Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Barwell and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Monday 27th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend is right to say that it is not good enough just to get new homes built. They need to be built well and to stand the test of time. Building inspectors check to ensure that building regulation requirements are met, but we are also considering the recommendations in the report of the all-party group on excellence in the built environment.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

At the weekend, we learned that Bovis Homes is to pay £7 million in compensation for poorly built new homes. Will the Minister tell the House what he will do to improve the quality of new homes, including those built by new methods of construction, and to ensure they are built in well-planned communities with appropriate infrastructure? Unfortunately, while the housing White Paper had warm words, it lacked any substance whatsoever on quality and place-making issues.

[Gavin Barwell]

Despite what the hon. Lady says, there has been a very warm reaction to the housing White Paper from right across the housing sector. I have spent the past week travelling around the country and holding meetings with housing professionals, including, interestingly, Labour councillors, who are very keen to get behind the Government’s agenda to build the homes that Governments of both colours, over 30 or 40 years, have failed to build.

draft Housing and Planning Act 2016 (Permission in Principle etc) (Miscellaneous amendments) (england) regulations 2017

Debate between Lord Barwell and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Monday 20th February 2017 General Committees

[Gavin Barwell]

I will do my best to respond to the points raised by the hon. Lady and, I hope, to reassure her so that she feels able to support the regulations.

On the hon. Lady’s point about corrections to the previous Act, I draw a distinction: there are some areas where this new Government have taken a different view—welcomed, in a number of cases, by the official Opposition—from the previous Government and are changing policy. The regulations do not, however, change the principle of the policy at all—they are merely correcting some things that neither the Government nor, to be fair, the official Opposition at the time spotted when the legislation was going through the House. It is usual under Governments of all colours, particularly in complex areas of legislation, to include a clause that allows us to correct such things through the affirmative procedure, rather than our having to take up the House’s time with primary legislation.

Although it is not on the detail of the regulations, I reassure the hon. Lady that it is not at all the case that, in some way, permission in principle is an attempt to get around the planning system. First, the Government have always been quite clear that permission in principle will be used in limited areas. The first is in relation to sites that local authorities choose to list on the new statutory brownfield registers. Again, I would have thought it is a point of agreement across the House that we want to see more development on brownfield land in this country.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I thank the Minister for the points he is making, but I say to him that if the Government had kept Labour’s “brownfield first” policy, we would not have to have a brownfield register or have permission in principle being given to get around the planning system.

[Gavin Barwell]

With respect to the hon. Lady, I am not sure that we managed to avoid building on significant areas of greenfield in this country during the 13 years of the last Labour Government. There is an agreement that we want a “brownfield first” policy, but brownfield registers have been fairly widely welcomed across the sector because they will give developers clear information about brownfield sites that are suitable for development in an area. I hope the hon. Lady is not signalling that the official Opposition do not support brownfield registers, because many Labour councils have been involved in piloting them, and the Government very much welcome those councils’ support for our agenda.

The brownfield registers are important. That is one area in which permission in principle will work. The second is sites that are specifically allocated through a local plan or a neighbourhood plan. That is not in any way getting around the planning system; that is local authorities and communities specifically choosing to allocate sites as suitable for permission in principle. The third area is by application by a developer on small sites only. It is clear that that is about trying to ensure that small and medium-sized developers find it easier to get planning permission for sites that they are able to develop. The hon. Lady will know, from the evidence that the Federation of Master Builders gave to the Neighbourhood Planning Bill’s Public Bill Committee, that the difficulty in acquiring sites is one of the main reasons why our housing market is dominated by a small number of large developers at the moment.

To offer the hon. Lady some further reassurance, when deciding whether to grant permission in principle for a particular application, the local authority must make the decision in accordance with its own development plan, which will include any relevant neighbourhood plans in the area, and in line with the national planning policy framework. Permission in principle is not in any way, shape or form an attempt to get around the planning system. It is about trying to provide greater certainty to small developers to try to do something to change our broken housing market and get more SME firms involved in development.

After my having said that these are technical regulations, the hon. Lady asked the perfectly legitimate question of when the main ones will come. I can provide her with some reassurance on that. Our intention is to lay the secondary legislation to introduce permission in principle through brownfield registers and by application on small sites between spring and summer this year, and then to come back with a further piece of secondary legislation that will introduce permission in principle through development plans—local or neighbourhood—shortly after that. That is the timescale in terms of the substantive regulations. I understand that the hon. Lady will no doubt want to scrutinise those carefully, given the concerns she has expressed and the position the official Opposition have adopted on this.

In terms of transparency, we had quite a long debate about viability assessments in Committee on the Neighbourhood Planning Bill and I would not want to rehearse it again here. I will say that the hon. Lady will now have seen the published review of the community infrastructure levy—CIL—and the knock-on implications for section 106 agreements. I hope that she finds that a convincing piece of work. We made it clear in the White Paper that we will be looking to respond to that on an autumn Budget timescale. That may offer a solution to that problem in a way that I hope will command fairly wide support.

The hon. Lady asked about the revocation powers. A local planning authority can modify or revoke whenever it considers it appropriate, having regard to planning policies—both its own planning policies, as set out in its local plan, and the national planning policy framework. The one caveat is that compensation is payable to the landowner for loss caused by the modification or revocation; however, it can be used consistent with national and local planning policy. The hon. Lady also asked what the term “in the vicinity” means. Like many of these terms, ultimately that is a matter for the courts but I can say that both normal planning permissions and permission in principle would show up on local land searches, to reassure her on that front.

The hon. Lady’s final point was about village greens, which was the area of the regulations that caused her the greatest concern. I absolutely agree with my predecessor’s comments about the importance of this legislation; that is why this Government supported those changes in the Localism Act. I reassure her that the changes we are proposing here are not going to undermine further—if I can phrase it that way—the current position because all these regulations will do is, essentially, apply the same rules in relation to an application for permission in principle as already apply, and have been agreed by this House and the other place, in relation to an application for full planning permission. The Committee may want to ask the question: is this going to lead to lots more areas being excluded from the right to apply to register a village green? The Government believe that is unlikely to be the case, and I will take a moment to explain why. If the Government did not bring forward the new permission in principle route, the majority of sites that are likely to be considered for permission in principle would presumably, at some point, come forward for a normal planning application and would therefore fall within the scope of the existing regulations at that point.

I hope that I have reassured the hon. Lady most importantly, from my point of view, on the principle at stake here: that permission in principle is not an attempt to get around our planning system. Far from it—it is an attempt to try to fix our broken housing market. I hope I have also answered her detailed concerns on some of the specifics of the regulations.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Barwell 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

[Gavin Barwell]

Government new clause 6 deals with the ability to claim compensation for temporary severance when a material detriment claim has been referred to the upper tribunal. This will arise when the acquiring authority has taken possession of the part of a claimant’s land that it wants before the tribunal has determined the claim, and the tribunal then decides that it must take more of the claimant’s land. The tribunal will be able to award compensation for any loss suffered by the claimant as a result of the temporary severance of their land while the matter is being determined.

A provision to ensure that the compensation is claimable is already contained in paragraph 28(5) of schedule 2A to the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 when the acquiring authority is proceeding by notice to treat and notice of entry. The Housing and Planning Act 2016 should have included an equivalent provision in schedule A1 to the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act 1981, but that was not spotted at the time, so new clause 6 fills the gap.

Government amendment 21 is a consequential amendment to the definition of “acquiring authority” in section 172 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 on the power to enter land to survey it in connection with an acquisition proposal. The amendment aligns the definition of “acquiring authority” with that in clause 14, so that the power to enter and survey land can be used in connection with any proposal to take temporary possession of land under that clause. The new definition still works for authorities intending to acquire the land permanently. I commend the amendment to the House.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

New clause 3 calls for a comprehensive review of the entire compulsory purchase order process. There was clear consensus among the witnesses at the Public Bill Committee evidence sessions that the current CPO system is not fit for purpose. It is convoluted and puts people off using it, which in turn has a negative impact on the delivery of development. Colin Cottage of the Compulsory Purchase Association commented:

“The existing system is not helpful for reaching quick solutions. In fact, in many ways it encourages people to be fighting with each other from the outset.”––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 64, Q114.]

He said that ultimately that causes uncertainty and additional cost. Richard Asher of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said:

“I believe, and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has always believed, that codification of the whole of the CPO rules, which go back to 1845 and are highly complex, would be a sensible way forward”.––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 64, Q113.]

He said that he wanted a review of the system as it stands. Labour strongly believes that the legislation should be updated to enable the greater use of CPOs as a tool to drive effective regeneration and development strategies and to work in partnership with developers to ensure that we get the new homes and development that we need.

More than 100 years of conflicting statute and case law makes up the current CPO legislation, so small changes will not have a significant effect. Indeed, in Committee the Minister reflected on the fact that the changes, welcome though they are, would not be a game changer. I therefore ask him why the Government continue to make small changes to the CPO system bit by bit, rather than bringing forward legislation to allow us to review it and make it fit for purpose.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Given the lateness of the hour, even though we have a number of amendments in this group, I will speak only to amendments 7 and 8, and to confirm our support for a few others. Amendment 7 would allow the full recovery of costs by local authorities for assisting with the development of a neighbourhood plan. We know that planning departments are massively under-resourced and that they are hugely important in getting the housing that we so desperately need built. I wholeheartedly agree with the Minister that if we want to build the housing we need, we must make sure that planning departments are adequately resourced. I therefore hope he will bring forward something beyond simply allowing local authorities to charge higher fees to resource planning departments properly.

Amendment 8 requires the Secretary of State to prioritise deprived communities when making available financial assistance to support the development of neighbourhood plans. Again, we discussed this in Committee, and if we are really serious about ensuring that all communities across the country are able to produce neighbourhood plans, deprived communities need to be supported in that endeavour and funded properly to produce such a plan. I wish also to put on the record the fact that we support amendments 24, 25 and 29 and new clauses 7 and 1, the latter having been tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones).

[Gavin Barwell]

In contrast with the first group of amendments, where we had a short debate on technical issues, this group has cut to the heart of our planning system, and I hope the House will bear with me, as I have a large number of amendments to respond to. Of the official Opposition amendments, I will respond only to the ones the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) spoke to, as I know the Opposition are keen for us to get on to the third group.

I start very quickly with four Government amendments. Three minor and technical amendments, 17, 18 and 19, are required to remove unnecessary duplication between clauses 10 and 11. Amendment 22 to clause 40 amends the commencement provision so that it no longer refers to the duplicated Bill in clause 11. If the House will take me at my word on that, I will move on to the more substantive issues. I will take them in the order in which they were raised in the debate.

Speaking to new clause 1, the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones), my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), and my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) spoke movingly about problems caused by the proliferation—my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) begged to differ on that word—or clustering of betting shops in their communities. Their concerns are not just limited to the planning system, but they rightly looked to the planning system to protect their communities.

In responding, I remind the House of important recent changes to the planning system, which specifically require planning applications to be made for additional betting shops or payday loan shops. Before April 2015, under the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order, a new betting shop or payday loan shop could be opened in any premises used for financial or professional services in the A2 use class. In addition, an A3 restaurant, A4 pub and A5 hot food takeaway could all change use to a betting shop or a payday loan shop under permitted development rights without the need for a planning application.

Recognising the concerns that people have expressed about that, the Government changed the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order: betting shops and payday loan shops were made a use class of their own and now require a planning application, allowing proper consideration of the issues that a change of use may raise. As with any planning application, the local planning authority must determine that application in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Those planning authorities that have concerns about the clustering of such uses should therefore ensure that they have an up-to-date plan in place with relevant policies. As with any policy, that plan should be based on evidence and tailored to meet the needs of the local area.

Paragraph 23 of the NPPF is clear—local planning authorities should recognise town centres as the heart of their communities and pursue policies to support their viability and vitality and to promote a mix of uses. Betting shops and payday loan shops are not an issue everywhere. Where the ongoing clustering of them is an issue, and where that has an adverse impact on the character or balance of uses on the high street, planning authorities can ensure that they have policies in place. We have given them the tools they need to manage the issue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate said that this is a local problem that requires local solutions, and the Government agree with that. We do not see the need for national guidance that sets out what every authority should do, partly because the situation is by no means uniform across the country, and partly because there are very different opinions within this House and within local authorities about the right response to these issues. The Government’s view therefore is that this is a matter that is best left to individual local authorities, as they know their circumstances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I was going to come to that issue when I came to my right hon. Friend’s second new clause. Since he has raised it with me directly, I am happy to say that I would expect local authorities to consult their parish and town councils. I have no power to direct them to do so, as he alluded to in his speech, but there should clearly be consultation with large town councils and local communities should be consulted as part of the local plan process. I suspect that part of his frustration with this decision is about the fact that he does not necessarily accept the legitimacy of Birmingham imposing it on Sutton Coldfield and that perhaps speaks to his views about local governance in the area. However, the whole House will have heard his passion for this issue.

I am conscious of the time, Mr Speaker, so let me briefly reassure the House on the Government’s efforts to ensure that we have a policy of brownfield first. We are introducing statutory brownfield registers. Our estate regeneration strategy, which has just been published, is looking at how we can redevelop our estates. Permitted development is about bringing old buildings back into use. There is the release of surplus public land. The £3 billion home building fund is aimed at getting brownfield sites back into use. There are also the £1.2 billion starter home land fund and the changes to the NPPF that we are consulting on to put an even stronger emphasis on brownfield. I just want to reassure the House on that issue.

Let me turn to my right hon. Friend’s second amendment, on the relationship between neighbourhood plans and local plans and on the roles of parish and town councils. He referred to Sutton Coldfield Town Council, which was recently set up under the reforms the Government brought in to allow new town and parish councils to be established. The Government have a lot of sympathy with the argument he is advancing in this amendment. There are already powers in legislation in relation to the statements of community involvement that local authorities have to produce, but I think he has found an issue where we can strengthen the statutory protections. With his leave, and if he were not to press his amendment, I would like to discuss the issue with him and come back in the Lords to see whether we can make the kind of changes he suggests.

Let me turn briefly to new clause 5 from my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), which is about the resourcing of the neighbourhood planning process. The neighbourhood share of the community infrastructure levy was introduced by this Government in 2013—I suspect that he had a hand in that—to give local people a real say over infrastructure priorities in their area. Communities without a neighbourhood plan already benefit from using 15% of CIL receipts. The money is passed directly to parish and town councils, and Government guidance makes it clear that it can be used to develop a neighbourhood plan.

New clause 5 sets out that a local planning authority may make available funds where a parish agrees to forgo some of the CIL levy it expects to get over time. If communities wish to do that, they are already able to do so, because regulation 59A of the CIL regulations allows them to. However, I think that the wider point my right hon. Friend was trying to probe was about the resourcing for neighbourhood planning. We have a budget of £22.5 million for 2015 to 2018. Nearly £10 million of that has been spent so far. Clearly, if we get an acceleration in the number of neighbourhood plans, we will need to find additional resources, and I am happy to discuss further with him how we might go about doing so.

In new clause 2, my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) seeks to encourage developers to comply with existing local and, particularly, neighbourhood plans. At appeal, an award of costs may be made if there has been unreasonable behaviour by a party that has caused another party to incur unnecessary or wasted expenses. It is worth pointing out that Government guidance includes as an example of unreasonable behaviour a development that is clearly not in accordance with the development plan and where no other material considerations indicate that a decision should be made against the development plan. So this ability is already there. An award of costs does not determine the actual amount but states the broad extent of the expense that can be recovered, and the matter then has to be settled between the parties or in the courts.

My hon. Friend’s new clause raises issues that it may be of interest to explore further. We need to think about whether we can do more to ensure that the collective vision of a community as set out in its neighbourhood plan is not regularly overridden. I cannot agree with the part of the new clause that refers to initial applications to the local authority. However, in relation to award of costs in the appeals system, we can look at what more we can do to ensure that only appeals that have a legitimate chance of success go forward to the inspectorate. If she is happy not to press her new clause, I am happy to look further at that matter.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) for her two amendments raising the important issue of homes for older and disabled people. The Government want to see new homes and places that stand the test of time. We therefore want to ensure that buildings and spaces work well for everyone and will adapt to the needs of future generations. Her proposal tackles a very important issue. Older and disabled people have a wide range of housing needs. As she implied, we are already seeking to address that in the NPPF. I fully understand why she wanted to further emphasise the importance of this issue by putting it into primary legislation. We need to guard against attempts to put all national planning policy into primary legislation, but she has alighted on a particularly important issue. Given that we support the spirit of her amendments, if she is happy not to press them, I am minded to accept their thrust and work with her to come back in the Lords with amendments approved by parliamentary counsel that take forward the principle of what she has been trying to achieve. I thank her for her interest in this issue.

I turn finally to the amendments tabled by the official Opposition. I will deal with just the two proposed by the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods). On amendment 7, the Secretary of State and I have been clear that the resourcing of local authority planning departments is an issue very close to our hearts. As I set out in Committee, in the specific case of funding for neighbourhood planning duties, we believe that adequate funding is already available. Planning authorities can claim £5,000 for each of the first five neighbourhood areas they designate and, where there is no parish council, a further £5,000 for each of the first five neighbourhood forums. They can claim an additional £20,000 once they have set the date for a referendum. In addition, where a second referendum must be held, a further £10,000 is available. I know that the House is very interested in second referendums at the moment. I should stress that this relates to areas where there are businesses and local residents; it is not an attempt to rerun the argument. In total, £13 million has been paid out since 2012 to help local planning authorities to meet their responsibilities. We are committed to continuing to review the costs incurred by councils delivering neighbourhood planning as take-up increases, and we will continue to fund them. This should not be conflated with the wider issue of the funding of local planning departments. As the hon. Lady knows, we will include proposals in the White Paper to try to address that issue.

Amendment 8 raises the important issue of neighbourhood planning in deprived communities. As I said in Committee, we recognise the issues that those communities face. Neighbourhood planning groups in these areas can apply for a grant of up to £15,000—£6,000 more than the usual limit—and, in addition, get significant technical support. I am reluctant to put specific spending requirements into primary legislation because we cannot predict the balance of schemes that will come forward, and it could mean that we could not then fund some neighbourhood planning groups in other areas. However, I assure the hon. Lady that we are committed to making sure that deprived communities get the funding they need. This should not just be a policy for wealthy rural areas. We are putting specific effort into encouraging groups in deprived urban areas to apply for neighbourhood planning.

The House has been very patient with me as I have had to deal with a large number of new clauses and amendments in a short period. I hope that Members will not press their new clauses and amendments and are happy with what I have said.

Question put and negatived.

New Clause 9

Permitted development: use clauses and demolition of drinking establishments

“(1) The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 (SI/1987/764) is amended as follows.

(2) At the end of section 3(6) insert—

“(p) drinking establishment.”

(3) In the Schedule, leave out the paragraph starting “Class A4. Drinking Establishments”

(4) The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995 (SI1995/418) is amended as follows.

(5) In Part 3 of Schedule 2—

(a) in Class A: Permitted development, leave out “A4 (drinking establishments)”.

(b) In Class AA: Permitted development, leave out “Class A4 (drinking establishments)”.

(c) in Class C: Permitted development, leave out “Class A4 (drinking establishments)”.

(6) In Part 31 of Schedule 2 under A.1 at end insert—

“() the building subject to demolition is classed as a drinking establishment”.”—(Dr Blackman-Woods.)

The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that any proposed demolition of or change of use to public houses and other drinking establishments would be subject to planning permission. Currently such buildings, unless they have been listed as Assets of Community Value with the local authority, can be demolished or have their use changed without such permission being granted.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I am well aware of what the BBPA is, but I tend to take the approach that, when I see briefings, I look at the points they make. If they make a sensible point, they are worth looking at. The BBPA makes a serious point. As I have said, I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss those issues further.

We discussed viability assessments, which are the subject of new clause 11, in Committee. There is existing legislation in the form of the Freedom of Information Act and environmental information regulations. The Government release information, and local authorities are free to make viability assessments publicly available.

In the time available, I shall make one simple point. The hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) said that she wants a uniform approach across the country. I am interested in seeing councils trial different approaches to see what works most effectively. The Mayor of London is not a Conservative politician, but I was interested to see the policy that he announced recently. That policy is a different way of tackling the problem—a tariff is set, and if developers meet the requirements, they do not need to go through a viability assessment.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The point I was making was that people should have access to viability assessments no matter where they live.

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Lady is entitled to hold that view, but I take a slightly more localist one. Local authorities should decide whether they want to publish that information. Commercial confidentiality makes that difficult in some cases. To a degree, her proposal recognises that, because it would not mean access in every single case. However, I am not persuaded of the need to legislate.

In the two or three minutes available, I want to address planning conditions, which my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset mentioned in his excellent brief speech. It is not the Government’s approach to blame the planning system or anybody else for the housing problems the country faces. For 30 or 40 years, we have not built enough homes, and a range of people are responsible for that. Governments of different political colours have not done enough on infrastructure funding. There are problems in our planning system, but that is not a personal attack on planners. We need to reform that system to make it easier to release land and to speed up the process of building homes. We need to change the local house building politics in our communities. To a degree, that is what neighbourhood planning is all about. We need to diversify the market so that a far bigger range of people build our homes.

The Prime Minister has given me a very clear brief, however. We should look at anything that makes it more difficult to build the homes that we desperately need in this country. There is very clear evidence about this, and that is not just from developers—hon. Members might say, “Developers would say that wouldn’t they”—but from the District Councils Network. In its evidence, it acknowledges that an overuse of planning conditions means that it takes longer to move from the point at which we get planning approval for housing to the point at which spades go into the ground.

In the year to June 2016, the planning reforms that the coalition Government and this Conservative Government have enacted led to the granting of a record number of planning applications for housing in this country—for 277,000 homes. Rather than being complacent about that, I take the opposite attitude. People cannot live in a planning application. It is all very well reforming the planning system and getting consent for more homes, but we need to turn those planning consents into built homes around the country. That involves looking at a range of issues, one of which, as the hon. Member for City of Durham rightly said, is the resourcing of planning departments, and their ability to deal with this work and to conclude section 106 agreements quickly. We will do something about that. Another problem is the performance of our utility companies in some parts of the country, and we will do something about that. Another is the performance sometimes of our major developers, which are too slow to build out, and we will address that.

