House of Lords

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Wednesday 22 March 2023

15:00

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Worcester.

House of Lords: Regional Representativeness

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Question

15:07

Asked by

[Lord Grocott]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the regional representativeness of the membership of the House of Lords; and how any such assessment is used when considering nominations for new peers.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe) (Con)]

Appointments to the House of Lords are a matter for the Prime Minister, who will take a range of factors into consideration when making recommendations to the sovereign, including any advice from the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Political peerages for other parties are a matter for the leaders of those parties. The Government’s aspiration is that all parts of the UK should feel connected to government, politics and politicians.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not sure that they are succeeding in that respect. Can the Minister confirm that the south-east region, outside London, has 100 Peers, which is 20% of the membership of this House? That is more than the east Midlands, the West Midlands, Wales, the north-west and the north-east combined. I would like to see a bit of levelling up. Does the Minister agree that, at the very least, before any new list of Peers is finalised in Downing Street, the House of Lords Appointments Commission should be consulted on how it will affect the present indefensible regional inequalities?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord that levelling up is important, and this Government have many policies pursuing just that. He talks about representation. For me, the House of Commons is about ensuring that every part of the United Kingdom is properly represented in Parliament. There are also devolved Parliaments. By contrast, the House of Lords does not represent particular territories or constituencies; with the help of vetting by HOLAC, it draws on an array of expertise and talent right across the board and from many different sectors of society.

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for asking this important Question. Does the Minister agree that having a non-partisan champion for each county, with both residence and long-term community relations in such counties, offers considerable benefits—not least over 800 years of precedence? I note my interest as the Earl of Devon.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Devon is a wonderful county—I always go there on holiday—and it is very nice to have the noble Earl, Lord Devon, talking it up in our House. The House of Lords has a very important job to do in scrutiny, debate and manning and womaning committees to undertake our painstaking work. That means that the House needs to be drawn from experts across many sectors, whether it is administration, lawyers, bishops, business and services or the third sector.

[A noble Lord]

Trade unions.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

And, yes, trade unions.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, the Bishops do have territorial responsibilities, of course. While I have every sympathy with the thrust of the point from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, we must bear in mind that a lot of Members of your Lordships’ House have come from different parts of the country but have settled in London—

[A noble Lord]

Shame!

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

There is nothing shameful about that. It does not cut off their territorial links, any more than it would if the noble Earl, Lord Devon, decided to live in London.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I could not agree more on this occasion with my noble friend, who does such a good job in the part of the country from where he came—and, of course, in supporting Lincoln Cathedral.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness talks about geographical representation, but what is the Prime Minister doing to ensure that this House better represents modern Britain? It is not just about where people come from; it is also about the colour of their skin and their religion. There are different factors that should be taken into account to ensure the broad representation that the noble Baroness is talking about. What is the Prime Minister doing to ensure that this range of factors is properly represented in this House?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

There are indeed different sources from which representation of this House can be drawn. That includes, of course, former politicians— I draw your Lordships’ attention to the diversity of the current Cabinet. I also ask noble Lords to look around them. I am glad to be one of many women who serve on the Front Bench in this House.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as someone whose registered address is in London but whose allotment is in Saltaire. Pending the introduction of at least an elected element—directly or indirectly—in this House, would the Minister agree that some of the most effective and useful Members are those who have formerly been the leaders of councils all over the United Kingdom, and that greater attention to nominating Members of this House who had local government experience would be a good thing?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord about the importance of the representation —if that is the right word—of people with a background in local government, such as my noble friend the Leader of the House, who has had a distinguished career in local government. Indeed, one thing I have tried to do in this House, across parties, is to promote the importance of local government, because there are many local services that matter so much to people right across the country.

[Baroness D'Souza (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has more or less asked my question, so I am just going to add a little codicil, which is that we should think of including those people who have been elected from the education trade unions and vocational, scientific and other bodies to make for a more representative democracy.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

We have to come back to the point that the recommendations made to the sovereign on appointments are made by the Prime Minister of the day. That has been conventional right across the party divide. Clearly, the Prime Minister of the day will take into account the talents, diversity and skills of many different people.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

Surely one of the best ways to ensure regional representation is to keep the 92 hereditaries, who come from every single part of the kingdom: that well-known Lib Dem from the far north of Scotland, through Northern Ireland, Wales, East Anglia and Cornwall. That is surely an argument for why they should be maintained.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My noble friend introduces a new argument into this much-debated subject, which is normally, as today, led by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. Hereditary Peers continue to be elected by the different party groups and indeed by the Cross Benches. Changes to that, as we know, would have significant constitutional implications, and as yet there is no consensus on change.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, there is plenty of time; I think we can hear from the noble Baroness from the Greens, and then from the Labour Party.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Greens are very good at geographical representation, and when we have 13% in the polls—as apparently we do this week —perhaps we ought to have more representation here in your Lordships’ House. Obviously, if there were more Greens, your Lordships would hear less from the two Greens that you have already. Is that not a win-win?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I have to say that I often agree with the noble Baroness opposite, and I agree with her that less is often more. I am very glad that we have two members of the Green Party in this House, because diversity of thought as well as of other aspects is very important to intelligent debate and scrutiny of legislation, in committees and on SIs, and to everything else that we do painstakingly every day.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, now that Britain is a truly diverse and multifaith society, do the Government have any plan to appoint scholars or preachers of other faiths in the House of Lords as they do the Bishops?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

We have an established Church, and that is reflected in our Bench of Bishops, who contribute such good challenge to the Government of the day. I have explained the process of putting forward Members of the House of Lords by the main parties and others, and one thing they take into account is religions. Personally, I feel that it is very important to hear from different religions across the country.

Imported Beef

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Question

15:17

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that all imported beef has been produced using the same high welfare and environmental standards as beef produced in the United Kingdom.

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

My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register. We remain firmly committed to upholding our world-leading animal welfare standards. Welfare standards are considered in all our trade negotiations, and each new agreement will continue to be subject to robust parliamentary scrutiny. It has always been the case that some products produced to different animal welfare standards can be imported into the UK as long as they comply with our import requirements. Those import requirements include the ban on meat treated with growth- promoting hormones.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that reply but how does this commitment on not lowering standards square with, for example, the recent deal to import Mexican beef, which we know has a higher carbon footprint than the UK’s and is contributing to tropical deforestation, or the deal with Australia, where they use hormone growth promoters that would be illegal to use in the UK? Can the Minister understand why struggling beef farmers issue a hollow laugh when they hear these promises to protect standards, which are simply ignored when our Trade Ministers are desperate to thrash out a deal?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

As I say, they will not be allowed to import beef that has been reared with growth-promoting hormones in it. That is absolutely clear. It is our policy, and it will remain so.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend be kind enough to ask his fellow Minister when I can expect an answer to the letter I wrote to him in my capacity as chairman of the Climate Change Committee, in which I pointed out that the importation of Mexican beef, with its high carbon footprint, would be in contravention of the commitment of the Government both internationally and in the Budget?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I will follow up my noble friend’s request. I am mystified by some science that gets thrown at me occasionally in this place which suggests that beef reared 12,000 miles away, transported in refrigerated trucks and ships and then distributed to retailers here can have a lower carbon footprint than beef or lamb produced on grass fields here and going just a few miles to a retailer. When I hear that, one word comes into my head. It is an unparliamentary one and begins with B.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, as the Minister outlined, the Conservative Party pledged:

“In all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare … standards”.


But the Australians said of Liz Truss’s trade deal that tariff elimination on such a scale through a free trade agreement was almost unprecedented, and it is not clear what on earth the UK negotiators extracted in reciprocal concessions. The Australians’ welfare standards are lower. They have battery cages for laying hens, still legal, as are sow pens, as is the technique of mulesing on lambs, which I will not go into because it is too distressing. These are not permitted here. Although this deal may not amount to much—Australia is very far away—it is a really dangerous precedent, so can the Government assure the House that we will not be signing any more deals that undercut our welfare standards?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I can assure the noble Baroness, who knows a lot about these matters, that animal welfare and environmental standards will be absolutely at the forefront of all future trade negotiations. I just say that these deals balance open and free trade with protections for the agricultural industry. Australia and New Zealand will remove customs duties on 100% of tariff lines for originating products in line with agreed treatments that will be set out in respective tariff schedules on the day the agreements enter into force. There are huge opportunities, particularly for the dairy sector. Imports of dairy products into Australia and New Zealand have increased by around 30%, and I hope our farmers will be able to benefit from that.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister confirm that all beef sold here has to meet the same standards, whether it is imported or domestic? Will he further confirm that no country has ever tried to export its production standards, and that if we were to insist that every bit of imported beef met our production standards—as some in this House seem to want—that would rule out a trade deal with the EU, which does not always match our standards, let alone with the rest of the world?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that there are some different standards in the EU, and we have worked as members of the EU and will continue to work with the EU and other countries through the World Organisation for Animal Health and the World Trade Organization to create greater and higher standards of animal welfare that more reflect what we have here so that there is a much more even playing field in trade across the world.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, the Government appear very keen to do trade deals with Canada and Mexico, against the advice of the Climate Change Committee, which felt that such deals would compromise UK carbon targets, allowing imported meat with a higher carbon footprint than our own. Why are the Government not prepared to take measures to achieve the UK’s carbon targets? Perhaps they feel they are unimportant.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I can assure the noble Baroness that we do not. The Climate Change Committee has gone through each department. I am responsible in Defra for making sure that we satisfy the Climate Change Committee’s demands, which are extremely challenging and testing. We have a commitment to get to net zero by 2050. British farming, under the leadership of the NFU, has committed to getting to net zero by 2040, and I can tell her that, as a farmer, that is an extremely challenging thing to do, but we as a Government and the leadership of farming are working together to help farmers try to achieve that. It is a vital priority that we decarbonise, and we understand that there is prosperity in doing so.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Earlier this month, it was reported that a British supermarket had removed from sale pre-sliced beef marked as British when in fact it came from overseas. Concerns have also been raised about imported meat being labelled as British because it was processed, rather than farmed, in this country, and packaging for New Zealand lamb is giving undue prominence to the union jack element of its country’s flag. What steps are Defra taking to review import procedures and food labelling requirements to ensure that consumers are not misled and that our brilliant domestic producers are not put at a disadvantage?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I agree entirely with the noble Baroness. This is a really important issue. When we as consumers go into a supermarket, to an extent, we park our environmental and social conscience with that brand because we trust it and want it to be doing the right thing. So if it says that a meat product is UK-produced and it has a union jack on it, we expect it to be so; we expect it to have been produced with high welfare standards and the highest environmental standards possible. If that is not the case, we as a department, as a Government and in this House should raise this seriously, both as consumers and as the Government. We meet retailers on a very regular basis and raise these issues often; I would be happy to give the noble Baroness more detail outside.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. In talking about imports from the European Union, the Minister did not say that there is a principle of equivalence. Although the standards outside this country may not be exactly the same, there is a generality of equivalence between the various standards in various member states. Does it not follow from that that the right way to approach the problem we are discussing is to have transparent, binding farm assurance schemes in the markets where our trading partners produce animals so that there is transparency both in terms of getting through the tariff barrier and other restrictions as well as for the consumer to know what they are buying?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. That is of great assistance to the Government and regulators, as well as to retailers which want to make a virtue of the kinds of products they put on sale. It is also of great help to the consumer for them to make the right choices about the products that they wish to buy.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, not for the first time, I feel sorry for the Minister having to come to the House because I am convinced that, privately, his department must have approached our Trade Ministers saying that this is a bad deal. It is always possible for Defra Ministers to alienate some of their clientele but, today, they alienate farmers, environmentalists, animal welfare people and a big chunk of consumers, all at the same time, for the sake of paltry deals that will have a minimal effect on our standard of living. It seems like a humiliation to me. I hope that, if other deals come up, Defra will be stronger in making its views known.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am always grateful for the noble Lord’s sympathy, but it is unnecessary in these circumstances. We work closely across government; there has been a slightly changed landscape in government, with big new departments appearing. What is really important is that current trade deals, and future ones as they come in, have proper parliamentary scrutiny—there is a process for that—and reflect the high environmental and animal welfare standards that we have achieved in this country, which we want to see continue.

