House of Lords

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

Wednesday, 30 January 2013.

15:00

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Wakefield.

Government: Economic Policies

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

Question

15:07

Asked By

[Lord Mitchell]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the impact of their economic policies during their 1,000 days in office.

[The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Deighton)]

My Lords, the Government’s economic strategy is underpinned by fiscal consolidation, allowing monetary activism and supply-side reforms to support the economy. This strategy has provided the foundations for recovery. Market interest rates have fallen to near-record lows; the deficit has been reduced by a quarter; more than 1 million private sector jobs have been created; and goods exports to China, India and Brazil have increased by around a third.

[Lord Mitchell]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Today, this Government have been in office for 1,000 days: 1,000 days, and we are teetering on the brink of a triple-dip recession; 1,000 days, and the UK’s credit rating is close to being downgraded; 1,000 days, and our national debt is rising; 1,000 days, and our productivity is falling; 1,000 days, and our trade gap is widening. After 1,000 days, does not the Minister think that this Government should stop blaming the previous Government and start taking responsibility for their own failed economic policies?

[Lord Deighton]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. I confirm that we are facing extraordinarily challenging economic conditions, but the economy is recovering from the most damaging financial crisis in generations after a decade of growth built on unsustainable levels of debt. This Government inherited the largest deficit since the Second World War and the largest in the G20, and we experienced one of the deepest recessions of any major economy. This Government’s strategy is designed to protect the economy through this period of global uncertainty, to maintain market confidence and keep those interest rates low, and to lay the foundations for a stronger, more balanced economy.

[Lord Soley]

Where is the evidence of growth? Without growth, you will not get out of this deficit. We had larger deficits than this several times in the 19th and 20th centuries, but we got out of them through growth. It is growth that is lacking.

[Lord Deighton]

I agree with the implicit statement of the noble Lord that the economy is taking a long time to recover. That is because of the depth of the problems that we confront and the global nature of the economic recession with which we are dealing. There is only one effective solution to that, which is to restore market credibility. The only way in which we can do that is to ensure that our finances are absolutely stable. The alternative strategy of borrowing more to increase demand has already been proven, given the state that we got into, not to work. You do not borrow your way out of a recession which is caused by a deficit created by borrowing too much.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Will my noble friend confirm that the reason the Government are facing such terrible economic difficulties is because at the height of the boom created by Gordon Brown, that Government continued to borrow? As a measure of their economic competence, they sold gold at the bottom of the market, which is affectionately known in the City as the “Brown bottom”.

[Lord Deighton]

I thank my noble friend for that excellent contribution. I will not comment on the timing of selling the gold. Hitting a market high is tough to do. I will refer to what I would call the “scissors of doom”, which is the graph I was first shown when I entered the Treasury, which shows that between 2008 and 2010 spending was heading north at a rapid rate while receipts were heading south at an equally rapid rate, a situation that we are now trying to recover through this period of fiscal consolidation.

[Lord Tomlinson]

Does the Minister agree that confidence in the United Kingdom is being illustrated by the way sterling is devaluing against the euro—the much derided euro on which we blame so many of our economic ills? If the medicine is so good, why is the patient looking so ill?

[Lord Deighton]

There are many positive signs. I do not think that the patient does look so ill. I refer to the extraordinary employment levels—the biggest increase in employment for the past 20 years. On the question of the exchange rate, the noble Lord is absolutely correct that sterling has recently weakened against the euro. The exchange rate has two sides: the strength of the eurozone versus the UK economy. What that exchange rate reflects is that many of the risks that have been confronted by the eurozone over the past two or three years are perceived by the market to be diminishing.

[Lord Flight]

Does the Minister agree that, beneath the aggregate figures, the private sector has actually grown by about 4% since 2010 but that this has been matched by the public sector reduction?

[Lord Deighton]

I welcome my noble friend’s encouragement to delve a little deeper into the figures. Certainly, with respect to employment, we are seeing a switch from an overinflated public sector to a much more dynamic private sector, which will stand us in very good stead in the longer term. If one looks at the specific factors relating to the output figures, there are some very interesting facts; for example, the majority of the decline in the fourth quarter relates to maintenance in the North Sea, and coping with the long-term decline of that source of revenue to the United Kingdom is a structural problem to which we must adjust.

[Lord Barnett]

Can the noble Lord tell us, if the economy is going so well, why the deficit is rising?

[Lord Deighton]

My comments were not intended to imply that the economy was going so well. My comments were intended to imply that the economy is facing extraordinarily difficult circumstances that were a function of the historical debt we accumulated, and a very difficult global situation in terms of demand. With respect to the deficit, I confirm that it has been reduced by a quarter.

[Baroness Browning]

I think my noble friend will be aware that the fourth-quarter GDP figures in the USA have been missed by miles. Will he assure us that the UK Government will not emulate the Obama spending spree?

[Lord Deighton]

I thank my noble friend for reinforcing the fact that demonstrating to the world’s financial markets that our spending is properly controlled, and consistent with our capacity to repay the debts that we develop in the international markets, is absolutely at the foundation of our recovery.

Tourism

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

Question

15:15

Asked by

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the prospects for United Kingdom tourism in 2013.

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and, in doing so, declare an interest as the chairman of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, tourism is the fifth biggest industry and worth £115 billion per year. In many parts of Britain, it is the leading economic sector. It has great potential to grow: VisitBritain reports that the volume of international tourism will grow by 3% this year, with a spend of £9 billion. Domestic tourism accounts for 80% of the market, and VisitEngland predicts a £500 million additional spend over four years. The Government are working with tourism organisations to secure these objectives.

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

I know that my noble friend is very conscious of tourism’s importance, but are the Government? On 31 December, the Prime Minister sent a three-page letter to all parliamentarians on the Olympics legacy. Unbelievably, there was not one word on tourism. Is my noble friend aware that tourism created one-third of all new UK employment in the two years to the end of 2011 and now accounts for 9% of all employment? Two months ago, the Intercontinental London Westminster opened, just by St James’s Park tube station. Of its 170 permanent staff, only 68—or 40%—were from the United Kingdom. There were 13 each from Italy and Spain, 11 from Lithuania, 10 from France, eight from Poland and 47 who were from 30 other countries. It is a veritable United Nations. Just what are the Government doing to encourage our young people to embrace career opportunities in tourism and hospitality?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, first, I am very conscious that I am replying to a former Minister for Tourism. I assure your Lordships that the Government are taking tourism and its potential extremely seriously. The Prime Minister is leading from the front on this issue; indeed, the Secretary of State and the Minister for Sports and Tourism are fully engaged in promoting it. The Government are investing £137 million over four years via the GREAT campaign, which is delivered through VisitBritain and in partnership with the private sector. Through that investment, we hope that almost 60,000 new job opportunities will be created. Those will of course include job opportunities for the young, while the success story of apprenticeships is very strong.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the strong and widespread feeling among tourism operators in Wales that Wales is not being marketed abroad effectively by VisitBritain? This fact was recognised by his ministerial colleague Mr Stephen Crabb, who said earlier this month in another place that there would be a meeting very soon with VisitBritain to discuss the specific problem. Has that meeting taken place and if the Minister does not know, can he make inquiries and let us know the outcome?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I shall certainly make inquiries for the noble Lord and place a record of the findings in the Library. Clearly, the task and responsibility for VisitBritain is to work with all the other organisations including VisitEngland, the Northern Ireland Tourist Board and VisitScotland, and they must of course be co-ordinated because VisitBritain has the responsibility to ensure that, across the country, there are greater tourism opportunities. Wales, with its countryside and industrial heritage, is hugely important in that respect.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, could my noble friend boost tourism this year by suggesting that we put on special tours of all those marvellous areas and wonderful buildings that will be despoiled or destroyed by the extravagant expenditure of HS2?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I know that HS2 has been the subject of earlier discussions; of course, there will be considerable opportunities with that rail network of getting to many parts of the country. As a man of Buckinghamshire, I understand what my noble friend means but the overall objective is to ensure that this country has a vibrant transport network.

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

My Lords, given the previous question, I should declare an interest as a director of VisitBritain. Does the Minister agree that the great opportunities that exist for British tourism on the back of the excellent images of Britain through the Olympics and Paralympics will be limited if people have difficulty getting into Britain? It is not just a visa issue, it is also an issue about aviation policy and the negative publicity that British airports have had over the past few weeks. What action are the Government taking in the short term to help alleviate these difficulties for people coming into Britain?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

A number of issues are being taken forward. The first, although we want to go beyond visa issues, is that last year the UK Border Agency launched the simplified approved destinations scheme, which is particularly important for China. Clearly, there are also important advantages. We want to ensure that the growth of tourism from India and other countries improves. Our objective is to get 500,000 new visitors from China by 2015. This is clearly going to involve a great deal of work co-ordinating vis-à-vis airports, as the noble Baroness suggested, and across the piece to ensure that many people from all around the world can visit our wonderful country.

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth]

My Lords—

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords—

[Lord Dannatt]

My Lords—

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

Cross Bench.

[Lord Dannatt]

My Lords, I declare an interest as Constable of the Tower of London, which received 2.5 million visitors last year, 70% of whom came from overseas. Will the Minister indicate what he is doing to encourage the UK Border Force to present not only a secure but a welcoming entry into this country so that queues and the grumpy attitude seen on some occasions do not deter people from visiting this country and our wonderful attractions?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

It is very important that people receive a welcome not only in terms of the visa application process but on their arrival. It is acknowledged that we always need to do better. In particular, we have moved up three places to ninth out of 50 countries in the Anholt brands index in terms of the welcome that the UK grants its visitors. That is an indication of the warmth of the Olympic welcome, but it is something that we must build on all the time.

Ethiopia and Eritrea

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

Question

15:22

Asked By

[Lord Chidgey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the progress toward the resolution of the disputed border between Ethiopia and Eritrea since the death of Meles Zenawi.

[The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi)]

My Lords, unfortunately there has been no progress on the border dispute since the death of Prime Minister Meles. We have, however, encouraged both Governments to engage to resolve their differences.

[Lord Chidgey]

I thank my noble friend for that reply, which confirms that there has been little change over the past decade in this very long-running dispute. Does my noble friend agree that the appointment of Ethiopia’s new Prime Minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, to chair the African Union and, quite separately but in the same time span just last week, the revolt of elements of Isaias Afewerki’s Eritrean army indicate a shifting of regional political ground? Does that mean that developments in Ethiopia and Eritrea and the impact on regional security of the weakening of al-Shabaab represent an opportunity through diplomatic discourse to resolve the border issues, address the democratic deficit and unlock the security stalemate in that region?

[Baroness Warsi]

My noble friend makes an important point, and I think all noble Lords in this House would agree that a legitimate Government and stability in the region are essential. We can see from what has happened in Mali and Algeria that it is absolutely essential for us to support a democratic process to resolve border disputes. We have been working with the United Nations and the European Union to try to ensure that these countries continue to speak to resolve their differences. As my noble friend will be aware, the Boundary Commission report of 2003, which is the document that lays out the internationally accepted agreement on that boundary, has still not been implemented.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, Eritrea is governed by one of the most secretive and repressive regimes in the whole world, which uses forced labour and is under UN sanctions for its continuing support for al-Shabaab, a self-declared affiliate of al-Qaeda in Somalia. Will the Minister join me in condemning that regime? Will she tell us why the Foreign Office has facilitated a London meeting between the Eritrean Government and a range of mining and investment companies? Does she really think that this is the best way to impress on the Government of Eritrea the need to respect the freedoms and human rights of its people?

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Baroness will be aware that the Somalia and Ethiopia monitoring group, which reported in 2012, very much raised some of the concerns that the noble Baroness raises here today. Eritrea continues to flout UN sanctions; that is why we continue to support them. The regime has huge human rights issues, which is why we continue to raise those matters whenever we get the opportunity.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, will the noble Baroness answer the second point of my noble friend’s question: the meeting with the oil company?

[Baroness Warsi]

I was not immediately familiar with the specific meeting to which the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, refers. She is clearly better informed than I on this issue, as many noble Lords are on regular occasions; it is why we have such expertise on foreign policy in this House. I will make sure that I speak to the Minister for Africa and write to the noble Baroness.

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that, in the post-Meles era, the international community needs to reset its relations with Ethiopia by pushing the ruling parties to revive the rights and freedoms of the 1994 constitution and by promoting inclusive reforms, as the only way to ensure internal and regional stability as well as durable development?

[Baroness Warsi]

We saw the appointment of Prime Minister Hailemariam as a real opportunity. The right reverend Prelate will be aware that Prime Minister Meles and President Isaias have had a long history with the ongoing dispute between the two countries, and we felt that a change in Prime Minister was an opportunity for the two countries to move together. South Sudan, as the right reverend Prelate will probably be aware, has offered to act as a mediator and facilitator in this dispute, but unfortunately, because of the ongoing violence through 2012, no real progress has been made.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

On the new Prime Minister’s role in Ethiopia, is the Minister aware that some of us met the Prime Minister and pressed very hard on all the questions that have been raised, including on the role of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and the need for it to be transparent in publishing all its reports. I think we made some progress on that. I hope that the Minister can press on that point as well.

[Baroness Warsi]

We raise the issue of human rights whenever we have the opportunity, with both the Eritrean and Ethiopian Governments. The Minister for Africa raised the issue of human rights, among other things, with the adviser to the Eritrean President in September of last year.

Energy: Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

Question

15:28

Asked By

[Lord Ezra]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the impact on energy saving in the home of the Green Deal and the Energy Company Obligation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Baroness Verma)]

My Lords, following its successful launch on Monday, I expect the Green Deal to revolutionise energy saving in our homes. It will transform the energy efficiency market, giving consumers real choice and control over how they can improve their properties. The new energy company obligation will ensure that those who struggle most to heat their homes affordably will get the help that they need. The reaction of industry and other groups has been more than encouraging. I am pleased with the warm reception from the party opposite for the Green Deal.

[Lord Ezra]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. I agree that the Green Deal and the energy company obligation are innovative schemes, and I hope that they are very successful. However, there is one aspect that I am a little concerned about—the rate of build-up at a time when fuel poverty is still increasing. There may be a lapse before these schemes get fully under way. Would my noble friend care to comment on that aspect? In that connection, would she also comment on a number of reports that have come out on the fact that there have been some lay-offs in the insulation sector?

[Baroness Verma]

I begin by thanking my noble friend for his very warm welcome. The Green Deal targets energy efficiency schemes and is one of the most effective ways in which to tackle fuel poverty. That is why the minimum of 40% of eco will help to support low-income households. The eco-affordable warmth and carbon saving community obligations will support around 230,000 low-income households each year. The insulation sector as a whole has a real opportunity to grow from the success of the Green Deal, and we estimate that overall jobs in the sector will increase from the 26,000 recorded in 2011 to about 60,000 in 2015.

[Baroness Worthington]

My Lords, interest rates for loans for home improvement under the Green Deal appear far higher than can be obtained on the high street. Both Homebase and the RBS, for example, offer loans at below 5% interest, whereas the Green Deal base rate starts at 6.9%. Can the Minister please explain why the Government have failed to negotiate a more attractive offer? Could she also inform the House how many people have signed up since the launch on Monday?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, this is a market-based deal. To be quite frank, it is really important that we allow consumers the choice of finding where they want to go for their finance, but this offer from the Green Deal Finance Company is available to 80% of the population. So it is a competitive rate, but if people want to source elsewhere it does not stop them from doing so. We also think that the energy company obligation with the extra £540 million attached to it will help those families who are not always able to access and source competitive rates. As for commenting on how many people have signed up, it was launched only on Monday, so it would be very predictive of me to be able to predict a figure for the noble Baroness at this stage.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Could I first congratulate the Minister on her colour co-ordination for this Question? She will recall that the Prime Minister made a promise in the other place that everyone would be guaranteed the lowest rate for their energy supply. Does that mean the end of competition?

[Baroness Verma]

First, I congratulate the noble Lord on his observation. It was not intentional. As always, the noble Lord is resplendent in his attire, too.

The Government are very much focused on ensuring that consumers get the best possible deal that they can source out in the market. It is not the end of competition —it is actually more encouraging of competition. I hope that the noble Lord, when he accesses the Green Deal, as I very much hope that he does, will see how easy it is for consumers to be able to take control of their own destinies by being able to control how much they spend on their energy bills.

[Lord Vinson]

My Lords, while the Green Deal may or may not help the poorer sections of our community, the huge subsidies paid for the installation of wholly inefficient wind turbines, which will make no measurable effect on world CO₂ levels, are making British industry uncompetitive and, as the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, said earlier, putting millions of households deeper into fuel poverty. Surely it is time that the fiasco of some parts of the energy-saving programme inherited as it has been by the present Government were reviewed.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I think that the noble Lord’s question is slightly away from the Question on the Order Paper. I remind him that, as a country, we need a mixed source of energies, and wind is one of those sources.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, to what extent has voltage optimisation been incorporated into the Green Deal?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I know that the noble Lord is very keen on voltage optimisation. I remind noble Lords that it is an area that we have looked at, and continue to look at.

HGV Road User Levy Bill

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

First Reading

15:34

The Bill was brought from the Commons, endorsed as a money Bill, and read a first time.

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2013

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

Motion to Approve

15:35

Moved By

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

That the draft order laid before the House on 8 January be approved.

Relevant document: 15th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 29 January.

Motion agreed.

Public Service Pensions Bill

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

Order of Consideration Motion

15:35

Moved By

[Lord Newby]

That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:

Clause 1, Schedule 1, Clause 2, Schedule 2, Clause 3, Schedule 3 Clauses 4 to 17, Schedule 4, Clause 18, Schedule 5, Clause 19, Schedule 6, Clause 20, Schedule 7, Clauses 21 to 26, Schedule 8, Clauses 27 and 28, Schedule 9, Clauses 29 and 30, Schedule 10, Clauses 31 and 32, Schedule 11, Clauses 33 to 40.

Motion agreed.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

Committee (3rd Day)

15:36

Relevant documents: 11th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee, 10th Report from the Constitution Committee.

Amendment 58

Moved by

[The Earl of Lytton]

58: Before Clause 8, insert the following new Clause—
“Further provision regarding advance payment
After section 52A of the Land Compensation Act 1973 insert—“52B Further provision regarding advance payment
(1) A request for an advance payment under section 52(2) must be in such form as may be prescribed by regulations to be made under this section.
(2) Where a request under section 52(2) has been made to an acquiring authority, the acquiring authority must make an advance payment within the time specified in the regulations unless any of the circumstances specified in the regulations apply.
(3) The regulations must provide for the circumstances in which an acquiring authority must be required to make an advance payment prior to taking possession of a claimant’s land.””

[The Earl of Lytton]

My Lords, I tabled these amendments as a probing gesture and, I hope, a reasonably friendly one. I wish to speak to Amendments 58 and 59 together.

I have a professional interest and involvement in the world of compulsory purchase since my early days in—

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, as a courtesy to the noble Earl, if noble Lords wish to leave the Chamber, may I suggest that they do so quietly? Thank you.

[The Earl of Lytton]

My Lords, as I was saying, I have a professional interest and involvement in the world of compulsory purchase going back some 30 or more years and have a professional interest to declare. I also wish to record the assistance that I have had from a small group of specialist practitioners in the Compulsory Purchase Association who have been instrumental in helping me draft these amendments. There was to have been a meeting between a representative of the Compulsory Purchase Association and the department but I think that has not yet happened for various reasons. I hope that it will happen because there are probably things that could usefully be discussed, but I know that the reasons for it not happening were beyond anybody’s control.

For more than 20 years, legal experts, surveyors, claimants, acquiring authorities and others have campaigned to have the compulsory purchase system modernised. I have previously campaigned to remove some of the blocks and impediments to growth and infrastructure.

In passing, I should mention Fair Play, a publication produced last year by the Country Land and Business Association on dealing with blocks in the compulsory purchase system. I know that compulsory purchase is a slightly peripheral aspect of this Bill but I am reinforced in my endeavours in this respect by the Bill’s Long Title, which addresses the principle of unblocking systems.

Compulsory purchase is vital to growth and particularly to the creation and laying out of infrastructure. We need a compulsory purchase system that is properly modernised and is understood, with the majority of participants signed up to its principles. Participants need to believe that it is working. At the moment, I feel that there is widespread disdain and that we are dealing with a system that has fallen into a certain amount of disrepute. Participants need to support the process, even if they do not support the specific outcomes; otherwise, we will have delay and sclerosis. We have had many problems in the planning system and other systems, and the compulsory purchase system is another of those systems of administration that need to operate slickly and effectively. One gets the impression that, given the length of time for which this matter has been under discussion by experts of all sorts, it has fallen into the Whitehall “just too difficult to deal with” category. I hope that that is more perception than reality but there are many voices who suggest that the system is long overdue for reform and overhaul.

The Minister kindly wrote to me on 21 January, and I thank her for that. In particular, she endeavoured to answer a point that I had raised on compulsory purchase. She explained that the Bill is intended to deal with specific and small-scale issues and points of concern. I understand that but one needs to look at the system holistically. If we are dealing with growth and infrastructure, and getting things cranked up again for our economy to prosper, it is important that we do not deal with this matter at the periphery— at the edges. We need to deal with the central issues.

I should like to quote from the noble Baroness’s letter. She said:

“I do not think that it is appropriate at this stage in the Bill proceedings to take forward substantive changes to the compulsory purchase system without wider engagement and prior discussions on the details”.

That is all very well, but I was not sure if she was referring to amendments to this harlequin Bill in general or to compulsory purchase in particular. Perhaps she could clarify in her reply the degree to which compulsory purchase should be a component of the Bill. If she was referring specifically to compulsory purchase, I should point out that this matter has been under discussion for a long time. The issues have been well trailed.

In December 2003, the Law Commission published its paper, Towards a Better Compulsory Purchase Code: (1) Compensation. For nine years, that has been gathering dust in the noble Baroness’s department—not, I appreciate, under her jurisdiction as such. However, for far longer, experts have been campaigning for change. Blight, a degree of sharp practice in the advance payments procedures, out-of-date planning assumptions and so on are rife. All these are blocks and impediments to a streamlined system. No wonder the Country Land and Business Association, of which I am a member, has had a lot to say about this issue. It is worthy of consideration. We need to bear in mind that if we are going to roll out schemes such as High Speed 2, the way in which compulsory purchase operates is intrinsic to that process if it is to be carried out in any sort of sensible timescale and at sensible cost.

My amendments are an attempt to test the Government’s resolve and are a litmus test of their real intentions as regards growth and infrastructure. I turn to the detail. Amendment 58 is about advance payments. I should explain that when a compulsory purchase order is made and land is taken, a claimant is entitled to an advance payment of 90% of the estimated compensation due to them, while the final amount is being worked out. It should be borne in mind that at that stage, the relevant land has been taken and the acquiring body is in possession. The problem is that there is a lack of standardisation in the approach to claiming and receiving this payment.

If there is a disagreement regarding the completeness or otherwise of the information required or the basis of the payout, there is no satisfactory quick or necessarily fair solution for dealing with the matter. In those circumstances, it is wide open to abuse, and the abuse can occur on either side—both in the employing authority and, indeed, through claimants trying to manipulate the system to suit their own purposes. This simply causes delay. Advance payments are essential to a claimant’s ability to arrange their affairs. This can, and often is, mission-critical. Statutory interest—currently effectively zero—is no compensation when cash flow is king.

15:45

The amendment would effectively alter Section 52A of the Land Compensation Act 1973 and pave the way for a proper and simple process for making advance payments through a regulatory framework. If taken forward, it would ensure that adequate information was provided by the claimant, that demands for excessive or irrelevant information were curtailed, and that payments would have to be made in a timely fashion. I accept that there is a little more detail behind it than that but those are the three principal areas where there are problems. I do not believe that it has any financial implications beyond freeing up the system and avoiding people taking to the trenches because the existing system does not work.

Amendment 59 is about loss payments. I ask your Lordships to ignore the length of the amendment. The principle is a good deal simpler and I shall not go through the amendment line by line. Loss payments are top-up sums paid to claimants in recognition of compulsion being used. They apply variously to occupiers or tenants and to investors or landlords. Occupiers are entitled to 2.5% of the value of their interest as a loss payment up to a maximum of £25,000. Investors—for some reason that escapes me—are entitled to 7.5% of the value of their interest up to a maximum of £75,000. However, the Compulsory Purchase Association and I do not feel that this represents a fair balance between the respective claimant interests. It is the occupier in possession who is displaced and has to reorganise his affairs and who bears the brunt of the acquisition impact. Therefore, my view is that those figures should be reversed. The amendment would reverse that inequitable treatment between occupiers sustaining the front-line loss and investors sitting somewhere else.

The amendment would also change the basis of the calculation of loss payments for occupier claimants from a percentage of the land value element to a percentage of the total value of the claim. This last point would overcome issues where a tenant is nearing the end of a lease but may have rights, under other statute, to a new lease on expiry and where the real estate value as such may be small or minimal.

There are some consequential matters that this amendment also tidies up—hence its apparent complexity.

I do not believe that the amendments would have significant consequences for the public purse but they would go some way to improving confidence in a system that badly needs some general maintenance and repair.

Mindful of the Minister’s letters to me, I am prompted to ask as my parting shot: if not now in this Bill, in the context of improving growth and infrastructure, then when? This country needs to see real measures that have identifiable effects. I should have thought that the time for dealing with this matter was now, although I recognise that there are many far wider issues, such as blight, planning assumptions and all sorts of other things, that need sorting out in our compulsory purchase code. I beg to move.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, we should thank the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for his amendments because he raises an issue which is clearly of importance. I particularly commend his practice of giving us an explanatory note with his amendments. Perhaps I may commend that to other noble Lords and I shall take it on board myself.

As my noble friend said, we are dealing here with a complex compulsory purchase system in which specialist practitioners are involved. To some extent, it may be seen as just too difficult to deal with. However, my noble friend makes an important point: if it is one of the components that are holding up growth, it should be addressed. I checked with one of my colleagues, whose knowledge of this is greater than mine, his reaction to the amendment and certainly to advance payments and loss payments. The response was that the amendment does not seem unreasonable. I think that is quite a way from our saying that we are in a position to support these amendments but I look forward to the Minister's reply, particularly on the question of, if not now, when will we be able to look at the system holistically and unravel some of the complexities and inefficiencies that my noble friend has identified.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

First, I join the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, in thanking the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for explaining the two areas of compensation code for compulsory purchase that are of concern to practitioners and to claimants and indeed for proposing some remedy. I think his explanations were very clear.

First, as regards Amendment 58, the Government are very grateful to the noble Earl for raising this matter. I, too, am concerned to hear about the poor practice in making advance payments of compensation. However, it is not clear how the new Section 52B of the Land Compensation Act 1973 would provide the necessary teeth, for want of a better term, to force the acquiring authority to make the payment when it is due.

