Localism Bill

Joan Walley Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

Among the areas where centralisation has increased over the years is in the planning system. The regional spatial strategies, whatever their intentions, clearly took power from local communities. We made good progress in Committee in addressing the replacement for regional strategies in dealing with larger than local matters. The Bill introduces more opportunities for neighbourhoods through neighbourhood planning, and brings in compulsory pre-application scrutiny.

As we have worked through, we have established a good deal of common ground. The Committee debate focused on the duty to co-operate. Informed by the Royal Town Planning Institute and discussions across the Front Benches, we listened to the Committee and, as we indicated on Report, made various changes that have been reflected in the Bill as it left the House. We said on Report that the neighbourhood planning section would be amended in the House of Lords. We considered carefully suggestions made from all parts of the House, and the amendments before us today reflect that.

It is important to say that we want to see more planning, not less. We feel that over time the imposition from above has stood in the way of local communities expressing their own vision of the future of their community. That is what we want to give them a greater chance to do. At the heart of that is the need to achieve sustainable development. Section 39 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 provides a duty on those preparing local plans to do so with the aim of contributing to the achievement of sustainable development.

Amendment 370 extends that principle to neighbourhood planning, with an explicit condition that it should contribute to the achievement of sustainable development. The duty to co-operate will require that public bodies should co-operate effectively on sustainable development. We debated in Committee whether to include the definition of sustainable development on the face of the Bill or whether it should be in guidance. I made a commitment to think seriously about that, which we did. We had various discussions in the other place involving Members on both sides of the House.

Let me say at the outset that there is no issue in principle with the definition proposed by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) in their amendment (a). It reflects the 2005 sustainable development strategy, which has not been repealed. In evidence not to the Select Committee chaired by the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), to which I shall be giving evidence later in the week, but to the Environmental Audit Committee I and a DEFRA Minister made it clear that the 2005 strategy remains extant and we have no difficulty with the content of it. Of course, that has been captured in previous guidance—PPS1 in particular—and was updated from the first iteration of the sustainable development strategy in 1999.

There was a serious debate in the other place about whether the best place to reflect the shared view of sustainable development is on the face of the Bill, or whether that should be, as it always has been, in guidance. On Report there was some concern that a statutory definition makes it difficult to capture the full range of aspects of sustainability, which may include but go beyond some of the provisions in the sustainable development strategy. I happen to think, and I have said to the Environmental Audit Committee, that some of the thinking in the natural environment White Paper makes some helpful suggestions that one should be looking for a net gain for nature. It is important to be open to that.

In the other place, Baroness Andrews, the chairman of English Heritage and a recent former planning Minister, made some of the same arguments about heritage. She said:

“I feel strongly that one of the elements that is not in this amendment”—

the amendment before us is similar or even identical to the one that was considered in the other place—

“. . . is including something about our vital cultural and heritage needs, including those of future generations.”

She went on to say that

“one might add, for example, ‘meeting the diverse social, cultural, heritage needs of all people in existing and future communities and promoting well-being and social cohesion and inclusion’.”

The noble Lady said that

“if we are to debate the amendment”,

the Minister should consider whether the definition could be sufficiently flexible to include

“the new elements of the definition.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 October 2011; Vol. 730, c. 1750.]

I cite that as an example of someone who shares our good will on that point and has recent experience in government of planning and of some of the difficulties.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I hear what the Minister says about Baroness Andrews, but the Government’s response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s report stated:

“The Government agrees that we should put the pursuit of sustainable development right at the heart of the planning system’s objectives and operation, and that we should be clear about what this commitment means in practice.”

How can they be clear about that if it is not in the Bill?

[Greg Clark]

I hope to convince the hon. Lady when I say more on that in a few minutes. As we are considering Lords amendments, I will reflect on the conclusions that were drawn after extensive debates on all these issues in the House of Lords and what its settled view was. Lord Howarth of Newport, a Labour peer, said:

“Like other noble Lords I do not think that it is appropriate to attempt a full definition on the face of primary legislation because… the right place for that is guidance.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 31 October 2011; Vol. 731, c. 1078.]

The Opposition spokesman, Lords McKenzie of Luton, in summing up, said:

“We accept that definitions are not going to be included in the Bill but I hope that at least we shall be able to get very strong assurances that there will be full definitions in the NPPF.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 31 October 2011; Vol. 731, c. 1076.]

At the end of the debate, he said that he was happy to withdraw the same amendment because my noble Friend Baroness Hanham had

“given the strongest degree of reassurance I have heard to date on the issue.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 31 October 2011; Vol. 731, c. 1088.]

A view was reached in the House of Lords on the basis of assurances that my noble Friend gave. I will not quote from some of the other reflections, but some colleagues there said that this went even further than they had expected.

In answer to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), the Government are committed to a clear definition of sustainable development and think that policy is the right place for it. I have said clearly that we have no difficulties with the 2005 definition, which I think is ably reflected in the amendment. Hon. Members will know that I cannot pre-empt the consultation on the NPPF, but in all the deliberations we have had on the Bill my assurances about the Government’s good faith have always been reflected and brought to a final conclusion. I hope that Opposition Front Benchers will bear that in mind.