Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate both maiden speakers on excellent and powerful contributions.

As others have said, the Bill as it stands leaves a great deal to be desired. Opportunities to deal with many issues have been missed, from addressing, for instance, how our creative industries could play a greater role in levelling up to including reference to climate issues in the planning elements of the Bill. Smaller but important issues have been missed, such as electrical safety in short-term lets. Electrical Safety First points out that there is an alarming situation where STLs are not covered by the same electrical safety regulations as traditional holiday accommodation, rented accommodation or STLs in Scotland.

However, those and many other issues can be covered by amendments. I want to concentrate on one issue that has not yet been mentioned: the failure of the Bill to tackle inequalities between rural and urban areas. Back in 2019, I chaired the Select Committee on the Rural Economy. Our inquiry found that rural communities and the economies in them have been ignored and underrated for too long, with government policies designed primarily for urban areas. Compared to such areas, we discovered that in rural ones: house prices were higher while wages were lower; council taxes were higher while government support for their councils was lower; funding per head for services such as healthcare, policing and public transport was lower despite costing more to provide; and broadband, business support, banking and other services lagged way behind those in urban areas. The committee concluded:

“We must act now to reverse this trend, but we can no longer allow the clear inequalities between the urban and rural to continue unchecked.”


It is clear—at least to me—that any Bill that aims to level up should have, at least as one of its key components, steps that will start the process of levelling up between urban and rural communities. The challenge now is well illustrated by recent work by the Rural Services Network. Using government headline metrics, it demonstrated that if all rural areas together were treated as a single region, their need for levelling up would be greater than any other region in the country. However, the Bill does nothing to address that challenge, which is especially surprising given the promises made by the Government when they responded to that Rural Economy Select Committee report. Sadly, in their response they rejected our key proposal for a comprehensive rural strategy but promised—back in 2019—that all future policies would be rural proofed.

I have therefore looked for evidence that the Bill before us has been rural proofed. There is nothing in either the Bill itself or the Explanatory Memorandum that refers to rural proofing. The evidence of any desire by government to begin the process of levelling up between urban and rural communities, whether in the Bill or in any other actions, is hard to find.

Analysis by the Rural Services Network also showed that current government-funded spending power for predominantly rural areas lags way behind that for predominantly urban areas. Government grants per head for services such as police and public health and even from the UK shared prosperity fund—excluding Cornwall—are correspondingly lower in rural areas at a time when, for example, house prices are rising faster than elsewhere.

Therefore the challenge remains, despite even more recent promises that we heard when the White Paper was published. In June last year a departmental spokesman said:

“Rural areas are at the heart of our levelling-up agenda. Our White Paper is a plan for everyone, including rural communities who rightly expect and deserve access to better services, quicker transport and quality education.”


I have two simple questions for the Minister. Where is the evidence that rural areas are at the heart of the levelling-up agenda, and what happened to the requirement to rurally proof Bills, including this one? It appears that once again our rural communities are being left behind.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Foster of Bath]

3: Clause 1, page 1, line 9, after “disparities” insert “including between predominantly urban and predominantly rural areas”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that the objectives the Government intends to pursue to reduce geographical disparities will include the reduction of disparities between predominantly urban and predominantly rural areas.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group are about ensuring that the levelling-up agenda addresses the needs of rural and coastal communities, which many of us believe have been left behind—some would say ignored—by the policies of successive Governments, which have focused on the needs of urban communities. In moving Amendment 3 and speaking to Amendments 11, 12 and 35 in my name, I thank other noble Lords who have supported them. I certainly support the other amendments in this group, which complement my own.

At Second Reading, I reminded your Lordships that back in 2019 I chaired the Select Committee on the Rural Economy. Our inquiry found that rural communities and the economies in them have been ignored and underrated for too long, with government policies designed primarily for urban areas. Compared with such areas, we discovered that in rural ones, house prices were higher while wages were lower; council taxes were higher while Governments’ support for their councils was lower; funding per head for services such as healthcare, policing and public transport was lower, despite costing more to provide; and broadband business support, banking and other services lagged way behind those in urban areas. We concluded that we must act now to reverse this trend, and that we can no longer allow the clear inequalities between the urban and rural to continue unchecked. Yet there is no evidence that any serious efforts have been made to address these inequalities since that time.

More recently, writing in the House magazine just last month, the Conservative MP for North Devon, Selaine Saxby, wrote,

“there are far too many left behind rural and coastal communities, often overlooked by government policies.”

This view is echoing the April 2022 report by the APPG for the rural powerhouse, Levelling Up the Rural Economy, which said:

“The overwhelming consensus was that no government in recent memory has had a programme to unlock the economic and social potential of the countryside.”


The Rural Services Network has illustrated this brilliantly by using government headline metrics to show that, if all rural areas together were treated as a single region, their need for levelling up would be greater than that of any other region in the country.

Despite Selaine Saxby’s call for

“more consideration of rurality when considering policies and funding decisions”,

it is clearly not currently happening. As the RSN has shown, current government-funded spending power for predominantly rural areas lags way behind that for predominantly urban areas. Government grants per head for services such as police and public health—and even from the UK shared prosperity fund, excluding Cornwall—are lower in rural areas. A different approach, one that takes account of the very special and varied needs of rural and coastal communities, would be of enormous benefit to not just the individuals living in such communities but to the overall economy of the country.

As the APPG report points out, at present,

“the rural economy is 18% less productive than the national average. Closing this gap would be worth up to £43bn in England alone”,

with

“the creation of hundreds of thousands of good jobs in areas so often blighted by underemployment”.

So it would have been reasonable to assume that, as a major element, the Government’s levelling-up agenda would have had measures designed to close that gap. That is what they actually promised. When the White Paper was published last year, a departmental spokesman said:

“Rural areas are at the heart of our levelling-up agenda. Our White Paper is a plan for everyone, including rural communities who rightly expect and deserve access to better services, quicker transport and quality education.”


I believe that the Government also said this in their second report on rural proofing, an issue to which I will return in a second. They are fine words, but it appears that they are not backed by action. There is nothing in the Bill or the Explanatory Memorandum that refers to rural issues. There is no evidence whatever that the Bill has a focus on the need to level up between urban and rural, as either an objective or part of a mission.

Amendments 3, 12 and 36, together with Amendment 5 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, are needed to ensure that the Government’s stated intention becomes part of the legislation and hence a driver for measures to close the urban-rural gap. They insert the reduction of the disparities between urban and rural as an objective and part of the missions. A similar case can be made—and, no doubt, will be, by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Taylor of Stevenage—for coastal communities, as covered in Amendments 53 and 488.

In addition, two other things are needed. We have to ensure that all the measures taken by government, whether arising from the Bill or any other, take account of the often very different needs of rural communities. That requires ensuring that all go through a process of rural proofing. The Lords Select Committee report that I referred to earlier called for the whole process of rural proofing to be significantly improved. In responding, the Government agreed. They accepted that “more can be done” and promised the development and promotion of a greater understanding across departments of the opportunities and challenges in rural areas, the development of supporting resources and the establishment of a rural affairs board.

--- Later in debate ---

In light of these efforts and commitments, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, particularly the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, who referenced the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, which, together with my Amendment 3, focused the debate very clearly on the difference in the current approach between urban and rural.

I was heartened by a couple of things the Minister said. First, I was genuinely pleased by her remarks about the data transformation programme that is taking place. Like her, I might have to put a towel over my head later tonight in order to read the detail and understand it. Talk about timely data, granular data, harmonised data at a subnational level, and then gathering, storing and manipulating it is great—as long as that data is at a very refined subnational level, not just a regional level. However, I think that is what the Minister said we are going to get.

I was also heartened by the Minister’s reference to the need for different solutions in different places—a place-based approach, which I think is fundamental. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, talked about problems in rural areas, such as with transport and education. I was involved, not very many years ago, in a conversation with a group of people looking at how to deal with FE college students in rural areas being unable to get to work experience placements. The solution arrived at was giving free bus passes to all 16 to 19-year-olds, which sounds great—until there are no buses. A solution was found in some rural areas and it is still operating: “wheels to work”. It is the local solution that is necessary, but if that is going to happen, there needs to be local leadership and a fair funding formula that enables the funds needed.

Notwithstanding the list the Minister just gave us of things she claims the Government are doing to help rural and coastal areas, the RSN analysis clearly shows that they are still losing out. So, while we welcome some moves in the right direction, they do not go far enough. I will of course withdraw the amendment for now, but so far I have been given no justification whatever for why, since the Government claim to believe in what I am saying, they are not prepared to put this on the face of the Bill. For the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 3 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I want to talk briefly about the granularity of data, the choice of data and its use, and the need for independent assessment and evaluation of the use of that data in judging the success or otherwise of attempts to level up. On Monday, I raised the need for granularity of data, particularly in relation to my concern about the disparities between urban and rural areas. I am very pleased to see that Amendment 10—I support my noble friend, and my name is on the amendment—proposes that the granularity could be done perhaps at local authority level and even, where possible, at postcode level. The noble Baroness’s Amendment 58 talks about data collection at the level of

“regions, counties, councils and council wards”.

We should all be thankful to the Minister, because she has already very helpfully responded to many of these concerns in a response on Monday to my request for granularity. She agreed with the sentiments but then went on to provide rather more detail, which she said was very complicated. I promised to go away and put a wet towel on my head and look at it in detail afterwards, as she promised she would—I suspect we both now have. It is very interesting to read. She told us what is happening within government to better identify geographical disparities, and talked about

“data visualisation and experimentation techniques”

and

“a transformative data analysis strategy at subnational level.”

I still do not really know what that all is, which is the point of what I want to say, but crucially, the Minister said that:

“The spatial data unit will also consider the differences between geographical areas, such as regions, counties, councils, and even down to council wards, according to the needs and objectives of specific missions or policy areas.”—[Official Report, 20/2/23; col. 1482.]


We should be enormously grateful that that is on the record.

However, the problem is that we also have to be very clear about how the data is going to be used. We might collect it at a granular level but I hope we will also be able to have more detail about how the data is going to be used. Why? Because, sadly, there have been examples where this Government claim to have collected and used data but that does not really seem to follow.

I note, for example, that the current Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced a tranche of the levelling-up fund allocations. In the press conference that followed, when he was asked how this money had been allocated, he said it was

“based on an index of economic need which is transparently published”.

However, when people went to look for this transparently published documentation, they could not find any. The Treasury had to come up with a statement afterwards to say that the information was coming “shortly” but was unable to say when that would be. When at a later stage people questioned how this all worked, the Treasury spokesman, in explaining the bandings which had apparently been used to allocate how the money was spent, went on to say:

“The bandings do not represent eligibility criteria—and money will be allocated to the areas most in need. Further technical details will be published by the government in due course.”


When, in due course, it eventually came out, and there were queries about all this, the Treasury announced that the factors used included

“strategic alignment with government priorities”,

whatever that may mean.

My point is that it is really good that we are going to have granular data, and I think we should specify in the Bill how that is going to be done. But we also need openness and honesty about how the data is going to be used. That is why the other amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, is so important, talking as it does about the independent body that will analyse this information.

My final point is simply that I absolutely accept what the Minister says about her concern about putting all the missions on the face of the Bill. But it seems to me that the public have a right to know the key areas of concern that we will use to judge whether levelling up between the various areas of the country has taken place or not. My noble friend on the Front Bench used a very good phrase: she said we should have it in “headline form”. That is really what my noble friend’s Amendment 10 does. It makes a suggestion; I am sure he would accept it is a starter for ten. Other issues have been raised; I could raise, for instance, the issue of home insulation, which is a hobby-horse of mine. In any case, we have time, as my noble friend said, between now and Report to actually get consensus across the House on what the key headline issues are that we are keen to tackle. We can then have separate debates elsewhere about the details. So I think all three amendments in this group cover these three crucial areas of having granularity of data, having a clear understanding of how the data is going to be used and independently evaluated, and what the data is actually going to cover: what are the key issues of concern that we have in the whole effort to level up?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am beginning to think that eight days is not enough for Committee. I am sorry about that, but it is such an exciting Bill and we all have so much to say. The point about which data to collect is interesting, because, of course, there is data that is extremely negative and it would be difficult, perhaps, to find a category for it. For example, so far, a huge amount of money has been wasted by the levelling-up funds, because local authorities have often used a lot of time and energy putting together bids that have failed. Are the Government going to collect the data on that waste of money, which obviously —in these days of 13 years of underinvestment in councils and the loss of EU structural funds—means a lot to councils and will affect the service that they can give to their residents? There has been a failure of levelling up already and perhaps we are not measuring everything we should be measuring.