The provision to allow an advance payment to be made before possession is taken is new but, again, the same issue arises about how to ensure that the payment actually happens. In both cases, the provisions may not be effective without the additional use of judicial review to obtain an order requiring a tardy acquiring authority to pay the necessary amount.

On Amendment 59, the Government note the view that the percentages for loss payments should be reversed, so that occupiers get the lion’s share. This would be a popular change for occupiers and perhaps less so for owners. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, suggests that this change would be cost neutral and I have no doubt that cases can be found where this is so. Some have been set out in the Compulsory Purchase Association’s evidence to the Committee in the other place. There may equally be cases where the amount of compensation would rise. Currently, both the evidence and the views of the acquiring authorities are lacking.

For both of these amendments, the issues raised would require further investigation before they could be taken forward. As I said earlier, it is not clear where the teeth could be found to ensure that advance payments are made in time. This might be a subject for good practice guidance, as we have mentioned in respect of other areas of the Bill. That guidance should come from the sector. I am sure that some authorities do things properly, and if others were told how this was done, the situation may improve. The noble Earl was quite clear that sometimes it is not apparent how this process can be done more effectively and the information is not readily available.

The noble Earl also mentioned the letter on loss payments sent by the Minister. He raised the issue about meetings, to which I shall turn in a moment but, first, I shall speak about loss payments. It is clear that the noble Earl’s proposals will be popular with occupiers but not with investment owners. We have not yet heard the view of acquiring authorities. I am sure that the noble Earl will appreciate and understand that, at this time, I cannot commit the Government to taking either of these amendments forward. Even if I could, the argument may quite understandably be made that we need to look at these in more detail, have the necessary investigations and, of course, conduct all consultations, which may not be possible during the passage of the Bill.

The noble Earl suggested, and my noble friend acknowledged the fact, that it would be useful to meet on these amendments and on the particular proposal specifically. Therefore, it would be helpful if we asked our officials to arrange a meeting to discuss the two matters raised and invite the noble Earl and his associates to discuss these matters further. We would welcome such a detailed discussion. Based on those assurances and the offer of a meeting, I hope that the noble Earl will be minded to withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Lytton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord very much for his reply. As I said, my amendments are probing—I wanted to elicit a response. At this stage of the Bill, I am very pleased with the response and with the offer to meet. The Minister identified one or two things that I will comment on. Certainly the intention with regard to advance payments, and how that system would work, was intended to tap into the Land Compensation Act regulatory power provisions. There is a much longer document behind that, which sets out a series of recommendations that I know have been submitted to the department by the Compulsory Purchase Association. I hope that they will form the basis of a discussion on that point. It will require the Secretary of State’s regulation-making functions to bring that in. That is the only place where the teeth are going to bite.

I note the point about the views of acquiring authorities; it is perfectly valid. However, acquiring authorities very often use one of the same specialist practitioners with whom I have been conversing through the Compulsory Purchase Association. The relevant distillation of views is there, but it is perfectly right to raise the point and ask for better and fuller particulars to be provided. What the noble Lord said was perfectly valid. I look forward to a meeting and thank him very much for his invitation. I may return to the issue at a later stage in the Bill, but for now I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 58 withdrawn.

Amendment 59 not moved.

Clause 8 : Electronic communication code: the need to promote growth

Amendment 59A

Moved by

[Lord Adonis]

59A: Clause 8, page 10, line 31, at end insert—
“(1A) The Secretary of State shall by regulation introduce statutory guidance specifying how statutory undertakers shall consult with local planning authorities.”

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 59B in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Whitaker. We are dealing here with national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. The issue is how to get superfast broadband to them. The key point on which we are all agreed is that this needs to happen superfast. No one disputes this. The DCMS consultation paper, published yesterday, states:

“We want to ensure that planning-related barriers to deployment are minimised at a time when upgraded broadband infrastructure is being rolled out to the rural or remote areas where connectivity is needed the most”.

I think that the whole House will agree with that.

The consultation paper published yesterday makes an excellent case for why we need a rapid rollout of superfast broadband. It points out that in the national parks there are more than 22,000 businesses, of which more than 70% are SMEs. In areas of outstanding natural beauty there are more than 61,000 businesses, of which 74% are SMEs. It also points out that there are more than 153,000 homes in the national parks, and more than 467,000 in areas of outstanding natural beauty. The consultation paper states:

“By providing planning certainty, the aim is to encourage operators to invest in new infrastructure to support greater rural connectivity for householders and SME businesses in protected areas, supported by the fact that whereas 84% of urban premises have superfast broadband, the figure drops to just 19% in rural areas”.

However, having set out those figures on why it is important to get superfast broadband into rural areas, including our national parks, as soon as possible, the paper totally fails to make an argument in respect of the planning system to bring this about.

Like other noble Lords, I have spoken to those in charge of our national parks. They tell me that, far from obstructing superfast broadband, they are desperate for it. They see it as absolutely vital to their communities and to their sustainable futures. They have almost invariably given the consents required for the installation of the necessary cabinets and masts through the existing prior notification procedure.

16:00

The barrier to superfast broadband being installed is not planning, but the commercial incentives and funding for the broadband suppliers to install the infrastructure in the first place. Just to quote the figures, over the past five years, in the nine national park authorities in existence over that period, there were 392 prior notifications and 97% of those were approved. Two-thirds of national park authorities have not rejected a single application in the past five years. There were 144 planning applications for telecoms equipment and only three were refused.

Furthermore, of the cases cited by BT and quoted by the Government of planning delays to superfast broadband rollout, the English National Park Authorities Association does not believe that any of them relate to national parks or to areas of outstanding natural beauty. The Government's consultation published yesterday tacitly acknowledges as much. It provides plenty of evidence that there is disparity in the availability of superfast broadband in rural areas, but nothing to show that planning rules are the obstacles.

To quote Dr Nigel Stone, chief executive of the Exmoor National Park Authority, in a letter to me,

“All National Park Authorities are working with their respective county councils to draw up plans for broadband rollout in National Parks. All are supporting or leading local bids to the Rural Broadband Fund to help go the final mile, and several National Park Authorities are putting some of their own resources into helping to extend broadband coverage”.

Dr Stone's letter continues:

“There seems little merit in replacing a well-established ‘prior notification’ process that includes local consultation, with a non-statutory code that would also require consultation but with no assurance to local communities that any concerns they raise will be heeded”.

Dr Stone also emphasises that working with the national park authorities can save significant sums by, for example, co-ordinating trenching work.

The case has not been made that Clause 8 will do anything to accelerate the rollout of superfast broadband. However, the planning process changes contained in Clause 8 are of great concern to the national park authorities, not because of any opposition to the rollout of superfast broadband. On the contrary, as I have stressed; they want this. Their concern, rather, is about the suspension of established consultation procedures and the precedent that that sets for doing the same in other cases where it might be genuinely damaging to the amenities and the welfare of national parks.

This is partly because of the very broad scope of Clause 8 itself, which, even given the assurances of the noble Baroness at Second Reading, still encompasses all telecommunications equipment, not just that relating to broadband, although here again the national parks are generally keen to see better mobile coverage for their residents and visitors. It is also because of the precedent that will be sited in other cases.

I have three questions for the Minister. First, why is this provision necessary at all? Secondly, why is it not more tightly drawn, if it is necessary? Thirdly, if it is necessary, tightly drawn or not, why is the guidance on how companies should consult with local planning authorities not to be statutory so that it has greater force? We will listen keenly to the Minister's response to these questions and I hope that she may be able to indicate some willingness to take account of concerns around the House, including colleagues on the Lib Dem Benches.

On 29 November, when Clause 8 was debated in the House of Commons, Nick Boles, the Planning Minister, said to the Town and Country Planning Association:

“England is famous for the beauty of its landscapes. From the Yorkshire Dales to the South Hams, from the Weald of Kent to the Cumbrian Lakes, England glories in countryside of which generations of man and nature are joint authors … The beauty of England is its finest asset and, for each of us, our most precious inheritance … I truly believe that nothing would do more to improve the health and happiness of the British people than if more of them got to spend more of their lives surrounded by beauty. Beauty lifts, calms, excites, inspires”.

Who could disagree, apart from the fact that generations of women as well as men can claim joint authorship of the landscape? But this simply poses the question: why are we proposing to give such extensive powers to private companies, which might damage the most beautiful landscapes in the entire country, jointly authored by women, men and nature? I beg to move.

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, in speaking to this group of amendments, I declare my interest as president of the South Downs Society, which co-ordinates NGO representations to the South Downs National Park Authority. The risks to our national parks were well rehearsed at Second Reading and I do not propose to repeat them.

My noble friend Lord Judd and other noble Lords have tabled an amendment to delete Clause 8. I have a great deal of sympathy with that. On past history, the national parks have done much to facilitate broadband, and delays in its rollout have not been caused by them, as my noble friend Lord Adonis said in such comprehensive detail, but I sense a strong concern in your Lordships’ House about the rollout of broadband in rural areas. If the Minister is not persuaded that Clause 8 is unnecessary, I support my noble friend Lord Adonis in Amendment 59B to safeguard our national parks by restricting activity only to broadband, and my own amendment, Amendment 59C, to further protect our national parks by codifying the installation of any equipment with an opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny.

The Minister gave some assurances in her closing speech at Second Reading, but I think that more precision is needed. She also said that,

“it is absolutely vital to ensure that rural areas have broadband”.—[Official Report, 8/1/13; col. 107.]

As it is broadband that she is concerned with, she will surely accept that Amendment 59B makes it clear that these easements should be available only to procure broadband equipment, and if there is parliamentary approval for the response to the mandatory consultation, as the amendment provides, Parliament will have the opportunity to check that best practice is followed.

Amendment 59C in my name strengthens the proposal of my noble friend Lord Adonis in Amendment 59A for a statutory code by again bringing Parliament into the process of verifying best practice. The code would ensure that there is no postcode lottery for different national parks; all will have the standards of the best. It will make it easier for the installers of broadband equipment to plan and to have clear expectations from local authorities. It is also entirely right that Parliament, which passed the great 1949 Act setting up the national parks, should have the opportunity to consider fully and scrutinise any modification of its intentions via affirmative resolution.

These amendments set out minimum requirements from which we should not resile if we are to give out the pro-broadband message while preserving the essential nature of our most cherished national landscapes. I beg to move.

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, I support the deletion of Clause 8 and in so doing I thank my noble friends Lord Greaves and Lord Marlesford, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for joining me in this. The debate today is complicated, given that we are considering the Government’s proposed approach to deliver broadband to remote and special areas through new secondary legislation that was set out in a consultation published only last night, which they argue requires changes to be made to primary legislation as set out in Clause 8.

The first issue for the Committee to consider must be whether a case has been made for any legislative changes. The examples given by the Government in support of this legislative change do not, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has said, demonstrate convincingly that national parks and AONB planning authorities are the barrier to delivering the broadband that rural communities want and rural economies need. The few examples of broadband planning delays cited are in areas outside national parks and AONBs. Indeed, the argument used in the Government’s consultation document to support changing the law is not that planning authorities in national parks and AONBs have been to date a barrier, rather it is the need to cut the costs of deploying broadband infrastructure to enable it to go as far as it can.

The second issue is whether the secondary legislation the Government want to introduce requires the proposed changes to be made to the primary legislation. Of particular concern in that regard is why there is a need to change the long-standing duties in national park and AONB legislation. I can see the argument to add a further consideration to the Communications Act 2003 for the Secretary of State to have regard to promote economic growth at the same time as other existing duties, which is what subsection (1) of Clause 8 proposes. This means that the Secretary of State would be obliged to consider the need to promote economic growth alongside and, crucially, give equal weight to, other considerations, which would include having regard to the need to protect the environment, and in particular to conserve the natural beauty and amenity of the countryside. However, I fail to see why the following eight subsections of Clause 8 are necessary to ensure that these pieces of legislation are consistent with the amended Communications Act.

I am not convinced that amending the Communications Act requires the disapplication of the duty to have regard to conserving beauty in other pieces of primary legislation. If this House is to accept changes to the legislation, the Minister must make clear the legal case for the necessity of such a disproportionate measure. It is a disproportionate approach, which not only sets a dangerous precedent for weakening the protection given to national parks and AONBs but creates the impression that the Government are intent on nibbling away at protection policies for our most valued landscapes and countryside; protection which has been in place since 1949. This approach makes the commitment in the recent National Planning Policy Framework to give great weight to conserving landscape and scenic beauty in national parks and AONBs sound very hollow indeed and is disproportionate, given that national parks authorities are not inflexible regulators, bystanders or obstacles to broadband rollout. National parks authorities are leading the development of local broadband programmes, with the New Forest National Park Authority supporting parish councils in a joint bid to Defra’s very welcome £20 million rural communications broadband fund and the Lake District National Park sitting on a Cumbria-wide steering group aiming to get superfast broadband coverage to 90% of the county, including the national park.

It is right that local planning authorities are involved in decisions which balance the need for broadband and countryside protection. Cabinets are big and intrusive—nearly two metres tall—and the noble Lord, Lord True, gave some excellent examples at Second Reading of insensitive siting. Efforts to camouflage cabinets green are wasted when operators such as Virgin and BT use them as advertising hoardings to promote their campaign that, “Fibre broadband is here”. In Guildford this week, Virgin Media is having to remove 200 posters on such street cabinets. Experience to date hardly suggests that operators are going to site in the least visible places, unless they are under some duty to consult. It is right that planning authorities work with providers to ensure that the effects on the landscape are minimised while delivering the economic and social benefits we need.

If the Government intend to regulate to temporarily remove the current requirement for communication providers to seek prior approval from local planning authorities in protected areas before permitted development can go ahead—that seems to be their direction of travel—I, too, would support a code of best siting practice between operators and local planning authorities to show how broadband undertakers should work with local authorities on siting. The Government’s consultation does not make it clear whether the code they propose is voluntary or mandatory. It should be mandatory, to give operators the certainty they claim they want in planning procedures and give local authorities the certainty that their legitimate concerns will be heard. As the Government seek to champion the speedy and cost-effective rollout of broadband to deliver economic growth, it should reflect on the need to ensure that the measures they propose do not unwittingly compromise the visual amenity of rural areas which underpin rural economies.

The impact assessment for this legislation and the Minister’s remarks at Second Reading make it clear that the Government have no idea of the number of overhead lines, poles and masts which could end up pepper-potting our most treasured landscapes if these changes go through. The cumulative visual impact of broadband infrastructure could have a chilling effect on the rural economy. Of people who were asked why they went to the Peak District, 85% said it was because of the visual appearance. However, the proposed regulations would leave broadband infrastructure siting at the discretion of the operator. It is crucial that the consultation period on the proposed regulations identifies the scale of infrastructure that rural areas may need to accommodate. Every step must be taken to ensure effective dialogue with local authorities about siting, or the cumulative effect of these changes could undermine rural tourism and local economies.

In that regard, it is worth reminding ourselves of the significant investment made by Ofgem and electricity distributors over recent years to enhance the beauty of treasured landscapes by burying overhead lines. They are doing this because local people recognise the value to local tourism and the economy of maintaining the visual amenity in their most precious landscapes. They have already spent millions removing 223 kilometres of overhead electricity lines and now Ofgem has given approval for £500 million of investment until 2021 to underground more lines. While electricity companies are working with local communities to protect valued landscapes from visual scarring and ensure that rural tourism can flourish, it would be inconsistent, to say the least, if government broadband policy allowed the insensitive siting of broadband cabinets, poles, lines and masts to disfigure the areas and undermine the tourism industry.

We all fully support the provision of broadband to rural communities, but this clause is a disproportionate response to deliver that. The clause should be removed and I hope that the Minister will use the time before Report to reflect on that, and on the merit of a statutory code of practice showing how broadband operators should work with local authorities on siting in protected areas and thus deliver the broadband that we and—crucially—rural communities and businesses want.

16:15

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I am very glad to be able to warmly support the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for the proposition that the clause should be removed. The more I look at this legislation and hear the discussions around it, the more I wonder whether on Report it will not be necessary to return to the very first clause of the Bill. For something which is crucial to the well-being of the nation, it is interesting to see the list of specific organisations that are exempted from these positions, and to see that this totally ignores the national parks authorities. It seems to me quite extraordinary. Many of them are bodies related to urban matters, but not to these qualitative matters for the nation as a whole.

I have to declare an interest. I am a vice-president of the Campaign for National Parks, and I do live within a national park. I am very glad to have broadband and want it to be as good as possible. It is no good causing any confusion over that; most of us who live in national parks want broadband.

The issue is about what is and what is not necessary, and about how it should be done. We have moved a long way; less than a year ago in the National Planning Policy Framework, the Government said this:

“Great weight should be given to conserving landscape and scenic beauty in National Parks, the Broads and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which have the highest status of protection in relation to landscape and scenic beauty. The conservation of wildlife and cultural heritage are important considerations in all these areas, and should be given great weight in National Parks and the Broads”.

That was a fine statement; I could not question it. It was a good, reinforcing statement about the importance of the parks. It is necessary—as the noble Baroness did—to stress how essential the parks have been seen to be since that period immediately after the Second World War. In that period there was, in the best democratic tradition, a lot of controversy, but about some things there was a lot of qualitative cross-party consensus. We were interested in the kind of Britain we wanted; we wanted a qualitative as well as quantitative Britain. We saw the economy and the measures put in place for the operation of society not as an end in themselves, but as a means of underwriting and strengthening the kind of society we wanted. With all the pressures that operate in society, all the impersonal technological development and all the stress and strain that this puts upon people, we desperately need—if we are to be a healthy, effective, and prosperous nation—these special areas that provide total contrast with the hurly-burly of life outside. They are places for reflection, for physical engagement with nature and its surroundings, and have the ability to raise the spirits by the beauty and culture of what is there. That is crucial to the psychological well-being of the nation.

I was saddened but not altogether surprised the other day when I heard that there was a rather acute discussion going on—I have to say, this was about the area in which I live; it was about the future of nuclear waste disposal. An official of some significance within the area of energy said, “Of course, we have to remember that we are concerned about the practicalities of what is important for the nation. The arguments about national parks are emotional”. Of course, there is a great deal of emotion about the national parks and what they mean to the nation. It would be a sad place to be if that emotion did not exist.

I suggest that that official, and all those involved, should take on board that this is actually a debate about quantity versus quality and how to get the kind of society you want. It is about ensuring that quantitative considerations are of course taken immensely seriously and driven forward with all possible vigour—the survival of the nation depends on this—but that we are absolutely determined to preserve the qualitative elements that make the nation a good place to live and which play into the health and well-being of the workforce, if that is how we are to look at people, and those who service the economic machine.

This part of the Bill raises very serious issues. It is rather sad when in situations of this kind, acute as they are, Ministers or others can get up and say, for example in the context of committee work, “Well, we have published a consultation paper”, when of course the consultation paper was published yesterday. That really does not give very much time for people to consult with those of us who have the privilege of being able to speak in Parliament about the issues.

I have taken the opportunity of having some telephone conversations in order to discuss some of the immediate reactions to the situation. I hope the Committee will bear with me if I refer to those briefly. The first thing that becomes very clear in the consultation paper is that the Government intend to press ahead with the changes set out in the Bill. Indeed, they are resolute in wanting to do that. Well, we take that position seriously. It is important to consider why it is so fundamentally important to press ahead before the outcome of the consultations has become clear. Of course, a Government who are sensitive and open to persuasion would want to take those consultations into account before they decided they were going to press ahead at all costs.

Paragraph 1.7 of the consultation paper refers to the establishment of a code to support best practice. It is interesting to note that to date DCMS has not sought any input on this from the English National Park Authorities Association. Although a number of organisations have been charged with the preparation of the code, the ENPAA, Defra, Natural England and the National Association for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty are not listed. Can the Minister give an assurance that the Government will actively be asking for the input of NPAs and AONBs?

Secondly, it is important to recognise that the code in no way addresses our main concern over the precedent that would be set by removal of the “have regard” duty in Clause 8. Paragraph 1.4 begins to create a division between different protected areas; for example, SSSIs are to continue to be protected, but national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty are not. Perhaps we could hear a bit more about why this is.

Paragraph 1.5 refers to providing greater planning certainty. It can be seen that the overwhelming majority of planning applications and prior notifications are approved. My noble friend Lord Adonis, who made a very powerful case for the points that I and all those who feel the same way are trying to make, drew attention to this point.

We are told that the measures will provide greater planning certainty, but, as my noble friend said, all the evidence is that there have been no difficulties in this area. Please establish what the difficulties are which are used in support of this draconian legislation. More than 90%—almost 100%—of applications are approved. They are approved with good will because there has been consultation, points have been taken on board, and modifications and constructive and sensible compromises have been made.

Paragraph 2.2 makes the case that undergrounding new lines is more expensive. So it seems, although I am not totally convinced about this; I am not sure that imagination has been exercised with as much drive when considering different methods of undergrounding as the Government are bringing to the Bill as a whole. This is sometimes a very emotional argument which is not altogether practically borne out with evidence—but I shall not advance that case at this moment. However, it would be useful to know what other options have been considered for reducing the costs of digging before going to the option of weakening the protection of national parks.

Paragraph 2.16 refers to the prior notification process relating to cabinets. As I understand it, the park authorities would be happy to work with operators to assess locations for cabinets more strategically, one by one. There may even be a willingness to review the 56-day limit for this, but I have no authority to say that; I just have the impression that they might be open to discussion.

Paragraph 3.5 seeks to reassure that changes will be used only for broadband and not mobile masts. The explanation given is fair enough, but there would not appear to be anything to stop this or to stop future Governments using the changes for masts of other kinds. Indeed, EU rules prevent the Government giving such technology-specific assurances even if they wanted to.

The consultation makes no reference to wider concerns expressed about the precedent that risks being set for other policy areas. That is crucial; it is the thin end of the wedge. Everybody has realised up till now that, with all the pressures that operate on society—with which the national parks and the areas of outstanding should be a contrast—it is important to have very firm and unquestionable protection of their special and unique status. Once you break that, where is it going to end? One argument leads to the next and, before you know it, you have ended up with a home county. There are many very delightful Home Counties, but they certainly cannot provide what national parks and areas of outstanding beauty provide for the nation.

This is a very dangerous clause. It is also a very sad clause, because it is another spur to the altogether-too-evident trend in our society towards knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. It is a society that has lost its values. It has lost its sense of aesthetic priority, which makes for a civilised society. I want Governments of every persuasion to stand by the principle that we all want to live in a civilised Britain. I do not believe that the Bill will help in that respect.

16:30

[Lord Renton of Mount Harry]

My Lords, I declare an interest in this matter, as I live in the South Downs National Park; indeed, I have lived there for a great many years. I was pleased by and interested in what the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, which I strongly support.

Under subsections (1) and (2) of Clause 8, the Secretary of State can make regulations that will override the duty on the national parks to conserve beauty, from the 1949 Act, in favour of promoting economic growth. The same applies to the duties of the public authorities in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. What does this mean? It means a tremendous falling off of the power and strength of national parks, to be taken over by the relevant Minister.

In that connection, I cite one instance from my area. A year ago, E.ON submitted a planning application to run a cable from near Worthing—where it will emerge from the sea, connecting 100 wind turbines that are to be built about seven miles offshore from Seaford—to E.ON’s substation in Bolney, some miles from Brighton. This takes away from any real strength on the part of the South Downs National Park. It is proposed that the cable will be laid across the downs; it will be put underground. After some discussion with the national park, the application was called in by the appropriate Minister, as provided in law, on the grounds of its importance in the national interest. Surely that shows, sadly, the way in which we are going.

I remind noble Lords that the South Downs National Park was only a consultee on the application and now has no planning authority on it at all. As a consultee, the park authority pointed out that the cable did not serve the park’s two statutory purposes: first, to conserve and enhance natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage; and, secondly, to promote opportunities for the understanding and enjoyment of the park’s special qualities. All of that has gone. Instead, it will be up to the Minister to respond in the way that he thinks appropriate.

It is clear to me that an applicant seeking to run power lines across the South Downs will now have a fair chance of doing so, notwithstanding the level of protection that Parliament gave to the national park in the 1949 Act. If I am right about the Minister being allowed to take the decision away from the park authority, the process will be made so easy for him that I wonder why he needs Clause 8 in the Bill at all. This is therefore a matter for clear, keen thinking. Surely we do not want to remove the power, actions or knowledge from national parks and put them into the hands of Ministers when, frankly, they may not really know very much about the job.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

My Lords, I come to this clause and this group of amendments entirely from an economic perspective. I am very much in favour of greater economic growth for our countryside because, frankly, all too often our rural deprivation is ignored, and I am as keen as anyone that entrepreneurs and businesses should be given all the help they need to thrive throughout rural England. It goes without saying that broadband and all the modern means of communication are a crucial godsend to the diversification and profitability of our rural economy. However, I have also always believed that the economy of our protected areas, such as the national parks and AONBs, is very much dependent on their beauty. Not only do these areas attract tourists and other visitors who spend their money there—indeed, because of these protected areas our national economy attracts visitors who spend their money in this country generally while going to or from those areas—but their beauty affects the valuable branding of all the businesses within the designation.

The economic benefit to these businesses depends on the retention of the beauty with which the area is associated. Branding could obviously affect agricultural or food products—South Downs lamb, for instance, and Exmoor ale. It could even affect other products such as dales furniture and so on. Brand names are important in marketing; if they inspire visions of beautiful countryside and fresh air, as cool as a mountain stream or whatever, then they are also very valuable. It seems right that for economic reasons, as well as for social and environmental reasons, we should truly protect our protected areas. We must never allow them to be nibbled away at in the way that this clause seems to be doing.

This is not to say that anyone is trying to prevent modern economic activities in our national parks—indeed, far from it: the national parks authorities have a statutory duty to promote the economy within their territories. In this case, that is exactly what they seem to be doing. As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said, 97% of the 392 applications for prior notifications on overhead wires and cabinets have been approved. The current system allows for meaningful discussion about where and how they should be introduced. If in 97% of cases an agreement has been reached, I see absolutely no benefit in changing the current situation. I am quite happy to make the current, meaningful discussions statutory or mandatory, as proposed in some of the amendments in this group, but it seems to me that economic progress is already being accommodated in our national parks. At the same time, the crucial purpose of our protected areas as valuable heritage and economic assets is being protected, so we should leave well alone.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I have some amendments in this group. In view of the discussions that are likely to take place today, I think I should add some interests to those I declared at the beginning of the Committee: namely, as a patron of the Friends of the Lake District and of the British Mountaineering Council, of whose access and environment committee I am a member, and as a vice-president of the Open Spaces Society.

