Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, possibly it is suitable for me to go next, because I shall speak also to Amendment 184, just to conclude the debate on that.

Amendment 184 is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, who has presented it in such an engaging way that I hardly feel it worth any of the rest of us saying anything. She was nobly supported by my noble friend Lord St John and the noble Lord, Lord Banner. Centrepoint, the promoter of the amendment, is a highly respected homelessness charity, and its ideas for creating stepping-stone accommodation are innovative and imaginative.

When asked to support the amendment, I raised three queries and received some helpful responses that I will share with your Lordships, as others may have had similar thoughts to mine. First, I noted that the scheme depended on the young renters moving on to permanent homes in due course to make way for the next young person. But what if the acute shortages of affordable homes made this move-on impossible? The clogging up of short-term supported housing has been the undoing of many earlier such projects. In response, I was assured that these tenants would be supported by a visiting tenancy sustainment worker, who would not only help the young people to pay their rent and maintain their home but would help with move-on options.

Secondly, I pointed out that living in 24 square metres would not normally be regarded as tolerable. The national minimum space standard for a flat is 37 square metres, which is over 50% bigger. Was there a danger that this might be the thin end of the wedge, leading to more exemptions from the norm over time? Experience of the abuse of permitted development rights for property conversions into tiny slums shows us where this might lead. In response, it was pointed out that the circumstances in which the amendment would permit the much-reduced space standards exclusively for otherwise homeless young people were very tightly circumscribed, defined and limited—and I note that they get the seal of approval from the noble Lord, Lord Banner.

Finally, I wondered whether it would be more companionable for the young renters to be in a shared flat with three or four others with their own room but sharing a bathroom and kitchen diner. The reply was very convincing: Centrepoint had consulted widely with young people and those who had spent their time in local authority supported housing with communal areas and shared facilities, and they wanted space that was entirely their own responsibility. Small developments of 12 to 36 studio flats would mean young people living alongside each other while learning to live independently.

It would be up to local planning authorities as to whether any stepping-stone schemes emerged, but this amendment would make them a possibility. Centrepoint and maybe other charities should be enabled to take their model forward to its next stage, no doubt with further pilot schemes to test the concept. With these comments, I support the amendment and look forward to the response from the Minister.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity to contribute to the Committee’s deliberations. I say at the outset that Amendment 184 from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and my noble friend Lord Banner is eminently sensible, and there appears to be a strong consensus in its favour. I therefore that my Front Bench but also the Minister will give it a fair hearing and possibly support it, because it seems to be a great compromise.

I was fortunate when serving in the other place to support a very good charity called Hope into Action, with local churches banding together to buy residential properties for those in the most acute need, sometimes ex-offenders or people who were just generally down on their luck economically. However, I understand that that is very much a niche activity and it is not possible to buy freeholds outright, so you need this intermediate accommodation in order to give people a chance to get back on the employment or education ladder. So I strongly commend that amendment.

Principally, I want to support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Gascoigne. I am old enough to remember when the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 got Royal Assent. I declare from the outset—practically everyone declares this in this Committee—that I am another former vice-president of the Local Government Association, although quite some time ago. I was also a London borough councillor, and I had the good fortune to serve on the planning committee.

It should be remembered that the purpose of Section 106 was very much benign and supported by the community. It was essentially about whether expenditure was necessary, directly relevant to the planning application, and proportionate. It was absolutely the right thing to seek to ameliorate some of the impacts of residential development by providing community facilities such as schools, GP surgeries, community centres and transport infrastructure. Obviously, there was a distinction between the community infrastructure levy and Section 106. Of course, when I was a Member of Parliament and member of the borough council, those financial contributions made in support of affordable housing were very important. They obviously made a big contribution to the provision of decent housing in our borough and in my constituency.

The reason why I think this is an excellent amendment is that not all local authorities are the same. One of the frustrations is that, unless you are focused every day on trying to find the audit trail of funding from Section 106, when you have multiple stakeholders, landowners, local councillors and council officers—who often change over time—it is very difficult to follow the money in terms of what was actually delivered.

You often found in my experience that residential developments ended up with groups of homeowners or local residents who were very unhappy at, for instance, being members of a limited company and responsible for the management of their community areas. They did not want to do that; they just wanted a children’s playground, a bus shelter or a bus route, or a post office, for instance. Therefore, the openness and transparency that this very laudable amendment would give rise to would allow the distinction between good authorities which are putting much-needed money into local communities in a timely way, and those local authorities which are dragging their feet.

I accept that there is a distinction between preparing a local development plan and a county structure plan, et cetera. That is much more of a legalistic exercise, which has to be undertaken under various pieces of legislation. This is about keeping the faith and the trust of the local people you are interested in providing with very good local services, using what is effectively a tax—public money. Having the imperative of publishing that information on a regular basis would allow you in real time to account for why you have not spent that money, what priorities have changed and what the needs of the community as they evolve might be.

I cannot really see why there would be a reason not to do this. Irrespective of party in local government, whether it is independent, Liberal Democrat, Reform, Conservative or Labour—I think that is everyone; unless you are in Epsom and Ewell, and then it is ratepayers, bizarrely—everyone has an opportunity to make sure that that money is spent effectively and in a timely way.

For that reason, I support the amendment. I hope that, if the Minister rejects the amendment, she explains clearly why it is not possible to support it and incorporate it into the Bill. It is long overdue; it is what transparency campaigners in local government want, what local councillors want and probably even what planning officers want, providing clarity on expenditure. It would be a very good development, and I hope the Minister will support it.