Gareth Thomas
Main Page: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)Housing and Planning Bill (Fourteenth sitting)
Gareth Thomas Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Stephen Hammond
I share your excitement that this is our penultimate day of scrutiny, Mr Gray, and I am pleased to see you in the Chair.
Many of us have a number of developments in our constituencies that are mostly popular and enjoy almost universal acceptance, but have controversial aspects. I can think of three sizable potential developments in my constituency where a large amount of what is being proposed is universally popular, but small elements are not so popular. I can think of one within the last year to which that applies.
The three amendments would make a relatively small technical change that is absolutely in line with what the Government are trying to do—to bring forth more housing and more development more quickly. The thrust of the amendments is to give local planning authorities exactly the same power as the Secretary of State has on appeal to grant planning permission for part of a development proposed. Such a power would be useful where planning applications can be split into several different elements, one of which is acceptable. I can think of a regeneration scheme currently going through for the southern end of my constituency, large elements of which are popular, but there are two controversial elements involving the scale and density of certain housing.
The amendments would put into statute a power for planning authorities. At present, planning authorities have the implicit ability to grant a lesser permission by using some of the conditions—a relevant case is Kent County Council v. Secretary of State for the Environment 1976. The planning practice guidance says that express powers to issue split decisions were given to the Secretary of State and the inspectors in section 79 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 when it was amended, allowing the Secretary of State and inspectors to reverse or vary any part of the decision of any local planning authority where the approved part is severable or substantially different from the scheme applied for. Those factors need to be taken into consideration.
The three amendments have considerable support. The chairman of the board of the Planning Officers Society recently spoke in favour of such an amendment. The amendment would grant the ability on appeal to approve a scheme, the larger part or some parts of which enjoy great support, while other parts do not.
Mr Thomas
It is always important to debate new provisions. In that spirit, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I think of the proposal to redevelop the College Road site in my constituency. The bottom area, in which a new square is proposed to attract high-end restaurants and so on, is very popular, but the height of the overall development, at 20-plus storeys, is not popular. Might that development benefit from his amendment, or would it not be covered?
Stephen Hammond
From that limited explanation, I think it probably would be covered. As I said in my opening remarks, we all know developments where parts enjoy substantial support, yet some elements do not, particularly if the parts are severable from each other inside the application.
The amendments would allow a scheme to be approved in part. The purpose is to allow development to get under way more quickly. I accept that there will be circumstances where it is inappropriate or impossible to separate parts of schemes, but the amendments would allow developments and housing supply to happen more quickly, which is the thrust of the Bill. I hope that the Minister will either reassure me that his interpretation of the Government’s interpretation of the guidance is sufficient—many planning officers do not think it is—or let me know what his thoughts are and whether there may be room for discussion before the Bill proceeds further.
Mr Thomas
Very briefly, and following up the hon. Gentleman’s request for more information, I wish to talk about the planned development on the College Road site in Harrow West, which may or may not be covered by the amendment. The proposed development is in the centre of the shopping area in my constituency, so it is well known to most of my constituents. Many of them will be concerned about its height—potentially 20-plus storeys high, it might block out the iconic St Mary’s church in Harrow on the Hill. If there was some way in which residents, or the inspector on behalf of residents, could intervene to express a view on the height, the other parts of the proposed development at ground level, which will refresh and improve a part of Harrow town centre that has been blighted by lack of development for some time, would be popular. It is the height that worries residents. If the hon. Gentleman’s proposal for Wimbledon were to allow an inspector to vary something like the height of a development, I am sure his amendment would be of considerable interest to my constituents. I, too, look to the Minister with great interest to see whether his hon. Friend has managed to persuade him.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in these last sittings of the Committee, Mr Gray.
Local planning authorities have the ability to issue planning permission for part of a development by way of conditions. The use of conditions in this way is restricted in case law so that what is granted permission by the local authority does not fundamentally differ from what the applicant applied for and the scheme consulted on. Best practice is only to grant permission in part with the agreement of the applicant, because to do otherwise can have a substantial impact on the wider viability of a development. The proposed amendment would remove those restrictions and allow local authorities to grant permission for something substantially different from the scheme that was applied for.