There are a couple of dozen local authorities run by Greens as part of the administration. Many Green councillors have expressed their dismay to me at the level of waste in the levelling-up fund, and it very much concerns me. Instead of taking a long-term view of what is needed, the Government sought quick wins, quite understandably; I can entirely support that idea. However, they demanded submission of “shovel-ready projects”, combined with tight deadlines for submissions, so local authorities had to quickly piece together bids, rather than taking the time to develop what they might have thought were the most impactful and valuable project proposals for their areas. Personally, I see this as a continuation of Boris Johnson’s natural urge—which I saw quite a lot of when he was Mayor of London—to splash money around on grand ideas that grabbed headlines but often failed to come to any sort of fruition.

So far, I do not think the levelling-up fund has been value for money, and it has not been targeted at areas that need it most. There has been a lot of political decision-making about where the funds go, and it is alleged that they have disproportionately benefited Conservative-voting areas. The Government now need to give local authorities a long-term view of what is needed and let them put together long-term proposals. They need capital funds that will be made available over a period of years and support them to dig deep into what would benefit their own areas, because they will know best. I can see a lot of late nights in my future with this Bill, and I do hope that the Government will listen to what we are saying.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I do not know, but the council is already in train and working. On the fact that it has not come to Parliament, I will ask what the remit has been for the past year. It may have been a remit just to get together on some early work, but I will get an answer to my noble friend on that.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I am sorry to interrupt because I know that the Minister wants to get on, but can she tell us at least whether the advisory board has expressed any view on the levelling-up Bill before us, and whether she will make that public?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I do not know whether it has any views on it at the moment, but I will ask that question.

Alongside this, my department has also established a new deep-dive team, to take a new place-based approach to policy-making. This is quite important. This team gets to know specific places. To date, these places have included Blackpool and Grimsby. It combines the granular data that we are beginning to put together with local knowledge, to identify a set of policy interventions to make a noticeable difference to the people living there.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Taylor of Stevenage and Lady Young of Old Scone, brought up individuals. We go down to council wards, but there are people. We are talking about people. The levelling-up White Paper is a plan for everyone. The focus is on the left-behind places, but the ultimate goal of levelling-up policies is to improve the living standards and quality of life of the people living in those places. This means that where individuals with certain protected characteristics are disproportionately affected, they will benefit from the whole levelling-up programme policies and systems change. For example, some ethnic minority groups have, on average, poorer health outcomes. They are more likely to be living in non-decent homes. By aiming to reduce these disparities across the UK and in places where they are most stark, levelling up will have a positive impact on the places and, as importantly, on the people.

There were a number of questions or comments on the levelling-up fund, which I would suggest are probably for the sixth group of amendments. However, I will answer a couple of them; they were all more or less the same views. The levelling-up fund index identifies those places in greatest need, as we have heard, of this type of investment. In this round 2, 66% of funding has gone to category 1. Those are the places of greatest need. Over rounds 1 and 2, 69% of funding has gone to category 1. I can also say that in investment per head of population, the highest investment went to Wales, followed by the north-west and then the north-east. The money is going to the right places but that is just as an aside because this will come up again in group six.

This approach, set out in the Bill, sets a clear, uncluttered and long-lasting framework for measuring the progress of levelling-up missions. I hope that this provides the noble Lord sufficient assurance to withdraw his amendment.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, when I spoke earlier, I should have referred to my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I apologise to the Committee for that.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, before I turn to Amendment 71, I place on record a very personal—and it is not just mine—support for what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said a few minutes ago about the vital importance of allowing tiers of local government to decide for themselves how they want to organise their decision-making processes. That is fundamental.

In terms of one of those tiers of local governance, we have already heard throughout the course of today’s deliberation frequent reference to the importance and the role of district councils. That is what Amendment 71 is about. I noticed that, during the deliberations on a number of groups, concern has been raised about quite how district councils are going to fit in to the new structures that are being proposed. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said—I counted it—on five separate occasions during her last contribution, “It’s all very complicated” or “It’s all incredibly complicated”. I say to her that my Amendment 71 provides a solution which brings enormous simplicity to the whole issue.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th March 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Foster of Bath]

70: Clause 8, page 8, line 18, at end insert “but no more than any other constituent council”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that any constituent council has, as part of a CCA, the same number of appointed elected members as any other constituent council.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 70 I am extremely conscious that it is a probing amendment to look at one aspect of the Government’s thinking on the creation and operation of CCAs. However, in many ways it is also a paving amendment for many of the other amendments in this group. Clause 8 confers on the Secretary of State, subject to the consent of the constituent parts of the proposed CCA, numerous powers in relation to it, ranging from membership and voting powers to the appointment and function of an executive of the CCA. It also covers the overview and scrutiny arrangements as well as the appointment of a mayor, where relevant, and of non-constituent and associate members. So it is very wide-ranging and to some extent, the amendments in this group touch on many of those issues.

It is important to begin by making it clear that, for we on these Benches, at least one issue is really important. Given their crucial role, not least in planning and economic development, we believe that district councils should be full members of any CCA. We have already moved amendments to that effect, as have other noble Lords, and we will continue to do so at later stages of the Bill. I note that, in Amendment 81 in this group, my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, are also proposing a role for parish councils.

We have also been clear that the voting membership of a decision-making body such as a CCA should comprise only those who have been elected to it or one of the constituent organisations that makes it up. In simple terms, we believe that those who have to abide by a law or decision should have some say in deciding who makes those decisions; I certainly believe that that should be true of a second Chamber of this Parliament. For those reasons and many others, as my noble friend Lady Scott will no doubt discuss in a few minutes, we oppose the appointment of non-constituent and associate members to a CCA. We certainly feel, as expressed in Amendments 155 and 156 from my noble friend Lord Shipley, that if they are put in place, these unelected CCA members should not have a vote.

Even if we reach agreement on who should be constituent members of a CCA, there remains the crucial question of what the voting arrangements should be. As I mentioned in an earlier debate, I appreciate the concern that if, for example, district councils are allowed to become constituent members of a CCA, they could, because of their number, always outvote the other constituent members and, in effect, have a veto. It is therefore important that we are clear about how the voting arrangements will be made. Incidentally, I entirely accept that my probing Amendment 70 could lead to that very problem of district councils having a veto.

The Minister has already made it clear that the Government intend to allow CCAs to determine their own arrangements where possible. We broadly agree with this approach, but surely we need to be clear whether that freedom will extend totally to, for example, voting arrangements, without any restrictions on local decision-making. After all, subsection (2)(b) of Clause 8, which refers to the Secretary of State’s power to make regulations, states that regulations may—so it is possible for the Secretary of State to do this—cover

“the voting powers of members of the CCA (including provision for different weight to be given to the vote of different descriptions of member)”.

Like my noble friend Lord Stunell, who will go into more detail on this at a later stage, we are concerned that, for example, setting aside a requirement that the CCA need not be constructed in accordance with the balance of political representation among the constituent members could lead to serious problems with its voting on the issues on which it makes decisions. Not limiting the number of associate members—who could, as we have heard, be given a vote—as per the current arrangement could also have a significant impact on the voting decisions of the CCA.

I am absolutely clear that while we support the Government’s principal intention of ensuring that decisions on these matters are made by the CCA itself, we need to be very clear what freedoms it will really have and what the implications of Clause 8(2)(b) really mean. No doubt, that clarity will come when the Minister winds up. I beg to move.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 81, which is the first of a number of amendments I have tabled that relate to the powers and duties of town and parish councils. In doing so, I declare an interest as the president of the National Association of Local Councils. These councils are well understood, well established and are a serious part of the fabric of local government. In some cases that is by virtue of size—they spend significant amounts of money—but in others it is about the role they play as, if you like, a convener of local interests, creating that sense of place which we know is so important in any venture that we might call levelling up.

When you talk to Governments of any persuasion and their Ministers, they always say nice things about this sector. They always say that it is very important and does great work, but when the legislation is drafted and the cheques are written, it always feels as though it is at the back of the queue. This is an example of new structures being created that, arguably, are to some extent devolutionary, but there is no mechanism for onward devolution to the town and parish council sector. So, this amendment simply argues that when it comes to the overview and scrutiny arrangements for the combined county authorities, there ought, as of right, to be a requirement for some involvement of this sector, perhaps through the county associations. Having this tier of local government represented would actually strengthen the overview and scrutiny function overall, and it would certainly strengthen the sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, the whole House is inordinately grateful to the noble Earl the Minister for genuinely listening to what people say and seeking to provide responses to our questions. Nevertheless, he has just acknowledged how complicated this Bill is and how much murk still remains to be resolved. We are therefore particularly grateful that he acknowledges that these issues can be raised again not only at a later stage but in the round table that he now assures us has moved some way towards being formed.

I do not want to dwell on all the points raised, but I pick up very briefly on the contributions by my noble friend Lady Scott and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. Both have been doughty campaigners for parish councils and the crucial role they often play in our communities, not least, in many cases, in driving forward neighbourhood plans but, as my noble friend pointed out, through their convening powers. It would be helpful to hear in more detail the Minister’s thoughts on where exactly he sees them fitting into the structure.

The key thing that has yet again been raised today, even though it is not directly related to any of the amendments in this group, is the passionate belief in many parts of your Lordships’ House that district councils have a crucial role to play. It was great to hear the noble Lord, Lord Mann, a passionate supporter of Bassetlaw District Council, promoting the contributions that all district councils can make.

We will have an opportunity to raise these issues again in considering other groups. However, while the Minister has said time and again that he is great believer in devolution of power and getting rid of central diktat—I applaud that approach—I say carefully to him that, unless we get the mechanisms right and are clear about exactly what the Government will or will not permit through the various regulations, there is a real danger that we could move from central diktat to party-political diktat in a particular area.

Much confusion still remains. The noble Earl, in his letter to many of us, said that the enfranchisement arrangements for other categories of membership would be determined through a unanimous decision-making system whereby all constituent parts would have a clear vote. However, Clause 10(2), for example, does not say that there has to be unanimity on such decisions. We can deal with issues such as this at a later stage, and my noble friend Lord Stunell certainly intends to probe the Minister in more detail. Given that we have these further opportunities, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 70 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a brief contribution because tonight, in East Suffolk Council, where I now have the great privilege of living, there is to be a debate on the very subject of democracy at local government level. I have just received a copy of the speech that will be given by David Beavan, the councillor for Southwold ward. He will say—he has not yet said it—the following:

“The Conservative party won the last election with 38% of the vote, but this gave them an overwhelming majority with 71% of the councillors. We are not allowed to debate the unfair first past the post system but we can debate ways to mitigate it so that the silent majority of non-Conservative voters are represented … This administration used its majority as a sledge hammer to close down debate in this council and to pack every committee and outside body with their own … We believe there is a better way to run this council … Where all members of every party have an opportunity to work for East Suffolk … Where debate is open and considered not predetermined by a party political whip … Where opposition members are given a fair chance to make their point in meetings … Where officers are not dragged into petty party politics … Above all we need a Scrutiny committee that is not directed by the administration. An opposition chair would ensure this independence … East Suffolk today faces big challenges. We need to work together as a community and a council. We should set aside party politics after the election and knuckle down to govern fairly for all of East Suffolk.”


I entirely agree with him, and I note that in an earlier discussion on Monday the noble Earl the Minister said clearly that this Bill is all about getting rid of “central diktat” and giving local people an opportunity to have a say. This amendment from my noble friend gives an opportunity to do that. I hope it will be supported by the Government.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, we have had a short debate and it will be very interesting to see how the Government respond to it. I wait in hope that something can be done, as my noble friend said in moving this amendment, to turbocharge local democracy. There is no doubt that it needs turbocharging: we see elements of its alienation every day of the week. We are moving closer and closer not to better local democracy, but to perhaps better but certainly more intense local administration. I have spoken on that already today. My noble friend made the extremely powerful point, and certainly a very good debating point, that if ID cards are good enough for Northern Ireland, surely a proportional voting system is good enough for England. I hope the Government have a really plausible reason for not accepting that argument.

My noble friend Lady Harris has accurately reported, I am sure, the views of Richmondshire District Council—incidentally, it is in North Yorkshire, which we were of course discussing earlier today—and the value of every vote being equal and the opportunities for regeneration that flow from that. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, drew our attention to some examples of bad practice and pointed out the damaging impacts of single-party rule. Since we certainly think it is inappropriate, to say the least, in North Korea, it ought to be inappropriate in our town halls in England as well. Restoring that element of local choice and broader representation ought surely to be one of the objectives of this levelling-up Bill.

