Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Debate on Amendment 183 continued.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I nearly lost that chance, having sat here for several days waiting for this. I agree with everything my noble friend Lord Young said on the amendments he and I have jointly tabled in this group, except for one word: he referred to his “chequered” career, but I would say “distinguished”. We will replace “chequered” with “distinguished”, but otherwise I agree with everything he said. That helps, because it means that I do not have to repeat the arguments he made.

I want to speak to Amendments 184A and 187A very briefly. I will also explain Amendment 185, which my noble friend did not dwell on, and say a word or two about Amendment 183—the lead amendment in this group, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage—which he did refer to. As my noble friend said, the issue we are turning to now is the plan-led system. How local plans are to be made and what the relationship is to be between the local plan and the national development management policies are very important questions.

To paraphrase one of the key questions that arises out of this, which I think we need to understand now in order to address these issues in the Bill at a later stage, would the Government be kind enough to explain to what extent the provisions presently in the National Planning Policy Framework are going to be national development management policies in the future? They will then acquire a different status—although, I have to say, it is quite difficult in many cases for a local planning authority to proceed on the basis of operating with the guidance in the NPPF, because inspectors will look to the NPPF as a basis for the judgments they make on whether a plan is sound, and indeed whether determinations in themselves are sound on appeal. We may be looking at distinctions or differences between the NPPF and NDMP without there being that much of a difference between them. In practice, the legal differences are clear, and the extent to which the NPPF is going to be turned into NDMP and given that status is important, and we need to know that.

As my noble friend Lord Young said, the revised draft of the NPPF, which the Government have consulted on and have yet to tell us the final outcome of, states:

“Policies in local plans and spatial development strategies should be reviewed to assess whether they need updating at least once every five years”.


My noble friend referred to the loophole or the issue here, which is that local planning authorities decide for themselves whether that review turns into an updated local plan. I give him and the House one very specific example, which is close to me. I should remind the House, as I have mentioned previously, of my registered interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. East Cambridgeshire adopted a local plan on 21 April 2015, which covers the period up to 2031. In April 2020—five years later—the authority conducted a review and decided that it did not need to update the plan, save with respect to the housing supply numbers. So, it conducted a single-issue review.

I will not dwell on some of the issues, but I have various complaints about this. First, there is the idea that the housing number is unrelated to other issues in the plan—that the housing supply in the decade ahead is unrelated to issues of environmental concern or whatever. That seems to have been ignored by them. However, I make the point that the inspector, who conducted an examination in public in the latter part of last year, said that it was not in his remit at all to look at whether the plan should be updated or not, whether anything other than housing should be updated or not, and indeed whether the final date of the plan should be beyond 2031. Of course, what the local authority is planning to do in this case is to update its housing figures, but when it has done so, it will extend for only about six years rather than the 15 years that the NPPF would imply. Notwithstanding that, they got away with it. So I very much agree with my noble friend and hope that the Minister will think hard about how we might make sure that we have local plans.

However, our Amendments 184A and 187A go precisely to the issue of requiring local plans to be up to date. If they are not up to date, in our view it cannot be right that the same principles apply in terms of the compliance or otherwise of determinations made on planning applications if the local plan to which they relate is out of date. There must be a distinction. Our amendments simply add “up-to-date” in front of “development plan.” They do not say, “What’s the relationship between a planning application and a determination on that planning application in relation to a local plan that is no longer up to date?” We need to resolve that. I suggest to my noble friend on the Front Bench that Ministers should think about whether there is as yet something they can do to distinguish between the proper relationship between development plans and in this particular instance determinations of planning applications, which should be made according to an up to date local plan, and local plans that had been adopted but are now out of date. They need to address the question of whether they are proper material considerations but not necessarily determinative. That seems to be the right way to go.

Amendment 185, which is in my name, that of my noble friend, and in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, relates to the question of a determination on a planning application and that it should be made in accordance with the local plan. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 says in Section 38(6):

“If regard is to be had to the development plan for the purpose of any determination to be made under the planning Acts the determination must be made in accordance with the plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise”.


It has said that since 2004, so there is considerable case law relating to this, and those working in the planning system have experience of working with that. They know that it means that, in making a determination on a planning application, local planning authorities have to weigh material considerations. However, courts pretty much do not second-guess the weight that planning officers and planning committees give to various considerations in considering an application. We have had nearly 20 years of that.

The Government have rewritten this bit and inserted the word “strongly”—

“unless material considerations strongly indicate otherwise”.

That says to me that two things are going to happen. First, it is the Government’s intention to limit and restrict the circumstances in which decisions are made other than in accord with a local plan or with national development management policies. That means—which goes to the point that we have been debating in this group—that it reduces the role of the planning committee and the local planning authority, because they do not balance the weight any more. Most of the material considerations, almost by definition, will not be enough to indicate that they should do other than what would be demanded by the local plan and the NDMP.

The second thing that will inevitably result from this is that there will be a large amount of litigation, because the question of what “strongly” means in this context will be hard to determine. There will not be case law or precedent—a large number of decisions will not previously have been made. Where does “strongly” change the balance? How is that weight to be shifted? It is very unwise for the Government to be proceeding down this path. It would create a better balance across the Bill generally and we would be better off in many cases just to leave things as they are if they cannot demonstrate that there is a mischief to which this is the answer.

I will stop there, but I just want to refer to one other thing. I thought that Amendment 216, which is not in my name but in that of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, rather pointed to an issue. Schedule 7 on page 294, which is about plan making, would take out a rather curious few words where the Government say that local plans must not

“be inconsistent with or (in substance) repeat any national development management policy”.

I just have a question: what is the point of national development management policies if it is not essentially to write for local planning authorities large amounts of their local plan? If the local planning authority then puts that language into its local plan, does that mean it is repeating it or incorporating it? What does “repeat” mean in this context? I thought the whole point was that local plans would “repeat” national development management policies, yet we are being told in the legislation that that is not what they are to do. That is a genuine question to which I really do not know the answer, but I hope we can find out a bit more from my noble friend later.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, my name is on Amendment 191A, tabled by my noble friend Lady Thornhill, as is that of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. It stipulates the process for the Secretary of State to designate and review a national development management policy, including minimum public consultation requirements and a process of parliamentary scrutiny based on processes set out in the Planning Act 2008, as amended, for national policy statements. It is an amendment to Clause 87.

Clause 87, which is a matter of only 20 or so lines, defines the meaning of “national development management policy” as

“a policy (however expressed) of the Secretary of State in relation to the development or use of land in England, or any part of England, which the Secretary of State by direction designates as a national development management policy.”

It then says that the Secretary of State can revoke a direction and modify a national development management policy. It goes on to say:

“Before making or revoking a direction … or modifying a national development management policy, the Secretary of State must ensure that such consultation with, and participation by, the public or any bodies or persons (if any) as the Secretary of State thinks appropriate takes place.”


In planning terms, this is the most gross act of centralisation that I can recall from the various Bills we have had relating to planning policy.

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Therefore, while I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Taylor and Lady Hayman, for their amendments, I hope I have explained why we believe the current requirement for local development plans to be consistent with national development management policies is needed to achieve some of our key aims for planning reform. That is why we do not support these amendments.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I hope my noble friend will forgive me for interrupting. I understand the point she is making about Amendment 216, and why she is resisting removing the idea that local plans must not be inconsistent with national development management policies, but it also says, “or (in substance) repeat”.

