Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Porter of Spalding
Lord Porter of Spalding
You should never have me write anything, because you will not be able to read it.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank noble Lords for their comments and contributions. To respond to the noble Lord, I can confirm absolutely, for the avoidance of doubt, that planning authorities will not be able to charge one fee and private providers another. We do not intend to create two tiers within the planning system—it would be most undemocratic and unfair, generally.
The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, asked about the £450 million disparity that the LGA found between costs and fees. I need to make the point that there will be differences between the efficiency and effectiveness of local authorities in delivering planning services. Some show that performance can be improved and costs reduced, and more should follow their lead. Authorities have done a phenomenal job in sharing services for many of their functions but have not moved quickly enough in doing so for planning services. I said that to the noble Baroness either earlier today or on Monday—the days have merged into one.
Amendment 116BA, as I said on a previous amendment, allows local authorities to go beyond cost recovery. We are absolutely clear that these services and other discretionary services should not exceed the cost of providing the service. I have been through the argument previously that what cost recovery means in practice, in terms of fee levels, varies from local authority to local authority. We want a highly efficient service, and there are real challenges up-front in doing this for some local authorities, but we want better-performing planning departments for better performance in terms of planning outcomes. I talked earlier about our proposals for tackling resource pressures in planning departments. I hope that noble Lords will not mind that I do not go through these again, and that with those words the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Local Government Finance
Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Porter of Spalding
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I wish that the noble Lord had been in the House either last week or the week before, when we were talking about the floods and some of the infrastructure replacement requirements. The noble Lord makes the point that some of the infrastructure repairs in Cumbria are going to be far greater than we had thought, and I said to noble Lords at the time that if there were infrastructure repairs that they thought had been either overlooked or not identified yet, they should get in touch with me and I would speak to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport. If the noble Lord thinks that the funding assumptions are out of kilter, I ask him to let me know. I look forward to having another conversation with him in due course about that and, perhaps, devolution.
The noble Lord also makes the point that Surrey and so on have had more. I have just been having a look at the figures for poor old Trafford, which has got minus 1.2%, while Manchester has had a £16.8 million increase. We always think we are worst off in our part of the world but Trafford, sitting beside Manchester, has actually done considerably less well. Still, this settlement recognises some of the challenges to those county areas. I hope that the noble Lord will get in touch with me over the flooding issue.
Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)
My Lords, I point noble Lords to my registered interests but more particularly, for the purpose of this, to the fact that I am chairman of the cross-party Local Government Association, in which the Conservatives are only 40% of the total voting weight. I need to make it clear that I am a Conservative but am chairman of a cross-party organisation, and our organisation broadly welcomes today’s announcement.
We all knew that the local government settlement was going to be tough, no matter which of the two main parties won the election. We knew before Christmas that it was going to be tougher than we had expected for some councils, and I am pleased that the Government have actually listened to the remarks that we made in the consultation period. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on the opposite side of the House, mentioned Lincolnshire and its complaints about the way that the LGA handled its negotiations. Does the Minister think that the way we handled it had something to do with the fact that the Government have listened and found over £400 million of new money to alleviate some of the pressures that we have highlighted?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My noble friend is absolutely right. We have had an extremely constructive process, at the end of which £400 million more has been found to address some of the transitional pressures that local authorities say they have faced, and I pay particular tribute to my noble friend Lord Porter for the part that he has played in it.