There is clear and compelling evidence, however, that one of the factors that leads to this problem is the overuse of planning conditions and, in particular, the use of pre-commencement conditions—when a local authority essentially says, “Before you can even get a spade in the ground, here is a long list of things that need to be done.” In some cases, such conditions are justified, such as for archaeological works, when things need to be done before building starts, but there is plenty of evidence, as presented to the Public Bill Committee, that such conditions are being misused in many cases, and the Government are determined to put a stop to it. We are determined to get the homes that we desperately need in this country built, and the Bill is a first step in that process.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Barwell and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Monday 28th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. As I have said, we are consulting on the issue of greater resourcing for local authority planning departments, and virtually everyone I have met in the four months since I became Housing Minister has said that there is an issue that needs to be addressed. If my hon. Friend bears with us, he will see a solution in the housing White Paper.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that, due to Government cuts, spending on planning in local authorities has fallen by a massive £1 billion since 2010. We have heard warm words from the Government this afternoon about plugging the huge funding gap, particularly in relation to allowing fees to rise, but will he tell us what more he plans to do to resource planning departments properly, so that they can produce local plans and make plans for the new settlements, new towns and garden cities that we so desperately need if we are to solve our housing crisis?

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Lady is quite right to say that local authority planning departments have a crucial role to play in tackling the housing problems that this country faces, but she undersells their record of achievement under this Government. She talked about local plans. When Labour left office, 17% of councils had a local plan; today, the figure is 72%.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Lord Barwell and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 27th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 31, in clause 12, page 10, line 10, leave out “6” and insert “3”

This amendment would reduce the length of time that an acquiring authority can take temporary possession of land.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. Amendment 31 would reduce the length of time that an acquiring authority can take temporary possession of land for. It is very similar to amendment 30, in that it aims to provide a degree more certainty for owners about what temporary possession means. At present, the Bill states that the amount of time that an owner—defined as having either a freehold or leasehold interest in the land—can limit temporary possession to by means of a counter-notice is 12 months where the land is or is part of a dwelling and six years in any other case, or else the acquiring authority must take further action.

The amendment would allow owners to limit the amount of time that land can be temporarily possessed, where it is not a dwelling, to three rather than six years. Our position reflects that of the Compulsory Purchase Association, which said in evidence,

“we feel that, for freehold owners, six years is too long. Three years as a maximum is better. Notwithstanding that, the ability to serve counter-notices is correct and encouraging to development.”

I want to stress that point to the Minister. It is not the counter-notice period as such that we have a problem with, but the length of it. The CPA went on:

“Six years is quite a long period. If a business is dispossessed of its property for six years, that is effectively almost as good as a permanent dispossession”.––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 66, Q117.]

If a business is away from its premises for six years, it will essentially have to completely restart the business somewhere else. One would assume that it will feel much more like a permanent relocation if it is away in excess of five years.

The IPD UK lease events review 2015, which was sponsored by Strutt and Parker and the British Property Federation, pointed to short-term leases of five years or less being particularly desirable for smaller commercial leases, stating:

“Flexibility remains key for many tenants, despite the lengthening of commercial leases, with 73% of total leases signed so far in 2015 for a term of between one and five years.”

Allowing counter-notices to be served that limit temporary possession to three years, rather than six, relates more directly to the reality of a lease’s lifespan, particularly for a small business. The whole point here is that if a lot of leases are five years in length and businesses are required to move for six years, it is very likely that a substantial number of those businesses will have lost the lease on the original premises and had to take out a lease on wherever they relocate to, for five years or even longer.

We are trying to find out why the length of time is being set at six years. What research did the Government do to come up with that period? Have they any plans to meet the CPA or representatives of small businesses who may be particularly affected by the measures in clause 12? Do they have any plans to review how the clause is operating in practice, and particularly whether it is producing problems for small businesses?

The Minister will probably say that only a small number of businesses would be affected by the relevant type of compulsory purchase, that the balance is right and that the provision should therefore remain. I am sure he is right that the clause will not be used in many instances. Nevertheless it is a critical matter for the businesses that are affected. We would not want the clause to result in businesses moving from a high street or an important position in the community and not being able to come back, so that there would be blight further down the line. I hope that the Minister has got the drift of our argument.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Bone.

The amendment is entirely legitimate as a way of probing why the Government have arrived at the figure in question. It may help if I explain the purpose of clause 12 before I discuss the amendment, because some of the provisions will, I think, help to reassure members of the Committee.

The Government recognise that in certain circumstances taking temporary possession of land may be at least as disruptive as permanent acquisition. Clause 12 therefore provides an important additional safeguard to protect the interests of those whose land is subject to temporary possession. I say “additional” because any proposal for temporary possession of land must be authorised in the same way as compulsory purchase.

Clause 12(2) allows the owner of a freehold, or a leaseholder with the right to occupation, to serve a counter-notice requiring the authority to limit the period of possession to 12 months for a dwelling or six years for other land. That ability to serve a counter-notice on implementation of temporary possession is a further check and balance, in addition to scrutiny during the confirmation process.

Under clause 12(3) leaseholders—who are, I think, the people in whom the hon. Member for City of Durham was particularly interested—will also have the option to serve a counter-notice providing that the acquiring authority may not take temporary possession of their interest in the land at all. In those circumstances the acquiring authority must either do without the land or acquire the leasehold interest permanently.

Where a counter-notice is served under clause 12(2) the acquiring authority will have to decide whether the limited possession period sought by the landowner is workable for the acquiring authority at that time, or whether permanent possession is necessary. Alternatively, the acquiring authority may conclude that it does not need to take temporary possession of the land in question; for example, it might alter its construction plans.

Where the acquiring authority opts for acquisition of the land, subsection (9) provides for the standard material detriment provisions to apply. That means that if only part of a person’s land is acquired, but the retained land would be less useful or valuable as a result of part of the land being acquired, a further counter-notice may be served requiring the authority to purchase all the land.

I hope that the Committee can see that there are a number of safeguards, including time limits that can be placed on periods of temporary possession of a leasehold interest; I think that that is the issue about which the Opposition are particularly concerned. It is possible to say, in that case, “If it is going to be for that length of time we do not want temporary possession at all, and you either need to take permanent possession or do nothing at all.” Also, if possession is taken of part of a site and that will have an impact on the rest of the site, there are provisions to require the whole site to be taken.

The amendment, as the hon. Lady explained, would limit the period of temporary possession of land not occupied by dwellings to three years, rather than the six specified in the Bill. I entirely appreciate why she tabled the amendment; it was, I think, out of a determination, which I share, to ensure that those whose land is subject to temporary possession are properly protected.

The limit of six years is designed to give those affected greater certainty about the total period that non-dwelling land can be subject to temporary possession. Restricting the temporary possession period to three years would limit the usefulness of this new power and may drive acquiring authorities down the route of compulsory purchase in certain circumstances where that would be unnecessary. There are some schemes—one example not too far from us here is the Thames Tideway tunnel—where the temporary possession of land has been required for longer periods than the three years in the amendment.

There needs to be a balance between giving acquiring authorities the power they need to deliver their schemes and ensuring that the interests of those whose land is taken on a temporary basis are protected. The Government believe that six years strikes the right balance. In many cases the temporary possession will be for far less than six years. In the case of the Thames Tideway tunnel, the maximum length of temporary possession is eight years, so the acquiring authority would have to decide to permanently acquire the land.

As the Bill continues its progress through Parliament, I am happy to consider any evidence that Opposition Members or interested parties are able to provide that suggests the six-year figure does not achieve the correct balance. I can also reassure the hon. Member for City of Durham that even if the legislation is passed in its current form, the Government will keep the time limit under review as the new power begins to take effect, because the regulation-making power in clause 19 would allow us to make changes to the time limit without having to come back to the House with further primary legislation.

I hope I have given significant reassurance. On that basis, I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw her amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

How will the Secretary of State know that he has to give a direction, in a particular case, about what temporary possession can be used for?

[Gavin Barwell]

I imagine—although I will happily write to the hon. Lady if inspiration arises subsequently suggesting that I have got this wrong—that it would be a situation in which a dispute had arisen about the use that the land was put to and where there was a question of whether that would have an effect on the long-term interests of someone on the land. The casework would end up on the Secretary of State’s desk and give him the power to make a ruling to that effect. If there are other points that I have not mentioned, I will write to the hon. Lady and members of the Committee to clarify.

Clause 20 simply provides meanings for some of the words used in the earlier temporary possession clauses. Finally, clause 21 provides that the temporary possession power can be exercised in relation to Crown land, subject to the acquiring authority obtaining the consent of the appropriate authority.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I will begin by answering some of the hon. Lady’s detailed questions and then come on to the principles behind the amendment. I think she had three questions; I was not quite clear on the first, so I will deal with the other two and then see if I understood the first question correctly.

The hon. Lady’s third question was about ensuring that everybody benefits from an uplift in land values as a result of Government public investment in the scheme and that there is a way of capturing back some of that uplift. To a degree, she answered her own question: under current policy, CIL is the main mechanism by which we seek to capture some of the uplift when development is given, so that a contribution can be made to necessary improvements within a community area, a new infrastructure or whatever is required. She will be aware that I have on my desk a review by Liz Peace and her team of CIL and issues relating to section 106 contributions. We are considering that review and will respond to it in our White Paper later this year. The hon. Lady’s point that it is legitimate for the state to capture some of that uplift is absolutely valid; we need to think about the best mechanism for doing that.

I believe that the hon. Lady’s second question was on arguments about the definition of the scheme, what it constituted and whether the upper tribunal had a role. Have I understood her correctly?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

It was whether the widening of the scheme under proposed section 6D(2) to (4) of the Land Compensation Act 1961 could be referred to the upper tribunal under proposed section 6D(5).

[Gavin Barwell]

The answer is a simple yes. Proposed new section 6D(5) states:

“If there is a dispute as to what is to be taken to be the scheme…then, for the purposes of this section, the underlying scheme is to be identified by the Upper Tribunal”,

so the answer is a simple yes.

I think the hon. Lady’s first question was about the wider role of the upper tribunal in dealing with compensation disputes. She was concerned that there were some other areas that could not go to the upper tribunal. We believe the answer is that they can, but I may not have captured her question correctly. Would she reiterate in which particular cases she was worried that people could not go to the upper tribunal?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

It was the schemes referred to in proposed new section 6D(2) to (4), and whether compensation arrangements could be determined under proposed new section 6D(5).

[Gavin Barwell]

The answer is a definite yes.

If Mr Bone is feeling particularly generous, he might let me answer hon. Members’ earlier questions, but he may prefer me to write to them rather than going back to a previous debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I shall address my introductory remarks to the Minister’s general points about the importance of local plan-making. I say at the outset that Opposition members of the Committee have noticed and welcomed the difference in tone and the slight change in policy direction that have come with the new Minister. I agree about the importance of having communities at the heart of local plan-making. When planning is done really well and people are involved in planning their neighbourhoods, we are much more likely to get the sort of development that supports our placemaking objectives, and that is supported by local people. Critically, in my experience, the involvement of local communities drives up the quality of what is delivered locally. We totally agree with the Minister that, where possible, local communities should be at the heart of planning and local authorities should work with their neighbourhoods to draw up a local plan.

Nevertheless, like the Minister, we recognise that if a local plan is not in place, local communities and neighbourhoods are at risk of receiving really inappropriate development. To determine applications, a council is likely to rely on saved local policies, if it has them, from a previous plan which might be out of date. What often happens in my experience—this is particularly true recently, with local authorities concerned about the number of applications they reject in case they subsequently get overturned on appeal—is that decisions go through that might not be in the best interests of the local authority or the local community, simply because a local plan is not in place.

I am pleased that the Minister consulted the local plan expert group in thinking about how to bring forward the provisions in new clause 4. The people on that group are very knowledgeable about the planning system. Nevertheless, he did not need to do that. He just needed to pick up his copy of the Lyons report—I know he has one—and turn to page 62. On that page he will find our arguments as to why in certain circumstances it might be necessary for the Secretary of State to intervene in local plan-making when, for whatever reason, local plans are not coming forward from the local authority.

The Minister knows that one of the major reasons for plans’ not coming forward or being thrown out by the inspector is that councils are not suitably addressing the duty to co-operate. When we were taking evidence for the Lyons review, a number of councillors said, “The real problem is that we cannot meet housing need in our area because we do not have enough land available. We cannot put a proper five-year land supply in place because we simply do not have the land available.”

From memory, two examples that stood out were Stevenage and the city of Oxford. They have substantial housing need and a strong demand for housing, but they do not have enough land within their specific local authority boundary to meet that need. Under the Government’s legislation, the duty to co-operate would come into play. Those authorities would sit down and make a decision.

The city of Oxford needed South Oxfordshire to bring forward some land, and Stevenage required its neighbouring authorities to bring forward some land. Alas, the duty to co-operate did not work as the Government had envisaged. The land did not come forward in those neighbouring authorities’ plans, and that placed both the city of Oxford and Stevenage in the rather difficult situation of having acute housing need but no means by which to meet that need. There are many other such examples around the country.

We listened to a lot of evidence in the Lyons review. In an ideal world, one would not want to give powers to the Secretary of State to direct authorities to come together and produce a plan, but if they are not doing so, they are putting their communities at risk of not meeting housing need, which is acute in some areas. We therefore decided reluctantly—very much like the Minister—that powers should be given to the Secretary of State in limited circumstances to direct local authorities.

The new clause refers to,

“two or more local planning authorities”.

That is one way forward. Another that we thought of would be to look at the area covered by strategic housing market assessments and perhaps make that subject to direction by the Secretary of State, but a few local authorities coming together in the appropriate area is just as good a way forward.

As the Committee will have gathered from what I am saying, the Opposition do not have any particular problems with new clause 4, but I have some specific questions. First, will the Minister clarify who decides exactly what is in the document? Perhaps I misheard him, but I think he said it would be up to local authorities themselves, under the provisions in proposed new section 28A, to decide exactly how they would put the plan together. My reading, though, is that that proposed new section gives powers to the Secretary of State to determine exactly what is in the documents and what they might look like.

Proposed new section 28A(4) says that the Secretary of State can give a direction about:

“(a) the area to be covered by the joint development plan document to which the direction relates;

(b) the matters to be covered by that document;

(c) the timetable for preparation of that document.”

I have absolutely no problem with that—it seems to us to be an entirely sensible way forward when local plan-making arrangements have broken down for whatever reason—but it does seem to suggest that it will not be the local councils that will be deciding what the documents cover. In those circumstances, it will be the Secretary of State.

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Lady has read the provisions entirely correctly. We want to make sure that, for example, everywhere in the country there is clarity about site allocations and where people can build. That is why we need that power. The point I was making in my speech was that authorities can choose whether they wish to do their own local plan or to work together, as those in Greater Manchester have done, to produce a spatial development strategy. We shall not specify all the detail, but there are some core things that need to be covered throughout the country.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I thank the Minister for that helpful clarification.

My second point is about proposed new section 28C. Will the Minister direct us to where we can find the set of circumstances that will trigger the Secretary of State’s asking local authorities to come together to produce a joint plan? I have given him the example of when the duty to co-operate is not working. I would have thought that should be pretty apparent, because the likelihood would be that a local plan would be thrown out by the planning inspector. I am not sure whether there are other circumstances that the Minister can tell us about. It could be that things are just taking too long, or that something is not being done properly.

I suspect that we will have regulations to support the legislation, which will make it all clear to us at some future date. They will have the specificity on the action or non-action that the Minister has in mind that would trigger the Secretary of State’s involvement and such a direction being given to local authorities. It would help our deliberations if the Minister could be a bit clearer about the circumstances in which the Secretary of State will make this direction.

Finally—we will get on to this later, I hope—the Planning Officers Society has helpfully put into the public domain some detail on how the duty to co-operate is failing to meet housing need in this country. The association has very helpfully proposed policies to ensure that everywhere has a local plan in place that are pretty similar to what the Minister has suggested this morning. I did not want to finish my remarks on new clause 4 without acknowledging the work done by the society over several years to highlight, to the Minister and others, the fact that the current system is just not working for everyone, and the fact that something must be done to ensure that each area can have a local plan in place.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Lord Barwell and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 27th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr McCabe.

The hon. Member for City of Durham asked a couple of questions about new clause 4, which I will endeavour to answer before I come to the amendment to the new clause. In essence, the main issue that the hon. Lady wished to explore was the circumstances in which the Secretary of State might wish to pursue the power to intervene. The wording of the new clause is relatively broad—I tried to touch on this wording in my speech this morning—under proposed section 28A(3):

“The Secretary of State may give a direction under this section only if the Secretary of State considers that to do so will facilitate the more effective planning of the development and use of land in the area of one or more of the local planning authorities in question.”

It might help the hon. Lady if I expand on that and give an idea of the types of situation we have in mind. I will make two points. First, in relation to “one or more”, there might be a situation in which a particular local planning authority is struggling to produce its own local plan—perhaps, as I indicated in my speech, because there is not only a high level of housing need in the area concerned, but also heavy constraints on land. Given the cases I have already dealt with over the past three months, I am thinking of districts where a significant proportion of the land area is green belt and therefore has heavy constraints on development potential.

In such circumstances, the Secretary of State might want to direct that authority and two or three others where land is much less constrained to produce a joint plan, in order to provide an opportunity to consider whether some of the housing need in district A might be met in some of the adjoining districts. It is possible that authorities covered by such a direction might have produced a perfectly viable plan for their area, but we would be looking to work across a group of authorities to meet housing need over a wider area.

Secondly, there are probably two types of situation in which that might arise. I have alluded to one already—where an authority has simply failed to produce a plan. As the Committee knows, several authorities are in that position at the moment. The second is where an authority might have tried to produce a plan, but is failing to meet the housing need in its area. Either it has fallen short of the assessed need or the plan was accepted by an inspector but the authority subsequently found itself unable to deliver the housing it had planned for various reasons. Essentially, the two things that I think the Secretary of State is likely to be interested in are, first, authorities that are simply not doing the job of producing a plan; and secondly, plans that are wholly inadequate in terms of meeting the required level of housing need.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Will regulations set out the circumstances that are likely to lead to a Secretary of State’s direction, or the process that will be followed in order to involve the Secretary of State? We are struggling with what will trigger the Secretary of State’s involvement. Will it be a complaint from a member of the public or one of the local authorities, or something else?

[Gavin Barwell]

I will do my best to answer that question. I am in a slightly difficult position. I might as well be open about the difficulty that I face. I have referred several times to the fact that there will be a White Paper that will set out clearly how we intend to use the powers. Given that I do not yet have collective agreement to the White Paper, it is difficult for me to say too much. However, the powers will not be used if it is a simple matter of complaints from individual members of the public in an area or from developers.

The Department is likely to proactively monitor the progress that local planning authorities make. I made it fairly clear in my opening remarks that I attach great importance to getting full coverage of the country, not necessarily in terms of every single planning authority having its own plan, but in terms of making sure that all parts of the country are covered by a plan, whether it is a strategic plan covering a wider area or individual authorities having their own plan. I will ask my officials to give me regular updates on progress and I will proactively look to intervene if I believe that is the only remaining lever to get to where I think we all agree we want to get to in planning. Does that go far enough to help the hon. Lady?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

indicated assent.

[Gavin Barwell]

It does. That is good to hear.

I hope I can provide some reassurance on the amendment. As the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton said, in the case of a joint local development document or a joint plan, where the Secretary of State is apportioning liability for the expenditure between the relevant authorities, the amendment basically says that the relevant authorities have to be consulted. As I have argued before, I do not think it is necessary to write that into statute, but it is clearly something that we would want to have a discussion with the relevant authorities about. To reassure the hon. Gentleman, the key language in the clause is about justness. There is a test of reasonableness in terms of the way the Secretary of State will be doing it in legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I will speak about Government new clause 3 and amendment (a) together. I tabled amendment (a) hoping to elicit more information from the Minister about what the Government are trying to do with new clause 3. On the face of it, that new clause seems very sensible in asking that development plan documents set out strategic priorities. That is quite hard to disagree with. What I am not clear about is whether an additional tier of work will be required of local authorities in putting their plan together.

I tabled amendment (a) simply so that I could ask the Minister to focus on the speedy production of local plans. He will know that this has been an ongoing issue for some time. It is undoubtedly the case that the local plan-making process put in place in 2004 ended up being rather more lengthy than those who put the legislation together—I hasten to add that it was not me—thought it would be. It is a very cumbersome process for local authorities. It is not that all the documents are not needed. I will say something about that in a moment.

The issue—I think it is one that the Minister recognises, particularly in terms of the content of new clause 4—is that we need to get local authorities to a position where it is a more straightforward process for them to put a local development plan document together. We know that under the 2004 process, even where there were not really any local difficulties or much complexity, it was taking on average three years to produce the plan to make it ready for inspection. That was not getting it right through the process; that was just getting it ready and going through the various rounds of consultation.

The average cost of the process, from beginning to end, was a staggering £500,000. When I argued earlier in the Committee’s deliberations for putting more money into neighbourhood plans as the building block for local plan-making, that was the figure I had in mind. Lots of money is being set aside for consultation, but it has not always produced results that have altered the local plan-making process in any way. As I said earlier to the Minister, I think that money could be better spent.

I think it is fair to say that there has been a difference of opinion among some inspectors as to the weight that should be given to the plan, and various bits of the plan, during the whole process, particularly if the plan was referred back for a part of it to be rewritten. All in all, we have ended up in a situation where local plan-making has been very complex, lengthy and costly. I pay tribute to the Minister and others who are looking at streamlining this process, but I want to suggest a way of doing it that would help not only local authorities but local communities and all those who are subsequently involved in implementing the plan.

This is not actually my idea; it was put in evidence, before the last election, by the Planning Officers Society, the organisation that represents planners. They are the people who draw up the plans and then have to try and implement them. It is important that any Government listens to what they have to say about the planning system because they know better than anyone the difficulties and what would work in practice.

The planners, interestingly, have put together a two-stage process that relates directly to the content of new clause 3, which is why I made the suggestion here. They are suggesting a first stage, which could be the outcome of a lot of work with the local community to set strategic priorities for that specific local authority, or a group of local authorities if that is deemed to be more important. The critical point is that it would not require the long technical documents that currently go with local plans—such as a detailed minerals assessment or watercourse assessment—to be drawn up at that early stage.

I do not know whether the Minister has worked with local communities, particularly on the examination of a local plan, as I have in my local area on our local plan, but everyone came to the committee with documents at least 12 inches thick. They were incredibly complicated and technical, and unless someone is an expert they simply would not understand or have time to go through them. I am sure almost everyone could get to grips with such documents if they had all the time in the world, but to expect a local community to go through such highly technical and detailed documents at the stage of a public inquiry does not seem sensible. Nothing will be agreed until the public examination takes place.

It would be really helpful to consider what planning officers are saying. They are suggesting getting the community on board for what is important to them, such as the strategic direction forward plan and what, broadly in terms of land use, the local authority will set out—what types of housing and other developments in what timeframe. If it is possible to get broad agreement on that general way forward, there could be a second stage when the first one has been agreed and has been through a lighter-touch inspection. In the second stage, the more technical documents could be brought into the frame and all the professionals who will have to put the document into operation will be able to assess whether the technical support and evidence is there for the exact developments to take place.