I am trying to understand. Let us take the chapter in the NPPF on green belt. The first part is about plan-making for the green belt, and the second part is about proposals coming forward within green belt land and the criteria that should be applied as to whether or not an application would be accepted. On that latter part, is my noble friend saying that the local plan cannot repeat that—that it must therefore refer to it but not repeat it? Is that the point she is making?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The whole idea of moving national policies away from local policies is that we do not have to repeat them. I will reflect on what my noble friend says about how it is referred if an area has a particular issue with something such as the green belt and come back to him, because I think he has a point.

Amendment 221, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, seeks to require older people’s housing needs assessments to be included in the evidence for local plans and would require local authorities to consider the needs for older people’s housing when preparing such plans. While I entirely understand the sentiment behind this amendment, the proposed approach is not needed. National policy already sets strong expectations, and we recently consulted on strengthening this further. The existing National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that the size, type and tenure of housing needed for different groups in the community, including older people, should be assessed and reflected in planning policies. In 2019, we also published guidance to help local authorities implement the policies that can deliver on this expectation.

I also make it clear to noble Lords that, to further improve the diversity of housing options available to older people and to boost the supply of specialist elderly accommodation, we have proposed to strengthen the existing policy by adding a specific expectation that, when ensuring the needs of older people are met, particular regard is given to retirement housing, housing with care and care homes. We know these are important types of housing that can help support our ageing population.

Furthermore, there is already a provision in the Bill that sets out that the Secretary of State must issue guidance for local planning authorities on how their local plan and any supplementary plans, taken as a whole, should address housing needs that result from old age or disability. These are strong legislative and policy safeguards which should ensure that the needs of older people are taken fully into account. For that reason, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Best, will understand why we do not support this amendment.

I note that there is a question from my noble friend Lord Young and the noble Lord, Lord Best, on the task force. I will go back to the department and ask for an update. I can assure noble Lords that I will give them one in the next couple of days—certainly before Recess or Report.

I hope I have said enough to enable the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, to withdraw her Amendment 183 and for the other amendments in this group not to be moved when reached.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I obviously listened with great care to the noble Baroness when she made her initial intervention. I take on board the point she made, which I understand. It was made by other noble Lords. I am trying to set out for the Committee the direction the Government are coming from in framing the Bill’s provisions.

I just want to emphasise a point that I made in an earlier debate, which may not be sufficiently appreciated. I look in particular at the noble Lord, Lord Mann. The Bill in no way removes any powers or functions of district councils, which are rightly their own sovereign bodies and will continue to exercise their own powers and functions within the broader context of the CCA. Indeed, as we have already debated, we fully expect that, in many cases, CCAs will decide to give district councils a seat at the table as non-constituent members, should they deem that this will usefully inform decision-making. It would be open to a CCA to give voting rights to such a non-constituent member, if it considered this appropriate. It is right that we should give CCAs that freedom. The sub-strategic matters for which district councils are primarily responsible will often be directly germane to the strategic issues being considered and decided on at CCA level.

I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, for the points he made. As I am sure he is aware, we will immerse ourselves in the issues he raised on national development plans when we move to the parts of the Bill relating to planning, but I hope for now that that explanation will assist the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in understanding why—

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I apologise for intervening at this late stage, having made no speech, but I would like to ask a couple of questions of my noble friend that relate to Clause 43. The first is a simple one. There is a reference to a combined authority being able to make a proposal relating to a new combined county authority. I am confused, since I understood that a combined county authority would not be able to encompass any part of the area of an existing combined authority. Is it anticipated that circumstances might arise where a combined authority would transfer some of its area to a new combined county authority? That is just a question for future reference.

Secondly, the clause includes a reference, which we have seen before, to an “economic prosperity board”—which I take in most cases to mean local enterprise partnerships—having the right to make a proposal or having the requirement to consent to a proposal for a new CCA. The Government announced in the Budget today that they intend, as they put it, to withdraw support for local enterprise partnerships from April 2024. What does this imply? How does the business community have a voice and through whom, since the Government intend the functions of the local enterprise partnerships to be devolved to local government? Would my noble friend at least agree that something might be said about this at an early stage, before we complete this section relating to what an economic prosperity board is supposed to do?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I think that my best course is to write to my noble friend on both issues. He is perfectly right that Clause 43(2)(e) refers to

“a combined authority the whole or any part of whose area is within the proposed area”

as being a body to which the section applies; that is to say, a body which may prepare a proposal for the establishment of a CCA for an area and submit that proposal to the Secretary of State. It would be wise of me to set down in writing the kinds of circumstances in which we envisage that particular geographic area playing a part in the formation of a CCA. On the questions my noble friend raised on economic prosperity boards, I again think it best that I should write to him.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, that the policy for CCA establishment and operation, as reflected in the Bill, neither belittles nor marginalises the important role played by district councils. When a CCA is formed, any district councils within its geographic radius will be important stakeholders—it is very hard to see how they could not be—albeit alongside many others. However, they cannot be a constituent member of a co-operative local government grouping whose membership is determined by reference to strategic functions and powers which are the primary province of upper-tier and unitary authorities. That is the logic.

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I think that the proposals are all self-explanatory. This was the amendment lifted from the Commons, where it applied to planning committees only, but I would like it to apply to all committees, and plenary sessions of the council as well. I have set out the conditions in which that would be satisfied, for how the voting would be recorded and how, with a physical meeting, others could attend remotely as well. For those reasons, I prefer my Amendment 158 to Amendments 310 and 312D. I can see absolutely no reason why it should be the case that it would be only planning committees that would meet. I would like to see licensing committees and planning committees—all committees—as well as plenary committees being permitted to do so in that regard. I turn with a plea to my noble friend to look favourably on this amendment. With those few remarks, I beg to move.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I shall presume to follow my noble friend and speak to Amendment 310 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I support my noble friend’s amendment, which is very helpful in setting out in full the potential structure of a power to enable local authorities to hold meetings remotely. Of course it does not require them to do so—it simply permits them to do so.

The story of this, essentially, is that during the pandemic the Coronavirus Act 2020 permitted local authorities to hold meetings remotely, and many did. That expired on 7 May 2021, and the Local Government Association and others sought a declaratory judgment from the High Court as to whether they could continue to meet remotely, in the absence of specific legislative provision. The High Court said that they could not—that it was clear that meetings required persons to be in the place required under the 1972 Act. Since 7 May 2021, they cannot proceed with remote meetings, which is a serious impediment, not least since the LGA’s chair at the time said that:

“The pandemic proved that using virtual meeting options can help councils work more effectively and efficiently and can in fact increase engagement from both councillors and residents”.


The first is fairly obvious; the second is particularly helpful. A survey conducted by the LGA back in November 2021 demonstrated that costs were lower for virtual meetings but also, and more significantly, public attendance could be higher at virtual meetings. It is very important to give local authorities those options.

The point that I come to is that the Government at the time, back in 2021, issued a call for evidence on remote meetings. We are now the best part of two years on and they have not proceeded on the basis of that call for evidence. I would hope or expect that the call for evidence demonstrated that this is an opportunity to assist local authorities to structure their meetings in a way that can maximise engagement and participation, and I am at a loss to know why they have not proceeded. At the time, of course, they said that there was a lack of a suitable legislative opportunity—well, here we are, and here it is. The Government have not put it in the Bill, but we have the option to do so. I may press my noble friend the Minister a little more than my noble friend Lady McIntosh might do: the time has come for the Government to get off the fence on this one. On Report, the best possible solution would be for them to bring forward their own amendment for this purpose.