I have not had a chance to look at the amendment in much detail or to explore the potential impact, but accepting it would have a number of unintended consequences. They could include depriving the public of the opportunity to be consulted and to comment on an application that is different from the one that was actually applied for. That has serious implications. There may also be a risk of not complying with the requirements of regulations made in 2011 under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 if the development is significantly different from that applied for and consulted on.
None the less, my hon. Friend raises an interesting question about the way these permissions in part can be and are used to get developments going where they are consensual and agreed, although it may take longer to work through issues relating to other parts of the development on a larger scale. If he will bear with me, I would like to consider this further and come back to him, perhaps outside the Bill. The question has been raised and is due wider consideration and consultation with the sector. For those reasons, I hope my hon. Friend will be able to withdraw the amendment.
Stephen Hammond
I beg to move amendment 193, in clause 104, page 49, line 3, at end insert—
“(4B) In section 106 (Planning obligations), after subsection (2) insert—
(2A) A local planning authority may enter into a planning obligation as a person interested in land and as the local planning authority, including an obligation by agreement in both categories.”
This amendment empowers local planning authorities to make planning obligations binding their own land, for example, if they wish to grant planning permission prior to selling land for development.
Again, the amendment is designed to allow housing development to come forward substantially more quickly. The issue it deals with is relatively minor but relatively important. One of the thrusts of the Government’s plans to bring forth more applications is to bring excess unused public land into use more quickly. Local planning authorities will often seek planning permission on their own land, either for their own schemes or to sell land with consent for development. Developers may also seek to get planning permission on the land when it is owned either in whole or in part by local planning authorities. Given that the Government intend to make public sector land available for development, I think it is highly likely that we will see more applications that fit in this category over the next few years.
At the moment, a planning obligation will bind the interests in land only of the parties to it. The problem—I accept it is relatively small—is that a local planning authority can enter into a planning obligation as the landowner, and there is concern about whether, legally, it can enter into an obligation with itself. As my hon. Friend the Minister will know, there is some case law that obscures whether this can happen, but if the local authority cannot do so, there will be some issues about how quickly that land can be brought into use. The attempts to get round this, as he will know, are complex, uncertain and likely to cause delay. This relatively simple amendment will allow a local planning authority to enter into a consent with itself.
Mr Thomas
I want to support the hon. Gentleman as a fellow London MP, but I think it would help him to gain the Committee’s support if he could give us some examples of where the problem he describes has been enough to stop development going ahead. I do not want to cause him trouble or difficulty, but I want to see how serious the problem is.
Stephen Hammond
The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that I prefaced my remarks about the clause by saying that is a relatively small but nonetheless important point. It is likely to become more important as we see more and more unused public sector land released. I can think of a circumstance of a relatively small pocket of public land where a local authority was the owner, but was also acting as the authority in terms of granting planning permission to produce a scheme of, I think, 12 properties in part of my constituency. I know there are a number of planning experts on the Committee with much greater knowledge than I have who would be able to confirm the point that, although such cases may not be numerous, resolving the issue is complex and there may be problems in bringing land forward.
I am not suggesting that it is a huge problem, but a relatively small amendment to section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 will authorise a planning authority to act as a party with an interest in the land as well as the planning authority granting an obligation. That obligation may be made unilaterally or by agreement, so it is important that it is legally acceptable when made by agreement. I look forward to the Minister’s response. The amendment, rather than like my previous ones, would help the Government with its ambition to bring forward housing developments more quickly.
Helen Hayes
What I am not clear about is the relationship between in principle consent and technical details consent if something as significant as a Roman fort underneath a site or other important archaeological considerations emerges at the technical details stage that would override the suitability of the principle of development on the site. What is the relationship between the two forms of consent, and can development be refused on principle at the technical details stage? That is unclear, and many of the important stakeholders, including Historic England, the National Federation of Housing Associations, and the Town and Country Planning Association, have made representations to this Committee along those lines.