I know the Minister is open to speeding up the process and introducing an easier one. I want to use the opportunity of amendment (a) to new clause 3 to suggest this as a possible way forward that could greatly speed up the whole process, not only for local authorities, but for the local community. That is the purpose of amendment (a).

There are two issues. It is really important to have a final date by which local authorities must produce their plan. I hope that we will not be sitting in another housing and planning Bill Committee, but I fear there may be one coming down the line. I certainly hope that in a year or 18 months, 30% of local authorities will not be without a plan in place. We certainly do not want to be here in 2020 with a set of local authorities not having a plan in place, 16 years after a Bill was enacted requiring a local plan.

As well as testing the Minister on whether he has given any consideration to how to speed up the overall planning process, I want to know whether he thinks it would be appropriate to set a final cut-off point for local plans to be made.

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Lady has just made a very interesting speech. I do not particularly like her amendment, for reasons I will explain, but I have a lot of sympathy with the ideas behind it and will try to reassure her on that front. She quoted the Planning Officers Society, a fine organisation that is chaired by Mike Kiely, who was chief planning officer at Croydon Council and whom I know very well—he is an excellent planning officer. She is quoting from a very reputable organisation.

The hon. Lady made some sage points about the time and cost involved in producing a local plan, which we will address in the White Paper; I hope that reassures her. We are particularly keen to remove a lot of the confrontation involved in the local plan process, such as the huge arguments about whether councils have calculated objectively assessed need correctly, and everything that follows. Councils face the very high test of whether the plan is the most appropriate one, which allows the developer to say, “Well, you’ve got everything right, except that this site is better than that site.” A huge amount of wrangling goes on, and I am not sure whether that is in the public interest. I have a great deal of sympathy with the arguments underlying the amendment, which the hon. Lady outlined. If she bears with us for a few weeks, she should see our proposals to address those issues.

Let me say a few words, first about the indication of a final date, which the hon. Lady asked for, and secondly about my concern with the specific wording of the amendment—I think it is a probing amendment, so she is probably more interested in the principle than in the detail. The Government have said that we expect authorities to have plans in place by early next year. Anyone who is listening to this debate can be clear that there is a clear deadline to get this work done. That does not mean that we will want to intervene on every single council that has not achieved that by then, because some councils may be working flat out and are very close, so intervening would do nothing to speed the process up. However, councils that are not making satisfactory progress towards that target should be warned that intervention will follow, because we are determined to ensure that we get plan coverage in place.

The key issue with the wording of the hon. Lady’s amendment is that the gun did not start at the same moment; councils are at very different stages of the process. Rather than just saying, “Everybody needs to get to these points by these dates”, we need to reflect the fact that some councils have plans that are no longer up to date, so they need to do a review. Others have never produced one and are at a different stage along the road. If the hon. Lady was in my shoes, she would want a little more flexibility than her amendment would allow to decide on the right triggers for intervention.

What we hold councils to at the moment is whether they are achieving the timescales they set out in their own documents. I hope that I have reassured the hon. Lady on the issues of principle about trying to reduce the cost and the time taken to produce plans, which is very important, but I would not necessarily want to set out in statute or in secondary legislation a set of timescales that every local council had to fit into.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I have heard what the Minister has said, particularly on the measures that the Government might consider to help speed up and simplify the plan-making process. I await the White Paper with even more fervent anticipation; it is going to be really interesting. I wanted to test the Minister on what was meant by the Government’s expectation that plans would be put in place by March next year. I heard his response, but I press him to ensure that local authorities complete the plan-making process as quickly as possible.

Amendment 27 agreed to.

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

New clause 5 is the next part of the package of amendments that the Government have tabled in relation to local plans. It allows for the introduction of new schedule 1, which enables the Secretary of State to invite a county council in a two-tier area to prepare a local plan for a district local planning authority in the county in instances where, despite having every opportunity, the district has failed to do so.

The Government absolutely want to see local planning authorities producing their own local plans, but where that is not happening it is right that we take action to ensure that communities and business can benefit from the clarity and certainty that having a plan can provide. The Committee has already accepted the principle that the Secretary of State should have the power to direct a group of local planning authorities to work together on a joint plan. This would be an alternative way of addressing the same problem—namely, to direct a county council to produce a plan for a local planning authority area.

It may help the Committee to know that the Secretary of State can already invite the Mayor of London or a combined authority to prepare a plan for an authority in their respective areas under similar circumstances. New clause 5 would extend the same opportunity to county councils in two-tier areas so that, as far as possible, local plans are developed at the most appropriate local level.

I said in a previous debate that the powers for intervention will merely be for the Secretary of State to produce a plan. I think we would all agree that that should very much be a last resort, and that we should explore different options. It would be preferable to have other people in the local area being directed to get involved if a local planning authority is not doing its job. The new clause will work by amending schedule A1 to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.

Under our proposals, a county council will be invited to prepare, revise or approve a local plan only if the local planning authority has failed to progress its plan, and when the Secretary of State thinks it is appropriate. County councils are directly accountable authorities, with the knowledge and understanding of the development needs of their areas, so in the Government’s opinion they are suitable bodies to prepare a plan for the areas they represent.

New schedule 1 will amend paragraphs 3 to 8 in schedule A1 to the 2004 Act to ensure that the existing powers available to the Mayor of London and combined authorities also apply to county councils. The county council would be responsible for preparing the plan and having it examined. It may then approve the document, or approve it subject to modifications recommended by the inspector, or it may direct the local planning authority to consider adopting it. The new schedule will also enable the Secretary of State to intervene in the preparation of a document by the county council.

Should the Secretary of State believe it is appropriate to step in to ensure that a plan is in place, new clause 5 and new schedule 1 will give him a further option, alongside existing powers, so that decisions are taken at the most local level possible. I commend the new clause and the new schedule to the Committee.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

With your permission, Mr McCabe, I will speak to new clause 5 and amendment (a) at the same time.

The new clause is interesting. The Minister has given us some helpful clarification of the circumstances in which the measures it contains might be invoked, but I suspect that district councils might require a bit more information. I am sure the Minister does not need me to tell him that district councils are not terribly happy with the provisions in the new clause, which allow the Secretary of State to invite a county council to prepare a development plan document if he or she thinks that a district council in the county council’s area is failing to prepare, revise or adopt such a document.

In terms of sequencing, if a local authority has not prepared a local plan, when might the Government decide to invoke new clause 5 and when might they decide to invoke new clause 4? Presumably, both could be used to bring forward a plan that is not being developed. If the Minister could say something about that it would be extremely helpful.

Amendment (a) was tabled to put on the record the fact that the power in the new clause would allow quite a drastic thing to be done to district councils. I suppose some might be mightily relived, but others will not be. There is no evidence in the new clause or the attached new schedule that efforts will be made to involve district councils in the process, either in making the decision to move the responsibility for producing the plan to a county council or subsequently, once that decision has been taken.

Such involvement might be quite important, particularly because, aside from unitary counties, county councils might have limited planning expertise. They have planning departments that look after minerals and so on, but they may not have the planning expertise to deal with the whole range of housing and other issues that need to be in a local plan. It seems to me quite important for the district councils to be involved at some stage if those plans are to have local acceptance.

Hardly surprisingly, although district councils are not very happy, the County Councils Network has welcomed new clause 5 and new schedule 1. However, even the County Councils Network says in its briefing to the Committee that peer support may be appropriate to facilitate the signing off of the plans, and something may need to be done to work with district councils in addition to a direction from the Secretary of State. I thought it was quite interesting that it mentioned that, and it reinforces my point about amendment (a).

The Minister will know that the District Councils Network has expressed serious concerns about the new clause and the new schedule. It would much prefer a collaborative process. It feels that the new clause casts district councils aside and leaves county councils to get on with the job rather than district councils being expected to work with county councils to see plans through. The district councils have put a series of questions to the Committee. Given what the new clause will do to some district councils’ local plan-making functions, it is worth taking a few minutes to go through those questions.

The first question is:

“As County Councils are not local planning authorities, what estimate has the Minister made of the extra time it would take for the County Council to carry out the functions…and where would this expertise come from?”

Will that expertise be expected to come from the district council involved, other district councils or the county council’s neighbours? That is not clear. The Minister may intend to follow up on this point in regulations, but it is also not clear how district councils will be notified of the plan-making process, what rights they have to be consulted or what requirement there will be for county councils to continue to seek to work in partnership with district councils.

Given that the process of public involvement in local plans is clear, the District Councils Network also asked what the public’s involvement will be when county councils have plan-making powers. County councils typically deal with much bigger areas, so some clarity may need to be given about how exactly affected residents will be consulted by the local authority. That is a particularly important question. I am sure that the Minister will reassure us, but I sincerely hope that new clause 5 is not intended in any way to bypass the local community and its input into the local plan-making process. It would help us all in our deliberations on new clause 5 to have more information about that.

Not surprisingly, the district councils are concerned that the costs of producing local plans will fall on them. They have asked a whole set of questions about funding, but I will wrap them up and paraphrase them. What is there in the system to prevent county councils from spending money in an extravagant way, on things such as exhibitions about the plan, lots of public consultation and glossy documents? The district councils will have to pay for that, so what will be in place to ensure cost-effectiveness in the delivery of plans and efficient use of resources?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

It has been a useful debate, and I hope I can provide some clarification. Perhaps a mistress of understatement, the hon. Lady said that district councils were not terribly happy and county councils were reasonably happy. My message to district councils listening to this debate is that it is completely in their own power to ensure that this new clause is never used. All they need to do is produce local plans that address housing need in their area, and there will never be any reason at all for the Secretary of State to make use of this power. The only circumstances in which the power could ever be used would be if a district council somewhere in the country were failing to produce a local plan that met need in its area. To county councils, I would say, “Don’t get too excited,” because I do not think the intention is to make regular use of this power.

I will make one observation. When you become a Minister, you get given a mountain of brief to read into your subject. Something that stood out from one brief was the powers that the Government have taken to intervene on local planning authorities that are not deciding a high enough percentage of major applications within the specified timescale. That was quite contentious when the powers went through Parliament. What is interesting about it is that it has, I think, been used only three times. The existence of a power that says that the Planning Inspectorate is now going to determine planning applications rather than the relevant local authority determining them, has acted as a real spur to people to raise their game. It has not been necessary to use the power very often at all, and I suspect that this power might serve the same purpose. If it has provoked a strong reaction among district councils that do not ever want to see this happen, and that leads to more of them adopting their plans on a timely basis, I will be very happy never to have to use the power.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Does the Minister accept that one of the consequences—whether intended or unintended, I am not sure—of the possible designation of local planning departments as failing on the basis of the number of their determinations that are overturned by the inspector, is that, in practice, local authorities are very reluctant to turn any application down, lest it be overturned on appeal? That is most unfortunate, because we want local authorities to be able to determine an application on its merits, and not for it to be favoured because authorities are worried that they are going to lose their ability to determine all applications.

[Gavin Barwell]

That would be highly unfortunate and also unnecessary because the performance metric is purely about determining planning applications. It is just about ensuring that decisions are made within the statutory timescale.

Coming back to the issue the hon. Lady is probing with her amendment, what would be most useful—what she was really interested in—is some steer from me about when the powers under Government new clauses 4 and 5 might be used. The speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton was useful in providing a pointer about that. I will make two observations. One is generic: the hon. Lady was expressing nervousness that we might be back here in 12 months’ time debating another planning Bill. One of the things I wanted to do with this Bill was make sure that we took the necessary range of intervention powers in this area, so that we would not have to keep coming back and saying, “Actually, in this case we would like you to do this.” So I sat down with my officials and went through a variety of different situations and how Ministers might want to respond to them.

Taking my hon. Friend’s hypothetical example, if there is a local planning authority that is heavily constrained in terms of land—that is doing its best but is really struggling to meet housing needs in its area because of the make-up of that area—that would naturally lead to the use of new clause 4, because one might then look and say, “There are other authorities in the area that are not so constrained and if you worked together across that wider area, could you meet housing need across the area?”

My hon. Friend then mentioned a different kind of example: an authority that—an objective observer might suggest—had plenty of potential to meet housing need within its own area and was just ducking taking the necessary decisions. An intervention there, asking the authority to work with some neighbouring ones to produce a plan, would probably not work because they would continue to obstruct their neighbours and, as my hon. Friend said, potentially seek to pass the burden on to others. This might be a more suitable intervention power in those cases.

If the hon. Lady applies her mind to it, she can probably think of a couple of cases around the country in which a number of planning authorities within a county council area are struggling to meet their obligations. In that situation, looking at a county-wide solution to meeting housing need over a wider area might be an appropriate way forward. In some of those cases, county councils might choose to work with the relevant district councils, even if the Secretary of State gave them the formal responsibility.

Let me provide a little reassurance on a number of the detailed points that the hon. Lady made. She talked about three main things: skills and resources, and whether county councils had the skills and resources to do this work; the process in relation to the adoption of a plan—so if a county council produced a plan, how that plan got adopted; and also reassurance over residents’ involvement. I will deal with them in reverse order. I can provide her with complete reassurance on resident involvement. Local plans—whoever prepares or revises them—are subject to a legal requirement to consult the public and others, along with the right to make representations on the plan. From the point of view of residents living in a particular area, their ability to have their say and input on a plan will be completely unaffected. I hope that provides complete reassurance on that point.

Adoption is set out in the detail of new schedule 1, which goes with the new clause. I point members of the Committee to new paragraph 7C(4), which says:

“The upper-tier county council may…approve the document, or approve it subject to specified modifications”—

there it refers to modifications that the inspector recommends—

“as a local development document, or…direct the lower-tier planning authority to consider adopting the document by resolution of the authority”.

The county council has a choice: it can take the legal decision and have the plan adopted, or—perhaps in circumstances in which it has worked with the district council to get to that point—it might be prefer to say, “Okay, there is the plan. It would be better for the district council to make that decision.” Either option is available.

On the resources front—financially, as it were—there are clear provisions in place. Let me deal with the skills front. County councils do have significant input and involvement in the local plan-making process. They often have a significant contribution to make in terms of infrastructure—highways infrastructure and some of those other issues—but clearly if the Secretary of State felt that a particular county council did not have the relevant skills to do the job, he or she would not seek to use this provision and might rely on those in new clause 4.

On resourcing and the financial side, there are provisions that can provide reassurance. A county council has to be reimbursed for any expenditure where it prepares a plan because a local planning authority has failed to do so. Likewise, when it is necessary for the Government to arrange for a plan to be written, they can recover the costs.

I recognise—perhaps it is inevitable—that, say, organisations that represent district councils will have concerns about the proposal, but I hope I have provided reassurance. First, I do not expect the provision to be used on a regular basis, and indeed district councils have in their hands the means to ensure that it is never used. Secondly, the Government have sought to address concerns on resident involvement, the adoption process and the skills and resourcing of county councils. Thirdly, the right thing to do in the Bill, given the strong cross-party consensus on the need to get plans in place, is to ensure that, where it is necessary to intervene, the Secretary of State has the powers to think creatively about the ways in which that might happen.

My view in terms of the hierarchy is that the preferable solution would be to direct a planning authority to work with some of its neighbours. If that were not viable, the county council route is an interesting route. My strong view is that the worst option is ultimately that the Government have to step in, intervene and write a plan because, by definition, they are the most distant from the relevant local community. I hope I have provided the reassurance that the hon. Lady was looking for.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I thank the Minister for that helpful and detailed response. There are just two issues I would like him to go and ponder. First, what might be put in place to ensure that costs are kept at a reasonable level for district councils, bearing in mind that many local authorities really are struggling financially? Secondly, in the interests of keeping a positive relationship going between the district council and county council, what could be put in place to try to ensure that they work together in the production of a plan? I will come to amendment (a) at the appropriate point.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 5 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 6

Format of local development schemes and documents

(1) Section 36 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (regulations under Part 2) is amended in accordance with subsections (2) and (3).

(2) In the heading after “Regulations” insert “and standards”.

(3) After subsection (2) insert—

“(3) The Secretary of State may from time to time publish data standards for—

(a) local development schemes,

(b) local development documents, or

(c) local development documents of a particular kind.

(4) For this purpose a ‘data standard’ is a written standard which contains technical specifications for a scheme or document or the data contained in a scheme or document.

(5) A local planning authority must comply with the data standards published under subsection (3) in preparing, publishing, maintaining or revising a scheme or document to which the standards apply.”

(4) In section 15(8AA) of that Act (cases in which direction to revise local development scheme may be given by Secretary of State or Mayor of London)—

(a) after “only if” insert “—(a)”, and

(b) at the end of paragraph (a) insert “, or

(b) the Secretary of State has published data standards under section 36(3) which apply to the local development scheme and the person giving the direction thinks that the scheme should be revised so that it complies with the standards.”—(Gavin Barwell.)

This new clause enables the Secretary of State to set data standards for local development schemes and documents, requiring these documents or the data they contain to comply with specified technical specifications. It also enables the Secretary of State or the Mayor of London to direct a local planning authority to revise a local development scheme so that it complies with data standards.

Brought up, and read the First time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I am always grateful for tips. I think that I am coming up to co-chair a meeting of the Land Commission at the start of December with Tony Lloyd, so I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing that project to my attention.

I think that we are all localists here, but I hope that we all recognise that, to capitalise on the opportunities provided by new technology and gain maximum value, key planning data need to be published in a consistent format across the country. If every local planning authority opened up its data, but did so using different systems and in different ways, it would be much more difficult for people who want to operate across local planning authority boundaries to make use of the data.

The intention behind new clause 6 is to open up those possibilities, and it will do that by amending the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, with which we are becoming very familiar by now, to enable the Secretary of State to publish data standards. In essence, those standards are detailed technical specifications that local planning authorities must meet for documents that they are already required to publish.

We want to work with representatives of the sector to develop the specification of the data standards. We will then consult local planning authorities on the technical document that authorities will need to follow. Once the data standards are defined, they will apply to all local development documents, the planning documents prepared by a local planning authority; and local development schemes, the timetable for the preparation of the development plan documents that comprise the local plan.

The measure provides a solid basis for creating more accessible and more transparent plans. Opening up public data lies at the heart of a wider Government push for a digital nation, in which the relationship between individual citizens and the Government is transformed. This is a small but important contribution to that.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I will make a few brief comments on new clause 6 and on amendment (a). The Opposition very much welcome new clause 6. Anything that the Government can do to make planning documents more accessible to local people, the better, because, as I described earlier, some of those documents can be very weighty and lengthy. Being able to access them easily online and in a format in which people can comprehend them more easily will be a good thing and is very much to be welcomed.

I tabled the amendment on technical documents to test with the Minister whether the provisions of new clause 6 will relate to technical documents as well and to ask whether the Government will give some consideration—to reiterate a point I made earlier—to what exactly is needed in technical documents, which are public-facing documents. Obviously, we want people to have as much information as possible about what underpins policies in a local plan, but we also want to ensure that the important points do not get lost in a mass of detail such that people never seek to address, look at or try to understand the documents.

My first point is that I broadly welcome new clause 6, and it will be interesting to see how it works in practice and what sort of data the Secretary of State puts in the standards. I hope that the Minister will learn from his Cabinet Office colleagues about the open data project mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton and that the documents are made as successful as possible. Will the Minister deal with the specific issue I have raised about how we might do the whole technical documents thing?

[Gavin Barwell]

I hope that the hon. Lady and I can have a discussion outside the Committee to test whether we have a point of difference here. In essence, as the new clause is drafted, it defines what needs to be released in legally precise language—as I said, the local development documents, which are the planning documents prepared by the authority, and the local development scheme, which is the timetable for preparation. If she feels that that does not capture some of the things that need to be released, the Government are very happy to look at what other wording can be included. Clearly, however, the wording would need to be precise, so that authorities understand it exactly. Our intention is clear: all the key documents that make up the local plan should be covered by the measure. If, having listened to me, hon. Members feel that there is a gap here and that something is missing, I am happy to talk about it outside the Committee, perhaps coming back at a later date to address it.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 6 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 7

Review of local development documents

In section 17 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (local development documents) after subsection (6) insert—

“(6A) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision requiring a local planning authority to review a local development document at such times as may be prescribed.

(6B) If regulations under subsection (6A) require a local planning authority to review a local development document—

(a) they must consider whether to revise the document following each review, and

(b) if they decide not to do so, they must publish their reasons for considering that no revisions are necessary.

(6C) Any duty imposed by virtue of subsection (6A) applies in addition to the duty in subsection (6).”—(Gavin Barwell.)

This new clause enables regulations to require a local planning authority to review local development documents at prescribed times.

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 9

Sustainable development and placemaking

(1) The purpose of planning is the achievement of long-term sustainable development and placemaking.

(2) Under this Act sustainable development and placemaking means managing the use, development and protection of land and natural resources in a way which enables people and communities to provide for their legitimate social, economic and cultural wellbeing while sustaining the potential of future generations to meet their own needs.

(3) In achieving sustainable development, the local planning authority should—

(a) identify suitable land for development in line with the economic, social and environmental objectives so as to improve the quality of life, wellbeing and health of people and the community;

(b) contribute to the sustainable economic development of the community;

(c) contribute to the vibrant cultural and artistic development of the community;

(d) protect and enhance the natural and historic environment;

(e) contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change in line with the objectives of the Climate Change Act 2008;

(f) promote high quality and inclusive design;

(g) ensure that decision-making is open, transparent, participative and accountable; and

(h) ensure that assets are managed for long-term interest of the community.”—(Dr Blackman Woods.)

This new clause would clarify in statute that the planning system should be focused on the public interest and in achieving quality outcomes including placemaking.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I accept that this is a fairly long new clause, but it seeks to do something that is really important: to put the purpose of planning in the Bill to be absolutely certain that it is about achieving long-term sustainable development and, critically, placemaking alongside that. It is very much along the lines of, but not identical to what is in the national planning policy framework.

The new clause then says what a local planning authority should do to try to achieve sustainable development: identify suitable land for development; contribute to the sustainable economic development of the community; contribute—this is really important because it often falls off the agenda when considering development issues—to the vibrant cultural and artistic development of the community; protect and enhance the natural and historic environment; contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change in line with the objectives of the Climate Change Act 2008, which I rehearsed for the Committee the other day; promote high-quality and inclusive design, which in my experience planning applications and determinations do not pay enough attention to; ensure that decisions are transparent and involve as many local people as possible; and finally and really importantly, because it often falls out of the decision-making process in applications, ensure that assets are managed for the long-term interest of the community.

Far too many developers in my area and others are very keen and quick to demolish or to enable alterations to be made to important historic buildings, for example, particularly if they are not protected by a listing. Planners often do not consider the short-term nature of some developments and whether they are of poor quality. If planning communities had to think about how they were managing assets for the longer term, some of the truly awful planning decisions that have been made might not have been made.