There is a difference between the two amendments. Mine relates only to planning meetings and its structure is to create a regulation-making power for the Secretary of State. I suspect that, for that reason, it is preferable to the Government since, in Amendment 158, we have a regulation under the Coronavirus Act 2020 that is being turned into primary legislation. That is not always the most helpful way to structure things. I think the right way forward would be for the Government to introduce their own amendment on Report.

I was interested in this from the point of view of planning meetings, as part of the general process of trying to encourage efficient and effective decision-making in planning. I understand that there is an argument for this to be applied more generally, although it was obvious, from some of the references to evidence given before the High Court, that there is some hesitation on the part of experts about holding, for example, councils’ full or annual meetings virtually. The problem is the lack of personal interaction between councillors at such meetings and the difficulty of managing business under those circumstances. It is fair to say that simply giving local authorities this power would be a straight- forward way to do it, but I completely understand if some restrictions, particularly on full or annual council meetings, limited the exercise of that power. Either way, I hope that my noble friend indicates, whether definitely or otherwise, that the Government will think urgently about whether to bring forward measures to give local government this power in the Bill, through amendment on Report.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 158 and 310. Obviously Amendment 310 is more limited so I see it as a fallback, but I honestly cannot see any reason for the Government not to accept Amendment 158.

Covid obviously provided us with a lot of challenges, one of which was how to keep things going and how society and, for example, your Lordships’ House could still function. At the time, I thought that your Lordships’ House managed better than the other place. We were quicker to put in remote systems for voting and participating, which I thought was a huge advance in the methods that we used for debates and to create legislation.

I actually did not know that councils cannot meet virtually any more and think it is a terrible shame. I have been a councillor and it is really hard work. Going to council meetings on a cold wet night in November, December, January or February can be an extra challenge. Quite honestly, why on earth would we not do this? Virtual council meetings—and virtual meetings of your Lordships’ House—worked extremely well. We all found that we could work the mute button, although some have gone backwards on that. We still allow noble Lords to engage virtually, so it is logical for councillors.

Work has changed because of Covid. More people are working remotely and not going into the office as much. One of my daughters, although she has a full-time job, goes into the office only two days a week now. My partner goes into his office one day a month and my other daughter goes into her office once every two months. Even so, they all work extremely well and efficiently. I do not understand this regressive move.

There have been other regressive moves here. I loathe how we still start in the afternoons, even though we started earlier during Covid. It is easy to slip back into bad, old habits instead of taking new ideas forward and engaging in the best way possible. I hope that the Government see sense on this and, as is suggested, bring their own amendment forward. We would all support it.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

I just emphasise that housing is not just a desperately urgent social need but part of the mix of creating thriving multigenerational communities across the UK. Tackling housing supply and putting it front and centre of any housing mission is part of making this vision a concrete reality, and I really hope that the housing mission goes beyond mere platitudes and says, “Build more houses now!”

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am very glad to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, who has given us a very persuasive insight into a subject that I know we shall return to. I look forward to her contributing to further debates on the housing supply issue when we get to those parts of the Bill—perhaps in a fortnight’s time. We will have had a chance to take on board her excellent arguments.

I do not want to repeat what I said on Monday; I shall just precis it to this extent. I do not think we should put the missions in the Bill; we should have a process in the Bill that permits this House and the other place to consider the missions and metrics in detail every time the Government publish a statement. We can do that either by way of what I suggest in Amendment 25, which would give the two Houses the opportunity to debate such a statement; or the Government might at some point say that they should be published in draft and be the subject of debates by the two Houses. We are having that kind of debate today; it is exactly the kind of debate we ought to have every time there is such a statement or one is to be renewed, but at the moment, the Government simply lay it, publish it and that is it. That is not good enough.

I want to talk about two missions. I was not planning to say much about the first, but I was prompted by the amendment from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, so ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Best. I feel that we have been here before. My noble friend Lord Howe and I have definitely been here before. We published and introduced—he will have done it in this House—the Healthy Lives, Healthy People White Paper of November 2010, which followed and reflected into policy at the time Sir Michael Marmot’s Fair Society, Healthy Lives work, which we and the previous Government supported prior to the White Paper.

We are talking about a very difficult mission to define. We are talking about reducing inequalities in society, because the inequalities in society are the source of the inequalities in health outcomes. Let us at least look at how we can tackle the many things that are the social determinants of health and try to capture them in something like, for example, disability-free life expectancy. The Government have used healthy life expectancy, which I think is the same thing. We know that it is poor in this country, and we know of the lack of public health support—notwithstanding that we had a shift a decade ago to support for local governance in public health, which I think has actually been proven to be a good thing, but which has not been funded in the way that local government and the health service would have wished it. We had a very good and helpful debate on that when the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who is in his place, had his Private Member’s Bill, but I will not repeat all that now.

When one looks at the metrics intended to support the Government’s mission, it is very curious. Yes, we need a tobacco control plan, although I do not know quite what the Government’s tobacco control plan now is. Yes, we must reduce the prevalence of obesity, but I do not now know precisely what the Government’s obesity strategy is. But as far as the reduction of prevalence or impacts of diseases are concerned, only cancer is mentioned. I am with the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, here; I thought that in the NHS we had escaped from trying to elevate certain diseases to the point where they were regarded as more important than others. Certainly, when we talk about parity of esteem between mental and physical health, surely we must have parity of esteem between cardiovascular health and cancer diagnosis. Why do we regard one as more important than the other? There are metrics that could help us; the NHS outcomes framework was first established in about 2011 and is a work in progress, but is absolutely instrumental. It should be the basis, not the Government having a mission which picks one or two things out of the outcomes framework and regards them as important when others are not.

When I was Secretary of State, over a decade ago, we had, over time, been improving life expectancy in this country on average by one month in every year. That means that if you want to improve life expectancy by a year, on average it is likely to take you 12 years. Where does “five years” come from? Things have actually got worse, not better, since a decade ago—particularly since 2017, on the data. Based on what I remembered, it would take us 60 years to improve our healthy life expectancy by five years. The Health Foundation last March, after the missions White Paper was published, produced its own data. It believed that on the previous data it would take 75 years, but it had run it with the most recent data on life expectancy and healthy life expectancy since 2017, and the figure was 192 years. If we are to have a debate about the missions and metrics, let us get down into whether the metrics are reasonable. If they are not, they should be revised, because if we are going to be standing here in 2030—I hope we all are; disability-free life expectancy in the Lords is pretty good—we want to have achieved these missions. We do not want to have excuses for why we did not—for example, because the metric was not a reasonable one in the first place, or the Government have abandoned it.