Mr Thomas
One thinks at the moment of the flooding that is taking place in many parts of the country. From time to time, there will be applications to build on a floodplain. Would my hon. Friend’s amendment potentially give a developer an indication of what might be acceptable to be built on a site that is in a floodplain, bearing in mind the potential risk to exacerbate flooding down the line?
Helen Hayes
I thank my hon. Friend for his helpful intervention. What would arise from the adoption of amendment 285 is the provision in the regulations whereby development in flood risk areas, including the issue of whether or not a development is in the floodplain, should have been identified and that information set out prior to permission in principle being granted. That would give some security to communities that development is not being undertaken in an irresponsible way.
Dr Blackman-Woods
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Gray. I rise to support the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood. I seek further clarification from the Minister following our discussions on Thursday. Unusually, I want to thank him for putting the policy factsheet on permission in principle into the House of Commons Library yesterday. I think he intended to help us get a better understanding of what the Government seek to achieve in this part of the Bill.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Unfortunately, unless I missed it, there was not an operational document attached. Perhaps that is something about which we will get some clarification from the Minister. After all, we do not have many sittings left to be enlightened about the contents of the operational document. Presumably, it will come forward very quickly indeed.
I was somewhat unusually in the middle of thanking the Minister for the document. However, unfortunately, when I actually read the document, I thought, “This provides more questions than answers about how permission in principle will operate in practice,” so I have a few questions to ask the Minister this morning. There are now not three but four ways to get planning permission in this country. We know from our discussion on Thursday that the first way is through land being placed on a brownfield register. The second is clearly outlined in the factsheet, which states:
“The Bill will allow permission in principle to be granted automatically when housing is allocated in future local and neighbourhood plans or identified on brownfield registers.”
We need clarity from the Minister on that very strange wording. Does “future” mean “from now on”? In other words, does it mean that all of the current plans that have been adopted are not the plans on which permission in principle will be granted? Does it mean that it will be granted for new plans that will presumably start at some time that will be set out in regulations? Does it apply to neighbourhood plans that perhaps were approved just last week following a referendum? The factsheet very clearly says “future”, so one has to assume that it does not mean the ones that are currently in existence.
That is a really important point, because in our discussion on Thursday it was suggested that permission in principle will be attached to plans that have already been adopted. We are totally unclear, on the basis of that document, about which plans we are talking about. Are they the ones that have been adopted? Will there be a new system where all the plans have to be redone? Will they go through a process that we do not know about at the moment so that permission in principle can be given? I was really surprised to see that in the document following our discussion on Thursday when no mention was made of the confusion about what plans we might be talking about.
There is a third possibility for getting planning permission, which seems to go direct to the local authority. A paragraph in the document states:
“Recognising the specific challenges that developers of smaller sites can face, the Bill will also make provision for permission in principle to be granted for minor development on application to the local authority.”
Through what process will they make an application to the local authority, and what role will there be for local people having a say? Do the sites have to already be on the brownfield register, or is this in addition to the register? Such matters are incredibly important and will affect all our constituencies and our constituents’ ability to have a say over what development takes place in their area.
I have another question for the Minister, although how he will answer when he is not listening is beyond me. Nevertheless, the document states:
“Permission in principle will only be granted where development is considered to be locally acceptable in principle.”
How will that be known? By what process will people be consulted to give their views on a development, particularly since the paragraph above states that developers can go direct to the local authority? We do not know whether that bypasses the local community or whether it goes via the brownfield register or a local or neighbourhood plan. Those are my questions.
The final mechanism for getting planning permission is where a local authority is designated and people can choose to go directly to the Secretary of State to get planning permission. There could be four ways to get planning permission, or there could be three ways. We are not absolutely clear. Unfortunately, the document, which I know was intended to be helpful, has not given us the answers that we sought on Thursday. Perhaps the Minister will come back and clarify the issues for us this morning.