The Royal Town Planning Institute, in its August 2016 report, “Delivering the Value of Planning”—I am sure that it was one of the first things to land on the new Minister’s desk—pointed out:

“Instead of stripping power from planning, governments need to maximise the potential of planning and ensure that planners have the powers and resources to deliver positive, proactive planning.”

That is the purpose of new clause 9.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I thank the hon. Lady for tabling the new clause and for underlining the importance of sustainable development and placemaking. To a degree, we have had this debate before—we had an interesting debate earlier about sustainable development—so she probably knows what I am going to say on the overall issue. However, she raised some interesting specific points about new settlements, which I will come on to in a moment.

The Government agree that sustainable development is integral to the planning system and that a plan-led system is key to delivering it, but we do not believe that it is necessary to write these things into legislation. The new clause seeks to make the achievement of sustainable development and placemaking the legal purpose of planning, and it would set objectives to be met by local planning authorities in working towards that goal. However, the Government believe that that goal is already adequately addressed both in legislation and in policy. I refer the hon. Lady to a statute that I have referred to many times today, the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, section 39 of which requires bodies that prepare local development documents for local plans to do so

“with the objective of contributing to the achievement of sustainable development.”

Our national planning policy framework is also very clear that sustainable development should be at the heart of planning and should be pursued in a positive and integrated way. Taken as a whole, the framework constitutes the Government’s view on what sustainable development means. It is explicit that the purpose of the planning system is to contribute to achieving sustainable development; that the economic, social and environmental aspects that the hon. Lady referred to in some detail in an earlier debate are mutually dependent and that none should be pursued in isolation. The Committee has discussed the NPPF already, so I will not read out a long quotation from it, but the first sentence of the ministerial foreword, written by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) when he was Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, reads:

“The purpose of planning is to help achieve sustainable development.”

Our commitment there is very clear. That principle runs through all levels of plan-making—strategic, local and neighbourhood. Since decisions on individual applications must by law be plan-led, the goal of sustainable development permeates the planning system.

Although the Government completely agree with the hon. Lady about the importance of sustainable development and placemaking, we do not believe that setting a prescriptive definition in statute is the right way forward—not least from a democratic point of view, because it is perfectly possible that a future Government will want to amend the NPPF definition in some way, hopefully an ever more progressive way. In our view, that should not necessarily have to be done by introducing more primary legislation; the Government should be able to do it through policy.

For those reasons, I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw her new clause, but I will say a few positive words on her comments on new settlements. I very strongly agree with those comments. I have had some very good discussions with the Town and Country Planning Association on the issue, and I recently addressed a conference at Alconbury Weald, which is one of the new settlements being delivered along garden village principles. There were people there from all over the country who had bid into our programme to create new garden towns and villages. I very much hope to make an announcement on that shortly.

The Government have taken action fairly recently to try to change the law in a way that helps the process. At the instigation of the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, we made some important changes to the New Towns Act 1981 by means of the Housing and Planning Act 2016. Those changes make it easier to set up new town development corporations in areas and to extend their objectives so that they can better support the delivery of new, locally led garden towns and villages where that is what local areas want.

I very much agree with the hon. Lady that new settlements will be an important ingredient of our strategy to ensure that we get this country building the homes we need. They are not the only answer because, by definition, a significant number of new homes are involved in the creation of a new settlement, and it takes time to get the build-out of those properties. We also need smaller sites where we are more likely to get rapid build-out. The hon. Lady is right to say that in many parts of the country it will prove much more politically acceptable to plan some new sustainable settlements, with all the community infrastructure and environmental sustainability that is at the core of the garden town and garden village concept, than to slowly expand every existing settlement out.

The Government share the hon. Lady’s thoughts on new settlements, and our garden towns and cities programme is good evidence of that. In fact, one of the first visits I made as a Minister was to Ebbsfleet to see the progress that is being made. It took some time to get under way, but we are now seeing good progress. I am looking forward to visiting several other new settlements throughout the country over the coming months. I very much share the aspirations that the hon. Lady expressed in support of her new clause.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I thank the Minister for his response, much of which I anticipated, if not quite all of it. I shall make two brief points.

First, with some of the detail of the new clause I was trying to tease out the extent to which the Government feel that new towns or garden cities have to abide by the garden city principles. For example, I discussed with the Minister’s predecessor the lack of affordable housing in Ebbsfleet, which did not seem to me to be in line with the garden city principles. That is why the new clause contains quite a detailed list and includes things such as community assets, which are not mentioned in the national planning policy framework. Will the Minister ponder on the fact that there is a great deal of detail in the new clause that is not in the NPPF? How might such detail be applied to new towns?

Finally, we have not discussed this much in Committee because the national infrastructure commission was taken out of the Bill, but I emphasise to the Minister that for any new settlement it is essential to get the infrastructure costs met, and met up front. That was a huge problem for Ebbsfleet, which is why there was considerable delay in the build-out. When the Minister comes to putting the final touches to the White Paper, I hope there is something in it about how infrastructure will be funded, because that seems to be a major issue that holds up the development of new settlements. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 10

Funding for local authority planning functions

(1) The Secretary of State must consult local planning authorities prior to the commencement of any new statutory duties to ensure that they are—

(a) adequately resourced; and

(b) adequately funded

so that they are able to undertake the additional work.

(2) In any instance where that is not the case, an independent review of additional cost must be conducted to set out the level of resource required to allow planning authorities to fulfil any new statutory duties.—(Jim McMahon.)

This new clause would ensure that the costs of new planning duties are calculated and adequately funded.

Brought up, and read the First time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

Not for the first time, the hon. Lady has accurately predicted what I was going to say. The Government believe that the new clause is unnecessary. Section 171 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 includes a requirement for the Secretary of State to carry out a review of planning legislation, Government policy and local planning policies concerning sustainable drainage in relation to the development of land in England. Rather than just leaving it there, perhaps I can provide some reassurance on where we are with all that.

My Department has formally commenced work on the review and that section of the 2016 Act. The review’s primary purpose is to examine the extent to which planning has been successful in encouraging the take-up of such drainage systems in new developments. More specifically, it will look at how national planning policies for SUDS are being reflected in local plans; the uptake of SUDS in major new housing developments, including the type of systems employed; the use of SUDS in smaller developments below the major threshold; the use of SUDS in commercial and mixed-use developments, including the type of systems employed; and how successful local plans and national policies have been in encouraging the take-up of SUDS in housing developments. It will engage with a wide range of stakeholders to gauge how the new policy and arrangements are bedding in and to analyse options for further action to improve take-up.

My officials are working on gathering evidence for the review, in collaboration with colleagues at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency. We aim to substantially complete our evidence gathering by spring 2017 to ensure that the findings of the review are available to inform the Committee on Climate Change’s adaptation sub-committee’s progress report on the national adaptation programme, to be published in summer 2017.

It might be worth saying a brief word about the substantive policy issue. The background to the review relates to a non-Government amendment that sought to remove the automatic right to connect to a public sewer for surface water, in a bid to push people into adopting SUDS. Even before the changes to planning in major developments that came into effect in April last year, the NPPF set out some strict tests, which all local planning authorities are expected to follow, to protect people and property from flooding. As part of that policy, priority should be given to SUDS in all developments—except very minor ones—in areas at risk of flooding. The policy has now been strengthened to make clear our expectation that SUDS will be provided in all major new developments, whether or not in a flood risk area, unless they can be demonstrated to be inappropriate.

As well as strengthening policy expectations, we have extended national guidance to set out considerations and options for sustainable drainage systems, including in relation to their operation and maintenance. Lead local flood authorities have been made statutory consultees for planning applications for major developments, to ensure that local planning authorities have access to appropriate technical expertise and advice.

I hope I have reassured the hon. Member for City of Durham that there has already been a significant policy shift in the right direction and that good progress is being made on the review and on meeting our undertakings in the Housing and Planning Act 2016. On that basis, I ask her to withdraw the new clause.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The Minister is right that I tabled the new clause primarily to get an update on the availability and use of SUDS. There is cross-party agreement that they should be employed when new developments are at risk of flooding, and indeed in wider circumstances. We look forward to seeing the report on the climate change adaptation programme in summer 2017. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 12

Planning obligations

(1) The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is amended as follows.

(2) In subsection (1) of section 106 (planning obligations) paragraph (d) at end insert—

“(e) requiring that information submitted as part of, and in support of, a viability assessment be made available to the public.”—(Dr Blackman-Woods.)

This new clause would ensure that viability assessments are public documents with no commercial confidentiality restrictions, except in cases where disclosure would not be in the public interest.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I am not sure that the Minister and I will be in such agreement on new clause 12, but we shall see. The new clause would ensure that viability assessments are put into the public domain so that they are available for public scrutiny. The Minister will know that the Opposition have long raised this issue. Labour’s view is that for the public to accept new development, they have to be absolutely certain that viability arrangements for a site—particularly safety integrity level requirements and section 106 requirements—are all that they should be.

I know from my own experience the kind of situation that can make local people sceptical about development or turn the public against a new housing development: for example, when they do not get the amount of affordable housing they think they should get; or when a contribution to a local primary school is suddenly no longer applied by the local authority because of viability issues. Although I am happy to take on trust a lot of what local authorities do, we would all accept that, as a general principle, local authorities need to be as transparent as possible in all their decisions. I am entirely uncertain as to why the Government are of the view that viability assessments should not be in the public domain.

The new clause would also help the public by giving us all a better view of any uplift in the value of land across the country. In some areas developers can provide more of a payback to the local community than in others because of the price of land. It does not always vary depending on the value of land—there will be other local circumstances. However, it would be good to have a more detailed understanding of what is being delivered, in terms of a planning gain, and why that particular level has been arrived at, than we currently have from the information that is in the public domain.

Viability assessments are used by developers to argue their planning obligations under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Of course, we find that a lot of viability assessments are used to reduce payments, although not always—that would be completely unfair. The Royal Institute of British Architects has commented:

“Despite the Planning Practice Guidance encouraging transparency, developers may opt not to disclose their viability assessments to the public on grounds of commercial confidentiality. It is widely accepted that this is sometimes done in order that they can negotiate down their S106 obligations without public scrutiny. As a consequence, affordable housing may be reduced and the quality of the built environment may suffer.”

We know that there is a huge lack of affordable housing across the UK, so it is absolutely vital that developers are not allowed to deliberately dodge their obligations to contribute to affordable housing through viability assessments. It is equally important that they can be held accountable by local people.

National planning policy guidance states that when it comes to viability, plans should

“present visions for an area in the context of an understanding of local economic conditions and market realities.”

In many places, local economic conditions mean that some affordable housing is required. In fact, that is the case in most areas; I was trying to think of some areas where it might not be required, and it is really hard to do so because there is such a desperate need for genuinely affordable housing. I am talking about genuinely affordable housing, not the starter homes that the Government have put into this category, because £250,000 is certainly not affordable for many people in my constituency.

[Gavin Barwell]

What is the average house price in the hon. Lady’s area?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

In Durham city, which has a very different level of average house prices than in the county, the average house price is probably about £200,000 to £220,000.

[Gavin Barwell]

In that case, I put it to the hon. Lady that constantly quoting the maximum level for starter homes across the whole of England is not a particularly accurate rendering of what the policy will mean in her area. The average house price in the city is £200,000, so the average starter home in the city will be about £160,000. That certainly would not be affordable to everybody living in the city, but it would clearly bring home ownership within the reach of a greater proportion of her constituents than currently have it.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I am not sure that that is how the policy will work in practice. I spoke to the developer of a new development in Durham where really quite attractive family homes are being built. The prices range from £220,000 or £230,000 up to £310,000. Without the developer having to change anything at all that it does to roll out the development, it will meet its requirement under the starter homes initiative and will not have to deliver any affordable housing. That is the effect of the policy in an area such as mine. Those homes would have been delivered anyway. I am not sure that the policy is adding to the quantity of genuinely affordable homes locally, which is what we really need.

The point I was making was that greater transparency about viability arrangements would help us to understand how planning gain is arrived at and give the local community, which is at times concerned about how section 106 obligations get watered down, more confidence in the planning system overall. It would help communities to accept development more readily if they understood what the costs were and how they stacked up. Sometimes, such transparency would lead to more sympathy for developers than they currently get. The public often assume that the developers are making thousands and thousands of pounds from each development, but in some areas of the country where land prices are more difficult for developers, that might not be the case at all.

The new clause could help developers by making it clear how their obligations were arrived at. It would also help the public to understand how the finances and the housing market in this country stack up. On top of that, it might create circumstances in which, when the public are concerned about a particular development, better negotiation can take place between the developer and the local community about what can be delivered and in what way. At the moment, those conversations simply do not happen because viability assessments are kept confidential.

[Gavin Barwell]

As the hon. Lady said, new clause 12 relates to section 106 planning obligations and viability assessments. Planning obligations are normally agreements negotiated between the applicant and the local planning authority. They usually relate to developer contributions to infrastructure and affordable housing, and reflect policy in local plans.

The purpose of a section 106 planning obligation is to mitigate the impact of otherwise unacceptable development, to make it acceptable in planning terms. Local planning authorities may seek viability assessments in some circumstances, but Government guidance is clear that decision taking on individual applications does not normally require an assessment of viability. Developers may submit a viability assessment in support of their negotiations, if they consider that their proposed development would be rendered unviable by the extent of planning obligations sought by the local planning authority. Some authorities make such assessments publicly available, which I suggest shows the hon. Lady that there is no need to introduce legislation. Local authorities are currently perfectly free under the law to do what she wants them to do.

It is important that local authorities act in a transparent way in their decision-making processes. My main point of assurance to the hon. Lady is that there is already legislation—principally the Freedom of Information Act, but also the Environmental Information Regulations 2004—that governs the release of information. If necessary, that legislation enables people to seek a review if they are not satisfied by the response of the local authority and, ultimately, to appeal to the Information Commissioner if they remain unsatisfied.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Lady is wrong. It has not collapsed; it continues to help large numbers of people own their own homes. There were two different Help to Buy schemes: the mortgage guarantee scheme and the equity loan scheme. The mortgage guarantee scheme, which applied to all homes, was basically a market intervention because after the great depression of 2008-09 there was a point in time when people with low deposits were not able to access mortgages. The scheme was an intervention to deal with that. The market has now adjusted and it is possible to access those kinds of mortgages.

The equity loan scheme applies when people are looking to buy a new build property. That scheme is still running because there is a strong public policy benefit. Research evidence shows that something like 40% of those purchases are homes that otherwise would not have been built. The scheme is therefore helping to drive up the supply of new housing, which ultimately is the critical issue we are debating. The publicity the hon. Lady has read—to reassure her, she is not the only person to have got the wrong end of the stick—was about a particular part of the Help to Buy scheme that is coming to an end at the end of this year. The equity loan scheme is continuing, and it will continue through to at least 2021.

I will not go much further, because this is slightly tangential to the main issue, but I want to reinforce strongly and publicly that the starter homes policy will bring home ownership within the reach of a significant number of people who would not otherwise find it affordable. It is not the only answer—other things are required, and I am happy to accept that affordable housing should be about not just helping people to afford to buy, but shared ownership and affordable homes for people to rent. We should not say that the starter homes initiative is not making a contribution to helping people afford a home of their own.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Let me give the Minister a bit of reassurance in terms of our understanding of the starter homes initiative. Opposition Members understand what the words “up to £250,000” mean. We were not suggesting that every single home will be £250,000 under this initiative or £450,000 in London, nor were we suggesting for a minute that the initiative does not reduce the cost of home ownership for a number of people. I do not recall mentioning that.

I was making the point that in lots of our constituencies, reducing a home from £250,000 to £200,000 does not make it affordable housing for many people. Enabling developers to discharge their affordable housing obligations through this mechanism means that money might not be available for other obligations under section 106 of the 1990 Act. Because of the viability of a particular site, we would not know that, because we were not seeing the viability assessment.

[Gavin Barwell]

It is important to get this on the record. The hon. Lady is quite right that if we set the requirement for starter homes too high, it could squeeze out some other important forms of housing. However, one difference that is worth teasing out is what we understand by the term “affordable housing”. It has been used traditionally in housing policy to mean council and housing association housing. When most of our constituents hear the term, they are interested in how they can be helped to afford a home of their own. To me, policy that makes home ownership affordable for people who otherwise would not have been able to afford it is not the only important type of affordable housing but is absolutely affordable housing.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

International uses of affordable housing are usually something like three times average income. In my constituency, that would make a home affordable at about £75,000 or £80,000 if it was one person, and for a couple, double that. That is by international standards. For a lot of people on average incomes, that puts starter homes out of their reach, but that was not the point I was raising.

Now it is my turn to tell the Minister that we are doing a piece of work on what affordability means in the current housing environment. When we have completed that, I will be happy to share it with him. New clause 12 seeks to make viability a bit more transparent. The Government’s own review of the NPPF and guidance came forward with the suggestion of guidance being stronger on the transparency of viability assessments. I direct the Minister to Lord Taylor’s work and ask him to ponder on it. That was, as far as I understand it, an independent review of the Government’s guidance. There is general agreement that it would be really helpful to our whole development system if viability was more transparent. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 14

Review of permitted development rights

(1) Before exercising his powers under section 35(1) the Secretary of State must review the provisions of all General Development Orders made under the powers conferred to the Secretary of State by sections 59, 60, 61, 74 and 333(7) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 granting permitted development rights since 1 January 2013.—(Jim McMahon.)

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to review the permitted development rights granted since 2013.

Brought up, and read the First time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

As the Minister is carrying out lots of reviews, I thought he might like to add another to his list and review the way in which local authorities are able to determine amendments to see whether he can give local planning departments a bit more flexibility in how they deal with amendments, and in particular what they consider to be material or non-material considerations. Does the Department have a view on allowing split decisions to be taken on planning applications? A local authority may say, for example, “We want to approve this application, but there is one bit that we do not like. We are going to approve the rest of the application, but we want this one bit to be changed.” I am simply asking a question of the Minister. Further, does he have a view about local authorities being able to charge additional fees where an amendment means that they have to go out to public consultation again, or a lot of officer time has to be put into determining whether a particular amendment should stand?

[Gavin Barwell]

The Minister is not particularly welcoming of another statutory requirement to have another review, as the hon. Lady may have predicted, but perhaps I can get a better understanding of her concerns outside the Committee, reflect on those and come back to her.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I am happy to write to the Minister with some of the documentation from the Planning Officers Society, which is exercised about the issue. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Schedule 1

County councils’ default powers in relation to development plan documents

1 The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 is amended as follows.

2 Schedule A1 (default powers exercisable by Mayor of London or combined authority) is amended in accordance with paragraphs 3 to 8.

3 In the heading for “or combined authority” substitute “, combined authority or county council”.

4 After paragraph 7 insert—

“Default powers exercisable by county council

7A In this Schedule—

‘upper-tier county council’ means a county council for an area for which there is also a district council;

‘lower-tier planning authority’, in relation to an upper-tier county council, means a district council which is the local planning authority for an area within the area of the upper-tier county council.

7B If the Secretary of State—

(a) thinks that a lower-tier planning authority are failing or omitting to do anything it is necessary for them to do in connection with the preparation, revision or adoption of a development plan document, and

(b) invites the upper-tier county council to prepare or revise the document, the upper-tier county council may prepare or revise (as the case may be) the development plan document.

7C (1) This paragraph applies where a development plan document is prepared or revised by an upper-tier county council under paragraph 7B.

(2) The upper-tier county council must hold an independent examination.

(3) The upper-tier county council—

(a) must publish the recommendations and reasons of the person appointed to hold the examination, and

(b) may also give directions to the lower-tier planning authority in relation to publication of those recommendations and reasons.

(4) The upper-tier county council may—

(a) approve the document, or approve it subject to specified modifications, as a local development document, or

(b) direct the lower-tier planning authority to consider adopting the document by resolution of the authority as a local development document.

7D (1) Subsections (4) to (7C) of section 20 apply to an examination held under paragraph 7C(2)—

(a) with the reference to the local planning authority in subsection (7C) of that section being read as a reference to the upper-tier county council, and

(b) with the omission of subsections (5)(c), (7)(b)(ii) and (7B)(b).

(2) The upper-tier county council must give reasons for anything they do in pursuance of paragraph 7B or 7C(4).

(3) The lower-tier planning authority must reimburse the upper-tier county council—

(a) for any expenditure that the upper-tier county council incur in connection with anything which is done by them under paragraph 7B and which the lower-tier planning authority failed or omitted to do as mentioned in that paragraph;

(b) for any expenditure that the upper-tier county council incur in connection with anything which is done by them under paragraph 7C(2).

(4) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the upper-tier council may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the council considers just between the authorities for whom the document has been prepared.”

5 (1) Paragraph 8 is amended as follows.

(2) In sub-paragraph (1)—

(a) omit the “or” at the end of paragraph (a), and

(b) at the end of paragraph (b) insert “, or

(c) under paragraph 7B by an upper-tier county council.”

(3) In sub-paragraph (2)(a)—

(a) for “or 6(4)(a)” substitute “, 6(4)(a) or 7C(4)(a)”, and

(b) for “or the combined authority” substitute “, the combined authority or the upper-tier county council”.

(4) In sub-paragraph (3)(a) for “or the combined authority” substitute “, the combined authority or the upper-tier county council”.

(5) In sub-paragraph (5) for “or 6(4)(a)” substitute “, 6(4)(a) or 7C(4)(a)”.

(6) In sub-paragraph (7)—

(a) in paragraph (b) for “or 6(4)(a)” substitute “, 6(4)(a) or 7C(4)(a)”, and

(b) in the words following that paragraph for “or the combined authority” substitute “, the combined authority or the upper-tier county council”.

6 In paragraph 9(8) for “or the combined authority” substitute “, the combined authority or the upper-tier county council”.

7 In paragraph 12—

(a) for “or the combined authority” substitute “, the combined authority or the upper-tier county council”, and

(b) for “or the authority” substitute “, the authority or the council”.

8 In paragraph 13(1)—

(a) for “or a combined authority” substitute “, a combined authority or an upper-tier county council”, and

(b) for “or the authority” substitute “, the authority or the council”.

9 In section 17(8) (document a local development document only if adopted or approved) after paragraph (d) insert—

“(e) is approved by an upper-tier county council (as defined in that Schedule) under paragraph 7C of that Schedule.”

10 In section 27A (default powers exercisable by Mayor of London or combined authority) in both places for “or combined authority” substitute “, combined authority or county council”. —(Gavin Barwell.)

See the explanatory statement for NC5.

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill, as amended, to the House.

[Gavin Barwell]

Mr McCabe, may I take a minute of the Committee’s time to say thank you as we come to the end of our proceedings in Committee? I thank you and Mr Bone for the way in which you have chaired these proceedings, which I am sure all Members have appreciated. I also thank the officials, the Clerks who have assisted you, Hansard and the Doorkeepers for their support.

