Lord Beecham
Main Page: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)Housing and Planning Bill
Lord Beecham Excerpts
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I note that this amendment has been supplied to us only today in the form of Amendment 107B, having previously been Amendment 107A. The basic thrust behind the amendment is broadly the same but the wording has altered. I had some doubts about Amendment 107A, and I still have those doubts. Perhaps, in replying, the Minister or the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, could explain the position. I do not want to see one of the cornerstones of British democracy, which is the town and country planning system, upended by this amendment. Certainly the previous version, particularly subsections (1) and (3), was very worrying. Those subsections have been altered in Amendment 107B, but a number of questions still arise.
The first question is around how neighbourhood planning fits with this structure. A great deal of emphasis has been placed on the importance of neighbourhood planning. However, I am looking at subsection (3)(c), subsection (4)(a) and subsection (5), and although they refer to consultation that is deemed to be adequate, there is no indication of what “adequate” consultation is. Nor is it clear what would happen if the local reaction of a neighbourhood is very negative to a proposal. It is also not clear how the summary views expressed—let us suppose that 90% are against—will be considered by the Minister. That is one aspect of this that causes me concern. I do not really understand how we can have a system of neighbourhood planning and then alterations to a planning system, as proposed in this amendment.
Secondly, there is the issue of sustainability. I do not understand to what extent planning freedoms would mean that a local area could disregard issues of sustainability. I am thinking of issues around drainage and water supply, but there are other examples. I feel uncertain about exactly what is being proposed here and why it is deemed to be so important, with an assumption that the current planning system cannot deliver the answer that is required: to build more houses. We already heard earlier, in the debate about the neighbourhood right of appeal to a planning approval on neighbourhood planning, that 10% more homes are being built in areas with neighbourhood plans than would otherwise have been the case.
I am struggling to understand what problem the mover of this amendment is attempting to solve. It would help enormously to have some concrete examples to work with. When I hear about combined authorities, which are huge structures that do not have much connectivity with electors, I wonder how this will build public confidence in the current planning system.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I also come to this without a full appreciation of the implications. In particular, I wonder whether schemes would be able to depart from what might become requirements elsewhere; for example, in relation to energy efficiency or other aspects that one would expect to be part of planning consent for new schemes.
I do not quite understand what the decision-making mechanism would be. Once the scheme had been floated, would it still involve applications having to be approved within the new framework by something equivalent to a development control committee or sub-committee of the kind that most councils now have, or is it to be a sort of executive process without member involvement at the level of individual local authorities or perhaps a combination of authorities when one is looking at a wider area? It is not quite clear how the practical side would be handled.
I share the doubts of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley—if not doubts, then questions—about the nature of public involvement and how that would be fed into the process. Can the noble Lord identify any experience in another jurisdiction—one which is somewhat analogous to ours—of this kind of approach? Is there experience of this way of dealing with applications that we might learn from in terms of how it might develop here? I would certainly be interested in seeing the matter progressed, but I do not think that we have enough information positively to affirm that it should go forward as part of the Bill—it is a bit early for that without knowing a good deal more about how it might work. It may be that some further indications can be given and the Minister wants to take the matter back, although not necessarily with a view to dealing with it in a week’s time at Third Reading—we are pretty late in the process to bring something as potentially radical as this into the Bill. Even if it does not go very far on this occasion, it is certainly a concept that is worth exploring, but if I were the Minister, I do not think that I would be jumping at incorporation into the Bill quite at this stage. However, she may have a different view.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for his amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, who moved it in his absence just before the Easter Recess. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, had a bad back at that stage and half the noble Lords who are interested in this Bill were somewhat indisposed, but I am glad that everybody is now feeling much better. We may well, of course, be ill before Prorogation. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, who spoke as well.
My noble friend made some interesting arguments about the benefits of this model. He made a compelling case for the leadership role of local authorities and their ability to innovate in a way that reflects the needs and voices of their local communities. There is also a pressing need to build new homes, and I am strongly convinced of the importance of the role that local authorities play in that. I am therefore open to new approaches such as this which might achieve our dual obligations of housing growth and localism. I want also to reflect further on how a model such as this might be used in practice—both the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, raised some questions which are worthy of consideration.
My noble friend has made it clear that his amendment is simply enabling. If a clear case could be made for the circumstances where these measures might apply, such circumstances would need to be set out in regulations which would have to be debated in both Houses. On that basis, and with those checks and balances in place, I am willing to accept the amendment at this stage, but subject to considering further whether any technical adjustments are needed for the remaining stage of the Bill.