I have tabled amendments to remove or leave out subsections (2), (3), (4), (6) and (7), really to draw attention to the particular protected areas that this clause is aimed at, and where it weakens that protection in the case of communications equipment. It does that by amending the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, in the case of English and Welsh national parks. It refers to conservation and amenity lands in Northern Ireland, of which I know very little but I am sure they are important, the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Act 1988—the broads are a national park in all but name—and the similar protection given to areas of outstanding natural beauty in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 and to national parks in Scotland in the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000. It is slightly odd that we are legislating here about cabinets and overhead wires in Scotland in view of the existence of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government, but it is just one of the anomalies of the devolution settlement.

I shall concentrate on national parks in England and Wales because they are the most important as far as England and Wales are concerned—clearly, national parks in Scotland are of equal importance—without in any way saying that other areas are not very important, and I shall look at what the proposed changes to the legislation do and whether they are necessary for developing broadband or for what the Government want to do. It is not clear to me that the sort of in-principle amendment to the national parks Act that the Government want to carry through will prevent them doing most of what they want to do in the electronic communications code and in the matters they refer to in their consultation document, which I read for the first time this morning.

Clause 8 amends Section 109 of the Communications Act, which is headed, “Restrictions and conditions subject to which code applies”. The Government want to add to Section 109(2),

“the need to promote economic growth in the United Kingdom”,

which is very different from all the others. They are constraints and this is an encouragement, so I am not sure that it belongs here, but I am not arguing about that particular aspect. I do not really mind it being added; the problem is what the Government are doing as a result.

Section 109(2) states:

“In exercising his power to make regulations under this section it shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to have regard to each of the following”,

and subsection (2)(b) refers to,

“the need to protect the environment and, in particular, to conserve the natural beauty and amenity of the countryside”.

As I understand it, that is not being changed and applies to all applications, not just to these special areas. In a sense, the Government will say that that remains. Section 109(2)(da) states that they have to have regard to,

“the need to ensure that restrictions and conditions are objectively justifiable and proportionate to what they are intended to achieve”.

That qualification seems to remain and will allow the broadband position to go ahead.

I am never sure whether I live in a rural area or an urban area, because when I look out of the back window I see the town, and when I look out of the front window I see the countryside. I live in an old industrial village on the edge of the town, and the sooner fast broadband comes, the better, because we are in an area where on Saturday night and Sunday night, when lots of our neighbours are watching movies on broadband, our broadband just closes down completely, so roll it on. I think everybody is of this view, but the question is whether this legislation is necessary to achieve that, particularly in protected areas.

16:45

In the consultation document, the Government claim that the conditions and restrictions in the list in Section 109(2) paragraphs (a) to (e) plus sub-paragraph (da), which makes six, to which the code applies, are to be given equal weight. This seems to be why they then want to remove the special provision in the national parks Act about the national parks. The consultation document says at paragraph 3.2:

“In order to amend the Code, we believe it is appropriate to amend the Communications Act 2003. Section 109 (2) (b)”,

states, as I have just said,

“that the Secretary of State should have regard for the need to protect the environment … when exercising powers under the Code. We intend to add an additional consideration to the list … so that the Secretary of State is obliged to consider the need to promote economic growth”—

in Clause 8(1)—

“alongside, and with equal weight with, the other considerations”.

I challenge the concept that in a list such as that, everything has to be given equal weight in every case. Clearly, an initial look at the list suggests that all of them have to be looked at equally. However, depending on where the area is and the local circumstances, surely different weights are given to different considerations. For example, if you are siting one of these cabinets on the edge of a fairly run-down industrial area, you are not going to give much weight to the local environment. You are not going to spend a lot of time deciding whether it should be there or 100 yards further down the street to protect the environment, because it is a fairly grotty area anyway. If you are siting it in a Lake District village, surely you give considerable weight to exactly where it is, the circumstances and the relationship to the rest of the local built and natural environment.

The idea that the amendments to the national parks Act and other Acts are required to make sure that everything is given equal weight and nothing is given more than equal weight is nonsense. The whole of planning legislation is based on the idea that different weight is given to different things in different localities and particular circumstances. Outside the statutory designation areas of special protection, local plans often say that in that part of the authority, special consideration must be given to materials: natural stone may have to be used, or the roofs may have to be blue state or local pantiles, all of which are going to be more expensive than simple, what I would call bog-standard, materials that would be used in the absence of any such consideration.

That kind of thing permeates the whole of the planning legislation, system and practice. Invariably, it all costs a bit more in each circumstance. The argument in the consultation and elsewhere is that it is 50% more expensive to bury lines rather than put them overhead. Well, yes, perhaps it is; but that is the legitimate cost of having national parks and areas like that. Once we start to say that the whole planning system cannot involve that kind of extra cost in myriad circumstances but particularly in statutorily protected areas, we start down a very slippery slope.

The Government want to make Section 11A(2) of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 not apply to national parks. Section 11A(1) says:

“A National Park authority … shall seek to foster the economic and social well-being of local communities”.

Of course that is what they do. After that, crucially, Section 11A(2) says:

“In exercising or performing any functions in relation to, or so as to affect, land in a National Park, any relevant authority shall have regard to the purposes specified in subsection (1) of section five of this Act and, if it appears that there is a conflict between those purposes, shall attach greater weight”—

not “total weight”, but “greater weight”—

“to the purpose of conserving and enhancing the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the area comprised in the National Park”.

That is what the Government want to remove for a limited number of years in the case of cabinets and overhead lines for broadband. We have heard a lot of evidence around the Committee and outside that the present restrictions will not stop broadband coming into the national parks. That is a practical argument; there is a fundamental philosophical element here about the purpose of national parks. If every time a special interest comes along or there is a special need for the development of a particular system or project, or whatever it is, in a national park, and people can come along and say, “Yes, we agree with the principle but not in this case”, the principles underlying the existence and purpose of national parks, what they are there for and how they operate are completely undermined. Of course, the consultation document is full of the fact that it will be only temporary, for five years. The legislation and the rules might be temporary, but the cabinets and overhead lines will not be—they will still be there in 20 years’ time. So I do not find convincing the idea that making it temporary is somehow a concession.

The Government would have everything they want, and people in national parks would have everything they want, with broadband if, with regard to subsection (1) of this clause, the Government saw sense and said that they had made a fundamental mistake and that they would have to claw back and take it out on Report.

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, I put my name to these amendments for very much the reasons put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. Clause 8 is really not necessary. I declare an interest as president of the Suffolk Preservation Society. I have some experience in this area, because I did 12 years on the Countryside Commission, under the distinguished chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Barber of Tewkesbury, and was lucky enough to get to know the national parks very well during that time. In eight of those years, I was also on the Rural Development Commission under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Vinson. One saw then the importance and possibility of combining the conservation and protection of our finest countryside with economic development, which the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, so rightly pointed out.

I have always regarded the planning system and, with it, the creation of the national parks, as one of the two great venerable icons of the Attlee Government—the other, of course, being the National Health Service. Over the years, it has worked extremely well. I have seen at close quarters how it works. Of course, it is necessary to have new technologies, and indeed they are to be welcomed. Indeed, the broadband technologies, which make new forms of economic enterprise possible in remote areas is one of the least intrusive.

There has been a lot of talk about undergrounding, and I have a bit of experience of that, too. I am very keen on undergrounding. For some years, I was a non-executive director of the Eastern Electricity Board, both before it was privatised and for a while afterwards, when it was taken over by Hanson. I persuaded my co-directors to start a scheme for undergrounding wires in designated areas, which worked extremely well. It is not wildly expensive. Of course, the 440 kilovolt pylons are hugely expensive to underground, but the network of wirescaping, which can so badly damage a landscape, is remarkably inexpensive to underground. We did it in some 30 designated conservation areas on the heritage coast. The first one was in my own village, and I was attacked by Paul Foot in Private Eye, on the grounds that I lived in the village, because I had banged on about it for about five years before they did it. But it is a perfectly good scheme to do things such as undergrounding. All this can be done very well under the existing arrangements. Broadband can and will come, and it is crucial that it should do so. However, absolutely no reason that I have heard of or read about justifies the necessity for introducing Clause 8 to give special treatment to broadband.

I do not believe that we should for one instant consider damaging the unique quality and status of these most precious landscapes by weakening control over them. I believe it is unlikely that this Government would seek to do so, but if they were to do so, it is most unlikely that your Lordships’ House would agree to it.

[Lord Judd]

The noble Lord referred to world heritage. I am sure he will be aware that the Lake District, where I live, is seeking world heritage site status. This will have immense significance for the British economy and for attracting visitors and tourists. Will this process be helped or hindered by these unnecessary provisions in the Bill?

[Lord Marlesford]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord. I hope that the Lake District gets that status. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, pointed out that a crucial part of the prosperity of these remote areas is their attraction for tourists. That applies to rural areas generally. As regards protecting the countryside, I could have declared another interest in that for five years I was chairman of CPRE, which tries to protect the countryside. Had we not had the planning laws of 1948 and 1949 and the national parks in place, England and Wales would not be the beautiful places that they are.

[Lord Burnett]

My Lords, I apologise to the House for missing the opening speech of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, which I much regret. I spend a good deal of my time in Dartmoor National Park. I live part of the time very near to it and am president of Dartmoor Search and Rescue.

Some years ago a survey was carried out to measure the economic activity within Dartmoor National Park. Before the results were published, I wondered whether the most prevalent aspect of economic activity would be agriculture or tourism. However, the House will be surprised to hear that the greatest proportion of Dartmoor National Park’s gross domestic product came from financial services. Therefore, I understand the importance of broadband. My previous comments on the Bill have supported the promotion of sustainable economic growth. I have openly stated that much of the planning system is sclerotic and immensely time-consuming and expensive.

I do not wish to repeat all the compelling points made by my noble friends Lady Parminter, Lord Renton, Lord Greaves and Lord Marlesford, as well as those made by the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Cameron, who are also my noble friends. We need to foster and promote economic activity everywhere, including within the national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. However, we must not jeopardise these uniquely glorious landscapes that have the highest planning protection. Yes, the introduction of broadband is very important, but is this clause necessary to realise this aim? I hope that the Government will rethink the clause. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments.

16:59

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords, I had the privilege of representing for many years Exmoor National Park and the Quantocks AONB. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that I am grateful to him for quoting my good friend, Dr Nigel Stone, who is the chief executive of Exmoor National Park.

It has been common ground throughout this debate that everyone here is in favour of two things. Everyone is in favour of helping the rural economy and considers that the rapid expansion of broadband is a vital ingredient in that. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, set the tone at the start of the debate by making that absolutely clear. It is important to get broadband into the rural economy. We know that the problems in the economies of national parks are not easy. They depend on diversity, and tourism is enormously important. People must be able to ring up, book their bed and breakfast or hotel, communicate and run businesses of all varieties. I have some interesting statistics about the increasing number of SMEs within the national parks made possible by the huge improvement in modern communications.

Everyone is agreed on that and everyone is agreed about the other aspect—we are all here to make sure that we do not damage the national parks. One or two of the speeches were slightly exaggerated—if I may say so, with respect—and suggested that the clause was an undercover attempt to somehow undermine the protection and beauty of the national parks. It is a judgment as to the way in which we proceed, but nobody will discourage anyone’s motives in this—it is very important indeed to protect the beauty, quality and character of our national parks and AONBs.

The point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and repeated by my noble friend Lord Marlesford, and I agree that the onus is on the Minister to say why we are here. It is suggested that there are no planning problems or delays—that it is possible to introduce high-quality broadband rapidly within a short timeframe, which is what the whole House wishes to achieve, and that it does not require an upheaval of the planning process. This clause is not the end of civilisation as we know it or the end of the national parks as we know them. That is a judgment that one or two noble Lords have thought to make. The theme that came through in many speeches, including that of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, is that there is not necessarily a fear of what the clause does but of whether it is a precedent for other things that might then happen and be the thin end of a wedge that could lead to all sorts of permissions and lack of protection in other areas.

Perhaps I may ask my noble friend about a matter that came up in Committee in the Commons. Am I right in thinking that we are talking entirely about cabinets and overhead wires and that we are not talking at all about masts? That is important. When people first hear about this provision, they think that there will be huge masts rising up on top of the Quantocks, without anyone having a chance to say anything about it. I note that the Minister in the other place made it clear that the Government are insisting on maintaining the statutory duty on people wishing to embark on schemes,

“to consult local authorities on the siting”.—[Official Report, Commons, Growth and Infrastructure Bill Committee, 29/11/12; col. 360.]

That dealt with one aspect of the statutory powers that some people thought might have been lacking. His second point related to the discussions on the code of best siting practice.

I do not think that we will vote on this matter today, but I hope that my noble friend will say something about it because it is important for the Government to give clear reassurance that the objectives that everyone in this House shares—rapid broadband expansion and proper protection of the national parks—can be combined. That is what the Government want to achieve and we want to make sure that they have the best way of achieving it.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)]

My Lords, I was looking around the Chamber to check that everyone had finished. Many points have been raised and it is important that I try to deal with them.

We have been discussing the consultation paper. Although there was criticism that it was late, I am sure that noble Lords will give me some credit for the fact that I made sure that they were aware of it last night and had copies of it. I apologise that that was rather late for today’s purposes but it was completely missing for the discussions in the other place. At least we have had the opportunity to see it.

Within this group we have several amendments and a clause stand part debate which have not been moved. In the light of the general discussion, it may be helpful if I lay out some of the rationale behind the provision. I think that, as I do so, some of the questions that have been raised will be answered.

As noble Lords know, the Government’s ambition is to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015. It is a challenging target. It has not been helped by the discussions on state aid, but improving the UK’s communications infrastructure is integral to our ability to grow our economy.

No one wants to destroy, upset or prejudice areas of national beauty—the national parks—and that forms no aspect of what we are trying to do. I understand noble Lords wanting to preserve what we have. I can only say that, as part of the process of ensuring that broadband has a wide distribution, cabinets and wires will be inescapable, but it is how we deal with them that matters.

In order to ensure that the economy can grow all over the country, we need to make sure—

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend but, before she goes into the detail of her speech, I just want to point out that my noble friend Lady Parminter, in her very broad-ranging and able speech, spoke on the question of the clause standing part, although I understand that in this House we do not say, “I beg to move” at the end of a clause stand part debate.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I am grateful for that and I apologise to the noble Baroness for not realising that. However, that gives me greater justification for doing what I am doing, which is to answer immediately what would have been the clause stand part debate. I think that we will all benefit in the end.

The more rural and remote areas, including protected areas, are some of the places where an infrastructure upgrade for broadband is needed the most. Without action, it is likely that these rural and quite remote areas will be left even further behind. I think that noble Lords have acknowledged that people who live in these areas want broadband and that there is a strong rationale for it. There are 700,000 households and businesses in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, and most of these will not be served by the market alone. In England, 25% of premises in these areas currently get less than 2 megabytes per second. We estimate that, in total, potentially 4 million more people and nearly 2 million households could have access to superfast broadband as a result of Clause 8.

Without the rollout of broadband, businesses in these areas would suffer, including those in the tourism service sector, which increasingly find that visitors demand greater connectivity when they come and stay at guest houses, bed and breakfast establishments and hotels, and these businesses are frustrated by the lack of broadband to offer their customers. National parks authorities, along with many other rural areas in England, have cited insufficient broadband provision as a particular barrier to growth.

We are trying to tackle this disparity in the provision of superfast broadband and it is a key priority for the Government. We are spending nearly £700 million to stimulate the market to improve broadband connectivity and we are taking action to ensure that the barriers to deployment are removed. These actions are designed specifically to close the rural-urban broadband divide and promote economic growth. The broadband support package, which the Government announced on 7 September, is key to delivering that.

The consultation paper, Proposed Changes to Siting Requirements for Broadband Cabinets and Overhead Lines to Facilitate the Deployment of Superfast Broadband Networks—succinct as that is—published yesterday by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, to whom we have been talking, brings forward proposals for two changes to the Electronic Communications Code (Conditions and Restrictions) Regulations 2003.

Perhaps I can take a few moments to set out what the consultation covers. The consultation’s first proposal is that we remove of the requirement to underground telecommunications apparatus. This is the only restriction that stops communication providers deploying overhead infrastructure. It does not say that they cannot provide underground structures. They can. If they want to share a gully or a trench with some other provider, they can do it in a way that is satisfactory to them. There is nothing to stop that. All this does is to say that it is not a requirement. If you cannot do it for some reason—

[Lord Greaves]

This is a crucial point. It is clear that they can still put them underground if they wish to, although there will be the removal of the statutory power of the local planning authority, which is usually the national park authority, to require it, and there will be less time for consultation. If I have understood it correctly, the consultation period will be 28 days and not 58 days in future. It would be helpful to have that confirmed. Do the Government have an estimate of the proportion of the lines in, for example, national parks in England and Wales which, in future, would be put underground compared with the present situation?

[Baroness Hanham]

I cannot answer the noble Lord’s question. He probably does not really expect me to answer it here. The consultation process will begin to throw up some of that information if we do not have it. If we do have the information, I shall see that noble Lords receive it.

The second proposal removes the prior approval requirements for broadband cabinets in protected areas. Of course, the cabinets have to be there, otherwise you cannot have broadband. They have to be at certain spaces and there are all sorts of things about broadband cabinets that require them to be placed in a specific location. We are bringing forward Clause 8 to enable us to make these amendments to the communications code through secondary legislation.

Let me be clear that the removal of prior approval will be temporary, as noble Lords have seen in the consultation which sets out a period of five years. By limiting the window to five years, this will also ensure that the operators have an incentive to get on with the rollout of that business and community need.

[Lord Adonis]

The noble Baroness said that the requirement for prior approval will be removed. However, she still has not told the Committee how that will accelerate the deployment of superfast broadband, given that there appear to be virtually no cases where the prior approval process has held up the deployment of superfast broadband in the national parks and in areas of outstanding natural beauty.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I have about another 15 pages in my brief.

Again, referring to the consultation paper, in the national parks, there are more than 22,000 businesses, of which more than 70% are small and medium-sized enterprises, as noble Lords have said. There are more than 153,000 homes and we know that there is a lot of demand for it. The proposed changes are about creating certainty and reducing the time and cost of deployments. Evidence to date from commercial deployment shows that deployment can be held up by planning decisions. In conservation areas where planning permission is currently required for broadband, there is evidence that it has been held up for 27 months by the need for consultation. This has resulted in the new broadband service not being provided in these areas.

17:14

[Lord Adonis]

The noble Baroness referred to conservation areas but did not cite any evidence in respect of national parks.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I was citing the reason for the process in conservation areas taking up to two- and-a-half years. Under the measures on which we are consulting, local authorities will still be involved.

[Lord Greaves]

As I understand it, there are no proposed changes in this legislation to conservation areas. I declare an interest as living in not one conservation area but two—they overlap. Are there proposals for changes to the rules in conservation areas?

[Baroness Hanham]

I am citing conservation areas that in many cases are in urban areas and have held up some of these decisions. I accept that we are talking about rural areas. I was asked why some of this was necessary. Part of the reason for the decision is the delays caused by conservation areas.

[Lord Greaves]

I wonder whether the Minister would write to me on that, as she does not have the answer. I asked a specific question about whether the rules in conservation areas were to be changed.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, as I understand it, the rules in conservation areas are not to be changed.

Under the measures on which we are consulting, local authorities will still be involved and will have more of an opportunity to put forward their views on the siting of poles and boxes, and on their appearance. The existing regulations require, and will continue to require, consultation with local authorities. In addition, providers will work to a new code of best practice on the siting of infrastructure. This will contain an agreed set of overall principles on sensitive siting, together with specific requirements for consultation with local communities about new overhead line deployment. My noble friend Lord King asked whether these measures were related to fixed broadband. As I said in my Second Reading speech, these measures cover fixed broadband—poles and boxes.

We will outline the main principles of the code of practice by Report, and the code will be agreed before changes are brought into effect by regulations. We expect broadband operators to adhere to the code that they will be involved in drawing up. We believe that the sector should have responsibility for its own code. I can confirm that the English National Park Authorities Association will be invited to join the group that is drafting the code of practice.

Importantly, local authorities will also be able to influence how new broadband services are deployed when procuring projects under the Broadband Delivery UK programme—including, for example, determining whether lines should be run overground or underground. As I said, the underground aspect is not being removed. This will be balanced against how much coverage can be provided.

I turn now to the specific amendments. I do not agree that there is a need to place conditions on the Clause 8 enabling power.

[Lord Judd]

Before the noble Baroness turns to the amendments, perhaps I may ask her a question. I have great respect for her as a person and a Minister; I know that she very much cares about the qualitative dimensions of British life. On reflection, would it not have been better for the Government to say, “Our objective is to have the most efficient possible economic performance in Britain. We will include the rural areas in this objective. We are determined to have the best possible facilities to service that economic activity. However, we not only want our broadband system to be the best in Europe, we want our areas of outstanding natural beauty, including the national parks, to be the best in the world”? The Government’s purpose is to find a policy that enables both objectives to be reconciled.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that we are in Committee. Noble Lords may speak as many times as they like, but it might be for the convenience of the Committee if we allow the Minister to respond initially to the amendments and then I am sure my noble friend will be delighted to take further questions.

[Lord Judd]

I assure the Committee that I will not repeat what I have already said, in spite of what we have just been advised is the best way forward.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I am beginning to feel like a jack-in-the-box. I hope that I do not look like one, but I am beginning to feel like one. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, asked a philosophical if not a practical question. We are where we are. My job is the legislation before us. It is not to proffer a view on that. This is how the Government feel it is necessary to proceed in order to do precisely what the noble Lord said, which is to get broadband across the country as quickly as possible and in the best way possible. As I tried to say as I was going along, the only way that you can get broadband is through masts, lines and boxes, and somehow that has to be dealt with in the best way possible.

Turning to Amendments 59A and 59C, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, I do not think that there is a need to place conditions on the Clause 8 enabling power in the way that the noble Lord proposes, and I have referred to the existing consultation requirements in the regulations. That consultation must be considered before further action is taken. The relevant secondary legislation—the Electronic Communications Code (Conditions and Restrictions) Regulations 2003—already includes both general and specific statutory requirements for consultation with planning authorities. This will continue to be the case.

Communications providers will be required to notify local planning authorities about the equipment that they propose to install and where they propose to install it. The regulations will make it clear, as they do currently, that planning authorities will have an opportunity to influence the siting and appearance of that equipment and can put forward objections, as is currently the case. Communications providers will be required to make changes, if they are reasonable.

Communications providers are under a strong incentive to ensure that they follow the statutory requirements for consultation with local planning authorities. If they do not, this would be considered a breach of the permitted development rights under which they install their equipment and could lead to planning enforcement action.

The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, called for the regulations to be subject to the affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure as is currently the case. The requirements for consultation with local planning authorities that we propose to introduce for protected areas are not new. They are already well established and work well for non-designated areas. I am confident that they can work well in protected areas with the co-operation of communications providers and local planning authorities alike. At present, I do not see the need for the affirmative procedure. This is not new. It is not novel: it is how things have happened in the past.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, also proposed Amendment 59B. As I said at Second Reading, we are unable to draft legislation in such a way that is specific to broadband infrastructure. I explained then that this is because of Article 8(1) of the Framework Directive 2002/21/EC, which requires technology neutrality so far as the primary implementing legislation is concerned.

We can, though, be specific in secondary legislation. As I made clear at Second Reading and make clear again today, and as our consultation also makes clear, our proposed changes relate to broadband cabinets and overhead lines—in other words fixed broadband technology. As I said, that cannot be done in primary legislation. It will be done in secondary legislation.

The amendment also suggests that specifying consultation with local authorities on changes to secondary legislation is necessary. Consultation with local authority interests already happens under the existing provisions of the Communications Act 2003. Section 109(4) provides that before making regulations, the Secretary of State must consult Ofcom and any other persons as she considers appropriate. As I mentioned earlier, a large proportion of the existing regulations consists of the requirements for consultation with and notification to highway and planning authorities; this will not change, and of course we are now consulting on our proposed approach. The Local Government Association and others such as the national park authorities will want to make their views clear on the proposed planning changes.

My noble friend Lord Greaves has proposed Amendments 59D to 59H. These would remove what we believe are necessary subsections to ensure that other legislation relating to protected areas is amended so as to be consistent with the Secretary of State’s powers in Section 109 of the Communications Act. If we remove them, Clause 8 would not deliver the result the Government are seeking to achieve. It would also risk creating great uncertainty and inconsistency in the law. My noble friend Lady Parminter raised this with us at a meeting we held yesterday. We explained to her then that this was the way we had to deal with the matter legally, and although it may seem rather cumbersome, it is essential. I have heard nothing to change my mind since our discussion, but I did undertake that we would consider the reasons why. I also understand the intention of my noble friend Lord Greaves and I want to reassure him that the amended legislation will continue to make it explicit that the Secretary of State shall have regard to the need to conserve the natural beauty of the countryside when making regulations in relation to the Electronic Communications Code.

As with the relaxation of prior approval in protected areas for cabinets and poles, these subsections also only apply for a period of five years, which I hope gives some comfort to noble Lords. The provision of broadband to business and communities across the country is vital to ensure that we have growth. We want to see the economy grow right across the country.

I have spoken at some length regarding the existing and proposed consultation requirements that will be necessary through the secondary legislation that Clause 8 will enable. Perhaps I may go over those requirements again. Communications providers will still be required to consult with local authorities on the siting of infrastructure and to take on board any reasonable objections, which is the current situation. The proposed code of best practice for the siting of infrastructure will contain an agreed set of overall principles for siting, as well as specific arrangements for consultation with communities on new overhead wires. Local authorities will be able to influence how services are deployed in their area in consultation with their supplier when procuring under the Broadband Delivery UK programme. There is a great deal of scope for local authorities to influence what is going on, and it seems to me that broadband providers are going to find it much easier to get their work done if they co-operate and co-ordinate their activities with local authorities to ensure that between them there is a sensitive recognition of the environment.

As a side issue, I was asked about advertising on boxes, an issue that has been the cause of a lot of concern. Advertisements are not permitted unless specifically approved by the local authority. Permission has to be sought to do that. My noble friend Lady Parminter asked about the siting of equipment. A number of statutory requirements are set out in the Electronic Communications Code (Conditions and Restrictions) Regulations 2003 which are aimed at ensuring that the amount of electronic communications apparatus and its impact on visual amenity is kept to a minimum, and these provisions will remain unchanged. The relevant provisions are in the general conditions, under Regulations 3(1)(b), 3(3)(a) and 3(4). Regulation 3(1)(b) requires communications providers to,

“consult … planning authorities in relation to the installation of electronic communications apparatus, including installation in a local nature reserve”.

