Localism Bill

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I support the principles of the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. A whole section of this Bill later on in Part 6 deals with social housing and changes many of the existing arrangements for tenure, what the local authority is obliged to provide and tenants’ rights. Some of them I support and some of them I strongly oppose. However, the whole point of a social housing strategy is that it relates to the totality of the housing need in the area. Unless there is a provision somewhere in this Bill, such as the provision suggested by this and related amendments, dealing with social housing in the abstract is nonsense.

All forms of housing tenure are in crisis. We know that a lot of people who would have got a mortgage by the age of 30 now can no longer get a mortgage until their late 30s or even into their 40s. More and more people are having to rent in the private sector and are being delayed in setting up an independent household. We know that the rate of household formation is growing because of various developments in society, but it is growing at twice the rate of new build housing. We therefore have to have an holistic approach to housing need, area by area. If we are not going to achieve the targets through the regional spatial strategies, which I admit were a bit Stalinist in their approach, we have to ensure that the local authorities themselves take responsibility for looking at housing need in their areas and assessing it against their private sector development plans and the social housing that they and the housing associations in their areas can provide.

Somewhere in this Bill we need to tell local authorities that part of their responsibility from now on must be assessing total housing need against costs, against price and against demographic trends. That is not covered by the 2004 Act in sufficient detail. Given what I would regard as something close to a crisis in the housing market in all forms of tenure, I think it would be appropriate for us to set that out in the Act. Then, when we consider the social housing provisions, we can set them against a requirement for every local authority to assess needs, supply, demand, price, and demographic and employment changes, and to set its social housing targets and provision against that background. Unless we do that, social housing is isolated and is a residual form of housing based on what is already there. It does not relate to the needs of the totality of the community in which local authorities operate. If the Government are prepared to accept the noble Baroness’s amendment here, they need to say that at least somewhere in this Bill, and we need to ensure that local authorities behave accordingly.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, this has been a very useful debate. I do not think that the Committee is very far apart on the essential importance of housing and making housing one of the key ingredients of the planning process. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, for the typically intelligent and sensitive way in which she introduced her Amendment 148 and led the group.

The amendments that we are considering include those of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, which seek this numerical assessment by a local authority of current and projected housing needs, the balance of affordable housing and proposals for addressing those needs in local development schemes, which are the documents setting out the programme and timetable for producing plans. Also required is the publication of annual reports of the matters reviewed and the changes proposed to implement local plans, and the publication of a review of a range of environmental, social and economic issues specified in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 prior to preparing its local plan. As I said, I do not think that we are a million miles away on the objectives.

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[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Would the Minister repeat what has been placed in the Library this week? Was this today or yesterday? What notification has been given of that?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am sorry, my Lords, my notes here say that it was placed in the House Library this week for information. Indeed, I think that I referred earlier to draft regulations that have been placed in the Library this week for the information of noble Lords. I hope that that will inform this debate. We are going on to debate housing, though probably not this evening, so noble Lords will have an opportunity to swot up on those.

The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, mentioned neighbourhood planning. She wanted to know how it would protect minority groups. Neighbourhood plans will be tested at an independent examination and must have regard to the national policy and be in line with strategic elements of the local plan. Everyone has the right to be heard at the examination, and human rights issues can be considered.

I come to the point made before we broke by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, about two authorities with some tension trying to deal with an issue that was affecting their neighbourhoods. Compliance with the duty to co-operate is assessed through the independent examination of draft local plans, and failure to demonstrate satisfactory compliance risks the local plan failing the examination. Having no local plan means that councils lose control of how their area will develop. This disfranchises their constituents, who will hold them to account, as I said in my previous comments.

I would like to correct something that I said. When I said that the draft regulations had been put in the Library this week, I meant last week. Unfortunately, we are all suffering from a slight sense of jet lag as the Bill is moving with such rapidity through the House.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, mentioned the low housing build. I am sure that noble Lords opposite will reflect on the fact that this extends back into the period of the previous Administration. We must remember that the market for housing has suffered for reasons entirely unconnected with planning. However, the experience is that numbers in regional plans did not provide a reliable indication of the number of homes actually being built. We know that indicative planning at the regional level for housing need caused huge stress within the system.

