Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Alison Seabeck Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I also made it absolutely clear that, of course, we are working with the LGA and local authorities to define this, and we are prepared to consult on it. But the right hon. Gentleman asks what the worst planning authority is, and I have named it. Whether that will be regarded as a failing authority will be a matter of consultation.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Hilary Benn]

Perhaps my hon. Friend will just bear with me for a second, as I am very interested further in the Secretary of State’s answer because he has not defined the worst. I have here before me a list of the slowest decision makers on all applications and the slowest decision makers on major applications. The top three—or the bottom three, depending on our interpretation, in those two categories are Stratford-upon-Avon, Stafford and Warwick for all applications, and for major applications Torbay, Kensington and Chelsea, and North Norfolk.

Government Members really ought to see where their authorities are in the league table that the Secretary of State is in the process of making up as he goes along. They may well find that, unless we remove clause 1, planning decisions will be taken not by locally elected councillors—that is my definition of localism—but by the Planning Inspectorate. The truth is that if he knows the criteria he should make them clear now. Clause 1 will in effect give the Secretary of State the ability to nationalise planning decisions in respect of as many authorities as he likes. It will completely change the basis on which planning applications have been traditionally considered by local communities. That is the very opposite of the localism that he used to speak about, because decisions will be taken not by councillors but by the Planning Inspectorate on behalf of the Secretary of State. There will be a strong reaction when the first local authorities discover that the power to decide has been taken away from them by the Secretary of State under the Bill.

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[John Howell]

I accept that they may not be planning considerations, but they are certainly considerations in whether to move a development forward. The issue is that the planning permissions have been given but the houses have not been developed.

The problem lies not in the planning permissions that have been given, but in those that have not been given. The cost of producing rural planning applications is higher than the cost of those in other areas, and the Country Land and Business Association states that in many cases local planning authority staff clearly hope that the applicant, if faced with enough demands for expensive reports and surveys, will withdraw the application. In practice, that frequently does lead to withdrawal, especially in respect of minor developments: for instance, a proposal costing £5,000 to implement is unlikely to justify information costing £5,000 to produce. Indeed, prospective applicants often simply do not submit a proposal in the first place, which means that desirable rural economic development does not go ahead. This tends to bring the planning system into disrepute. It is therefore right for the planning system to be accused of holding up development.

The Bill is also accused of being centralising, rather than localist. This ignores the fact that the changes are meant to be part of a double devolution. The first was a devolution down to district and borough councils’ local planning authorities. The second was a devolution down to local people, so that they could put together their own neighbourhood plans. Devolution to local people is working better than devolution to councils. At the recent neighbourhood planning seminar in Thame in my constituency, which is one of the neighbourhood planning frontrunners, I was as surprised as anyone when a little old lady said, “Isn’t planning such fun?” I hope that that feeling is occurring all around the country, as people begin to get their hands dirty in doing the planning necessary to make these neighbourhood plans successful.

[Alison Seabeck]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Howell]

No, I will not.

Devolution to councils is being held up, either because they are incapable of dealing with it or because they are not performing well—neither is acceptable and I would expect this to be dealt with as it has been in the Bill. It is time for our councils to deliver. This approach is all part of encouraging councils, but there can be no doubt that our historical under-supply of homes, over some 20 years at least, is the result of a planning system that is not fit for purpose. That was the conclusion of the Barker review of housing supply in 2004. The Killian Pretty review in 2008 found that only five out of 64 planning applications went ahead without difficulties, with the rest often having substantial problems that either delayed them or changed the nature of the development. According to the National Audit Office, planning laws create the highest regulatory costs of any type of regulation. The Opposition have thus totally missed the point of localism, which was the double devolution down to local communities which are engaging in the production of their own local plans; they are empowered to do so and they are seizing those opportunities fully with both hands to make the best of them.

Clause 4 deals with the information requirements. There is a sense that the clause is unnecessary because other more general powers are available to ask for the right amount of information when looking at an application, but that is utter nonsense. Information requirements are now pretty wide. We have all sat through planning committees where the information requested has been wide of the mark and, in particular, has borne no relation to what might be a material consideration. I am grateful that the Bill has included information that will be a “material consideration” in the terms of the information that will be collected.

