Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, we have had some very powerful speeches in support of incorporating local nature recovery plans into the planning system. I wholeheartedly agree with my noble friends Lady Parminter and Lord Teverson, and others such as the noble Baronesses, Lady Willis of Summertown and Lady Jones of Whitchurch. They made powerful speeches, so I do not need to add to their arguments.

However, I want to make two points, the first of which is the importance of stitching together different strategies across different government departments. This, in essence, is what Amendment 184ZA is about—that what was agreed in the Environment Act must be incorporated where it matters: in local plans and national development management planning.

Secondly, the Environment Act currently requires local plans and local planning authorities to achieve a 10% biodiversity net gain in any planning application, but it is not that straightforward. If the applicant is unable to improve the site on which it is developing by a 10% net gain—and a recent application I had resulted in a minus 19% biodiversity figure—the next option in the cascade of biodiversity options is for the applicant to purchase a nearby greenfield site and improve the biodiversity there. If that does not work, you get to commuted sums, whereby the applicant has to provide a sum of money for the local authority to improve biodiversity somewhere else entirely. To me, that is not what biodiversity net gain should be about.

As I have declared on many occasions, I am a councillor in Kirklees. Recently, I had a major application in my ward, and the applicant was unable to pursue any of those options. The commuted sum was for somewhere else entirely, and biodiversity was depleted in the area applied for. That is why these local nature recovery strategies are so important: they put that at the heart of local planning policies and outcomes, so that applications cannot fob off a lack of biodiversity net gain into some other part of a council district.

This amendment has my wholehearted support, and I hope that my noble friend will bring it back on Report if the Government will not accede to it now.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been a very good debate, and there clearly is a lot of support for the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. We also strongly support them.

As has been discussed, the Environment Act created the local nature recovery strategies and introduced the statement of biodiversity priorities for local areas, accompanied by the habitat map, which identifies where people can contribute to enhancing biodiversity. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, these are not just nice to have; they are essential if we are to not simply reverse the decline but improve the situation. We know that local nature recovery strategies have the potential to really drive forward the recovery that is so badly needed. Importantly, they bring local knowledge and expertise into play. Also, as we have heard, the duty to apply the local nature recovery strategies in decision-making such as planning is too weak and will have a negative impact on their effectiveness.

My noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch pointed out that the Government chose not to accept amendments tabled during the passage of the Environment Bill that would have required local authorities to take close account of local nature recovery strategy land identifications when making planning decisions. She also referred to the pledges made by the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith. Some of us who spent a lot of time considering that Bill had expectations in this area, and I am pleased that the noble Baroness has tabled these amendments so that we can debate those expectations.

The noble Baroness made it clear that the guidance for authorities on the application of the strategies is just not strong enough. As a result, despite groups mapping sites that will be essential to nature recovery in a local area, local authorities will not necessarily have to take proper notice if they do not want to. That is the fundamental problem, and we do not want lots of time and effort on the part of local nature recovery strategy groups and supporting bodies such as Natural England to be wasted, and opportunities then completely missed.

These amendments, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and supported by many noble Lords, would rightly prevent any wasted effort and enable the local nature recovery strategies to achieve their full potential. Incorporating them into local planning authorities’ development plans is surely an obvious way to go about this. We do not want them to be weak documents, sitting on a shelf somewhere and not informing proper strategic day-to-day planning decisions. We need them to make a real difference, not just a tangible one.

As we have heard, many people think that greater weight should be given in planning to local nature recovery strategies. The Environmental Audit Committee and the Office for Environmental Protection have supported this approach. The noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, talked about our commitments at COP 26, saying that there is a gap between what we say we will do and what we actually do, and that planning plays a very important role in nature recovery. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, asked, what are our priorities for the future? How will we meet the government targets? Surely, anything that helps deliver the local nature recovery strategies is to be welcomed. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, certainly thought this: he made it very clear that he thinks it important that this be included.