Stroke Rehabilitation and Community Services

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Question

15:27

Asked by

[Baroness Wheeler]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to address staffing and facilities shortages in stroke rehabilitation and community services, and to ensure the national integrated community stroke service is fully resourced to deliver personalised, needs-based, goal-orientated rehabilitation to every stroke patient.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Markham) (Con)]

We are increasing the number of qualified staff and ensuring a widened pool of trained staff who can work across pathways. This will help ensure that the national integrated community stroke service is fully resourced and address the workforce challenges in rehabilitation and community services. I have raised the issue of access to appropriate facilities with the CEO of NHS England, who will engage with NHS trusts to ensure access to appropriate facilities as the pressure on NHS space abates so that physiotherapists can continue their vital rehabilitation work.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, following my previous Question on this issue, I thank the Minister for writing to ICB CEOs on the urgent need for pre-Covid hospital and community rehab facilities to be returned to their former use. Can he tell me what timescales have been set and how this will be monitored to ensure that it actually happens? Strokes cost the NHS £3.4 billion a year and social care £2.3 billion in year 1, with another £2 billion on top of that for every subsequent year. What specific plans are there to expand the national integrated community stroke service, to ensure specialist rehab within five days of a stroke and to tackle the 68% of stroke sufferers who currently do not get an assessment, let alone rehab treatment, after hospital discharge?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question and for her tireless work in this space. I have fortnightly meetings with the NHS chief executive. One of the matters that I regularly raise with her is the timing of the return of physio space for this. As for ensuring that we are properly rolling out the services, the national integrated stroke service guarantees people individualised programmes of work and stroke rehabilitation services, in their homes if need be.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister told the House yesterday that the long-awaited NHS workforce plan is due “shortly”, which we are reliably informed is sooner than “soon”. We now wait with bated breath. I know that the Minister cannot speak to the specifics of the plan until it is released but I hope he can comment on its structure. Will it have the kind of detail that we need to see how staff shortages in specialist areas such as stroke rehabilitation will be remedied, or will it be so high level that further subplans will need to be developed so that specialist functional needs are not lost in the mix?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I can confirm that it is a detailed plan. Services such as physio are an important part of that and will be planned accordingly.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, as somebody who benefitted from life-saving neurosurgery almost 30 years ago, I can attest to the body’s amazing capacity to repair itself, provided that there is timely intervention. Can my noble friend confirm that timely intervention is crucial, that the resources will be made available, and that not doing so would be a false economy?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank my noble friend and agree. When I was looking at the waiting lists of those in need of physiotherapy, I was delighted to see that 80% of people were waiting less than 18 weeks. A plan is being put in place for musculoskeletal priority patients, so that they do not have to wait any more than two weeks. The urgency of putting these things in place quickly is recognised.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister talked about the national integrated service. He will be aware that rehabilitation services are very patchy and that, over the last four or five years, the amount of time that professionals have spent with individuals has got less. Will this new integrated care service bring us up to higher standards and see consistent standards throughout the country?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

During the pandemic this was one of the areas that probably did not get enough time, for all the good reasons that we understand. Therefore, I am pleased to see that these pathways are being set out so that we can get back to the standards that we need. I believe this is something that we will see happening now.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that stroke survivors, once in the community, face challenges with long-term rehabilitation and higher levels of depression, anxiety and loneliness than the rest of the community. What assessment have the Government made of arts-based therapies—I declare an interest as I am an adviser currently with King’s College Hospital—to address the whole patient as they recover from a stroke?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

We are very much believers in the importance of social prescribing. I was at a reception just yesterday given by the Alliance of Sport, talking about the importance of active lifestyles for people’s mental health and recovery, and in the criminal justice system. It is something that we agree on the importance of. I will come back in more detail on the arts.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister expand upon the encouragement that the Government are giving to people in secondary services, to encourage people to fulfil the exercise programmes that are given to them by the experts? Without that encouragement from GPs and practice nurses, such programmes may seem very difficult and may not happen.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My Lords, that is a very important point. Two things have really struck me. When people are in hospital, they lose 10% of their muscle mass per week, which is clearly key in their ability to have an active lifestyle and look after themselves outside. At the same time, they need constant support and reminders to keep up that active lifestyle. It is very much at the front of our mind.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, we know that rehabilitation at the appropriate level is key to the best outcome for stroke patients: some 10% will not have any residual disability, 25% will have a minor disability and 40% will have a moderate disability, but without rehabilitation, 80% will have a major disability. Would it be a good idea to carry out a country-wide audit of what services for the rehabilitation of stroke patients are currently like?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord. I believe that this is what the national integrated community stroke service is all about. It is the responsibility of each ICS to make sure that there is sufficient capacity in their area. At the same time, it is always good to make sure that that is happening, so I will follow up with the NHS to see what plans are in place to make sure that we really are getting that uniformity of service.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, mentioned the importance of arts therapy for rehabilitation and for other issues. I add to her question by asking about the importance of musical therapy, not only for rehabilitation but to help people address mental health concerns. Could my noble friend the Minister add to his answer specifically with respect to musical therapy?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

As I say, I see social prescribing as taking in a whole range of arts, music and sport. Given that that is a particular interest of my noble friend, I am happy to follow up on both arts and music.

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my declared interests. One of the most effective ways to reduce the burden of disease associated with stroke is to intervene earlier in trying to prevent stroke. What approach do His Majesty’s Government take to screening in the community and in populations for risk factors such as heart rhythm disorders, which, once identified, might be managed appropriately and reduce the ultimate burden of stroke?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. The House has heard me mention before that Sir Chris Whitty’s major concern right now around excess deaths is the cohort aged 50 to 65, as they missed out on three years of blood pressure and cardiovascular tests during the pandemic. With that in mind, we are looking at how we can roll out those sorts of services to the community so that they are accessible. You might not necessarily need a GP appointment, but could be tested in shopping malls and places like that, so that those things are picked up.

Social Care: Workforce Strategy

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Question

15:37

Asked by

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to reduce their £500 million investment in the social care workforce; and when they will publish their strategy for increasing the size of that workforce.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Markham) (Con)]

The Department of Health and Social Care will shortly publish a two-year plan for how it will reform the adult social care system. That publication will confirm the Government’s commitment to the 10-year vision set out in the People at the Heart of Care White Paper. It will provide specific detail on how we will implement workforce proposals, including funding activity and milestones.

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer, but note that he has not assured me about the proposed or rumoured cuts to the current investment in the social care workforce. As he knows, these rumours have caused great distress to those trying to provide decent care to some of the most vulnerable in our society, against the background of a 13% vacancy rate—so one in eight posts is vacant—with subsequent difficulties in recruitment and retention. The money that has been promised seems very slow in reaching the front line, according to local authorities and carer organisations.

I am very glad to know that we are going to see the plan for the social care workforce; we have waited for it a long time. When we finally see it, which I hope will be before the House rises for the Easter Recess, will it ensure that those who work in social care are properly recognised, rewarded and trained so that, at last, their status is comparable with those who work in the NHS?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I apologise because, in some ways, the timing is slightly unfortunate with the report coming out before the Recess, as is my understanding. I am not allowed to steal much of Minister Whateley’s thunder on that, but I will answer as best as I can. I hope that noble Lords will be pleased that questions around training, recognition of the importance of the service and career structure are all addressed in the report.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, in my experience, many families in need of social care for members of their families find themselves in a form of postcode lottery, where the quality and quantity of social care that they receive is very much dependent on the local availability of social care workers. What further steps are the Government taking to try to ensure consistency of social care provision for people throughout the country?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Lord is correct, in that this is pivotal to the whole health service and to health and well-being. It is very much the duty of the integrated care boards, and our Ministers are personally holding them to account on this. I have frequent meetings on seven integrated care boards, and this is very much on the agenda. The other six Ministers have 42 in total, seven each, so that we can make sure we hold them to account.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has repeatedly agreed on the need for increased social care funding when replying to questions in debates. His party set out an ambitious plan for making such an investment in the Government’s Build Back Better strategy of September 2021. How have social care needs changed since then, such that the Government now seem comfortable to cut hundreds of millions from the commitments that they made less than 18 months ago? Does he think that we no longer need more supported housing or better digital services, two of the areas that the reports tell us are facing cuts?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I do not recognise “cuts” in this context. Noble Lords are aware that we have committed to a £7.5 billion increase over the next two years, which amounts to about a 20% increase. We will see record investment and provision in this area.

[The Archbishop of York]

My Lords, the report by the Archbishops’ Commission on Reimagining Care was published in January. I am sure that the Minister is aware of this: in fact, I know that he is having a meeting later today with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle, who co-chaired that commission. We argue for a very bold approach to social care, which puts at its heart the concept of a care covenant, with clear expectations on each of us of what we should give and expect in return, recognising that each of us is a carer and that most of us will need care one day.

I speak as someone representing a region. In the cities of Hull and Middlesbrough, which I serve, I see many people in need of care and not receiving it; I discover that recruitment and retention are appalling; and I find care workers having to use food banks so that they can feed their families. It gives me no pleasure to say that we are in a very distressing situation.

I realise that the Minister is not in a position where he can say much but, surely, at the heart of this, as the noble Baroness said, it is about valuing the care worker in the same way that we value others. Can he give us an assurance that this will be at the heart of what is proposed?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Absolutely. I speak as an ex-carer myself. Caring is part of everyone’s role, as has been quite rightly written about. Part of this is about the people we are employing. I am glad to say that we are managing to increase recruitment, which is not easy in the age of full employment. It is about the parts that you and I—all of us—can play in care in the community, and organising domiciliary care so that we can have a full wraparound service.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, on seeking to increase the size of the workforce, could the Minister give an indication of whether there will be more overseas workers? They have made such an important contribution in the past but have run down in numbers latterly, yet people want to see more coming from overseas.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Yes, and I am delighted to say that it is working. We will have granted 57,000 visas towards that in the last year, which is a big increase on previous years. It is fundamental, and a fine tradition of our health and social care services, that we can use overseas workers.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, when you have very rapid turnover of staff and a high level of resignations, it is not always the staff who need training but the managers. As we make people more valued among the staff, will we ensure that managers learn how to do that and that training goes to all levels of the care-working profession?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very good point. I am aware that some homes have half the turnover rate of staff than others, clearly demonstrating much better levels of management and skills. I agree, and that will be part of the training.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Following the question from the noble Lord opposite about recruitment from overseas, I thank the Government for acknowledging that we will need immigration to fill some of the skills gaps. An issue that has been raised a number of times in this House is visas for social care personal assistants. Can my noble friend the Minister update us on whether visas are being issued for this category of workers?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

We recognise the contribution that overseas workers can make here, as demonstrated by the 57,000 visas. I will need to come back to my noble friend in writing with details on his precise point on personal assistants.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, on recruitment and retention, the Minister will be aware that the majority of care workers earn less than £10 an hour. Can he tell us when the majority of care workers will earn a real living wage?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My understanding—I am doing this partially from memory so I will correct it if need be—is that the national living wage will come in shortly, in April. Care workers are paid that. I believe it is over £10, but I will confirm that.

[Lord Walney (CB)]

Further to a number of questions, I point out that the Minister talks about the recognition of the need for overseas workers to plug the gap at the moment, but where is the government strategy to focus on the growing number of British people who are trapped outside the labour market and need further support? This care profession, with appropriate levels of remuneration and support, could be a way to get more people off inactive benefits and into the workforce.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I was very pleased, as I hope other noble Lords were, that the centrepiece of the Budget just last week was the need to get more people into the workforce. The health department clearly plays a key part in that with mid-life health MoTs to help and support people getting back into work, including things such as physiotherapy, which we mentioned just now, to give them the strength and confidence to go back to work.

Agriculture (Financial Assistance) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Motion to Approve

15:47

Moved by

[Lord Benyon]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 31 January be approved.

Relevant document: 31st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 14 March.

Motion agreed.

Medical Devices and Blood Safety and Quality (Fees Amendment) Regulations 2023

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Motion to Approve

15:48

Moved by

[Lord Markham]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 6 February be approved.

Considered in Grand Committee on 20 March.

Motion agreed.

Electronic Trade Documents Bill [HL]

3rd reading
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Third Reading

15:48

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, on the basis that the focus of the Bill is on modifying the private law of property, which is generally devolved, we are seeking a legislative consent Motion from the Scottish Parliament. We continue to work closely with officials in the Scottish Government to ensure that we receive legislative consent from the Scottish Parliament for this Bill.