I want to mention one other thing; at Second Reading, quite well on in the debate, the role of the private sector was mentioned. I just want to come back to mission 1 and this issue of the economy, because I am not quite sure why measuring pay is there. It is a measure of relative economic well-being, but targeting pay is not the answer. Targeting employment is a good answer; if people are in employment, pay will differ in different parts of the country because the cost of living and the economic structures differ significantly. Let us improve the economic structures, reduce the economic disparities and improve the economic growth in the less advantaged parts of this country, and the pay will come with them.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I would like to go back on that specific issue because we would need to work with the Department of Health and Social Care and get its agreement. We are quite early in the establishment of the unit in order to do that, but I will take back that issue and come back to the noble Lord.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend. I am coming back to a point that she raised a moment ago on the Levelling Up Advisory Council, which I mentioned on Monday but did not at that time get an answer on whether it had met, what it discussed, what it said and to whom. I now discover that on 14 February a Minister in the department wrote to Clive Betts, the Select Committee chair, to say that the council had met several times, had met Ministers and was engaging in a research programme. It was interesting, because the letter said that the council had

“engaged in discussions on levelling up policy with stakeholders externally, including members attending an event with Carsten Schneider … Minister of State for East Germany and Equivalent Living Conditions, hosted by the German Embassy”.

Might the council engage at all with Parliament? We are told that the council has been around for a year, but I have had no engagement—no one from the council has come anywhere near me to suggest that it might talk to us about the levelling-up missions.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I do not know, but the council is already in train and working. On the fact that it has not come to Parliament, I will ask what the remit has been for the past year. It may have been a remit just to get together on some early work, but I will get an answer to my noble friend on that.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with a great deal of what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, has said about the need for monitoring and evaluating any government process, but particularly one as deep-seated and far-ranging as this is obviously intended to be.

I will speak to Amendments 24, 26, 32 and 49, all of which appear in this group. They are tabled to explore how the outputs from the mechanism that Clause 1 sets up are to be monitored and, even more importantly, evaluated. Noble Lords will know that Governments are notoriously slack at carrying out timely and effective evaluation of their policies. They are very often launched in a blaze of glory, or, on this occasion, in a White Paper, and what follows is often a serious disappointment. My noble friend Lady Pinnock has shaped that argument very well in the debate on the first group. Avoiding monitoring and evaluation is deep-seated in the government machine, which actively avoids formal monitoring as far as it can and definitely seeks to avoid any public evaluation of what that monitoring reveals. That is not specific to this Government: I would be stretching my memory to think of a Government who have eagerly embraced independent evaluation and monitoring of any of their policies.

Interestingly, the Government’s White Paper is very strong on “accountability” and “transparency”, which it describes as key attributes that will be built into the levelling-up programme. Unfortunately, the Bill completely omits to mention these two essential characteristics of levelling up, and for that matter, it also omits any mention of specific missions. These amendments are designed to tackle that gap. No doubt my amendments and those of the noble Baroness could be strengthened, and I hope we will see how best we can do that. I regard these as quite modest, de minimis amendments to establish the principle of what is needed.

The first of the amendments I have tabled with my noble friend Lady Pinnock, Amendment 24, simply inserts another prerequisite for any mission statement coming into force: that there must first be an affirmative resolution by each House of Parliament, not merely having them laid before us. In fact, that is a really basic requirement for any such far-reaching policy package: it should have proper parliamentary scrutiny. Without this amendment or something very like it, not one of the mission statements will have ever received any direct democratic endorsement.

The Minister may say that this was in the Conservative manifesto of 2019. The slogan was certainly in the manifesto, but were the missions? No, they were not. Were the metrics of any of the missions in the manifesto? No, they were not. Importantly, bearing in mind that this is a political process, did the Government even have a settled view on what levelling up was during the passage of three Prime Ministers through Downing Street and four changes of Secretary of State last year? No, they did not have a settled view. In fact, except for an unusually hostile reception of a Budget last autumn, levelling up would now be taking off in a completely different direction, with a completely different Administration and objectives. A 2019 election slogan cannot absolve the mission statements from parliamentary scrutiny. Indeed, the Government’s own White Paper makes it clear that such accountability and transparency in the process itself is important.

On transparency, I admit that my claim that it is all in the White Paper overlooks the fact that that was indeed three Prime Ministers ago, and maybe that has been scrubbed in the nine months since. Perhaps the Minister can confirm whether it is still an important principle in the Government’s thinking about levelling up. I therefore hope that I will get a positive answer from the Minister on Amendment 24, and that she will be very quick and willing to accept it.

Amendment 26 points to a critical weakness in Clause 1: the complete absence of accountability of Ministers of the Crown. Clause 1(8) rushes from dealing with the first iteration of statements of mission—those that are in front of us now via the White Paper—to publishing the second iteration, without ever passing “Go”. There is no mention in Clause 1(8) of independently examined evidence and evaluation of what has happened so far and no accompanying analysis, but simply a straight jump to laying it before Parliament, which will be, as far as I understand it, on a take-it-or-leave-it unamendable basis. Again, the Minister may be able to reassure me that these will be open, debatable and amendable by Parliament. I should be very pleased, and totally astonished, if she were to say that.

Amendment 26 requires that independent evaluations be published to accompany the new draft mission statements when they come before Parliament, and that the draft revised missions themselves are constructed by the process set out in Amendment 29, which we will come to later this evening. That requires that such missions shall, prior to their adoption, have been endorsed by the devolved Administrations and by local government within England in respect of their specific areas.

A central part of levelling up has to be a built-in independent evaluation system providing analysis alongside each round of mission statements. Otherwise, we all know what will happen—it happens all the time: targets will be fudged and stretched and outcomes will not be monitored properly, yet the process will still go blithely on, repeating the same errors and omissions time and again until, in due course, it lapses into history and is replaced by the latest sparkly new slogan. Levelling up will become just another in a long string of non-performing slogans.

That brings me to Amendment 32 in my name and those of my noble friend Lady Pinnock and the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine. I appreciate their support. As it stands, Clause 2(2)(a) only requires that the formal periodic report on levelling up includes the Minister’s own assessment of how well things are going. Our amendment would require that, alongside that ministerial assessment, there should be

“an independent evaluation of the effectiveness of the progress that has been made”.

That is not very challenging, is it? The effectiveness of the progress that has been made should be supported by an independent evaluation.

That is surely the true test of accountability—for the evaluation to be based on objective evidence, not a subjective assessment, least of all a subjective assessment made by the person being held to account. We would not accept in most areas of responsibility that the accountability, assessment and evaluation is done by the person being held to account. I very much hope that the Minister agrees and will accept Amendment 32 in due course.

Finally, Amendment 49, to which my noble friend Lady Pinnock has added her name, which I appreciate, takes these essential reforms forward to apply to all future iterations of statements of mission. This is not just about getting it right now; it is about embedding a process that will continue indefinitely as levelling up rolls out iteration after iteration.

Taken together, these four amendments plug the huge gap between the good intentions and smooth words in the White Paper and the stark, Whitehall-controlled process being set out in the Bill. I look forward to hearing that they find favour with your Lordships and the Minister.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

If I may, I wish to speak to Amendment 25 in my name. I begin by drawing attention to my registered interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum, which will become more relevant in relation to the later housing, planning and development-related issues than to this first part relating to missions.

In the earlier group, there was a reference to this Bill being more than one Bill. It is in truth three Bills all in one place. When we started out in this, I was reminded of that story about the elephant: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Let us take it just one bite at a time and try not to eat it all in one go.