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[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), although he will find that I do not agree with his views on the Bill.

I have to agree with the Local Government Association that the Bill represents a blow to democracy and is at odds with the Government’s localism programme. As a former councillor and planning committee member, I fully appreciate the importance of the links between community decision making and planning. As democratically elected and accountable representatives, councillors are in the main fully aware of residents’ needs, concerns and aspirations in making decisions about how their area should be developed for economic and social benefit. Any legislation that would foster that accountability would be welcome, but in the months since the then Planning Minister, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), promised in March that the national planning policy framework would support growth and allow

“people and communities back into planning”,

quite the opposite has happened.

Instead of offering local accountability, the Bill hands decision making to the unelected Planning Inspectorate and hands increased powers to the Secretary of State that turn localism firmly on its head. In Battle Hill ward in North Tyneside, a ward in which I live and which I represented as a councillor, a planning application for 66 houses on a former school playing field was rejected by the planning committee at the beginning of March. To my mind, the planning committee’s decision was quite right.

The developers have appealed, and the council has now been advised that the appeal will be heard under the new rules and that objections made at the time will no longer be relevant. I wonder what the Minister thinks of that, as many of the objections were made by local people and related to the safety of a school access road becoming a general access road and the fact that some designated open space was being lost. Where is the accountability in that?

[Alison Seabeck]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend’s local experience and paralleling it with the experience of the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), who said that an elderly lady said that planning was fun. Planning will hardly be fun if decision making is taken from local people, as in my hon. Friend’s case, and handed straight to the Secretary of State.

[Mrs Glindon]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and for the people of Battle Hill this will be not a fun experience at all but a very serious one that will keep their concerns going. That is exactly what the Secretary of State is doing with planning matters in the Bill, and it is why there is such great concern about his proposals.

Local councils, on average, determine householder planning appeals in fewer than eight weeks and non-householder appeals in fewer than 13 weeks. Currently, the averages for such determinations by the Planning Inspectorate are seven weeks and 17 weeks respectively. If the Planning Inspectorate is given additional responsibilities, as set out in the Bill, to take over the designation of failing councils and in setting the viability of affordable housing requirements, that could lead to further delays and worse decisions.

Moreover, by stripping a designated failing council—whatever that might be—of its powers, the Bill will enable developers to have their applications decided by the Secretary of State, without being reviewed by the local authority and with no right of appeal against the Secretary of State’s decision. No wonder the Local Government Association has misgivings about the Bill. There is nothing in it to say what criteria will be used to define a failing council, as has been said a number of times today. The LGA would, quite rightly, rather central Government gave support to councils that might have performance issues ahead of any intervention. I fully support the LGA in its premise that it makes more sense adequately to fund locally accountable decision making than to fund a quango, such as the Planning Inspectorate, to make such decisions.

It is well documented that planning is not the problem for growth. What is actually needed is investment to build houses and infrastructure, and the Bill does not provide scope for real growth. It will weaken the ability of councils to negotiate with developers on desperately needed affordable housing within local developments under section 106 agreements, with, as my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) and the shadow Minister have said, an estimated loss of the building of 35,000 affordable homes a year—a statistic that does not bode well for the 4,500 people on the waiting list of North Tyneside council.

With the Bill, the Secretary of State is reneging on his promise to let councillors and communities run their own affairs. May I say as an aside, Madam Deputy Speaker, that that undemocratic attitude is rubbing off on one of his favourites? The elected mayor of North Tyneside, who now, having only 12 members on a council of 60, with 43 Labour members and four Liberal Democrats, has at great expense to the people of North Tyneside engaged counsel to put a new interpretation on the powers of elected mayors, so that she can ignore the two-thirds majority rule. So our mayor, like the Secretary of State, has become something like a dictator, taking decision making away from the majority of democratically elected members and, ultimately, the electorate.

There are many more problems with the Bill, but the fact that it will make the planning process far less democratic and will seriously threaten future housing and infrastructure development, with no real growth—except, as the shadow Minister said, in the Secretary of State’s powers—tells me and, I hope, the House that the Bill should not get our support.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

My starting point is that I want to support and achieve growth in our economy and good-quality infrastructure, but I also want good-quality local planning decisions. I have reservations about certain aspects of the Bill, and I seek reassurance.