I thank all members of the Committee. We have had good debates to which nearly all Members have contributed fully. We on the Government Benches are grateful for the scrutiny of the Bill. I thank my officials for their work on the Bill and the Bill documents, which has been useful in scrutinising the legislation, and certainly for their support of me with their words of inspiration as I have tried to answer questions for members of the Committee.

Perhaps I could single out two people. I learned earlier today that this is the first time my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet has sat on a Bill Committee as a Back-Bench Member. I hope that she has enjoyed the experience, and that the Whips are looking forward to putting her on many more such Committees. Finally, perhaps reflecting on whence I came, I thank our Whips. I have had to do their job for a number of years, and have had to sit through proceedings silently, unable to say anything. I think Members on both Front Benches are grateful for their support and help in getting through our proceedings.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Lord Barwell and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. The Minister will be relieved to know that I was not quite in the middle but towards the end of moving amendment 19. I was extolling the virtues of adding to clause 7 a provision that would ensure that the Secretary of State had to take account of the need to promote development that is both sustainable and in the public interest.

To recap, I went through the provisions in the national planning policy framework and in planning guidance relating to sustainable development. Of course, we are also asked to look at the key provisions of the Climate Change Act 2008, which I will only do in a cursory way. Those provisions rely heavily on reducing carbon and on further adaptation measures that help with addressing climate change issues. I am sure the Minister is very familiar with the provisions of that Act and the need to ensure that, where possible, all development addresses those provisions and therefore helps us to combat climate change.

That deals with the first part of the amendment, which is about sustainable development. The amendment also asks that the Secretary of State have some consideration of the public interest, which is much more difficult to deal with than sustainable development, in terms of having a straightforward definition of exactly what we are talking about. For sustainable development we have the NPPF, the guidance and the Climate Change Act. The definition of “public interest” is much harder to agree on.

“Public interest” is a term with a long history. It says something about transforming the interests of many people into some notion of a common good. I am sure that we all think that is a central task of the whole political process. Thomas Aquinas maintained the common good to be the end of government and law, which is interesting—we might want to ponder that for a moment or two, as a bit of light relief. We also know that John Locke put

“peace, safety, and public good of the people”

as the ends of the political system. That is quite a nice thing for us to reflect on as well. One says that the public interest is central to our task this afternoon, and the other says that it should be nothing to do with us at all. I use that only to show that there is probably no absolute and complete understanding of what public interest is.

Rousseau, as always, has come up with something that helps us. He took the common good to be the object of the general will and purpose of government. That might help the Secretary of State in this regard, because it says clearly that the common good should be an outcome of legislation and of what we are all doing in this room. I therefore take it as read that there will be no problem putting those words on the face of the Bill.

Of course, it is not quite that straightforward. In practice, the public interest is often subject to differing views. People can decide that a public or common good can be met in a variety of ways. It is therefore not always exactly clear in practice what is meant by the public interest, but we are happy to leave it to the Secretary of State to come forward with a clear definition, if he so wishes.

Standard dictionaries manage to come up with a generally held view of the public interest as

“the welfare or well-being of the general public”

and of

“appeal or relevance to the general populace”.

That Random House dictionary definition is incredibly helpful, because that is what we would want planning developments to be. We would want them to promote the welfare or wellbeing of the general public, and we would want them to have an appeal to, and be considered relevant to, the general populace. We would like that sort of consideration, particularly the relevance of a development’s appeal to the local population, to be quite high up on the Secretary of State’s list of issues and interests when determining which conditions he will or will not allow.

We have had a wide-ranging look at the amendment, so I really look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe.

I thank the hon. Member for City of Durham for tabling amendment 19, which brings us back to less divisive territory and raises the important issue of having to take planning decisions both in the public interest and with the aim of achieving sustainable development. As she explained, it would add to the list of constraints on the Secretary of State’s regulation-making power in proposed section 100ZA(2) by explicitly requiring the Secretary of State to take account of sustainable development and the public interest when deciding whether it is appropriate to prohibit certain classes of planning conditions. Although the matters that the hon. Lady has raised are of the greatest importance in the planning system, I shall argue that the amendment is not necessary, in much the same way as amendment 16 was not necessary.

Subsection (2)(a) and (b) of proposed section 100ZA already provide assurance that the Secretary of State will be able to prohibit conditions only in so far as it is necessary to ensure that conditions will

“make the development acceptable in planning terms”

and are

“relevant to…planning considerations generally”.

That includes the need to consider the presumption in favour of sustainable development, which is at the heart of planning policy, plan making and decision taking. Local views are also already central to the planning system.

I thought that the hon. Lady made my point for me quite powerfully by quoting voluminously from the NPPF. Nevertheless, I shall briefly pick out a couple of other quotes. The then Secretary of State’s forward to the NPPF starts with the words:

“The purpose of planning is to help achieve sustainable development.”

Further on in the document, at paragraph 14, it states:

“At the heart of the National Planning Policy Framework is a presumption in favour of sustainable development, which should be seen as a golden thread running through both plan-making and decision-taking.”

I do not think that anybody who has spent even a moment reading the document could doubt the extent to which it is based on the principle of sustainable development.

I assure Members that clause 7 will in no shape or form restrict the ability of local planning authorities to seek to impose planning conditions that are necessary to achieving sustainable development, in line with national policy. The proposals will not change the way that conditions can be used to maintain existing protections for important matters such as heritage, the natural environment and measures to mitigate flood risk.

On taking account of the public interest—I greatly enjoyed the quotes that the hon. Lady read out—and ensuring that planning decisions and conditions are acceptable to local people, the Government continue to ensure that the planning system is built on the principle of community involvement. The system gives communities statutory rights to become involved in the preparation of the local plan for their area, bring forward proposals for neighbourhood plans, make representations on individual planning applications and make comments on planning appeals should applicants object to decisions made by local planning authorities. Account is also taken of the views of local people if an application comes to my desk, as happens infrequently.

I have no problem with the language in the hon. Lady’s amendment; the principles of public interest and sustainable development sit at the heart of the planning system. I simply say that it is not necessary to add that language to subsection (2)(d), because that language goes much wider than that one subsection; it runs right through the NPPF, which is referred to elsewhere.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I have listened carefully to what the Minister has said. We are probably all just a little disappointed that we are not going to hear the outcome of the Secretary of State’s deliberations on what exactly is meant by the public interest and that that will not be put in the Bill. The purpose of the amendment was really to elicit from the Minister how important he felt upholding the principle of sustainable development was, and to get that read into the record.

The national planning policy framework document is widely accepted as a very good piece of work, but that does not mean that it will always be there. In the future there may be a significantly amended NPPF in which sustainable development is not so obvious. I quoted from it today to show that it is there at the moment. We want to ensure that decisions made under the provisions in the Bill are made with sustainable development and the public interest in mind. Given the Minister’s reassurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I wonder whether the Minister has thought about circumstances in which a local authority could not get the developer’s agreement and may feel pressured into lifting a condition that it would otherwise think was necessary because the developer tried to suggest it was unreasonable by making the local authority go to appeal. We are not sure—I would like some assurances from the Minister on this—that that would not trigger the Secretary of State getting involved to impose restrictions on conditions. It seems to me that if the Secretary of State will be able to do that in such circumstances, local authorities will be placed in a difficult situation.

[Gavin Barwell]

I think I can provide the hon. Lady with quite a lot of reassurance on that front. I think she is envisaging a situation in which a particular application is the cause of conflict and the applicant goes to the Secretary of State and says, “Council A is being unreasonable and you should exercise your power under these regulations to resolve the problem.” I think that this House would want to see a more substantive body of evidence for the use of these regulations than one particular case, and in any event there would clearly be a significant time delay in drafting the regulations and bringing them before the House. I think I am also right in saying that there is a general presumption that there are two dates during a given year on which most regulations are brought in. Practically, it is highly unlikely that an applicant will be able to run off to Marsham Street and say, “We need help with this; deal with this.” Speaking for myself, I would not want to take decisions based on such one-off cases.

More generally, the hon. Lady raised the question of the balance of power in the planning system. I can speak only for myself, but my approach—it was when I was a councillor and it is now I am a Minister—is to listen to the evidence that people give me when they make complaints about things that they think are unreasonable about the planning system. If I am convinced that they have a case, I think the right thing to do is to shift public policy, as I am doing in relation to pre-commencement conditions.

People complain to me about other matters. For example, developers often complain about how local planning committees work. Local democratic representation has an important role in our planning system, and when developers fall foul of planning committees, it is often because they have not engaged with the relevant local political representatives early enough in the process—or they have engaged, they have been given clear feedback about the likely concerns, and they have not reflected or responded to those concerns.

The point that I have slowly been trying to work my way around to is that my advice to local authorities is to listen, and if a developer is saying, “This condition is unreasonable, for the following reasons,” to consider that argument fairly. But if, having reflected on it, they think that the argument has no merit and they are doing the right thing for their community, they should stick to their guns and not be afraid to stick up for the position they believe in.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I have heard the Minister’s reassurances on specific individual cases, but what about the generality? For example, a lot of developers may come to Marsham Street and say, “We’re absolutely fed up with having to do bat surveys and think about newts”—or even, as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport may say, hedgehogs—“and therefore we want these regulations to have much clearer guidance for local authorities in terms of restricting the conditions that they can apply to protect wildlife.” Is that a real danger of the clause? Would it not help to have an appeal or mediation system to deal with that?

[Gavin Barwell]

I can give the hon. Lady strong reassurance on that front. First, she has my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport completely wrong; far from wanting to further persecute hedgehogs, he is first to the barricades to protect and defend them.

Let us take the hypothetical example that the hon. Lady gave, where at some point in the future more and more developers are coming to the Secretary of State and saying, “There’s a real problem about the way in which the protection of bats is working and the onerous conditions that are being put on us.” If the Secretary of State was persuaded by those arguments, we would need to look at planning policy and whether we wished to shift it.

Broadly speaking, the test with all these things is one of proportionality. I think all of us would place significant weight on the protection of our wildlife and fauna. The test is always one of reasonableness, in terms of the costs incurred by the developer to do that. If a future Secretary of State decided that in his or her judgment that balance was wrong, that would involve a shift in policy. It would not be possible to outlaw a type of condition that is consistent with what current policy says. I hope that reassures the hon. Lady.

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Clearly, councillors and Members of Parliament are representatives of those communities, and engagement with them is important, but he is quite right that developers should also be talking directly to local people in the relevant area. They should be talking and listening. In my experience of the planning system, that kind of positive engagement is very good for the developer because it avoids problems later on when things come to a planning committee.

The broad point I was making to the hon. Lady is that my approach, were I on a local planning committee, would be to listen to concerns that developers expressed about planning conditions and judge whether the evidence backed up those concerns. If it did, I would adjust my policy, but if it did not, I would stick to my guns and do what I thought was the right thing for my local community.

On amendment 21, the hon. Lady made an important point about providing clarity for the applicant during the process. The amendment seeks to ensure that associated guidance is made accessible to inform parties of the appeals procedure, should an agreement not be reached on the application of conditions. I agree that we need to ensure that applicants are fully aware of the options available to them and how they can pursue that action. However, I would like to assure hon. Members that that information can already be found online as part of our planning guidance, and I believe it provides the right support to those looking to appeal against the imposition of certain conditions. On that basis, I hope the hon. Lady will accept that the necessary protections are there.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I thank the Minister for his helpful additional information on how this process might work in practice, particularly with regard to instances that might provoke the Secretary of State to develop and put out to consultation regulations to affect the conditions being applied by local planning authorities. I heard what he said about giving clarity to applicants about the appeals process and the circumstances in which the Secretary of State might get involved. I would like some time to consider that further. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend, as ever, hits the nail on the head. It is the wrong target, which is exactly our point. A lot of information is available to local authorities, never mind their experience of applying conditions. The problem is not setting conditions, but the lack of resourcing for planning departments. As we rehearsed this morning, most people’s problem with pre-commencement planning conditions is not the conditions themselves but the time it takes to discharge them because of the lack of resources in planning departments. A lot of information is available to local authorities, so in general one would not expect them to set unnecessary conditions, because that would clearly be in breach of all the documents I have discussed.

I picked up, at random, a list of pre-commencement planning conditions from my constituency. The developer has just written to me about them, to ask me to ensure that the local authority discharges them, and I thought, “Here’s a helpful bit of information that has just dropped into my inbox at a very appropriate time.” To give the Committee some context, the development is taking place in a conservation area—a rather large student accommodation block—so one would expect the local authority to take some care and use some diligence over the pre-commencement planning conditions, and indeed it has. I want to go through the list—I will do so as quickly as possible—because Government Members are saying that these pre-commencement planning conditions are often unnecessary, yet when I went through the list I could not find a single one that was unnecessary. The list states:

“No development shall take place until samples of the materials to be used in the construction of the building hereby permitted have been submitted to and approved in writing by the local planning authority.”

[Gavin Barwell]

Is that necessary?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

It is absolutely necessary; it is in a conservation area.

[Gavin Barwell]

Not pre-commencement.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Well, we will have to disagree. I think that if somebody is asking for planning permission—not just outline planning permission—for a major development in a conservation area that abuts a world heritage site, it is vital that the materials to be used are included as a pre-commencement condition.

Government Members will love the next part:

“No development shall take place until full details of the location of the proposed bat loft and a scheme for the provision of 10 house sparrow terraces have been submitted to and agreed in writing by the local planning authority.”

We all agreed earlier that protecting wildlife is really important. As the Minister knows, sparrows need to be protected if they are to survive and thrive. Such mitigation and compensation are necessary within the breeding bird assessment regulations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. In the development in Durham that I am describing, because it abuts a wooded area in the centre of the city called Flass Vale, several local residents were concerned that there was no particular order in the pre-commencement conditions about the protection of hedgehogs. We are all terribly concerned about hedgehogs and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising their profile in Parliament—it is very much needed.

The point I wanted to make by going through that list—I have not gone through it all, but I have highlighted the most important conditions—is that it is an extremely contentious development in a very sensitive area of the city. Because the developers were made to provide all that information to the local community, the development is going ahead and the community is engaged with the developer in ensuring that the pre-commencement conditions are discharged. That seems to me to be a sensible way forward.

Had the developers been able to not agree, and to hope that six months down the line the Secretary of State would intervene and overrule the local authority, they might not have worked so hard to meet the conditions, and the local community might have been very upset with them indeed. As it is, as the local MP I have been able to ensure that everyone is speaking to each other about the trees and the sparrows, and about the hours during which work will take place on the site, as it abuts residential properties. The conditions have been carefully thought through by the local authority and were applied for a reason. I would like to hear why the Minister thinks—this is the important point—that those conditions do not comply with the requirements set out in the NPPF, because that is what the Government would have to show in order to have a provision in the clause to take away from local government the power to set the conditions, and give it to the Secretary of State.

The LGA and London Councils both made exactly that point to the Committee, so it is not just the Opposition who are saying that there is no evidence. The LGA said:

“The NPPF, and the associated national planning practice guidance, already clearly sets out expectations on use of planning conditions and the new primary legislation is unnecessary…There is little evidence to suggest development is being delayed by planning conditions. Planning conditions provide a vital role by enabling planning permissions to go ahead which would otherwise be refused or delayed while the details are worked out. They can also save developers time and money as they do not need to invest in detailed submissions until after the principle of the development is granted…Joint working between councils and developers is the most effective way of dealing with any concerns about planning conditions and the LGA strongly advocates the use of early, collaborative discussions ahead of planning applications being submitted for consideration.”

I do not think it could be clearer.

To rub the point in, London Councils said that there was little robust evidence to suggest that the current system of planning conditions was the reason for the under-supply of housing generally or for the slow build-out rates of residential developments. It also questioned the need for the Bill to prohibit certain conditions in defined circumstances, where they do not meet the national policy test. It said that adequate tests on conditions were already set out in national policy, and that there is already a system in place that allows applicants to appeal against conditions that they consider fail those tests.

London Councils, the LGA and lots of other people who gave evidence to the Committee appear to back up what the Opposition are saying, which is that there is already a huge amount of information, advice and guidance that local authorities have to apply in setting pre-commencement planning conditions—and, indeed, conditions per se. The provisions in clause 7 are unnecessary and are further evidence that the Government are anti-localist and are taking powers back to the centre.

[Gavin Barwell]

We had some of this debate this morning when we considered the first group of amendments, while Mr Bone was in the Chair. Let me rehearse some of the arguments. There are four points that I want to make.

First, it is pretty undeniable that we have had a very partial presentation of the evidence we received, so I want to put on the record again what the evidence we received is. I acknowledge that it is mixed. Certainly, people came to us and said, “I don’t see a problem here,” but there were also plenty of people who said that there is a problem, so let me counterbalance what the hon. Lady said. The district councils network said that it supports the Government in seeking to address conditions. It was interesting that when I put it to Councillor Newman, who was speaking on behalf of the LGA, that that was the view of district councils, which make up the vast majority of local planning authorities, it seemed to be news to him.

I quoted a number of major developers earlier. Persimmon said in its annual report that,

“planning-related pre-start conditions continue to increase the time taken to bring new outlets”—

new homes—

“to market”.

Knight Frank stated that we

“need to address the increasingly onerous levels of pre-commencement conditions”.

The NHBC survey that I quoted provided clear evidence of small and medium-sized enterprises being concerned about, yes, the speed of discharge of planning conditions, but also the extent of those conditions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Actually, I am pretty certain that I did answer the Minister’s question. I simply do not accept its premise, because we do not believe that pre-commencement planning conditions slow down development. In fact, much of the point that I have been making is that the system that the Government are about to put in place could slow down development, because more developers may now have to use an appeal route. We do not think that pre-commencement conditions slow down development; that is the Government’s case. It is not me who has to address that point; it is the Minister.

[Gavin Barwell]

I will try to address it now—

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I thought that I had been careful, but perhaps I was not careful enough; I think I said that I did not know the site in question and could not comment on the detail.

Let me comment instead on a generic application in which these issues arose. My view, generally speaking, is that materials are important, particularly in a conservation area, but their colour does not necessarily need to be agreed before a spade can go into the ground. The situation of bats, birds or other species that inhabit a site clearly needs to be dealt with before their habitats are disturbed. However, on a large site, of which a part was existing buildings and another part was a wooded area where those species had their homes, work could be done on the buildings before touching the habitat. Noise mitigation needs to be dealt with at the outset, because clearly initial works can be noisy. On drainage, a clear commitment would be needed at the outset that the drainage solution would be sustainable, but the detail would not be needed until the detailed works were to be done. Archaeology clearly needs to be considered.

On a generic site, some of those points are clearly pre-commencement, but I argue that some are not. It cannot be denied, however, that the more a developer is asked to do before a spade goes into the ground, the longer the wait until that happens. The Government are therefore quite right to focus on this issue, alongside lots of other issues such as raising the performance of our utility companies, resourcing our planning departments better so that they can take decisions more quickly, and getting section 106 agreements more quickly.

The hon. Member for City of Durham cited a statistic that gets to the core of the issue. The coalition Government’s planning reforms have done an amazing job of increasing the number of homes given consent through our planning system. In the year to 30 June, a record number of homes were given consent. However, we have seen a growing gap between consents and homes being started, because the number of homes being started has also gone up but not by anything like as much. A strategy to get the country building the homes we desperately need therefore needs to address bridging that gap. My contention is that these pre-commencement conditions and other abuses of planning conditions are one issue, albeit not the only one, that we need to address in order to do that.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I will start by addressing the specific question asked by the hon. Member for North West Hampshire: when did the scheme I mentioned start on site? Planning permission came through in April and the developer was hoping to start on site in August. Actually, I got a phone call to say that there was a delay in the system. Hon. Members are right that there was a delay in the system, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with the pre-commencement planning conditions, which were not mentioned at all; it was because the Brexit vote meant that the developer lost its funding and had to go out to the market again to get support for the development. It was therefore unable to start on site until October—and start in October it did. We have had the first meeting with residents, and they all agree that the pre-commencement conditions were essential.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. He more than any of us in Committee understands the day-to-day, lived experience of people in local authorities and just how difficult it is to keep managing, in particular, the huge portfolios that some of our local planning officers have to on such limited resources and—this is pertinent—with no end in sight. We do not know what is to come in the Minister’s White Paper, but there is no clarity at all about when the contraction of budgets in local planning departments will stop. At the moment, we have contraction figures right up to 2020. If the Minister is to reverse that and put in additional resources, that would be a good thing, but at this point in time we do not know whether that is the case.

We do not know whether there will be any means by which local authorities can fund the putting together of the register. Several people who gave evidence to the Committee were at pains to stress to the Minister that responsibility for an operation of this type will fall on planning policy officers. Some district councils have only one planning policy officer to do all their local plan-making work, to support all neighbourhood planning and to do all the work required for a register. That just does not seem possible, or possible to deliver.

We have made the case that the planning register as proposed under clause 8 is wholly inadequate. If the Government did not rely so heavily on permitted development, it would not be necessary anyway. If the Minister wants to stick to his thoroughly discredited permitted development scheme and ask local authorities to produce a register, he should also pay for it. I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

[Gavin Barwell]

It is a pleasure to welcome the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton to the Front Bench as a substitute, as he described himself. I am a keen fan of the beautiful game, and I observe that substitutions happen in one of two circumstances: either a team are winning and coasting, so give some fresh talent a chance, or they are struggling and bring on someone different. I shall leave it to Committee members to decide which of those sets of circumstances applies now.

I thank Opposition Members for tabling amendments 28 and 29 on changes to the planning register. Before I address them specifically, perhaps I can say a few general words about clause 8, which, as we have heard, aims to ensure that both local and central Government further understand the contribution that permitted development rights make to increasing the housing supply, while also increasing transparency about development proposals in an area.

The Government have introduced a series of permitted development rights for change of use to residential use since January 2013, and they are playing an important role in supporting the delivery of the homes that our country so desperately needs. We do not know exactly how many homes they have delivered, which is part of the purpose of the clause, but we have two bits of data that I shall share with the Committee.

First, since April 2014 there have been more than 6,500 applications for prior approval for changing from office to residential. We do not know how many housing units have been created, but we do know that. Secondly, the Estates Gazette reported that more than 5,300 new homes have been started in London as a result of permitted development, although I cannot tell the Committee the source of the data. I shall return to the remarks made by the hon. Member for City of Durham later in my speech, but it is worth putting clearly on the record now that 5,300 families in London have had the opportunity of a home as a result of the policy. Whatever other critiques may be made of it, that important fact should not be lost in the balance.

Clause 8 enables the Secretary of State to require local planning authorities to place information about prior approval applications or notifications for permitted development rights on the planning register. For the first time there will be consistent public-access data on the number of homes being created through permitted development rights in England. Details of which prior approval applications or notifications should be placed on the register, and specific information relating to them, will be provided in subsequent regulations, which we expect to be made available during the passage of the Bill.