There are a couple of other matters in the excellent amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood that need to be emphasised. The document that was placed in the House of Commons Library yesterday states:
“The Government has engaged widely with a range of key stakeholders with different interests—including local government, planning sector, house builders, other developers, lenders, and environmental and community groups. This engagement has been tremendously useful and has influenced our thinking. We look forward to continuing discussions as we further work up the finer details, and expect to publish a detailed consultation later this year.”
Who have the Government consulted about the proposals in the document? Yesterday, I contacted several local authorities, a few developers, and some of the main planning umbrella organisations. None of them had been consulted on the proposals. If the Government are going to put that in a document in the House of Commons Library, we need to have some information demonstrating to us who has been consulted and what they said. The summary on my piece of paper does not tell us what they said, let alone who they are. That is a major problem for us when debating the clauses. There is no doubt that it is helpful to have that document, but it would have been more helpful to have had it last week.
Yesterday, we got two consultation papers—one on the equality statement on the proposed changes through permission in principle and other elements of the Bill, and one on the operation of permission in principle—but I hope it will not have escaped members of the Committee that we discussed some of those issues on Thursday afternoon, in advance of the consultation papers being issued. I am not sure whether that is just tardiness on the Government’s behalf or whether there is more to it, but hopefully we will be able to return to the contents of the consultation documents at some later stage, because they go through a lot of the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood questioned earlier about the exact nature of brownfield and how the Government will define “affordable housing”. All those sorts of things are in the consultation documents.
Personally, although the Minister might have a different view, I think it would have been helpful if those consultations had taken place in advance of legislation being produced, rather than afterwards. It is not clear whether significant elements of the Bill will be able to be changed as a result of that consultation exercise because the Bill will probably have completed its passage through Parliament before the consultation reports. That prompts the question why the consultation is happening now. Perhaps the Minister will enlighten us on the consultation’s exact purpose.
As my hon. Friend said, these important concerns are not only being raised by Opposition Members. A number of people have written in to comment. I have brought a sample of five or six to mention this morning, but many, many different organisations from across the planning and housing sector have written in to say, “Look, we don’t really have a problem”—this is where we all are—“with permission in principle as a principle, but approving legislation without knowing exactly how it will operate and without ironing out the issue of what happens with regard to material considerations or technical details that happen, or are discovered, further down the line is a huge problem.”
Wildlife and Countryside Link reminds us all that the clauses are “profoundly radical” and are some of the most contentious in the Bill. Wildlife and Countryside Link says that we are allowing
“the Secretary of State to create a development order, for any land allocated for development in a qualifying document… that gives permission to development in principle.”
Wildlife and Countryside Link says that the Bill allows the granting of permission in principle whether or not the qualifying document is in place, or even in existence, when a local development order is made. That is getting to the nub of the question because, if the Wildlife and Countryside Link is correct, I do not see how it fits with what the Government are saying in this document—the one they put in the House of Commons Library—about future development plans and neighbourhood plans. Or are they in fact saying that this will be some future document, and it does not matter whether it is in existence at the moment because the Secretary of State will be able to grant permission anyway?
Does the document have to be in place? Is it a future document? How is the Secretary of State going to take note of that document? Does he need to take note of it, or can he just decide himself that site A in area B shall have permission in principle because someone has made an application directly to him?
Mr Bacon
I will ignore that comment from the hon. Member for Harrow West and concentrate on my intervention. We have had enough parping from him for one day already. Does the hon. Lady think that it is just possible that the Secretary of State might choose to exercise his or her discretion? Where and when local communities are getting on with it and producing high-quality local neighbourhood plans, that can carry on, but where people—as is often the case—are taking longer than it took to fight the second world war to produce a local plan of any kind at all, the Secretary of State should have the power to act, and that is what the Bill gives him or her.
Peter Dowd
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is one of the most centralising pieces of planning legislation that this country has ever seen, dressed up as localism?
Peter Dowd
Indeed, it is almost Maoist. Does my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham agree that the reality is that local people would rather trust local decision makers than centralised diktats from Secretaries of State?