As the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) reminded us, a great deal of time was spent on the Floor of the House and in various Committees debating the national policy planning framework, which has only recently been approved—in particular, the need for a definition of sustainability that encompassed environmental, economic and social factors. Personally, I was very pleased with the final wording and outcomes. I thought it was an example of good government: Government listening and making changes to the draft document as a consequence of consultation.

In our consideration of the Bill, we must not lose sight of the underlying principles that we have only just agreed. I am concerned that the Bill appears to propose a massive shift away from local decision making to a centralised approach. At the very least, there should be a clear evidence base for the proposals, as well as full scrutiny of their potential outcomes. In addition, the question should be asked: can we achieve the stated objectives in a better, more effective way that would be compatible with local decision making and local community involvement?

I would like to look at four of the areas in the Bill concerning planning, the first of which is the designation of a local planning authority, with the Planning Inspectorate making the decisions. It is interesting to note the cross-party Local Government Association view of this proposal as counter-productive, centralist and at odds with localism. That raises the question of whether planning is the problem, and I am not at all sure that I would follow entirely the analysis made by the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell).

Clause 1 provides the Secretary of State with a wide-ranging power to remove planning decisions from the local level, but it does not provide any detail of the criteria. What scale of intervention are we talking about? Are we talking about intervening on a handful of authorities, or dozens of authorities? That is highly significant. We are asked to think about speed and quality of decision making. Clearly, there is a lot of variation in council performance in meeting the time targets on both minor and major applications, but we need a starting point to look at the reasons, with the Department—perhaps it has done so already; I would be happy to learn of it—working with the local authority and asking: what is it that is holding up the authority’s decision making? What is it that means councils are missing the determination targets for eight weeks and 13 weeks?

I represent an area that includes some small district councils. Their planning departments have a heavy work load in relation to the number of officers employed. The question of whether that is a matter of the council reallocating its resources, or adequate resources being provided, needs to be addressed. All in all, it seems to be a massive decision to take planning decisions from a local authority, but I am not at all sure, from what I have heard, that it is as big as it sounds. It could just be sensible intervention: working with local authorities, establishing the facts, proceeding, and then, perhaps at the end of the line there may be a case for taking stronger action with one or two authorities. However, my reading suggests that the Bill could permit a massive intervention.

I am concerned about the potential scale of the changes to section 106 agreements. Section 106s have delivered affordable housing. We know that councils are already overwhelmingly responding to changed economic circumstances, including renegotiating section 106 agreements voluntarily, and they can do that within the context of their local plans. I am not clear on the evidence that it is the affordable housing element of section 106s which, on a very large scale, is holding up planning applications. If we had that evidence, it would be much easier to make a good decision. We need to identify and sort out the problems. A big worry about losing section 106 housing requirements is that there will be no general consideration of development plan policy, such as the need for homes at a range of prices in local communities. The National Housing Federation mentions the rural exception sites, for example, which are of course very dear to my heart.

The policy could be counter-productive, and I ask the Minister to address that concern. There is a risk of stronger local opposition to developer plans if the perception grows that new developments will be just for expensive new homes, or, as in my area, for more second homes, and that local people will end up with no affordable homes. Having an assurance that there would be homes for local young people would mean that the community could sign up to them, and that is important.

There could be further delays to housing, with developers waiting for the Bill to be implemented.

[Alison Seabeck]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Annette Brooke]

I would like to proceed.

Enforced renegotiation means that benefits from 106 agreements may be lost for ever, regardless of the needs and views of the local community. If renegotiation outcomes were in line with local planning policies, I cannot see why a local council would not renegotiate on a voluntary basis. Developers’ profits will rise, but how transparent and independent will the appraisals be of the viability of a development with and without the section 106 obligations? It is important to have mixed communities of housing. One of my favourite places that I visit is a large housing estate. As I knock on the doors, I do not know which house was built originally as social housing and which was built originally as private housing—that is what we must aspire to. My problem is that even if the developer finds that a development is not economically viable and we all agree with that in a transparent way, we would lose that social housing. Could the £300 million not be targeted to make sure that the local planning authority keeps the housing it needs?