15:49

Motion

Moved by

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay]

That the Bill do now pass.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly take this opportunity to thank all noble Lords who have shown an interest in, and support for, this Bill. It was a Law Commission Bill, scrutinised through the Special Public Bill process, so I thank in particular the noble Lords who sat on the Special Public Bill Committee which examined it. It was chaired most ably by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and benefited from the membership of the noble Lords, Lord Bassam of Brighton, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Davies of Brixton, and my noble friends Lord Holmes of Richmond, Lord Lindsay and Lord Harlech. Our work was admirably assisted by our clerk, George Webber. I thank him and all those who gave evidence to the Committee.

Apart from the minor changes made to apply this critical legislation to the whole of the UK, the Bill before your Lordships remains the work of the Law Commission, so I record my thanks to Professor Sarah Green and her colleagues at the commission, Laura Burgoyne, Daniella Lupini and Siobhan McKeering, for their diligent work. I also thank Oliver Tones, the Bill manager, and Bobby Lawson, his deputy, along with the Committee’s government lawyers who have contributed to this, specifically Simon Brandon, Louise Dennison and Chris Callan, as well as Nausheen Khan from my private office.

This Bill has global transformational potential and will place the United Kingdom at the forefront of international trade as a thought leader for others to follow. One witness who appeared before the Special Public Bill Committee, when asked what, if anything, he would change about it, said:

“The only thing that I miss is the change from the word ‘Bill’ to the word ‘Act’.”


I hope that that change can be brought about swiftly. I beg to move.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, may I add one word of thanks to the Minister and all the members of the Committee? I am afraid they had to work quite hard learning something that I had the disadvantage, probably, of having done for more than 50 years. The House also ought to thank so many from the industry, academia and the court who gave evidence to us because we scrutinised the work of the Law Commission to make certain that the Bill would meet the demands of international trade and, particularly, the convention produced by UNCITRAL to which this Bill gives effect. I thank all the members of the Committee again.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to those of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. I certainly learned a great deal about the Law Commission process for scrutinising Bills, and a lot of that was due to the fact that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, was an expert and wise chair of our Committee. Great thanks are due to him and to the Minister. It is rather unusual to have a Minister sitting in on the Committee, but he was very welcome nevertheless, along with the noble Lord, Lord Harlech. I also thank the other members of the Committee who kicked the tyres very effectively on the Bill. Of course, I particularly thank Professor Sarah Green and the Law Commission.

The whole purpose of the Bill is to make digital trade a reality. We sometimes think that our job is done when a Bill goes through and we can think about something else, but it is important that progress is made on the single trade window which will result from this Bill. Can the Minister tell us when the first phase of the single trade window might happen? Will it happen in November 2023? After all, it is a very important part of what we should expect. It is quite complex. It is described as a multi-department programme, which probably sends quivers down the spines in Whitehall. It would be very good to hear that the Bill is going to come into effect very quickly and will lead in the very short term to greater digital trade, but it is a very good Bill and we have scrutinised it pretty effectively.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, it falls to me to add my general congratulations to the Minister, to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for his work on this, to the Bill team and the advisers who were behind them and, in particular, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, to Professor Sarah Green, who led the way in the evidence and cleared a great pathway for us. The Law Commission should be congratulated on constructing this legislation to which none of us wanted to effect an amendment, and we succeeded in that through many hours of deliberation and consideration, so that is something to be proud of in itself.

I want to add to a point the noble Lord, Lord Clement- Jones, usefully began. Many Bills meander their way through Parliament and disappear, sinking without a trace. I suspect this Bill might do that as well, but it does not deserve to. This is a really important piece of legislation which we should not just be proud of but make something of. Some estimates suggest we can save something like 50% in costs by moving to forms of electronic trade. That is not to be sniffed at in an intensely competitive international trading world. This piece of legislation, which puts us in the lead on electronic trade, is something we should celebrate.

I raised in Committee with the Minister that we should ensure we have a strategy which means that this Bill gets the opportunity to do what it says it is about: facilitating electronic trading. I asked the Minister about this when we were in Committee. He said:

“Following the Bill being passed, many of the precise steps taken to implement and fully harness the benefits of the Bill will be for business and industry to determine.”


That is fine, but we need a clear pathway and strategy from the Government for us to be able as a trading nation to reap the benefits of this legislation. I would like to hear from the Minister—it is something I am sure the House will want to come back to at some point—what that strategy might look like. He later said that there is

“a role for government to play”,—[Official Report, Electronic Trade Documents Bill [HL] Special Public Bill Committee, 20/2/23; col. 17.]

which is the case. However, we and Singapore are the only two trading nations with the benefit of this legislation in prospect.

I congratulate the Government on bringing this forward. It is a fine piece of legislation. It may not be controversial, but it is potentially of great value. I hope this Government can aspire to give this piece of legislation the value it deserves.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lords, who have given the rest of your Lordships’ House a brief snapshot of the good scrutiny the Bill received through the Special Public Bill Committee. It may be unamended, but it is certainly not unscrutinised. I am very grateful to all the other members of the Committee for the work that they did and, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, rightly said, to all the academic experts, those from the legal profession and, crucially, from the industries which stand to benefit the most and came to give evidence before the Committee. All of that was much appreciated.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked about the single trade window. It falls to colleagues at His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. If I may, I will direct the question to them and furnish him with an answer on the single trade window. Both noble Lords are right that there is work to be done across government. Colleagues at the Department for Business and Trade and at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will take the Bill forward in another place.

As noble Lords have heard me say before, through our presidency of the G7 recently and our role jointly chairing the Commonwealth digital connectivity cluster, we are in international fora encouraging other jurisdictions to follow our lead in this area to align with the model law and avail themselves of these opportunities. They are significant for industry in terms of the simplification and speeding up of trade, the environmental impact and resilience when it comes to unforeseen things such as the pandemic, which brought into relief the importance of this Bill.

This Bill is facilitative, but it will put the UK ahead not only of the G7 countries but almost the whole world. I am very proud that we are setting the approach which other jurisdictions will seek to follow. With gratitude to noble Lords who have scrutinised the Bill in your Lordships’ House, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.

Bill passed and sent to the Commons.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Committee (7th Day)

Relevant documents: 24th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee, 12th Report from the Constitution Committee

15:59

Amendment 178C

Moved by

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston]

178C: After Clause 77, insert the following new Clause—
“Amendments to constitutional arrangements of statutory bodies consequential on electoral changes(1) Section 67 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 (consequential and supplementary provision) is amended as follows.(2) After subsection (2) insert—“(2A) The purposes for which an order may be made under subsection (2) include making changes to the constitutional arrangements of any statutory body with a locally or regionally defined remit which are required as a consequence of the making of an Order under section 59.(2B) An order under subsection (2) made for the purposes described in subsection (2A) may be made by the statutory body in question as well as by the Secretary of State.” (3) In subsection (5), at the beginning insert “Subject to subsection (6),”(4) In subsection (6), for “containing any other order under subsection (2)” substitute “containing an order under subsection (2) made for the purposes described in subsection (2A) (even if it also falls within subsection (5)) or containing any other order under subsection (2) that does not fall within subsection (5)”.(5) After subsection (6) insert—“(7) In this section, “statutory body” means a body established by or under any enactment.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would enable an order to be made to alter the constitutional arrangements of a statutory body if required as a consequence of an electoral changes order made under the local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. The statutory body itself would be able to make such an order.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, this amendment adds a new clause after Clause 77 and amends Section 67 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. It deals with constitutional arrangements of statutory bodies consequential on electoral changes. In essence, it provides for an order to be made to alter the constitutional arrangements of a statutory body if required as a consequence of an electoral change, and the order can be made under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. The important thing is that the statutory body itself would be able to make such an order.

I will briefly give some illustrative explanation as to why this is required. The amendment deals with an old constitutional anomaly that can arise when boundaries are redrawn following Electoral Commission reports. One such example is the case of local ward boundary changes for Malvern Hills District Council and the consequential impact on the Malvern Hills Trust, which has elected conservators and is charged with protecting and managing the Malvern Hills and the surrounding commons. The Boundary Commission has changed the Malvern Hills District Council ward boundaries. As a result we will have two wards, with some residents who can vote for conservators and pay the levy while others cannot. This is not an ideal situation, and will probably be subject to judicial review and legal challenge for the returning officer as a consequence. This amendment would allow for the changes to be brought about by the Malvern Hills Trust, and it would bring its boundaries in line with the district lines.

In moving this amendment, I declare an interest: I am a resident of Malvern Hills District Council, and my late father-in-law was a Malvern Hills conservator.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness. The Malvern Hills are of course an outstanding place of beauty in the West Midlands, and it is important that the trust is allowed to do its job as effectively as possible. This is yet another example of the way in which the Boundary Commission has been forced do its work, because of the constraints put upon it, where it goes across natural boundaries. In the case that the noble Baroness raised, the management of the Malvern Hills Trust is vital. It is also clearly important that residents have confidence in the arrangements of the trust and in the fairness of any levies they may have to pay. I hope that the Minister may be prepared to take a look at this and possibly come back on Report with a sympathetic response.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful. The problem has a wider resonance than the Malvern Hills Trust, although that is important. Coterminosity of local government and parliamentary boundaries is important, as is coterminosity of local government and National Health Service boundaries and, in this case, of the integrated care boards. If the Minister has any influence in other government departments, I ask her to impress on them the significance of residents who may be split between integrated care boards, like residents where I live in the Kirklees district of West Yorkshire, who are now being moved into a new Wakefield parliamentary constituency. This creates more problems than we sometimes recognise. Coterminosity and looking at the local implications of the lines we draw on a map are important and ought to be done only following detailed consultation with local people.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing this to our attention. As she knows, I know the Malvern Hills area very well; it is beautiful. It is important that the Boundary Commission respects local boundaries and allows organisations such as the Malvern Hills Trust to operate as they are intended.

Does the Minister agree that one problem we have at the moment is that the Boundary Commission cannot carry out interim or minor reviews, as it simply does not have the resources to do so? That means that any kind of review could take up to 20 years to look at a problem or something that is not ideal, which is clearly not an ideal situation. Perhaps the department could look into this.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 178C and 509ZA, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart of Edgbaston, seek to enable any statutory body to amend by order its constitutional arrangements consequential on an electoral changes order made under Part 3 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. That legislation enables the Local Government Boundary Commission for England to implement by order recommendations for changes to an area’s electoral arrangements.

I am aware of the specific case at the moment where such a statutory body, the Malvern Hills Trust, considers that the new warding arrangements established by an electoral review order in respect of Malvern Hills District Council is incompatible with its constitutional and governance arrangements as provided for in several private Acts dating back to 1884. It is understandably concerned that such changes might raise questions about the ongoing legality of its constitutional and governance arrangements, and it wishes for something that it can address itself in a timely way.

I fully understand why the Malvern Hills Trust might wish to be granted powers to alter the constitutional or governance arrangements to ensure that they remain lawful and relevant to changing circumstances. However, I regret that we cannot support the amendments to the Bill. While they have the intention to resolve a specific local constitutional issue, the amendments are of general application to any statutory body affected by an electoral review carried out under Part 3 of the 2009 Act. In a practical sense, it is difficult for us to estimate how many bodies may be affected and wish to pass orders of this sort, or the impact on parliamentary time in dealing with them.

As drafted, the amendments would allow for secondary legislation to make amendments to primary legislation using the negative resolution procedure—the lower level of parliamentary scrutiny—and we do not think that this is appropriate. If the amendments were redrafted so that the orders were subject to the affirmative procedure, the potential would remain for significant impact on parliamentary business and on getting vital government business done.

More fundamentally, we cannot accept that it is right or prudent for the Bill to contain provision to allow for non-governmental bodies to be able to make orders that would amend primary legislation, as is the intention of the amendments. That must rightly be the role of government Ministers, except in exceptional circumstances, as with the Local Government Boundary Commission for England.

The commission is a parliamentary body accountable to the Speaker’s Committee. Such powers are appropriate in the case of the commission, given its status and vital independent role in ensuring fairness and confidence in the local government electoral system. Even if the scope of the amendment were narrowed so that any order could be made only by the Secretary of State, I am afraid that we could not accept it. While I understand that the purpose is to have a provision of general application, the concept used of the statutory body seems to be unclear. For example, does the definition of a statutory body include a local authority? On the face of it, this seems to be the case. If this is so, introducing this new provision would potentially create—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand the Minister’s response, which seems to come in heavy on what is a pretty small objective. If it is difficult to do in this way, what could her department do to sort it out?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

If the noble Lord can wait one minute, I shall say what the Government are prepared to do.

