Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, the number of speakers in this debate reflects just how seriously this Chamber is taking the issue of housebuilding and infrastructure. To start with, I will refer to Chapter 2 of Part 2 of the Bill on spatial development strategies. For those of us who have been involved in local government for a while, this is reminiscent of the RDA era. New Part 1A of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, introduced in Chapter 2 of the Bill, lists what a strategic planning authority means, but there is no mention of the national parks. That seems extraordinary, as they are vital to ensuring that strategic planning in their areas is done with empathy and sensitivity to individual environments.

The contribution that access to the countryside makes to health and well-being is well documented; this is a vital role for the national parks. They assist in the provision of affordable homes and have many permissions for housing granted. Currently, in the South Downs National Park, there are over 2,000 homes with permitted permission, of which 500 are affordable homes, but all are unbuilt.

In addition, national park authorities are not mentioned as being part of strategic planning boards. Given their role in mineral extraction and waste disposal, they should surely be present round the table and fully involved. Can the Minister say whether this omission is an oversight or deliberate; and, if so, why?

On the role of the community land trust organisations, there are currently 290 CLTs in England which own 2,100 assets, including 1,953 affordable homes. Many CLTs provide housing in AONBs and national parks, where smaller-scale affordable housing development is essential. Almost half the rural affordable housing projects in the pipeline in Devon involve CLTs. This was a result of the community housing federation’s work and shows the potential and appetite among communities to increase housing supply, if they are confident that it will result in homes that meet local needs. It is not helpful that the Government have recently ended funding for neighbourhood planning support. The Government have also not reinstated any grant funding for community-led housing. The Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, has been very positive in writing about CLH but the Government have actually made it harder for communities to play this role.

The pipeline of new projects in the south-west has almost completely dried up, which is very disappointing indeed. Projects that were led by communities are set to be replaced by imposed government diktat. Is this really what the Minister wants?

I turn now to the lack of stopping places and permanent sites for Gypsies and Travellers, which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester raised. Every local authority should provide transit and permanent sites, alongside other traditional stopping places, thus dramatically reducing the number forced to stop on what the law now classes as illegal encampments. Since the statutory duty to provide sites was repealed in 1994, barely any local authority sites have been built. Private provision has increased and, while this is welcome, it is not accessible for many. In planning for homes, it is crucial to acknowledge and include provision for all our communities. Local authority-managed sites remain vital for a culturally pertinent way of living.

Long-standing planning failures have created a severe shortage of safe and suitable sites. Children need to be considered, and their access to education and health services is almost non-existent if they are continually moved on. Treating them as an underclass reinforces their marginalisation from the rest of society.

Lastly, my first Bill, which has already been referred to, was the Housing and Planning Bill 2016—there were lots of warm words about delivery. I urge the Government not to follow the example of the previous Administration. Housing is not an also-ran. It is key to economic and personal well-being. The Housing Minister must be totally committed to delivering the government goals and stay in post for at least the length of the parliamentary Session; churn will not deliver. Being the Housing Minister should not be a stepping stone to another role. It is an essential part of delivery and needs consistency, not a yearly change of personnel.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

The point of principle is that all residents in park homes and all those living in houseboats share a need for security and for constraints on increases to the charges they must pay, charges that are akin to rental payments. In other words, they should be treated, as nearly as possible, like all the other renters whose rights are enhanced by this Bill. These amendments take this forward, and I support them.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for not being present during Second Reading or the preceding Committee sittings due to a health issue. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA.

I fully support this group of amendments and wish to speak in particular to Amendment 275A, to which I would have added my name if I had been more alert to the changes at the time. I am delighted to see Amendments 206A, 262 and 271, which cover the conditions of those living in boats. The noble Lord, Lord Cashman, has laid out the arguments for these amendments extremely eloquently.

Over the years, I have had several meetings with the National Bargee Travellers Association. These are a group of people within our community who have had a difficult time, as they have no permanent moorings. Some find they are constantly moving in order to comply with mooring conditions. This can be extremely disruptive, especially for those who have school-aged children or health appointments to keep. As my noble friend Lady Miller has said, this issue has been running for a very long time. It really is time that equality was brought to the issue for all those living on a boat as their home. There should be no difference between the way different houseboat dwellers are treated. Boat dwellers should have the same protection as those living on dry land: a safe and secure home.

The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has set out the case for Amendments 206B and 275A extremely well. It is essential that all the facilities on site, including amenity blocks, are in a good state of repair and fit for use. Residents living on Gypsy and Traveller sites often experience poor living conditions, with inadequate mechanisms in place to hold landlords to account, especially on the maintenance of essential living facilities. The Renters’ Rights Bill presents a vital opportunity to address this, and we should grasp it.