We will shortly be publishing the new national planning policy framework, which reviews all national planning policy. I know that my ministerial colleagues understand and take seriously ensuring that the new policy framework makes clear the need for local authorities to understand the housing needs of all people in their area and to monitor the effectiveness of their policies. We will shortly be consulting on the draft of the framework, and will listen to all the views on this and other areas to ensure that the policy is as strong as it can be. I hope that that encourages the noble Baroness and that she will feel free to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Before the noble Baroness answers, can I thank the Minister for alerting us to the regulations which have been posted in the Library? It is very difficult to keep abreast of what is going on in this Bill. We had some government amendments tabled yesterday of which we had no prior notice and it does not help an expeditious focus on the Bill.

Those, together with the NPPF, as soon as we get it, will reassure us on some of these points, although we would like to see this obligation embodied in primary legislation on the face of the Bill. My noble friend Lord Whitty encapsulated a debate which we will have more intensely in due course about the problems and challenges in respect of housing in the UK at the moment. Regional spatial strategies are not necessarily flavour of the month but, if you look at the record, there were years when they were beginning to deliver. If you look at 2007-08, we had the highest levels of house building for something like 20 years, just as that process was beginning to get under way.

I am grateful for the support of other noble Lords who have spoken and I am still unclear about the central issue of when you have a dispute between neighbouring authorities over housing provision and how, in terms of the examination of the plan and whether that plan is sound, those judgments will be made. I reiterate the point so that the noble Lord might reflect on it and possibly write in due course, certainly before Report. If you have two authorities which are at odds and take a different view, does the examination of the plan have to take a view as to which of those two authorities might be the most reasonable in their approach and therefore influence the outcome, or is that process in terms of co-operation just looking at whether each party played the game?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

One of the things the Bill provides for, as we have just discussed in Clause 95, is the duty to co-operate. It is not a light thing; it is a duty. I mentioned in the précis I gave in response to the noble Lord that there are sanctions against authorities whereby they run the risk of their local plan failing the examiner’s test. If the noble Lord would like me to write to him specifically on that I will do so. I apologise if communications have been such that he has not had the usual courtesies extended in terms of being informed about government amendments.

[Baroness Greengross]

I thank noble Lords who have supported this amendment and the Minister for responding in the positive way that he has. This is broader than social housing and, although I am really pleased to hear that everybody agrees that local authorities must know the facts in order to meet the needs of the local population, something is not working at the moment, as the examples I quoted demonstrate. Because there is so much good will towards getting this right, I hope that that is going to happen, with the work that is going to be undertaken and with the commitment of the Minister and the Government to get this right. I reserve my judgment as to whether anything needs to be taken further but, in the mean time, I thank noble Lords again and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I warmly endorse the thrust of the three amendments. It is clearly desirable to have a proper planning framework to encourage retail diversity. However, although that is necessary, it is not a sufficient condition of ensuring that we get retail diversity. There are other significant considerations, particularly financial considerations and other policies which may militate against the achievement of the aspirations of the amendments—with which I entirely concur.

I can cite examples from my experience. When I was chairman of the development committee in Newcastle, I tried to persuade our partners in the city centre shopping centre—we were partners because we owned a substantial stake in it—to diversify the offer to try to get away from chainstores, which were pretty much all we had there, and provide for some niche retailing. Despite the fact that we were significant shareholders, I was totally unable to persuade them to do that.

In another example of the Tesco influence, in the west end of Newcastle adjoining a street in an ethnically mixed area with a lot of little local shops and one or two other retailers, Tesco has secured planning permission to build a largish store on the site of a former hospital. The hospital is very keen to get the money from it, for obvious reasons. I am afraid that council officials supported the recommendation, and indeed an inspector upheld the recommendation. So we have a Tesco store not far from the town centre that is likely to do serious damage to local shopping.

I fear there are policies that might encourage that kind of trade-off, where you are effectively getting a financial benefit—in that case for the hospital but in other cases for the local authority itself. Most of us welcome the proposal for tax increment financing but that puts a premium on promoting development that will generate significant rateable value on which you are then going to borrow. There will be a temptation, frankly, to push that kind of development at the expense of the kind of development that these amendments are interested in promoting, which is less likely to contribute hugely in terms of rates and certainly is more difficult to put together. So you potentially have a policy that might militate against the thrust of these amendments.