Under Regulation 3(3)(a), communications providers,

“when installing any electronic communications apparatus, shall, so far as reasonably practicable, minimise … the impact on the visual amenity of properties, in particular buildings on the statutory list of buildings”.

Under Regulation 3(4) they,

“where practicable, shall share the use of electronic communications apparatus”.

There is nothing in this legislation to change any of that.

I hope that I have dealt with more or less everything that has been said. If not, I am sure that somebody will remind me and ask me again. I hope, with those explanations, that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

17:30

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, we are very grateful to the noble Baroness for giving us so much detail as to how the reformed regime will work. However, I cannot help but observe that she spoke for 27 minutes but did not give us a single shred of evidence as to why the existing planning regime is halting or delaying the rollout of superfast broadband to the national parks or to areas of outstanding natural beauty. I will ask a direct question: does she have any evidence that she would like to share with the Committee as to how the current planning regime is delaying the rollout of superfast broadband in the national parks or in areas of outstanding natural beauty?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, first, we need some speed to get this done. As the noble Lord will know, so far there has been very little deployment of broadband in areas of natural beauty and it is estimated that 85% of premises will not be reached by the market unless we can speed things up. This is at least a contribution to speeding up the provision of broadband in the rural areas where, at the moment, it is not very significant.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, that does not meet the point at all. The evidence which the national parks have given to noble Lords shows that 97% of several hundred applications—I think 292 have been made under the pre-notification procedure—have been agreed by the national parks authorities. I am sorry to keep putting this to the noble Baroness but it is a fairly fundamental issue. There has been a large number of applications, and we obviously want a great deal more so that we have a great deal more rollout of superfast broadband in the national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. However, almost all those that have been brought forward have been agreed. Does the noble Baroness have any evidence at all that there are cases which the Committee should take into consideration where the planning authorities themselves have been slowing down a rollout of broadband that would otherwise have taken place?

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

Before my noble friend responds to that, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has taken account of the paragraph in the impact assessment which says:

“We have received reports where multiple sites have had to be surveyed and prior approval applications submitted, only for agreement still not to be reached, and delays in some cases of up to two years. Examples have been provided by BT based on their experience of rolling out broadband over the last two years with delays ranging from 12-27 months”.

It seems to me that that is really quite a serious bar on broadband in these areas

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I am not sure whether the noble Lord was present for my opening speech, but I pointed out that national parks authorities are not aware that any of those cases raised by BT apply to national parks or areas of outstanding natural beauty. The Government say airily that they have received reports but will not actually publish anything. The noble Lord, like me, has been a Secretary of State in the past. It is one thing to declare airily that you have received reports but it is another thing actually to give chapter and verse. No chapter and verse whatever has been given in this debate that there is a real issue that would justify a very major change in the law of the kind that the Government are proposing.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

Is there not a serious point in what the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has just read out? The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has quite correctly said that there has now got to be a large expansion of broadband into the rural areas. What the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has cited is the experience so far of trying to introduce broadband more widely. Maybe my noble friend is thinking that it is a precautionary principle—that the Government are giving top priority to the expansion of broadband. I think that the point that I tried to make in my comments, that it is important if we are coming back to this on Report that we have a clearer answer on these points about the risks that may arise.

[The Earl of Lytton]

I apologise to the Committee for intervening now; I thought that I would intervene earlier but felt that it had been discussed. I want to try to disassemble something here. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, of which I am a member, recently looked into this question of the operation of the telecommunications code. One of the things that became apparent was that the code has been an exceedingly clunky means of dealing with difficulties and disputes because it has to be dealt with through the county court. One of the things that the institution was particularly keen to air—and perhaps I should have done so earlier—was that this process really needs to be dealt with. I would have invited the Minister then, and maybe I still can, to say whether it is correct that the Law Commission is looking into this whole business to try to find a better and more streamlined way of dealing with that particular process. I do not know whether British Telecom, or whoever it may happen to be, is concerned about the whole process, or specifically concerned about planning, or whether within that it is concerned about national parks, or whether it is actually the telecommunication code that is a common denominator for all planning authorities. If the Minister cannot respond to that now, perhaps it could be explored at some juncture.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl. I will make sure that that is considered and give him an answer before next time—as I will with the other matters raised before Report.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, it is always good to try to be constructive. Given the scale of the concern that has been expressed in the Committee and the noble Baroness’s good intentions—as always—to seek to meet legitimate concerns which have been raised, I wonder whether she and the Planning Minister, Nick Boles, would agree to meet the chief executives of the national parks authorities before Report? They could discuss this matter directly and go into the specific issue of how superfast broadband can be rolled out more swiftly and effectively while seeking to preserve the landscape and not subvert the existing planning system.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, the noble Lord knows that I am always happy to have meetings that are relevant to the legislation. Let me look into what would be sensible and the best way of setting up such meetings before Report. I give him an undertaking that I will do that.

[Lord Adonis]

I very much welcome that commitment from the noble Baroness. I hope that Mr Boles will also be present at the meeting and that we can make some good progress so that when this matter comes back on Report we do not have to have the same debate yet again.

[Baroness Parminter]

Perhaps I may ask the Minister to address an issue that was not fully responded to in her reply—an issue which was raised by a number of Peers, including the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Cameron, and myself, namely the issue of statutory guidance. The Minister said that the Government expect the operators to abide by the code. For those of us who are concerned about this issue, we feel that it should be a statutory code. Bearing in mind the fact that the final siting will be at the discretion of the operators and that the operators have the ability to deploy new infrastructure if they believe that there is still merit in doing so, can the Minister confirm whether the Government intend for the code of practice to be statutory or voluntary?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I apologise for overlooking that. The proposal is that the code should not be statutory. It should be a code of guidance but not backed up by statute.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, perhaps I could ask again: if everything goes well with a particular proposal and notification, is the difference in timing between the present system and what is proposed just 28 days as it seems to be? In other words, does the 56-day prior approval system disappear but the 28-day period still exist for the local planning authority to comment? Can the Minister say, either now or perhaps in writing, what will happen and what is available to people, particularly the local planning authority, under the proposed new system if there is a difference of view that cannot be resolved? If a proposal is put forward and the planning authority has comments—not necessarily on whether the proposal should be there at all but on the two key issues of siting and appearance—and if that dispute between the local planning authority and the broadband provider cannot be resolved, does the provider simply go ahead and do it or is there some other procedure? I am a bit mystified about where the county court comes in but perhaps everybody else understands that.

We have been told that the number of such cases that have been refused is very few indeed—it is a handful. But the fact that there was a handful means that there will be some cases where the local planning authority believes that what is being proposed is unacceptable. So under those circumstances will it be possible now for the proposal to go through?

Finally, with regard to the issue I was talking about before, Section 11A of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act is a general section that refers to everything. We are told that subsection (2) has to be put aside for this specific purpose because when the decisions are being made or the Secretary of State is issuing guidance and regulations under the Electronic Communications Act, if the national parks Act provision remains, there will not be a level playing field and the different considerations that the Secretary of State has to take into account will not be given equal weighting. Since Section 11A of the national parks Act is a general provision on everything that happens in national parks that authorities have to take account of, surely that is the case with all sorts of other things as well, yet all this other legislation that it must apply to—all these other powers of the Secretary of State and other authorities—does not appear to be invalidated by this section of the national parks Act. This is a fairly esoteric legal point but it would be very helpful to have clear legal guidance from the Government as to why they think this particular provision is necessary.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, with regard to the latter point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, this was a discussion that we had last night with the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and I said earlier that the strong legal advice is that it has to be done in the way that has been proposed at the moment. I said that I was happy to go back and have that checked but I expected that I would come back with exactly the same outcome because that is the legal process, but I am happy to give that undertaking to come back on it.

If all else failed and the providers could not get anywhere with the local authority and the planning committee, ultimately, yes, they could go ahead and provide the facilities where they need to. We do not expect that to happen. The whole purpose of this legislation is to ensure that there is good consultation and a clear understanding of where broadband is going to be placed, and that it should be done as quickly as possible so that we can move on.

Operators will have to adhere to the code. They are going to be involved in drawing it up, and we believe that they should have responsibility for their own code. I am sure that if we did not think that was going to happen properly we might consider taking a backstop power to ensure that the code is placed on a statutory footing, but I would like to come back to that on Report.

17:44

[Lord Judd]

The Minister said that she was willing to consult, which is encouraging. Can she say a little bit about the thinking that has gone on in government about any requirements for such installations to be removed as soon as advances in the technology make them superfluous?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I am sure that that is worthy of an amendment on Report. I am sure that they will be expected to be removed, but I take the noble Lord’s point that sometimes these things are put up and are not then pulled down. However, it is not part of this legislation; I will find out whether consideration has been given to that; and I will find out what the precedents are, because we have got boxes all over the place for cables and all the rest of it, some of which are not used again.

[Lord Judd]

But it is highly relevant to this legislation, because that is a cost to be borne in mind when a company is making its decisions.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I think that we will not take that any further.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, on the basis that the Minister is content to meet the chief executives of the national park authorities before Report—

[Baroness Hanham]

I am content to meet their representatives. If we confine ourselves to chief executives, they may not be able to come in time, but I will certainly meet the organisations.

[Lord Adonis]

On that basis, my Lords, after an hour and 48 minutes, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 59A withdrawn.

Amendment 59B not moved.

Amendment 59C

Tabled by

[Baroness Whitaker]

59C: Clause 8, page 10, line 31, at end insert—
“( ) The Secretary of State must by regulations introduce statutory guidance on how statutory undertakers will consult local planning authorities, and these regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure.”

[Baroness Whitaker]

On the basis of the discussion of consultation, I shall not move the amendment.

Amendment 59C not moved.

Amendments 59D to 59H not moved.

Clause 8 agreed.

Amendment 60

Moved by

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

60: After Clause 8, insert the following new Clause—
“Extension of economic development powers to councils
In the Localism Act 2011, after section 16 insert—
“16A Duty to report on proposals for the extension of devolved economic development powers to all local councils
(1) Within one year of second round of bespoke “city deals” being completed, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report setting out the government proposals, policies and timescales for the extension of devolved economic development powers to all local councils.
(2) The report must, in particular, fully set out—
(a) the case for making the “core package” of devolved powers achieved in the second round of bespoke “city deals” available to all councils to help boost growth; and(b) the time-scales over which those proposals and policies are expected to take effect.(3) Where the Secretary of State has determined it not appropriate to extend devolutionary powers to all local councils, the report must, in particular, fully set out—
(a) why this has been determined as not appropriate;(b) include a resolution that sets out how the government intends to review this determination; and(c) the review of this determination must be laid before Parliament not later than one year following the laying of the original report.””

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

With the agreement of my noble friend Lord Tope, in whose name the amendment has been tabled, I wish to move Amendment 60. The amendment is also in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie.

The amendment returns us, as I am sure the Minister recognises, to localism. She will remember that when we were debating the Localism Bill, as it then was, two years ago, we made considerable progress in persuading the Government to go for a greater degree of localism than had originally been in that Bill. At the same time, I did not seek to conceal my disappointment that it had not gone further. There is huge scope for increasing the decentralisation of power and decision-making from central government to local areas and local people.

Since then, there have been a number of developments. I start with the remarkable report prepared by my noble friend Lord Heseltine, No Stone Unturned in Pursuit of Growth. I told my noble friend that I did not agree with everything in that report, but I applauded the emphasis which he laid—indeed, in an entire chapter—on the need for achieving greater localism.

That chapter is Chapter 2, Building on our Strengths. I cannot begin to quote the whole of that chapter, and the Committee, I think, would become singularly impatient if I did, but I want to quote just two sentences. Paragraph 2.14 states:

“For the UK to face up to the challenge of increasing international competition, we must reverse the long trend to centralism. Every place is unique. Local leaders are best placed to understand the opportunities and obstacles to growth in their own communities”.

That is highly relevant to the Bill.

In paragraph 2.22, after reciting a considerable number of measures that the Government have taken—they cover two pages of the report—my noble friend goes on to say:

“We need to go further and faster to achieve an essential rebalancing of central and local power and resources, extending not just to cities, but to local areas right across England”.

I thoroughly endorse that. As my noble friend will recognise, that is what the amendment is all about.

Another development is that in December 2011, the Government announced their intention,

“to develop tailored deals with our core cities, devolving powers and supporting projects which will boost growth and jobs for the long term”.

That was widely applauded. It has been followed up vigorously by the relatively small number of cities to which it extends. The question is: why should it stop with the cities? The new city deals recognise that local leaders, rather than Whitehall departments, are best placed to understand the economic opportunities and challenges that they face and that they have a key role to play in shaping incentives and conditions for private sector success.

There is also a case for mainstreaming the devolved powers achieved in the early city deals as part of a general mainstreaming programme making those powers available to all councils to help them to boost growth. The wave 2 cities will receive a core package of devolved powers as part of their deal. I submit that the case for extending that more widely is becoming very strong.

I am told by the Local Government Association, which of course has followed that up with much enthusiasm, and has conducted seminars and conferences to seek the views of its members on it, including a seminar with the Centre for Cities on 19 December last year, that it is now receiving many expressions of interest from other cities, towns—and, indeed, not only single local authorities but groups of local authorities—which would like encouragement to develop similar negotiated deals with central Government to give them the additional powers and resources necessary for them to develop the economy in their area.

Another aspect is that when we were passing the Localism Act, the local enterprise partnerships were still very rudimentary. They had only recently been announced; they did not at that stage cover the whole country; some of them were taking longer than others to get off the ground; and they did not have significant financial resources behind them. Those are partnerships led by employers. I have always been firmly of the view that the most effective encouragement to employment, growth, and all the rest of it comes from employers rather than from central government. The Government can facilitate, encourage and provide a framework but, in the end, it is local authorities, individuals and businesses which can make it happen on the ground.

We have not only the strong recommendations of the report of my noble friend Lord Heseltine; we now have the growing experience of the city deals, which are proving very satisfactory and popular and are producing results, and the now well established local enterprise partnerships set up over the greater part of the country, which are beginning to work well. The Government have recognised that by allocating more finance to them. I very much welcome that.

The missing link is that local authorities, apart from the big cities, do not have the same power to negotiate deals with central government that would allow them to have the same opportunities and encouragement to develop their economies and provide jobs and growth in their areas. They know their areas best. We should be prepared to do that; I hope that my noble friends on the Front Bench agree.

We are not seeking by the amendment an immediate commitment for that to happen. Clearly, there needs to be study and further consideration of how, where and when that would best be done. Our amendment would add a new clause to the Localism Act entitled:

“Duty to report on proposals for the extension of devolved economic development powers to all local councils”.

The first subsection states:

“Within one year of second round of bespoke ‘city deals’ being completed”—

that is very wise, because it gives a chance to assess the experience of city deals without charging ahead too rapidly—

“the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report setting out the government proposals, policies and timescales for the extension of devolved economic development powers to all local councils”.

Then the amendment suggests what should be in the report. Subsection (3) states:

“Where the Secretary of State has determined it not appropriate to extend devolutionary powers to all local councils … The report must, in particular, fully set out—

(a) why this has been determined as not appropriate;

(b) include a resolution that sets out how the government intends to review this determination”.

Then the review of the determination must be laid before Parliament within a year.

That is asking the Government to take this forward positively as a further means of spreading the localism—which is the Government’s policy and has been declared to be and has rightly been at the centre of their attitude to local government—but gives them time to ensure that it would really work if extended across the country.

The amendment is reasonable. It builds on what is there already. It reflects the important chapter in my noble friend’s report, No Stone Unturned, and it fits well with the general thrust of the Government’s policy of increasing localism. I hope that my noble friends will feel able to smile on the amendment. I do not say for one moment that the wording is right, but I hope for some encouragement. Then we can return either with a government amendment or something that takes account of what Ministers have said. I beg to move.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment, which we enthusiastically support. We should thank the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for moving it so comprehensively in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Tope. Too often, we hear the mantra of devolving power but see the reverse: power and decision-making moving to the centre, from schools policy to planning.

We should acknowledge the progress being made on devolving powers to some areas, building on the achievements of multi-area agreements. Following the deal on the first eight cities, the Government are encouraging bids from a further 20, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said.

Perhaps I may remind noble Lords of what was involved for some in the first tranche. Nottingham City Council would be given powers to create a venture capital fund to invest in high-tech business, start-ups and growth businesses. I think that for Newcastle, Sheffield and Nottingham the deal has been backed by tax increment finance schemes. A control over part of central government’s skills budgets will be given to Sheffield, while Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle and Nottingham will join Manchester in creating apprenticeship hubs. That is just a flavour of what has been achieved from those first few city deals.

18:00

We also welcome the expansion of city deals outside the first core eight, which was announced last November. We await final announcements, which I think are due in March of this year. As the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said, this amendment is asking for a report within a year of the second round of city deals being completed to lay out proposals for wider devolution to all local councils. I do not often quote Ministers favourably but I would like to share with the House what Greg Clark said. In explaining the broad terms of the plan, he said:

“Cities will need to make a case for new investment and powers, with a clear evidence base and a strong economic rationale. You will need to show how new flexibilities will benefit local people. And you will need to demonstrate how you would manage budgets, and hold yourselves accountable to residents. Every deal is a two-way trade”.

I agree with that.

While supporting this amendment, we would call for a new English deal open to all local authorities, not just to certain cities—a point stressed by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin—in which there is a decentralisation of power from Whitehall to local communities, with councils coming together to make best use of these powers. This new deal must include devolution of powers in areas such as transport, housing, skills and ways of boosting economic development. Rather than the Government poring over a list of approved councils or a map of new boundaries in deciding who to entrust with greater powers, and where, local government should decide how it wants to organise itself for the purpose of taking these powers. It could be a city with a mayor, a city with a leader, a city region, a county or another combination that makes sense locally—including, of course, working with businesses, particularly LEPs.

People rightly feel that politics is too distant; they do not have enough power over their own lives and the places where they live. We should also take the opportunity to build on the momentum which flows from the first and second rounds of city bids, while embracing the wise counsel on this issue of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, in his report on growth, to which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, referred. This report set out the case for a major reconfiguration of responsibilities for economic development between central and local government, and indeed between government and the private sector. In this context, the call for a report would seem extremely modest and I hope that the Government will accede to it.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, in speaking to this amendment I first declare that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association and, as your Lordships know, a government adviser on cities policy. This amendment would extend the city deals structure, potentially to all councils, and it would be a practical manifestation of what we passed in the Localism Act. I welcome that. The aim of this amendment is to boost economic growth, based on the core package for wave 2 cities. As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, explained there will be a confirmation, I think within a few weeks, of those wave 2 cities. However, the core package will be derived from the experience of those in wave one. I expect that that announcement will be made during March; I certainly hope it will be before Easter.

The amendment would mainstream the core package of the city deals. When the Deputy Prime Minister launched the wave two process at the end of October, he said that,

“while it’s too early to talk exactly about what a third Wave might look like, I very much see this”—

wave two—

“as a step in a journey”.

I have concluded that the door is ajar and that this amendment may well represent a means of providing it with a gentle push, for all the reasons that my noble friend Lord Jenkin outlined. There is a very clear base of evidence that if you localise, decentralise and devolve, you will actually drive faster economic growth if you provide local councils and their local enterprise partnerships with the statutory means of delivering that economic growth.

I have one caveat. Councils will need to show governance structures demonstrating their stability, their ability to manage risk and their ability to pool thinking and resources with their local enterprise partnerships and neighbouring councils so that driving growth in an area is seen as a collaborative process rather than a competitive one. I am particularly impressed by the governance structure that is in place in Greater Manchester, where the combined authority—enabled under legislation from 2009—provides a model that could be built on in other parts of the country.

Finally, on timing, if wave 2 city deal announcements are made later in 2013, this amendment will be implemented some time around the summer or autumn of 2014. As my noble friend Lord Jenkin said, this gives the Government an opportunity to consult and think further—but then to come forward with a means whereby the powers that are being given to a number of cities will actually be available to all of local government.

[Lord Smith of Leigh]

My Lords, I must follow the noble Lord’s compliments to Greater Manchester by speaking at this point. I need to declare my interests, which I repeat from Second Reading, particularly to mention that I am the chair of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. I therefore support this amendment, which gets to the heart of the Bill’s Title—it is what the Bill should be about.

I took part in the negotiations with the Government over the city deal. It was a very interesting process. Obviously, we developed ideas on our own and in conjunction. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, is absolutely right that it needs to involve not just local authorities but the local business community. It takes a very special skill for many businesspeople to rise above their day-to-day work to have that comprehension of local economic policy, but in Greater Manchester we are fortunate to have many people who can do that. We rely on them and other partners such as universities, which are very important, too. On the key partners, we need to remind the Government that this is not a financial issue for local authorities. We are actually asking for devolution—not necessarily for more money but to have the money spent at a local level, where many of us believe it will be spent more effectively. In some cases, no money is involved at all; it simply gives us permission to do what we currently have to do.

The city deals work. They can harness the strengths of local partners and build on local knowledge, and they can be addressed to the local circumstances. I am sure that the city deal for Greater Manchester is different from the city deal for Newcastle, because the issues are clearly different. We will have some similar issues. No doubt skills are a very important part but, for us, transport was a key issue. As the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, rightly said, this amendment mirrors the report of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine. It is really beginning to address this point about freedom. At a meeting of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority on Friday, we were pleased that we were beginning directly to fund local businesses to take on new workers and expand, so the measure is working practically on the ground. It is not a theoretical thing, and I will be very glad to see the rolled-out programme.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, I am a bit concerned about the wording of the amendment because I would not like every local authority to have to have its own deal with the Government. That is not what the spirit of this measure is about. What we did very carefully in Greater Manchester was to think about the functional economics. What is an economic area that makes sense? As important and lovely as the great city of Manchester is, its geography is a very odd shape. It is very long and thin. It is not a functioning economic area. The centre of Manchester and the centre of Salford are very close together, so we need to go over local authority boundaries. I hope that in passing some version of this amendment, we can encourage local authorities to be co-operative, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, to work together to think about what is in the interests of their communities and to make sure that we start to deliver what all noble Lords want, which is more growth, more employment and more opportunities in the country.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, because outside Greater London, Greater Manchester is probably the best example of a classic city region in this country. City regions suddenly became all the rage a few years ago under the Labour Government, and they are perhaps making a bit of a comeback now.

The problem is that when people get new ideas, they tend to regard them as a template that applies everywhere. There is no doubt that city regions can be very powerful places in democracy and growth, but the geography of this country is not the same everywhere. Even within England, there are places which it is difficult sensibly to allocate to a city region. The temptation is for people to look at the model and try to impose it everywhere, instead of asking about the geography of this country, which is very different in different places, and about the appropriate model given the geography of a region or sub-region.

A classic example is the towns of west Cumbria—Barrow, Whitehaven and Workington—and their local authorities, Allerdale, Copeland and Barrow. It is very difficult to say which city region they can be part of. Newcastle upon Tyne might have imperialist designs on them and pretend they are part of it, but they are clearly not, and they are equally clearly not part of the Greater Manchester city region, Merseyside or whatever. They are different. The largest places in those areas, including Carlisle, are smaller than the largest places in west Yorkshire or Greater Manchester, obviously, so the system that is used ought to take account of the geography of those areas. That is not to say that they should not have the kind of powers which are set out in this amendment, the powers that existing city deals have, which will, I hope, go on to get more; it is to say that central government has to get out of the mindset of trying to fit everybody into the same size bottle and accept powers have to be devolved to some smaller places because that is the nature of the economic geography and the economic regions in those areas.

It will not surprise noble Lords to learn that I think that east Lancashire is another area, not quite as extreme an example as west Cumbria, that is very difficult to fit sensibly into any particular city region. If we were forced into a big city region, it would be Greater Manchester, but we would always be peripheral and far too far out. Despite the wishes of some people in Preston, it is very difficult to claim that Lancashire is in any way geographically a city region with Blackpool out on the coast, Blackburn and Burnley, former county boroughs, further inland, Lancaster further to the north and then all the other places.

If this is going to be successful, it has to be accepted that it is not just the major metropolitan centres, such as Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle, and smaller but equally important ones such as Norwich, that are going to be the engines of growth in this country. They are probably the main engines of growth because of geographical factors, but the rest of the country needs a fair deal as well, and we do not want to be looking forward to a country where some areas are growing: the south-east and Greater London, obviously, but also those cities that have been remarkably successful in recent years, of which Leeds and Manchester are perhaps the leading examples. Those of us who live out in the sticks need a decent standard of life, a decent level of growth and a decent level of local services, just the same as everywhere else.

My final point is that it is more difficult institutionally where there is two-tier local government. In some areas, the districts are not important. District councils vary hugely across the country. There are some areas where shire districts are not really important within the economic development sphere, never have been and are never going to be. Some of them are quite weak rural authorities in that sense. There are other areas where they are the motors of economic development and the places were inspiration, motivation, ideas and people from the public sector and the private sector come from. I suggest that west Cumbria and east Lancashire are classic examples of this there the county councils traditionally have not had a very strong economic development role.

18:15

Instead of trying to impose one system and saying that the county has that function, there must be some working together at county and district level because in areas such as Pendle, Burnley, Blackburn and Hyndburn, the districts are going to provide the growth. I do not mean just the district council; I mean the level at which it is going to happen and where the local economic areas are: Burnley and Pendle, Blackburn and Hyndburn and so on. In the system that the Government come up with to devolve powers and perhaps some money, that is where the money is going to be found locally. They have to take account of the geographical and economic realities on the ground and not just assume that what has worked in one place automatically will work everywhere else.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, on behalf of the city of Newcastle, I disavow any territorial ambitions in relation to Cumbria, even though we are connected by the Roman wall, part of which runs through and, indeed, is visible in the ward I represent.

I am the fifth consecutive former council leader to address the Committee this afternoon. It was in that capacity that I first made the acquaintance of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, some 30 years ago when he chaired the inner city partnership in Newcastle. At that time, a number of authorities had such a partnership chaired by a senior Minister, and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, was chairman of the Newcastle inner city partnership. I recall rather amusing him by referring to the city action teams that were created in those days as “feral cats”. He might remember the phrase. We worked well together, as did other inner city partnerships. It was a process initiated by Peter Shore in the Callaghan Government of the late 1970s.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I ought to put on record—I do not think that the noble Lord will disagree—that there were some areas that found that extremely difficult. I need only mention Liverpool.

[Lord Beecham]

Liverpool was in many minds at that time. The noble Lord and I perhaps shared a view about Liverpool, but we were not alone in that.