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, I have added my name to the other amendment in this group for the simple reason that the intended effect of the policy has not been how it has worked out in practice. If we cast our minds back to when this policy was developed, the economy was still struggling to recover from the impact of the financial crisis and the intention, therefore, was to unlock animal spirits and let the market take its course. There is no doubt that permitted rights has unlocked a series of new developments of housing. However, the intention was for it to address industrial sites or office sites where the prospect of new economic development was unlikely ever to happen but, for whatever reason, the local authority was not recognising that reality and moving on. In that sense, it had its effect. Where it has not done what we anticipated was that there was a policy of exemptions which would prevent particular areas being unduly affected. The City and Westminster formed part of those exemptions, but the area was not drawn widely enough.
Let us move forward to the present. The values that can be achieved through the development of residential housing, particularly in London—and I believe that this is predominantly a London issue—far exceed the values that can be achieved through economic use such as offices, retail space and so on. Instead of taking sites that will never be used for economic development, we are taking perfectly viable business sites and then forcing them into residential use, often at high values, which is not helping with the immediate housing need, as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, has just described. There are plenty of different ways that this issue can be addressed, but I urge the Minister to look constructively at how this issue can be tackled. It is likely to carry on growing in areas where these values are so different. Its consequence will be to damage the character of those areas and permanently lose economic activity.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I support Amendment 116B, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord True, my noble friend Lord Kennedy and the noble Lords, Lord Kerslake and Lord Tope. They made a powerful case for dealing with what is potentially a damaging development in many town and city centres and some of the suburban areas as well. I am not so keen on Amendment 116A but I think that the Minister should go back to Amendment 116B. I would urge her to give serious consideration to the suggestion it contains. To adapt an old phrase, I would advise her, “to her own True, be helpful”. It would be wise not to ignore the experience of significant change—and change not for the better—particularly as identified by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, as a result of allowing this kind of development to take place and, indeed, under the legislation, actually facilitating it. So I hope there will be some second thoughts on this.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I support in principle the Government’s view on this change of use from offices to housing and do so because over the last three years, more than 7,500 much-needed houses have been delivered for this country. However, I have sympathy for my noble friend Lord True’s amendment, not for the same reason as he and many other speakers gave, and certainly not from a London-centric view, because I come from a rural part of the country, but because there needs to be further guidance about this.
The change of use of large office blocks in business parks, which is an issue that is hitting many other local authorities, is unacceptable. To put housing in the middle of a business park does two things. First, it is not suitable for the people who live in those houses; and secondly, it does not help the businesses that are there at the time or help to market any further units for businesses in the future. It just does not work. Quite honestly, local communities, local authorities and anyone else who has anything to do with this think it is crazy that we would even think of people living in a business park or an economic development park.
So, although we have Article 4, it would be useful if the Government made stronger recommendations or produced guidance saying that these are areas where we would not accept a change of use. That would then stop all the bureaucracy and the cost of fighting these things, and it would make it clear to developers that there are places that we will talk to them about and consider a change of use, but there are certain places that are just not suitable and therefore they should not try to speculate on them. Therefore, I would welcome it if the Minister would look at this matter again and give local authorities stronger guidance so that they could say no and stop speculation.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I speak in support of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord True, who asked a set of important questions. I shall not repeat them, and I am pleased that a large number of Members of the House are here to hear him ask them. This is an example of the creation of a bureaucracy that may not solve a significant set of problems. In other words, because there may have been some difficulties in a limited number of cases in some places, we may set up a large bureaucratic structure to solve them.
I have read the impact assessment and the Bill very carefully, but I am still at a loss to understand what problem the Government are trying to solve. It may in some cases speed up some Section 106 negotiations but, in the main, I am not sure that it will. It may create a set of unintended consequences. When I read line 1 of the impact assessment—
“The Government wishes to provide for someone to be appointed to help resolve, within a set timescale, outstanding issues about planning obligations relating to individual planning applications”—
I immediately wonder who the “someone” will be. How will you ensure that they do not have some kind of interest? How will you know that there is a firewall between that person and their conclusions? For example, the impact assessment does not answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord True: what might the impact be on starter homes? That is a very important question, because the funding of starter homes comes from reductions in the amount of Section 106 money received by local authorities.
On page 167, at lines 10 to 12, the Bill states:
“The local planning authority must not refuse the application on a ground that relates to the appropriateness of the terms of the section 106 instrument”.