We are also now going to get a range of enterprise zones. I do not know if the Minister can tell us whether there will be any restrictions this time round on retail developments in the enterprise zones. As I understand it, it is pretty much carte blanche for whoever develops these zones. Again, I speak from experience—and there are other Members of your Lordships’ House who will know the kind of damage that was done to city centre shopping in places such as Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Birmingham by some very substantial out-of-town shopping developments in enterprise zones. Enterprise zones were originally designed to promote investment in manufacturing industry and so on. It would be unfortunate if again they were to be captured by the interests of large retail developers, thereby threatening diversity in existing centres.

These amendments are entirely on the right lines and I hope that the Government will consider them very seriously. However, I also ask them to recognise that there is a need to look at the other policies that impinge on this area and try to ensure that there is a sensible look across the piece at the implications of a range of policies on the objectives that these amendments seek to promote. Perhaps that is a debate for another occasion but I do not think that we can look at these things in isolation. We need to bring them together, and I hope that these amendments may help us start to do that.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for participating in this useful debate on this group of amendments, which has been informed by my noble friend Lord Cotter’s Retail Development Bill and his experience in this area. I am very grateful to him for moving his amendment. As noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Greaves, have said, the amendments in this group raise similar issues around town centre policy and retail diversity. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is absolutely right: a healthy retail economy is the most important thing in maintaining healthy town centres.

We understand and share the concern to ensure that developments should be sustainable. Planning has a key role in achieving this. The coalition’s commitment to this should not be in doubt. We also acknowledge the value to communities of prosperous and diverse high streets. Town centres are key to sustainable growth and local prosperity. They are at the heart of neighbourhoods, giving communities easier access to shops and services. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, is right that the Government have already made a clear commitment in debates on this Bill in another place—and, as noble Lords will know, as part of the Budget—that we will maintain strong policies that put town centres first for new retail development.

Perhaps I can address the interest expressed by my noble friend Lord Greaves in Mill Road, which is no doubt an important local area in Cambridge. Local councils have many tools to support local shops—not just planning but business improvements districts and, under this Bill, neighbourhood plans—and to bring complementary developments to the area. There are levers available to assist within the armoury that local authorities have at their disposal.

However, I just caution noble Lords that there is a risk that these amendments are a backdoor attempt to get at supermarkets. We must be clear that town centre planning policy is not pro or anti-supermarkets. Planning cannot seek to restrict lawful competition between retailers; in fact, planning policy is, and has always been—under all Governments and under different controlling administrations of local councils—blind to whether the operator of a retail proposal is a supermarket or an independent. We want the right scale and type of development in the right location to meet people’s shopping needs. That is the issue that we need to be addressing. That is what planning policy can support local councils to achieve in a more practical manner than legislation.

Perhaps I may deal with the point that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, made earlier, when he asked about the duty to co-operate in situations where the impact or influence that a development might have crosses local council boundaries. This is analogous to the housing issue. The duty to co-operate is not actually the main safeguard in this respect. Retail developments in one council area must be assessed for their impact on town centres in the catchment area. If catchment areas cross local council boundaries, it makes no difference—the impacts must still be assessed on the basis of the catchment area. This particular safeguard therefore already exists in planning practice.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I just wonder about the definition of town centres. In an area such as Newcastle, the town centre is obvious, but in an area like Doncaster or Kirklees, where a number of towns are brought together under one unitary authority, what would be the definition of a town centre? I am sure that the Minister understands my point.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I think that I can help the noble Lord. Large centres of population have clearly identifiable city or town centres, but the outer suburbs usually have shopping malls and streets that are very important as neighbourhood shopping areas. We really want to be able to strengthen all these traditional shopping areas that people have been able to access. The whole purpose of this is of course to make sure that we do not lose the heart that lies at the centre of all our great communities. The issue applies just as much to a market town—or coastal town, as we were discussing earlier today—as it does to a large city. That is the focus. I will go on to say that the long-expected, shortly-to-arrive national planning policy framework will indeed make clear what our position is on that.

It is really up to the local council to decide what constitutes its view of a town centre and what it wants for the local population. After all, local councils are best placed to set locally relevant policies for the scale and type of retailer they want to see in their area and to integrate them with other policies on housing and economic growth. The best place to do that, then as now, is in the local plan rather than in a separate retail diversity scheme. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, mentioned the word “holistic”. I quite like that word because I think planning should be done on an holistic basis. More widely, local authorities can work with local businesses to help them offer a distinctive and attractive product to consumers using tools such as business improvement districts.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked a specific question about enterprise zones. Any retail development in an enterprise zone will still be subject to the strong town centre first policy as in national planning policy. I hope that that satisfies the noble Lord that the Government are ensuring that this matter is addressed properly. Further, I hope that my responses encourage the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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[Baroness Byford]

My Lords, before the Minister responds to my noble friend, perhaps I may say that I am certainly a great advocate of variety and choice. However, it worries me that it is actually the shoppers themselves who do not support independent shops. That is why those shops have been squeezed out of many places. We need to resolve that in a philosophical way, and I am not sure how that can be done within this Bill.