My noble friend Lord Foster of Bath drew attention to the not untypical situation with East Suffolk Council whereby a party with less than 40% of the vote finishes up with over 70% of the representation and therefore of the decision-making. We had debates earlier about the Government’s intention, set out clearly in the Bill, to suspend the operation of proportionality in local authorities in the formation of CCAs. I hope the Government Front Bench will take note of some of the malign consequences that can arise when proportionality is not adhered to. Of course, in terms of representation, a sense of alienation can grow in voters, and in non-voters but electors, who repeatedly say, “It’s not worth voting because they always get in”. That happens time and again, particularly in local government. Surely, we have to make sure that the voices of the silent ones—the voices being suppressed by that system—are in fact heard.

I want to hear the Government say, “There are things about this we do not like; we do not really want anything other than first past the post; but we do recognise that local communities, local councils, should have the right to choose for themselves the voting system they use”. My noble friend has set out in considerable detail a very compelling case: we are not suggesting throwing the whole system up in the air, but simply using systems already in operation in various parts of the United Kingdom, including in England.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 294, in my name and that of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, would oblige the Secretary of State to make short-term rental properties a distinct use class for planning purposes. The amendment is supported by the Local Government Association, of which I am, exceptionally, not a vice-president, and is based on changes made to secondary legislation in Wales in 2022.

A common theme running through all the amendments is the promotion of the country’s housing stock as a main home, either by raising the council tax on second homes or by using the planning system to control short-term lets. The planning system is not just about whether or not a piece of land is to be developed; it is about the use to which it is then put. For example, you need planning permission to convert a block of flats into a hotel. These use classes have been used to control changes that may be undesirable, and in a few cases they have been relaxed to promote changes between uses.

The Government have clearly recognised that we have now reached the stage where some form of control is needed if we are to maintain a proper balance between those who need permanent accommodation for rent and those who are making short-term visits. Clause 210, mentioned by the noble Baroness, introduced by the Government on Report and headed “Registration of short-term rental properties”, is a very useful step which I welcome. I also welcome the statements made about it in another place by Lucy Frazer, the previous Housing Minister. It proposes a new registration scheme for short-term lets, but this will not happen for some time, as consultation on the exact design of the scheme will not start until later this year, with decisions and actions later.

A registration scheme is a good first step but we need to build on this, as proposed in my amendment, and see much stronger controls. We need to do that if the planning system is to determine local priorities. We also need to make faster progress; only then will we see a better balance of housing options which will help families and young people who simply cannot find a place to live in some rural areas but also in London. Were she still able to attend, I am sure my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes would be speaking strongly in favour of this amendment.

A balance is important. Short-term lets can provide a useful boost to the local economy by promoting tourism where commercial accommodation is in short supply or very expensive, and they can be a useful source of income for those who do not need their homes all the time—for example, if they are away on holiday. However, we need a balance between second and first homes. My amendment provides a means of meeting that balance.

The Government’s legislation needs to go further by introducing a new use class for short-term rental properties, which, in turn, should be a precondition for the registration of such properties. We may not need to regulate short-term lets across the board, but making them a separate use class, as proposed in the amendment, allows full planning control in places such as seaside towns and the area just mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, where the growth in short-term letting has become a particular issue, or here in London, where there is pressure on the rental market.

There was a 1,000% increase in homes listed for short-term lets nationally between 2015 and 2021. That is 148,000 homes that could otherwise house local families that are available on Airbnb-style lets. In Cornwall, short-term listings grew 661% in the five years to September 2021. The county has roughly 15,000 families on social housing waiting lists and the same number of properties being marketed as housing lets. The noble Earl, Lord Devon, may mention his county, where short-term lets appear to be worsening an existing housing crisis, with nearly 4,000 homes taken out of the private rented sector and 11,000 added to short-term listings since 2016.

Currently, local authorities outside London have no legal means of preventing this loss of private rented housing to short-term lets. Several cases have come to light of people in rented housing in rural areas being evicted so that the property can be let on a short-term basis. In this context, it is worth mentioning the position in London as it shows a way forward. The Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973 —I declare an interest as I was on the GLC at the time—discouraged short-term lets by saying that the use of residential premises for temporary sleeping accommodation for fewer than 90 consecutive nights in London was a change of use, for which planning permission was required, so London residents face a possible fine of up to £20,000 for each offence of failing to secure planning permission. That position was basically confirmed in the Deregulation Act 2015. I see some advantage in simply extending this London provision to the rest of the country.

Finally, there are issues here that go beyond my noble friend’s department. Holiday lets get mortgage interest relief; residential tenancies do not. Holiday lets have no minimum energy and safety standards, and they qualify for business rates and small business rate relief. We need a cross-government approach to get a coherent and better-balanced policy on this important matter. Of course, I hope my noble friend will feel able to accept my amendment. If she cannot go that far—and I see from her body language that that may not be possible—will she commit to consulting soon on building on Clause 210, with a view to getting that better balance between the use of scarce housing stock in areas under pressure and to helping families for whom private renting is the only option?

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I will address the four amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Shipley and comment on some of the others. We have already heard numerous examples describing why we need to address the issues around empty homes, second homes and properties available for short-term rent. As noble Lords are aware, some parts of the United Kingdom have already introduced measures to tackle some of them; for example, certification of tourist accommodation in Northern Ireland and licensing schemes for short-term lets in Scotland and Wales. Sadly, at the moment, England is being left behind.

I am pleased that at long last the Government are tackling one issue—the way in which some second home owners have gamed the system so that they pay neither council tax nor business rates—but many other problems remain. I live in east Suffolk, close to the popular seaside town of Southwold. With the recent growth in second home ownership and the rapid rise in properties available for short-term rent, of the 1,400 properties, now only 500 have full-time residents, while 500 are second homes and 400 are short-term lets; in other words, nearly two-thirds are not permanently lived in, and this has had a significant impact.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I will get the guilt off my shoulders through your Lordships’ provision of the confessional: I declare an interest as co-owner of a second home in the West Country and of two short-term let properties in the same area. All, like the house I live in, which is in another part of the country, are legacies of estates that have been broken up and whittled down. Both areas have important family historical and indeed, in some cases, national historical associations.

Having declared that, I ought also to declare to the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, who mentioned the Built Environment Committee, that I was, until the latter part of January, a member of that committee, and very privileged to have been so under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, who I am pleased to see in his place, and before him, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. So I am familiar with the matters that were brought before us. However, I shall leave a lot of that to one side because there has been a bit of disaggregation in the groupings here. We have group 10 coming up, in which aspects of this will recur, and I find that quite difficult to deal with: I shall try to avoid getting up then and saying the same thing all over again and boring your Lordships.

While I have involvement with both normal assured shorthold tenancy properties and short-term buy to let, I certainly do not have anything to do with keeping property deliberately empty: that would be complete anathema to me, and I say so as somebody with professional training: I am a chartered surveyor and I know that all that happens with empty properties is that they deteriorate. They are much better occupied and lived in or used in some way.

I agree with the general premise that residential properties should not be deliberately kept empty for no good reason. I know that in some areas—the City of Westminster is one—there was a thought that foreign investors were buying up high-end residential accommodation and keeping it empty under the premise that perhaps it was less valuable if it had been previously occupied. It takes all sorts, but that is a particular situation. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, in her Amendment 166 because there is a great deal of speculation about how many empty properties there are and where they are. They are not always in the places where people want or need housing and have to live and work. So, first and foremost, there is a distribution problem, along with a numbers problem. We need to sort that out, and there needs to be better data on that.

I would go further and suggest that the reasons why a property might be empty need to be understood before we set about making dramatic changes, either to the amount that is levied or to planning, although I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, that something probably needs to be done in some of the areas that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, referred to—the hotspots. They are not actually everywhere; they are not in every town and city; they are in defined places. Even those who particularly object to the idea of second homes and holiday homes altogether on principle recognise—and the data seems to show—that these are in quite specific areas. They are not necessarily in holiday locations at the seaside; they can be in the middle of cities and in parts of Greater London. We need to identify that.

We should not underestimate the inventiveness of those faced with a surcharge, any more than we should fail to consider the equity of a surcharge where there is a genuine reason the property is empty. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, referred to that and I use the example of the Ds: death, disrepair, dispute, debt, decarbonisation and, of course, redevelopment. Sorry, “redevelopment” is not a D, but noble Lords will get my drift.

Another aspect is that if there are to be additional charges, is that for the purpose of rectifying some particular, identifiable ill or mischief that is occurring, or is it just another tax? If it is just another tax and it is going into some jolly old pot, I am not particularly keen on that. There needs to be some degree of hypothecation. If there is a demonstrable case—for instance, that empty properties affect affordability in a locality or are adversely affecting incomers who might be economically active—the tax yield generated should perhaps be devoted to that or allied purposes and not put in some general pot. Presumably the case needs to be made.

I agree that ultimately, subject to some sort of national framework and means of analysis, the decision should be for the local community to put in place—and not necessarily be dictated from on high. The authorities, having made the case, must accept that the principle stood behind that is binding on them; otherwise, we risk a rather unedifying and opaque state of affairs, where the power is invoked for one reason but implemented for some entirely different objective altogether, and I would not be keen on that. We do not need a knee-jerk reaction to all that. There needs to be a consistent methodology for assessing the nature of empty second properties or short-term letting, and the detrimental effect these are having.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, gave a graphic account of the issue, which I know from—

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

Before the noble Earl moves on to another point I raised, could I ask, through him, for the Minister to perhaps confirm that even in the current legislation as proposed, it will be possible for councils to add a premium on the council tax for empty properties? It would be for the council to determine how that money is used; for example, my own local council has already a debate on this issue and proposed that the vast majority of additional money raised will go towards the building of more affordable homes in the area—to address the problem that is now being created because of the empty properties and short-term lets.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Foster of Bath]

180: Clause 78, page 88, line 9, at end insert—
“(1A) Regulations under this Chapter may require relevant planning authorities to process data in accordance with approved data standards relating to the number and nature of—(a) second homes, and(b) holiday let propertiesin the planning authority area.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would enable planning data regulations to provide for the collection of data to national standards about second homes and holiday lets.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group cover the issues of data and data sharing for, as well as the registration of, and safety standards in, properties available for short-term let. It is not my intention to speak on registration, with the exception of two brief comments. I will happily leave that to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, with his great expertise as chairman of the Built Environment Committee.

My two comments are simply these. I note that the consultation on registration ended in September last year, and to date we still have not had any response from the Government. That clearly would have been very helpful to have had in time for our deliberations today. I also comment that, although I entirely accept that registering and licensing can be used interchangeably, I certainly would prefer to have licensing and a licensing regime rather than a registration regime.

I turn to my Amendments 180 and 445A, which address data issues. I believe very firmly that Clause 78 is very important and, indeed, welcome, because it requires local authorities to use data standards when they process information in connection with a planning function that are designed to ensure that planning data is comparable across local authorities and formatted in the same way so that machines can collect and process it, making it much more useful for research and innovation. It is an important and welcome clause, as is the equally welcome creation by the Government of a digital planning programme, a spatial data unit and various support systems to enable local authorities to use the data to best effect in preparing local plans and policies.

However, in earlier amendments I proposed the creation of new use classes for second homes and holiday lets. I will not repeat the case I made then to justify that— I suspect others may comment on that—but I note that there was widespread support for the establishment of new use categories in the way I described. In the hope that the Government will either accept my proposal for new use categories or collect the relevant detailed data in relation to those categories through the licensing or registration scheme, I have simply tabled Amendment 180 so that data that is collected, by whichever means, would be processed in accordance with the same national standards. This seems important because consistent and comparable data about second homes and holiday lets is, frankly, woefully lacking, as many people pointed out in our earlier discussions, not least the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. Indeed, data on holiday lets is patchy, as it is for second homes.

Building on the point that the noble Earl made at the time, I say that although some official information is available on second homes via council tax records, in those authorities that do not offer the council tax discount for second homes there is no incentive for owners to register them, so it is likely that the council tax records significantly underestimate the scale of second homes in some areas. This data deficiency makes it difficult for researchers to track developments in both classes and the effect of second homes and holiday lets on, for example, house prices and local economies, and for local authorities to enforce regulation and taxation. Hence the benefit of the new use classes, coupled with data collected and processed to national standards, as proposed in this amendment, thereby ensuring robust, comparable and usable data on second homes and holiday lets, enabling better analysis and local regulation of these types of usage and adding to the department’s valuable work to improve local spatial and planning data.