The principle of looking across government departments and local authority functions embodied in a small way in those arrangements was returned to under the previous Government with the concept of Total Place. As I think I have said before in debates in your Lordships’ House, that has, I believe, been rebranded as community budgets, but it is consistently compatible with the thrust of the Government’s policy on city deals and the thrust of the amendments, which, of course, I support. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, was quite right to refer to the powers and resources that are required to invigorate local economies. That involves, by definition, a wide range of public organisations, including government departments. One thinks of BIS, the Department for Transport, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Education, the DCLG, Defra and the Department of Energy and Climate Change. All potentially have a role to play with not only their policies but sometimes with their resources in individual areas. I hope that the Government can look at reinforcing the concept of the city deal by connecting it to the concept of community budgeting or Total Place, so that one looks at the sum of government-directed public expenditure in an area and sees how it can fit into and be applied to the issues of economic growth and regeneration.

Of course, the city deals that have been announced are welcome. Newcastle has benefited; I think that the figure is roughly £80 million. Liverpool got a little more at £110 million. That is not necessarily cash coming from the Government. It is the value of some of the freedoms that have been given, including, for example, tax-increment financing. Tax-increment financing is the permission effectively to borrow against the anticipated business rate income, which will generated by development. It has been deployed effectively for some years in the United States. There is reason to hope that it will help us here.

It is not, then, a question of the Government passing resources to the local authority, but of borrowing. Useful and impressive though those schemes and those amounts of money to invest will be, however derived, they have to be contrasted with the loss of financial resources to the very same authorities as a result of the local government finance settlement, exceeding on an annual basis in the cases of both Liverpool and Newcastle—and perhaps the others, I cannot say for certain—the value of the city deal and its financial implications. That is ultimately money taken out of the local economy, which is likely to have a deleterious effect on that local economy, employment and business. It is a curious inconsistency, which the Government have to address. They have to align their local government finance policies with the ambitions, which we share in local government, across the parties, of the city deal programme.

Finally, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and my noble friend Lord Smith on the need for local authorities to co-operate and not to be seen to be competing with one another, at least in the same sort of area. There will no doubt be competition —healthy, I hope—between different parts of the country, offering different attractions for investment from within this country or overseas; that is a healthy process. However, it would be a great mistake if, within regions—or, to use the current governmental phrase, sub-national areas—there were to be cut-throat competition between more-or-less neighbouring authorities.

It was striking in those dark days of the 1980s—which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, did his best to brighten in Newcastle—that the region of the north-east came together in two ways. First, it came together—I have to say, at my suggestion—to create a Northern Regional Councils Association, which included Cumbria in those days, as it rather looked to the east than to the south. It also came together to facilitate the hugely important Nissan development in Sunderland. There was no competition between authorities as to who should get that. We came together and worked with business in the region and the Government of the day on behalf of the region as a whole. It is effectively a functional economic area, to use the jargon. That spirit of co-operation certainly needs to be driven, and I hope that the Government will incentivise it as these proposals go forward. I hope that—with the slightly cautionary words of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, about not conferring significant powers and functions on unviably small groups of authorities on their own terms, with which I agree—

Have I misunderstood the noble Lord?

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, that was not my point at all. My point is that people who live in big cities think that these places are functionally unviable because they are smaller than where they come from. My point is that they are not necessary functionally unviable just because they are smaller. They are big towns, small cities and areas with an urban nucleus which can actually do the job themselves, even though their population might be only 500,000 rather than 8 million.

[Lord Beecham]

I agree with that. What would be a concern would be the individual smallish councils in an area each seeking a separate agreement. It is the point about co-operation, which I thought the noble Lord was advancing, that I seek to emphasise and I assume the Government would accept.

Again, will the Minister indicate in replying whether the Government will look at the connection between the city deal programme and community budgeting or Total Place, and whether these things need to be linked? If that needs to be discussed further during the course of the Bill—I do not expect an immediate response—perhaps we can have some discussions about that before we get to Report stage.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I first thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate. I noted that my noble friend Lord Jenkin’s final words in moving the amendment were, “I hope my noble friends on the Front Bench smile” at his proposal. I assure him that whenever he makes a contribution I often smile, because I often agree with what he says. In what he said, there is nothing specific with which I can disagree. I think it would be generally accepted by the Committee that all contributions across the Chamber were supportive of the initiatives that are being taken.

I was particularly delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, agreeing with my honourable friend in the other place, Greg Clark. What can I say? Détente has broken out. I am glad that we agree on these issues. When we have these debates, it is important that things which are working across the board are acknowledged as doing so. I do not think for a moment that we are where we want to be with the city deals. This is an evolving issue. We are clearly seeing the trialling of city deals, as has been acknowledged by many noble Lords.

Look at the first wave of the cities listed outside London: Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Nottingham, Newcastle, Leeds and Sheffield; I feel a bit like a train announcer here.

[Lord Beecham]

A high-speed train?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Dare I say it? HS2 may well also assist.

[Lord Greaves]

It did not reach Newcastle.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I am glad that the city deal has. I was concerned by the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, about the expansion of areas and Manchester connecting with Newcastle. As a Liverpool fan, for football reasons alone, that is something that we would want to park.

Coming to noble Lords’ points, I first reassure your Lordships on where we are on city deals. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, it is not a one-size-fits-all proposal. City deals are about bespoke solutions unlocking local growth and trialling different and innovative approaches. Perhaps it would not be appropriate for every single trial to be rolled out wholesale to every single council across the country. That said, the Government have a strong record of commitment to the localist agenda and are working directly with local authorities to provide the powers and support that they need. Where local models and city models make sense, I say to my noble friend Lord Jenkin that we will seek to make them more widely available.

On what we have already done with local authorities, we have given them greater control over their own budgets. First, an estimated 70% of income will be raised locally, compared to 50% to 60% under the current formula grant system. Secondly, from next April, councils will retain nearly £11 billion of business rates. Thirdly, the Government intend to devolve a greater proportion of future growth-related spending, based on the recommendations to which many noble Lords have alluded, as detailed in my noble friend Lord Heseltine’s recent, excellent review. My noble friend Lord Jenkin quoted my noble friend Lord Heseltine. We agree with him that local leaders and businesses are best placed to set the strategic direction of the area. He made a powerful case for increased devolution, and the Government agree with that.

Local people and businesses are better placed to take greater economic powers from central government, particularly in terms of funding and responsibilities, as the LEPs have. They can act as a stronger voice for local people, incorporating the local private sector. As several noble Lords have acknowledged, we have allocated funding. The Chancellor announced an additional £250,000 of capacity on top of the £625,000 core funding announced in September. So steps have already been taken, and I am pleased that noble Lords have acknowledged that.

18:30

The Government have provided a response to the recommendations of my noble friend Lord Heseltine, in the Autumn Statement, which set out a direction for the devolution of government spending to local areas on the basis of strategic plans developed by local enterprise partnerships through creating a single funding pot for local areas, which will be available from April 2015. We will also publish a full response to the recommendations of my noble friend Lord Heseltine in the spring.

My noble friend Lord Jenkin referred to reporting back on the city deals. The first step is very much for the Government to present and publish a full response, as we intend, to the recommendations of my noble friend Lord Heseltine. Before we do that, we will work with the local enterprise partnerships and other stakeholders and partners to ensure that the links between the timing of spending reviews and the need for plans are made and understood.

The single funding pot will include specific areas, as per the recommendations in the report of my noble friend Lord Heseltine. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, highlighted some of these. The single pot will include transport, housing, skills—the important thing in getting people back to work—and local growth funding.

Different elements of the city deals package will continually be assessed and, as appropriate, we will look to extend them to local authorities as and when appropriate—indeed, to all local authorities when we believe that to be relevant. The Government will also consider reporting back on any measures that we are trialling in a city deal, when appropriate. I hear what has been said about the specific report but it is important that we respond fully to the Heseltine report and then subsequently report back on the trialling on which we are taking part in the first and second wave. On behalf of the Government, I welcome the widespread support for city deals. Based on those assurances, I hope that my noble friend will see it as appropriate to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I think that my noble friend did indeed smile. He has given us a very fair and encouraging report, and I entirely take the point with which he finished, that there will be a full response to the report of my noble friend Lord Heseltine. There was one point on which I disagreed with my noble friend Lord Heseltine, when he suggested that local authority structures should be reviewed and they should become single-tier authorities. I told him that I did not agree with that, and the Government have made it perfectly clear that they do not agree.

I warmly support what has been said about the need for co-operation. When we debated the Localism Bill—my noble friend Lady Hanham will remember this—there was a good deal of scepticism about the Government’s wish that local authorities should co-operate. The fact of the matter is that two years later one can point to any number of examples where local authorities are co-operating admirably. That is a far better way than to embark on a major restructuring, which would be unrealistic.

I shall not comment in detail on everybody who has spoken. I am extremely grateful for the amount of support that we have received. I mention two points. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, mentioned the achievement of the Nissan investment. That was very much a collaborative exercise; I was the Secretary of State for Industry who in the end persuaded Nissan to come here. We were negotiating as well with Honda, which eventually went to Swindon. I composed what my Japanese friends were kind enough to say was a sort of haiku: “We get fonder and fonder of Honda, but the kissing with Nissan is missing”. In the end, the kissing was everywhere; we got them both.

That was a very good example of local authorities co-operating. My noble friend Lord Greaves mentioned the West Cumbria authorities: Allerdale, Copeland and West Cumbria. I had been led to believe—with considerable optimism, I hope—that the decision will be announced that the idea of a nuclear repository within that territory, on terms that will need to be finally agreed, is welcomed. We had a three-month delay on this. But the co-operation of the county council and those two district councils has, to my mind, been an admirable example of how local authorities can work together in the national interest.

I thank my noble friend Lord Ahmad for his very encouraging response and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 60 withdrawn.

Clause 9 agreed.

Schedule 3 agreed.

Clauses 10 to 12 agreed.

Amendment 60A

Moved by

[Lord Shipley]

60A: After Clause 12, insert the following new Clause—
“Planning permission required for development
(1) Section 57 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (planning permission required for development) is amended as follows.
(2) Subsection (3), after “Where by a development order (or a local development order)” insert “issued by the local planning authority.”
(3) After subsection (3), insert—
“(3A) Where a local planning authority propose to make an order under this section they shall first prepare—
(a) a draft of the order; and(b) a statement of their reasons for making the order.(3B) The statement of reasons shall contain—
(a) a description of the development which the order would permit; and(b) a plan or statement identifying the land to which the order would relate.(3C) Where a local planning authority have prepared a draft local development order, they shall consult, in accordance with regulations, persons whose interests they consider would be affected by the order.”.”

[Lord Shipley]

In moving Amendment 60A, I shall also speak to Amendments 60B and 60C, as well as Amendments 71 and 71A. I present the apologies of the noble Lord, Lord Tope, who is unavoidably away today. Amendment 71A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, is in practice virtually the same as Amendment 60A in our name, but the grammar in his is better than the grammar in ours.

Amendment 60A would allow local authorities to set their own permitted development rights. It is a logical extension of the Localism Act, because what is and is not permitted development should be decided locally. The current system allows central government to set out permitted development rights and provide local authorities with limited mechanisms to amend this. We noted the debate in your Lordships’ House on Monday about free schools and the powers of government over permitted development rights, and the limited powers that local authorities can sometimes have. We shall debate that issue further, but allowing permitted development to be managed by a local authority at a local level would mean that individual local issues and differences such as between rural and urban, suburban and city and town centres could be considered.

I accept that the proposal is a significant change to the planning system, and there may be concerns about that both from professionals and from the Government. Any change would need to be accompanied by robust consultation before commencement, but there is a principle behind this that permitted development should be decided at a local level.

Amendment 60B would remove the need for the Secretary of State to give approval for local development orders. Local authorities can currently restrict or extend permitted development rights via the use of an article for direction or a local development order. That can be important when, for example, a council could better support local economic growth. But the procedures that have to be followed are complicated and time-consuming and rarely used by local authorities. I have been concerned by the length of time that it can take to get a conclusion to a consultation on an Article 4 direction from the beginning of the consultation. Removing the need for the Secretary of State to give approval for each and every local development order as it is implemented across the country would make the procedures quicker and more effective.

Amendment 60C would remove the need for an individual annual report on all local development orders. I question whether those annual reports are necessary. If there was a problem with the local development order, I think it is inevitable that councillors and planning officers would know about that. However, Schedule 4A to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 states that an annual report must be produced detailing,

“the extent to which the local development order is achieving its purposes”.

The schedule also states:

“The Secretary of State may prescribe the form and content of the report”.

This is very centralist, and I think that the provision could be safely removed from the statute book in order to speed up the process of extending and relaxing rights better to support growth. At a time of constraint in local authority staffing and planning departments, it would also free up considerable local authority resource and time. As I said a moment ago, councillors and planning officers will know whether a local development order is not working properly.

In the absence of the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Tope, both of whom are unavoidably unable to be here, I wish to comment on Amendment 71. This amendment would offer local discretion on permitted development reforms. As I am sure my noble friend the Minister knows, there is great concern about this. The amendment would offer councils the local choice of whether or not to introduce the permitted development changes which the Government are seeking to introduce. It is not clear to me, and has not been throughout the process, why the Government want to do this. It is supposedly to have a positive impact on growth. It is not clear to me how the Government’s proposals would have a positive impact on growth. I have concluded that permitted development rules should not be changed by Whitehall, since such a move cannot take account of significant local differences. As I said a moment ago, city centres, suburbs, town centres, urban areas and rural areas may all have different requirements, and councils are best placed locally to make these judgments. This is a very important issue, and there is a very important principle at stake. If we believe in localism, surely we should permit a planning authority to have local discretion on permitted development schemes. I beg to move.

18:43

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I strongly support these amendments. It seems contrary to the whole thrust of the Localism Act that central government should impose its decision on what are absolutely fundamentally local matters, and do so in such a way as effectively to preclude the local council from taking decisions of this kind in consultation with its residents. For example, it would be interesting to know how many extensions are being built under the dispensation given by the Government. I should think that on the whole that would be more likely to engender conflict between neighbours than lead to any significant development of extended housing in urban areas.

In addition to that, we had the recent announcement, which I referred to in the Chamber a few days ago, of the Government’s decision to grant permitted development status to the conversion of office premises into residential premises. This has provoked a good deal of concern up and down the country, not least within a couple of miles of this place. I do not know whether it has succeeded, but I understood that the City of London was endeavouring to negotiate an opt-out, as it were, from this provision. That seems to be a fashionable thing to do these days.

I do not know whether the Minister can tell us what has happened with that, but can she explain why the Government deem it necessary to override local authorities? Councils can, of course, give this permission if an application is made, and indeed if it is refused it may be appealed, but why should the Government take this decision, effectively on behalf of every local authority in the country, and see that it applies willy-nilly? What is the rationale for that? Where is the evidence that it will lead to the satisfactory development everywhere of housing of an adequate standard, particularly affordable housing of an adequate standard? I recognise, of course, that in certain places that could be the outcome, but why should that decision not be made by those responsible for their local community?

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, pointed out, Amendment 71A in this group, which stands in my name, is to all intents and purposes identical to the amendment that he moved and which stands in his name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Tope. It is also identical to the amendment moved in another place by my honourable friend Roberta Blackman-Woods.

The thrust of the amendment is to reverse the current arrangements whereby permitted development is determined at the centre but with local authorities having the right to restrict or extend permitted development rights by an Article 4 direction or a local development order. It would anchor the process of permitted development rights at the local level with full obligations to prepare a draft order for consultation. The Minister will doubtless argue, as was argued in the Commons, that the powers available under Article 4 or a local development order are sufficient to secure that the decision of the centre can be modified in the local context. However, the LGA briefing—the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, endorsed this—makes clear that these approaches are heavily bureaucratic, time-consuming and resource-intensive. If the Minister does not accept that case, I would be grateful if she would provide the evidence to the contrary. Accordingly, the briefing suggests that these approaches are rarely used. As I say, if this is challenged by the Government, will they supply evidence demonstrating that these approaches are used?

I have also added my name to Amendment 71 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Tope. This is a narrower amendment and requires that a new or amended development order that grants planning permission for development within the curtilage of a dwelling house should have approval from the local planning authority before being applicable.

My noble friend Lord Beecham has clearly argued the case for supporting the amendment and said why the Government’s position is inappropriate. The noble Lord, Lord True, has spoken previously about concerns in his local borough regarding developments in gardens and the challenges that this poses to the local community. Alarm bells were certainly set ringing by the November 2012 technical consultation on extended permitted development rights for home owners and businesses. Its proposals included doubling the size limits for single-storey domestic extensions, although for a limited period. Will the Minister let us know what is happening with that consultation, when we might expect the Government’s response, and whether, in advance of that response, we might at least have an understanding of the direction in which it is travelling?

Amendment 60B in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Tope and Lord Shipley, seeks to remove the requirement for the Secretary of State to approve all local development orders. We agree with this, but could this not also be addressed by secondary legislation? Is primary legislation required to do that?

On Amendment 60C, will the Minister please remind us what happens to the reports that are made under Section 35 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004? The amendment seeks to remove the requirement for those reports. What happens to the reports that are made and how do the Government deal with them? Is there any process by which the results of that are reported to Parliament?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, that was rather a quick ending. I am grateful for this short debate, which I thought might take a bit longer.

The amendment tabled by my noble friends Lord Tope and Lord Shipley, and Amendment 71A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, have the admirable aim of giving local authorities the power to decide how to adapt nationally set permitted development rights to their own local circumstances. I am pleased to say that that power is already there. Where local authorities have concerns about the impact of permitted development rights locally, they are able to consult their local communities on removing those rights via Article 4 directions. I know that my noble friend Lord Shipley said that that process is complicated, but it is really up to local authorities how complicated it is and how long it takes. It is in a local authority’s hands; it has to consult for 28 days, but after that it can decide whether to confirm an Article 4 direction. Because there are concerns regarding potential compensation issues, local authorities can, if they give 12 months’ notice that they are going to consult on an Article 4 direction, always manage to avoid compensation requirements.

Where the aim is to extend permitted development rights locally, local development orders provide a quick and simple way to do this. After a slow start, the number of local development orders being put in place across the country is increasing. Local authorities are recognising the benefits of this flexible provision, which can be put in place through a simple and streamlined procedure. More than 30 local development orders have now been put in place in enterprise zones, and local development orders are contributing to growth by helping to speed up everything from small domestic alterations to major industrial development. Rather than being a cumbersome process, as suggested, local development orders work quite well.

Amendments 60B and 60C, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Tope and Lord Shipley, are intended to make the local development order process even more straightforward. The amendments seek to remove the Secretary of State’s role in the local development order process and remove the requirement for local authorities to report on local development orders, with the aim of reducing burdens further. The Secretary of State only exceptionally exercises his powers to intervene in local development orders. In many cases, local authorities can proceed to adoption within a few days of submitting local development orders to the Secretary of State. However, that does not mean that we should not constantly be seeking to improve and simplify the processes under which development takes place.

Officials have already begun discussions with the Local Government Association with the aim of learning from the experience of local authorities about the best way of using local development orders. That experience is growing rapidly, and it is important to capture it in deciding whether and how local development orders can be improved, including in the ways that my noble friends have suggested. Given my assurance that local development orders are a perfectly reasonable way forward, I hope that my noble friends are willing to withdraw or not move these amendments. I have also given an explanation of how the Article 4 direction plays, or could play, a particularly big role in the control by local authorities.

I turn now to Amendment 71, tabled by my noble friends Lord True and Lord Tope—I am sorry they are unable to be here—and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, who has spoken to it. I appreciate the noble Lords’ wish to make sure that local authorities are able to take their particular circumstances into account when considering the operation of national permitted development rights. This is indeed a vital safeguard, because nationally determined rights will of course have different effects in different local areas. As I have already outlined, local authorities have this power now through the use of Article 4 directions, which they can implement themselves. However, I remind noble Lords that every time permitted development rights are removed, local people are deprived of the benefits that they offer and become subject again to the additional work and costs of putting in a planning application.

Extending development rights will reduce the bureaucracy and delays that home owners face when they want to carry out what remain, even with these revised proposals, small extensions. That applies to businesses also. This amendment would deny people those benefits on a much wider scale. It would fundamentally undermine the well established and popular system of permitted development rights, which allows home owners the freedom and flexibility to make the best use of their homes without getting bogged down in red tape. However, I hear noble Lords’ concerns and I am sure that we will return to this issue at a later stage, when perhaps other noble Lords who tabled amendments in the group are here.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about the consultation. It ended on 24 December and is being considered at the moment. I hope that we will have some indication of the response in due course. There is no fixed date for the announcement of the response, but I hope, given my explanations, that noble Lords will withdraw or not move their amendments.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, the Minister used the word “small” in reference to extensions. Does she understand and agree that what is or is not small depends to some extent on the size of the existing house and, particularly if it is an extension into a back yard, the existing size of that back yard?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I appreciate that proposals and applications for extensions will always be different because it will depend on the nature of the property—for example, whether it is terraced or detached. Permitted development rights are being removed for small-scale and reasonably small-scale developments.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her detailed reply. She may be right to say that there will be a desire to return to some of these concerns on Report. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 60A withdrawn.

Amendments 60B and 60C not moved.

Amendment 60D

Moved by

[Lord Greaves]

60D: After Clause 12, insert the following new Clause—
“Notification of Parish Councils
(1) After section 261 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 insert—
“261A Notification of parish councils
(1) Where an order is made under this Part by any authority or person for the stopping up, diversion or creation of any highway, the extinguishment of any rights over a highway, or for any work in relation to a highway, a copy of the order shall be sent to each parish council that the highway crosses or serves.
(2) “Highway” in this section includes a footpath, bridleway or other right of way.”
(2) After section 129F of the Highways Act 1980 insert—
“129FA Notification of parish councils
Where an order is made under this Part by any authority or person for the stopping up, diversion or creation of any highway, of the extinguishment of any rights over a highway, or for any work in relation to a highway, a copy of the order shall be sent to each parish council that the highway crosses or serves.” (3) In section 15 of the Commons Act 2006 (registration of greens) after subsection (9) insert—
“(9A) Where an application is made under this section to register land as a town or village green, a notice of the application must be sent to any parish council whose area includes the land that is the subject of the application or any part thereof.””

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, the amendment would add a new clause after Clause 12, headed “Notification of Parish Councils”. I apologise that the amendment was circulated a day late but it took me some time to track down the bits of legislation that I need to amend. The genesis of this came from the National Association of Local Councils, which knew what it wanted to do but relied on me to find out how to do it.

The amendment is about three different matters which are conveniently lumped together. It would amend parts of different Acts to make sure that when certain proposals or orders are made by what I might call higher authorities, parish councils are notified. The amendment goes no further than saying that they have to be notified but, clearly, notification is the first stage in reaching a view and perhaps putting it forward.

The amendment follows the procedure on planning applications whereby parish and town councils have, under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the right to be notified about planning applications. The first provision amends that Act and would secure that when,

“an order is made … by any authority or person for the stopping up, diversion or creation of any highway, the extinguishment of any rights over a highway, or for any work in relation to a highway, a copy of the order shall be sent to each parish council that the highway crosses or serves”.

The second part would make a similar amendment to the Highways Act 1980. The wording is very similar but, in practice, it refers to rights of way orders. It really refers to lower-order highways—bridleways, footpaths and similar routes. The third part refers to Section 15 of the Commons Act 2006 concerning the registration of greens, and we will be moving on to that shortly. This part of the amendment would make a provision that, where an application is made to register land as a town or village green—that is, the beginning of the registration process—the parish council that includes the green or part of it should be informed.

So far as concerns the second part of the amendment, I am aware that the practice guidance notes on rights of way orders—that is, in relation to footpaths, bridleways and so on—issued by the Rights of Way Review Committee, include consultation with various local bodies, including parish councils. However, I am informed by the NALC that that does not always happen and it would much prefer to have such a requirement in primary legislation. With regard to both the other matters, I am informed that they have caused difficulties for parish councils over the years and that these fairly simple provisions would make life a lot easier for them. I beg to move.

19:01

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I look forward to the Minister’s reply but, on the face of it, these amendments seem entirely sensible.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I absolutely agree with my noble friend that it is very important that parish councils are notified of the making of any legal orders affecting rights of way and other highways serving or crossing a parish and indeed of any town and village green applications relating to land within the parish. It may be helpful to the Committee if I set out how the process works to ensure that this is the case.

First, as regards rights of way creation, diversion and extinguishment orders, paragraph 1(2)(b)(ii) of Schedule 14 to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and paragraph 1(3)(b)(ii) of Schedule 6 to the Highways Act 1980 require the order-making authority to serve notice on,

“every council, the council of every parish or community and the parish meeting of every parish not having a separate parish council, being a council, parish or community whose area includes”,

any land affected by a rights of way order.

As regards orders for stopping up or diverting highways for the purposes of development—that is, Section 247/248 orders—Section 252 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 requires that, before making an order, notice be served on the local authority in the area of the proposed stopping up or diversion of a highway. Therefore, the notice of a stopping up or diversion is served on the parish council in whose area the development lies.

For town and village green applications, existing regulations require notification of Section 15 applications to parish councils. Specifically, the Commons Registration (England) Regulations 2008, which apply to registration authority areas in England in respect of which the registration provisions in Part 1 of the 2006 Act have been commenced—known as “pioneer areas”—and the Commons (Registration of Town or Village Greens) (Interim Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2007, which apply to other authority areas in England, require notification of such applications to parish councils.

Schedule 14 to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and Schedule 6 to the Highways Act 1980 require that, before a rights of way creation, diversion or extinguishment order is confirmed by either the Secretary of State or the order-making authority, notice shall be given in the prescribed form: first,

“stating the general effect of the order and that it has been made and is about to be submitted for confirmation or to be confirmed as an unopposed order”;

secondly,

“naming a place in the area in which the land to which the order relates is situated where a copy of the order and of the map referred to therein may be inspected free of charge … at all reasonable hours”;

and, thirdly,

“specifying the time (which shall not be less than 28 days from the date of the first publication of the notice) within which, and the manner in which, representations or objections with respect to the order may be made”.

The notices shall be given, among others, to,

“every council, the council of every parish or community and the parish meeting of every parish not having a separate parish council, being a council, parish or community whose area includes”,

any of the land to which the order relates.

The Commons Registration (England) Regulations 2008, which apply in the pioneer authority areas that I mentioned earlier, require, in Regulation 22(1)(a), an applicant to serve a notice of any application to a registration authority under Part 1 of the Act,

“on each of the persons specified in Schedule 6”.

Schedule 6, as it applies to Section 15 applications, requires the notice to be served on any local authority other than the registration authority in whose area the land in question lies. “Local authority”, as defined in Regulation 2 of the 2008 regulations, includes a parish council and the chairman of a parish meeting.

