with measures to limit such clustering. The reason I shall not join him in the Lobby this afternoon is solely that the new clause would require the Government to do so before going forward with the rest of the Bill, and I cannot accept that. I hope that Ministers will respond by taking forward the spirit of the new clause without that caveat.

[Graham Jones]

I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s generous comments. The Government are taking forward licensing, but this is probably the last chance to deal with the planning element, which is not part of the Government’s review—those are two separate entities. I wondered whether that was the point he was raising.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I do not think this is the last chance anybody will have to reflect on the planning element, partly because the Bill will be considered in another place and partly because history shows that there is roughly one planning Bill a Session. As we can never get these things right, there is a process of continuous revision. It is also partly because I hope that, as part of the licensing review, the Government will look at the issue of clustering—it might be possible to approach it in that way—and partly because it is open to the Minister to produce the kind of guidance that the new clause seeks without turning that into a precondition for moving forward with the rest of the Bill.

[Gavin Barwell]

indicated assent.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I see the Minister nodding and hope that, apart from my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, we can move by consensus in that direction.

The third reason—the main reason—why I rose was to speak to new clause 5, which I tabled. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me and talking through the proposition. I tabled the new clause in the hope not that it would be accepted immediately, but that it would induce the Department to bring forward an array of policies—I doubt it can be just one—to solve a particular problem. The new clause would help to solve it in a particular way, and I hope that the measure might come back in some form as a Government amendment in the other place.

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[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I am listening intently to the excellent speech of my right hon. Friend and neighbour. Does he agree that the planning process is often not clear, especially regarding the points that he mentions? In my area—the Purbeck District Council area—people have a lot of different views about how many houses there should be. Two numbers have been suggested, but we cannot find anyone who can agree on a number without fear of going to the planning inspector. The lack of clarity, or the lack of guidelines or of regulation—I do not know what it is the lack of—leads to chaos, anger and confusion.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My hon. Friend illustrates very well the point I am trying to make. There is actually perfect clarity on that subject in the local plan that his local authority and mine have jointly drawn up, but an expert is needed to interpret it for the neighbourhood. We cannot expect the parish council to know the answers to the questions, and if it asks inexpert people, it will get conflicting answers—very possibly more than two wrong answers if it consults more than two inexpert experts. A certain amount of money is required so that the parish council can employ a genuine expert who can give it good, clear answers to questions. As I have said, a second person is also needed—quite a different sort of person who can imagine for the neighbourhood what things could look like. By putting those together, we can overcome the obstacles to neighbourhood planning.

Unfortunately, those people do not come for free; they have to be paid for. Over the years, the Department has rightly produced funds to enable parish and town councils and neighbourhood forums to employ people, but unfortunately the funds were based on the presumption, which is now mercifully falsified, that neighbourhood planning would be slow to take off, and that very few plans would be produced at any given moment.

I am delighted that the number of neighbourhood plans is very great, and I hope it will be much greater—I hope that they become the norm and that tens of thousands arise in our country in the coming years. However, I very much doubt that the Chancellor of Exchequer, who faces one of the most difficult fiscal situations in our history, will come up with the funds required to meet that need, given the other priorities he faces. New clause 5 would find a solution to that problem and provide the money to employ experts on behalf of neighbourhood planners in parish and town councils. It would do so by using an existing pool of funds, as there is already a provision to share the community infrastructure levy that arises from each house built. Under the law, 25% is due to the parish or town council in the area where the neighbourhood plan is drawn up.

One problem is that the CIL money comes in after the houses are built, whereas the money is needed before—it is needed even before the neighbourhood plan is in place so that experts can be employed to help its production. The question is how we advance those funds. The new clause suggests that we could, through the Bill, put beyond doubt a local planning authority’s lawful ability to advance sums that would accrue to the neighbourhood when the neighbourhood plan is up and running and the houses are built for the purpose of employing experts to assist in the production of the neighbourhood plan. In that way, the houses could be built and the money could come in from the community infrastructure levy, meaning that the local planning authority could be repaid.

Despite the helpful way in which the Minister has engaged in the discussion, I do not say that the mechanics of the proposal are perfect. I hope he is willing to look at it in detail as part of a range of options for solving the problem to which I allude. I hope that, when the matter is considered in the other place, the Government will come forward with their own vastly superior, rock-solid measure to solve the problem. Otherwise, neighbourhood planning could be stymied not just by the problems that my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs cited, but by an inability to pay for the expertise required.

[Rob Marris]

I know you have kindly expressed an interest in my occupational history previously, Mr Speaker. At one point very briefly many years ago, I practised planning law. I remember two things about it. First, it is incredibly technical. Secondly, as adverted to by the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), it seems to change. Like criminal law, we seem to have an annual Bill on planning or matters relating thereto before Parliament. This year we have had a bumper year and two Bills, one of which is now the Housing and Planning Act 2016.

I hope we can have a brief discussion at least on amendments 24 and 25, which are part of this group, and which urge planners to take into account the needs of older people and people with disabilities. That is important anyway in terms of equalities, but it is relevant to planning matters when we have a changing population. The population is getting older. With that, but not just because of it, it also has a higher rate of disabilities, some of which are susceptible to being accommodated, in both senses of the word, within the planning system.

I cannot resist making some brief remarks about the speech of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). I remember, as he might or might not, that before 1974, when I was a lad, Sutton Coldfield was not part of Birmingham. It was subsumed within Birmingham—against its wishes, I suspect, but I was not that old, so I do not recall—in 1974 and now has the town council. I was not clear—I might have nodded during his speech when he referred to the 6,000 houses—whether Sutton Coldfield has a local neighbourhood plan. He rightly referred to the concerns of Sutton Coldfield residents—concerns shared by residents elsewhere, I am sure, including in my natal city, Wolverhampton, which I represent and where I live—that there should be sufficient housing for coming generations.

