Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Redwood and Roberta Blackman-Woods

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

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I will speak to new clause 9, tabled by the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), because I have added my name to it. It would require the demolition or change of use of pubs to be subject to planning permission. That seems very sensible. It is something that I feel very strongly about. As a shadow Minister, I was at the forefront of the fight against the changes to permitted development rights that the Government started to force through two years ago. I have spoken on pubs and permitted development many times. It is very important, as a pub can often be a real central point for a local community, and so it is right that local residents are given the chance to have their say over what happens to it.

Although pubs can be protected if they are designated an asset of community value, the process for that can be very cumbersome. I believe it is much more appropriate to return the decision on whether a pub can be demolished or converted to the local community, where it belongs, rather than dealing with it through permitted development.

I will move straight on to—

[John Redwood]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not, as I am very short of time. I might a bit later, once I have made a bit of progress.

I also want to speak to new clause 11, on the need for the viability assessments to be transparent to the public. Labour has consistently raised this issue, and we continue to believe it is of huge importance. If the public are to accept development in their area, they have to be absolutely certain that viability arrangements for site—in particular, safety integrity level requirements and section 106 requirements—are all that they should be.

As things stand, a viability assessment lays bare to council officers the economics of a project, providing detailed financial evidence for a developer’s claim that a particular scheme would not be viable without reducing the number of affordable homes. The problem is that the assessments are not available for public scrutiny. Labour has commented that despite planning practice guidance encouraging transparency, developers may opt not to disclose their viability assessments to the public on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. It is widely accepted that that is sometimes done so that they can negotiate down their section 106 obligations without public scrutiny. As a consequence, affordable housing may be reduced and the quality of the built environment may suffer. We need a uniform approach to transparency, across the country—I am sure the Minister supports that—so that developers know that they will be open to public scrutiny wherever they decide to operate.

I move on to amendment 14. This Bill is the Government’s sixth measure on the planning system in six years. I hope that the current Minister will not continue what we saw in the past, namely the Government blaming the planning system, or various elements of it, for their failure to build enough homes. On this occasion, pre-commencement planning conditions are in the firing line. But as the Minister well knows from our time in Committee, there is a distinct lack of evidence that pre-commencement planning conditions slow up development. In fact, we heard a lot of evidence that they often make a development acceptable for a local community.

Pre-commencement conditions are also advantageous for a number of different stakeholders in the house building industry. They have certain advantages to developers, who may not be in a position to finalise details for a scheme but wish to secure planning permission as soon as possible. They have advantages for local authorities, because councils may, in practice, have limited legal ability to enforce conditions once a scheme is under way. Conditions are useful to the development industry in general, because they make it possible to permit schemes that might otherwise have to be refused.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. My question goes back to her first amendment on pubs. Does she not accept that there are some cases in which no one can run a commercial pub, and no one wants to? In such cases, surely, action has to be taken.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

We are not against a change of use for a pub; we are against the fact that that change goes through permitted development, taking away local people’s right to have a say over what happens to the pub. The new clause is designed to remove those changes from permitted development and put them back into the planning system, which is exactly where they should be.