For all these reasons, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment—but the Government have been talking to senior officials of the trust to understand the issues that they face as a result of the electoral changes order. We have discussed various options that they can pursue, which include the Charity Commission making a scheme under Section 73 of the Charities Act 2011 and for the trust itself to pursue a private Bill to make the amendments that it thinks necessary. We are also exploring whether the Secretary of State has the vires to make an order in consequence of an electoral changes order, to amend or modify primary legislation, such as the Malvern Hills Act 1924. So we are working with the group. In realisation of that, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her response and grateful that the department is pursuing ways of resolving the problem. In the light of that, I am content to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 178C withdrawn.

Schedule 5 agreed.

Amendment 179

Moved by

[Lord Ravensdale]

179: Before Clause 78, insert the following new Clause—
“Purpose of Planning(1) The purpose of planning is to ensure that the development of land balances long-term economic, social and environmental benefits, safeguards natural resources, and supports the needs of future generations in respect of land use.(2) When making relevant planning policy or development plans or granting planning permission for the development of land, all relevant planning authorities must have special regard to the need to—(a) contribute to the targets set out in—(i) Part 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008 (UK net zero emissions target and budgeting);(ii) sections 1 to 3 of the Environment Act 2021 (environmental targets); and(b) adapt to any current or predicted impacts of climate change identified in the most recent report under section 56 of the Climate Change Act 2008.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause inserts a “purpose of planning” provision into the Bill. Currently, planning authorities are under no statutory obligation to take climate change into account in the determination of planning applications. This introduces a duty in relation to national and local planning policy and decisions.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 179 in my name, which inserts a purpose of planning provision into the Bill, as well as to Amendment 271, which inserts a duty relating to climate change in planning functions. I declare my interests as a director of Peers for the Planet and as a project director working for Atkins. I also thank my supporters, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Boycott, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.

What is really important about these amendments is the need to better enable local authorities and give them the tools that they need to work towards our net-zero and environmental targets. For me, this is one of the key missing links in the whole governance system for net zero and the environment. We have lots of top-level policy from the Government but little guidance or direction for local authorities so that they can play their role. We have many local authorities that really want to play their part but do not have the tools or resources to do so, whether in energy planning or the wider planning system. What this leads to is an inconsistent approach and a patchwork quilt of responses across the many local authorities in their approach to the environment and net zero.

The Skidmore review looked into this area in detail, and it is worth quoting briefly what it stated. It said:

“One of the starkest messages from hundreds of organisations and individuals is that the planning system is undermining net zero and the economic opportunities that come with it. The Review recommends wide-ranging local planning reform—from the introduction of a net zero test to a rapid review of bottlenecks in the system—to ensure that it is fully aligned with our net zero future”.


The resulting action on implementing a net zero test was in its 25 key recommendations by 2025. That is the level of importance here in the wider net zero picture. I also note that the Climate Change Committee said, in its progress report to Parliament last year:

“Net Zero and climate resilience should be embedded within the planning reforms that are expected as part of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill”.


The lack of a net zero test is having an impact right now. For example, there is the case of a major solar farm on 75 hectares of land near where I live in Derbyshire. The project involved the production of around 50 megawatts of renewable energy, sufficient for around 13,000 homes or more than 22% of all Amber Valley borough’s households. In December 2022, a planning inspector refused permission on appeal, on the grounds that the project would harm the landscape, character and visual amenity. This case highlights that fact that, in the contribution that the project makes, the delivery of net zero may not always be given sufficient weight and priority, which would be resolved by a net-zero test running through the whole planning system.

My Amendment 179 would resolve this by introducing a “purpose of planning” provision into the Bill; namely, a duty for national and local policy decisions to reference the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Environment Act 2021. Amendment 271 is a scaled-back amendment that could also be considered by the Government. It would amend the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to ensure that climate change is given special regard in individual development proposals.

16:15

The Government may make the point that this is considered in the non-statutory National Planning Policy Framework—the NPPF—and that this will be updated as part of the current consultation. Although I welcome the commitments made in that consultation, first, the NPPF is non-statutory guidance and not legally binding and, secondly, no amendments are proposed in the current draft of the NPPF to ensure that climate change constitutes a material consideration in the determination of individual planning applications.

I welcomed the Minister’s commitment at Second Reading:

“The Government recognise the challenge of climate change. It is critical that the planning system must address this effectively”.

The Minister also highlighted that the Bill already includes some provisions whereby some strategies and plans

“must be designed to secure that the development and use of land … contribute to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change”.—[Official Report, 17/1/23; col. 1808.]

The words of the Minister and the existing provisions in the Bill are very welcome, but this is not the same as a clear net-zero test that links to our specific climate and environmental targets and permeates all planning decisions. In the same vein as this is the current statutory duty to contribute to the mitigation of and adaption to climate change in relation to development plan documents under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.

Many years ago, I started my career as a systems engineer, helping to manage complex engineering projects and ensuring that the various elements were considered as a whole, rather than as disparate elements, which is essential for the success of any large project. Net zero is perhaps the ultimate systems problem that we have to deal with. I remember a meeting that I attended last year with Patrick Vallance, where he stated:

“This is a systems … problem. It affects virtually every part of every department and, therefore, you need to think of this as a systems approach”.

These amendments are in the same vein. Rather than the current piecemeal mentions of climate change and planning policy scattered throughout the legislation and the National Planning Policy Framework, this is a really good opportunity for the Government to update the Bill to fully embed these targets within statute and ensure that there is a coherent thread running through the whole planning system.

This is the prime opportunity to clarify in statute our planning system’s role in delivering on our climate change and environment targets and removing the ambiguities and inconsistencies of the current system. I hope that the Government will agree that now is the time to seize this legislative opportunity, because there will not be another in the short or medium term. Now is the time to act.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak next as I have an amendment in this group. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for his excellent speech on his amendments and for meeting with me and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, to discuss the Bill. I was pleased that he mentioned Peers for the Planet; I am not yet a member of that group but I will be a very enthusiastic joiner. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has greatly encouraged me in that respect.

The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, spoke about giving local authorities the tools that they need. That is also an important part of my Amendment 179A in this group, which I will speak to. The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, referred to the Skidmore review and the Climate Change Committee’s work—which are both crucial to his and my amendments in this group—and to having a net-zero test running through the planning system. That is absolutely crucial, and now is the opportunity to do just that.

We have spoken before about the fact that there are some key strategic omissions from the Bill. Ensuring that climate change is fundamentally enshrined in law in the planning process is one of the most critical. My amendment is designed to address this too, by including it as one of the key purposes of the planning process. Over 80% of councils have now declared a climate emergency, with a pledge to net zero sitting alongside that, so surely it is time that the Government and legislation caught up and helped provide the tools to do that. The amendments in this group are designed to set out: first, an overall purpose for the planning process; secondly, to make absolutely sure that that includes the sustainability of all development; and, thirdly, to ensure that every individual development proposal is assessed to ensure that it is part of the solution to climate change, not adding to the problem.

As far back as November 2021, the Local Government Association commissioned a wide-ranging report to show how critical the local contribution to climate change could be. There are many important contributions recorded in that report, including one from Richard Blyth, head of policy at the Royal Town Planning Institute, who said:

“Collectively local activity and investment (for example on housing, infrastructure, water management) will only contribute positively to the ambition to leave the environment in a better state if there is a shared spatial framework for improving local environments”.


He pointed out that the Environment Act could take this only so far, but some of the measures it contained risked adding to the piecemeal landscape of environmental plans without clear directions for economic decision-making. The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, referred to the piecemeal approach that results from some of the provisions in the Environment Act. The only way of ensuring that a holistic approach is taken to environmental issues is to ensure that all the relevant issues are built into local plans and considered for each development, whether that is water, flooding, soil, air quality, transport, access to open spaces, biodiversity, energy, waste or the whole-life carbon impact of buildings. These should all be part of the consideration of planning.

Net zero can be achieved only if decarbonisation happens in every place, everywhere across the country. These amendments would incorporate in the Bill plans for an overarching clause that would do just that. At the moment, if the overarching framework of the national management development plan, whatever it contains in relation to net zero—I am probably not the only one in this Committee who fears that this will be nowhere near ambitious enough in response to the climate emergency—does not have a corresponding network of local plans setting out clearly how development will take a radically new and ambitious approach to this, we will, I fear, continue to move at the current snail’s pace.

Local plans also need to reflect the needs of mitigation of climate change. In a paper from the University of Strathclyde by Dr Hawker and Dr Wade, they say:

“In particular, local planning decisions around land use and infrastructure must be made with acknowledgement of their implications for living with climate change. For example, increasing green spaces can support drainage in urban areas, helping to alleviate future flood risks”.


We have seen some magnificent examples in recent years—for example, pocket parks in high streets, which help with flooding issues—but they are by no means common enough yet. Local authorities often hold large building portfolios, including social housing. If they can be supported with long-term future funding, they can take action now to ensure that properties are energy efficient and much more cost effective for residents.

At Second Reading in the other place, the Secretary of State’s contention was that proposals in the Bill would strengthen environmental protection. He explained that a National Planning Policy Framework document would be published in July—that is July last year—setting out how environmental outcomes were to be driven. As far as I know, that document has not yet been published by the department. So, while we await specific policies on specific aspects of tackling environmental outcomes, fundamentally writing climate change into both development planning and mitigation measures for the planning system of the future is the only way of ensuring that they reach every part of the UK. If we do not do so in this Bill, we will have missed a huge opportunity to align the planning system with the climate change goals that should be right at its heart.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 179 and 271 from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. I thank him very much for bringing them to your Lordships’ Committee. I will make three quick points.

First, I do not understand why the Government are not using this Bill as a vehicle to embed the approaches that they have signed up to on net zero and climate change targets more generally. Surely this is the ideal legislation to ensure that our planning system supports what the Government say they wish to do.

Secondly, the noble Lord quite rightly mentioned the Skidmore review, which is very telling, and we have also heard from the Climate Change Committee. However, the National Audit Office’s report should not be ignored. It said that

“there are serious weaknesses in central government’s approach to working with local authorities on decarbonisation, stemming from a lack of clarity over local authorities’ overall roles, piecemeal funding, and diffuse accountabilities”.

The Government need to listen to the National Audit Office, because that is based on its expertise in monitoring and evaluating what local authorities are doing and the confrontations they are having on some of these issues due to flaws in the current local planning system and arrangements.

Thirdly, my background is mainly in health, and there is no doubt that unlocking economic growth through planning reform, as was highlighted in the net zero review, could achieve real health benefits by fully aligning our planning system with climate change and nature targets. The point has been made by the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, which says that a healthy neighbourhood can also be a powerful levelling-up tool, leading to better mental and physical health and well-being outcomes through active travel, social connectivity and access to green spaces. Statistics published by the UN only a few days ago show that life expectancy in this country has deteriorated dramatically in comparison with many other countries since the 1950s. We were then one of the top countries for life expectancy; now we are in danger of dropping out of the top 30.

There is such a persuasive argument for tying in strong public preventive health with what must be done on climate change and net zero. Surely the planning system is one of the most powerful levers that we can use to make it happen. I hope we will come back to this very important matter on Report.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I was thrilled to add my name to my noble friend Lord Ravensdale’s Amendments 179 and 271. It is seriously important to make sure that the planning system is aligned with our climate and nature targets; this also goes to the heart of whether we will meet our net-zero targets. Currently, our planning system is not doing enough, yet it is one of the most important single levers we have.

All too often we see the degradation of natural habitats caused by housing and other infrastructure, from high-carbon development being approved to homes being built that will later require expensive retrofits. The Environment and Climate Change Committee has just done a report showing how expensive and difficult that process is. It could all be solved in one go. Natural England commented to our inquiry that nature and climate are at risk of further and irreparable damage from a range of pressures, including the need for new housing, which is currently not up to scratch.

It is welcome that the Government are currently consulting on changes to the National Planning Policy Framework to make sure that it contributes to climate change mitigation and adaptation as fully as possible, but it is only guidance. Government must send a strong message about the importance it places on achieving our climate and nature targets.