However, to maximise those benefits, the data collected must come from as many sources as possible, including not least the platforms that offer holiday lets. Frankly, it is almost impossible to enforce licensing restrictions without, for example, rental data on how many days each property is actually let. We heard in earlier debates about London’s 90-day minimum period for short-term lets, but the Mayor of London himself has said that it is near impossible for councils to enforce it due to the lack of access to booking data from platforms. Indeed, Councillor Matt Noble from Westminster City Council very recently told your Lordships’ Built Environment Committee:

“If we were to have a data-sharing agreement with the platforms, that would be incredibly useful so that we could access and identify those issues of non-compliance with the hosts.”


I absolutely accept that platforms are not keen to hand over this data unless they can be sure it is kept confidential and used only for specific purposes; hence, as proposed in Amendment 445A, the need for data-sharing agreements—something that has already been adopted across the European Union.

I accept that Clause 210(5)(i) addresses data collection but, as I read it, it does not cover data sharing, so I look forward to the Minister either correcting me or commenting on how data sharing will be covered, given the clear need for it. I point out that I raised enforcement in an earlier group and at that time the Minister did not respond. I hope she will at least agree that data-sharing agreements will help enforcement.

I turn now to Amendments 445, 445B and 457, which address aspects of safety in short-term lets. Clause 210(5(c) as it stands would allow the registration of short-term lets to be conditional upon the safety conditions being met, but that clause lacks any detail about what is going to be required.

Analysis by the Centre for Public Data shows that many Airbnb and other short-term let listings appear to lack basic safety features, such as smoke alarms and fire extinguishers. The analysis by the centre found that in 2022—last year—9% of listings, excluding tents, yurts and campsites, were described as not having smoke alarms, 44% were described as not having fire extinguishers and 41% of properties with heating were described as not having carbon monoxide detectors. Airbnb does not check that listings have fire alarms, extinguishers or carbon monoxide detectors, or even require hosts to certify that they provide them. It does not ask hosts to confirm that gas safety or electrical checks have been carried out; hence Amendment 445, which addresses electrical safety, and Amendment 445B, which addresses safety issues in relation to gas, fire and carbon monoxide.

I will illustrate the need to specify in the Bill what more detailed requirements are needed by considering the issue of electrical safety, because I referred to this at Second Reading. I said then that Electrical Safety First points out that there is an alarming situation where short-term lets are not covered by the same electrical safety regulations as traditional holiday accommodation, forms of rented accommodation or short-term lets in Scotland. There is a loophole in the law that I believe Amendment 445 would plug.

The amendment is needed because 54% of guests in short-term lets have experienced some form of electrical safety issue: 19% of guests have reported being in properties with broken sockets or light switches; 50% have reported staying in properties where there was exposed wiring; and 13% have experienced scorching or burn marks around sockets or light switches. Amendment 445 deals with the electrical installations in the property and the portable electrical appliances provided in it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate; I have certainly learned a great deal. We had a discussion earlier about the difference between having a national scheme and a local scheme. I was tempted to say that I would refer to the speech I made two days ago.

I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, because he has demonstrated how your Lordships’ House can always find a solution to a problem. As I now read it, based on the conversations I have been having, we are collectively agreed that we will have a national registration scheme with local flexibility based on national standards. There is a great deal of sense in that.

I listened carefully to the Minister and I am grateful to her for her response to the debate but I find myself in a great deal of difficulty, as I suspect many other noble Lords do. She told us that there will be a new consultation and that we will know about that document only when we get answers to the outcome of the previous consultation. She has already indicated that that will not take place until the summer. Notwithstanding the concern of many of us that we may still be in Committee in the summer, I still think it would be helpful to have more information about what will be in that consultation before we take the Bill further.

In particular, I very much hope that, as other noble Lords have said, the consultation will clearly indicate the Government’s policy on the various issues we have been debating. For example, my noble friend Lord Stunell—or Shipley, or whichever guise he is taking on at the moment—raised the important issue of the fee-charging structure. It is important that this consultation says what the Government believe it should be and then gets a reaction to that.

I am grateful for the Minister’s response, at least in promising us that many of these issues will be covered. The problem is that we do not really know what the answers to our questions today will be. We look forward to raising these issues again at a future stage; hopefully, we will have received the consultation document by then.

I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 180 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

To close the circle, I will say that I live in a house that was built in 1678. When I first went to live there, many would have regarded it as a rather large heat sieve. I have gone around plugging most of the bigger rat holes that have occurred in the interim, post construction. But this is not just about energy use, although that is a very important thing. Energy use is probably the major net present value of energy component; that tends to be the situation. I see my noble friend Lord Ravensdale nodding at that. But, if we can make sure that the buildings we build today will last at least as long as some of those Victorian buildings—so they are built in a robust style with things that do not fall apart, so people feel that they are not then threatened by continual recurring costs of making good and patching up—we will tick boxes in terms of energy, on the one hand, and human satisfaction and commitment for the long term, on the other. That must make a lot of sense.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, there appears to be a clear consensus across your Lordships’ House that we need to improve the mental and physical health and overall well-being of citizens, and that we can do that, in part, by improving the area around where people live and the homes in which they live.

Amendment 241, to which I have added my name, and which was powerfully introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, deals with the issue of the area around people’s homes and how it could be improved. A very good example of that is access to nature, and it is worth remembering that the Environment Secretary, Thérèse Coffey, very recently said:

“Nature is vital for our survival, crucial to our food security, clean air, and clean water as well as health and well-being”.


So access to nature is important for health and well-being purposes, as well as the other things that she mentioned.

When I was a Minister in what was then the Department for Communities and Local Government, I had a responsibility, for a while, for green spaces, and I had an opportunity to see some tremendous work being done by some planners. However, I was very acutely aware of the enormous pressures that they were under to achieve further access to green spaces. They faced huge conflicts, where many other issues often took priority over access to green spaces, and therefore priority over citizens’ health.

As part of the Government’s recently announced plans for nature recovery—which, in part, we were discussing in relation to earlier amendments—the House will know that the Government have set a target to ensure that everyone will live within 15 minutes of a green space or water, but, unfortunately, there is very little detail expressing how that will be achieved. So one of the benefits of Amendment 241, it seems to me, is that it will help the Government achieve that particular objective. However, as others have said, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, this is about more than just access to green spaces: it is about access to amenities and being able to get to them easily by walking, wheeling or cycling, which are all forms of exercise that improve health.

It is worth noting that in 2021 Sustrans carried out a survey that found that walking, wheeling and cycling together prevented almost 130,000 serious long-term health conditions every year. Yet we are still building developments that are far from existing settlements, and where you cannot even buy a pint—perhaps I should say a litre these days—of milk, or at least you will not be able to until a later phase of development. So people have to resort to using their cars or, where it is available, public transport, thereby again reducing exercise opportunities.

Planning departments can play a role in enabling people to exercise as part of their everyday lives, but they need help. We know from the Sustrans survey that 64% of planners who responded called for “robust … guidance or regulation” to help them prioritise health and well-being. I believe that this amendment—which is based, as we have heard, on the 20-minute neighbourhood approach—would help achieve that, while also providing the flexibility that planners need because they know their area best.

As we have heard, subsequent amendments in the group look at ways in which we can improve the housing in which people live in order to improve their overall well-being. Like others, I pay enormous tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for the work he has done leading so many of us in the direction he has taken us with his string of amendments, which I very much hope will be incorporated, in some form, in the final version of the Bill.

I will pick up on one aspect that is not covered by his amendments, but is covered by Amendment 504GF, which was very well introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and to which I have added my name. It does not deal with new homes being built but looks at existing properties and how they could be improved to help the health and well-being of their residents and to achieve our net-zero target.

One of the reasons I am particularly attracted to this amendment—there are many others—is that it introduces into legislation targets for improving the energy efficiency of existing properties. As the Minister knows, this is an issue that I have raised on very many occasions in your Lordships’ House. I am always pointing out that there are 17 million homes that are currently below the acceptable energy efficiency level. In one of my many attempts to do this, I referred three years ago to the report by the Climate Change Committee, UK Housing: Fit for the Future?, which assessed the preparedness of our housing stock for the challenge of climate change. It concluded that the measures to reduce

“emissions … from the UK’s 29 million homes”—

responsible for 17% of all carbon emissions—had

“stalled, while energy use in homes”

had increased, and adaptations of housing stock to meet the impact of climate change were

“lagging far behind what is needed to keep us safe and comfortable”.

Three years on, the CCC’s most recent report shows that the situation is still dire. The decline in work to retrofit existing properties has hardly been halted. It says:

“Installation rates for building insulation have plummeted over the last decade, and are far below the level they need to be”


to deliver on UK climate targets.

Of course, as I have said in your Lordships’ House on previous occasions, I welcome a number of recent initiatives by this Government—ECO+, for example, and the announcement only three days ago of £1.4 billion to improve energy efficiency in social housing, although it is from a pot that was previously announced—and I look forward to hearing plans from the newly established Energy Efficiency Taskforce.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

Amendment 268 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, ably spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, seeks to bring economic development within rural areas into the scope of permission in principle in the Town and Country Planning (Permission in Principle) Order 2017. While I have huge respect for the knowledge of the noble Lord, the noble Baroness and others and know how important economic development is in rural areas, I do not think this is the way to do it. However, I will take it back and consider with officials how we can strengthen economic development in those rural areas.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I apologise for intervening at this late hour. On that point, since the Minister has promised she is going to write to people and has just said very clearly, on the record, that she shares the importance of economic development in rural areas, and given that I asked at Second Reading for evidence that the levelling up Bill had gone through the rural-proofing process, would she be kind enough to include in that letter details of how that process was carried out in relation to this Bill, because frankly, many of us think there is very little evidence of that?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I will certainly reflect on that question and see what we can do.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for his amendments, and I appreciate his concerns on a matter, which is close to his heart and to the heart of the noble Baroness opposite. While I support the intentions to lend further support to our rural economy, unfortunately I cannot accept this amendment, as it will not have the intended effect, and we believe it is unnecessary.

The permission in principle consent route is an alternative way of obtaining planning permission for certain housing-led development. When a proposed development is under consideration, it separates the matter of principle away from technical details. Our national planning policy framework strongly supports policies and decisions to promote sustainable development in rural areas. In particular, it states that to support a prosperous rural economy, local plans, neighbourhood plans and decisions should enable the development and diversification of agriculture and other land-based rural businesses.

Additionally, as set out in Section 58A of the Town and Country Planning Act, any economic development coming forward through permission in principle would have to be predominantly for housing development. Provision already exists to allow local planning authorities to grant permission in principle for economic development related to residential schemes within rural areas. Section 5A of the Town and Country Planning (Permission in Principle) Order 2017 also enables local planning authorities to grant permission in principle to any non-housing development if it is associated with residential development, and where the scale of the development and the use to which it may be put is specified.

I am aware that permission in principle is often used to test the principle of housing development within rural areas, rather than applicants going through the conventional planning application route, and these are assessed with our National Planning Policy in mind. It is a valuable tool in this respect, and I hope this provides reassurances to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, and accordingly that she will withdraw his amendment on his behalf.

I turn now to Amendment 282, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, and put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, on the speeding up of the planning system. There are around 400,000 planning applications every year. The Government have heard many representations that the planning application process is too slow and inaccessible for some users—notably those without the expertise, such as everyday people. It therefore requires improvement and modernisation. The powers being brought forward in Clause 116 enable the Government to apply a more consistent, streamlined and digitally enabled approach to the way in which the applications are made, making it easier for everyday people to submit a planning application. This will also make planning data more accessible. My department is already working with local authorities to tackle the very issue that this amendment raises, working collaboratively with the local authorities through the Open Digital Planning project, which aims to increase efficiencies in the development management process through creating modern development management software. Local authorities using the software that we are trialling have seen an estimated 35% time saving in the pre-validation process, when an application is first submitted, and post-validation, when the process is to reach a decision.

Before enacting these powers, we will fully engage with the local planning authorities and the sector as a whole; given that one of the core aims of this power is to streamline the process, we will of course consider the impact on speed of decision-making. While I support the intention of this amendment, the Government are unable to support its inclusion and hope that the noble Baroness will not press it.

Lastly, government Amendments 260A and 260B provide for consequential amendments to Clause 102 to make consistent the legislation with respect to an application being made directly to the Secretary of State, in relation to new Section 73B and Section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Henig (Lab)]

I am extremely pleased to support the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, who introduced this amendment in, if I may say so, an extremely detailed speech, which means that I can be somewhat briefer. I think noble Lords will be pleased about that, because I have a dreadful cough which might manifest itself in the next five minutes. I apologise if it interrupts what I want to say.