Mr Thomas
I very much enjoyed the speech by the hon. Member for Croydon South, but I want to take the Committee back to the issue that underpins some of the Government’s intentions in this part of the Bill: the price of land. The price of land in London is probably the single biggest constraint on housing development, and in particular helping small housing developers to enter the market. I therefore find myself torn on the question of permission in principle. I recognise that for some developers it is potentially a helpful tool, but I worry that it will exacerbate the rise in land values in certain places, notably London, where by any definition land prices are rising extremely fast. Amendment 284 would help to control—a little—the cost of land for development by setting out clearly the expectations of the community in its broader senses for a particular spot of land.
I raised in interventions the example of the College Road site in Harrow town centre; it is the site of the former post office, which has lain empty and earmarked in theory for development for 10 years and more. Part of the reason for the failure to develop that site is that the purchasers bought it when land values in Harrow were at their highest, they had unrealistic expectations of the value they might extract from the site, and as a result they finally had to sell the site off. If the requirements in amendment 284 had been on the statute book 10 years ago, that developer might not have rushed quite so quickly to buy the site, or, if it had bought the site, would at least have had some sense of the community’s expectations of what might be appropriate on that site. In that sense, I think it is a helpful amendment.
I come to the example of flooding I gave in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood. I think in particular of a site in Keswick in the Lake district, which has been subject to particularly heavy flooding. I am sure the whole Committee sends its support to the people of Keswick, who have been so badly affected by flooding. I think of a small industrial estate in Keswick which houses a number of business and, indeed, a small museum, which might in future be a development site. However, it is close to the River Greta, which has once again flooded, despite some flood alleviation measures put in place since the last time it flooded. With amendment 284 in place, Sir James—
The Chair
Order. Unless the hon. Gentleman has heard something that I have not, it is just Mr Gray. One day, perhaps.
Dr Blackman-Woods
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Is this not where paragraph (b) of amendment 285 would be extremely helpful? After the previous intervention, perhaps I should clarify that that paragraph would require the Secretary of State to ensure the provision of adequate funding to carry out the testing that is needed. That testing might be for the risk of flooding.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes a good point and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Ministers have occasionally said that they want to help small and medium-sized house builders to increase their market share. Giving those developers much more certainty about what would and would not be acceptable on a site would surely reduce their costs over time and increase their chances of accessing sites that they can afford.
I would have thought that amendment 284 would appeal to the Government, given their enthusiasm for starter homes. Giving greater clarity to would-be developers about the proportion of starter homes required on a site as part of the suitable dwelling mix that a community might expect would surely both encourage the starter homes initiative that the Government want to push and give more certainty to developers.
Finally, I come to the question of the re-election of the hon. Member for South Norfolk. I paraphrase it in those terms because he prayed in aid with enthusiasm tall buildings in central London. I worry that his constituents might not share his love of tall buildings. I see their virtue in places such as Croydon; I am not quite so enthusiastic about the prospect of having them in central Harrow, and nor are my constituents. I have to confess that I do not know, but I suspect that the constituents of South Norfolk would not be too enthusiastic about the prospect of 20-storey blocks of flats being part of developments there or in the surrounding area.
Mr Bacon
I can resist no longer—the hon. Gentleman is such fun. I am not suggesting 20-storey blocks of flats in South Norfolk or anywhere else. I pointed out that the Cadogan estate in Chelsea has slightly higher blocks. If he visited the self-build project known as “Elf Freunde”—meaning 11 friends; it is a German footballing pun—in central Berlin that produced 11 four-storey terraced houses for €220,000 each, he would see what I am talking about.