Before I discuss the amendments in detail, I make a general observation: good-quality data are important in assessing public policy. My officials know me well enough by now to understand that I am interested in data and in understanding figures properly, so that Ministers can take good decisions based on clear evidence. The data collected under the clause will be important with respect to the main way we measure the success of the Government’s housing policies—the net additions measure of housing supply. I shall not detain the Committee too long on one of my pet subjects, but Members might be aware that data on starts and completions are published quarterly, and we then get annual data on net additions, which takes in not only starts but changes of use and permitted developments. That way, we get a total picture in terms of the net change in the number of homes.

Interestingly, even the starts figure in the net additions data is not consistent. If one adds up the net starts for the previous four quarters, one will not get the same total because they are measured differently. That often creates room for people to have political fun by using different figures. Even for those who oppose permitted development, clause 8 is good because it will provide data on the effect of the policy, which can inform our political discussions of it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I want to return to the Minister’s point about planning permissions being put on the register. Planning permissions do not completely cover the cost of determining a planning application, but more money certainly goes to the local authority than under the prior approval system. Although there might be a case for additional resources to allow local authorities to put planning permissions on the register, does he accept that requiring them to put prior approvals on the register when they receive so little money from them is really a burden of a different order?

[Gavin Barwell]

I tried to answer that question in my remarks: we do not believe that there is any additional cost in requiring local authorities to place these applications on the register. The register is not new; it already exists and holds information on individual planning applications. We do not think that the requirement will place a new burden on planning authorities. However, the Department will carry out an assessment to confirm that before introducing regulations. I hope that reassures the hon. Lady.

Let me turn to some more generic points about permitted development. The hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton spoke passionately about his views as a localist and suggested that this area of policy points in the opposite direction. I understand his point, but I think it all depends on how we look at things. Our planning system is built on the understanding that people do not have the right to do whatever they want with their land; they need to seek permission from the state because what they do might affect the amenity of adjoining landowners or people who live on adjoining sites.

However, there has always been an understanding that, for certain kinds of applications that fall below a particular de minimis threshold, it is possible to proceed without having to make a planning application. A good example is that some of the smallest, single-storey extensions to domestic properties can proceed as permitted developments. That has been in our planning system for a long time. As the Government wish to drive up supply, they have extended that right to others.

There is no denying that permitted development removes from councils the right to consider a full planning application. It limits the freedom they have to the matters specified in any prior approval. However, it also gives the owner of a building the freedom to do what they will with their land because we have judged that the issue is unlikely to have a significant impact on adjoining owners.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

I thank the Minister for that response. Like him, I am a geek when it comes to data. I love nothing more than spending time in the library on the Office for National Statistics website—that counts as entertainment for me. However, I am also aware that data can often be used as a crutch for a weak argument. Data have been thrown out in bucket-loads, but the substance of this argument has not been deployed in quite the same way. We talked a lot about numbers, which is great. We have not talked anywhere near enough about affordability, quality or even if these units are occupied. We know that in many towns and cities foreign investors are coming in and buying up units that local people could live in, ensuring that no one lives there.

When we talk about data collection and how councils have enough to do—that is a fair point—we must also accept that development control teams will be in those buildings, making sure they comply with development control rules. They will be signing those buildings off for occupation. At that point the buildings will come on to the council tax register, and any council worth its salt will then make applications for the new homes bonus. So councils are reporting units anyway, but via a different route. One thing that councils would appreciate is a single point of reporting. Rather than all these Government Departments coming to councils from all over the place asking for individual pieces of data, the Government should say with one voice, “This is what we need to know.” Collating the data in one place would helpfully save time and energy.

There is quite a lot of agreement on the principles we have been talking about. The combination being mooted here is of quite small living spaces with a lot of communal areas. A development is being built today in Oldham on that model, where the flats are quite small but there is a gym facility, communal areas and quality space that will attract a niche market of commuters who no doubt work or study in Manchester city centre. There is a place for that, but that is where the local authority has made a conscious decision that that would add value to the overall mix of accommodation within the town. It is not a free-for-all. Unfortunately, the permitted development route at the moment is a free-for-all for far too many people, without the right checks and balances in place.

I suspect that we will not be able to come much closer than agreeing that permitted development seems to have worked quite well in one or two locations. The evidence, in particular when we hear representations from local government, says that it is fraught with difficulties and removes the local control we know is very important. Perhaps we cannot get any closer than that. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I will not detain the Committee for long, because we have had quite a wide-ranging discussion. The Minister started his comments on amendment 28 by referring to Opposition Members’ subbing policy. I want to tell him exactly what our policy is, then perhaps he will explain his. The Opposition recognise the talents of all our Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw, who is not currently present. We have an incredibly inclusive policy because we want to ensure that everybody participates and is able to use their talents to the full. I am not sure that that is the policy the Minister is employing with regard to Government Members, but I will let him answer for himself.

We will return to permitted development when we discuss new clause 14, but I should say to the Minister quickly that a number of people who gave evidence to the Committee pointed out that permitted development was weakening the planning system. In particular, his own councillor, Councillor Newman from the Local Government Association, pointed out the nonsense of what had happened in Croydon where they had to get an article 4 direction. Although we are not going to vote against the clause, permitted development is not working as well in practice as the Minister suggests, for all the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton. I hope the Minister will consider whether the register is really necessary. If he got rid of all the permitted development, it would be unnecessary.

[Gavin Barwell]

I will keep my remarks brief because I think I already covered clause stand part in my earlier comments on the amendments. To rehearse those arguments, if we got rid of permitted development rights, we would be giving up the thousands of homes—we will find out exactly how many—that the policy has contributed in the nine quarters since it came into place. I repeat the point that I made earlier: if Opposition Members share our view that there is a desperate need to get this country building more homes, it seems strange to oppose a policy that is making a significant contribution to that aim. I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 9

Power to take temporary possession of land

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I beg to move amendment 30, in clause 9, page 8, line 23, at end insert—

“(2A) The power of temporary possession of leasehold interests is not available if an interest would terminate within one year of the date on which the authority intends to hand back possession to the occupier.”

This amendment would establish a limitation on the temporary possession of leasehold interests.

Having been at the dizzy heights of permitted development, we turn to the really exciting bit of the Bill—the changes that the Government wish to make to the compulsory purchase order system. This is where we get particularly excited about the Government’s reading of the Lyons report, which recommended a major look at this country’s CPO system, with the particular intention of simplifying it and making it much easier for local government to operate.

Several of the people who gave evidence to the Committee seemed to suggest that the proposed changes to the compulsory purchase system were okay as far as they went, but that the Government could have used the opportunity provided by the Bill to do something much more substantial. However, people did express some concern about how the Government were taking simplification and rationalisation forward with regard to the power to take temporary possession in clause 9. Amendments 30 and 31 relate to temporary compulsory purchase, to which we do not object per se, but nevertheless we wonder whether, in pursuing the changes, the Minister should put in place further safeguards.

Some general concerns were expressed in the evidence received by the Committee about the interaction between temporary and permanent possessions. Witnesses just did not think that that had been suitably clarified. Richard Asher of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors told us:

“There is one area of difficulty: the danger that authorities may use powers to acquire land compulsorily when it is only required on a temporary basis. That interferes with long-term prospects for development by landowners, whose development plans are quite often disrupted by compulsory purchase on a temporary basis. That needs to be considered to ensure that authorities only acquire land on a temporary basis when it is required temporarily.”––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 61-62, Q113.]

Similarly, Colin Cottage from the Compulsory Purchase Association said:

“There is still the possibility of taking both temporary and permanent possession, and that will create uncertainty for people affected by it, because, even if there is a period of temporary possession, it may be converted at a future date to permanent possession and they will have no control over that.”––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 66, Q117.]

Amendment 30 is a probing amendment that seeks to gain some clarification on whether the Minister thinks there should be a limitation on the temporary possession of leasehold interests so that there may be a greater degree of certainty in this area for the landowner, for the local authority and, indeed, for any possible future developer.

Some specific problems seemed to emerge on the temporary possession of leasehold land. The CPA pointed to those concerns in its written evidence:

“We are concerned that there should be limitations on the power to acquire short leasehold or other subordinate interests because the Bill does not deal with the situation where a leaseholder remains responsible to the landlord for the use, repair and payment of rent under the lease but is not in control of the property whilst it is under temporary use. The area is complex and clarity of the relative parties’ obligations to each other must be clarified in a leasehold situation where temporary possession powers are exercised.”

That was reiterated by Colin Cottage of the CPA when he said that,

“there are practical issues with temporary possession that need to be dealt with, including the interrelationships between different tenures in land, how to deal with an occupier of land when that land is taken temporarily, and what to do if buildings have to be demolished and so on. Those issues can be overcome, but they need to be looked at carefully if the Bill is to come into law and to not cause, rather than solve, problems.”––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 62, Q113.]

Those problems might be experienced by either the landowners or the local authority.

I hope the Minister will be able to answer some of the questions about the nature of temporary possessions, particularly with regard to leaseholds, and whether there might be some limitation on the timeframe. More generally, it is clear from some of the evidence we received that CPO legislation needs serious reform. The witness from the RICS said:

“I believe, and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has always believed, that codification of the whole of the CPO rules, which go back to 1845 and are highly complex, would be a sensible way forward. I think the simplification of the rules for CPO would be a major step forward…I think the complexity often deters people—particularly local authorities, in my experience—from using CPO powers. It also results in a number of CPOs being refused or rejected by the courts because of the complexity of the rules that surround them.”––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 63, Q114.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman and provide him with a full response to that question. I can reassure him that these provisions do not come from that particular policy area. It was before my time—I am looking for inspiration—but I think I am right in saying that there were compulsory purchase provisions in the Housing and Planning Act 2016. It was in the discussion and debate around those provisions that these issues got raised, and that is why the Government are seeking to clarify the law in that regard. I will happily write to the hon. Gentleman and hope that I have now addressed the points that the hon. Lady raised, so I ask her to withdraw the amendment and hope the clause can stand part of the Bill.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I listened carefully to what the Minister had to say. I did emphasise that this is very much a probing amendment, testing whether the Minister and his Department had thought through some of the possible complexities that could arise with a temporary possession and a more permanent possession going through at the same time, and also some of the difficulties that might arise for landowners when a temporary possession is granted but they still have liabilities.

In the main, the Minister’s comments were quite reassuring. I am still not sure whether there is a need to have an overall time limit on temporary possession, to make sure that local authorities do not use it as a way of letting things run forward without having to put a full application for a CPO in place. I want to think about that; I will do so and will consult the Compulsory Purchase Association. For the moment, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10

Procedure for authorising temporary possession etc

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Lord Barwell and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 12, in clause 6, page 5, line 27, at end insert

“in cases where the local authorities’ statement of community involvement was regarded as inadequate.”

This amendment allows the Secretary of State only to require planning authorities to review their statement of community involvement if they have failed to produce one.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. Clause 6 will enable the Secretary of State to make regulations to prescribe how and when a statement of community involvement is reviewed by a local authority. Amendment 12 would mean that the regulations only apply where there is some evidence that what a local authority is currently doing with regard to its statement of community involvement is inadequate. We want to do that for two reasons.

First, we are not sure what problem the Government are trying to fix with the clause. It would be helpful if the Minister outlined whether there is widespread evidence of local authorities not doing a statement of community involvement or not doing it properly. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, we have some concerns about the Bill being a continuation of previous Bills on housing and planning that contain lots of centralising measures, giving the Secretary of State lots more power to get directly involved in what local authorities are doing. Of course, if I wanted to, I could say that this is part of what is actually an anti-localist strategy, not a localist one.

This might seem an innocuous little clause, but it sanctions a major interference from the Secretary of State in the everyday affairs of local authorities. However, if there is good reason for that—for example, if local authorities simply are not doing the job properly—we would want to look at it. We would need to look at why local authorities are not producing their statements of community involvement or why those statements are in some way inadequate.

From our discussions in this Committee and the evidence we have taken, we know that local authority planning departments are incredibly under-resourced. The British Property Federation’s annual planning survey last year had 300 responses from planning departments. Some 86% of local planning authority respondents believed that under-resourcing of their departments was their most significant challenge and was really impeding them achieving the aims they had set themselves.

I will outline a scenario for the Minister. A local authority might have great ambitions in its statement of community involvement to be as inclusive as possible and to ensure that there is a regular review process in which local people feel they can be directly involved. However, if the local authority does not have the resources within its planning budget to achieve those aims and that great vision of local community involvement in planning, what is the statement there to do? These are the really stark choices that a lot of local authorities are having to face. Do they take money from the social care budget? Do they take money from their gritting budget, as we are about to go into winter? Where are they to get the additional resources from in order to have an up-to-date statement of community involvement and to make it really inclusive?

I am sure that is what the Minister wants the clause to achieve. He may correct me if I am wrong, but my reading of it is that rather than just having a statement of community involvement that sits there on the shelf with a tick box, as he will know, on the local plan documents—“We have done our statement of community involvement and been out there and talked to some community groups; that is done and we do not need to revisit it until we are doing some major revision to the plan or a new plan”—I am sure that the Minister wants this to be a much more living document with direct involvement from local people, and that he wants people to know how they can get directly involved and what the timetable is for reviewing it. That is the sort of engagement and involvement that we all want from our planning system, but that will not be achieved simply by putting a clause in the Bill. In particular, that will not be achieved by putting a clause in the Bill that simply puts more burdens on local authority planning departments, without ensuring that there is adequate resourcing for whatever the additional burden is.

It would also be helpful to hear whether the Minister has any idea what the Secretary of State is likely to prescribe in terms of the statement of community involvement and the timings of when it has to be subject to review. We have not yet heard from the Minister on this point and it would be useful to know how much of a burden is being placed on local authorities. I say “a burden” because at the moment I cannot see any way that they will be able to fund this.

That is not to suggest for a minute that Opposition members of the Committee do not think statements of community involvement are important. I am sure the Minister heard me say on Thursday that in drawing up a local plan, local authorities should start with the neighbourhood. They should start with the community and find out what people want. My experience is that, generally speaking, people are very good at knowing what their communities should look like for 20 or 25 years going forward, and if they are included in some of the Planning for Real exercises, or with Planning Aid, that can be a very helpful exercise for the local authority.

It is really important that communities are directly involved in drawing up their local plans. In fact, the Opposition are arguing that that should really be where local planning starts. We want local authorities to be able to have a very strong community involvement plan, but we also want to ensure that they have the resources to do a really good piece of work and for it to be very meaningful, not only for the community but for the local authority as well. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

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

Mr Bone, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again. If this meets with your approval, I would be happy to talk to both the amendment and clause stand part.

[Gavin Barwell]

The clause will ensure that no community can be left in any doubt about the ways in which they can participate in wider plan-making in their area. It will do that in two ways. First, it will introduce a requirement for local planning authorities to set out, in their statements of community involvement, their policies for involving communities and other interested parties in the exercise of their functions. Secondly, it will enable the Secretary of State to require authorities to review those statements. It will then be at an authority’s discretion as to whether it is necessary to update it; if an authority is content that its statement does not need updating, it will need to publicise its reasons for not doing so.

Let me now try to address the points that the hon. Member for City of Durham raised about amendment 12. I hope we can all agree that in order for statements of community involvement to be effective, it is essential that they are reviewed and kept up to date. The hon. Lady asked for evidence that there is a problem, which is a perfectly reasonable question. During the summer, my Department undertook a review of local planning authorities’ statements of community involvement, and found that a third were last updated before 2012—shortly after the introduction of the Localism Act 2011 and neighbourhood planning—and that 10% were 10 or more years old.

Clearly, a number of councils have not reviewed the statements since the entire world of neighbourhood planning came into being. I hope we can all agree on the importance of the communities that we have the privilege to represent having up-to-date information on how their local planning authority will support their ambitions. That is why it is necessary to legislate in this way.

The Bill will enable the Secretary of State to introduce regulations that require local planning authorities to review their statements at prescribed times. On 7 September, we issued a consultation in which we proposed that statements be updated every five years. We chose that figure because, as members of the Committee are aware, that is the existing expectation for local plans. Therefore, it makes sense to align those two things. The consultation closed on 19 October. It also sought views on proposals for an initial deadline of 12 months following Royal Assent for an initial review. The consultation provided an opportunity for authorities to comment on the implications for resourcing. I hope that reassures the hon. Lady in that regard.

There is consensus in the Committee that the issue needs to be addressed, but I felt that the hon. Lady overdid the case a little bit. I entirely accept that there is pressure on local authority planning departments and I went a long way to try to show what the Government’s thinking might be on that. However—this goes to the point I made to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw in the previous sitting—despite the difficult period that local government has gone through over the past five or six years, local authority planning departments have generally done an amazing job in raising their performance in updating local plans and dealing with major applications on time. Perhaps I have more confidence than the hon. Member for City of Durham in local authority planning departments’ ability to review a statement of community involvement in their existing budgets.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I would not want anyone to get the impression that we think that local planning authorities are not doing a very good job with limited resources. Nevertheless, my point was that statements of community involvement put particular expectations into the community because they see what involvement they are supposed to have. In some instances, that has a huge resourcing implication. Does the Minister accept that?

[Gavin Barwell]

I do accept that in so far as our constituents’ heavy involvement in the planning system—in the preparation of local plans and the consideration of planning applications—can, in instances, create more work for planning officers dealing with particular situations. However, it might also save money in the long run because if a local plan enjoys broad support among a local community, a lot of the contention that can creep into our planning system down the line should be removed. I certainly regard—as I hope all Members of the House do—putting an effort into engaging our constituents in how the planning process works as a worthwhile investment that will pay dividends in the long run.

Let me explain one concern I have about the amendment. Whereas the Bill currently says that the statements should be reviewed—potentially on a five-yearly basis, if we proceed with what we have set out in the consultation—and does not seek to make judgments about the quality or otherwise of the plans, the amendment would ask the Government to make a judgment on whether they are happy with the plans put forward by an authority. That seems to be a more centralist measure than the Government’s one. The Government are merely saying, “Councils can come up with their own statements. All we ask is that they are updated regularly.” However, the amendment would ask us to make a judgment on the quality or otherwise of the statements.

In response to other points made by the hon. Lady, if I may say so—I do not want to start the proceedings on an off note after Thursday’s consensual sitting—I thought it was something of an exaggeration to suggest that the power is a major interference in local government. It is simply asking councils to check that this important statement of how communities can get involved in the planning system is kept up to date. I do not think most people would regard that as a draconian, centralist measure.

I thought we had reached a consensus on this. We have a new shadow housing Minister and I have spent time reading some of the things he has said in recent months and years. One thing that really interested me in an interview he gave was that he acknowledged that the planning system had become far too centralised under the previous Labour Government, and he recognised that as a mistake. That may even be seen as welcoming the move towards the more locally, plan-driven system that we have seen under this Government.

Those who know me will know that my natural inclination is not to seek division. I quite like the fact that on several of the statutory instruments we have discussed, the Opposition have supported some of the things that the Government are doing. It is good if we can build consensus around these things.

Let me reassure the Committee that my starting point is that we should have a planning system that is locally driven through the development of neighbourhood and local plans. I see my role as purely intervening on occasion to ensure that things are kept up to date or compliant with the overall strategic national policy.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I have not had the opportunity to see the responses to the consultation paper, so it is not clear to us why 10% of councils have not updated their statement of community involvement for such a long time. That is a fairly low percentage but it would be useful to know what reasons were given in the responses to the consultation and when we might see the responses.

[Gavin Barwell]

I confess that I have not had the chance to read every single one of the consultation responses yet, either. I will certainly ensure that we publish a summary of those consultation responses as quickly as possible. The intention regarding the regulations is certainly to make them available as the Bill goes through its parliamentary process, so there will be plenty of opportunity for Parliament to scrutinise those regulations.

The hon. Lady focused on the 10% that are significantly out of date. I will check, but I think I said about a third since 2012. That is when the provisions from the Localism Act began to come into force. It is quite a substantial minority whose statements are not sufficiently up to date.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I would like to reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are not dismissing those examples out of hand. My first point is that we are struggling to find examples. My second point is that, when we find examples, we have to decide whether they should be dealt with under a particular clause, such as clause 7, or whether we should find some other way of minimising the impact on the conditions set by the local authority.

The only example that the FMB was able to give us was of landscaping. However, landscaping is often what makes what might be a non-acceptable development acceptable to the local community. Communities want to know at the outset what a development will look like in the end, as the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton must know from his constituents—I know it from mine. If a building has an unsightly façade or a high wall, or if there is something that people are unhappy with, they will ask at the earliest stage, “What sort of screening will there be so that we don’t have to look at that ugly edifice?” Far from landscaping being a good example for the hon. Gentleman, it actually helps our case. He and builders might think that pre-commencement conditions are unnecessary, but our constituents think that they are really important.

[Gavin Barwell]

It is undoubtedly the case that our constituents are interested in what schemes will look like. Does the hon. Lady at least accept that requiring a developer to set out all that detail before a single shovel goes into the ground slows down house building? She might think that that is a price worth paying, but does she accept that point?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The Minister will have to bring forward evidence to show that it will slow down house building. If landscaping makes acceptable to a local community a development that it would otherwise find unacceptable, it might no longer object to an application, in which case the condition could speed up development, rather than slowing it down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I should say at the outset that the three amendments we are debating do not deal with the pre-commencement and application issue. We have rather drifted into a clause stand part debate, but I will try to respond to all the points colleagues have made.

This is probably the moment in the Bill when there is the strongest disagreement between the two sides of the Committee. Let me start on a consensual note. The hon. Member for City of Durham asked me to accept that this was a wide-ranging power, compared with the one in the previous clause, and I do accept that. The Government have sought, in drafting the legislation and in some of the other things we have done, to provide as much reassurance as possible.

We have put two provisions in the Bill that it might be helpful to clarify at the outset. The clause does two things: it gives the Secretary of State the power to prescribe certain types of planning condition, and separately it requires that pre-commencement planning conditions may only be made with the agreement of the applicant. So there are two different issues, and the amendments we are considering deal with the first part of the clause. We will come to the amendments that deal with pre-commencement later. It might be helpful to the Committee to put that on the record.

On the Secretary of State taking the power to prescribe certain types of conditions, I can offer three pieces of reassurance to the Committee. First, the Bill makes it very clear that the Secretary of State may use that power only to back up what is in the NPPF—the basic tests are written into proposed section 100ZA(2), which is inserted in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 by the clause. One of the amendments deals with those four tests, which I will come to later. Secondly, proposed section 100ZA(3) makes it clear that the Secretary of State, before making any regulations, will have to carry out a specific consultation on them, so each time the Secretary of State seeks to use the powers under proposed section 100ZA(1), there will have to be a public consultation. That is written into the Bill to provide reassurance about how the power is to be used. Thirdly, when we published the Bill, we also published a consultation paper setting out how we believed that we would want to use the powers, were Parliament to grant them to the Secretary of State. I will refer to that consultation paper later on in what I have to say.