I was a member of the committee that was so ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, to carry out the post-legislative scrutiny of the Licensing Act 2003. There was an extremely strong team on that committee, quite apart from the chair and the House of Lords back-up team; Sarah Clover was an extremely helpful special adviser. I am grateful to Sarah for sharing with me her vast legal expertise on this topic, and for guiding me through the more arcane elements of this particular legal element.

The agent of change principle was one of the issues that came up during our proceedings. The Government professed themselves to be sympathetic to the problems being faced by the night-time economy. Indeed, their response to our recommendation that the agent of change principle should be adopted in both planning and licensing guidance was that they were consulting to see whether the agent of change principle should be emphasised by changes to the National Planning Policy Framework. That was in 2017; perhaps the Minister could tell me what the outcome of that consultation was, since the trail seems to have gone a little cold and I have not heard whether there has been any follow-up. I would be most grateful if perhaps the Minister could bring us up to date on that particular matter.

Now, of course, since 2017, the landscape has changed considerably for the worse as far as the night-time economy is concerned, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, quite rightly pointed out. It was decimated by Covid and is only just recovering from the impact. Along with the rest of the economy, the night-time economy faces critical staff shortages and considerable inflationary increases. Frankly, it needs all the help it can get. It needs the Government not to just pay lip service to helping the economy in these difficult times but to actually do something to assist.

This is one obvious way that the Government can help. Here is the Government’s opportunity to enshrine in primary legislation the agent of change principle, so that the interests of the night-time economy, local residents, and possible new local developments are all taken into account equably in planning decisions. It seems to me that that is a very important principle. Furthermore, it seems to me absolutely right, and very important, that this happens right at the outset of new developments, so that all interests at local level can be fully taken into account, difficulties can be pinpointed and ways to mitigate these difficulties can be identified early on.

Really, this is a very straightforward amendment to try to assist in the current process, and to improve it. Therefore, I commend it to the Minister as one which could bring great benefits up and down the country at, as far as I can see, hardly any cost. I very much hope it will be taken on board by the Government.

I will just add that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and I have some form in putting forward amendments which are then taken on by the Government and presented subsequently as government amendments. I am therefore extremely hopeful that this might happen in relation to this very constructive and helpful amendment, and I commend it to the Minister.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I too served on your Lordships’ Select Committee on licensing in 2017, and on the subsequent follow-up committee. I join with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, in heaping praise on the absolutely able chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. As we have heard, both committees concluded that it was important to incorporate the agent of change principle in planning policy and guidance.

In case anybody is in any doubt what this means, the agent of change principle ensures that a new development must shoulder responsibility for compliance when situated near, for example, an existing music venue. Similarly, if a music venue opens in an existing residential area, it would be responsible for complying with residential requirements to minimise nuisance. For example, based on this principle, an apartment block built near an established music venue would have to pay for soundproofing, while a live music venue opening in an existing residential area would be responsible for the cost of soundproofing.

The committee was therefore very pleased that the Government agreed that the agent of change principle should be reflected in the National Planning Policy Framework and in Section 182 guidance. That has now happened. However, the follow-up committee heard that the principle as it stands, reflected in those documents, does not sufficiently explain the duties of all parties involved. The committee argued that the principle needs to go further to protect licensed premises and local residents in our changing high streets, and that a lack of consistency between the planning and licensing systems—something that it believed needed to be changed anyway—has led to, for example, live venues not being guaranteed to be protected. I will give two quick examples.

The Night & Day Café is a live music venue in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. It opened in 1991 and is the venue that launched the careers of, for example, Elbow and Arctic Monkeys. In November 2021, the venue was served with a noise abatement notice from Manchester City Council. This followed ongoing complaints from local residents who had moved into a new development—warehouses converted into flats—during the Covid pandemic when the venue was temporarily closed. The case provoked a huge degree of interest. Some 94,000 people have signed a petition asking for the notice to be withdrawn, with one signatory describing the situation as

“like moving to Leicester Square and complaining about there being too many cinemas”.

Night & Day Café’s appeal over the order has been adjourned until later this year. It has still not been resolved.

The Jago is a venue in Dalston that hosts live music events, screenings and workshops. It is registered as an asset of community value and is very highly regarded in the local area. It has hosted musicians for almost two decades, but since the pandemic many surrounding buildings have been converted into residential properties, which has led to an increase in noise complaints and, in June 2022, it received a noise abatement notice. It too has been the subject of a petition trying to help, with over 2,500 signatures. Again, its problem has not yet been resolved.

The committee recommended that, to resolve issues such as these, the Government should review and strengthen the agent of change principle and consider incorporating it into the current planning reforms in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. The Government did not disagree, and themselves pointed to the then upcoming Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill as a vehicle to address these concerns. This amendment is simply by way of helping the Government achieve what they agreed was needed: greater clarity about what is expected of councils and businesses. In that light, I hope the Minister will see that the amendment is designed to support and help the Government. I hope she too will support it.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for moving the amendment and to others who have spoken. I too was a member of the original committee, although not the follow-up committee. It is amazing to look at how life has changed so quickly since the report in 2017 and the subsequent report. Since then we have had the pandemic and a whole new experience of living in a different world entirely, including a different world of work, from what we had in the past.

Leaving aside nightlife, look at what is happening with online trading and with the high street. When one wanders around Oxford Street one sees quite large premises now empty and not being used. The Strand has been transformed completely from what it was like 20 years ago. Companies that had been there for almost a century and a half have disappeared, yet the properties remain empty. What will happen to them? Without any doubt, if they fail to get commercial operatives they will be converted into residential premises in due course.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. I speak only because of the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, just now. Like him, I am very keen to see, and as a Minister had some responsibility for, the improvement of high streets. The noble Lord is quite right that on a high street these changes could take place without the significant problem to local residents that he described might happen in a more residential area.

We are very supportive of the principle of Amendment 312, but I say very gently to the Minister that if, as I suspect, she is going to suggest that there is no need for this amendment, I would encourage her to remind herself of the earlier debate on the agent of change principle. That too was apparently not necessary. Frankly, it seems that one or the other will be necessary in the circumstances that the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, described in a residential area. We need either a separate use classification or the agent of change principle to give local residents that protection.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Amendment 312, in the name of my noble friend Lord Northbrook, seeks to prevent the movement of premises being used as shops, banks, gyms, offices et cetera within (a) and (c) to (g) of class E to be used instead as cafés or restaurants in (b).

I take this opportunity to make clear to noble Lords that vibrant and diverse high streets and town centres are vital to communities, as places where local people shop, use services and spend their leisure time.

The Government introduced the commercial business and service use class in 2020 to support our high streets and town centres, enabling them to respond quickly to changes in consumer demands. This use class includes a wide range of uses commonly found on our high streets, such as shops, banks and offices, as well as services such as creches and health centres. Movement between uses within the class does not constitute development and therefore does not require planning permission. Thus, this class provides flexibility to move between such uses and allows for a mix of such uses to reflect changing retail and business models, and to avoid premises being left empty.

We believe that restaurants and cafés are an important part of our high streets and town centres. Such uses support high street vitality, attracting people to the high street to shop and spend their leisure time, and we would not want to limit them. My noble friend’s amendment seeks to restrict the flexibility of premises within the commercial, business and service use class to be used as cafés or restaurants. However, a permitted development right cannot be used in this way to limit movement within this use class. The legislative approach of this amendment is therefore flawed and we are unable to support it.

I turn next to Amendment 312F in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, which seeks to require the Secretary of State to publish a review, within 12 months of the Bill achieving Royal Assent, of all permitted development rights. Permitted development rights are a national grant of planning permission that allow certain developments, including building works and changes of use, to be carried out without an application for planning permission having to be made. Permitted development rights have been a well-established part of the planning system for many years, supporting homeowners and businesses. In recent years, new permitted development rights have been used to support housing delivery. The rights are helping deliver much-needed additional new homes, including more than 94,000 homes in the seven years to March 2022.

In response to comments about the quality of some of the homes delivered, we commissioned research into the operation of the rights, published in July 2020. We subsequently legislated to ensure that all new homes delivered under permitted development must, as a minimum, meet the nationally described space standards and have access to adequate natural light in all habitable rooms. In addition, the current consultation on the infrastructure levy seeks views on the circumstances in which it may be appropriate to apply the infrastructure levy to permitted development.

We continue to keep permitted development rights under review, so this amendment is not necessary. It would also be impractical, as it would require a disproportionate review of 155 separate permitted development rights, all within the 12 months proposed. On these grounds, we will not be able to give this amendment our support.

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When he responds to the debate, will the Minister set out whether the Government recognise the urgency of setting up an office for risk and resilience or some other mechanism to address climate change that is regularly discussed in this House? I beg to move.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I am happy to support the amendments that have just been moved.

I remind the Committee that in earlier debates we spent quite a lot of time on the importance of creating an environment that is clean and healthy for people to live in—the noble Lord, Lord Best, in particular encouraged us to do that—while earlier today we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, about the vital need to protect woodland and biodiversity more widely. The Minister responded that none of this required her amendments because, he pointed out, the planning system was there and the planners could be “proactive” in using tree preservation orders and measures regarding biodiversity powers.

That is all well and good, but with one problem: the vast majority of councils responsible for taking these proactive measures are short of planners. There is a huge shortage. Where we have an amendment that relies on there being sufficient skills, resources and capabilities to deliver all these things, we already know from the research that has been done that there is a significant shortage. Noble Lords do not have to listen to me to know that; the chief planner in the Minister’s own department has said categorically that there are not enough planners in local government in England. Joanna Averley went on to say, at the end of last year, that the department did not have the funds to provide resources for there to be more planners. My question for the Minister is: what is going to be done to increase the number of planners to carry out all the work that he keeps referring to and which will come about as a result of the Bill before us?

I want to place on record a huge tribute to the RTPI for the work it is doing to try to improve skills. It has its degree-level apprenticeship scheme, as I am sure the Minister is aware, and a number of other measures, but we are in a situation where it is now said that planners are like gold dust.

The situation is compounded by a further problem. Another amendment talks about what the role of chief planning officers should be. Again, that would be well and good if there were any chief planning officers to have a role. The truth is that we now have a situation where one-quarter of councils in England do not have a head of planning reporting directly to a chief executive. There is a real shortage, which has the knock-on implication that there tends not to be a career structure to encourage people to enter at the bottom end. The shortage of planners is exacerbated by the shortage of chief planning officers.

I want to use this amendment as an opportunity gently to ask the Minister what the Government’s plans are to resolve the resource shortage, which we do not need a review of because we already know it is there. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, at this late hour I do not want to speak at any great length. I declare an interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. In that context, we are acutely aware of the shortage of planners in local authority planning departments, despite the efforts made, not least by Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council in bringing together their two planning services to try to ensure efficiency in both planning and the use of resources.

There is a shortage, so we looked at working with the RTPI’s young planners group and with Anglia Ruskin University, so that some of those degree apprenticeship placements would be in Cambridge, in addition to those in Chelmsford. That might bring more of those young planners into the Cambridge area, where we hope they will stay, working in businesses and local authorities locally.

One thing we have looked at, which is possible but not easy to do, is the development community entering into, effectively, area-wide planning performance agreements with a local planning authority. Such planning performance agreements are entered into generally in relation to individual developments and can be the subject of additional charges for things such as pre-application advice. Of course, that is purely on a cost-recovery basis. Once you begin to attribute charging and costs to individual developments, even though from the planning authority’s point of view it does not influence the outcome of any of the decision-making, there is a risk that that is what people perceive to be the case.

To try to avoid the risk of any attribution of resources to results in terms of the integrity and transparency of the planning decision-making, we and the development community want to look at the ability to assist in resourcing planning for major developments in the area, and to do so in a way independent of the individual applications and the individual developer. I hope that, when Ministers think about how we might increase resources, they will recognise this as one possible arrangement.

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[The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich]

My Lords, I will speak—briefly again, I hope—in support of Amendments 326, 327 and 334 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, and Amendments 344 and 350 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, which have also been supported by my right reverend colleague the Bishop of Chelmsford.

The Church of England is committed—as noble Lords have just heard—to working to increase the provision of social housing, and these amendments would greatly improve the infrastructure levy to ensure that it is working to generate a good supply of truly affordable housing.

As we have heard, in its current form the infrastructure levy risks a serious reduction in the delivery of affordable housing and homes for social rent through the planning system. Despite this concerning impact, detail on how the proposed levy would work remains very thin. There are a number of fundamental issues that need to be addressed. These amendments would be a step in the right direction to doing so.