The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned the 45,000 houses and Wolverhampton garden city. Wolverhampton is already a garden city, of course, having as it does more trees than almost any city in Europe, relative to its size, but we welcome more gardens and more people, and we are trying to build. As he might know, however, and as I know from visiting relatives in Sutton Coldfield, it is an awfully long journey, temporally, from Wolverhampton to Sutton Coldfield, so it cannot be a Sutton Coldfield overspill. On a more serious note, however, I find it strange that he berates Birmingham City Council for its spending on transport infrastructure, when Governments of which he was a member and which he continues to support—broadly—have cut its total income in the last six years by over 40%. He is right that there are transport infrastructure problems in the urban west midlands and within the city of Birmingham, as administratively constituted, including in Sutton Coldfield, but some of those problems—not all of them, but some of them—come from the huge Government cuts that he broadly supported.

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[Philip Davies]

It is a shame that the hon. Gentleman has become so detached from his roots, along with the rest of his party. Perhaps Labour would not be in such a mess if it stuck a bit more closely to its working-class roots.

I was astonished to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) talk about all those people in West Dorset going from payday loan companies into betting shops. It is a while since I have been in West Dorset, but it has clearly changed an awful lot since the last time I was there.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My hon. Friend misunderstood me. My point was that I do not have this problem in leafy West Dorset: the places I have seen people go directly from payday lenders into betting shops are in inner-city areas, where there are people far harder pressed than most, though not all, of my constituents. That is the worry.

[Philip Davies]

I will be interested to find out about my right hon. Friend’s habit of spending lots of time in inner-city areas where he watches people’s activities going between betting shops and payday lending companies, but we can discuss that later.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Philip Davies]

No, I will not.

I did not come into Parliament to ban people from doing all the things that I do not happen to like myself. I think that our duty in this House is to try to protect people’s freedoms, even the freedom to do things that we do not choose to do ourselves. Unfortunately, there are lots of people in this House who do nothing other than try to ban people from doing all the things that they personally do not happen to like themselves. Many people in this House do not like gambling and betting, and want to stop anyone else doing it.

As I made clear in an intervention, there are far more pubs in poorer communities, per square mile, than betting shops. How many Members of this House want to restrict the number of pubs so that poor working-class people do not waste their money down at the pub? None, or hardly any. Why? Because MPs like a drink themselves, and they do not want to ban anybody from doing anything that they happen to like themselves. There are far more takeaway food outlets per square mile in poor working-class areas than there are betting shops. How many Members want to ban all those takeaways? None. Why? Look at everyone—we all like a good takeaway ourselves, and do not want to do ourselves out of it. This is all about people in this House telling other people what they should and should not be doing in a rather patronising way that does not give a very good image of this place. They do not want to stop people doing things that they themselves like doing—only the things that they do not happen to like.

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[Mike Wood]

I am afraid that I must continue.

Unfortunately, the new clause smacks a little of, “Something needs to be done. This is something, so it must be done.” What we really need is thriving pubs, but the new clause would do little to support them. Removing permitted development rights for change of use would put many more pubs at risk because those rights are a genuine asset that pubs can borrow against. They have a real value and mean not only that pubs can invest in development, but that they have a little more leeway when times are tough, knowing that should they fail they will still have value because a change of use is available under permitted development. Although the mind is drawn more immediately to the 21 pubs a week that close than to the many more that are just about managing to stay open, the latter would be hit the hardest by the removal of permitted development rights.

We have heard a number of examples of successful pubs being converted into supermarkets, and addressing that is the purpose of the new clause. However, where there are successful pubs at the heart of our communities, they can already be added to the register of assets of community value so that permitted development rights are suspended, or councils can use article 4 directions to suspend those rights. The new clause is therefore not necessary, which is why I shall vote against it this evening.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I can be brief: I hope the Minister will resist amendment 14 entirely; clause 12 is an excellent clause.

[Gavin Barwell]

I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) on one of the finest speeches I have heard in this Chamber.

First, I will briefly address Government amendment 20. This minor technical amendment clarifies the fact that the Secretary of State is able to require only certain kinds of application or notification to be placed on a planning register.

In the short time available, I will do as much justice as I can to the new clauses and amendments that have been spoken to. On new clause 9, I start by saying to the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) that I would be very happy to sit down with him and other colleagues who feel strongly about the issue. I do not think that we have had the time tonight to air the issues involved properly, but I will briefly say two things to him so that he at least knows where I start from.

First, the hon. Gentleman will know that the current Government, and the coalition Government whom he supported, have done a lot to try to help our pub industry. There is the community pub business support programme, which is providing more than £3.5 million of funding for people to buy their local pub. There is the community right to bid, and people can list their local as an asset of community value, with more than 1,280 pubs listed to date. There has been the scrapping of the beer duty escalator—appropriately, my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) is in his place as the Whip on the Government Front Bench. Beer duty was frozen in the 2016 Budget, having been reduced in each of the three preceding Budgets.

The Government’s starting point on the detail of the new clause—I am happy to discuss it with the hon. Gentleman—is that, from 6 April 2015, permitted development rights for the change of use or demolition of a pub were removed for those pubs that a community has demonstrated it values by nominating them as assets of community value. It is not only the Government who believe that that strikes the right balance. A briefing note from the British Beer and Pub Association makes the point that removing permitted development would not only stop the conversion of pubs to supermarkets and whatever else we would want to stop, but might prevent pubs from doing improvement works to their premises, which we clearly would not want.