The point of principle is the point of difference, so let us start with evidence. I would argue that there is a lot of evidence to show that there is a problem, but first I point out that the Opposition have fallen into one of the traps that has bedevilled the housing debate in this country for 30 or 40 years—a trap into which many of the people who have come into my office over the past three months have also fallen—and that is to set out an either/or choice.

For the first two months that I was doing this job, I asked everyone, “Why do we not build enough houses in this country?” People would reply, “It’s all the planning system’s fault,” or, “It’s all down to the major developers, who are banking huge chunks of land. If they released those, we wouldn’t have a problem.” Some people came into my office and said, “Do you know what? It is impossible for people nowadays to own their own home. We should just give up on home ownership and put all the focus of housing policy on renting,” but others say, “There has been too much focus on renting. People want to own their own home. Everything should be about helping people to own their own home.” I believe such choices to be completely false.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

If the hon. Lady allows me to expand the argument, I will be happy to allow her to intervene.

The reasons why we do not build enough homes in this country are complicated. Lots of things work, but if the answer were simple my predecessors would have solved the problem. There is no silver bullet and no one thing that will solve the problem, which instead will require a complex web of policy interventions.

[Gavin Barwell]

To say that there is a problem with local authority resourcing of planning departments, which I think everyone on the Committee has accepted, and that therefore that is the sole problem and we do not need to worry about anything else, is to miss the point completely. There are a lot of reasons why there are problems in our system. We need to take action to deal with all those things, not simply say, “This is the main problem, so we should solely deal with that and forget about the rest.” I will now happily take the interventions.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I want to challenge the Minister’s characterisation of what the Opposition think about why in this country we are not building as many houses as we should. I know the Minister knows that that characterisation is not fair, because he has read the Lyons review; I know that because he and his predecessor have been cherry-picking bits out of it and bringing them forward in Government policy. It was a wide-ranging review, which looked at a whole set of different reasons why we do not build enough houses—everything from land availability to the failure of the duty to co-operate, to the inadequacy of the local plan-making system, and so on. I hope he and the rest of the Committee will understand that the Opposition do indeed know that the problem is multifaceted. This morning, however, we are simply arguing about this group of amendments, and saying that we do not think that pre-commencement planning conditions are the major issue that he sets them out to be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I have tried to answer that question already. Some of those things do not require legislation. There are problems in our house building system that require policy changes, and others that require legislative changes. We want to pursue a range of solutions encompassing both those options.

I want to pick up on three specific examples that we were given of pre-commencement conditions, one of which may help to provide my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet with the reassurance she sought. I thought that the three examples delineated very well the difference between the two sides of the Committee on this issue. One example related to archaeological concerns. Clearly it is entirely appropriate to address those through a pre-commencement condition. If there are concerns that the moment someone gets on site and starts to do ground works they will destroy a key archaeological site, the issue has to be dealt with by a pre-commencement procedure.

The other examples concerned the use of materials and landscaping. I, and I am sure all members of the Committee, would accept that those issues are legitimate ones that communities would want to address through the planning process. However, I do not accept that they must be dealt with before a single thing can be done on site, as the development begins to get under way. There is no reason why they cannot be dealt with during the process.

The hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton made an interesting intervention in which he said that it is all very simple if—I will take care not to use unparliamentary language—one gets one’s ducks lined up. He said that people need to do all the work at the outset, come to the planning committee with everything sorted out, and then away they go. However, not only does that expose applicants to extra expense before they get planning permission, as my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South, said, but it delays the process. The point that I am trying to get the hon. Member for City of Durham to accept is that, particularly with a large application, a huge amount of work must be done to get to the point where the applicant has satisfied all the legitimate concerns a community might have about it.

If, as I passionately feel, there is a desperate need to get us building more houses as quickly as possible in this country, surely anyone who has ever had any experience of managing a large project will think it is better to deal up front with the things that must be dealt with up front and then, while work is beginning on site, deal with some of the other issues that need to be dealt with. If we want housing to be built more quickly, we must allow developers to proceed in that way and not say that they must get every single thing sorted out before they can even turn up on site and begin vital work.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The Minister is in danger of presenting a bit of a caricature. It is not a question of absolutely everything being presented up front; it is a question of what is needed to be able to assure a planning committee and the community that a development is acceptable. If the Minister is serious about speeding up development, we know that the major problem with pre-commencement conditions is signing them off, so if he wants to address that it must be by further resourcing of planning departments, not by the removal of conditions.

[Gavin Barwell]

Again, the hon. Lady falls into the either/or trap. Both those things are problems. It is a problem both that the conditions are overused and that when they are legitimately used it can often take too long to sign them off. We are going to deal with both problems.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

Pre-commencement conditions must be agreed with the applicant. If the applicant is not willing to agree to a legitimate condition, without which the authority does not feel the application would be acceptable, the application should be refused. The authority absolutely has the right to refuse such an application. I put it on record that I expect the Planning Inspectorate to back up the decisions of local councils when it judges that such a condition is perfectly reasonable to make a development acceptable. I hope that any developer silly enough to play those games will quickly learn that lesson through the appeals process.

What we want is good practice; my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton made that point powerfully. We want applicants and councils to sit down together and work out what legitimate pre-commencement issues are. We have no problem at all with such issues being used for pre-commencement conditions, but we want to stop them being abused.

The hon. Member for City of Durham used the instructive example of flooding. The test seems to me to be one of reasonableness. She used the phrase “There may not be evidence”. Local authorities are in difficult circumstances if there is no evidence to back up what they seek to do. However, if there is evidence of genuine concerns, that is clearly a legitimate and material planning consideration.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My point was not that there would be no evidence; it was that there might not be evidence about that specific site at that time, but that a wider reading of what a local authority was doing would produce evidence of the need to put in flood allevation some way down the line.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

In which case, what I would say is that we need the evidence in front of us. What examples are there? In how many sets of circumstances? How and why are the conditions inappropriate? In a conservation area, for example, the type of brick would be an important pre-commencement condition.

The evidence from Knight Frank was an assertion that there was a problem because we had no details and no number of applications—nothing. The Crest Nicholson example was a problem with signing off pre-commencement conditions and we on the Labour Benches have already said we recognise that is a problem. The signing off of pre-commencement conditions is a very different issue from the setting of conditions, and the clause is about the setting of planning conditions.

In the NHBC survey, the primary problem identified was again the time taken to discharge the conditions, not the conditions themselves. That was also the primary concern in the District Councils Network survey. We are not saying there is no evidence out there of problems signing off pre-commencement conditions—

[Gavin Barwell]

It is becoming increasingly frustrating that the Opposition do not seem to want to listen to evidence presented to them. Let me repeat two points so that the hon. Lady cannot skip over them. In the NHBC survey 34% referred to the time to clear conditions—she is quite right about that—and 29% referred to the extent of those conditions. She skipped over the quote from Persimmon that,

“planning-related pre-start conditions continue to increase the time taken to bring new outlets”—

not a word I like, so new homes—

“to market”.

What does she have to say about the very clear evidence?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I think the Minister and I have a really different understanding of what evidence means. I was coming to the District Councils Network and Persimmon because they mentioned, as did other people who gave evidence to the Committee, that there is an assertion that there is a problem, but we do not have hard and fast evidence of it. That is the point we have been trying to make to the Minister. He has not brought forward the hard evidence and we have not had good examples. We have been struggling to come up with examples and the Minister has certainly not presented any. We are not convinced that the clause is necessary.

For some of the reasons given by the Minister, I will not press the amendment to a vote, particularly as I take at face value his assurance about amendment 16 and that there will be consultation with local authorities. I am surprised that he did not take the opportunity in proposed section 100ZA(3) to add, “including local authorities”. If he is going to include “public consultation” in the Bill, he may as well include “consultation with local authorities.” Not doing so seems rather odd, especially as he has acknowledged so strongly that he wishes to consult local authorities in drawing up the regulations. Why not take the opportunity to amendment that subsection and put “local authorities” in the Bill? I am not sure why he does not want to do that, but at least something has been read into the record that perhaps will give some reassurance to local authorities that these regulations will not be as drastic or unworkable as they may be if local authorities were not involved in drawing them up. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Lord Barwell and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 20th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 11, in clause 2, page 2, line 16, at the end insert—

“(3A) To support Neighbourhood Plans, the Secretary of State should set out the weight that should be given to approved development plans at key stages in the planning process.”

This amendment gives weight to Neighbourhood Plans at key stages along the process and not just at the post-referendum stage.

I stress at the outset that this is very much a probing amendment to try to determine whether we need greater clarity, either in the Bill or somewhere else, about what weight, if any, should be given to a neighbourhood plan before a referendum has been held, and before the plan is adopted by the local authority and becomes part of its local plan documents. Given the number of witnesses who mentioned the lack of clarity, it is important that we get additional clarity from the Minister.

The Minister will know that various stakeholders said on Tuesday that this is a key concern. The Local Government Association has previously said:

“It is important that any proposals do not have the unintended consequence of undermining the ability of a local planning authority to meet the wider strategic objectives”.

I suppose the LGA was trying to clarify at what stage attention needs to be paid to the neighbourhood plan. If the neighbourhood plan does something outwith the local plan objectives, when does the local planning authority need to intervene to point that out to the neighbourhood planning forum or parish council?

Similarly, the British Property Federation said:

“Clarity must be provided about the level of weight attributed to neighbourhood plans at every stage of their preparation (for example, whether a draft plan’s general ‘direction of travel’ would be considered in the determination of a planning application)… The relationship between the statutory development plan-making framework and such material considerations must be clear for all stakeholders, in order to allow greater certainty in the development decision-taking process”.

Matt Thomson from the Campaign to Protect Rural England put it well when he said:

“The question reflects one of the key problems that we have been facing with the operation of the planning system for decades. That is…where you have tiers of nested planning policy documents, there is always a question of which has precedence over the other. It should not necessarily be just a question of the one that is produced most recently holding the most weight in a planning application environment.”––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 51, Q92.]

A number of our witnesses were dealing with a situation—I am sure that it will be well known to a number of members of the Committee—in which there is a controversial planning application that would not be allowed by a neighbourhood plan. When other sites for development have been designated but the plan has not yet been adopted, what weight should the local planning authority give to the general direction of travel in that neighbourhood plan?

I have met many parish councils and neighbourhood planning forums over the years who find that to be a frustrating aspect of the neighbourhood planning system. They might have been through extensive work locally. They might have done all the preliminary stages, including looking at the economy and the wider social environment, and doing character and neighbourhood assessments. I have seen many forums identify bits of land that nobody else knows about but that they believe are important to bring forward for development. They put a huge amount of work into the plan. Just before they have a draft plan but after they have identified sites, they find that their whole direction of travel is knocked aside because a significant site that they do not want to be developed, or that they do not want to be developed in the way described in a particular application, is not only considered but approved. That causes major headaches.

In some cases, the forums or parish councils almost have to start again with land use allocation or in the identification of sites. Furthermore, that situation undermines faith in the process. People say, “We did all this work, identified all the sites and did what the Government wanted us to do. We have put the plan in, but it has not been voted on. Nobody, particularly the local authority, seems to be paying any attention to it.”

It is about certainty not only for the people who put the plan together, but for developers. If a developer knows that a plan that is about to be submitted for a referendum has a lot of weight attached to it, they might not seek planning permission for a site that is not in the neighbourhood plan, or for an inappropriate use of the site. It is about the Government giving certainty not only to communities, but to developers, so that everybody is clearer at an earlier stage in the process what weight should be attached to the neighbourhood plan.

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

Clause 2 builds on clause 1 to ensure that neighbourhood plans come into force sooner as part of the development plan for their area. It inserts a new subsection 3A into section 38 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to provide for a neighbourhood plan to become part of the development plan for that area when it is approved in the relevant referendum.

Without that change, there is a risk that neighbourhood plans might not be given sufficient consideration by decision makers in the period between the community expressing its support for the relevant plan at a referendum and the formal decision by the local planning authority to make the plan. When the neighbourhood plan provision was originally introduced, there was no fixed time period between those events. The Housing and Planning Act 2016 established an eight-week limit. The clause essentially says that the relevant neighbourhood plan will be part of the development plan for the area immediately after a successful referendum.

The hon. Lady made two or three points and it is important to disentangle them. For some of the time she spoke about precedence, which was raised repeatedly in the evidence we received. I hope I satisfied the Committee on that point earlier when I quoted paragraph 185 of the national planning policy framework, which states:

“Once a neighbourhood plan has demonstrated its general conformity with the strategic policies of the Local Plan and is brought into force, the policies it contains take precedence over existing non-strategic policies in the Local Plan”.

I do not think I can make it any clearer than that. Neighbourhood plans must be consistent with the relevant local plans, in terms of the strategic framework, but once they come into force they take precedence over the relevant local plan on detailed non-strategic issues.

The hon. Lady raised, and the hon. Member for Bassetlaw expressed powerfully, the wider concern that people can put a lot of work into producing a neighbourhood plan and then find that decisions about applications in their area that are contrary to their neighbourhood plan are being approved, either by their council or by the Planning Inspectorate on appeal. Clearly that is enormously frustrating. I am not sure whether I can guarantee that it will never happen, but we should certainly seek to minimise it. I argued in response to the hon. Gentleman that clause 1 will help—I think he accepted that—but I accepted that it is not a complete answer. I promised that in the White Paper coming later this year there will be further policy measures that will go a long way towards satisfying him.

The amendment would introduce a third term—this is where my problem comes—that is about weight. I will try to clarify the position, because this is a complex area. First, let me say to the hon. Lady by way of reassurance that the Government’s policy is clear that decision takers may give weight to relevant policies in emerging plans. The national planning policy framework sets out with some clarity the matters they should consider. I will read an excerpt from it, because it will help the Committee:

“From the day of publication, decision-takers may also give weight to relevant policies in emerging plans according to: the stage of preparation of the emerging plan (the more advanced the preparation, the greater the weight that may be given); the extent to which there are unresolved objections to relevant policies (the less significant the unresolved objections, the greater the weight that may be given); and the degree of consistency of the relevant policies in the emerging plan to the policies in this Framework (the closer the policies in the emerging plan to the policies in the Framework, the greater the weight that may be given).”

In relation to a neighbourhood plan, that would imply that the greater the consistency with the strategic policies of the relevant local plan, the greater the weight that could be given.

We need to remember that the essence of our planning system, particularly when considering individual applications for development, requires choices to be made. We should not seek to alter the long-established principle that it is for the decision maker in each case to determine precisely what weight should be attributed to different material considerations. Let us take the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw and imagine a hypothetical situation in which a local planning authority does not have a local plan with a five-year land supply and is well below that. There is a neighbourhood plan in place that sets out where the community thinks appropriate development should go. A decision maker would then have to look at this.

The presumption in favour of sustainable development would apply because the five-year land supply is not there, so that would be one material consideration. The neighbourhood plan would be a material consideration pointing in the opposite direction, presuming the application was for a site that was not identified in the neighbourhood plan. There may be other material considerations—the views of local people will clearly be one. The site in question may be green belt or prime agricultural land, and there may be policies in the NPPF that would be material considerations. We have to accept that, in the way our planning system works, it is for the decision maker—whether that is a council planning officer, the planning committee of the relevant council, a planning inspector or, in some of the largest applications, a Minister—to look at the different weights to be applied to those material considerations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

As the neighbourhood planning system matures, we need to ensure that it will be suitably flexible to respond to changes in community aspirations. It is now almost five years since the first neighbourhood plans were prepared. As we have heard, well over 200 are now in force and more than 240 have been approved in referendums. We are aware that some of the early pioneers of the system want to update their plans.

Currently, the process for updating a neighbourhood plan is the same as the process for preparing a brand new one, regardless of the scale or significance of the changes proposed. The clause on changing the area that a plan covers, and the clauses that we shall come on to, are designed to address that fundamental problem. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw is nodding. He has lots of plans in his area, so clearly he has some experience of this.

The Government therefore believe that it is important to introduce a more proportionate way of revising plans to ensure that they remain up to date. Clause 3 will achieve that by introducing two new modification processes. I think that the confusion may have arisen—it is possible, at any rate; I cannot read the mind of the hon. Member for City of Durham—because there are two different processes. I will explain them, in the hope that that will provide some reassurance.

First, a process is being introduced to allow a local authority to make minor modifications to a neighbourhood plan or an order at any time, in the same way as an authority can currently correct errors. Clause 3 does that by amending section 61M of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. On the key point that the hon. Member for City of Durham raised, I can absolutely reassure her that a local planning authority will need the consent of the relevant neighbourhood planning group to make the modification. That is clearly an important point. Her concern was that people would put a lot of work into producing their neighbourhood plans and then councils could modify them in some way without proper consultation. I can reassure her that that would require the consent of the relevant neighbourhood planning group, whether a parish council or a neighbourhood forum.

Secondly, any proposed modification that uses that minor change procedure cannot materially affect any of the policies in the neighbourhood plan or, if we are talking about a neighbourhood development order, the planning permission granted. Although there is no consultation requirement, the local planning authority must publicise what it has done, so people will be aware that the decision has been taken.

That is an important change, because currently even the most minor modifications, such as amending the wording of supporting text to clarify what a policy means, cannot be made without going through the same process to produce a new plan, including holding a referendum, which clearly involves a significant cost at a time when I think we are all aware of the pressures on local authorities. We strongly believe that that is overly burdensome.

However, the clause also provides a means by which more significant modifications may be made to a neighbourhood plan, through a streamlined procedure. It does that by inserting new subsections into sections 38A and 38C of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, along with a new schedule A2. The new schedule sets out in more detail the process to be followed in bringing forward draft proposals to modify a plan.

The streamlined procedure has a stronger expectation that the independent examination of the revised proposals, which we have been discussing, will be paper-based, with hearings only in exceptional circumstances. Additionally, there is no referendum. So the examiners’ recommendations will in most cases be binding. We have the minor modification procedure, the completely new plan procedure and an intermediate one, which may be used where the proposed modifications are not so significant or substantial as to change the fundamental nature of the plan but none the less are more than simple, minor modifications.

Crucially, with regard to safeguards, the local planning authority and the independent examiner will need to agree that that is the case in order for a draft plan to proceed through the streamlined procedure. In this case, we are taking powers to regulate the process. We are consulting on that, but I can say to the hon. Member for City of Durham that in the intermediate procedure our intention is that the local authority must publicise what it is doing and consult in the same way that it would for a new neighbourhood plan.

To sum up, in the case of the most minor modifications, it is the Government’s contention that a full consultation of the kind we would have for the streamlined or new plan procedure is not necessary, but there is the safeguard that the relevant body that drew up the plan must give its consent to what is being done. However, if we are looking for more significant changes, although not those that would trigger a new referendum, it is important that there is some consultation.

I hope that I have provided the reassurance that the hon. Lady’s probing amendment was looking for, and that my explanation has been useful in helping Members understand the two procedures and when they would be used.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Having listened to the Minister, I think that the probing amendment did its job effectively. There is now much greater clarity on exactly what the provisions of the clause mean. On the minor modification process, I take the Minister’s point about a simple drafting error that can be corrected easily and perhaps without going out to full consultation, but I would still expect a process for notifying the neighbourhood planning forum or the parish council that the modification has been made or is about to be made.

[Gavin Barwell]

It goes further than that. The relevant neighbourhood planning body has to give its consent even for the most minor modifications, and then the wider public are notified.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

That is a helpful clarification. In the second set of circumstances, I take the Minister’s point that this is perhaps an intermediate measure in order to allow modifications that are a bit larger to take place and that the community would clearly be involved in that. Given the Minister’s helpful clarifications, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1

New Schedule A2 to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004

Question proposed, That the schedule be the First schedule to the Bill.

[Gavin Barwell]

I will not detain the Committee on the schedule, which sets out in detail the process to be followed when proposing to modify a plan. In order to respond to the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for City of Durham, I have described that process already, so I commend the schedule to the Committee.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I fully accept what the Minister says.

Question put and agreed to.

Schedule 1 accordingly agreed to.

Clause 4

Changes to neighbourhood areas etc

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I understand that this is a probing amendment, but are there any examples of existing neighbourhood plans that the Opposition feel cover too small an area?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I am not aware of any. We are trying to ensure that the provisions in this legislation will not lead to neighbourhood areas that are very, very small indeed. Of course the Minister will say, “Well, it’s up to the local authority to decide whether it is an appropriate area,” but the authority might come under particular pressure to agree a specific area or think it is in its interest to promote a very small area, because it will not have so many people to deal with in terms of neighbourhood planning.

We know that the whole of neighbourhood planning legislation leaves it very much up to the community to set the boundaries and to say what brings that neighbourhood together, why they think it is important that the boundaries are set where they are and what the spatial dimension is to the plan. Usually it is very obvious, because they are using village boundaries or some sort of settlement boundary, or there is something that binds that particular community together. They also have to talk, and are usually very good at looking at the community networks and informal networks that might underpin those. The physical characteristics of the neighbourhood will also come into play.

The community will decide whether it is a business area. They will talk about the natural features. There is a huge list of things that the community will look at when putting the initial application together, in terms of determining why the boundaries are really important and what binds the neighbourhood together. That is a very good thing, and I know it has led to some really interesting discussions in communities—I am sure the Minister has seen this—about what is important to them in their neighbourhood and what binds them together. That can facilitate the next stage of development: what they want their community to look like in 15 years and what they need to put into the neighbourhood plan to achieve that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I was gently teasing the hon. Gentleman. I wish more Members of this House had done what he has. He has clearly put in a huge amount of work in his constituency to encourage people to take up the reform from the Localism Act 2011. It is fantastic that he has done so and it is great to have him on the Committee as such a powerful champion of the process.

There is a really gritty issue here, which is that when asked, “Where do you live? What community are you part of?” people do not necessarily say what the local council might expect them to. In some cases—for example, if people are part of a village with a distinct identity—the village will be the right unit of identity. However, in urban areas—the hon. Member for Bassetlaw has given some interesting examples of rural areas—there may be other creative ways of thinking and bringing people together.

I very much share the hon. Gentleman’s view, which is that we should not prescribe in legislation the maximum or minimum size of the unit. We should let a thousand flowers bloom and see what people think of the appropriate units. Earlier, I asked the hon. Member for City of Durham for examples of neighbourhood areas that cover too small an area, and I do not think there is any evidence that things are happening at such a micro level as to cause a problem. She is quite rightly probing and asking the questions, but it is clear that the view of the Committee is that we should allow for the current flexibility.