Amendment 326 introduces a mechanism for the delivery of onsite affordable housing and an in-kind levy payment, which would allow local authorities to ensure that their local housing needs are met. Amendment 327 excepts developments that contain 100% affordable housing from liability to pay the infrastructure levy, which would allow for the provision of affordable housing to go unimpeded by any diversion of funds, and also incentivise developers to invest in affordable housing plans.

Amendments 344 and 350 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, would introduce critical improvements to the infrastructure levy. Tying the application of the infrastructure levy to the level of affordable housing requirement identified in the local development plan, as Amendment 344 would do, is a necessary step to ensure that the levy truly addresses local housing needs. Linked to this, Amendment 350 would ensure that at least 75% of the levy would be used to meet such local affordable housing needs as identified by local development plans. As we have heard, there are currently 4.2 million people in need of social housing in England. It is crucial that the infrastructure levy and the accompanying changes to the planning system improve the delivery of new affordable housing.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, on her tour de force in going through all these amendments. I have no doubt that the Minister will attempt to do exactly the same at some future point as she goes through all our deliberations, and I have no intention of attempting to match either of them. I wish merely to say how important Amendment 322 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, and Amendment 323 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and my noble friend Lord Shipley are, and how supportive we are of them. They seek to define “affordable housing” for the purposes of the infrastructure levy as social rent. We are also very supportive of the amendment so ably spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick—as is illustrated by the fact that my noble friend Lady Thornhill has added her name to it—and the whole issue of affordable housing, which we have touched on so many times. It is great that she has spoken to her amendment, and we are fully supportive of it.

I raise two amendments solely to hear the Minister’s response to them, because that is what we are interested in hearing. On behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and with his permission, I will speak to Amendment 330, which, in effect, proposes the removal of agricultural buildings from the infrastructure levy. The infrastructure levy now being proposed is not exactly but in part a replacement for the community infrastructure levy. I am sure that many noble Lords will be aware that the application of the community infrastructure levy to agricultural property was somewhat hit and miss. Frankly, nobody knew whether they were in or out; some councils did, some did not, and so on. The Minister is nodding in agreement. The problem is that we do not have the proposed secondary legislation, so we have no idea quite how agricultural buildings will apply under the proposed infrastructure levy. Of course, we recognise that many of them—such as livestock buildings, grain storages, slurry tanks and farm reservoirs—are quite large but have very little structure; however, they may be very heavily hit. Given that your Lordships have recently debated the importance of farmers and the difficult times they are going through at present, it may be a good idea to put on the record a clear determination that such properties be excluded from the infrastructure levy. That is what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is proposing.

The only other amendment I want to raise is Amendment 356 in the names of my noble friends Lord Teverson and Lady Bakewell. It suggests that it should be possible to retain within the new system Section 106 agreements in certain circumstances. When looking at the whole area of biodiversity-type measures, you recognise that the great advantage of Section 106 agreements is that, unlike the infrastructure levy proposals, they are directly tied to the actual land where the development takes place, rather than being a payment for improvements that may happen somewhere in the neighbourhood. The second advantage is that they are not a one-off payment, as the infrastructure levy is proposed to be; they can be payments made over a long period.

Therefore, if you are seeking to develop some sort of wildflower arrangement, some meadowland or a biodiversity scheme of one sort or another, it is recognised that those will take a very long time to develop and they are on a particular site. The benefit of this amendment is that the Section 106 agreement can be kept because it is tied directly to the specific land and can be funded over a long period to ensure that the development is successful. On behalf of my noble friend Lord Teverson, I make the case for Amendment 356.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th May 2023 Lords Chamber

On Amendments 356 and 357, the infrastructure levy will be a non-negotiable charge on the final gross development value of a completed development. It will be responsive to the market, reducing the need for negotiation. However, we acknowledge that site-specific infrastructure and mitigation are important. That is why the Government are proposing to retain Section 106 in some very limited circumstances—for instance, to secure integral infrastructure such as sustainable drainage, and to allow the negotiated in-kind delivery of infrastructure on large sites. We are consulting currently on these circumstances before we develop regulations.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister. She has given a number of examples. Will the biodiversity net gains required in the Environment Act 2021 be included in the exceptions she has just listed?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I think I have just said that we are currently consulting on what will be in those. I would prefer to wait until after that consultation and then we will know what is going to be in them.

Amendments 332 and 333 seek to require a local authority to prepare an assessment of its affordable housing need and for the infrastructure levy rates to be set at a level that will meet this need in full. We must recognise that the total value that can be captured by the levy, or indeed any system of developer contributions, will not necessarily match the costs of meeting the entire affordable housing need of an area. Revenues will depend on the value of development that comes forward, and that will not always match need.

Nevertheless, new Section 204G(2) in Schedule 11 requires that charging authorities, when setting their rates, must have regard to the desirability of ensuring that affordable housing funded by developer contributions equals or exceeds present levels. That will ensure that affordable housing need is accounted for when levy rates are set. Furthermore, charging schedules will be subject to scrutiny by public examination to ensure that it does.

I want to make it clear that the list of infrastructure issues is not in priority order. Although affordable housing may be seventh on the list, that does not make it a priority. That list is also not necessarily complete.

As noble Lords will no doubt be aware, strategic housing market assessments or similar documents are currently part of the evidence base used to prepare a local plan. These are required as a result of national policy contained in the National Planning Policy Framework, rather than in primary legislation. Under the new system for preparing local plans, local authorities will continue to be required to prepare evidence regarding different types of housing need, including affordable housing. That will inform not only the local plan but the infrastructure delivery strategy.

I agree that it is important that the levy is based on up-to-date evidence of affordable housing need. It is the intention that local plans, charging schedules and infrastructure delivery strategies are prepared together. However, during the transition period, this may not always be possible. That is why our preferred approach is to use regulations and guidance to set out how evidence-based documents, including evidence on different types of housing need, should be considered. I hope I have given reassurance to the Committee that the provisions in the Bill will enable levy rates to be set with proper regard to affordable housing need, and that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, will feel able not to press his amendment.

Amendments 334 and 334A have the commendable purpose of ensuring that the levy meets its aims of delivering at least as much affordable housing as the current system, if not more, or otherwise addressing locally identified need for affordable housing. The Bill allows regulations to make provision about matters to be considered by charging authorities when setting rates, including the desirability of ensuring that affordable housing funded by developer contributions equals or exceeds present levels. This will ensure that affordable housing need is accounted for when rates are set but, if the Government are overly prescriptive about requirements, the development of an area could become unviable. That is because affordable housing need may exceed what can be captured through the levy. In such circumstances, rates would need to be set at such high levels that neither affordable housing nor market housing would come forward.

The Bill has been drafted carefully to enable local authorities to find the right balance when setting rates and capture as much value as they can while maintaining viability. As I have said, local authorities’ infrastructure levy charging schedules will be subject to public examination, meaning thorough scrutiny of how and why levy rates are set at a particular level. The infrastructure delivery strategy will also be subject to examination, alongside either a local authority’s charging schedule or its local plan. We envisage that the infrastructure delivery strategy will set out the proportion of levy payment that an authority will require to be delivered in kind as affordable housing. I hope that this provides the noble Baronesses, Lady Warwick and Lady Taylor, with sufficient reassurance not to press these amendments.

Amendments 340, 341, 344, 344A, 349 and 350 are all concerned with how local planning authorities should spend levy proceeds. With regard to Amendment 340, the infrastructure levy is an important tool to support sustainable development objectives at the local level. There is an existing requirement for local authorities, when exercising any function in relation to local plans, to do so with the objective of contributing to the achievement of sustainable development. This is set down in Section 39 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 and will remain in the new plan-making system.

To create sustainable development and successful places, it is important that the infrastructure is appropriately planned for. Contributions from developers are a key tool in mitigating the impacts of new development, alongside wider government funding. The Bill provides a flexible framework to allow local authorities to decide which infrastructure projects they spend the proceeds on. When making such decisions, the Government expect local authorities to fulfil their functions by having regard to all their legal requirements in the round—for example, contributing to the achievement of sustainable development.

I turn to Amendments 341 and 344. As I hope that I have impressed on the Committee, we have designed the levy with the aim of delivering at least as much affordable housing as the current system of developer contributions, if not more. Should the levy generate more revenues than at present, local authorities would be able to choose to direct those additional revenues to meeting their local affordable housing need. Nevertheless, local authorities will need to balance this objective of affordable housing delivery with the levy’s other objectives, such as supporting the development of new roads and medical facilities. We think it is right that local authorities, which know their areas best, are best placed to make local decisions in balancing funding for matters such as affordable housing and other local infrastructure need. I hope noble Lords will therefore feel able not to press these amendments.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th May 2023 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, as we enter this record-breaking 15th day in Committee on a Bill, I pay huge tribute to my noble friends on the Front Bench and noble Lords on the Opposition Front Bench for their considerable patience, humour and endurance.

The sadness of this levelling-up Bill, which has not ground us down, is that there has been absolutely no give from the Government. I am not as hopeful as the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for this amendment, because I fear that the top right-hand corner of the Minister’s brief will say, “Reject”. If I may say so, that has not helped the process of this Bill. Perhaps a message could be sent back to the department that, if one wants to get the Bill through this House, there could be a little more understanding that a lot of the amendments, whether from the Opposition or our side, are there to constructively help the Bill, not destroy it. Because we do not divide in Committee, we will have to go through the whole process in a few weeks’ time on Report, which will be longer and more agonising than it might necessarily have been.

I come at this from a different perspective from the noble Baroness, who made an interesting speech from her own experience. When I came here, I was told that you speak on your honour and experience and vote on your conscience. It is wonderful that we have someone like the noble Baroness, with her experience, but I come at this from the point of view of having served on the Food, Poverty, Health and Environment Committee of your Lordships’ House. The devastating evidence that we received on food made me reassess what the priorities ought to be. Food in this country will probably kill you more quickly than any disease. We eat an enormous amount of processed food—it is 57% of our diet. Some 80% of the processed food that we eat in this country is not fit to be fed to children. It is not good for us, which is why 60% of us are obese and the number is growing. It is one of the unsung scandals that will one day hit the headlines in a major way. Hopefully, we can take some action before that happens. The cost is astronomical. It is estimated that the bad food that we eat contributes to losses of about £74 billion a year to the British economy.

That is the angle that I come at this from, so let us do anything we can to help to grow and produce our own vegetables freshly. It must be devastatingly sad for farmers to grow top-quality food—because our standards are so high—only to have it macerated into virtual poison and sold in supermarkets. What a waste of time and effort, from their point of view.

I also come at this from the health and recreation angle, picking up the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I do not have my own kitchen garden, but I dig my daughter’s. I have been fascinated by doing that with my grandson because, over the last three years, I have noticed a considerable change: this year, he was fascinated by the difference in the sizes of the seeds of the peas, the salads and the courgettes. He kept asking why each one was different and why they were not all the same. He has now taken charge of his vegetables in the garden. His willingness to eat green vegetables has gone up in proportion to his interest in the garden, because they are his vegetables and they are now on his plate. He has seen them grow—he helped me to plant them and will help me to pick them this autumn.

When I was doing this with him a couple of weekends ago, I thought that this amendment absolutely encapsulates that. I gave your Lordships just one instance, but, if this were done on a much bigger scale, not only would there be recreational and mental health benefits from being outside and digging the garden but the young would be educated. My grandson and I now have a competition about who is the first to see the robin once we start digging, because, sure enough, one will appear on a fence-post, looking for what we have turned over in the hope of getting a free meal. If this can be done for those who have never had the experience of handling food in its natural state, the benefits could be amazing.

Going back to what the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said about the gardens that she helped to create in London, I multiply my experience of this and think, “Yes, we can do something”. That is why I hope that the Government will take on board that this is something where local authorities can give a real benefit. It is not allotments; it has to be on a different scale from that. We have heard about the problem with allotments and how long the waiting lists are, so a different tack has to be taken to try to get the local authorities to move, because the end benefits are so worth while.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, that we on these Benches have supported her in the past and will continue to do so. I should reveal that it was me who quietly raised the issue of resources with her just before we began. I note that the amendment mentions identifying

“resources required to bring all land contamination in England to safe levels”.

I say to her and the Committee that that will be a challenging task. She rightly pointed out that, in your Lordships’ House, we are not allowed to discuss those matters, but I hope that someone will take this on board, whether through this amendment or through anything else, because it is a big issue.