Fully embedding climate and nature within planning also brings, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, pointed out, great outcomes through green jobs, sustainable economic growth, improved health and well-being, helping to reduce the cost of living in lots of instances and making us more resilient to extreme weather. It is extraordinary that we still build houses in known flood zones; those will only get worse, not better.

At the local authority level, most local plans do not contain any comprehensive or robust policies on climate change mitigation or adaptation, yet lots of local authorities want just that. At the individual decision-making level, ambitious local councils often have their plans refused by the Planning Inspectorate because we have a completely unaligned system. It does not work as a thought-through process from beginning to end, but the Bill provides the perfect opportunity to address this gap.

16:30

Amendment 179 would add a net-zero and nature test to all planning decisions. It would apply not just to big decisions but to little ones as well. To quote again—as the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, did—from the Skidmore review:

“the vision of the planning system on net zero is not clear”;

it is

“A system that appears ambivalent to net zero

and therefore incapable of delivering the change that we need. That could not have been put more clearly, and is from a review that the Government themselves commissioned.

The Government commented in their recently published consultation on the proposed environmental outcome reports that:

“These reforms will deliver a streamlined system which works for everyone and delivers better environmental outcomes”.

The consultation also notes:

“We want to ensure we break the cycle where developments struggle to reflect how they address matters that are of national and global scale and importance.”

What better way to do this than through these amendments? This could work cohesively with the environmental outcome reports, which the Government have said will

“amplify government initiatives such as Biodiversity Net Gain and Local Nature Recovery Strategies.”

There is simply too much scope for inconsistency in the current system. This is a critical decade, as was pointed out in the IPCC report this week. The Government have to be clear that all developments must have at their heart a special regard—a legal regard—to the need to contribute towards net zero. This net-zero test will shift us closer to climate-positive and nature-positive development. I hope the Minister will agree.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I think we all know that the planning system does not function very well at the moment. It has become more and more complex over the decades, and is now a morass of rules that many of us do not understand. The Bill is an opportunity for a lot of things, but it is an opportunity to put that right and make sure that, as other noble Lords have said, the planning process actually works for people, residents and communities and is not just made up of rules that make no sense anymore. We can use it to make sustainable, healthy communities—why on earth would anybody disagree with that?

I know that some people deny that climate change is happening, and I am sure there are some who think that the IPCC report is not worth taking into serious consideration. But, of course, a lot of people in Britain are incredibly anxious. As we have seen, houses are still being built on flood plains and in ludicrous places where they will be damaged and probably will not be able to get insurance.

One of the lessons from Covid was that people do better when they are out in nature, so we need to include green spaces and that sort of environment to allow people to exercise, walk, and be with their dogs and their children.

One of the things I found when I was on a local planning committee when I was a councillor—for four very long and hard years—is that the officers abide by the rules. You can be as green as you like as a councillor, but that comes to absolutely nothing if you run up against the rules. Officers know the rules, and they insist that we act by them, so we need strong rules and good clear guidance.

In the other place at the moment, a former Prime Minister is struggling to keep his temper, apparently, as he discusses rules and guidance, what he knew and did not know, and so on. We should not do what we did during Covid and have a whole collection of quite confused rules, guidance, recommendations and even advice. We should make this clear and make the planning system fit for the sort of country we want to be.

Of course, if we want to take pressure off the National Health Service, we should be thinking about everybody’s well-being and about how everybody lives. At the moment, the planning system is not fit for purpose. I completely support all these amendments and agree with everything that has been said so far.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, although perhaps I would not want to align myself with my friend’s sentiments about the complexity of the Covid rules currently being examined at the other end, I support this group of amendments.

Net zero and adaptation to the impacts of climate change are getting more and more difficult because they are more and more pressing. We have to deploy every tool in the toolbox, and the planning system is a pretty powerful tool if it is properly pointed. It is true to say that the National Planning Policy Framework requires local authorities to address climate change, but when push comes to shove, housing targets tend to get the upper hand. If a local authority lays stringent requirements on developers about net zero or adaptation to the impacts of climate change, the viability test immediately gets rolled out, as well as challenges about developments being not viable under the rules that the local authority is laying down. Local authorities have to have some sort of protection against that kind of challenge, by being able to point to strong guidance and a statutory requirement to deliver net zero and adaptation to climate change.

As my noble friend on our Front Bench said, it is good that a large number of local authorities have declared a climate emergency, but they now need help to make that reality. There are already a few hooks in planning legislation that local authorities ought to be able to rely on, but they are clearly not sufficient because planning inspectors are overturning development proposals and local plans on the basis that the planning authorities have gone too far. We have to make sure that they are not going to be subject to those sorts of local challenges for doing the things that need to be done to tackle this emergency.

These amendments have some considerable strength. As has been said, they deal not just with plans but with planning policy, and indeed with individual applications. They talk not just about net zero but about the very real need for local planning authorities to take pretty stringent steps to ensure that there is adequate adaptation to climate change on a local basis.

If noble Lords really want to break their hearts some evening, they should go and read the successive reports of the Adaptation Committee of the Climate Change Committee, very nobly chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, who is not in her place. It would break your heart to see how little progress we have made in making our local settlements, infrastructure, and other important things for the quality of life and of the economy in this country resilient in the face of climate change. We really have to get a grip of that one.

Other excellent features of the amendments are that they cover climate change and nature, and are about mitigation actions, as well as adaptation. It would be extremely helpful to planning authorities, developers, and those who care about climate change and climate adaptation for these amendments, or some variant of them, to be accepted at Report.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I support these amendments and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for bringing them in front of noble Lords today. I want to focus on just one aspect of this. It is about not just whether the Government agree to these amendments and facilitate all the action which noble Lords have already spoken about but whether they back away from the current position, which is putting a ceiling on the ambition of local planning authorities in achieving net zero, and indeed in trying to set a purpose that is in any way in alignment with the nationally set targets of getting to zero carbon by 2050.

Many local authorities are straining at the leash to make their communities zero carbon and to ensure that they take steps to protect the well-being of their residents from flooding and extreme weather events, and from the costs and harm that they can see happening now and foresee coming in the coming decade or two if they do not take vigorous action to tackle climate change and mitigate the worst consequences of it. Unfortunately, time and again, via the Planning Inspectorate or government pronouncements, local planning authorities are prevented from taking those actions by the imposition of a national framework which is not in alignment with the equally national statutory framework to reach zero carbon by 2050.

If the Minister feels that, somehow or other, the formulation of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, is not the right one, that is fine, but can she, in the first instance, say that she and her Government will not continue to deliberately suppress the ambition of local authorities to achieve that national target and come forward herself, or encourage her Government to come forward, with a way to facilitate progress along the lines the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, has so well set out today?

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I totally agree with the amendments in this group and thank the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for bringing our attention to this issue before we start addressing the clauses that concern national and local planning policy.

Strategic planning depends and rests on planning legislation such as this and on national and local planning policies. We need to provide the tools in planning legislation and at national planning policy level to produce the focus and levers that we require at local level to pursue net zero—which I have not heard a voice against in this debate so far. We all know how important it is, but we need the levers and tools at local level to achieve it.

That is not going to be as simple as it sounds. Planning is a forward-looking approach: it is for new development or change to old development and does not do as much for the existing built environment. I hope that when we discuss the national management development policies the Government will indicate where they will provide a strong policy in favour of achieving net zero through planning legislation and policy. Currently, the National Planning Policy Framework has the goal of

“presumption in favour of sustainable development”,

which is about 10 to 15 years old, and it was the start of the journey towards achieving a firm commitment to tackling climate change and achieving the Government’s aims of zero carbon by 2050. We need a step change in planning policy if we are to achieve that. Unfortunately for the Government, the tools they put in planning legislation and policies are cross-departmental if they are going to achieve anything.

For example, housing development requires highways infrastructure. Is such infrastructure going to enable more traffic? Even if we have transferred to electric-generated vehicles, that will still create considerable carbon emissions, both in the production of the vehicles and in the production of the electricity, for the foreseeable future. What is the policy going to be there?

16:45

What is the policy going to be around renewable generation in respect of domestic properties? The Government could have a policy on that; currently, there is not one. What is the policy going to be around balancing the use of land for housing or economic development and, for instance, green infrastructure and biodiversity? The policies currently within the NPPF and planning legislation provide some clues, but they are guidance rather than requirements.

Then there are issues such as water management. That concerns not just flooding; for instance, areas of the south-east will not be able to sustain more housing development because of the lack of a water supply. Where is the big policy on water management, including water supply and wastewater? Where is that going to feature in our planning policies?

The difficulty here—this is where I am slipping over into a future debate on the national development management plan—is that this area is currently an empty space in legislation. If the Minister is able to fill that empty space with clear indications that climate change will be at the heart of national planning legislation and policy, we will have achieved the aim of the amendment in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and others, with which I wholeheartedly agree.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 179 and 271 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, seek to introduce a duty for planning authorities to consider climate change when developing planning policy and in making planning application decisions by adding a “purpose of planning” provision to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and a complementary duty in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

The Government recognise the great challenge of climate change and that the planning system must address this effectively. Through the Climate Change Act 2008, the Government have committed to reduce net emissions by at least 100% of 1990 levels by 2050. We have also committed to leaving the environment in a better state than we found it. We passed the Environment Act, which sets ambitious, legally binding, long-term targets to restore nature. The Government published their second environmental improvement plan in January this year, setting out the actions that will drive us towards reaching our long-term targets and goals.

Section 19(1A) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 already sets out that local planning authorities must design their local plans

“to secure that the development and use of land in the local planning authority’s area contribute to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change”.

This is restated in the Bill and is found in proposed new Section 15C of the 2004 Act, to be inserted by Schedule 7 to this Bill. Similar requirements are included for other types of plans, such as waste and mineral plans and neighbourhood plans.

Alongside this, the National Planning Policy Framework is clear that planning policies and decisions should support climate change mitigation and adaptation, and that plans should be prepared in line with the objectives and provisions of the Climate Change Act 2008. The framework also makes it clear that plans and decisions should contribute to and enhance the natural and local environment more broadly. As a matter of law, the framework must be taken into account when preparing the development plan and is a material consideration in planning decisions. Its effect on decisions will be enhanced through this Bill, through the provision made for a suite of national development management policies that will have statutory force.

More broadly, the National Planning Policy Frame- work couches the role of the planning system quite firmly in the terms of contributing to the achievement of sustainable development, recognising the environmental, social and economic dimensions of this and the inter- dependencies between them. It is not clear that a statutory purpose for planning would add to this in any meaningful way. We recognise that more can be achieved, though, and that is why the Government recently consulted on immediate changes to the framework relating to renewable energy and sought views on carbon assessments and other changes, which would strengthen the framework’s role in this vital area. A full review of the framework, taking the responses to this consultation into account, will take place following Royal Assent, and we will review the strategic objectives set out in the planning policy to ensure that they support the Government’s environmental targets under the Environment Act, the net zero strategy and the national adaptation programme.

A number of noble Lords mentioned the Skidmore review. We will publish a response to it very shortly. As committed to in the net zero strategy, we intend to do a fuller review of the NPPF to ensure that it contributes to climate change mitigation. Therefore, while I appreciate the spirit of these amendments, the Government do not feel able to support them, given the existing legislative obligations and current and future requirements in national policy, which will be given added force as a result of other provisions in this Bill.

Amendment 179A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, looks to define the purpose of planning and the meaning of “sustainable development”. The National Planning Policy Framework is clear that the purpose of the planning system is to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development. At a very high level, this can be summarised as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. As part of achieving the three overarching objectives of sustainable development—economic, social and environmental—the framework sets out policies on good design, sustainable transport, an integrated approach to the location of housing, economic uses, and community services and facilities. It recognises the importance to health, well-being and recreation that open spaces and green infrastructure provide. It also contains policies for how to achieve healthy, inclusive and safe places.