I understand that statement in one sense, but at the heart of our debate about starter homes is the fact that Section 106 provision will be reduced to help to provide the developer subsidy for those starter homes. There are major implications in this, and I see more potential problems over Section 106 negotiations. I am not convinced that setting up the kind of bureaucratic structure that the noble Lord, Lord True, described, will actually help us to solve that problem. It will be solved if local planning authorities are properly resourced, have the proper powers and there is a proper context within which they are to work to build the homes that the country needs.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I wholeheartedly endorse the critiques of the proposal by the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Shipley. Several real problems have already been identified, but it is worth reminding ourselves that this is yet another incursion on the rights and roles of local authorities, imposing an external component on to the resolution of what ought to be determined locally between the local authority and the applicant. Moreover, the whole thing is another bureaucratic nightmare. There are five pages of the schedule. The Explanatory Notes make it clear that there are also to be regulations—surprise, surprise, once again made by the Secretary of State. They say:
“The Secretary of State can also make regulations setting out … who, other than the local planning authority and applicant, could make a request for the appointment of a person”.
So it need not even be the planning authority or the applicant who makes that application. Who else might make it is presumably at large—anybody could. The regulations can also deal with,
“the timing and form of requests”,
and,
“that a person can be appointed if outstanding issues have not been resolved within set timeframes”,
as well as,
“further detail about appointments … what qualifications or experience the appointed person must have”,
and “fees payable”. Those will all be determined by regulations.
The Explanatory Notes say:
“The appointed person must take into account any template or model terms published by the Secretary of State. Regulations can also set out other details … Regulations can also set out restrictions on the local planning authority’s ability to ask for additional obligations”,
as well as,
“periods for determining planning applications after a report is issued;
circumstances or cases where the consequences in this Schedule don’t apply; and
any further steps required to be taken by the appointed person”.
Once again, we are going to have myriad regulations, the sight of which is withheld from us, presumably because they have not yet been drafted. They will be produced at a later date, again without any prior consideration by Parliament at the time when the Bill has gone through. There is also the possible perverse effect that, given that applicants may have, as they perceive it, difficulties with the local authority, why should they not seek the involvement of the appointed person—not so much by way of an appeal but in the initial part of the process? They could delay things even more. If they thought that they were not going to get entirely what they wanted from their application, why not go through this process? That unintended effect seems to me a ridiculous proposition, and I very much hope that the noble Lord will test the opinion of the House—and, if he does not, I will.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for contributing to the debate and raising some very valid questions about how the process will work. Dispute resolution is part of the wider measures that the Government are introducing to make the planning system simpler and encourage housebuilding. We anticipate that it would be used only for a small number of applications, as a last resort, and that its existence will encourage all parties to work constructively together and agree planning obligations earlier in the planning process. Only 7% of major and 1% of minor planning applications both include a Section 106 agreement and are decided outside the statutory time frameworks or agreed extension. The objective of dispute resolution is to avoid protracted Section 106 negotiation, not to add unnecessary steps.
I have listened to the debate in Committee and this evening, and recognise that several noble Lords have valid concerns about how it will all work while, I think, supporting the general principle of arbitration. A key concern of my noble friend Lord True is not only the bureaucracy but the complexity of negotiations. However, the schedule has been drafted this way to encourage the parties to agree matters between themselves wherever possible. For example, taking out the cooling-off period would detract from the objective of speeding up negotiations. This process would be used only in cases where the local planning authority would be likely to grant planning permission were it not for unresolved issues relating to Section 106 obligations.
The legislation is also intended to be flexible enough to respond to feedback from the Government’s technical consultation, which has recently closed.
In this consultation we sought views from the sector on, among other things, the cost of the process, the matters that should be taken into account in dispute resolution and the necessary qualifications of the person to resolve the disputes. These matters will be set out in regulations, as the noble Lord said, and I acknowledge the expertise of my noble friend Lord True as leader of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. I would therefore welcome ongoing dialogue as we develop the regulations.
I reiterate that dispute resolution is intended to be activated by parties to the Section 106 agreement. It therefore should be seen as a tool to aid negotiations where necessary rather than as placing an additional burden. The Government are committed to doing whatever they can to unlock stalled sites and to increase the delivery of housing. We have just concluded a wide-ranging consultation which will inform the detail of how it will be applied through regulations. I hope—although I doubt—that I have been able to provide additional reassurance, and that noble Lords will not divide the House on this.