I did want to make a point about missions, and I will add to it a little. Amendment 25, to which I speak, was really about trying to explore, with my noble friends on the Front Bench, the Government’s overall attitude to the process of parliamentary scrutiny of their policy priorities. For example, a number of noble Lords will have participated in our recent scrutiny of the Procurement Bill. In the that Bill, now in the other place, the Government included a provision relating to parliamentary scrutiny of the national procurement policy statement, an important statement of the Government’s priorities. The Government are resisting being told what those priorities should be, but none the less consented in the Bill, in the other place, that it was Parliament’s job, if it did not approve of their priorities, to say so by means of a Motion.

Amendment 25, which is subtly different from Amendment 24 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and others, which says that Parliament must approve the statements, is in precisely the same form as the Procurement Bill regarding the scrutiny of the national procurement policy statement, in that the statement will be proceeded with unless either House resolves not to approve it within 40 days. It uses exactly the same terminology; I have simply lifted it from the Procurement Bill.

I want to know, what is the difference? Why, in this respect, do the Government not think it appropriate for Parliament to approve—or, indeed, if it objects, not to approve—of the Government’s executive decisions? They are undoubtedly important. The priorities in the Procurement Bill are terribly important. The missions are terribly important. I cannot understand why one should have this form of scrutiny and the other should not. My first question to my noble friend is: why can we not have the same degree of scrutiny in relation to this statement as the Government are giving us in relation to the national procurement policy statement?

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments addresses a number of important issues around accountability and scrutiny of the levelling-up missions, including looking at the roles of Parliament, the public and academics. I will begin by addressing Amendment 2, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, which would require the statement of levelling-up missions to be published within 10 days of Royal Assent. The Government have already been clear that the first statement of missions will be based on the levelling-up White Paper. We have committed within the Bill to publish this statement within one month of Part 1 coming into force. I suggest that this is already a prompt timescale and a realistic one, because it includes time to complete internal procedures before publication and the laying of a report. So I think that further shortening that timescale is unnecessary.

Amendment 24, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, would require mission statements to be approved by Parliament. Amendment 49, also in the noble Lord’s name, would similarly require approval from Parliament and the devolved Governments for any revisions to statements of levelling-up missions. Amendment 25, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley, requires a Minister to withdraw the statement if either House of Parliament decides not to approve it.

Let me be quite clear. The Government are committed to enabling Parliament, the public and experts to fully scrutinise our progress against our missions. The missions and metrics will be published in a statement of missions laid before Parliament. The proposed initial set of these metrics has already been published in the levelling-up White Paper and is bound to be refined over time. That really does represent a significant step forward. For the first time, the law will require Ministers to set and publish missions that focus on reducing geographical inequalities.

Our approach to the missions is the same as the approach taken, for example, with the fiscal rules, or indeed with the Government’s mandate to NHS England: they are subject to scrutiny in Parliament but are not set out in law. His Majesty’s Treasury publishes its fiscal rules in a non-legislative policy document, but that is laid in Parliament. This does not in any way prevent the Government being held to account in keeping to their fiscal targets. What matters is the transparency of those targets and of the published data. The missions will be published in a policy document laid before, and debated in, Parliament. The first example of this document will be based on the levelling-up White Paper, as I have said.

As my noble friend made clear, the legislation sets out the framework for the missions, not the missions themselves. The Government are committed to laying and publishing statements of levelling-up missions and annual reports to ensure transparency and scrutiny. To my mind, it would be unthinkable that the Government would not take seriously any analysis, challenge or ideas put forward by Parliament or, indeed, by others outside Parliament and government. Again, what matters is that the missions and metrics should receive scrutiny from Parliament and the public. Ultimately, I would say to my noble friend Lord Lansley that we are dealing here with government policy. Parliament can express a view—Parliament can do whatever it likes—and may well influence policy in the future by doing so, but, in the end, it is the Government who need to be accountable and to take responsibility for their own agenda and the progress they make in fulfilling that agenda. My noble friend’s recent letter to all noble Lords—

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I think we largely agree on the role of government in determining what the missions and metrics should be, but can my noble friend explain why the principle applied to the national procurement policy statement—that the Government decide what the priorities are and Parliament can debate them and if necessary say that it does not approve of them—is not applied to this important set of policy priorities? Why have the Government put that into legislation currently before the other place but not done the same in relation to this Bill?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I think it was a relatively easy concession for the Government to make in the Procurement Bill because Parliament, as I just said, can decide to do whatever it likes. If any Member of either House wants to table a Motion to Regret against anything the Government are doing, they can do so, and the House as a whole can express its view. If that were to happen—I think it is unlikely—

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I apologise for pressing my noble friend. I do not think it was a concession by the Government: I think it was written by the Government into the Bill. But, anyway, that is not the point. Is my noble friend saying that, if a statement were to be published and laid before Parliament, and a regret Motion were to be passed against it, the Government would withdraw the statement?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

As I said, it would be extremely unlikely for any government to ignore the view of either House of Parliament if that view had been expressed in the form of a Motion that had been widely supported. Of course, no Government would ever say that they had a monopoly of wisdom in areas such as this. If there are any good ideas coming forward from any source, it is appropriate to review the proposals on the table.

I think we are dancing on the head of a pin here, if I may say so to my noble friend, because it is very likely that government will receive advice from a number of quarters as they go forward with this agenda. As he said, we are having to deal with an extremely complex set of metrics, and we are keen that those with expertise, among whom your Lordships can be numbered, are able to scrutinise the progress that government is making and express a view if they wish to.

My noble friend Lady Scott’s recent letter to your Lordships stated a number of things that perhaps bear repeating. The statement of levelling-up missions will be based on the 12 missions set out in the White Paper. The statement will include detail about the metrics being used to monitor progress. As I mentioned, those metrics will be identical to the technical annexe in the White Paper as progressed by further work undertaken since then. In particular, it might be helpful for noble Lords to note that well-being and pride of place are still being worked on, but that this work is near completion. I hope that we can provide further detail about that quite soon.

Amendments 26 and 32 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and Amendment 38 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, put forward an independent body or independent evaluation of the missions and progress. The Government of course recognise that scrutiny and seeking expert advice will be important to ensuring that we deliver on our missions and level up the country. That is why we have already established the Levelling Up Advisory Council, chaired by Andy Haldane, to provide government with expert and independent advice to inform the design and delivery of the levelling-up agenda. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, mentioned the desirability of having academic and other outside expertise available to the council, and I absolutely agree. The council draws regularly on wider academic, business and other expertise to inform its advice, and includes voices from different parts of the UK.

Appointments to the Levelling Up Advisory Council are made at the discretion of the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and in accordance with the Cabinet Office processes for public appointments. Among the council’s membership are Sally Mapstone of the University of St Andrews, Cathy Gormley-Heenan of Ulster University, and Katherine Bennett, who chairs the Western Gateway, the UK’s first pan-regional partnership to bring together leaders from Wales and western England. I can tell the Committee that the Government will continue to look at ensuring that membership of the Levelling Up Advisory Council represents all parts of the UK. We are indeed already working with the devolved Administrations and with English local government on the levelling-up challenges and will continue to do so.

I will just add a couple of points for the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, in particular. As set out in the technical annexe to the White Paper, the missions largely rest on metrics published by the Office for National Statistics and others, so performance will be transparent and everyone will be able to judge how the Government are doing. That is right because, as I emphasised earlier, government should be accountable.