So that sustainable development is pursued in a positive way, at the heart of the framework is a presumption in favour of sustainable development. This means that all plans should promote a sustainable pattern of development that seeks to meet the needs of the area, align growth and infrastructure, improve the environment, and mitigate climate change and adapt to its effects. It also means that the strategic policies should provide for housing needs unless protected areas or assets of particular importance provide a strong reason for restricting development—for example, green-belt land. To reiterate, the framework must, as a matter of law, be taken into account when preparing development plans and is a material consideration in planning decisions.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I accept what the Minister said about the presumption in favour of sustainable development. She listed the things that have to be balanced, but the issue is how that balance takes place. In my experience as a local councillor, climate change is often at the bottom of that balance; economic development and the need for growth and jobs are at the top, and housing development is there, but climate change is much less important in the eyes of planning policies, planning inspectors and local plans. Can the Minister explain how the climate change element will be given greater importance and priority?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, to begin with, I do not agree that local authorities across the UK are not taking net zero and sustainability seriously. We know that local authorities across the country are making great strides towards our net-zero future. There are some brilliant examples of local action, innovation and excellence in this area, so I do not agree with the noble Baroness. When we get national planning policies that make these issues important nationally, councils will have to take them seriously and align their local plans with them. I would not want anybody to think that local government is not taking this seriously, because it certainly is and it is doing a huge amount to deliver our net-zero targets.

In December we published a consultation on updating the national planning policy, focusing largely on changes to housing policy that we intend to make in spring. This consultation closed on 2 March this year. We also sought initial views on some wider changes, which we will take forward into a fuller review of the framework. This fuller review will consider the scope to go further on a range of areas, including ensuring that the planning system capitalises on opportunities to support the natural environment, respond to climate change and deliver on the levelling up of economic opportunity—so there is more to come.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for her response so far. Can she pick up the points that the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and I made about the piecemeal nature of how this works and the legislation that informs planning? The Minister herself set out some of the many pieces of legislation that come together to drive forward the statutory framework instilling this in planning, but at the moment that makes for a fairly piecemeal approach that requires drawing together. These amendments were tabled to enshrine in legislation the overarching purpose of building sustainability into the planning system.

I think everybody who has spoken has made the point that the National Planning Policy Framework is not statutory; it is guidance. Different planning inspectors will interpret the local authority’s interpretation of that guidance differently. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and others outlined, sometimes the most ambitious authorities find themselves coming into conflict with their planning inspectors in this respect, because they do not accept the ambition that has been put into their local plan. Can the Minister pick up those points?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

A number of pieces of legislation from a number of different areas of government and beyond have an effect on net zero, sustainability and climate change. That is going to happen. I know that this was brought up in our meetings with noble Lords prior to the Bill, and it is a complex area. I will once again try to show your Lordships how this all fits together to ensure that we are all working in the same direction and delivering what we know we want for climate change, net zero and sustainability.

17:00

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

The Minister said that everyone is moving in the same direction. Since the big building companies such as Barratt and Taylor Wimpey have not come up, can she enlighten the House on what kinds of conversations she has had with such companies about their willingness to adopt a statutory policy about net zero into their building targets?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I have certainly had no conversations with those people, and I do not know whether the Housing Minister has. I will make sure to ask and find out. That is the whole idea of planning: if the policy requires it, the developers need to act within planning policy in order to develop.

I reiterate that the Government will be reviewing the strategic objectives set out in planning policy to ensure that they support the Government’s environmental targets under the Environment Act, net zero, and the national adaptation programme. This comes back to what the noble Baroness opposite was saying: are we joining it up? Yes, we are checking it with the Environment Act to make sure that we will deliver through the planning system everything that we agreed to in it.

While I appreciate the essence of this amendment, it is not one that the Government feel able to support, given the clear purposes for planning already set out in national policy.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for a very illuminating debate. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, this is all occurring against the backdrop of the recently issued UN climate report. That highlighted all the progress that has been made, but we need to do more to move further, faster. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, the planning system is one of the most powerful levers that we can pull in that respect, so we need to make sure that we make the most of it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, set out well the aspirations of local authorities and councils in wanting to help with declared climate emergencies. It is all about the tools to enable them to do that. Her Amendment 179A is very closely aligned with mine, so I look forward to working with her.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, set out many of the wider benefits to health and levelling up from looking at the planning system. The Minister set out all the various mentions of climate change scattered throughout the legislation and the various framework documents, but I think that noble Lords have strongly made the case for aligning all this and pulling it together in the legislation in the form of a net-zero test. I hope that she will consider that as we move towards Report. I look forward to further discussion with her but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 179 withdrawn.

Amendment 179A not moved.

Clause 78: Power in relation to the processing of planning data

Amendment 180

Moved by

[Lord Foster of Bath]

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

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

17:15

In relation to the installations, the amendment would require the hosts of short-term lets to have an electrical safety inspection carried out at least every five years by a competent and qualified person and to possess an electrical installation condition report. This is already required in other forms of rented accommodation. Given that 89% of electrical fires are caused by electrical appliances, the amendment would also require that a portable appliance test—a PAT—on such appliances is carried out, from electric cookers to hairdryers. That must be done as part of the letting. Across all forms of tenure, these products cause 12,000 fires and 3,000 injuries every single year, some of them sadly fatal, as was the case at Grenfell Tower. It is essential that such appliances in short-term lets have a PAT.

It is not surprising perhaps that, based again on the survey from Electrical Safety First, 92% of guests consider it important that the premises they stay in meet formal safety electrical requirements for both the installations and equipment. Adding these safety provisions and those in Amendment 445A to registration conditions would require hosts to pay more attention to their existing legal duties and provide for effective sanctions if properties are found to lack safety provisions.

The Government said they are committed to ensuring that England has high-quality tourist accommodation. Amendments 445 and 445A, together with Amendment 447 which provides definitions, would help achieve this. I believe that these amendments on data collection and sharing, and on safety requirements, are useful additions to the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for his introductory remarks. He made some important points. The points I am going to make are slightly different.

I will speak to the four amendments in my name in this group: Amendments 441, 443, 444 and 446. I do so with the cross-party support of other members of the Built Environment Select Committee, as is seen from the names subscribed to the amendments. I am glad to see various noble Lords here who are, or who have been, members of that committee and who may wish to speak in this short debate, which is principally focused on the Government’s proposals in the Bill to empower themselves to introduce a national registration scheme for short-term let properties.

These amendments arise from a short inquiry conducted by the Built Environment Select Committee last year in which we looked at the effects of Airbnb and similar type properties on various localities. It was chaired not by me at that time but by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe. As committees tend to, we reached some conclusions we agreed on and had various questions that we wanted to ask the Government about the national registration scheme, which by then we were aware they were bringing forward and proposing. The Government clearly see it as central to their approach to dealing with the problems that have been identified.

One of the things we were able to agree on—here I part company slightly with the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, as was mentioned in Committee only two days ago—was that, while there was a problem, the evidence showed us that it was quite localised. It is a problem which exists in particular types of localities, including densely populated urban areas such as central London and in holiday areas. We did not see the case for a compulsory national registration scheme. We did see a case for local authorities in areas that are adversely affected to be empowered to have a registration scheme that they could apply locally.

Beyond that, we had a number of questions. We put our views and questions in a letter to the Government, as one does, and we addressed it—thinking we were doing the right thing—to the Secretary of State at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Our first surprise was being told, after a little while, that the reply would in fact come from a different department—the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. So I first ask my noble friend to explain clearly why a scheme so closely identified with the Secretary of State at DLUHC should in fact be handled, in policy and implementation terms, by a totally different department. It is of course entirely up to the Government to decide how to manage these things, but I think noble Lords will want to know who is in charge, so to speak, and where they should turn if they have views on the matter.

As I said, we received a reply from a Minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that was slightly odd in some ways. First, he appeared to think that the Bill in this Committee had already been enacted.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

It had of course passed the Commons at that stage, and that may have been the cause of his confusion, but I know that noble Lords here would want him to be aware that the Bill is far from enacted. In fact, it is further from being enacted at this stage in Committee than it possibly was on the first day on which we sat to consider it. The Bill that emerges may yet not be quite the Bill that the Minister thinks is in force, but I am sure that all of this will be sorted out for him by his officials.

In his reply, he referred to the call for evidence that the Government issued last year—I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for bringing this up. He referred to it, saying that the Government had gone out and called for evidence, but he gave no explanation of why, months later, we still have not seen the evidence submitted as a result of that call. I am sure it would be immensely helpful to your Lordships, in considering this particular aspect of the Bill, to know what evidence the Government received. So my second question to my noble friend is: can she tell us when we will see the evidence that was submitted to the Government last year, with any conclusions that they might have drawn from it at this stage? In particular, will noble Lords have an opportunity to see it before we arrive at Report, or—this would be very helpful—while we are still in Committee? The essential thrust of what I will say in the remainder of my speech—I think noble Lords might be grasping it—is that we are being asked to empower the Government to introduce a national registration scheme without being given any information on what it might contain.

This brings me to the remaining part of the letter that the committee received in reply to its polite inquiries. We asked some questions about how this would operate, but we were told by the Minister that none of these questions could be answered at this stage because they would all be the subject of public consultation. Public consultation is a very good and necessary thing, and we have no criticism of the Government for committing to undertake public consultation on the scheme, but you have to consult on something: you have to put some proposals to the public in order to elicit their opinion. My question, as a result of reading the letter from the Minister, is: do the Government have any idea at all of what they will put to the public? If they do—I very much hope they do—can my noble friend say what they are?

The content of these four amendments follows from this. I will run through them briefly, because all of them are probing amendments, seeking an answer from the Government to questions raised in our letter. It seemed very good to be able to give the Government this opportunity, in Committee, to answer questions that they were not able to answer a few weeks ago.

Amendment 441 raises the question of whether the Government have it in mind that this should be a national and compulsory scheme or one which has the local discretion which the committee favoured—we would like to know.

Amendment 443 raises the question of what the Government mean by a “short-term” let. It is put down as “90 days” in the amendment, but that is for probing purposes. Do they mean 90 days? What exactly will count as a short-term let for this purpose? If they do not have an exact figure—90 days, 80 days, 100 days—could they give us a range of what they think constitutes a short-term let before they go out to public consultation?

Amendment 444 raises a question about something on which the committee agreed—I should have said that earlier—that any national registration scheme should not apply to rooms being let out in one’s own home. In fact, the Government encourage people to let out rooms in their own home by giving them a tax break on the rental income received, so that appears to be one government policy. Is it the Government’s intention to include rooms let out in one’s principal home in a national registration scheme, and, if so, how does that mesh with the tax credits and the signals given by the tax system to those who do so?

The final question we wanted to know the answer to was: how will this be paid for? Whether it is a national or local scheme, I would have thought that it will almost certainly be implemented by local authorities, or that they will have a major role in its implementation, so how will they be remunerated for this? Fees will no doubt be charged, so how high will the fees be? Will the local authority be able to set its own fees in local circumstances, or will it be limited to charging only on a cost-recovery basis? Amendment 446 proposes cost recovery, but it is not a proposal; it is a probing amendment. This is a chance for the Government to say what they are thinking about fees and remuneration for local authorities.

Those are the four questions to which we did not feel we had received proper answers. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister will be able to give us some assurance and answers on those matters, and on the other matters I raised earlier, when she responds to the group. I add that, apart from this very short debate, I think that noble Lords will have no other opportunity, other than on Report, to have a say on the scheme before it comes to be proposed and no doubt incorporated in a statutory instrument or some other measure. So this is an important juncture—one in which noble Lords, I think, will want to hear some answers from my noble friend, as I do.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Moylan, who is the finest chair of the House of Lords Built Environment Committee since my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe last year. He is a very fine chair, and I enjoy his chairmanship and his speeches. His four questions are entirely reasonable. I declare my residential and commercial property interests, none of which is involved in short-term lets, and that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association —it only took 20-odd years to get there, but I am delighted to have that honour.

I will make a general point, as someone who spent the bulk of their political career in local government as opposed to central government, which I know my noble friend the Minister will understand as a distinguished council leader. Would it not be far better to have a national compulsory scheme that was not a one size fits all? I say that because Wiltshire, which she led so brilliantly, is very different from Hammersmith and Fulham; Shepherd’s Bush does not look like some of the places in Wiltshire. Equally, the problems that have been outlined—certainly from the evidence collected by the Built Environment Committee—are very focal, and they require different solutions. A framework of some kind that enables local implementation seems incredibly sensible to me, and the probing around the definition of a short-term let seems very sensible to me. It is entirely courteous to the Members of this House that, when we deliberate and collect evidence to improve approaches, we take those points on board. I would like the Government to reflect on the fact that this process is really helpful; the Back-Benchers are trying to help get better legislation. Before you consult, it would be nice to know the way in which you propose to consult—and then, I am sure, we will get this right.

17:30

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 441, 443, 444 and 446 on the theme of short-term lettings, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, the esteemed chair of your Lordships’ Built Environment Committee, on which I am honoured to serve. I also support the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, on data sharing and safety.