I understand the point that has been made all around the Committee and I am sympathetic to it, but what we see, particularly in smaller towns, is that people will use the shops in a minor way but continue to do their bulk buying in a supermarket because that suits them better. This is the dilemma we face. Occasionally I think we ought to put our feet where our mouth is, if I can use such a dreadfully vulgar expression. I am not sure how this is to be done in a Bill. I should like to add a word of caution. I am a huge supporter of independents and we use our local shops whenever we can, but we are lucky in that our village is quite large and still has a variety of shops. In some areas, the shops have disappeared, so the nearest shop is probably in fact a supermarket.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Perhaps I might respond because otherwise we will prolong a discussion about something that is not particularly apposite to this group of amendments. I believe that all sides of the Committee have faith in liberal market economies, and one of the effects of liberal market economies is that consumers tend to make their own choices. My noble friend Lady Byford pointed that out. I am really rather sorry that my noble friend Lord True is slightly less enamoured with the market, but I would say to noble Lords that retailing is a highly competitive business. Any noble Lord who has been engaged with retailing in any way will know just how competitive it can be. Indeed, it is changing all the time. The latest development in the area from which I come is not a shop but a shed, where people go to collect their orders that they have placed online.

I am sorry, but we live in rapidly changing times. It is a great challenge to local communities and a great challenge to those who are trusted by election to run local authorities, but the Bill is designed to give local authorities power to set the framework in which I suspect noble Lords will all accept that the market has to operate. I hope that it is possible for noble Lords not to press their amendments at this stage.

[Lord Greaves]

I shall certainly not move my amendment when I come to it, but I want to make a slightly different point. My amendment does not in any way suggest that there should not be supermarkets of any size. It suggests that in any particular place there should be an appropriate balance which ought to be determined by local people in the normal processes of discussion and so on. It may well be that it is unreasonable to keep out a small supermarket from a shopping street. It seems to me that it is not unreasonable to prevent that shopping street being turned over to three or four such shops, or two or three such shops, which then drive the others out—that is not a matter of competition, it is anti-competition, because it is driving out the people who cannot compete at that level. Obviously, we all agree with the market, but I agree entirely with my noble friend Lord True—the Government need to think a bit more about this.

It is absolutely true that it is a very difficult world out there for retailers, but shopping centres, high streets and town centres can, to a degree, make their own fortune. If there is sufficient campaigning desire locally, as there is at Mill Road in Cambridge, that must in itself be a plus factor in keeping that shopping street going as a diverse street. I will refer yet again to my own town of Colne where, over decades, there have been active groups of local councillors, traders, residents, historians and others interested in the town centre who have formed organisations, campaigned and actually rolled up their sleeves and done things to make Colne an attractive place to be. If you have a shopping centre and a high street which is attractive and somewhere local people are proud of, that gives the traders, who are all part of this, a head start. There are a great many towns the same size as Colne across the north of England which have something like 30 per cent or 40 per cent of their properties boarded up and empty now. I dare not say that Colne is thriving, because every time I say that, the local people—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

May I remind noble Lords that I have responded on behalf of the Government to these amendments and I believe that the noble Lord is reiterating arguments which have been very well laid before the Committee already. We want to get through quite a lot of business and I hope that my noble friend will appreciate my interruption—I hope that I have not annoyed him to the point at which he will press his amendment. Perhaps he will wind up.

[Lord Greaves]

I shall say one more thing. I apologise if I am going on too long. I invite the noble Lord, who is into flowers, to come to Colne and look at all the flowers in Colne now, done by the wonderful organisation Colne in Bloom as part of the Britain in Bloom system. He would be proud of it and it is the kind of thing that keeps people in the town and encourages people to shop there. I invite him to come to Colne; he would be proud of all the flowers there.