Amendment 41 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, would ensure that an annual report was published before a general election. I have to part company with her on that point; the timings for laying the report before Parliament and publishing documents are, in my view, rightly independent of the electoral cycle, as is the case for other key government frameworks such as the Charter for Budget Responsibility. The purpose of laying reports is to allow for Parliament to hold the Government to account on their progress towards the missions, and the Bill requires the Government to publish reports as soon “as is reasonably practicable”. Levelling up is a challenging, long-term agenda which cannot be achieved within a single electoral cycle. The framework for missions which we are establishing here reflects that long-term vision.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Lansley Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. It was also a pleasure to listen to two excellent maiden speeches, not least that of my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough; we were together for a decade in the other place as Members of Parliament for South Cambridgeshire and for Peterborough. I particularly enjoyed his one-nation sentiments. I draw attention to my registered interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. I have four quick points.

First, I do not think there are enough missions about wealth creation. I do not see how we will reduce economic disparities without additional wealth creation in the less advantaged regions. One of the salient differences in London and the east and south-east of England is that they have greater than their relative proportion of people working in the private sector, and a greater proportion of the stock of businesses. One of the missions should be for enhanced new business formation in the less advantaged regions, increasing the level of business and economic activity.

Secondly, on digitisation, I like what is in Chapter 1 of Part 3, but it should also enable us to be more ambitious, with local authorities reducing planning delays and getting on with putting local plans in place—most of them do not have them. However, as was mentioned earlier, they need more resources. They should not just get more money; we should have planning performance agreements between major developers and local authorities which tie additional resources directly to the performance of those tasks by those local authorities.

Thirdly, on the infrastructure levy, I do not understand how you can have one levy that tries to address probably three distinct things: first, the obligations associated directly with a development, which is where Section 106 reform should come in; secondly, the provision of social housing and additional tenures of housing; thirdly, infrastructure delivery, which may be completely unrelated to the development in question and somewhere else entirely. Those seem to be different things to me. I do not yet see how one levy could do that, and we may have to revisit it very carefully.

Finally, the Government are not going to mandate housing targets, I accept that, and there were sometimes anomalies in the way the standard method worked. But local authorities must have an up-to-date local plan, and it must be sound. A sound local plan is one that makes sufficient provision for anticipated housing need, and through which planning authorities work together within a given “travel to work area”, which may extend some distance. They should work together and co-operate to ensure that they provide for the anticipated additional housing requirements resulting from additional economic activity and employment in their respective areas. If they do not, the plan is not sound, and if they do not have a sound plan in place, they should not be able to refuse development. They should be required to put a sound plan in place, and they should accept the development necessary for the housing need relevant to their area.

I look forward to elaborating on these and other issues during our debates.

Sewel Convention

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for raising common frameworks, which I know this House has spent quite a bit of time working on and refining. I am sure that they provide a guideline on how we should engage with the devolved Administrations and will help to strengthen the union as a consequence.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My noble friend will be aware that treaty making is a reserved power to the United Kingdom Government, but the scope of the treaties into which we are now entering, particularly trade treaties, often impinges directly upon devolved powers and the devolved Administrations. When reporting under CRaG, Ministers have told the International Agreements Committee when they have consulted the devolved Administrations but they have not consistently told us what the DAs have told Ministers would be their objectives and what they are looking for. Will my noble friend help Ministers to ensure that their explanatory memorandum under CRaG covers this?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I am sure that we need to get the explanatory memoranda right. In addition, the Government recognise that we need to engage early so that legislatures and Administrations have as much time as possible to consider these matters before they are signed, in the case of treaties, or become Acts, if they are Bills. Of course, I take my noble friend’s point on board.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, it was a great pleasure to hear the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. I would characterise them as forcefully illustrating what value this House can bring in speaking out for freedom and against injustice, exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said, and, equally, for efficiency and effectiveness and exposing the Government’s legislation and policies to the test of meeting not only the broad principles we are looking for but their practical application as well. We are all grateful to both noble Lords and look forward very much to their future contributions.

I will briefly talk about two things. First, in relation to the planning Bill, I declare my interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. I do not entirely share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, on that Bill. Clearly, Oliver Letwin’s report was right that it is not just all about planners and their speed, but they should not be absolved from the difficulties that those who are developing and delivering sometimes have in pre-commencement planning conditions and the like. A great deal of it is about diversity of supply and the delivery processes. This planning reform Bill will do very well if it focuses on that. For example, simplifying the processes of levying on developers for infrastructure is necessary, but a single infrastructure levy may not be the right answer because it must meet both the broader infrastructure objectives in an area and the infrastructure and social obligations of that development. These two things cannot be readily and easily merged into one infrastructure levy.

While I support the zonal development system, I do not think for a minute that it necessarily takes away the democratic involvement of local planning authorities. It is perfectly possible for planning authorities and the democratic process to be delivered through local plans in a zonal system. Indeed, given the importance that local plans will acquire as a result, it may encourage many more people to be involved in the plan-making stage, as at the moment they very often do not get involved and take an interest in plans only when planning applications come forward, which are largely predetermined by the structure of the local plan.

Secondly, I will mention the environment. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, is absolutely right that it must be at the heart of not just every fiscal event but every legislative programme. Given the urgency of the issue, every Queen’s Speech should be about how we meet our climate change objectives. Perhaps my noble friend will say something in responding to the debate about how we will do this, not just by setting targets and hoping that there will be the necessary transformations in production and consumer behaviour, but by putting the incentives in place between those two things. In the year ahead, we must set out, for example, how our carbon emissions trading scheme will incentivise a net-zero regime. Phasing out free allowances, increasing the auction reserve price and perhaps raising the carbon support price will take us to the point where the incentive structure gets us to net zero on the timescale required.

However, frankly, if we do it, but nobody else does, it will not succeed. We need not just the European Union to do it but the United States. We know that China is considering it, but we need them all to work together or we will end up with carbon border adjustments, which are a major source of trade friction and conflict. Not least—as the noble Lord, Lord Oates, is looking at me—we need a development programme which is sufficiently well resourced to fund decarbonisation in the developing world and developing economies as well. In this year ahead, we therefore need COP 26 to be a negotiation which delivers on an aligned structure of carbon taxation/pricing/emissions trading, which must be consistent internationally or it will fail. I look forward to that in the year ahead.

Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, it is a genuine pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Moynihan, who has made lots of good points. Some of them relate directly to points that I was hoping to make, so I will not repeat them, but the importance of the building sector in achieving our net zero carbon objectives should not be underestimated. The second largest source of emissions is from buildings.

It is easy for us to focus far too much on the commendable achievements in building net zero carbon homes, but by my calculation, we simply have to recognise that, by 2050, something like two-thirds of the homes we live in will already have been built, so retrofitting and securing energy efficiency in our existing housing stock is absolutely critical. There are government schemes for this purpose, such as the Whole House Retrofit plan related to social housing, and so on.

The scope of these regulations is modest, and I welcome that. I know that we are all grateful to the Minister for explaining the regulations at the outset, but I shall unashamedly take the opportunity to talk about not the price of EPCs but the uses to which they should be put. Far too infrequently are EPCs seen as the spur to energy efficiency improvements that they should be, which is what we are looking for.

On this occasion I will not be drawn into the private rented sector. I know that the Government undertook a consultation in the latter part of last year. I am probably slightly disappointed that, in the event, they were not a bit more ambitious, because the cost-benefit ratio they ended up with suggested that the benefits did not outweigh the costs, but that of course was at the carbon price assumed between now and 2050.