I share the worries relayed very forcefully in submissions to our Built Environment Committee over the loss of long-term rented homes because of landlords switching to short-term lettings—propelled not least, it seems, by a tax and regulatory regime that favours the latter. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has said, our debate last Monday covered a lot of the issues that have been debated in our committee and are now the subject of these probing amendments. Noble Lords gave much support on Monday to earlier amendments that advocated a registration or licensing scheme—the two could look very similar. The Built Environment Committee favoured local discretion in introducing a national scheme locally, since some places have virtually no short-term lettings. It would be very bureaucratic to have a scheme applied there. The Government are also committed, as well as to a registration scheme, to taking a regulatory arrangement forward, and I hope that we can hear news from the Minister of a timetable in this regard.

In addition, there was support on Monday for the proposition from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and the noble Earl, Lord Devon, endorsed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, and the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for new use classes, which would enable planning powers to be used to control numbers of short-term lets in each local authority. The Government are consulting on that proposition, which personally I would favour; it deserves attention, alongside some tweaks to remove perceived incentives in the tax and regulatory frameworks, which currently appear to encourage landlords to end longer-term lets and switch to Airbnb-style short-term rentals.

I add to the debate one extra ingredient: the international dimension. In this digital age, the Airbnb phenomenon for accommodation, like Uber for transport and Amazon for retail, is ubiquitous and has caused concern in sectors in most other advanced economies. Many different regulations have been applied in other countries, particularly in tourist hotspots. A report from the Property Research Trust last year, Regulating Short-Term Rentals: Platform-based Property Rentals in European Cities, describes numerous efforts to face this challenge. Amsterdam has a strict permit system, with fines of about £20,000 for failure to comply. Barcelona has banned all short-term rentals, even in private homes. In Ireland, those areas of the country designated as rent-pressure zones have tough restrictions. In parts of the United States, such as San Francisco and Boston, only properties with the host living there during the stay are allowed to be operated as short-term lets. This international perspective demonstrates that we are not alone in facing this problem. We have a greater problem of scarcity of rented housing than most of our neighbours, which suggests that an effort to get to grips with the downside of short-term lets may be overdue here.

I have one final point. Amendment 444 reflects the Built Environment Committee’s firmly held view that new arrangements should not deter any home owners from letting spare rooms on a short-term basis. The current tax-free position, allowing up to £7,500 per annum, encourages the use of underutilised assets and brings extra income that can help with rising mortgage costs. The amendment emphasises the value of continuing that favourable tax regime for owner-occupiers in underoccupied homes.

I hope that the Government will be bold in following the lead of many other countries. We need to address the pain and disruption being caused in particular locations by the growth of short-term lets that replace badly needed longer-term rented homes. I support the amendments.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I too support these amendments, particularly the lead amendment in this group, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, about the gathering of better data. I will try not to repeat what I said last time, other than that I have some skin in the game here in the sense that I jointly own properties that are let on assured shorthold tenancies, as well as short-term holiday let properties.

This is a multifaceted issue. Second homes may, at other times, be part-time holiday lets. Holiday lets may be for leisure trips one minute and for business purposes another, and they may alter from season to season. They may be for a couple of days at one point, or a couple of weeks or three months at another point. It is very difficult to make a one-size-fits-all assumption when you are dealing with short-term lets, holiday lets or even assured shorthold tenancies.

The platforms are also equally variable: it could be booking.com—a very common one—Airbnb, an owner’s own website, word of mouth, a card in the window of the local convenience store, or a repeat booking. They are all means of people getting in contact. I know this for a fact, because the only one that does not affect the properties that I am involved with is Airbnb as we do not use that platform, but I know lots of people who do. In respect of what the noble Lord, Lord Best, said, the thing about a platform such as Airbnb is its slickness and convenience for users—both lessors and prospective occupiers. That has really made it a benchmark worldwide phenomenon and has driven its operation and popularity as much as any wish to shift from one to the other.

I contacted a local estate agent down in the West Country—not one I use but I knew somebody in the place—and asked them what was happening with short-term lets as against assured shorthold tenancies, for example. They deal with a lot of such tenancies; they are one of the main agents in that area. I was told that, while there is considerable demand for assured shorthold tenancies—often 20 or 30 applicants for each—there were very few cases of an AST being terminated for the purpose of moving the property to a short-term letting. There was nearly always some other reason for ending the AST: it was a pot of money that the owner wanted to put into some other investment, such as extending another house or helping a child with a house purchase in another part of the country.

I do not know, therefore, how frequent this supposed transfer is. Organisations such as Shelter say that they have lots of people coming along saying that they have been kicked out because the owner wanted to do an Airbnb-type letting, but I do not know whether that is an essentially urban phenomenon—it may be—or more general. I just do not think that we have the data. That goes back to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, made: we need better data.

I would worry about attempts to jump to conclusions about what we do here. I follow the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, the chairman of the wonderful committee of which I am a former member, but I worry about attempts to jump to conclusions, particularly because we have not had the results of the Government’s own thinking on this, and particularly when applying these user types to a range of properties that equally has a very considerable breadth—from a shepherd’s hut at one end through to a static caravan and to a permanent dwelling. Some may be suitable only for seasonal use: I think of the very large caravan parks that—“decorate” is the wrong word—“appear” in places such as the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. I cannot say that I regard them as beautiful or a benefit to the environment, but they clearly fulfil a seasonal requirement.

There are some settlements—some seaside places and holiday hotspots—that are built on tourism. That is what they are there for, almost, and the fact that they empty themselves for parts of the year is not a particularly modern phenomenon. I remember when as children we used to go on holiday to a part of Cornwall on an annual basis, and just about every other house was advertising bed and breakfast. Those bed and breakfasts may have morphed into Airbnb, or a short-term let on some other platform. Noble Lords have mentioned that there are clearly problems associated with an imbalance of property uses, but as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, confirmed—I raised this point on Monday —these are not consistent, geographically or by type. They tend to be associated with hotspots of one sort or another. We need to understand the dynamic.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, picked up on the point I made that we need to flesh out a great deal more what is happening here. If we do not know the purposes and drivers behind what is happening in any given instance then we are not going to get near to creating viable policies for the purpose. Let us make no mistake: this phenomenon is undoubtedly causing problems in certain areas. We had evidence of that in the Built Environment Select Committee when I was privileged to serve on it. What is required here is a degree of localised assessment, but based on consistent, nationally accepted data-gathering principles and analysis, so that we get a proper basis for dealing with this, and can look at and compare like with like and not be comparing apples with pears.

I entirely endorse Amendments 445B and 447, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, because I know for a fact how very important safety is within a property, particularly where there is short-term turnover of occupancy and people are not particularly familiar with the property. It is absolutely important that they are safe, and that things such as batteries in smoke detectors are checked annually and that combustion appliances have proper tests and are serviced. They should be safe and safety checked at regular intervals.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, referred to the business of trying to get at the data on this through council tax records. He is absolutely right that this is a pretty deficient way of dealing with it. I am going to tell a tale out of school here. My wife has written on numerous occasions to the billing authority in relation to a property that has been used for holiday letting for many years, saying, “Look, this is being used pretty much year-round as a holiday unit. Should it continue to be in council tax?” To which answer there came none, and why would there? Why would any clever finance officer of a local authority decide that he was going to forgo council tax—which he collects and keeps in his kitty, thank you very much—and be the collecting agency for business rates for central government, to be redistributed according to whatever the normal formula is? The noble Lord, Lord Foster, mentioned one area where the thing is skewed; that is a second area where there is a perverse incentive not to get things in the right slot.

It gets worse. Under the “check, challenge, appeal” process that business rates operators have to deal with when dealing with the Valuation Office Agency, someone has to formally claim the property for the purposes of being its agent before they can even get the process in train to change the assessment. That is not a sensible way of doing it either. We are completely at sea on this and really need to sort it out.

17:45

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to fees. I am really glad that they have been raised. One of my children has an investment flat in part of south London. The local authority has decreed that they will pay either a registration fee or a licence fee—I do not know which —for the privilege of being a landlord. It confers no inspection or anything else. There do not seem to be any checks, just an address and a £600 fee every year. That is not small beer; it makes the difference between the thing being a reasonably profitable investment and being highly marginal. There is a risk that the fee can be used as a milch cow, which I rather object to for the reasons I made clear when I last spoke on this.

The distribution of second homes and very short-term lettings is not necessarily where people want to live and work. I made this point last Monday; I apologise for making it again, but it is important. We need to get a handle on the distribution issue, along with all the other functional things.

This is not the stuff of simple arithmetic. The Government may be looking hard into all these things but, until we have some qualitative data, going back to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, we will be adrift. We are at risk of making policies that produce an adverse reaction in their target area, because you never know what the intuitive response will be. There will be a disruptive effect, which is avoidable. There is a sensible way and a disruptive way of doing this. I hope we take the former route.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who was a member of the Built Environment Committee when we discussed this issue. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his excellent introduction; I agreed with probably most of what he said, which is quite unusual for me.

There is a housing problem. We are here to talk about the short-term issue and the relationship between supply and demand, the short-term issue and location, as other noble Lords have said. It comes back to the question of where the workers—the term is a little insulting—the people who need to live locally, will live. It varies across the UK. As noble Lords will know, I live in Cornwall and sometimes on the Isles of Scilly. I have a bit of data from Cornwall Council that puts this into perspective. According to the council, we have 13,292 second homes in Cornwall. I am not sure how that was measured or how you define a second home, which is partly what we are talking about now, but that is a pretty high figure.

On the question of where people might live, the same council and its deputy leader have said that there are 6,000 affordable homes in Cornwall which have planning permission, but only 600 are being built. One has to ask why. Is it that the developers are waiting for a year or two so that they can get a better sale price, or what? We need that information.

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said that he did not have any evidence of people being kicked out of their longer-term lets for Airbnb, but there was evidence of this in Plymouth in a local paper article about six months ago. It named the person—I think—and where it took place. It involved a man who was working in some local authority role. He had been there for many years, but one day his landlord, who lived downstairs or upstairs in the house, gave him notice to quit, because he said he was going to sell it. So, the tenant had to leave. I do not know whether he found anywhere else; history does not relate. However, he did keep an eye on the property, and six months later he found it advertised on Airbnb. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, it is keeping the availability of accommodation—both affordable and unaffordable homes—in a pretty nasty state wherever this happens. I recall asking the Airbnb witness, when he or she came to our committee, whether they felt it would be all right for somebody to be kicked out like that and for the council worker to sleep on a park bench—that was his alternative. I did not get much of an answer; I did not really expect one.

There is a problem here, but it is only in some places, as other noble Lords have said. There are other places where it is probably not necessary to have legislation, and that is the purpose behind Amendment 441. For me, the most important thing is to have the ability to register these properties when the local authority believes that it is necessary. So, I favour “permitting” in Amendment 441, but if the Government think that it is essential around the whole country, we will have to look at this again.

My worry about Amendment 443 is the inclusion of “90 days” in the definition of a short-term rental, but as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, this a probing amendment. It is easy to ask: would this apply to a rental if it is let for 90 days, or if it is available for let for 90 days? Who is going to check? It is a bit difficult to define something which will probably cover the whole country—ditto my comments about Amendment 444. That amendment talks about one room in a house, which sounds fine. If you have a three-bedroom house and you let one, that sounds fine. However, there may be people who then build a bigger house in order to let multiple rooms—I do not know how many; it could be three, four, five or six—and make a lot of money out of it, and they could get away with it because it is a series of single rooms. All these special exclusions could make it more difficult for this legislation to work.

The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, are absolutely essential. This is one of the things we discovered with Airbnb, as the noble Lord said: it does not have to comply with any of these regulations. Fire and safety are fundamental to any property that is let. I know many people who run holiday lets, and they moan like anything that they have to get all these certificates. But if you have rented something, whether it is for a week, a day or a year, you still expect the same level of safety. It is amazing that people think they can get away with not having this.

Some noble Lords will have met the people doing the R&R, who told us what is going to happen with the restoration of this building. My first question to them was, “And what are you doing about fire extinguishers, fire monitoring, and extinguishers in the roof in particular, after Notre-Dame?” They said, “Well, that will come later, when we’ve decided what to do and started the work”. We all know that the most likely time for an old building to catch fire is when the contractors are in. That probably applies as much to lets registered or unregistered with the local authority as it does to this place—which we all love, of course.