Most significantly, the RRB abolishes assured shorthold tenancies and fixed-term tenancies. It also introduces an extensive range of further measures designed to enhance the rights of tenants, including applying the decent homes standard to the private rented sector and extending Awaab’s law to private rented sector tenancies. The Office for National Statistics conducted research in 2022 with residents living on private and local authority sites, who reported issues such as fly-tipping, vermin infestation, proximity to environmental hazards, dampness and leaks, and the general need for repair. This could be the environment which some children would consider their playground.

The current changes will not apply to buildings comprising essential living facilities, nor the caravans and mobile homes situated on a pitch on a Gypsy or Traveller caravan site. Together with the housing health and safety rating system contained in Part 1 of the Housing Act 2004, these measures are important means of policing housing standards. There is no justification for not applying these regimes to the buildings that Gypsy and Traveller households use as part of their home or mobile home when it is rented from a landlord.

The previous speakers have supported this group of amendments and I agree wholeheartedly with their comments. The protections afforded to tenants in bricks- and-mortar buildings must be extended to those whose homes are in caravans and mobile homes, as well as to the amenity buildings on the sites of these homes. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome this group of amendments as a point of discussion and commend the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, on his introduction of it. As somebody who has spent 50 years in the property business, I am absolutely unsurprised that the noble Lord may have received a less than enthusiastic welcome from members of the Bill team, because his amendment raises a fundamental principle around what we are actually looking at: that is, whether we are looking at the use of land or the use of a water body, which we used to refer to as “land covered by water”.

It seems to me that the principles relating to those two are rather different. A fixed pitch for a caravan is fundamentally different in qualitative and quantitative terms from a mooring, which is, in essence, a connection to the shore but with the vessel fundamentally sitting over water. It is not just houseboats that are involved here. This is also about moorings in marinas, where the water body may be a tidal area, which one would assume might be in the possession of the Crown.

A fundamental difference here is that, where you have a house as a piece of real estate—in other words, land with bricks and mortar—it is fundamentally fixed and has a degree of permanence in law, unlike something that can be sailed away. To take another analogy, if somebody wishes to have a motor home and park it permanently at one location, does the same apply? Because that could be driven away; it is not in the nature of a permanent feature.

I do not have any particular problems with the provisions of this Bill applying more widely, if that policy decision is made here, but I do see a problem in terms of its application. This gets a little more complicated when you consider that the item occupied for this particular purpose may be something that somebody rents as an entirety—in other words, a boat and a piece of mooring and the water in which it floats—or may be something quite different, in terms of its nature, because the person who occupies the thing may actually own the boat and bring it there.

On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, Awaab’s law might apply to the former instance, where the boat and the pitch are a complete package, rented as one element. However, it would not apply to an occupier of their own houseboat. However leaky the bucket may be, it is their responsibility and not the responsibility of the person from whom they are renting the mooring.

So I can see that there are a number of different ways in which this rather difficult cake gets cut, and I rise to clarify some of the points as a matter of land law rather than to pass judgment on whether, as a matter of policy, there should be the protections afforded under this Bill in whole or in part.

Gypsy and Traveller Communities: Accommodation

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure the provision of adequate and culturally appropriate accommodation for Gypsy and Traveller communities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, as part of the recent consultation on proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework, we set out changes to how we plan for the homes we need, including accommodation for Gypsy and Traveller communities. We are continuing to analyse the consultation responses and we will publish our government response later this year. We will also consider how planning policy for Traveller sites should be set out in future, including as part of wider work on the national planning policy. The Government’s overarching aim is to ensure fair and equal treatment for Travellers in a way that facilitates their traditional way of life while respecting the interests of the settled community.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very positive response. However, I am not sure that it will meet the 2024 recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to create more sites and stopping places. Many sites provided are on busy roads and the outskirts of communities, often some distance from schools. Since 1994, only 30 new sites have been built. Will the Government now legislate for all local authorities to include site provision in their local plans, including bricks and mortar as culturally appropriate accommodation? Gypsy and Traveller children deserve the same rights as children in the settled community.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is of course right that Gypsies and Travellers deserve consideration of their lifestyle and culture in planning. Planning policy makes it clear that local authorities have a responsibility to assess the need for Gypsy and Traveller sites in their area and then plan to meet that need. When considering those applications, decision-makers should consider the existing level of provision, the availability of alternative accommodation and other personal circumstances, which could include the need for culturally appropriate accommodation. When the National Planning Policy Framework comes out, I hope she will see steps towards that.