Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Bill
Debate between Richard Bacon and Lyn Brown
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), which would require statutory consultation before guidance was introduced.
When I originally drafted the Bill, I considered whether there should be consultation before the guidance, and whether it should be statutory. It is worth saying to my hon. Friend that the Bill is quite thin and will work satisfactorily only with guidance—he is right to identify that guidance is an important component. My hon. Friend alluded to the reason for that: the range of authorities that are planning authorities is very wide.
The Bill does two things: it requires planning authorities—the Bill calls them “relevant authorities”—to keep a register; and it requires them to have regard to that register when exercising their statutory functions, whether that is planning, housing, the disposal of land or regeneration. The range of authorities that are planning authorities is wide. For example, an inner-London borough is a planning authority, but so is a national park. In a rural area such as South Norfolk, a rural district council, as we called them in the old days, is a district council and therefore a planning authority. It is not possible to imagine a set of rules or guidance that would be applicable equally to an inner-London borough and a national park. What might be reasonable for us to expect of a planning authority in a mixed rural and urban area with plenty of land to show that it had had regard to its register, might be unreasonable for us to expect of a planning authority in a dense inner-London borough that has much greater land availability problems. For different reasons, it might not be reasonable for us to expect the same thing of a planning authority such as a national park. Any guidance would therefore by its nature be varied, depending on the circumstances.
My hon. Friend mentioned the role of the vanguard councils. He is right that they are crucial. With a small pot of money from the Department for Communities and Local Government, they are experimenting and establishing what works best in terms of establishing and operating a register. The vanguard councils are doing voluntarily and willingly what will in due course become a duty for all councils. The idea is that all councils that are faced with the new duty—the duty to operate a register and to have regard to it—can learn from the vanguard councils about the best way to set up and operate a register, and integrate the running of the register with the council’s planning, housing, land disposal and regeneration functions.
It would be wrong to be over-prescriptive and to place new burdens on councils, especially given that the vanguard councils from which much of the learning will come are at an early stage. I have no doubt that in due course as the Bill is implemented, it will be sensible in most cases for the Department to consult local planning authorities of different types, depending on the nature of the guidance it wishes to issue in different cases. It would particularly be worth consulting vanguard councils, which will have valuable experience to share. That is the point of the vanguards.
My hon. Friend’s proposal to turn the consultation process, which I am sure will happen, into a legal obligation with a statutory three-month consultation period would inevitably create more inertia, which is precisely what the Bill aims to cut through. The aim of the Bill is to start to unblock the logjam of housing supply by allowing customers more say over what they want rather than leaving them little choice but to accept what a big developer tells them they want. The underlying philosophical drive behind the Bill is that if we build more houses as if customers matter, we will end up with more houses, which is what the nation so badly needs. The aim is most definitely not to create yet more process and inevitably more delay, which I fear statutory consultation would do.
I understand my hon. Friend’s concerns, but I hope he will agree that statutory consultation is not necessary and consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) for his interest in the Bill and for his speech.
As hon. Members know, the Opposition support the Bill and see no reason to support the amendment in that form. We are convinced by the points made by the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) and are content with the Bill.