Again, I will not go down this rabbit hole for too long because it is too important and too deep, but we ought to ensure that our carbon pricing is set at a level that forces change. If it is set at that level, it is also one that is likely to deliver substantial benefits in relation to the energy efficiency of buildings and the costs that renters and landlords have to meet.

I come back to the use of the EPC. Two-thirds of the existing housing stock has a rating of D or worse, so we need to effect change. There are government schemes: my noble friend Lord Moynihan is quite right; it is not that there are not schemes. The Government have put money and resources behind grant schemes, but the supply chain and the people influenced by it need these things to be sustained over a considerable period and we need the response to be substantial and positive. I am afraid it is not.

At the moment, even in the last few weeks, we are sitting here saying, “Why are people not taking up the green homes grant?” I think it would be far too easy to blame it on Covid and say, “They do not want people in their homes, understandably, so they are not taking up the grant.” However, it was true beforehand. We have had this with other insulation schemes. It is sometimes as brutally simple as people living in a house not wanting to empty their loft to let somebody up there to put the right insulation in place. They do not want the disruption.

I will put just one point to my noble friend in the hope he will convey it into the right ears across government. Like we do in the private rented sector, focusing on when there is a new tenancy, in the owner-occupied sector we must focus on the moment of sale—when the EPC is given to a potential new owner and they have a period ahead of them when they might reap the benefits of investment in energy efficiency. At that moment, they also are likely to empty the house. They may empty the loft and sometimes they can engineer a short window of opportunity for energy efficiency improvements to take place.

I suggest that, at that moment, rather than a grant scheme which comes and goes and depends on the vagaries of spending reviews, there could be a permanent allowance against stamp duty for energy efficiency improvements up to, say, the value of £5,000 that they undertake—if recommended as a result of an energy performance certificate. Such a scheme could be confined to houses with an EPC of D or worse or, to start off with, those rated F and G, to see how it goes.

I prefer tax incentives to government grant schemes. I prefer tax relief to expenditure. I prefer incentives people can permanently rely on and where they feel they are getting some of their own money back or not having to give their money to the Government. As the tax is targeted on that moment, the incentive can be deployed in that moment as well. I commend that thought to my noble friend.

I know government departments not only hesitate, but will not enter the territory of tax, because it is all the Treasury’s business. But if they have an objective—and there is an objective here—and they think it can best be achieved by working with the Treasury through a tax incentive, I ask that they go down that path.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Caine) (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

Business and Planning Bill

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Lansley]

59: Clause 17, page 27, leave out lines 18 and 19 and insert—
“(i) beginning with 25 June 2020, and”Member’s explanatory statement
This will provide that where a relevant planning permission has a time limit for commencement of development between 25 June (when this Bill was introduced to Parliament) and 31 December 2020 , the time limit will be extended as provided for in subsection (2).

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I should draw attention to my interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum, as entered in the register. As other noble Lords have done, I express my thanks to my noble friends for their discussions following my speech at Second Reading and for the very helpful letter from my noble friend Lord Howe.

I confess that all 13 amendments in this group are mine, but they are to achieve two purposes. The first is to substitute June for April, so extending time limits on permissions and listed building consents. Clause 17 relates to planning permissions; Clause 18 relates to outline planning permissions; Clause 19 relates to listed building consents. In all three cases, the Government have given a three-month extension from December to the end of March. My amendments would take that from 1 April to 1 June. Nine of the amendments are to achieve that in relation to these three clauses. The other amendments, which I shall come to later, are to deal with the circumstances in which those planning permissions should be revived or extended where additional environmental approval has been sought and given.

I start with the question of adding two months to the proposed three months' extension. There is a balance to be struck, and I quite understand the thinking of my noble friend and the Government. They want to reflect the fact that there has been a delay—a serious interruption—to the delivery of the project pipeline for development; equally, they do not want to extend so far as to allow for such developments to be delayed when they could and should proceed. I completely understand that. From my point of view, this is not a probing amendment; it is my assessment of what a practical decision is in the light of all the circumstances.

As I mentioned on Second Reading, practical issues may have been lost sight of in substituting the three months lost—essentially, April, May and June—with three months gained: January, February and March. The most obvious, which I mentioned on Second Reading, is that the industry has lost three months of prime building season in the middle of late spring and early summer and is receiving, by way of compensation, time in the middle of winter. We do not know what seasonal effects January, February and March 2021 will have but if they were particularly inimical to development, it would mean quite a significant deficit in the opportunity for development. From my conversations with housebuilders it is not the case that on returning to site, generally in late June, they were able to do so on the basis of achieving full capacity. Many were starting at 50% capacity; those who I talked to only a week ago were generally at 80% capacity. The pipeline will have lost a further few weeks by the end of December. Adding that together, one might say “If not three months, perhaps four—or even five”. It depends on how one looks at it.

My noble friend Lord Howe has very helpfully said that in any case, all one needed to do is to implement a planning permission. He said: “Digging a trench or pegging out a road may suffice”. I have to tell him that I have looked into this and the courts have often taken a view about what commencement might be. Digging a trench might be sufficient; pegging out a road probably is not. The point is that neither takes account of two significant additional factors. First, when one commences development, often one also commences a legal obligation for community infrastructure levy, so significant costs may then arise. One does not commence a development simply by digging a trench, walking away and saying, “I’ve done what the planning permission requires”. That is not sufficient and, in the eyes of many developers, would be quite an unwise thing for them to do. Secondly, one cannot simply commence development until one has received the discharge of pre-commencement planning conditions.

I checked with the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning service and as of the beginning of last week, on 6 July, it began to look at applications received on 15 April for the discharge of pre-commencement planning conditions. That is a 10-week delay. Of course, discharge of conditions under these circumstances would generally take eight weeks, so there is an 18-week potential delay. When one begins to add these things together—they are not necessarily in series but may be concurrent—none the less it is far from obvious, in my view, that these particular three months at the beginning of next year are a sufficient addition to the time which developers need to compensate for the time they are losing in the course of 2020.

My point here is that my practical view was, “Let’s add two months”. In this respect, I shared the exact view—which I reflected in asking my noble friend some weeks ago whether he would add six months to planning permissions beyond the end of December—of the Home Builders Federation. It has welcomed what the Government are doing and is grateful for their bringing forward this legislation, but in fact asked for 1 July, not 1 April. I have not asked for 1 July; I have asked for 1 June. I think there is a practical answer somewhere beyond 1 April, in the light of all the circumstances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Greenhalgh]

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lansley for speaking to this group of amendments which relate to the extension of planning permissions and listed building consents. These amendments have been supported by my noble friend Lord Balfe. Let me begin by saying that this is a very unusual and challenging time for the development industry, and we recognise that many developers of residential and commercial buildings have had to pause projects.

First, I recognise my noble friend’s comment that the proposed extension for those permissions and consents due to lapse close to 31 December 2020 will represent an extension of only three months, and I take his point about the quality of those three months. However, where a planning permission is due to lapse earlier in the year, for example in September, it would benefit from an automatic extension of closer to seven months. This, we believe, is proportionate.