This is a helpful reminder to us that, if we recognise that huge problems are caused by land that was previously contaminated, we have to make sure that we are not continuing to create problems for the future with the contamination of land now. Separately, I have been looking into the issue of lithium-ion batteries and the way we are currently disposing of them, which I do not believe we have yet addressed. There are all sorts of problems. People have been killed by lithium-ion batteries exploding, but increasingly they are being dumped, not least in single-use vapes, which, sadly, many young children are now using. They are thrown away in landfill sites and cause all sorts of problems. It is worth checking what lithium can do: lithium toxicity can lead to cancer, brain damage and even death, so we are currently creating toxicity in our landfill sites that we need to address. This is a reminder to do that.

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[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 504GJF from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, also supported by the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Wasserman. However, this is not the amendment I would have liked to see. That would read: “The Vagrancy Act 1824 is hereby repealed”. That amendment was ruled to be outside the scope of this Bill. This amendment is a tentative step in the right direction and the very least we should be taking forward at this stage.

Your Lordships’ House played a crucial part in getting the repeal of this antiquated Act into the House of Commons’ version of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. This House passed the repeal amendment on a cold February night, at 25 minutes past midnight, earning the thanks of the coalition of homeless charities, led by Crisis, that had campaigned for this change over many years. In the Commons, Nickie Aiken MP and the right honourable Robert Jenrick MP helped secure this repeal, and all that remained was for the commencement date to be set. But the Government postponed the repeal for well over a year, pending the results of consultation on whether losing the 1824 legislation would deprive police forces of powers they need to address “aggressive begging”.

Those of us involved in the efforts to get rid of this archaic Act have emphasised two points. First, the criminalisation of people sleeping rough not only sends out all the wrong messages in a civilised society but directly undermines efforts to help people off the streets and provide them with the support—for example, to tackle alcohol and substance misuse and mental health problems—that they desperately need. Many homeless people, knowing that homelessness is itself illegal, will not come forward, even if they are abused and harassed by obnoxious bullies. The police have a role not in arresting the homeless but in supporting them to receive the help they need. Indeed, it would seem a step forward if the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017—which requires certain public bodies, including prisons, to notify local authorities when they know of people at risk of homelessness—could be extended to embrace the police as well.

Secondly, there is the objection that powers need to be retained from the old Act—invented or included in a new Act—to protect the public from anti-social begging. We considered this point when discussing the repeal of the Vagrancy Act with Ministers. We were not convinced that there are gaps in existing legislation that need new laws. The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 provided a range of powers to deal with nuisance of this kind. Other legislation, including the Modern Slavery Act 2015, addresses cases where criminal gangs are involved. Drawing upon the expert legal advice of the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, we concluded that it was entirely unnecessary to create new legislation to supplement all of the existing police powers. Indeed, only a very small minority of police forces currently make use of the Vagrancy Act, strongly suggesting that, since the others are operating without recourse to the penal measures in the old Act, a new Bill is quite unnecessary.

I recently asked the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, for news of positive action by the Government to end street homelessness, which they aspire to do by the end of 2024. It was good to hear the positive measures being taken to fund local initiatives and support multiagency working. There is much more to do, and I encourage the Government to step up the important positive work to ease the miseries of those sleeping rough on our streets. In the meantime, let us have all the evidence that government has collected on the Vagrancy Act, including its damaging impact. Let us move forward as quickly as possible towards the repeal of this dreadful relic of the Napoleonic Wars, before its 200th anniversary.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure that we are all disappointed that we will not hear from the noble Lord who also sponsored these amendments—

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

There is a convention that, if you speak in a debate, you have to stay until the wind-ups. Sadly, I have a commitment that means that that would not be possible. I endorse everything that has been said.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

We are grateful to the noble Lord, and we will miss him for the rest of our deliberations.

We have had many interesting debates on the issue of housing during the discussion on the Bill, from the need to introduce the decent homes standard into the privately rented sector or to address much more urgently the need to improve the energy efficiency of our homes. But I would argue that these amendments are particularly critical, not least during the cost of living crisis, as they deal with the really important issue of evictions and homelessness. Of course, they come at a time when there is huge pressure on temporary accommodation, given all the additional demands being made—not least, in housing refugees. We know that local councils are massively stretched and are using bed and breakfasts and hotels well beyond the legal limit.

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[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Kennedy. I shall speak specifically to my Amendment 504GC. As evidenced in previous debates on the Bill, levelling up can clearly be about large and strategic macro issues, but a significant aspect of it is that, on an individual level, some people simply cannot read as well as we would want. On an individual level, there must be an aspiration to ensure that all adults are literate. Speaking on this issue in another place, Margaret Greenwood MP said:

“Poor literacy skills and illiteracy often consign people to insecure and low-paid work. They are a form of deprivation that can lead to isolation and poverty and can leave people vulnerable to exploitation”.—[Official Report, 23/11/22; col. 353.]


It would seem that the most recent national survey of adult basic skills in England was as long ago as 2011. It showed that 1 million adults had literacy skills at entry level 3 or below. At this level, people are deemed to be functionally illiterate, although they can, for the most part, read straightforward text on familiar topics and obtain information from everyday sources—but this is not reading at a level that any Government should want the population to function at. It is not the level at which a parent can be confident to read with a child beyond infancy, and it is not the level at which a parent can assist with, or show interest in, schoolwork with children as they grow up. It is not the level at which a worker can seek retraining, upskilling or new opportunities.

As is often said, talent is everywhere but opportunity is not. Adult further and community education provision is not uniform. This provision affords opportunities to adults who have a lower level of literacy than that which we want for everyone. For precisely that reason, this amendment calls for a report on the “impact of geographical disparities” in adult literacy on levelling up and regeneration and for the Secretary of State to publish a strategy

“setting out steps they intend to take to improve levels of adult literacy”.

In 2022, 11 years after the survey to which I referred, the National Literacy Trust found that 7.1 million adults can be described as functionally illiterate. If this is accurate, we are, as a nation, allowing about 16% of our population to languish without the skills they need both personally and to be effectively economically active. As I said, the provision of adult learning opportunities to address low levels of literacy in the population is not uniform, and therefore neither is the participation. This amendment would require the Government to publish the information and then the strategy. If we accept, as I am sure we all do, that employers value and require essential skills, of which literacy is clearly the foundation, improving the capacity of those who struggle to read and write must be a priority.

Speaking as a teacher of many years, it pains me to recognise that not every young person finishes their schooling able to read and write as well as they might or as we would want. However, for a variety of reasons, adult illiteracy and low levels of literacy are a fact in our society. Regrettably, there have been significant cuts in adult education, with as much as a 50% fall in classroom-based adult learning opportunities. This must be addressed if we are to afford the opportunities needed to ensure that all are able to reach their potential.

The Government should not ignore this, especially now, as we continue to tackle education issues arising from the Covid pandemic. There can be no real levelling up without attention to adult illiteracy and a strategy to eradicate it. It is a matter of levelling up but also of social justice.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak extremely briefly and only to Amendment 499, just to ask the Minister two very basic questions.

It is my firm belief that, for far too long, there has been a failure by Governments of all parties to tackle the inequalities between rural and urban areas. So much of government policy is designed for urban areas and ignores the special and different requirements of rural areas. So, frankly, it is no wonder that there is a disparity in the cost of living between urban and rural areas. In rural areas, house prices are higher and wages are lower; council taxes are higher, but government support for their councils is lower; and the funding per head for services such as healthcare, policing and public transport is lower, but it costs more to provide those services. If you look at other issues, from broadband coverage to banking, you will see that rural areas lag way behind urban areas.

I said in my speech at Second Reading that the Rural Services Network used government metrics to come to the conclusion that, if all rural areas were treated as a single region, their need for levelling up would be greater than that of any other region. At the time, I asked what in the Bill would address that disparity. I ask again: in relation to this amendment, what aspects of the Bill will address the need to level up between urban and rural areas? Related to that is a question that I have also asked but that has not been answered: can the Government tell us how the absolute requirement for rural proofing of all legislation was carried out in relation to the Bill?

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to all three amendments. In different ways and on different aspects, they set out a clear path for the Government to address some significant issues that, unfortunately, are not covered in the main text of the Bill at present.

In passing, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, on his experience of public transport: welcome to everywhere that is not London. It is not just that there are no buses in rural areas outside London; he should try the urban areas.

At the moment, there are fundamental problems with how we deliver education to potential parents on how they might best help their children to develop and grow. There are also problems with delivering education in our formal education system for children and in our adult education and further learning courses and opportunities that are available to people not only immediately after leaving the school system but in later life. The noble Baroness, Lady Blower, made that point powerfully, and I will reinforce it: in a rapidly changing technological society, what you might describe as in-course training is vital, even for people like me, to discover how to use the latest devices properly and effectively. That is very much the case for those who come out of the education system with a limited level of skills, and maybe without even having the resilience and skills to learn and develop themselves without substantial help and assistance.

So we have a ladder: literacy is certainly an issue in the absolutely crude sense of the word—whether people can read and write—but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, pointed out, it is a question not just of that but of being able to use that process to inform and educate yourself, to learn from what people present and give to you. That shortage spills into an inability or failure, at the end of your school career, to get magic pieces of paper that are the doors to routes to acquiring skills and qualifications. Of course, that failure means that there is an inability to get and hold high-value, high-quality jobs.

The consequence for the individual is, clearly and very often, a waste of their potential, a lack of fulfilment and, sometimes, an alienation from wider society. But the impact for the community is also negative, and the impact for our country and economy is very negative indeed. I say to the Government that, for levelling up to be successful, there has to be more economic growth in areas that are not flourishing at the moment.

To best spend taxpayers’ money on levelling up, however and wherever that tax is collected, it needs to go to areas that need the growth and help. It is exactly those areas where there is that deficiency in skills and professional qualifications, and where it is difficult to recruit people. That means that we are not getting the productivity growth in the industries and geographies where they are most needed. For instance, we get high economic growth in London and the south-east but not in the north-east of England. Unfortunately, all of these are connected in a line that starts with the process of how children grow and flourish in our education and training system.

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I believe that the time has come for some sort of national organisation for the taskforce expert group, preferably a commission, to look at these issues and to help government to take them forward. I beg to move.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendments 504F and 504G. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for the work that she has done, not only on this but on many related issues. She is a great asset.

As the noble Baroness mentioned, back in 2019 I chaired your Lordships’ special Select Committee on the Rural Economy. Part of our deliberation addressed the issue of land use at a time when regional spatial plans had been withdrawn with nothing to replace them. Several witnesses at that time told the committee that they were unhappy with the situation. For example, Hugh Ellis of the TCPA said:

“For me, a national spatial plan is essential. Almost every other advanced economy has one”.


It was hardly surprising that the committee concluded that the

“Government should revisit the merits of a spatial plan for England”.


Of course, much has happened since then, but we still have no form of detailed spatial plan. However, we are delighted that the Government have committed to publishing a land use framework, as they call it, by the end of the year. We know that your Lordships’ Land Use in England Committee recently considered the issue and welcomed the Government’s intention to produce a framework. As we have heard, there was some uncertainty as to whether the Government’s intentions were to have a framework that covered the full range of demands on the use of land, from food production and energy resilience to nature recovery strategies and access to green and open spaces.

The committee’s proposals are neatly summarised in Amendments 504G and 504F: to establish a land use commission

“to prepare and publish for consideration by Government the draft land use framework for England”,

and a requirement that the Government

“lay a land use framework for England before Parliament”.

Amendment 504F may seem redundant, given the Government’s commitment to bring forward such a framework this year, but it seems vitally important that we have something like this on the statute book pretty quickly to ensure that the commitments given by the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, earlier this week are followed through. It is not just a framework. The amendment is very clear that the output must cover the full range of demands on the use of land, and that, crucially, an exemplar list, while not exhaustive, is included in the amendment. However, it goes further, making it clear that numerous bodies, including other government departments as well as Defra, local authorities and relevant public bodies, should be involved and that there should be wide-scale consultation. It is important to set these down very clearly.

It may be that the Government will agree with such an idea in some form or other and bring forward some wording on a similar line. If there is to be further consideration of the wording, there is one other issue which I hope will be included. It would allay some fears if it was made clear that the proposed framework that the Government are going to bring forward is not seen as replacing, or even being in conflict with, the current planning regime. Your Lordships’ land use committee was very clear about this. It said:

“It is not suggested, and we do not propose, that the land use framework sets any distinct housing development policy or replaces the planning system in any way. Nevertheless, the framework cannot ignore the interaction of housing with land use and so it must incorporate some acknowledgement of this”.


I hope that it may be possible, at least in the Minister’s response. Further paragraphs in the report suggest a way forward, but the clear statement that the land use framework does not replace the planning system may be a useful addition to the amendment.