Finally, the Commons (Registration of Town or Village Greens) (Interim Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2007, which apply to the non-pioneer authority areas, require, in Regulation 5, a registration authority to send notice of an application in the prescribed form to every “concerned authority”. In this case, “concerned authority” is defined in Regulation 2(2) as,

“a local authority … in whose area any part of the land affected by the application lies”.

“Local authority”, as defined in Regulation 2, includes a parish council.

I believe that what I have illustrated answers my noble friend’s questions. With those assurances and the details that I have provided, I hope that he will be happy to withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Lytton]

My Lords, I declare interests as the president of the National Association of Local Councils and as chairman of the Rights of Way Review Committee. If there is a failure to give the relevant notification to a parish council, will any sanction or redress be available to the parish council? I realise that the Minister may not be in a position to answer that question straight away.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I am sure that there are instances where that is the case. For completeness, it may be appropriate if I write to the noble Earl on that specific point. However, I assume that appeals procedures are available to parish councils to take forward where orders are not adhered to.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and should be grateful to receive a copy of his letter to the noble Earl. It may be that what is now required is for the NALC to circulate to its member councils the fact that there is a need and a requirement for them to start to demand their rights from higher authorities. However, I am very grateful for the Minister’s care in setting out the details and, on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 60D withdrawn.

Clause 13 : Registration of town or village green: statement by owner

Amendment 61

Moved by

[Lord Greaves]

61: Clause 13, page 15, line 26, after “must” insert—
“(a) ”

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 62 and 63. This group also contains a couple of amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. I shall refer to them in passing, although I shall wait for him to speak to them.

Clauses 13, 14 and 15 take us on to a new area in the Bill: the registration of town and village greens. These clauses refer to Section 15 of the Commons Act 2006, and some of us have fond memories of the passage of that legislation through your Lordships’ House.

Clause 13 inserts new Sections 15A and 15B into the Commons Act. Section 15 refers to the registration of town and village greens which exist—or which people claim exist—but which are not yet registered. It sets out the procedure for registration and that takes place through the commons registration regulations by commons registration authorities, which are local authorities in two-tier areas—now county councils.

Before we can understand any of these amendments or clauses we need to understand town and village greens and their registration. They are areas of land that may or may not be registered—most of them are now registered—in the commons register, and they confer on local people the right to informal recreation on that land. They are also open spaces. That common law right was codified in the Commons Registration Act 1965 and again in the Commons Act 2006.

Clause 13 brings in a new right for a landowner to bring to an end a period in which people have had rights to take part in informal recreation on that land. A piece of land can be registered as a town or village green under certain conditions: first, if people have used it for 20 years—usually continuously, but, basically, for 20 years; and secondly, if they have used it for lawful sports and pastimes—in other words, informal recreation—as of right as opposed to by right. That sounds legalistic and obscure but “as of right” means that they have not been stopped from using it; they have not used force; they have not used it secretly, having sneaked on there at two o’clock in the morning and kicked a ball about and left before anyone saw them; and they have not had permission. All those matters are crucial. If the owner of the land gives people permission by putting a sign up saying, “Ball games allowed”, that negates the ability to register it as a green. It is an ancient right and it is closely prescribed by those requirements.

If a piece of land has been used in that way without any of those conditions applying for 20 years or more, it can be registered as a green. It is very important to understand that if that happens, it is not being created as a green; it is simply recognising the legal fact that, under the old common law and under the Commons Act, where it has been codified, it is a green. It is a matter of fact. It is quite different from planning permission, which is a matter of saying, “Given the circumstances of that land and given all the planning laws and regulations, is it a good idea for that planning permission to be given?”. For example, it is very different from a designation as a piece of new green space under the new designation in the NPPF, where it is a matter of opinion as to whether that is a good idea or not. Either it is a green or it is not a green. That is why the process of registration often seems fairly bureaucratic, legalistic and long-winded.

Within the 20-year period, an owner can simply prevent the area ever being registered as a green by stopping people or by giving permission to people, whichever he wants to do. Clause 13 brings in a new right for a landowner to bring to an end the possibility of it being registered as a green—in other words, to bring to an end the period in which lawful pastimes can take place on it—by making a statement to a commons registration authority. In future, even if it has been used for more than 20 years or since the 15th century, it cannot be registered as a green.

19:15

However, Section 15(3) of the Commons Act says that if the use has been for longer than 20 years, and it ceases, you can still apply to register within two years after the cessation of use. That use does not cease because the landowner is doing something but just stops. If the use has stopped within the past two years, but it was used before that, you can still register it as a green. The advice from the Government, which is clearly set out in the Explanatory Notes, is that this provision in Section 15(3) of the Commons Act means that even if an owner of the land makes a statement under the new clause in this Bill to the registration authority that it is no longer being used, you still have two years in which you can register it as a green. The owner makes a statement under the new Section 15A of the Commons Act, but a person can still make an application for registration under Section 15(3) within two years.

The question in regard to this amendment—which is pretty complicated, for which I apologise, but I think the point needs explaining—is: how are people to know that such a statement has been made by the owner so that they have an opportunity to exercise their rights under Section 15(3) of the Commons Act? At the moment the Bill contains no proposals that anything should happen other than that the authority should state in the register of greens that the statement has been made. That is all it has to do. The purpose of these amendments is to set down proposals that there has to be a minimum of local publicity such as a sign on the green or information on the website or an advertisement in the local newspaper or all three, and anything else which local people feel is appropriate. That is not excessive to the landowner or to a commons registration authority.

If someone’s rights are being taken away, it is common sense that they should be told about it. The owner of the land does not have to put up a fence or a gate with a lock and a sign saying, “Keep out”. He can simply allow people to continue using it for the next two years in blissful ignorance that their rights will cease after the end of two years, or their ability to use that land for that purpose will cease after two years and they will be locked out without any redress whatever. This is a simple, reasonable amendment to say that when a landowner makes a statement that the use of the green for informal recreation has ceased, there should be sufficient publicity to allow people time, if they wish, to make an application for a green registration, which can then be tested in the normal way. I beg to move.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, we have Amendments 63A and 63B in this group. I should start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for his knowledgeable exposition on these issues. I was told by one of his colleagues that he is the world expert on these matters, as he has demonstrated.

By way of background, Clauses 13 and 14 mirror the approach taken in so much of the Bill. This issue is largely subject to anecdote, so the Government have taken the opportunity to address it in legislation in an unacceptably tough manner. Let me be clear: we reject the opportunity to use town and village green provisions to thwart development which is unwanted by some. However, we equally reject legislation that would, in large measure, make it difficult to establish such a provision in the future. Our approach is not to seek a deletion of these clauses but to amend them in an attempt to get a better balance.

Amendments 63A and 63B address the issue of the publicity that must be given to a statement under Clause 13. As the noble Lord explained, the statement is that which a landowner can deposit with a registration authority to bring to an end any period during which persons have indulged as of right in lawful sport and pastimes on the land. The knowledge of cessation of use is important because it is the trigger to the two-year window in which a person can seek to register the land as a green. Without that knowledge there is the prospect that the two years will elapse and the chance to register will be lost.

Amendment 63A inserts “must” rather than “may”—an issue that perhaps we do not need to dwell on extensively. However, Amendment 63B requires regulations concerning publicity to be inserted into the Bill. On that basis, we have broadly common cause with the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on these amendments. His proposition about the nature of the publicity is more detailed and possibly more appropriate, but we seek to achieve the same thing by our amendments.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

My Lords, I support this group of amendments on a very important issue. I will make a perhaps slightly illegitimate point, because I probably do support the removal of the two clauses, which I consider unnecessary. I apologise to the Committee for the fact that I will not be here for the debate on whether the clauses should stand part, so I will say that were I to be here I would support the proposition that they should not.

The amendments in this group are particularly important if the clauses remain—in particular the need to publicise and notify those whose interests could otherwise be removed surreptitiously, without them realising that that had been done. However, it is important to say—as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said—that these two clauses typify the Bill in that the number of applications for town and village greens has considerably reduced and is very small compared with the number of planning applications that are approved every year. Therefore, we must challenge considerably whether primary legislation is necessary. It is quite a large sledgehammer to crack a nut that probably does not exist—or, if it does, exists in very small proportions.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, in responding to the noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord McKenzie, it may be helpful if I briefly set out why we are reforming the system for registering town and village greens. This explanation will take us through to the next group of amendments. In short, the reforms are needed to prevent the greens registration scheme being used to stop or delay planned development decided through the democratically accountable planning system. The changes will also protect the ability of local communities to promote or support development in their areas through consultation and decision-taking on planning applications and local and neighbourhood plans. Another aim is to reduce the financial burden on local authorities in considering green applications, and the costs to landowners whose land is affected by these applications.

Clause 13 inserts new Section 15A into the Commons Act 2006 which allows a landowner in England to deposit a statement and map with the commons registration authority, the effect of which is to bring to an end any period of use “as of right” for lawful sports and pastimes on that land. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, very expertly went through what lies behind this clause. I will briefly say that under the current system, if landowners want to protect their land from town or village green registration, they may erect fences and/or notices to physically prevent access to the land. However, the courts have ruled that even taking such steps does not necessarily bring to an end any use “as of right”, in particular where fences or notices are not maintained in the event of damage or removal. Clause 13 will allow landowners to achieve the aim of ending use “as of right” through the submission of a statement. We hope that this reform will encourage landowners to allow recreational use of their land, safe in the knowledge that they can prevent the registration of their land as a green. That will then be of benefit to those who use the land, as well as to landowners.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, tabled Amendments 61, 62 and 63. As he explained, their intention is to ensure that, where a landowner makes a statement, notice is given to local people and other interested parties so that they are aware that the clock is ticking on the time that is available for making a town or village green application. Amendments 63A and 63B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, would require that publicising the deposit of a statement should be mandatory.

In line with the statements made by the honourable Member for Sevenoaks in the other place, I offer the Committee the reassurance that we intend that, where a landowner statement is deposited with a commons registration authority, the authority will be required to publicise it. This will ensure that local people and other interested parties are made aware of the fact that a statement has been deposited. We intend to use the power to make regulations, set out in subsection (6) of new Section 15A, to make publication of the statement one of the steps that an authority must take when the statement has been deposited.

It is our view that the specific publicity requirements are best set out in regulations; it is not necessary to include such detail in the Bill. However, my officials will draw up those regulations in close consultation with key interested parties, including the Open Spaces Society and the Association of Commons Registration Authorities. The regulations will require that commons registration authorities take appropriate steps to ensure that local people and other interested parties are made aware of the fact that a landowner statement has been deposited.

Amendment 63 would ensure that a landowner statement under this clause cannot be made until regulations prescribing the detail of the process under subsection (6) have come into effect. However, there is already provision for Clause 13 and those regulations to come into effect at the same time. The commencement provisions in Clause 31 provide that the Government can commence Clause 13 at an appointed time, and I reassure the Committee that the reason that the clause will be commenced in this way rather than on a set date is to ensure that these provisions are not commenced until regulations are finalised. I hope that, with those reassurances, noble Lords will not press their amendments.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I am grateful for that detailed response and for the Minister’s comments. I am also grateful to her for referring to Amendment 63, which I forgot to speak to. I thought that I had spoken long enough—and I am sure that the Committee did, too. That is my excuse, anyway. What the Minister said is exactly what my amendment would do, so I am very happy not to press it.

On the publishing of information when a statement is deposited with a commons registration authority, I think that the Minister’s response fitted the bill and that her assurance was okay. We will look at the regulations when they come out and, if they do not say what the Minister has just said, she will have to explain why—but I am sure that they will.

The only point I will make is that it is very important that the publishing of the fact that a statement has been made should be sufficiently local. Some commons registration authorities are big unitary authorities such as Northumberland or Cornwall, or big counties such as North Yorkshire or Lancashire. Simply publishing statements centrally or on a website will not get to the people who are using a piece of land in a village or town. It is very important that publication is sufficiently local so that somebody will pick it up and pass it on. With that comment, I am pleased to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 61 withdrawn.

Amendments 62 to 63B not moved.

Clause 13 agreed.

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.31 pm

Health: Neglected Tropical Diseases

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

Question for Short Debate

19:30

Asked By

[Baroness Hayman]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made in combating neglected tropical diseases since the London declaration on NTDs of January 2012.

[Baroness Hayman]

My Lords, much has been achieved since the signing of the London declaration on neglected tropical diseases a year ago today. Substantial progress has been made in raising awareness of the issues—in that respect I welcome the number of noble Lords who have put down their names to speak in tonight’s debate—and in the fight to control and eventually eliminate the scourge of this group of debilitating and disabling conditions.

They are diseases caused by viruses and bacteria transmitted through snails and worms, flies and mosquitoes. They are found predominantly among poor, rural and semi-urban populations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, with almost half their health burden in sub-Saharan Africa. NTDs cause disfigurement and disability, anaemia, stunting and blindness to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. It has been estimated that among the 1.4 billion people who constitute the poorest in the world today, there is not a man, woman or child who has not, is not or will not be affected by at least one of these diseases. They are not just neglected diseases in terms of research or money: they are the diseases of neglected people.

The London declaration set out an ambitious plan to work towards the control and elimination of NTDs, building on the programme set out by the World Health Organisation. The substantial progress that has been made in the past year has been clearly set out in a series of recent reports from, among others, the WHO and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Only yesterday, the executive board of the WHO passed an important, comprehensive and authoritative resolution committing the authority to grow the programmes already in place and integrate them further into the health and development agenda.

I do not intend tonight to do the Minister’s work for her by answering in detail my own question as to the progress made over the past year, but I want to emphasise the advantages that have come from the partnership approach of the London declaration: the bringing together of the pharmaceutical companies that have contributed, free of charge, more than 1 billion treatments; the endemic countries, 40 of which have developed multiyear integrated NTD plans; the donors who have committed funds to support delivery of those programmes and increase the resources available for mapping and research; and the academic institutions that are undertaking that research such as the London Centre for NTDs launched today—an important UK initiative—which will concentrate on identifying and supporting best practice and answering the practical operational questions that we need so much to understand.

The commitment to rigorous monitoring and evaluation through the scorecard for the London declaration will track delivery, highlight milestones and targets and help identify priority action areas. This joint working, accountability and transparency is one of the reasons why aid directed to NTDs is so obviously smart aid. It is aid where resources deployed are cost-effective—we come back again and again to the 50 pence per person per year for de-worming programmes—and aid that leverages resources and commitments from endemic countries, private and philanthropic sectors as well as from voluntary organisations and donor Governments.

DfID and the British Government deserve great credit for being, together with US aid, a leader in this field and I pay tribute to the previous Minister at DfID, Stephen O’Brien MP, who provided committed and knowledgeable leadership, without which we would never have got this far. I hope when she comes to wind up that the Minister will have something to say about the Government’s efforts to encourage other countries, particularly in Europe, to allocate resources in this area.

In the few minutes that I have left, I want to talk about the reasons for making NTD control a global health priority and I remind the House of my non-financial interests in the area, particularly as a trustee of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, and to look forward to some of the areas that we need to develop for success in the future.

The value-for-money argument for making NTDs a priority goes alongside the humanitarian argument. Unlike many other diseases, we have cheap and effective tools for alleviating the misery of the disease, disablement and discrimination that these conditions cause. What we need is political will as well as resource. I hope that this debate tonight will contribute in some small way towards that political will.

These are age-old afflictions. Twenty years ago, I chaired the Whittington Hospital in Archway in London. The first health facility on that site was a leper hospital in the 12th century. It was opened and positioned there because it was just beyond the boundaries of the city of London, from which people with leprosy were barred. Much more recently on Ellis Island, emigrants from Europe to the USA were examined by immigration officers for trachoma and sent home if they were found to be infected. This experience of exclusion and discrimination still exists for many in the developing world today.

However, as a global health priority, NTDs have a much shorter history. It is less than a decade since Peter Hotez of Sabin, David Molyneux of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Alan Fenwick of Imperial College first used the term in biomedical journals and they have been tireless advocates for this cause, alongside Dr Lorenzo Savioli at the World Health Organisation. Despite their widespread prevalence, these diseases have been neglected in multiple ways and for multiple reasons. They have attracted tiny proportions of budgets for treatment from donor Governments or for research from private or academic institutions. Médecins sans Frontières presented evidence last month that only 1.4% of clinical studies undertaken in the past year focused on neglected diseases, although they cause around 11% of the global disease burden.

This is partly because of the demographic that they afflict and its lack of purchasing and political power, but also because in public health terms these diseases have been seen as causing morbidity rather than mortality. So the focus in the millennium development goals and elsewhere has been on the big three killers in the developing world—AIDS, TB and malaria. However, there is growing evidence of the important and significant interaction between NTDs and these three diseases.

As well as the obvious overlap in geography and the demographics of co-infection, the data suggest a strong association of exaggerated symptoms, rapid progression of disease and a higher risk of fatality in all three diseases where there is the presence of NTDs. To take just one example, studies in Tanzania and Zimbabwe demonstrate that women with female genital schistosomiasis have a 3% to 4% higher chance of being infected with HIV than those who are free of the disease. If we are to achieve the millennium development goal on AIDS, TB and malaria, we also need to tackle neglected diseases. I hope that the Minister may also say something about encouraging global fund programmes to integrate NTD control, as they have, for the first time, in Togo.

However, progress in achieving other millennium development goals is also impeded by the epidemic of NTDs and its effects on maternal mortality, school attendance and livelihoods. Controlling NTDs is an important component not only of the global health agenda, but of the more general development agenda.

If we are to achieve the ambitious targets set out in the London declaration, we will have to meet many varied challenges, not the least of which is providing the basic building blocks of public health, clean water, sanitation, hygiene and education. These are essential to underpinning NTD initiatives. We need to develop greater capacity to deliver and distribute the drugs that are available, and we need to know more about the best treatment regimes and about synergies with other health programmes, such as the distribution of bed nets and vaccination campaigns. I think that the London centre will be hugely helpful in this respect. We need to mobilise research and development on vector control, which is often a neglected area itself. Evidence from the WHO Global Burden of Disease 2010 study shows that diseases such as leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis and hookworm are unlikely to be eliminated solely through mass drug administration programmes. We urgently need research into the development of new control tools, including drugs, diagnostics and vaccines. We need a good pipeline of innovative products if we are not to be talking, in 20 or 30 years’ time, of re-emerging diseases.

Margaret Chan, the director of the World Health Organisation, has issued a clarion call by saying on the publication of its latest report:

“Overcoming Neglected Tropical Diseases makes sense for economies and development … Many millions of people are being freed from the misery and disability that have kept populations mired in poverty ... We are moving ahead towards achieving universal health coverage with essential health interventions for Neglected Tropical Diseases, the ultimate expression of fairness”.

As we look to the global health agenda post 2015, what better rallying cry could we have?

19:41

[Lord Sheikh]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for initiating this timely debate. Neglected tropical diseases form a group of 17 diseases, and as one who was born and brought up in Africa, I have seen the effects of some of them. They often affect the poorest of people in the hardest- to-reach areas. Because most of these diseases do not exist in more developed nations, it is easy to forget just how prevalent they are in other parts of the world. They cause death or weaken individuals, putting them at risk of being affected by other conditions. They damage the lives of more than 1 billion people across the globe and cost millions of pounds in healthcare and loss of production.

Large-scale diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis receive worldwide media attention and a great deal of research and funding, including commendable commitments from our own successive Governments. However, it must be acknowledged that in some parts of the world, the combined impact of the neglected diseases is comparable to that of the likes of malaria. We must come to terms with the scale of the task at hand. Some diseases are at risk of spreading further, so it is important that we do all we can to stop that happening.

As with so many of the world’s ills, the key to nipping the problem in the bud will be as much prevention as possible. It is now one year since the London declaration made a call to the world to work together in order to support and realise the World Health Organisation’s 2020 Roadmap on Neglected Tropical Diseases. I was pleased to read the WHO’s second report on NTDs, published earlier this month. It highlights what it describes as “unprecedented progress” made over the past two years. A regular supply of medicines and general worldwide strategic support has resulted in a vast improvement in the health of many people. There now seems to be a much closer focus on simplifying and fine-tuning the logistics of getting medication to as many people as possible in the most cost-effective ways. The outlook has shifted away from instigating the strategy to progressing it in a sustainable way, and the 2020 road map to control or eliminate at least 10 diseases by the end of the decade seems to be firmly in sight.

Today marks the launch of the London Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease Research, which is another huge milestone in taking forward further research and, more importantly, providing a bricks-and-mortar hub for continued global co-ordination. We should all be extremely proud that this global initiative has been based here in London from outset—from the coalition of organisations through to the declaration, and now to the establishment of this centre. The United Kingdom has a reputation for identifying and honouring its moral duty to assist others, and our leadership of this initiative continues that fine tradition. Just last year, our Government committed £195 million to support the control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases. In a wider context, this initiative serves as the perfect example of what can be achieved when people come together and collaborate for the greater good. Governments, scientists, pharmaceutical companies, NGOs, funding agencies and philanthropists have all provided expertise and resources that have resulted in measurable impacts being made in the affected communities.

19:46

[Lord Stone of Blackheath]

My Lords, my involvement in this area has come about from chairing DIPEx, an online health charity. We publish videos and audio interviews conducted over 10 years of qualitative research into people’s personal experiences of illness by a brilliant team of academics at Green Templeton College, Oxford. Our website, healthtalkonline, was featured last week in the Times as number two in the top 50 websites that “you cannot live without”. We are good at publicity. Sir Tom Hughes-Hallett, the chair of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College, has been a great supporter of DIPEx International, and he thought that perhaps our methodology of videoing patients’ experiences might help NTD workers to record and report their effectiveness because they do not get enough exposure; they are neglected. We are looking at that with the institute.

When I met Professor Alan Fenwick, the expert at the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative at Imperial College, he amazed me. The initiative has used its DfID funding to such great effect that it facilitated some 4 million treatments against schistosomiasis in its first year, which was 2011. By 2012 it had reached eight countries and provided 15 million treatments. Similarly, the Centre for Neglected Tropical Diseases at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has increased its number of treatments against lymphatic filariasis from 35 million in 2011 to 52 million in 2012. Both are confident that they will further expand their coverage in 2013 and get to Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cote d’Ivoire.

It is excellent that DfID funding is reaching the poorest of the poor with cost-effective treatments of NTDs, but the world should view addressing these diseases not only within the health context, of course, but also in the important economic context. The Hudson Institute says that about 50 million DALYs—disability adjusted life years—are lost in developing countries to the NTDs alone. The treatment of NTDs is immensely cost-effective on a massive scale. The teams involved in these projects want the correct measurements, graphic representation and feedback loops in place to prove the effectiveness of allocating further huge resources to this work because it pays over the long term. The sources of funding are entitled to know that the route whereby their cash is getting to good causes is providing value for money. If they know that, they can target their funding better and co-operate across the piece, and thence give more. Yesterday evening, Lindsey Wu of Policy Cures described the integration of the malaria vaccine technology road map being co-ordinated by the World Health Organisation. It seeks to involve players at all stages of malaria control and elimination and considers how that can back into early stage vaccine work. This type of holistic approach at all stages goes beyond the lab to deliver the most impact on the ground.

There are, of course, powerful drivers for “commercial” funders to conduct R&D on drugs and thus develop vaccines and diagnostics, but not enough resources are allocated to the less commercial end, which is that of vector control. Millions of people could be prevented from getting these diseases in the first place. Furthermore, more attention is needed on the less exciting areas of operational research, implementation and logistics, as well as an integrated approach to multiple NTDs.

This whole project is amazingly heartening and I urge the Minister to look at the need for well informed, powerfully and graphically presented feedback loops, which could inspire greater integration of funding and bring the successful treatments of these neglected diseases to the attention of the larger world community; thereby supporting these great people working in this field and enabling millions of wonderful individuals in these countries not only to live but to live better lives.

19:50

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend because I know that water fleas, snails, blackfly and many other deadly insects and parasites are still infecting millions with NTDs such as trypanosomiasis and onchocerciasis. “Trips” and “oncho” became part of my vocabulary when I joined Christian Aid 40 years ago. Remembering the WHO mass-spraying campaigns in west Africa at that time, I now feel disappointment that we always seemed to be on the point of eliminating oncho but never quite succeeded.

Agencies specialising in this field have long had the target of “clean water for all”. Water is given a green light in the MDGs but this remains an enormous task —the UN says that 783 million are still using traditional drinking water supplies and one of the most successful agencies, WaterAid, now has 27 country programmes, which last year provided 1.6 million people with safe water and 1.9 million with sanitation. Oxfam and CARE have also been prominent in this field. Coming from the background of the voluntary sector, people like me can sound quite glib in describing the needs of the poorest people—all they have to do is boil their water, wash their hands and follow the advice of the nearest health centre. However, life of course is a little more complicated: the advice may be 50 or more miles away; tradition and culture dominate; and the worms and flies may be too numerous. Education is vital. Water and sanitation must be complemented with child-focused health education that promotes lifelong healthy behaviour.

I have some scepticism about the donations offered by pharmaceutical companies and the doctors they direct, and even control, in developing countries, which undoubtedly gives them a PR advantage. I am also aware of the ill effects of overprescription, which leads to dangerous dependence and painful withdrawal. I remember how subsidiaries of well known pharmaceutical companies in countries such as Bangladesh bought doctors and tyrannised village clinics that did not comply with them. I nevertheless congratulate these companies, and the charities that are contributing to this important campaign. We know that more than 700 million people have been treated for seven diseases and that the numbers treated for soil-transmitted worms have quadrupled in one year, which is nothing but impressive.

Just after DfID announced its fivefold increase in support for the NTD programme—which is to be warmly welcomed, alongside the US contribution—the Lancet asked, a year ago, whether increased funding for neglected tropical diseases really made poverty history. It pointed out the risks of undermining healthcare systems and of relying on volunteers, the gaps in the knowledge of combination drugs, and the limits in the evidence base for these drugs. Mass campaigns, although necessary to meet the MDGs, can at the same time take staff away from fragile healthcare administrations.

I have consulted Save the Children, which of course is well aware of the importance of tackling the NTDs with major campaigns. However, its key message is that, as the communities affected are often those excluded from health services, any work to ensure sustainable access to NTD prevention and control interventions should always be integrated with the strengthening of comprehensive health systems for sustainable change. Does the Minister agree with that and will she ask DfID to ensure that health workers who get involved in these interventions are always adequately remunerated, trained and motivated to support them as part of a package of essential services?