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[Lord Boyd of Duncansby]

This is the first time that I have spoken in this stage of the Bill so I declare an interest as a solicitor in private practice, mostly in Scotland but also to some extent in England. I want to make two quick points. First, the Climate Change Act establishes legally binding objectives and targets for the reduction of carbon emissions by 2050. The development plan is the way in which the built environment is shaped for the future. It is really important that we ensure a seamless see-through in meeting these targets. The development plan is an important element of that.

Secondly, the national policy statements on nationally significant infrastructure projects all have within them considerable sections targeted at climate change. The Government are to be congratulated on taking forward those national policy statements in that way. There is an argument that, if the national policy statements make such a priority of ensuring that developments meet the carbon target, surely the development plan fulfils a similar function.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I share the concern of those wishing to be ambitious in meeting the challenges of climate change. I also agree that planning has a big part to play. We have underlined this in the carbon plan, our response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s report on adaptation and—as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, will know—the renewable energy road map published today. The national planning policy framework, which we will publish very shortly for consultation, will make tackling climate change a priority for planning.

We already have a climate change duty on plan-making which was introduced by the previous Government. That duty seemed to them to be sensible and I agree—let me explain why. The current, existing duty expects a local council’s development plan documents, taken as a whole as their local plan, to include policies designed to contribute to mitigating and adapting to climate change. Neighbourhood development plans will need to be in general conformity with the strategic policies in local plans, including policies on climate change. The national planning policy framework will be clear on planning’s important role in rising to the climate change challenge. On the point of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, the NPPF will be clear on the need to cut carbon emissions and properly adapt to the impacts of climate change, including flooding.

Local planning authorities must have regard to national policy in preparing their development plan documents, as well as in determining planning applications. Neighbourhood development plans will need to be appropriate, having regard to this national policy. The current duty is a sensible approach—I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd of Duncansby, will accept that. It reflects that places are different and will be able to make different contributions to tackling climate change. It also recognises that not every development plan document, as a component of the local plan, can make the same contribution. One of the anxieties I have about these amendments, for example, is how every local planning authority would ensure that development in their area achieves reductions of greenhouse gas emissions in line with the national carbon budgets. Places are very different. Some are able to make big contributions, others less so however hard they try. For instance, some have natural energy resources, be it geothermal or wind in more exposed rural areas, that other areas just do not have.

While I understand the direction of travel intended by the two amendments in this group, I do not believe it will help get us to where we want to be in a trouble-free way. For that reason, I cannot support these amendments. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that the combination of the existing duty and planning policy within the framework provided by the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 makes this amendment unnecessary and I hope she will feel able to withdraw it, because I do not think there is any disagreement between us on the objectives we are seeking to achieve. It is just whether these amendments achieve that objective.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I am grateful to the noble Lord and, if I understand him correctly, he is saying the amendments are unnecessary because such provisions are already included. I suppose I had hoped that the temptation of joined-up government would have been irresistible and he would have wanted to accept these amendments to the Bill to make it absolutely clear that this is a thread that runs through all government policies.

I will take away and listen to what he has said. I am not for one minute suggesting that in every case the same contribution should be made to neighbourhood plans, but there should be some consideration of these issues at every level of the planning stage. I am grateful for his explanation. There is not much between us in terms of what we are seeking to do but I will look at that and be happy to withdraw my amendment at this stage.

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[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for introducing these amendments. I understand his purpose, but we are not minded to accept them. We are concerned particularly about the first two amendments, Amendments 148ZZZZBB and 148ZZZZBC, because they would reintroduce regulatory bureaucracy by restricting councils from making small text edits, such as correcting mistakes, page numbers and notation, before adopting their development plan documents. We do not see that that can possibly be justified.

If noble Lords are concerned that councils are being given powers to adopt or change policies without proper public debate, I reassure them that this is not the case. The Bill makes sure that councillors can adopt plans only when they are considered suitable by the inspector. We trust councillors to prepare plans that reflect local needs and bring forward sustainable economic growth.

Amendment 148ZZZZBD seeks to remove the Secretary of State’s existing powers to direct withdrawal of a council’s local plans during examination. We disagree with my noble friend on this issue, and we think that this is bottom-up. We have introduced Clause 97(5) to retain the existing backstop power in exceptional circumstances only, alongside our proposals in Clause 97(4), which will allow councils to withdraw their plans at any time before adoption. We believe that that is the right approach.