Secondly, we should be clear that these measures to extend planning permissions and listed building consents are intended to support developers to implement their permissions—that is, to make a start on site—as we know that many of them will have experienced disruptions or delays due to the pandemic. However, it need not take very extensive works to implement a planning permission, and we think it is reasonable to expect starts on site to take place by 1 April 2021. I note my noble friend’s points about the community infrastructure levy, but we have made provisions so that the payment can be deferred and I am sure we will see improvements with regard to the current delays in the discharge of pre-commencement planning conditions.

Finally, my noble friend will be aware that we have included powers to extend, by regulations, both the 31 December 2020 date and the 1 April 2021 date to allow more or longer extensions, should that become appropriate. I am happy once again to commit to my noble friend on the Floor of your Lordships’ House that I would be pleased to engage with him on this matter in the coming months as we better understand how the industry is recovering from the impacts of the pandemic.

My noble friend also spoke to Amendments 59, 62, 66 and 68 to Clauses 17 and 18 in relation to the scope of the additional environmental approval process. These amendments would shift the cut-off date for those permissions which require additional environmental approval in order to be extended to April 2021. This date is currently set at the date these provisions take effect, which is four weeks after Royal Assent. My noble friend’s amendment would shift this to 25 June 2020 to cover just planning permissions that have expired. He will understand that where planning permission has lapsed, an extension effectively reinstates the permission, thereby permitting something that otherwise would not be allowed to go ahead. So it is right in those circumstances, having regard to our environmental commitments and obligations, to check whether the existing environmental assessments are still up to date. However, it is important that these provisions capture not only permissions which have actually lapsed, but those which, while technically still extant as of now, in practice could not be implemented within their original time limit. That is why it is right that there is a short delay between this Bill achieving Royal Assent and the cut-off date when these provisions take effect.

Developers with a permission that has not yet expired, but which is due to do so before these provisions take effect, still have the option to implement their planning permissions now, if they can. This would avoid any need to apply for additional environmental approval. If they cannot, it is right that before an extension is granted, there should be a check on whether the requisite environmental assessments remain up to date. The process for doing so is not burdensome, is focused and would be free of charge for applicants.

I hope that with this assurance my noble friend will feel able to withdraw Amendment 59 and will not press the others in this group.

[Lord Lansley]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Balfe and the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Wilcox, for their contributions to the debate and for their positive remarks. I am also grateful to the Minister for his response. He demonstrated that he is trying to work this through as a practical issue. There are powers in the Bill to change the dates for the extension later on by way of regulation. I will consider what he said in his reply before we think about this on Report. It seems to me that if we recognise the strength of the case we should perhaps reflect it in the Bill to some extent, but there may be other and better ways of achieving that than in my amendments to date. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 59 withdrawn.

Business and Planning Bill

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes]

My Lords, I have not smoked for nearly 40 years and I loathe cigarette smoking, so I gently say to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that he has misremembered my involvement in earlier anti-smoking legislation.

Nevertheless, like my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, I do not think that the Bill is the right place for this amendment. The amendment would affect the granting only of new licences and would therefore discriminate against any premises granted a temporary licence under the Bill. Echoing what my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe said, I think that there is a massive danger to our economy of not getting it going again. It is not an overall concept of the economy; these are individual businesses that will go under if they cannot find a way of becoming viable. We should not lumber them with a competitive burden not borne by other businesses that already have pavement licences.

I do not know whether this is a real problem. The Health Survey for England 2017 had only around one-quarter of people self-reporting exposure to second-hand smoke, and only around 15% saying that it was smoke from outdoor areas outside pubs and restaurants. The majority appear not to be bothered. Be that as it may, we should cover that in a consultation and an evidence base that is sought on the normal basis before taking primary legislation to deal with this, if indeed it is an issue, rather than trying to squeeze it into the Bill, which is about trying to make things easier for some businesses to get going again.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, on bringing forward this amendment and I support it. If I may presume to say so, we were together as part of the health team in the coalition Government. I am very proud of the fact that we implemented the display ban on tobacco in shops and brought in the ban on vending machines, which was particularly important in restricting the access to tobacco and cigarettes for young people. I also initiated the consultation that led subsequently to standardised packaging.

Between 2011 and 2018, the proportion of adults in this country who were smoking went down, as the noble Baroness suggested. It has gone down from nearly 20% to below 15%. Most encouragingly, among 18 to 24 year-olds the reduction has been largest: from 25.8% down to 16.7%. There has been a reduction of more than one-third in the number of young people smoking—the 18 to 24 year-olds. That is one of the reasons why the impact of this issue in relation to pubs, clubs, restaurants and the like is particularly important for young people who are out and about.

I want to make three points. First, we are in the midst of a health crisis. In a health crisis, which is probably demonstrating to us that one of the underlying factors that has not helped us is the poor underlying health of many people in this country, we must do everything we can to try to improve population health in this country. We have not done enough and need to do more. We must prioritise public health and, by extension, if this amendment were taken on board this measure—modest as it may be in the overall scheme of things—would move us in the right direction.

My second point comes to the point made just now by my noble friend Lady Noakes. It is an important one. This is a temporary measure and would be specific in relation to new licences, but the essence of this Bill is that it will give an opportunity for premises which have previously been licensed for indoors to move outdoors; it gives an opportunity for licensed premises to operate on pavements and the like. In effect, what it says is, “We are extending the public space.” In my view, as we extend the public space, so we should extend the protections for the public that go with it. That means a ban on second-hand, passive smoking for those people who are enjoying that opportunity.

I shall make a third point. I am reminded of when my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and I worked together on a little conspiracy of our own when we were in the other place: the ban on smoking in public places. I was the shadow health Secretary at the time. The nature of our conspiracy was that we secured the agreement of the whips that there would be a free vote. So I very much hope that neither my noble friend nor I will have to vote against a government whip on this matter. The Government could adopt exactly the same approach and give noble Lords in this place a free vote on the amendment. They might also do the same in the other place, and we shall see where we end up on the basis of the arguments. We implemented a ban on smoking in public places on a free vote and, in these circumstances, I think that we might well extend that ban on the same basis for this measure.

[Lord Naseby [V]]

My Lords, this is not a health Bill, as my noble friend Lady Noakes pointed out; it is a temporary measure. I am sorry to say this, but I think that this is an emotional amendment—and I speak as someone who is a non-smoker. I would remind your Lordships that tobacco is a legal product that is marketed with awareness packaging. Moreover, we need to take on board that we are talking about the nearly 7 million people in our population who still smoke, plus the 3.6 million who are vaping.

A great deal has been said about smoke curling around people who are eating and so on, but in an outdoor situation, tobacco smoke is highly diluted and dissipates very quickly in almost every atmospheric condition. It is absolutely right that smokers have a responsibility to behave properly towards the people around them, particularly when they are accompanied by children.

The proposal being put forward in this amendment to force pubs and cafés to ban smoking outside their premises—otherwise they will be refused permission to serve drinks—is wholly disproportionate. At a time when all our small businesses are on their knees, struggling to survive under the pressure of coping with Covid-19, I suggest that the last thing they need is further restrictions that will drive away desperately needed customers.

I am not saying that this measure would not be appropriate in a proper health Bill at some point, as soon as the authorities deem it to be relevant to take a particular action one way or another—but to hang this ban on to a temporary Bill that is designed to help every small business, not just those whose customers are not smokers, is entirely wrong in my view.