19:54

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for securing this debate on a very important topic and, as we have heard, a very neglected one. There are great signs of engagement and creativity, as noble Lords have said, but the statistics and effects are absolutely horrifying. I want to develop the point that has just been made about an integrated and sustainable approach. For medical intervention and investment to be effective—I think the noble Baroness used the term “smart aid”—there has to be an embedding in the local culture. Often, there have been ways of handling these things for many years, and it is not easy for western medicine to come in with all its technology and suddenly change the situation. In fact, an article in the Lancet in March 2012 provided evidence of the hostility to this kind of intervention because people in the local community did not understand it and were threatened by it. The article said that it was important, alongside the medical intervention, to enable what it called “behavioural change” and an “integrated biosocial approach”.

I want to give an example of that and encourage the Minister, and our own investment from this country and the work of the London centre, to take this approach seriously. I declare an interest as a trustee of Christian Aid, and it is good that there are other Christian Aid supporters here. Christian Aid commends what it calls a “community health approach”, which is local, joined-up and sustainable. It has four aims: to respond to local priorities; to integrate the approach to the various diseases and health issues; to develop a local health system; and to involve local people and local resources.

I will give your Lordships an example. A cross-border malaria initiative in Zambia was launched by Christian Aid and a number of partners in July 2010. So far, 100 local people have been identified, engaged and trained up to work as volunteers to enable this integration of the care response and its embedding in the local community. That is the kind of approach that I think we must commend and invest in.

I have two other quick points. Resourcing is crucial. Although it is not the main topic of this debate, I cannot resist reminding noble Lords that before Christmas we debated the issue of tax justice. Much of the wealth that is created in countries where these tropical diseases are prevalent is through tax avoidance schemes and is taken out of the country to where it cannot be taxed to provide local resources for a local response. We need to recognise that that is part of the picture.

Finally, I will say something about vigilance. In the 1960s, sleeping sickness was virtually eradicated in Africa, but by the 1990s, it was beginning to return. There is a frightening pattern in a lot of aid and welfare interventions that almost get there but somehow do not quite integrate and create something sustainable. The problem then creeps back. That is why I commend to the Minister, and ask her to take very seriously, this approach of community health, which is local, sustainable, joined-up and able to build a system so that the approach to neglected tropical diseases will be a lasting and effective one.

19:58

[Lord Trees]

My Lords, the debate today is to mark the first anniversary of the London declaration on neglected tropical diseases. I want to celebrate that important initiative and the considerable progress that has been, and is being, made to control and eradicate these diseases. However, I also want to emphasise that we cannot yet be complacent. The job is not finished and there is much to do, even though the way forward is largely clear.

The NTDs are now getting the attention they deserve because they afflict huge numbers of people in the poorest countries of the world—the so-called “bottom billion”. These diseases are inextricably bound with poverty. It contributes to these diseases and these diseases, in turn, contribute to poverty. Their control is an essential step in the achievement of several key millennium development goals. These diseases, which include many with bizarre, exotic and frightening names such as Kala-Azar, Chagas disease, sleeping sickness, elephantiasis and river blindness, are for the most part chronic and persisting infections, which may eventually kill but which in many cases simply—but seriously—disable, disfigure and stigmatise. The effects are pervasive and extensive in the societies in which they occur.

Another of their characteristics is that many can be treated, controlled and even eradicated with tools that we already have. These are the low-hanging fruit of tropical diseases. The costs of making progress are relatively low and the benefits are huge, as has been said by several speakers. It is very much to the credit of the WHO, the Gates Foundation, various NGOs, scientists and healthcare workers throughout the world, and of course, the London declaration, that these diseases are now being tackled in a concerted and coherent way. The contribution of the UK to this global effort is huge. DfID has played a very substantial part, as have many scientists, medics, vets and healthcare workers based in our universities and in our two schools devoted to tropical medicine and public health in Liverpool and London.

Another hugely important factor has been the donation of drugs by major pharmaceutical companies to this programme. Drugs to the value of $2 billion to $3 billion a year are being donated by big pharma; this is an altruistic gesture that is not always fully appreciated. As a vet, it gives me satisfaction that a lot of these drugs were initially developed for the control of worms in animals. A staggering 700 million tablets are administered each year to school children in developing countries to control enteric worms, and that is just one example. All of these efforts have resulted in a substantial reduction in the incidence of infection and disease, and put the goals of controlling and eradicating many—if not most—of the 17 targeted NTDs by 2020 within reach.

However, there is still a need for an estimated $2 billion to sustain this effort to achieve these goals. That is a lot of money. Currently only 0.6% of overseas development assistance for health globally is being allocated to NTDs. Some $2 billion spread over 7 years among the wealthiest nations of the globe, given the huge return, is surely not only a desirable, but also a necessary investment. Fit and healthy people can work to feed themselves, their families and, their populations and they can contribute to the economic and social progress of their countries which in turn reduces conflict and migration.

There is still a need to develop new products and technologies to continue supporting the development of healthcare systems, health services in endemic countries and particularly systems for delivery of drugs to the point of need. We need to ensure clean water supplies and good sanitation. Notwithstanding that, we now have many of the tools we need. It is the appliance of science, the delivery of what we have, that is the major challenge. Given that there are freely available drugs for many of the NTDs, it is a responsibility we all share to apply these tools to achieve the global benefits. If we fail to do that—to satisfactorily deal with the low-hanging fruit—what hope have we to tackle more complex or technical health problems facing the world?

20:03

[Lord Rea]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for bringing this important subject before the House. I was stimulated to take part because half a lifetime ago I worked with children in Lagos, Nigeria, for two and a half years and met with some of these diseases. They can have a debilitating effect by causing anaemia, malnutrition, impairment of immunity or renal failure. Most of them have a secondary host, or vector, which spreads the infection. These include a number of insects and other organisms which have been referred to and described by other speakers. I think noble Lords would agree that nobody living in the Western world would tolerate being exposed to any of these pests. However, people living in poor housing with no clean water or sanitation cannot guard against them. In this context, I would echo the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in asking the Minister how far vector control for NTDs other than malaria is being addressed by any of the programmes supported by DfID.

People suffering from these tropical diseases are also subject to the full panoply of other universal infections, such as pneumonia and diarrhoea, which are more likely to be severe because of lowered immunity, caused by one or other NTDs, and associated malnutrition. While welcoming the international initiatives that have been praised by everybody, I have a slight caveat, as did the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich. Anthropologists Tim Allen of LSE and Melissa Parker of Brunel point out in the Lancet that, welcome though treatment of NTDs is, the mass administration of drugs gives rise to a danger that these vertical programmes can undermine already fragile and overstretched healthcare systems. However, I think that with care, co-ordination and collaboration this can be avoided. In fact, if properly managed, these programmes can actually strengthen primary care.

Populations receiving mass medication often do not understand why tablets are being given to everyone, including those with no symptoms, and may not understand or accept scientific explanations of the causes of NTDs. The two anthropologists I mentioned write:

“The availability of tablets is not enough ... dealing with NTDs in a sustainable way will involve a range of factors including behavioural change. Imagining that mass drug administration ‘will make poverty history’ is unrealistic”.

I think that the leaders of the current interest in conquering NTDs are fully aware of this, and I certainly feel that this was given evidence by the excellent research papers that were given at the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine this afternoon. As someone who has worked at the grass roots, the observations of the two anthropologists need to be taken into account; they have the ring of truth.

I would like the noble Baroness to reassure me if she can that the generous funding going to mass treatment of NTDs is not diverting DfID researchers away from the longer-term, but ultimately much more sustainable, objective of relieving poverty and improving health by strengthening health systems, improving nutrition, ending illiteracy and providing clean water and sanitation. Mass administration of drugs can set the ball rolling, but only through these wider means can NTDs be sustainably controlled and eventually eliminated.

20:08

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness for initiating the debate and for other reasons which will become quite obvious in a minute. Much of the debate implies that we have treatments available for a lot of these diseases. That is far from the truth. We have some treatments available for some of the diseases, and none for others. In some cases, those that are available are highly toxic and, more likely than not, will kill the patient. We need more research in developing cheaper, more effective drugs. We also need a long-term strategy for the eradication of these diseases.

So far, we have succeeded in eradicating one disease: smallpox. We may succeed in eradicating guinea worm disease and possibly polio, but we are a long way from eradicating the others.

I am currently chancellor of the University of Dundee. I mention this because the University of Dundee has received funding from the Wellcome Trust in the fight against neglected parasitic diseases, including support for a multimillion-pound partnership with GlaxoSmithKline to discover new drug treatments. I have been associated with the University of Dundee since the day I went there as a medical student—I would hate to say how long ago that was. The Drug Discovery Unit at Dundee will work with the GSK discovery unit in Spain, and the goal of the collaboration is to develop safe and affordable treatments for Chagas disease, leishmaniasis and African sleeping sickness. The partnership aims to deliver at least one treatment for one of these diseases in the next five years.

These parasitic diseases afflict millions of people worldwide and are collectively responsible for about 150,000 deaths every year. The drugs that are available are difficult to administer, have toxic side-effects and are not always effective due to the drug-resistance of some of the parasites. We have made significant progress towards the development of a new treatment for African sleeping sickness over the past five years and there have been promising results in identifying potential treatments for leishmaniasis.

Currently we have a portfolio of discovery projects in various stages of development in African sleeping sickness and visceral leishmaniasis. We have several types of compounds with promising activity in animal models. The next step is chemically to modify these molecules to find the optimal balance of drug-like properties for clinical trials.

Having an industry-experienced, multidisciplinary drug discovery team is very important and this public/private partnership is critical in developing drugs for these neglected diseases. A report published by the London School of Economics and Political Science, called The New Landscape of Neglected Disease Drug Development, found on the basis of vast amount of empirical data that the PPP approach brings together the best skills of the public/private partnership, and that currently there is very little investment of public money for the development of drugs for neglected tropical diseases. The report points out a surprising lack of policy incentives to support PPPs, which have become a cornerstone of both large and small pharmaceutical companies’ involvement in neglected disease R&D, and adds that some of the incentives on offer could well be counterproductive.

It is important for the Minister to take on board that if we as a country are going to be successful in developing drugs for these diseases, there needs to be more support from public money so that we develop public/private partnerships.

20:12

[Lord Crisp]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Hayman on securing the debate and her commitment to this whole area. I also congratulate the Government on their championing and funding of this area. It is another great example of UK leadership in development. I agree with my noble friend that Stephen O’Brien provided really knowledgeable leadership and commitment in this area.

I have a non-financial interest as chair of the trustees of Sightsavers, an organisation that treats and provides surgery to more than 20 million people suffering from, or at risk from, neglected tropical diseases every year. I am delighted that we have been supported by DfID to lead a global survey of blinding trachoma, which will take us into 30 of the poorest countries in the world. Noble Lords will not be surprised to learn that with that background my comments are going to be about the two diseases that particularly affect eyes: onchocerciasis and blinding trachoma.

I want to make four simple points. First, while I agree with my noble friend Lord Patel that there is much research to do, when it comes to these two diseases—and others—we know what to do. It is well documented, researched and deliverable. We can rid the world of these diseases and we can do so sustainably.

Secondly, the way in which this whole programme around NTDs is developing is an example to other areas of health and, indeed, development. First, there is wonderful co-operation, which my noble friend Lady Hayman mentioned, but that co-operation is not new; it did not start a year ago. Co-operation has been going on at all levels around these two eye diseases for more than 25 years; indeed, Merck has provided free drugs for these eye diseases for the past 25 years.

In addition, in Africa there has been developed a process called community-directed treatment, which relates directly to what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby said earlier. We in Sightsavers are in touch with 100,000 community volunteers in villages who deliver these pills. It was developed in Africa; it was not actually developed by western medicine, it was developed by Africans as a way of reaching people in the community. What is interesting is that we can use that network not only to treat people with the eye diseases—indeed, ivermectin happens to treat lymphatic filariasis as well as onchocerciasis—but to deliver other drugs. We as an eye organisation are involved with others in delivering treatments for a whole range of different things. The third way in which this is such a good example is that surgery is often delivered by non-medical staff, and there are examples of how you can do things very effectively by being radical and innovative.

My third point is, as again the noble Baroness said in starting off, that this is smart aid; it works. This should be publicised; it should be communicated. Who can argue with 50p to stop people going blind? That is what we are talking about.

My final point is the sustainability one that has been brought up by a number of people. These are diseases of poverty and indeed, as we have heard, of neglected people. They are linked to things like clean water and weak health systems. So my questions to the Minister are very simple. First, what is DfID doing to integrate its policies around neglected tropical diseases with its policies on water and sanitation? Secondly, how is it going to make sure that the strengthening of health systems will be part of the post-2015 development agenda?

20:16

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for initiating this important debate. Although neglected tropical diseases are the most common infections among the world’s poorest communities, they receive little attention in the media. As we have heard, while they are not always fatal, their effect on individuals and communities can be devastating. They disproportionately affect the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people and are a serious impediment to economic development in many developing nations.

There is no doubt that the coming together of the global health community in January 2012 to plan a new way forward for achieving a world free of these devastating ailments was a historic occasion. The commitment to the control or elimination of 10 NTDs in line with targets set by the World Health Organisation marked the beginning of a new and co-ordinated effort.

As we have heard, the lives of millions of people have improved since the launch of this plan. However, more resources and political will from all Governments will be needed if we are to achieve the WHO’s 2020 goals. The control and elimination of NTDs is feasible through mass drug administration but failure to also address the underlying causes, including the environmental conditions that contribute to their spread, such as clean water, improved sanitation initiatives and vector control, will make this task almost impossible.

The barriers and risks to achieving the WHO targets include: conflicts and the consequent movement of people; population growth; vector or intermediate host control; resistance to medicines and pesticides; expectations overtaking science; inadequate support for research; and, of course, climate change. We still have a world where some 780 million people are without adequate sanitation and safe drinking water; 40% of those without access to improved water sources live in sub-Saharan Africa, where many of the NTDs are prevalent. The biggest challenge is in India, where more than half the country’s population—625 million people—are without basic toilet facilities.

An integrated approach is essential if we are to meet the WHO targets. As we have heard from the noble Earl and my noble friend, there are other risks attached to promoting mass drug administration, including the undermining of already fragile and overstretched healthcare systems and the difficulties involved in relying on volunteers to assist with drug distribution in targeted communities.

However, schemes such as the Bangladesh Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s Little Doctors programme are shining examples of how education, public health and drugs can be combined effectively. In addition to providing regular treatment, the programme teaches students from upper grades to assist teachers with de-worming days. The Little Doctors also share hygiene and other health messages with their classmates and families to help prevent reinfection.

To ensure that the objectives of the London declaration are delivered, we need clear government strategies. I, too, would like the Minister to explain what action the Government are taking to improving access to clean water and improved sanitation. What steps are being taken to build healthcare capacity and generally to improve public health and education in the target areas?

20:21

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for securing this debate and for all her work in this area. Her passionate and expert speech and those of other noble Lords remind us how important it is to tackle the so-called neglected tropical diseases. They blight the lives of more than a billion people, cause disability, disfigurement, stigma and an estimated half a million deaths annually in some of the poorest countries in the world. They cause terrible suffering and perpetuate dire poverty. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, spoke of diseases of neglected people. That is a good way of describing them.

Last year, as noble Lords have mentioned, we made a fivefold increase in our commitment to this area and we are maintaining that support to ensure that these diseases and those who suffer from them are neglected no more. This is an area in which some of our outstanding institutions, such as the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Imperial College, are playing a leading role. Various noble Lords mentioned that the London Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease Research has formally opened this afternoon at the London School, which everybody is extremely pleased to see. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, spoke of the work being done in Dundee and of the importance of public/private partnerships, something which DfID strongly supports and has built into its approach to tackling NTDs.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, and others have said, there is partnership across a number of organisations here. The pharmaceutical industry is playing a vital part in this regard. We are also working with the World Health Organisation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the US Agency for International Development.

One year on from the London launch, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and others for the tribute that they have paid to the step change that DfID has made in this area. Like the noble Baroness, the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and others, I pay tribute to my honourable friend Stephen O’Brien, the former Parliamentary Under- Secretary of State for International Development, for his leadership here, as well as to all the others who played their part in the London declaration. I pay tribute, too, to the various organisations, including those led by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and noble Lord, Lord Crisp, who have worked for a long period in this area.

I can assure noble Lords that DfID now expects to reach more than 140 million people who suffer from NTDs by 2015. Since the London declaration, the UK has launched a programme to complete the global mapping of trachoma; agreed a programme to take an integrated approach to tackling NTDs in Nigeria, one of the highest-burden countries in the world; and helped the World Health Organisation strengthen its NTD staffing and improve its co-ordination of the kala-azar programmes in south Asia and east Africa.

Last year, the UK Government offered to increase and extend their support to guinea-worm eradication, provided that others stepped in to help close the financing gap. Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Arab Emirates and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation rallied to this call. The programme now has the funds that it needs to achieve eradication. That will be a stunning achievement. I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that we continually encourage other donors to contribute.

In 2012, fewer than 600 new cases of guinea-worm disease were reported in just four countries, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali and South Sudan—almost half the number of cases in 2011. This trend is very positive, but it is clear that there is no room for complacency. The endemic countries’ health systems and regional security are fragile—noble Lords have made reference to that. The Mali conflict remains a significant threat to the eradication timeline and the success of the global campaign.

Meanwhile, DfID continues to develop and expand the UK’s support for taking NTDs in three distinct but integrated ways. They are: additional support to control elephantiasis, river blindness and bilharzia, building on a number of existing successful partnerships; driving more research—to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, referred—to increase our knowledge of NTDs and improve delivery and effectiveness in addressing them; working on new programmes to help control kala-azar and trachoma, as well as a programme which takes an integrated approach to tackling a range of NTDs in South Sudan. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Rea, that we will include vector control in the design of our work on kala-azar. The noble Lord, Lord Stone, asked about feedback loops. I can assure him that we realise that good monitoring and evaluation are key to this area and we check that treatments get to those who need them. We check to make sure that we are making progress in controlling and eliminating these diseases and are getting best value for money for the funds committed. I seem to recall the noble Lord raising this matter at an APPG meeting that I spoke at and my putting him in touch with DfID. I hope that that takes things further forward.

Expanding our involvement requires a collaborative international effort and response. We are working closely with colleagues, particularly in USAID, the World Bank, WHO and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to improve mechanisms for tackling these diseases. National Governments are key partners, too, particularly in mass drug administration through schools and communities and in efforts to improve water and sanitation services. We recognise the importance of joining all that up.

In the UK, it has not just been the Government responding to the challenge; there has been a positive response also from organisations, particularly in the private sector. This includes the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and Geneva Global. I particularly appreciate the all-party parliamentary group’s support for the UK Government’s work on NTDs and for the opportunity that it gave me to speak at the launch of its annual report in November.

Noble Lords will also be pleased to hear that a number of institutions in the UK have formed the UK Coalition against Neglected Tropical Diseases as a collaborative partnership in research, implementation and capacity building. It is at the forefront of the push for integration, especially at the country level with national and other developmental partners.

The NTD community is adjusting to the post-London declaration situation. The WHO annual report makes clear how we have all stepped up and the challenges for tackling NTDs globally from 2013. These challenges include the need for increasing ownership by Governments in the affected countries. National Parliaments have an important role to play here in making the case to Health and Finance Ministers to increase domestic resource provision.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and others asked about integration of work on NTDs. The noble Baroness asked in particular about integration with the Global Fund. As she knows, the Global Fund in its support for health systems, which has developed over the years, makes a contribution beyond malaria, AIDS and TB. It is vital that all these approaches are integrated—the right reverend Prelate made this point very strongly—so that each element supports the other.

In this regard, I concur with the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich: mass campaigns need to strengthen and underpin fragile health systems. The right reverend Prelate illustrated that very point. I assure him that drugs for NTDs are delivered by volunteer community health workers, and that that is used to help to strengthen health systems. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lords, Lord Crisp and Lord Collins, referred to water and sanitation as connected issues. Indeed they are, and we are well aware of that. I assure noble Lords that the increase in funding for NTDs is additional to DfID’s existing health, water and sanitation commitments. Integrating with the health system is an important tenet for NTD programmes to help to strengthen that effectiveness and improve sustainability. If we maintain that approach, those diseases can be eradicated, as the noble Lord, Lord Trees, said. We are determined to carry that through—just as we are in sight of eradicating polio, and as we did with smallpox, to which the noble Lord, Lord Patel, referred.

We have grasped a fantastic opportunity here to make a real difference to the lives of those affected by these diseases. In 2013, the task is to finalise remaining programmes, monitor the portfolio closely, continue to promote integration and work with others to expand the donor base and endemic country commitment.

Noble Lords have pointed out that these are diseases of poverty and that we must tackle poverty across the board. They are right, and that is how we view this task. This is indeed about tackling poverty, and we welcome noble Lords’ contribution in this key area.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

Committee (3rd Day) (Continued)

20:31

Clause 14: Restrictions on right to register land as town or village green

Amendment 64

Moved by

[Lord Greaves]

64: Clause 14, page 16, line 32, leave out “if an” and insert “six months after the”

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 65 to 70, which are grouped; there are some interesting Labour amendments in the same group, which we will discuss with interest. I completely misread the draft groupings when they were issued; I thought that the two stand part debates were part of this group. In practice, I think that it would be sensible if we discuss everything within this group; I will certainly do that and, I hope, we will have nothing else to discuss when we come to the stand part debates, but we will see, because it is impossible to talk about the amendments without talking about the overall principles.

Clause 14 makes provision for the right of people to apply to register land as a town or village green to be stopped by certain trigger mechanisms. In discussion on previous amendments, I referred to the nature of town and village greens, which are based on different law and principles from applications for planning permission, which the clause is really about.

There are two separate systems. There is the procedure for registering greens, which is set out in the commons legislation and which is based on an assessment of the facts on the ground. It either is or is not a green, according to the criteria to which I referred previously, which are that it must have been used by people for informal recreation for 20 years or more without permission, without hindrance, without force and without secrecy. If those conditions apply, a person can apply for it to be made into a green.

Planning permission is completely different; it falls under the Planning Acts. That is a request for permission to use land for a particular purpose, or to build on it, to develop on it, and bears no immediate relationship to the previous or existing use. The problem, and the reason for Clauses 13 and 14, is that it is claimed—with some justification, but less than some people are claiming—that people are making vexatious or frivolous applications to register land as village or town greens, applications that are without foundation, to delay or prevent a particular development. Many of the examples that have been cited concern housing. Little evidence for that has been provided. We have been provided with lists of places where it is alleged that that has taken place, but the evidence is, to put it mildly, a bit thin.

Having said that, I am not challenging the view that it is possible, or the fact that it has happened in some places. I am not challenging the view that it ought not to be possible to make vexatious and unfounded applications for this purpose. The question is how to find an appropriate solution to this problem. Quite a few of the examples that have been provided have been on land owned by the council or by a local authority. The fact that the situation has got to the stage where a green application has been made is essentially down to incompetence by that local authority. However, that is not necessarily a reason why it should succeed.

If we accept the principle that vexatious applications should not be allowed to get in the way of development, how can the Bill tackle it? The Penfold review of non-planning consents looked at this issue as one which was perhaps outside the planning system but which was delaying and possibly stopping development. The Penfold review suggested aligning—an important word—the green registration process, which is a non-planning process, with the planning system where active planning proposals on land existed and where people were making greens applications. It should be said that some of those green applications may have been triggered or stimulated by the planning application but were not necessarily wrong—but let us assume that we are dealing with vexatious applications.

At the beginning of consideration of this Bill Ministers stated quite clearly in briefings that it was their wish to align the planning system and the greens system. Unfortunately, this is not what the Bill does. It defines “trigger events” which are related to planning and the planning process, and which then immediately remove—that is to say, abolish—the rights of people under the green registration process. Instead of aligning the two processes and systems, the Bill is solving the problem simply by abolishing the system that is thought to be getting in the way.

Schedule 4 sets out the trigger events that will be involved. They are to do with either applications for planning permission or the publication of documents under the plan-making system. As far as planning permission is concerned, the trigger event is the moment at which the application is first publicised. A second trigger event is the moment that consent is given. This applies to either planning permission in the normal way or applications for development consent under the infrastructure planning system. There is a lack of logic here. If an event has been triggered by the application first being publicised, one wonders why a further triggering is required when planning permission is granted—but never mind. Those are the two stages at which the process is triggered. Under the plan-making system, the event is the publication of a development plan document or a neighbourhood plan; it is either the publication of a draft of those documents or the adoption of the plan.

My amendments to Schedule 4 look fairly complicated, but all they actually do is to put the trigger events on the adoption of a plan or the granting of planning permission or development consent. In other words, it is the final event in that process in which the land is then allocated for that purpose. I am not arguing that the green application process should not stop if land has active planning permission. As far as plans are concerned, I am not arguing that the green application process should stop if there is an adopted plan. It seems absolutely clear that under those circumstances that is reasonable. Where it seems unreasonable is where it is an initial stage in the process, where no notice is given of it and where people have no reasonable opportunity to know that it is going to happen—and it immediately stops. That does not align the greens process with the planning process; it simply stops the greens process in its track.

There are various ways, which I have not set out in detail in the amendments, in which the alignment of the process can take place: I think the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, suggest one or two. The green registration process is notoriously lengthy. I might exhibit some of my prejudices here but at the councils which deal with it, particularly county councils, some of the officers who work there—lawyers and bureaucrats, as I would call them, or administrators; I beg their pardon—seem to take an unconscionable length of time. The process of green registration could and should be speeded up.

Where a planning application is made or proposals are made in a plan, there should be a fast-track process and, in particular, a filtering process at the beginning of the stage where quite a few of them could simply be filtered out because they are obviously not going to succeed. I call in evidence an example in my own area where the land belonged to the district council, which was transferring the land to the county council for a new school. The land was a council-owned public recreation ground which clearly failed the tests as to whether it was a green. It was clearly going to fail. It could have been discarded at the first sifting process, if the green registration authority had felt able to do that.

There is a lot to be said for speeding up the green registration process generally, but it is not for this Bill. There is something to be said for changes to the system to deal with the problem of vexatious applications. It is my submission that that can be done very significantly through a change in procedure, process and regulations and does not need primary legislation. If there is to be primary legislation, it should do what the Penfold review proposed and what Ministers initially said the Government wanted to do. The two systems should be aligned rather than taking away people’s rights, which in a minority of cases will result in wrong decisions.

I believe there is a way forward. The amendments I have put forward are mainly to take out the undesirable parts of what is in this clause. I would like to consider this further and come back on Report with amendments that do what the Government want to do, but that do it without abolishing people’s ancient common law and statutory rights on green registration. I beg to move.

20:45

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, we have Amendments 64A, 66A, 69A, 70A, 70B and 70C in this group relating to Clause 14 and Schedule 4. As we have heard, Clause 14 provides that the right to register land as a green ceases on the occurrence of certain trigger events. Partially in response to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, who was talking more broadly about whether the clause should stand part, I shall start by saying that I think we share the same analysis about the claim that there could be frivolous and vexatious use of these provisions to prevent development and that we are concerned about the lack of hard evidence. We agree that we should try to get a solution that limits the opportunity for those vexatious claims without impairing people’s long-standing rights to obtain town and village greens.