On amendment 8, which is on the consultation arrangements required when a neighbourhood area is changed, I am sure we can all agree that consultation with the wider community is crucial. I assure hon. Members that there is already provision for that to happen where a designated neighbourhood area is amended and a neighbourhood plan is already in force. It is currently the case that where all or part of a neighbourhood area has already been designated, the local planning authority must publish and consult on any modifications to that area for at least six weeks. If the hon. Member for City of Durham would like to add to her reading list, that is in regulation 6(c) of the Neighbourhood Planning (General) Regulations 2012. That should keep her busy this evening. Exactly the same regulations will apply to the new provisions.

The clause will ensure that, as neighbourhood planning continues to mature, the system is suitably flexible to respond to changes in people’s aspirations when it comes to the nature of the geographic area covered by the plan. It will also ensure—the hon. Member for City of Durham was quite right to raise the point—that any proposed changes are properly consulted on, and that the public have the chance to feed into the process. I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment, and I hope that clause 4 stands part of the Bill.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I have listened carefully to the Minister, and he has given us the reassurances we sought. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

Assistance in connection with neighbourhood planning

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I thank hon. Members for tabling the amendments, which provide an opportunity to discuss the important matters of the advice, assistance and resources available to communities and local planning authorities in supporting their take-up of neighbourhood planning. Before I respond to individual amendments and if you agree, Mr McCabe, I will say a few words about why we are introducing the measures in clause 5.

We believe that the clause will ensure that when communities consider whether to prepare a neighbourhood plan or order, they can make the decision with a full range of advice and assistance available to them. We believe that will assist in building the positive and constructive relationship between a local planning authority and the relevant local authority that is necessary to make neighbourhood planning work.

Amendment 1 simply facilitates amendment 2, which I will consider shortly. I will start with amendment 9, as the hon. Member for City of Durham did. I appreciate the desire to ensure that adequate resources are available to the relevant local council. We believe the amendment is unnecessary because local planning authorities can already claim funding for their duties in relation to neighbourhood planning. We will obviously continue to review the costs incurred by councils in delivering neighbourhood plans and these will change as the take-up of neighbourhood planning increases and local authorities, local communities and others become more familiar with the process.

It is probably worth putting on the record what the current arrangements are. Local authorities receive £5,000 for each of the first five neighbourhood areas they designate and £5,000 for each of the first five neighbourhood forums they designate. They then receive £20,000 for every single neighbourhood plan when a referendum date has been set. The idea is that there is some initial pump-priming for the first five to 10 times they deal with the process, but also a set amount of money because of the costs involved in examination and then in holding a referendum.

The hon. Lady made a wider point about resourcing planning departments and was keen that I reiterate what I said in the evidence session. I am happy to do that. I recognise absolutely that there is an issue. Reflecting back on the evidence that was given to us, I respectfully suggest to her that I did not hear a lot of evidence that the Government were not properly funding the specific burden of organising neighbourhood planning. I heard a lot of evidence that in more general terms planning departments are underfunded and the Government need to look at the level of planning fees being charged.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The Minister is absolutely right, but people made the point about resourcing because of the specific obligation in the Bill for local authorities to support neighbourhood plans.

[Gavin Barwell]

I respectfully argue that the sums of money that local councils are having to spend on neighbourhood planning constitute a very small share of their overall planning departments. The fundamental issue, which I absolutely take on board, is the level of fees that planning departments are able to charge to cover their costs. I said during the evidence session—I am happy to repeat it now—that it has struck me during the three months I have been doing this job that whereas on many issues conflicting opinions are expressed to me by different people in the housing and planning world, on this issue there is unanimity. Developers and council planning departments alike say that there is an issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

It is a range of things. Technology certainly plays a part. I also observe that the designation regime introduced by the coalition Government has played a part. I do not want to go on too long, because this is not directly relevant to the point we are considering. However, I genuinely believe that when we look back on this period—this is not all down to the Government, if that makes it easier for the hon. Gentleman to accept—we will say that despite the financial restrictions public services were under, public servants have done an amazing job of improving the services they provide. That is the point I wanted to make.

I welcome the intent of amendment 2, but I cannot agree that it is necessary. I hope I can reassure Committee members that even in these times of tight public finances, we are supporting neighbourhood planning groups. We have made £22.5 million available to do that. More than 1,500 payments have been made to date. Since 1 April this year, all groups can apply for a grant of up to £9,000. We are providing additional support to priority areas, which include more deprived areas and those with the highest housing growth. Communities that fall within those priority groups can apply for up to £15,000 and can also access technical planning support.

I agree with the hon. Member for Bassetlaw—this is becoming a worrying trend for both of us—that this is not just about money. It is also about having good advice and assistance. We have a national network at the moment of 132 neighbourhood planning champions, who are there to provide exactly that kind of advice and assistance. While I understand what the amendment is trying to do, which is quite rightly to say that thus far neighbourhood planning has been adopted mainly in more rural parts of the country and that we need to ensure that it is also well used in urban and more deprived and more transient communities—there is no argument there—I am not sure whether saying 50% of the money has to go to such areas is right, because by definition it is a demand-led budget.

I want to encourage people from all around the country to set up groups and ensure that funding is there to support them. If it helps the hon. Member for City of Durham, I assure her that if we ever get to a point where the budget is running out because there are so many applications, I will be the first person knocking on the Treasury’s door to ensure that there is extra support. However, I think if we passed a law to say that 50% must go to these places and 50% to those, we could run the risk that some people would run out of money when the other pot had not been used. That does not seem to be a logical way to deal with the issue.

I completely understand the aspiration behind amendment 10. We agree that in order to provide clarity to neighbourhood planning groups about the context within which they prepare their plans all areas should have a local plan. In the evidence session and on numerous other occasions I have spoken strongly about the importance I attach to having local plans in place. If the Committee will permit me for a minute, let me reiterate the main point. The planning applications that tend to come across my desk are nearly all speculative applications where essentially the local planning authority has not had a local plan in place with a five-year land supply. Developers have then come in and picked the sites that they want to build on—those are not the aspirations of the local community but where the developers want to see development go—and things escalate and end up on my desk. I want to remove all that unnecessary conflict from our planning system and the way to do that is to ensure that we have complete coverage in place.

I appreciate that again this is a probing amendment so I will not be too critical, but, rather than accepting an amendment that asserts that something should happen by this timescale, we have tabled a series of amendments that seek to advance that agenda. I also want to make plan making much quicker and make it much easier for planning authorities to update their plans.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw has previously spoken about—he mentioned it today—his frustration at the delay when the coalition Government changed the national planning framework. Actually, I think we were quite right to do that because we needed to ensure that when one council does not meet its housing need, those houses do not disappear from the system but are spread out in surrounding authorities. He is, however, quite right to say that because the process is so slow at the moment, that imposes a big delay when that happens. Therefore it is important both to make sure that we have plans in place and try to make the process quicker so that when they need updating—because either Government policy changes or the facts on the ground change—that can be done much more quickly.

I do not want to labour the point, because I know the amendment is a probing one, but its wording mentions just having a plan in place. We would all probably agree that we actually need an up-to-date plan that takes account of the latest household projections and an accurate assessment of housing needs. A lot of authorities currently have a plan, but not a plan that is based in any way on the latest information about what the area requires. I hope that I have reassured the hon. Member for City of Durham on the underlying issue, even if we disagree on the amendment.

Finally, I turn to the interesting issue in new clause 2, which I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising. We are looking at the matter in general terms at the moment. We have always been clear that we would like to see the new homes bonus benefiting communities that support development, such as those that produce neighbourhood plans, and we strongly encourage local authorities to allocate funding from the new homes bonus in that way. Indeed, it is already possible for councils and areas where a neighbourhood plan is in place to reach agreement in exactly the way she suggests in her new clause.

With regard to the second part of the new clause and the community infrastructure levy, communities where a neighbourhood plan or order is in force receive 25% of the CIL arising from development in their area, whereas the figure for communities without a neighbourhood plan is only 15%, so there is already a key incentive. Three questions are posed by the new clause. First, should we actually legislate to require something similar in relation to the new homes bonus? Secondly, should we raise those percentages in relation to CIL? Thirdly, should we force everybody to have a CIL? I will take those in turn.

On the first question, that is an interesting idea. I hope that the hon. Lady will allow me to reflect on that some more in the White Paper. The Prime Minister is very interested in ensuring that communities that go for growth are properly rewarded, so that people feel that if their community accepts more housing, their quality of life improves, rather than them finding it harder to get a GP appointment or to get a child into the local school, or finding their train more overcrowded. I am not sure that we should legislate in the way she suggests, but I am very interested in the underlying grain of the idea.

On CIL percentages, there is a balance that we need to be wary of. We can take Bassetlaw as an example of a particular area with a local plan and think about what we want to do with the money that the state captures out of land uplift. We certainly want to do things in that local community, but we might also need to make sure that major bits of infrastructure across the district happen. If we put too much into one local area, we will lose the money that might pay for the new junction on the dual carriageway, or a spur off the main roundabout, or whatever the right project is. There is a tension that we need to recognise.

We probably also need to recognise that it is not necessarily in the interests of every single local authority to have a community infrastructure levy. One could at least think of circumstances in which land values were sufficiently low and development therefore marginal in terms of viability. Introducing a CIL might then push crucial regeneration projects, which would otherwise have been viable, and make them non-viable. I am not sure that forcing every local council to introduce a CIL, if they judge that to do so would not be in the best interests of their area, is the right thing to do.

In summary, the hon. Lady is quite right to raise all those questions. They are at the heart of the debate about what we need to do to ensure that communities are incentivised to go for growth, but I hope that I have pointed out some of the points of detail as to why we do not want to accept the amendment.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I have heard what the Minister has said, and we obviously look forward to seeing what he has to say in the White Paper about resourcing planning departments. We will closely monitor the budget for neighbourhood planning to ensure that it goes to all areas that need it. I look forward to seeing what he comes back with regarding the new homes bonus and CIL. It is important that he keeps what is happening with deprived areas on his agenda, so that everything is done to support their bringing forward a neighbourhood plan. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The amendment is straightforward. We all know that the National Association of Local Councils has been calling for this for some time. It said in evidence:

“We are calling for a right to be heard, or a right of appeal, so that where decisions are taken contrary to a neighbourhood plan and a local plan, people may have some reference to the Secretary of State or Minister to take a final view”.––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 44, Q73.]

That, in essence, is what the amendment asks for. I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say.

Amendment 14 seeks to make it easier for a community to set up a local parish council. We know that areas that have a parish council are much more likely to bring forward a neighbourhood plan. One way of facilitating neighbourhood plans is to ensure that it is easier to bring forward parish councils. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

[Gavin Barwell]

Amendment 13 raises some interesting questions. Communities already have a right to be heard in the planning system in lots of ways. I can run through some of them. Local people have the chance to have their say as local plans and neighbourhood plans are developed, when individual planning applications come forward and if a planning application is turned down and there is an appeal, and they can call for applications to be called in by Ministers. I think that the amendment is probing, because its wording is generic and does not define what the right to be heard is, although I guess that is essentially what the hon. Lady was referring to.

The Government’s view is that there is no need to change the law in this regard. Most of the concerns of the NALC and others—the hon. Member for Bassetlaw has expressed them powerfully—are partially addressed by clause 1, and the policy changes in the White Paper that we want to make will also help significantly in that regard. The other powers talked about here—for example, the power to ask me to call applications in—already exist. I am reluctant to use those powers too frequently, because my starting point is that the planning system should be locally driven. However, if there are planning applications that I think raise issues of national importance about the way national policy is playing out on the ground, I am happy to call them in. In the three months that I have been doing this job, I have called in a couple of applications where I felt a decision had been taken that was contrary to a neighbourhood plan and I wanted to look at the issues myself. I think that the fundamental issues that the amendment probes are already in the system or will be addressed by the policy changes in the White Paper.

Amendment 14 was the amendment that most interested me. I do not agree with putting it into law, but I agree with the fundamental idea behind it. I think that the hon. Member for City of Durham is saying that we may want to tell people in a statement of community involvement how to go about setting up a parish council, because that is clearly one of the ways in which they could drive a neighbourhood plan. If I was writing a statement of community involvement, I would absolutely think it appropriate to put that in it, but I am not sure that we want to get into the business of writing into statute what the content of statements of community involvement should be. Indeed, when we come to clause 6, I will address why the Government do not want to get into the business of saying what is a good or bad statement of community involvement. We have to trust local councils to set that information out. If the hon. Lady is reassured by me saying that that is the kind of information that I would expect to see in such statements, I am happy to put that on the record.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Yes, I did find that reassuring. With amendment 14, we were seeking to ensure that communities knew how to set up a parish council and that that process was made as easy as possible. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Jackie Doyle-Price.)

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Lord Barwell and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 20th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

As always, my hon. Friend makes a very interesting point. We did have a brief exchange with the Minister on Tuesday about the fact that the duty to co-operate has not worked in practice, and the real need for a different set of provisions. I know the Minister is seeking to address that at a later stage in the Bill’s passage, so we look forward to seeing the provisions that will address that aspect of local plan-making and how the duty to co-operate can be made to work more effectively in practice. My hon. Friend has raised a very valid point.

I think we are on our 11th round of consultation, and there will be further rounds before we actually get a local plan in place. Huge resource is then put into the consultation, which has gone on for many years. The huge amount of documentation that goes with each of those public consultations has a resource attached to it. I should have thought that it was possible to have a system of local plan-making that was very streamlined and did not require the huge amount of documentation that it currently does; that would free up resources. One of the things we argued in Lyons was that those resources could then be used to effectively support neighbourhoods and local authorities to use neighbourhood plans as the building block for their local plans.

I am coming to my argument about new clause 1. If these plans are to have considerable weight attached to them, and if they are going to be, as they currently are, part of the local plan once they go through a referendum and a material consideration, should there be a minimum level of buy-in from the local community, in terms of turning out to vote? I am sure the Minister will say that the votes for these neighbourhood plans are extraordinary, that 89% or 90% of the people who turn out regularly vote for the neighbourhood plan, that they understand why it is important to their community and that a lot of them will have turned up to consultation events.

It is heartening that so many of the plans get that percentage of people supporting them. It is actually quite rare for them to be turned down or to have fairly low percentages. At the moment we are at about a 32.4% turnout from the local community. I am sure all of us here think that is actually not bad when compared with the turnout for some local council elections, but if we are talking about a plan that will have a very strong influence on what happens in the neighbourhood area for perhaps 10 or 15 years or even longer, I suggest there might need to be a 40% threshold, but that could be lower or higher.

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

I am interested in the argument the hon. Lady is making. My local authority is going through the process of agreeing its local plan at the moment, so I share her pain. Do the Opposition think the same arguments should apply to local plans? Should the people of Croydon have the chance to vote in a referendum on the local plan that Croydon Council is proposing?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The Minister makes an interesting point. It is something I will mull over and think about. Does the Minister think it is important to have a particular threshold? Again, that point is not being put forward only by the Opposition. It was also put forward by the BPF, which said:

“As neighbourhood plans affect large sectors of the community, a minimum turnout would ensure that what is to become a development plan document as part of the Local Development Framework is agreed and accepted by a sufficient majority—and would also help ensure the implementation of neighbourhood plans.”

That is an important point.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Lord Barwell and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q That is interesting in terms of good practice. Are there any other countries that do CPO better than we do and that we could look at?

Colin Cottage: The American system has some merits. At the CPA, we are looking at that at the moment. It is not perfect in all regards—no system is—but in the States, for example, projects are funded up front in a way that they are not in this country. That means that there are no public inquiries; the scheme just goes ahead, so people know they will be affected by it. Then there is an independent assessment of value in advance. Value is independently assessed, and that then forms the basis of an offer to the landowner. The landowner can challenge that, but there are cost implications if they do.

We had a chap by the name of Douglas Hummel, who came over from the International Right of Way Association, the American body that oversees compulsory purchase best practice. The results there are that in the order of 81% of land value compensation assessments are agreed immediately, and another 4% settle after a short period of time. Only the remaining 15% are then contested for any lengthy period of time. That is a much higher strike rate than we have in this country.

I am not necessarily saying that the American system is exactly the way to go, but there are examples of early dispute resolution. That is what it is in form: an independent valuation. In the UK system, the claimant puts forward his claim, and that is then contested by an acquiring authority, and you have a creation of conflict. An independent third-party valuation up front should really be considered quite carefully, and could lead to a reduction in conflict.

Richard Blyth: We are not necessarily going to look for places that do CPO better, because I think everyone would agree that it is better never to have any, but Germany has a land reorganisation system, where all the private landowners party to an urban extension of a town are put into a readjustment system, and the local authority then provides the infrastructure out of the increase in land value. It is then reapportioned.

That is quite useful. From my experience when I was in practice, it is very difficult if you are the landowner who gets the bit of land that will be the public open space, or the balancing pond or something, in a wider scheme. It can seem very unfair, but this kind of approach not only makes sure that all the infrastructure gets put in, it evens out the benefits across a clutch of landowners more fairly, so the first one does not get all the benefit. That is certainly impressive, in terms of how to ensure that infrastructure is provided in advance, so house builders can just get on and build the houses within the plots that are then made available, and are often of very different sizes.

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

Q I want to probe a little bit more on the issue of temporary possession. You expressed a concern in relation to uncertainty about the length of time that temporary possession might last. In the Bill as drafted, acquiring authorities will have to specify the total period of time for which they are taking temporary possession, and owners—freeholders and leaseholders—can serve a countering notice placing limits on that. How are you suggesting the Bill needs to be developed further to give even greater certainty? We have tried to address that in the drafting.

Colin Cottage: There are two issues. The first is on our reading of the Bill. There is still the possibility of taking both temporary and permanent possession, and that will create uncertainty for people affected by it, because, even if there is a period of temporary possession, it may be converted at a future date to permanent possession and they will have no control over that.

Secondly, we feel that, for freehold owners, six years is too long. Three years as a maximum is better. Notwithstanding that, the ability to serve counter-notices is correct and encouraging to development. Six years is quite a long period. If a business is dispossessed of its property for six years, that is effectively almost as good as a permanent dispossession because if you are away from your premises for six years, you will have restarted and be trading somewhere else. With that restriction, we encourage and welcome the proposal on the table.

Draft Self-build and Custom Housebuilding (Time for compliance and fees) Regulations 2016

Debate between Lord Barwell and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Monday 17th October 2016 General Committees

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend is luring me into the wider debate about what we are going to do on housing. I will say just two things. First, there is a target to get local authorities to release a similar scale of public land to the Government’s own commitment. We have committed to release land that would be suitable for 160,000 homes over the course of this Parliament; there is a similar target for local authority land.

Secondly, my hon. Friend makes an important point about smaller sites. I think all Members would agree that in recent years there has been a trend for local authority plans to focus on large sites. That brings several dangers. It essentially guarantees that we will be dependent on large-volume developers, because large sites are really only suitable for such developers. It also creates a risk of local authorities falling below their five-year land supply targets, because if one of those sites hits the buffers and drops out, the local authority finds itself below the five-year land supply and the rules on speculative development then apply. There are many good planning policy reasons. If my hon. Friend bears with me until we discuss the White Paper, he will see that there are many good reasons for strongly encouraging local authorities to provide for a mixture of sites in their local plans, especially if we want a more diverse range of people to provide housing.

I am pleased to hear that the official Opposition favour the policy. I have now presented two statutory instruments, both of which have been supported from the Opposition Benches, and long may that continue. I am conscious that other bits of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 did not meet with such favour, but I will gloss over those for now.

The hon. Member for City of Durham asked a number of questions. The first was about how local authorities might identify sites. They can use a number of mechanisms, one of which was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen. Surplus local authority land may be suitable for such purposes. Authorities may, in certain circumstances, wish to acquire sites on the market, but there is also potential for them to use the planning system to deliver sites. For example, they could include as an application condition for a larger site that the developer provides a certain percentage of custom build sites.

The hon. Member for City of Durham raised a very fair point: what if local authorities cannot find enough sites to provide for the number of people on the register? The negative procedure statutory instrument that sits alongside this provides the answer to that question, which is that areas that have a high demand for self-build or custom house building, and very limited land for development through no fault of their own, are able to seek an exemption from the Secretary of State. Those regulations broadly set out how that exemption works, but I will provide a little bit of detail.

The Government’s view is that it would be unreasonable to require authorities to grant planning permission in respect of all their future land supply for self-build or custom build. At the moment, about 10% of new homes are self-build or custom build housing, and we want to double that. The regulations will enable those authorities where the demand for self-build and custom build is greater than 20% of their available land to apply for an exemption. That is how we would seek to address that issue.

Even if there is an exemption, the authority would still need to have regard to persons on the register when carrying out their general duties in terms of seeking further sites over time. Individuals in an exempt authority would be able to register in neighbouring areas with greater land availability, so it would not rule out opportunities altogether for people who live in those authorities.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Will the Minister confirm whether the negative statutory instrument also covers any possible sanctions against local authorities? If authorities do not meet the supply within the three-year period, will they be subject to sanctions?

[Gavin Barwell]

Obviously, we would have to keep that under review. The evidence from the vanguard programme is that there is generally an enthusiasm in local government for this purpose, but my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen made the point that we need to get out there and evangelise. We need to look at what action we will take if authorities do not meet their obligations. When we come discuss the housing and planning White Paper, the hon. Lady will see that a considerable amount of thought has been given to the extent to which the Government should intervene in local plans, and to what those thresholds should be. If she bears with me for a little while, she will hear some more details about that.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Barwell and Roberta Blackman-Woods

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

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Indeed. That was one of the amendments that I tabled to the Housing and Planning Bill when it was going through the House. Alas, it was rejected by the then Housing Minister. It was interesting to hear the same point being made earlier in our discussion. I am pleased if Conservative Members are coming round to our view that planning departments should be able to set fees at full recovery level.

On a more positive note, we welcome the measures to streamline compulsory purchase orders. The new Ministers must have been studying their copy of the Lyons review. We argued strongly there that CPOs were not fit for purpose and needed to be streamlined. I am pleased to see those measures in the Bill but, again, they could be improved.

I want to spend a minute or two on pre-commencement planning conditions, which is the area of the Bill on which we will probably have most discussion in Committee. I am pleased that the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) is in his place. He criticised pre-commencement planning conditions at length, yet I have a list from a development taking place in my constituency and I cannot see what is wrong with any of these conditions. The developers have to provide samples of materials. The development is in a conservation area, so that is important. They have to provide full details about bats. Well, we must protect bats. There must be noise mitigation and notice of demolition.

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Lady gives the example of notice of materials. I can entirely see why that is a legitimate issue if the development is in a conservation area, but why must that be settled before a spade goes into the ground and the groundworks start?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

That is a question that I would like the Minister to put to his constituents. People surrounding new developments very much want to know what the development looks like, what the quality of the build will be, what materials are going to be used and whether they fit into the surrounding landscape. If he is serious about neighbourhood planning and giving people a say over what happens in their area, pre-commencement planning is important. Some of the measures could lead to more delays in the planning system, rather than speeding it up, which I think is what the Minister is trying to do.