Mr Thomas
Well, it is an important point, Mr Gray. I was not for a moment suggesting that the hon. Gentleman would be enthusiastic about a proposal for tall buildings, but there would be much less likelihood of his constituents being provoked by an application for an unnecessarily high development if the provisions in amendment 284 were on the statute book and would-be developers in South Norfolk knew that the community, South Norfolk Council and so on did not expect a development of more than, perhaps, 11 storeys, as I think he referred to in his Berlin example—
Mr Thomas
Oh, I beg his pardon: a development of four storeys, or even fewer. That would help to give some confidence to the community about potential developments. If the hon. Gentleman were to have the courage to resist the power of the Government Whips Office and back the amendment, I have no doubt that he would be smoothing the path a little to his re-election.
The hon. Gentleman provokes me to speak about self-build and custom housebuilding—
Mr Thomas
Indeed, Mr Gray, this is within the context of the amendment. Paragraph (b) of amendment 284 would give local authorities and broader communities in South Norfolk, Harrow and Dulwich and West Norwood the opportunity to send a signal that they want more self-built or custom built properties on a particular site. I hope that the hon. Member for South Norfolk would want to see a housing co-operative designated on many of the sites. Paragraph (b) offers the hope that some local authorities might want to do even more on custom and self-build. In that spirit, I support the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood.
Dr Blackman-Woods
—and with other local authority officers about how to address these issues.
Mr Thomas
I rise to support these new clauses. To me, they seem to make eminent sense. They are not an over-the-top provision and they are not creating a particularly onerous regulatory burden. However, they are seeking to re-establish a balance between, on the one side, the need and the appetite for new housing that all Committee members report and, on the other side, the need to maintain centres of cultural activity.
My hon. Friend has just set out some of the rationale for these amendments. I want to draw the Committee’s attention to what motivates my support for the new clauses. I am motivated in part by the experience of one of the grassroots venues that has closed in my constituency. The Rayners pub used to host jazz and ska nights on a regular basis, and when it closed there was a long campaign to stop it being earmarked for development. The campaign was led by an excellent local resident, Bill Ashton, who was then the conductor for the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. He was rightly concerned to protect a local music venue, and he argued that very few such venues in outer London hosted jazz and ska nights. My worry is that, without the amendments, the environmental health concerns that my hon. Friend alluded to will continue to increase the pressure on licensing authorities to take away licences for music venues.
The Trinity pub in my constituency is still very much going on. It has two floors and the upper floor often hosts small bands, or bands that have not yet made it. There are many offices within the vicinity of that pub. It is an excellent pub—Labour-supporting, which is an additional benefit that the Trinity brings—and I would not want to see it forced to stop allowing performances by local and other bands as a result of the pressure that may or may not come from those who move into homes where there were once offices.
Mr Thomas
Again, I gently encourage the hon. Gentleman not to go for a long liquid lunch, but to be back promptly to be able to hear the Minister when he declaims on this subject. I am glad he is an enthusiast for the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, but it is not only jazz that might be affected in future; a host of other genres might also be affected. I hope the hon. Member for South Norfolk is not in a parochial phase, but that he might be willing to recognise that the idea of a European city of culture bid from outer London—something for which I have campaigned for some time—might benefit from the provisions in the amendment. The pressure on music venues to close might not be there and there would be opportunities for more parts of our great capital city to benefit from the European city of culture and provide an additional range of cultural activity for people in the area.
My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham rightly dwelt on the Mayor of London’s music venue taskforce. I am not a huge fan of the current Mayor of London, but I give him credit when it is due on occasion. His taskforce has shone a spotlight on the closure of grassroots venues—a 35% decline, as my hon. Friend said, in the past eight years in London. That is deeply worrying and ought to be a wake-up call for us all, not only in this Committee but across London, to see what else we can do to make sure there is not pressure to lose such venues.
My hon. Friend rightly highlighted the fact that London has borne the brunt of the closure of music venues, but it is not only in London where music venues have closed; Birmingham and Manchester have seen small music venues closing, as have Edinburgh and Glasgow—of course, Scotland is outwith the scope of the Bill—and Bristol, Plymouth, Newport and Swindon have all seen important local music venues closing. We must do more to stop such local venues closing in future.
As my hon. Friend has alluded to, it is clear that there is insufficient guidance for our planning authorities to stop the closure of music venues.