It is clear—and the situation is clearly changing—that the Government are not yet persuaded of the need for Amendment 504G, which proposes, as we have heard, the establishment of a land use commission. It is worth recalling that when the Government responded, quite recently, to the land use committee’s report, they said,

“we disagree with the proposal for a separate Land Use Commission”.

There has obviously been some shift, and it is good to hear that. Perhaps the Minister can at least confirm that she agrees that the Government have not yet been persuaded—not that they disagree. That is quite a significant shift in the language.

I genuinely hope that the Government will take this on board. A separate commission, as the amendment proposes, with commissioners from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, will also ensure other things: that relevant data is collected on a regular basis, dialogue between all involved parties continues, advice and best practice is widely shared, an annual report is presented to Parliament for debate, and modifications to the framework can be proposed to the Government. These are all important things to ensure that we do not do it just once and then forget it, and that we ensure that we can move forwards.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Lords Chamber

This is a very important amendment, because it defines geographical indicators that would help us to know whether levelling up across all departments in Whitehall is a success. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply. The issue is clearly complicated a bit by what the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said earlier, but I was not convinced by the Minister’s reply when we discussed this in Committee and I should give notice that I am minded at this stage to test the opinion of the House.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I support the other amendments in this group, but I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Shipley for pointing out that the “geographical disparities” referred to in his amendment will cover disparities between urban and rural areas. It is those disparities that have led me to table the two amendments in my name—Amendments 10 and 303—and I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for his support.

Only yesterday, the Rural Coalition produced a document urging all political parties to do more to help rural areas. The document, A Better Future for Rural England, called for a sea-change in the way rural areas are perceived and treated. It argues that achieving the economic and social growth envisaged

“will only prove possible if there is a sustained implementation effort led by central Government and made across Whitehall departments. Much of that effort will need to focus upon addressing the structural inequalities, fragile infrastructure and economic weaknesses which characterise and hold back rural areas”.

Sadly, calls to give rural areas a better deal are not new. For example, in 2015 the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, was commissioned by the Government to review the way in which the development of government policies took account of rural communities. Responding to his recommendations, the then Secretary of State, Liz Truss, said:

“This Government is committed to ensuring the interests of rural communities and businesses are accounted for within our policies and programmes”.


Subsequently, the Government produced a booklet called Rural Proofing: Practical Guidance to Consider Impacts of Policies on Rural Areas. It was updated recently and part of the update states:

“It is important that government policies consider how they can be delivered in rural areas”.


The booklet explains:

“This document helps policy makers and analysts in government to consider how to achieve the outcomes they want from their policies in rural areas. This is called rural proofing”.


In 2019, I chaired one of your Lordships’ Select Committees on the rural economy. One of our key recommendations was that rural proofing should be beefed up even further. The Government actually said they were going to do that and then said that they were going to produce a report about how they were doing it every two years. On the basis of all that, one would expect that by now rural areas would be faring at least as well as urban areas or at least were well on the way.

Sadly, the reality is incredibly different. There is a huge disparity in the cost of living between urban and rural areas. In rural areas, house prices are higher but wages are lower. Council taxes are higher, but government support for their councils is lower. Funding per head on many services, from healthcare to public transport, is lower but it costs more to provide those services. From broadband coverage to banking, rural areas lag way behind urban ones.

Only today, many noble Lords will have received a briefing from the NFU on rural crime, which states:

“The NFU recognise that crime is crime wherever it takes place. However, rural crime is very different from urban crime. The scale, cost, social impact, and other effects of crime in rural areas are underestimated, under-reported and not fully understood”.


The briefing noted, for example, that the current funding formula means that in the area where I live, Suffolk, we get £114 per resident from the Home Office grant, whereas if you go to Merseyside, you get £217. So the Rural Services Network, using government metrics, concluded that if all rural areas were brought together and treated as a single region, their need for levelling up would be greater than for any other region. But to make matters worse, Defra has produced its rural proofing report. Indeed, its most recent one, the 2022 report, amazingly and despite its title provides no evidence whatever of rural proofing procedures outlined in the guidance being followed. The Rural Services Network concluded:

“Nowhere … is anything evidenced anywhere to show if these processes were followed”.


During our deliberations, I asked on two separate occasions whether a Minister could tell me whether those rural proofing processes were carried out in relation to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. I have had no response. Now, in fairness, various Ministers have attempted to allay my fears. For instance, when I last raised it, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, responded with three examples of very good things that the Government have done. First, she was very proud to boast of the £110 million rural England prosperity fund, failing to point out that that is simply a continuation of the previous scheme, the EU structural investment programme fund. So there is no extra money there.

Then we had the great example of the extended subsidy scheme for buses—£250 million, of which £20 million is going to the whole of rural England, whereas £20 million will be given for bus priority measures in just the West Midlands, and £50 million for the first all-electric bus town. But the ultimate example that I was given was that I should be really pleased that the Government had given some rural energy support—extra funding for rural areas. But when you analyse it, what is that? That is for the nearly 1 million people who are off the gas and electricity grid, who predominantly live in rural areas. And what happened? They got the extra money ages after the previous scheme had been introduced. They had to wait for a lifetime for it. Surely that is real evidence of rural proofing not having taken place.

So I hope I might get an answer to the question today of how the Bill has been rurally proofed. If not, we can fall back on the two amendments that I have put down. Amendment 303 simply requires that that answer be provided before the Act is implemented. Amendment 10 deals with mission statements and seeks to embed rural proofing in them, requiring

“a rural proofing report detailing the ways in which the levelling-up missions have regard to their impact on rural areas and will address the needs of rural communities”.

That is a pretty simple request, given that it is meant to be government policy anyway.

I believe it makes sense to take the steps outlined in these amendments, to make meaningful rural proofing a fundamental part of all levelling-up policy development, delivery and outcomes monitoring. Ideally, I would like to go even further, as they have already done in Northern Ireland, where rural proofing is on a much stronger legal footing. But that is perhaps for another day.

I hope we will not have to take these two amendments to a vote, because I hope we are going to get an answer to the question that I am now asking for the third time.

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my rural interests as set out in the register. It gives me great pleasure to support the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, on Amendment 10, as well as consequential Amendment 303. As he has said, he has been deeply involved in promoting rural issues for many years. Although progress has been made, in particular with the recent publication of the report Unleashing Rural Opportunity, there is a long way to go to address the disparity in productivity between urban and rural areas, which can differ by as much as 18%. We need to take into account issues such as housing, connectivity, transport and energy costs and it seems clear that, economically and socially, there is much more to be done.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, mentioned many of the reports that have been written and the actions that have followed. I add two reports from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Rural Business and the Rural Powerhouse, on which I sit. One was an inquiry into rural productivity and the rural premium, which explored the impact of the cost of living crisis in rural areas, the other an inquiry into rural productivity. Many organisations whose remit involves rural affairs contributed to these reports, including the CPRE, the CLA, the NFU, the Rural Services Network, the Federation of Small Businesses, Citizens Advice’s Rural Issues Group and many more.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I am not aware that the advisory council is publishing papers, because it is advisory to the Government. I will make further inquiries and come back to the noble Lord and others in the Chamber.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

To save the House time later, I remind the Minister that rural-proofing is not about giving a list of good things you have done in rural areas. To quote the Government’s own document:

“Rural proofing aims to understand the intended outcomes of government policy intervention in a rural context and to ensure fair and equitable policy outcomes for rural areas”.


If the Minister is correct that this legislation has been rural-proofed, will she commit to publishing the specific report for this Bill, which would achieve what my two amendments are seeking to do?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, a number of proofings have been done on the Bill. I will ask for those and make sure that they are brought forward. It is not about giving money; it is about knowing where money is required in rural areas to make life better for people, as well as making sure that policies are rural-proofed. If we find out through that rural-proofing that some policies are not delivering as well as they could for rural areas, we have to do something about it, and that is what the Government are doing.

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Moved by

[Lord Foster of Bath]

10: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Rural proofing reportAlongside the first statement of levelling-up missions required by section 1, the Secretary of State must publish a rural proofing report detailing the ways in which the levelling-up missions have regard to their impact on rural areas and will address the needs of rural communities.”

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful to the Minister for promising to go and look for evidence that rural proofing of this Bill has taken place. But in the event that she is unable to find it or, more likely, that the reports are not deemed satisfactory, it seems better to embed the rural proofing process in the legislation itself, so I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness D'Souza (CB)]

My Lords, I too speak to Amendments 4C and 4D in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. We are essentially discussing four non-contentious words: “throughout the life course”. The Government have gone out of their way to address most of the concerns expressed about the welfare of children, for which everyone is extremely grateful. However, it is puzzling why these four words continue to be resisted. We know that health disparities begin in pregnancy, even before birth, as the noble Baroness said, and continue until advanced old age. Surely any levelling-up Bill has to acknowledge that continuous investment at every stage will result in a healthier and more productive society. The Government argue that this is implicit in the Bill, but why not make it explicit in the Bill? I honestly fail to understand this reluctance on the part of the Government and, should the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, decide to press her Motion to a vote, I will follow her into the Lobby.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Motion D, which relates to rural issues, and my concern about the absence of rural issues in the Bill. Indeed, at Second Reading I made reference to this issue and pointed out the enormous disparities between urban and rural communities. I gave a range of examples from the way in which, for instance, housing costs are higher and yet wages are lower, to that the cost of delivering services such as education, health and policing is higher, yet government funding is lower. There were many other examples. These disparities have been referred to in your Lordships’ House and the other place on many occasions over very many years. Indeed, proposals were made several years ago by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, and were responded to by the then Secretary of State, Liz Truss, who said:

“This Government … is committed … to ensuring the interests of rural communities and businesses are accounted for within our policies and programmes”.


More recently, I had the opportunity to chair your Lordships’ special Select Committee on the Rural Economy. Again, we made a number of proposals, in response to which the Government said:

“Without doubt, these distinct characteristics”


of rural areas

“must be recognised in policy making and the government believes that rural proofing is the best”

way of doing it.

The most recent handbook on how to carry out rural-proofing—the Government’s Rural Proofing: Practical Guidance to Consider the Outcomes of Policies in Rural Areas—makes it abundantly clear that the rural-proofing process must take place before the presentation of legislation for consideration in your Lordships’ House and the other place. Yet, looking through the Bill as it was presented to us, I saw an absence of any reference to the distinctive nature of rural communities and the differences between them and urban communities. I also saw no evidence that a rural-proofing process had been done in advance of the Bill being presented to us. So, with the support of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, I proposed a couple of amendments.

The first said that, in developing the mission statements, the Government must have regard to the specific needs of rural communities. That has been rejected time after time at various stages in the passage of the Bill. However, as we have just heard from the Minister—I am enormously grateful to him for the meeting that we had to discuss this issue—the Government have now conceded that amendment. It is now to be included within the Motion brought forward by the Minister. Again, I am enormously grateful to him.

My second amendment proposed that evidence of rural-proofing should be presented to your Lordships’ House before the Bill is able to be enacted. That has been rejected and, as we have just heard from the Minister, it is to be rejected again. In his opening remarks, the Minister said that I need not be concerned because there is clear evidence that the Government have gone through a rural-proofing process in relation to all government legislation. I will not argue with the Minister, but I gently say to him that, when independent experts have looked at this matter—for instance, the Rural Services Network looked at the most recent government report on rural-proofing—they have made it absolutely clear that, in their view, there is no evidence of rural-proofing processes having been carried out. There are a lot of mentions of some good things that the Government are doing to support rural communities but not of a specific process having been carried out. The precise conclusion of the Rural Services Network was:

“Nowhere … is anything evidenced anywhere to show if these processes were followed”.


I will take the Minister’s word for it that he has been given total assurance that this procedure was adopted for the passage of the Bill. For that reason, I will not press and have not put down an amendment to repeat what my earlier amendment said. But it would be enormously helpful if, for the sake of those of us who are still somewhat sceptical, he could provide written evidence of the procedure having been carried out.

As I have said, I am enormously grateful that—through the amendment he has brought, repeating the one I originally proposed—we now have reference in the Bill that the specific needs of rural communities will be taken into account in drawing up the mission statements. I am enormously grateful for the work he did to ensure that this happened, so I end by once again expressing my thanks to the Minister.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a brief comment in response to the Minister’s Motion C in relation to Amendment 3, which I moved on Report. I want to put on the record that I understand the line that the Government have taken. It is difficult to make statutory geographical disparities. What matters is the assurance that the Minister has given on that issue. It will really matter, in respect of policy formulation to address geographical disparities, for the evidence to be constantly collected to identify what those disparities are. I accept the assurances that the Minister has given and I have no intention of pursuing the matter further. I am grateful to the Minister.