Amendments 148ZZZZBE, 148ZZZZBF and 148ZZZZBG collectively seek to remove sections from the 2004 planning Act that allow the Secretary of State to intervene in the preparation of local plans. These are existing long-standing measures that have not been used by this Government. In a practical sense, the powers are simply existing safeguards, which a future Government may consider it appropriate to use in the highly exceptional circumstance when a council is unwilling or unable to develop plans for their area. It acts as a useful reminder for local communities that their own councils should plan properly on their behalf and that they can hold them to account. I hope that with those assurances the noble Lord is prepared to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I am prepared to withdraw my amendment. I did not think I would get anywhere, but it is still very disappointing. The Minister said that the Government trust local councils to produce plans that will produce sustainable development, and so on. The truth of the matter is that no Government nowadays trust local councils at all unless they do what the Government or the inspector want, or follow the detailed rules and regulations. It is a very sad state of affairs, but it is clearly going to continue for some time. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord True]

My Lords, I am conscious of the need to make haste and I am perhaps making too much. There are a lot of “nots” in this amendment. Obviously where local development frameworks are in place, local authorities are consistently working on development plan documents. In any clarification that may be being made, we would not want to arrive at a situation in which an emerging policy of an authority, which is traditionally given some weight by planning committees and often by the inspector, is disallowed because the final plan has not yet been formally adopted after the hearing by the inspector. I do not expect my noble friend to respond in detail on that point, but it is an extremely important point because emerging DPDs are very often the reflection of the latest thinking of local people and a response to localist pressure.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, is quite right in moving this probing amendment to emphasise that the preparation of plans is a great challenge for local authorities. It is central to the Localism Bill and is certainly very important for them. We believe in a timely plan-led system, free from unnecessary targets imposed by central government. We trust local councils and their communities to choose to prepare plans where they feel that they need to shape development in their areas as quickly as they can. This is why we have been careful to retain the basic process of developing local plans, including public examination, and we are trying to make them work better in the interests of transparency and accountability.

The noble Lord’s amendment, which I accept is probing, would penalise councils without adopted plans in place by the time the Bill is enacted. I think we would all accept that this would not achieve good, responsible local planning. Perhaps I can help the noble Lord, because we agree that councils should get on with their plans. Our presumption in favour of sustainable development would be the right tool to ensure that planning applications are considered. We are clear that the presumption should be that councils should say yes to development if their plans are out of date. While we share the previous Government’s ambition that the plans should not be delayed, we know that their approach of top-down deadlines imposed in the 2004 Act just did not work.

In addition, the amendment also comes across as an unnecessarily centralising measure. Instead we want to use positive incentives, such as the new homes bonus and the community infrastructure levy, to encourage councils to plan properly. We are clear that councils will be expected to say yes to development where their plans are out of date. There is a steady flow of plans coming through and we do not believe that legislating for deadlines is the right approach. The aforementioned NPPF and a policy presumption in favour of sustainable development are the right tools. Together they are more immediate and effective levers that will incentivise the same behaviour.

The amendment would also undermine a fundamental part of the system by removing the discretion from the decision-maker to determine what issues should be material considerations to an individual case. With those assurances, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, is in a position to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I am grateful to the Minister. I will certainly withdraw the amendment, but I am still a little unclear about the situation in which the local planning authority has not yet gone through the processes and got its local development plan in place. What will determine the acceptability of planning permissions that are sought in the interim? Very soon there will be the NPPF but I understand that it will be written at a fairly generic level—necessarily, as this is the virtue that has been made of it by the Government—so it will not pick up a lot of detail. How will those issues be settled, with the lacuna of no current plan? On what criteria will planning applications be made?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I think I gave the noble Lord the answer to this when I said that the presumption would be that the planning should be in accordance with the NPPF and any other material considerations. Outside that, the presumption must be that approval is given, so there is an incentive for local authorities to get these plans in place.

[Lord Berkeley]

Could the Minister clarify that? Is there not going to be a sort of bonanza before the LDP is finally approved? Before that, all the applicants will have to do is comply with the NPPF, which must be a very high-level document. Will there not be a flood of planning applications that, as the Minister said, the local authority will probably have to approve?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, there is an incentive for local authorities to get these plans in place—I think I have made that point throughout our discussions on these amendments—and all other material considerations have to be met, so it does not happen totally in the void. Local authorities must have regard to their own circumstances when taking other matters into account, which is all the more reason for them to be working on these plans at the present time.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister again. I think that my noble friend Lord Berkeley has articulated the issue more effectively than I did. I would like to read the record on this. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.