I hope that the Minister agrees with those who have spoken today and sees the absolute sense in accepting these amendments.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I start by wishing the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, a speedy recovery, and I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Willis, and others, for bringing forward these amendments. There is a lot of unity in this Chamber regarding what we are seeking to achieve here, and I have listened with great interest to the debate.

On the last point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, this is an attempt to hard-wire nature into our planning system. Many will argue that it already is, but as has been pointed out by many others, nature continues to be depleted. Species decline is now a serious crisis. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, pointed out, this is not just an environmental crisis but an economic one, as the Dasgupta review so vitally illustrated.

Amendments 184ZA and 242I in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, provide a revision of the prior amendment, Amendment 184, to set out the relationship between local nature recovery strategies and development plans, to ensure that local nature recovery strategies’ objectives are reflected in development plans. These amendments would require that the Secretary of State’s guidance on how to have regard to local nature recovery strategies must include information on the degree of compliance with them.

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[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, yesterday I had the privilege of walking along a body of water called Frenchman’s Creek, which—some noble Lords may know—was made famous by the novel of Daphne du Maurier. I was walking through what is one of the remains of the UK’s temperate rainforest. I was in a green space, and I was next to a blue space, which fed out into the Helford River, which went out into the channel. You could see the ocean beyond that. That is why I support Amendment 241, in particular. This amendment is all about giving everybody access to those green and blue spaces, which is a privilege I have, living in the far south-west of this nation. I was walking, but I might have been running or cycling, although I do not think I would have been wheeling. All those types of exercise are absolutely vital to everybody.

To me, the theme of this debate has been that if we really want to level up, as my noble friend Lord Stunell mentioned, health and life expectancy are fundamental to that. That is why I support Amendment 241 and many others here as well. I hope that the Government will be able to positively respond to that.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very important discussion—a very long discussion—with an awful lot for the Minister to consider, both in his summing up and afterwards. It has been important because it is about how our planning system affects our health. It has also brought some specific tangible changes which could be prioritised to make a difference, and which are currently ignored in the Bill and in the National Planning Policy Framework review. This is despite the fact that there are not just missions on decent homes but missions on narrowing the gap of healthy life expectancy and on improving well-being. If this is a levelling-up Bill, these threads need to go through it. The planning section is an important area whereby we can make changes to health and well-being. I think the link to planning is particularly relevant when you look at homes, home standards and the standards of our future homes. The amendments here address these gaps. If we are genuinely going to make a difference here, we have to put people right at the centre of our planning system.

First, I will look at the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. I have an amendment in this group to probe the supply of healthy homes, but the debate around the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, have clearly covered what my amendment was looking to probe, in a far more effective way. As has already been said, we need to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, on his tenacity and refusal to give up on the fact that people’s health and well-being need to be put right at the heart of how we regulate the built environment. We should also congratulate the Town and Country Planning Association and its campaign to do the same. This is a very important issue.

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[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

How does the Minister see the role of town and parish councils within all this? Clearly, they will have an interest, yet they are not mentioned anywhere.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I foresee that their views would go up through the stages, and any good district council would ask for their views. Also, of course, they would probably be involved in any neighbourhood planning that is happening as well, so those plans would also move on up into it.

Amendment 200A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, addresses the provision of sites for health and social care within a joint spatial development strategy. There is already broad provision for considering these needs in a joint spatial development strategy, through new Sections 15AA(1) and (2) which the Bill will insert into the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. These provisions are written deliberately broadly to enable planning authorities to consider the full range of land use and infrastructure requirements that are important to an area. I hope, therefore, that the noble Baroness will accept that the current wording in the Bill continues to enable the consideration of issues relating to the provision of health and care services in an area.

Amendment 200, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lansley, is intended to ensure that any joint spatial development strategy includes provision for employment sites which are of strategic importance for the economic development of an area. I can reassure my noble friend that new Section 15AA(1) already provides that a joint SDS may include policy relating to

“the development and use of land in the joint strategy area”.

This is a flexible provision that allows the planning authorities to include whatever policies they feel are necessary, with some caveats relating to those policies being of strategic importance and relating to the characteristics or circumstances of the area. For this reason, I do not think that we need a more specific provision at this point.