Clause 15 gives the Secretary of State the ability to disapply the triggers from a specific piece of land. Amendment 66A would put a requirement on the Secretary of State to set out in published criteria his reasons for choosing to do that. There may be pieces of land that should be exempt, but we need to be clear about what the instances are, not least because without that clarity we may not see any improvement in the current situation. Community groups will simply turn to the Secretary of State to exclude their piece of land from the triggers to lodge an application. This would be an ideal place to introduce consultation whereby local authorities, some of which have clearly had a number of issues with some town and village green applications, could set out examples of where a town or village green was rightly protected. Similarly, aggrieved community groups, which work extremely hard to protect spaces that they believe deserve protection, would have the chance to advise the Secretary of State of the circumstances that should lead to an exception from the triggers set out in Schedule 4.

Amendment 69A would take out of scope from the restrictions on registration circumstances where the green is in an area that is not covered by a local plan or neighbourhood development plan. Where a local or neighbourhood plan has been put in place and the community has been adequately consulted, the community is likely to have placed protections on its most valued green space. We accept that where there is a neighbourhood plan and there has been good consultation, this is likely to be the case. However, where this has not taken place the community will not have been through the process of identifying the areas it deems to be of most value. Without the amendment, communities could find that by the time they have their say on a local or neighbourhood plan, the precious spaces they want to protect have already been snapped up.

We wish to encourage neighbourhoods to put in place a neighbourhood plan, but there simply has not been time for them to do that since the Localism Act 2011 was enacted. When creating previous plans, parish councils may not have considered the issue in enough detail. It is important that local communities have the opportunity and enough time to identify sites they wish to protect. They can then decide which process is most appropriate for them. We want to move to a situation where those pieces of land are designated under a neighbourhood plan process and, in the mean time, we want to make sure that all communities are able to use the registration processes that are in place at the moment. Local plans are intended to ensure that we get development in the right places and with community support. To take the right to protect land away from communities before the plan-making process has even begun is no way to foster their trust. We do not want to stop vexatious applications being identified; however, we want to ensure that communities that have not yet identified those very special open spaces are not prevented from being able to protect them simply because they do not know that they are under threat.

Amendments 70A, 70B and 70C deal with the trigger events in Schedule 4. When one of the eight trigger events that are set out in the schedule takes place regarding a piece of land, that land can no longer be registered as a town or village green. The amendments would remove three triggers that we think go too far; I think we have common cause with the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on that.

Amendment 70A would remove the publication of a draft development plan as one of the triggers. A draft development plan will not necessarily have been through all the processes of consultation. Simply having a draft plan in place should not prevent communities being able to bring forward an application for a village green. The draft plan would simply highlight to communities that the site may be at risk from development and enable community members to put their views forward. It is much too early in the development process to rule out the opportunity to propose a particular piece of land. Amendment 70B would remove the publication of a draft neighbourhood development plan as a trigger for exactly the same reasons. Amendment 70C would remove an application for development consent as a trigger.

All three amendments relate to events that do not have to be public, and to documents that might not have been consulted on. The whole point of consultation over a draft plan or planning application is to ensure that the community is on board, and to see if more suitable changes can be made. As such, consultation is an important stage and should not be bypassed by any trigger event.

We also want to ensure that whatever process we end up with, and whatever trigger prevents are in place to prevent the registration of village greens, there is proper consultation on them through neighbourhood plans, local plans or applications for development consent. We do not want to deprive communities of the right to submit a village green application in the large number of instances outlined in Schedule 4. We know that there is a need to rationalise the process somewhat, but Schedule 4 goes much too far in denigrating the rights of local communities.

The three trigger events covered by the amendments are tantamount to saying that consultation together with development consent through documents is nothing more than due process. Otherwise, we have no idea why they are included in the list of trigger events. In reality, it is hardly unknown that a piece of land indentified for development in a draft plan is removed when the public are able to express their views. Often enough, a replacement piece of land can be indentified instead.

On where we have ended up with our amendments to Schedule 4, we are aligned with the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, except to the extent that his trigger events are the granting of planning permission and ours are the application. Of course, we need to take account of terminating events themselves—that is, the application being withdrawn or a decision to grant that permission.

In conclusion, whether we have got this all right is a matter of debate. We would be more than happy to work with the noble Lord if he is going to review this further, to see if there is a better way of dealing with it. We all want to stop vexatious claims which prevent development that a community would support, but hold on to those precious rights to establish town and village greens.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

My Lords, the previous two speakers seem to have included the stand part debate in this group of amendments, so if the Committee will permit it, I will do the same. I speak on the stand part Motion from the point of view of a planning applicant.

First, I am a firm believer in the importance of open spaces for the health and happiness of our nation and our communities. Our love of and need for such open land and our access to it is part of what makes us British. It has been proven that the existence of such open land is a considerable factor in promoting good health and well-being. So we must keep our open spaces as much for our heritage as for the social, environmental and even economic benefits that they bring.

Thus, leaving aside existing town and village greens, and referring to currently unclaimed rights, it is absolutely proper that the fact that people have used a piece of land, or claim that they do, for open access or other activities should be taken into consideration during a planning process. However, I also believe that such claims need to be put into context.

In my experience of our planning system—again, I repeat my interests as a farmer and landowner, and someone who is thus usually a planning applicant—I have found that during any proposal for development, or a proposal to try to drive forward an agenda for economic or social change, there is inevitably an inherent fear of change among the locals and, either genuinely or disingenuously, every enthusiast in the neighbourhood turns up to insist that his or her speciality or special interest is given priority over every other matter. Sometimes these specialists can even be part of the Government; it could be a conservation officer who has personal views about the landscape or about the importance of anything from Georgian windows to Victorian chimneys. It could be a badger specialist or a newt expert, or it could be about bats, which are seen as a vital thing that must be preserved at all costs, although we certainly seem to have enough of them now. Alternatively, there was a case recently near me where Natural England caused an important local development, involving the provision of a much needed school as well as much needed housing, to falter because of dormice. I am glad to say that differences were eventually resolved, but only at a cost.

Equally, the all-important priority for some people is energy, either energy saving or even renewable energy. In the latter case, of course, it is less likely to be a desire to include it than a desire to oppose the means of generating it. Then again, it may be the absence of public transport and available access that is the make-or-break factor in some people’s minds. We have all heard of developments being condemned as unsustainable because they are not served by public transport or because the social services find them difficult to access. It may be a public footpath, or the loss of good agricultural land that is absolutely crucial in the mind of the person putting the idea forward. Of course, there is always flood defence or, as we discussed on Monday, excessive demands for affordable housing. The list of special interests—they really are special interests in people’s minds—goes on and on. Of course, village greens must be included in this list.

All of the above, and no doubt others, are vital in their place, and when you list them it is a wonder any development ever takes place in this country at all. Noble Lords who listened to the debate yesterday on how to “unbecalm” our national economy will be aware that the delays caused by our planning system tended to crop up, mostly focusing on the complications, demands and delays of getting anything done by both small and big businesses.

With regard to Clause 14, it is important that the developer and the local planners address all these “overriding imperatives”. Furthermore, as the world changes, the priority of these imperatives will inevitably chop and change. Thus personally, and here I come to the nub, I think that we need to think very seriously indeed before we allow any of these imperatives to be compulsory or statutory show-stoppers. I am not talking about our protected areas, or even existing town and village greens. But as regards aspirational greens, surely it is up to the planning committee, or even the Secretary of State, to decide what is important in each and every instance. Maybe the problem can be dealt with in another way; maybe if the open space went somewhere else, we could enlarge or even enhance it. We all have to realise that for any approved greenfield, or even brownfield, site development, somebody’s valuable piece of England will have had to be sacrificed—one hopes for considerable social or economic gain. That is what planning controls are all about. Even heritage is not completely sacrosanct. For example, there is the moving of Abu Simbel to allow the flooding of Lake Aswan; it could be said that it is better now than it was before, although I am not proposing that we move any of our historic heritage gems. I am just saying that sometimes it is necessary to think outside the box and a statutory show-stopper will automatically prevent that happening.

It is vital that aspirational town and village greens should form an important feature of the planning system, and they could indeed continue to remain show-stoppers in certain cases if the planning committee so thinks. However, they should not have overriding statutory priority without taking into account all the other priorities that might pertain to a particular development proposal. It is the balancing of all the democratic wishes and needs, both local and central, that planning should always be about.

21:00

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has just said, the stand part debates have suddenly morphed into this other group, which was not small initially and is now even larger.

I wish to make a few brief comments on the clause stand part debate because it is important to put what we are talking about into context. The process to register land as a town or village green can cut across decisions taken in the democratically accountable planning system. Applications to register land as a green can, and have, delayed or prevented development. We have heard, for example, about the implications of this for the affordable homes needed in our communities. Clause 14 addresses these concerns by aligning the process for registering greens with the planning system. Without this clause and the linked Schedule 4, the greens registration system will remain at odds with planning. This would mean that applications to register land as a green could continue to be made on land where planning permission has been granted or which has been identified for development in an adopted local plan or neighbourhood plan. Additionally, applications to register land as a green could cut across consultation with the local community on draft local and neighbourhood plans and planning applications, including those seeking consent for nationally significant infrastructure projects.

At Second Reading there was considerable support for these reforms. Indeed, we were urged to look at more radical changes. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, considered the problem in relation to planning to be small-scale and said that Clause 14 was an overreaction. He has reiterated that today. However, this clause has been widely supported, including by the Local Government Association, whose member councils bear the responsibilities for planning and determining applications for town and village greens. The association said that these reforms are essential to align the greens registration system with the planning system. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, mentioned Adrian Penfold, who also gave evidence to the Commons Select Committee. He said modestly that what is in the Bill is a better way of dealing with the problem than he himself came up with in the review of non-planning consents that the previous Government commissioned him to lead.

The proposed reforms do not drive a coach and horses through the ability of communities to protect open land which is important to them; rather, the changes are a proportionate response to a serious problem. They strike the right balance and put decisions on the future of land where they should be taken—in the planning system, which provides an opportunity for everyone to have their say and for all relevant considerations to be taken into account.

I shall deal with the amendments as briefly as I can but there are an awful lot of them. In order to align the registration of town and village greens with the planning system, Clause 14 and Schedule 4 to this Bill insert into the Commons Act 2006 a new Section 15C and corresponding Schedule 1A. The new legislation will not affect existing registered greens, which will continue to enjoy the same strong protection as they currently have. Nor is it our intention that the changes will affect applications to register land as a town or village green where there is no proposed development on the land in question. Equally importantly, the reforms have been carefully drafted to ensure that where an application to carry out development has been considered and rejected, and any appeal rights have run their course, an application to register the land as a green can be considered in the normal way. Each of Amendments 64 to 70C would significantly weaken the proposed reforms to align the village green legislation with the planning system. The combined effect would negate most of what these reforms are intended to achieve. I will explain the damaging consequences of each amendment in turn.

Amendments 70, 70A, 70B and 70C concern Schedule 4, and I shall deal with them first. Amendment 70 would remove the trigger events in Schedule 4 that exclude greens applications when a planning application, or a draft local or neighbourhood plan, is formally publicised for consultation. Instead, the only trigger events would be later in the planning process, when a decision had been taken to grant planning permission, to adopt a local plan or to make a neighbourhood plan that identified land for potential development.

Amendment 70A would have the same effect as Amendment 70 in relation to local plans because it would mean that applications to register land as a town or village green could be made when a draft local plan was being consulted on. We have the same concern about Amendment 70B, whereby a town or village green application could be made where a draft neighbourhood plan was published for consultation. Amendment 70C would have a similar effect to Amendment 70, by removing the protection from town or village green applications that we intend to give to major infrastructure projects between the time when a proposed infrastructure application is publicised and, if that application is accepted by the Secretary of State, an application is publicised again. The trigger events proposed in the Bill were carefully chosen to occur when formal publicity and consultation is undertaken in relation to both planning applications and draft plans. This is the right approach because it will protect both decision-making by democratically accountable local authorities and the ability of communities to engage in meaningful consultation on whether land should be developed or kept open.

Amendment 70 would mean that a town or village green application could be made at any time up to when a decision is made on a planning application, an application under the nationally significant infrastructure regime or a draft plan. Amendments 70A, 70B and 70C would have a similar effect. This would cast into real doubt whether a development proposal could be delivered, and would cause significant delays to development proceeding, if that was the eventual decision taken in the planning process. These amendments cut across meaningful consultation in planning. They would mean that an application to register land as a green could be used to undermine a local community’s ability to engage on whether an area should be developed or kept open, taking account of the need for new homes, work places and infrastructure, as well as concerns such as ensuring sufficient recreation space.

It is absolutely right that people should be able to argue their case that a site should be protected as open space. They can look for support to the National Planning Policy Framework, which gives strong protection for open spaces. The framework also includes the new “local green space” designation, which communities, through local and neighbourhood plans, will be able to use to identify for special protection green areas of particular importance. The appropriate way for people to engage in planning is to use the opportunity that consultation affords, while respecting that others in the community may disagree just as passionately and wish to present different evidence about what decisions on the future use of land would be in the overall public interest. It is our intention, when the outcome of the planning process is a decision not to develop land, that the reforms will not then prevent people applying to register the land as a green.

Amendment 64 would mean that applications could be made to register land as a green up to six months after a trigger event has occurred. The effect would be that even when there was a planning permission, you would have to wait another six months before you could be sure that the development would not be delayed further or even stopped altogether by an application to register land as a green. Equally, where land is identified for potential development in a plan, the community would be penalised by a further six months of uncertainty, despite the fact that the proposals had been through a process of independent examination. In both cases, proposals would have been subject to consultation and careful consideration, but the final determination could be undermined by a registration application. The amendment would be unfair to everyone who benefits from development and would produce an unnecessary threat hanging over delivery of the homes and economic growth that is so urgently needed.

Amendment 64A relates to trigger events in the schedule concerning applications for planning permission or development consent, and would mean that an application for a town or village green could be made at any time up to eight weeks after a planning application or an application for development consent had been made. This would cut across consultation in the same way as Amendment 70 and, for the reasons I have explained, we consider that Amendment 64A is equally flawed.

Amendment 66A would require the Secretary of State to consult on any occasion when he made an order to change the particular circumstances in which a town or village green application could go ahead when it would otherwise have been prevented because a trigger event had occurred. The Government recognise the importance of consultation. Equally, however, it is important to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy. This amendment would mean that the Government would have to consult, however small the change. Consultation is not free and it may not be necessary. We believe that future Secretaries of State should have discretion to decide when it is appropriate to consult and not have their hand forced, with the potential waste of resources that would ensue.

Amendments 65 to 68 would, together, remove new Section 15C(3) to (5) and 15C(7), which provide for secondary legislation enabling the Secretary of State to amend or refine the provisions relating to town and village greens. Instead, any changes that may be needed, however minor and uncontroversial, would have to be introduced through primary legislation.

The order-making powers are important for several reasons. The aim of new Section 15C(3) is simply to give a power to specify the point at which an event had occurred if in practice there was thought to be ambiguity —for example, arising from any future legislative change. Amendment 65 would prevent such uncontroversial and necessary changes.

New Section 15C(4) gives a power to disapply the exclusion of green applications in relation to a specified trigger event, if necessary in the light of circumstances on the ground. Amendment 66 would prevent this.

Amendments 67 and 68 would remove the power contained in new Section 15C(5) and (7) to add to, remove or amend by order any of the trigger or terminating events. However, Clause 14 and Schedule 4 were constructed to encompass only the main planning processes that were included in our 2011 consultation on the reforms to the green registration system. Additionally, we have sought to include in the Bill only the main terminating events. Evidence submitted in the Commons pointed to the need for additional terminating events to ensure that all outcomes in plan-making are covered and that we avoid the situation where the exclusion on green applications fails to lift even where there is no longer an active development proposal. That would be contrary to our policy and I do not believe that it would be something that my noble friend Lord Greaves would want.

With the background that I have just set out, I wish to advise noble Lords of the Government’s intention, if the Bill is enacted, to consult on setting additional trigger and terminating events in relation to development brought forward through other planning procedures—namely, in relation to local development orders, neighbourhood development orders and Transport and Works Act orders. The consultation will also propose additional terminating events to deal with situations which are unlikely to be common but which may arise in local and neighbourhood plan-making, such as where a local plan is found to be unsound but is not withdrawn.

In saying that, I wish to reassure noble Lords that the Government will respond positively to the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that new Section 15C(5) should be subject to the affirmative procedure. An amendment will be brought forward on Report to secure this. Consequently, Parliament will have the opportunity to scrutinise any draft order brought forward in the light of the public consultation.

Amendment 69 would mean that trigger events that occurred before commencement would not have the effect of excluding applications to register land as a green. Consequently, applications could be made on any land on which planning permission had already been granted, even where development had started. Similarly, land identified for development in all existing local plans and those to be adopted in the months before commencement would be vulnerable. Applications to register land as a green in such circumstances would be unfair on all who had invested time and expense in making and responding to planning applications and engaging in plan-making. As with other amendments to this clause, Amendment 69 would hold a threat of delay or derailment over all planned and urgently needed development and growth throughout the country, and that cannot be reasonable or right.

Finally, Amendment 69A would limit the provisions of Clause 14 and Schedule 4 to areas where there is an adopted local plan or neighbourhood development plan. Outside these areas, this amendment would mean applications to register land as a town or village green could be made where a draft local or neighbourhood plan was being consulted on, or where a planning application was being considered. This would mean that in these situations the decision about the future use of land would not be taken through the plan-making process but could instead be decided via the back of an application to register land as a green. For the reasons that I have set out, this would severely undermine the reforms.

We are now seeing good progress made in local plan-making and an encouraging take-up of neighbourhood planning. But not everywhere has an adopted local plan and nowhere yet has a neighbourhood plan. Why in such areas should people engaging in shaping plans have the threat hanging over them that their efforts could be completely undone? For the reasons I have explained, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

21:15

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, at the heart of this matter is a fundamental difference of view, which I shall turn to in a minute. I thank the Minister for replying in great detail to the amendments, most of which I did not speak to specifically. I discarded my notes on those because I thought I had spoken for long enough. I had listened to myself for long enough even if other people had not. I am very grateful to her for doing that, because it gives me something to go away and read carefully. Many of them were probing amendments to find out what the Government really meant by them. I am grateful for the offer from the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, to have further discussions on this. I hope that we might have further discussions all round.

There may be agreement between the two Front Benches, but there is a wish, certainly on the part of the Minister and I thought there might be on the part of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, to bring the registration of greens, as part of the process of deciding the future of land, into the planning process. The Minister has said that quite clearly on several occasions. She talked about the decisions on the future of land not being bypassed by the registration process and so on.

My submission is that there are two separate systems and that the registration of greens is not part of the planning process because, as clearly set out in the commons legislation, it is a question of the establishment of fact and not a question of what, as a matter of opinion or a matter of planning policy, ought to happen. That is the difference. There are two quite separate processes based on different principles and different legislation. One goes back to commons law, as set out in commons legislation, and the other is the planning legislation which is relatively recent, dating mainly from 1948.

There is a difference of view here. It seems to me that the Government are saying that the planning process, or the ability of communities collectively to make a decision about pieces of land, should always trump the commons registration and greens registration process. I think that they should come out openly and honestly and say so and then we can have that argument. They ought not to be pushing it through as one element of a rag-bag miscellaneous Bill of bits and pieces gathered from all sorts of places. At the moment, we have a problem with a meeting of minds because we come from quite separate areas. Perhaps that can be thought about and talked about further.

Of course, there are practical dangers in what is being proposed. It will be two months after the passing of this legislation—assuming it is passed—that it will commence. During those two months people might start rushing in with registration applications. I do not know whether they will, but they might if they know what is going on.

I have one question for the Minister. I am not sure that I know the answer to it. What happens if a piece of land is subject to a registration for a village green—if an application goes in—and somebody makes a planning application after that? Is making a planning application after an application has been made to register a green a way of trumping it completely? That would run a coach and horses through the entire system set out in Section 15 of the Commons Act. I should like that question answered.

I agreed with a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, said about the planning system. The purpose of the system is to balance different interests and make a decision. I do not disagree with any of that, and I agree that many of the people who come forward on planning applications have special interests—in particular the people who go out hunting for natterjack toads, great crested newts, various sorts of obscure bats and types of birds of which I have never heard. That always happens. A sensible planning system deals with all that. With respect to the noble Lord, it seemed that what he said was not relevant to this discussion because the green registration system is not part of the planning system. If he and other noble Lords say that it should be and want to change the system, that is a different argument. There would be some big arguments all over the place about that.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

Surely that is the whole point of this clause—to make sure that this problem is addressed by the planning system so that it does not become the statutory show-stopper that it currently is. The noble Lord talked about looking at this from two separate points of view. We are looking at it from that point of view; that is the whole point of the clause.

[Lord Greaves]

I understand that that may be the purpose of it, at least in certain circumstances—and I agree that it is a show-stopper at the moment. If a piece of land is found to be a green, and if the application is legitimate, that trumps the planning system; there is no doubt about that. If noble Lords do not want that to happen, they should change the system. However, this clause does not do what the noble Lord wants, and it does not do what the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, suggested that the local planning system should do. There is no way, through a local plan-making system—whether it is a neighbourhood plan or a local plan—to deliver a new green, because that is not part of the planning system. No one can state in a neighbourhood plan, “This will be a village green”, or, “This will be a town green”, unless the owners of the land want to dedicate it as such. Otherwise, no one can do it because the systems are not aligned, or part and parcel of the same process, so the plan-making system will not deliver a green—particularly through a planning application. If a planning application comes in, somebody may come in with an objection and say, “I think that this is a village green because I have kicked a ball about on it for the past 45 years”, but that cannot be dealt with as part of the planning application because it would not be a material consideration. A planning application cannot be turned down on the grounds that something is a village green; it is just not part and parcel of the planning system.

I am in favour of aligning the systems much more than they are now. I am in favour of speeding up the green registration system and making it more modern, and certainly more efficient, than it is now—but this clause does not do it. What it does is abolish the rights that people have under the triggering mechanisms. Having said all that, I will read with great interest exactly what the noble Baroness said. Perhaps we may be able to find at the very least a way forward for Report which improves the proposals that have been made, does away with some of the possible unintended consequences and achieves a degree of consensus. On that basis, I thank noble Lords for taking part in the debate and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 64 withdrawn.

Amendments 64A to 69A not moved.

Clause 14 agreed.

Schedule 4 : New Schedule 1A to the Commons Act 2006

Amendments 70 to 70C not moved.

Schedule 4 agreed.

Clause 15 agreed.

Amendments 71 and 71A not moved.

Amendment 71B

Moved by

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

71B: After Clause 15, insert the following new Clause—
“Deregistration and exchange of land
(1) The Commons Act 2006 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 16(1) for “appropriate national authority” substitute “registration authority”.
(3) In section 17(1) for “national” substitute “registration”.
(4) In section 17(1) for “an order requiring the commons registration authority” substitute “the necessary changes”.
(5) In section 17(7) for “An order under this section may contain” substitute “A registration authority may make”.”

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I promise that this will take substantially less time than the last amendment. This proposed new clause is about the deregistration and exchange of land. It is a very simple point, but it seems entirely in tune with what we have been arguing for for some time—a decentralisation of a lot of these decisions.

Commons legislation already provides that village greens and land can be deregistered. Where the green is significant, you have to provide alternative land. “Significant” is not very big: it is only 200 square metres. That is only 20 metres by 10 metres, which is not very large, but you have to find and agree replacement land. Land can be deregistered, but it requires the approval of the Secretary of State.

That degree of centralisation is now quite unreasonable. Of course it is not the Secretary of State: it goes straight to the Planning Inspectorate from whom there is no appeal except by way of judicial review at enormous expense. This is a decision that could be fairly and properly left to local authorities. That is what the proposed new clause is intended to achieve. I hope that noble Lords find it acceptable. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, my noble friend laid out the position exactly as it is: the Secretary of State has to reply to an order for land to be deregistered. He also told the House about the release of land where it exceeds 200 square metres in area. The application must include a proposal for other land. If the release land is smaller than 200 square metres, a proposal for replacement land may, but need not, be included.

Commons and greens are a national asset and an important part of our national heritage and culture. They provide open spaces for access and recreation and deliver important benefits for the country. The importance that this Government attach to common land means that any application to deregister commons and greens under Section 16 of the 2006 Act is of national significance. That is why the Secretary of State is responsible for determining Section 16 applications. The function has been carried out by the Planning Inspectorate on his behalf since Section 16 was commenced.

The Planning Inspectorate acts independently and must have regard to the interests of the persons having rights in relation to, or occupying, the release land and in particular persons exercising rights of common over it.

The Secretary of State has reserved his right to recover jurisdiction and takes a close interest in applications where the exchange of land is required for transport, communications or energy infrastructure proposals. The amendment tabled by my noble friend to transfer the function from the Secretary of State to commons registration authorities is made on the basis that such decisions are best made by those commons registration authorities.

Since Section 16 was commenced in October 2007, 27 decisions have been made by the Planning Inspectorate, which equates to around five a year. The commons registration authorities would therefore need to develop more expertise. Commons registration authorities have experience of determining applications to register new greens, but there is no discretion in such applications.

An important issue is what happens when a commons registration authority owns the land for which Section 16 deregistration is sought. There could be some doubt among local people as to whether the authority could demonstrate that it was completely impartial. The rule for other applications under Part 1 of the Commons Act 2006, set out in the Commons Registration (England) Regulations 2008, is that where the commons registration authority has an interest in the outcome of an application, the application must be referred to the Planning Inspectorate for determination. There remain some questions as to how my noble friend’s amendment would provide that reassurance of impartiality.

However, assuming the commons registration authority was to hold its own inquiry, it remains to be seen how it would be quicker and cheaper than is currently the case. Data held by Defra suggest that on average commons registration authorities take between nine and 16 months to process applications under Section 15 to register new greens, which is reasonably comparable in terms of process and is no shorter than the average of nine months that the Planning Inspectorate presently takes for Section 16 applications. Moreover, the estimated average cost of public inquiries ranges between £17,000 and £44,000, which is significantly more than the average cost of £11,200 presently incurred by the Planning Inspectorate.

With those remarks, I hope that my noble friend will be willing to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I will want to take advice on what my noble friend has said. It sounds as if it is a lot more complex than perhaps I had appreciated, and I shall certainly look at it very carefully. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 71B withdrawn.

House resumed.

House adjourned at 9.32 pm.