In supporting all these amendments, my final comment, therefore, is that it is going to cost local authorities money to do these things. We know that. They must have the money and be allocated the money, and they must be able to spend it on what they like. Everybody will then think that this is all fair and above board, and they will sleep better in their beds at night.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I am speaking as a former member of the Built Environment Committee; I was a member when the committee’s report was drawn up. I thank the chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and his committee clerk for sending me a copy of the letter received by the committee this week, I understand, from the Minister who has accepted responsibility for this issue. It is, as it turns out, the Minister from DCMS. Before I go any further, I say that in a previous debate it was extremely frustrating for the Government Front Bench to reply, “Well, that was a matter for the Department for Transport”, and for no answer to be forthcoming. I hope we will not get into that dead end today, because this is a significant set of amendments on a significant proposal in the Bill. As this debate has already made clear, it has a very clear crossover into the housing market and the availability of housing in many areas of the country.

When the committee commenced its inquiry, it consisted of members with a very wide range of views—from those who had an extremely free-market approach to the housing situation and believed that the market would determine it, to those at the other end who thought that the best solution to our housing problem was a state allocation system. So, we had a very wide range of views in the committee, but we received such convincing evidence during the inquiry that it was not that difficult for us to produce a consensus report. The amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, are very much exploring with the Government their response to the committee’s report, and I have signed Amendment 441 in particular. The Government’s wording in the Bill is that the Secretary of State can propose regulations “requiring or permitting” local authorities to do something, but the amendment would delete “requiring” so that the Secretary of State’s regulations can only be about “permitting” them.

I am also privy to what my noble friend Lady Thornhill would have said if she had not tested positive for Covid yesterday: “My first major concern is that there are several ‘may’ or ‘must’ statements in the Bill, which could either require or permit action, and there is a world of difference between the two. We are being asked to agree a general principle and accept that there will be additional shorter consultations to bring forward a set of regulations on the details of how such a registration scheme would operate.” My noble friend Lady Thornhill shares my aversion to the Government having unfettered power and, on this occasion, even being able to restrict the time for consultation. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has spoken about that. I hope that the Minister, despite being from the wrong department, will be able to tell us what the outcome of that consultation process was.

18:00

Both my noble friend Lady Thornhill and I would like to hear what the Government’s current thinking is on whether short-term lets should constitute a change of use and therefore require planning permission, or whether they should not. It is a key element in permitting some degree of local flexibility for any scheme that comes forward.

I am sorry to remind noble Lords that on several occasions so far in our discussions I have had something to say about the plethora of regulatory impositions that the Bill contains, and this has more, of course. I would like to hear whether there is any departmental working—anything in the pipeline—on the combined impact of all these regulations from different legislative provisions on councils’ ability to deliver what they are supposed to be doing. How open are the Government to responding to the fact that the need for action is very different in different parts of the country? Is the Minister fixated on a one-size-fits-all solution, either where everybody must or where everybody is forbidden to license or register as the case may be?

The committee took evidence from south Devon, where there is a serious problem, and my noble friend Lord Foster in the debate at the beginning of the week referred to a village known to him in east Suffolk where a very high proportion of homes are second homes or holiday lets. However, if one turned to the metropolitan boroughs of Knowsley or Halton, one would find, for all practical statistical purposes, that there are no second homes in those two boroughs, and no Airbnb or other short-term lets being advertised. That strongly suggests to me that the right approach is to have a permissive regime, not a compulsory one, and I believe that is soundly based on the evidence that the Select Committee received.

A key drawback of any national or uniform legislative outcome is that it requires resources, human and financial, to set up and run and to monitor and enforce. Several noble Lords mentioned registration fees; they can be set to cover the cost, and one of the amendments which I did not sign said they should be on a cost-recovery basis. However, that works only if there are sufficient homes—some might say too many—that need to be licensed in a particular area. How would the costs of setting up, monitoring and enforcement be covered in areas of low or very low prevalence of such homes? Either the measure becomes a complete dead letter because there are no resources to implement it, or the licence fee charged will have to be wholly disproportionate. We get to the strange situation where the fewer the homes, the greater the charge would have to be to cover providing that service.

Conversely, the evidence the committee took on Airbnb lettings is that they are significantly more lucrative in certain areas to those who own the properties than in others. Do the Government envisage authorising a proportionately larger registration fee to allow councils to cover their costs—including, of course, the costs of enforcement—or not? Quite clearly, the profit from these homes in some areas will be significantly higher than in others.

These points all raise warning flags about not overpromising that this government provision as it stands will be the solution to the short-term letting problem. Indeed, you can ask a whole lot of other questions. Some have been posed by others, and others I could put into play now—but let us not do that.

All this suggests that the Minister might be well advised to try a couple of pilot schemes as a useful first step. Could she tell us whether she would consider that approach, or consider whether Wales has actually provided a pilot scheme because its scheme is discretionary? As I understand it, some local authorities in Wales have commenced a scheme while others have no intention of doing so at all. I realise that the Welsh scheme was not invented here, which may of course make it ineligible for consideration or comparison, but to do that might be time well spent.

I will briefly conclude by saying that I strongly support what my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath said about electrical safety. There seems to be absolutely no reason or argument to oppose his amendments, which would ensure that those who occupied short-term lets and dwellings, or indeed any accommodation, had a guarantee of a safe environment in which they could operate.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, in an earlier debate on these topics on Monday, we heard the noble Lord, Lord Foster, discussing Southwold, where I spent many happy hours on holiday as a child and which now has, if I remember my figures from Monday rightly, only 500 permanent homes out of 1,400 homes. In that same debate the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred, as he did again today, to the fact that have not just a numbers problem but a distribution problem around the country because of the lack of available data.

We are all aware of the considerable issues presented in parts of our country related to second homes and short-term lets. That situation was clearly articulated by my noble friend Lady Hayman in our debate on Monday, when she articulated that communities are hollowed out because of the second homes left empty for large parts of the year, which means that all the community facilities that permanent residents need struggle to be viable. In addition, we see local house prices forced out of affordability for local people as second homes and holiday lets contribute to the housing pressures.

An amendment creating new use classes for second homes or holiday lets was rejected in the other place. Although amendments on the same subject were withdrawn on Monday, I hope that we come back to this, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Best, because it is critical that we tackle this issue. In the House of Commons, the Government claimed that these were not necessary as neighbourhood plans could create principal residence policies. However, I wonder whether the full extent of this issue and its impact, particularly on rural and coastal communities, has been properly assessed and understood. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, would enable the collection of data relating to this problem which might help to develop the picture further. However, we should encourage the Government, through the Minister, to consider this matter as urgent; it may already be too late for some of the communities worst affected. Surely we will not abandon these communities to the opportunities they offer for a small number of people to make a fast buck.

On the amendments tabled to Clause 210, which were clearly articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, we too are interested to hear the Government’s thoughts on the registration of short-term rental properties. It was interesting to hear about the work of the Built Environment Select Committee in that respect.

In the Commons, Ministers referred previously to the ongoing consultation on this matter—indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to it again this afternoon. What is the outcome of that consultation—it has not been published yet—and what conclusions will the Government draw from it? I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Young, referred to this in an earlier debate on this topic.

I was very interested in the comments on the work of the Built Environment Select Committee, and it is fascinating to hear that this issue sits with the DCMS rather than DLUHC. I hope the Minister will respond to that. It is disappointing to hear that a Minister thinks that the whole Bill has already been enacted. In view of the fact that none of these issues has been dealt with, I think we are glad that it has not been so far, and I am sure that noble Lords here will improve the Bill as we go along.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

May I just briefly say, as a matter of courtesy, that the reply to the letter that I referred to came from a Minister in the other place? I just thought, in all fairness, that I should make that very clear.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that clarification.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, set out the four questions asked by his amendments, and they are all very important questions on which I hope we will hear further from the Minister, particularly Amendment 446, which addresses how this is going to be paid for. That is one of a number of questions on fees and costs that appear about many other clauses of the Bill, so I hope we will have responses to those questions.

The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Foster, largely relate to ensuring that the safety of short-term let properties is not left to chance. It is particularly important that properties left empty for periods of the year are subject to detailed regulation on safety matters. This would also encourage absentee landlords to ensure that their responsibilities are met. Recently, we have seen increasing pressure on social landlords to address safety provision—in fact, there are very stringent new requirements on them—so it is clearly an issue that the Secretary of State takes seriously. We should not have what would amount to an exemption for the owners of short-term let properties in this respect. I hope that may be addressed.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, also referred to the difficulty of enforcing licensing restrictions without data from booking platforms. Although I agree with him that booking platforms may be unwilling to release that data, it is really important and, without it, enforcement is difficult to address. Local authorities would struggle without effective data collection methods to enforce some of the matters raised in this debate.

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred to the perverse incentives that exist between council tax and business rates. This is really important to data gathering: there is no incentive for councils, because if they collect business rates, they have to send it all off to our good friends at the Treasury, whereas if they collect council tax, they keep it to deliver services to their communities, so there is not much incentive for them to get matters straight here.

My noble friend Lord Berkeley referred to the importance of being reassured of the safety of the building, regardless of the length of time of the let. If you stay somewhere, even if just overnight, you want to be assured that the building is subject to the same safety regulations as would apply anywhere else you stayed.

Turning to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, I am very sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, is not in her place today and I hope he will send her our very best wishes for a speedy recovery. He spoke about evidence to the Built Environment Select Committee from south Devon. I heard a great deal on this from my former colleague on the District Councils Network, Judy Pearce, who is the leader of South Hams Council and has been a powerful advocate of a great deal more action on second homes. The suggestion of pilot schemes—or taking advice from Wales, as I am sure my noble friend Lady Wilcox would say—is always a very good idea.

On 21 March, it was reported that changes aimed at restricting the way that homes can be turned into Airbnbs were being introduced, as the Secretary of State for DLUHC was going to bring them in. He acknowledged a problem with holiday lets preventing young people accessing jobs and homes. Can the Minister give us further information on whether that will come into the Bill as government amendments and when we will see government amendments to this effect?

Those are our comments on the amendments submitted. We support the amendments on registration and we certainly support the amendments on safety.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register as the owner of a second home in Pembrokeshire, one of the three local authorities that is introducing a licensing scheme—actually, it is not introducing a licensing scheme but a 300% increase in rates unless you rent your house out for more than six months, which I generally do.

This group of amendments concerns the operation of the short-term letting registration scheme introduced by the Bill. To start with Amendment 180, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Foster of Bath—I, too, send my good wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and hope she recovers swiftly from Covid—I start by acknowledging the important topic this amendment raises relating to holiday lets and second homes.

18:15

Data in relation to holiday lets is vital to support tourism and manage the impacts on local communities, which we can all acknowledge are, in some instances, very significant. I believe, however, that there may have been some misinterpretation on the intent of Clause 78 which may mean that this amendment would not be needed. Clause 78 aims to require planning authorities to process their planning data in accordance with approved data standards, whereas the amendment seeks to require collection of data by planning authorities. Nothing in Clause 78 can require or permit the collection of data by planning authorities, although it can regulate the manner of collection where that is authorised elsewhere.

With that having been said, I add a point of reassurance. Where planning authorities have this data, Clause 78(2)(b) provides the ability for data standards to be set for holiday-let data. As I mentioned in relation to Amendment 166, we are looking to further refine the data available both to the Government and to local authorities in this area. Both the existing data and any further data can then be subject to regulations under Clause 78 requiring local authorities to process that data in accordance with standards set by the Secretary of State. I am sure that we will discuss these powers further later in Committee.

On Amendments 441, 443, 444 and 446, tabled by my noble friend Lord Moylan, he has suggested how certain elements of the registration scheme could be designed, and I am grateful for his thoughts on these important questions of detail. As he will have heard, we intend to consult both on the registration scheme and on the potential for short-term let use classes, and we will need to reflect on the responses to those consultations in coming to a view on the matters he has raised. That will of course, as I alluded to earlier, include giving careful consideration to the interaction between the two sets of reforms. Although the Government wish to move quickly in this area, it is also important that we get this right for the affected communities. I look forward to working with him and other noble Lords as we seek to do so.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I should be grateful if the Minister could clarify a question that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and I put: what are the Government going to be consulting on? Is there a document?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I will be coming to that in a moment.

Finally, I turn to Amendments 445, 445A, 445B and 447, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath. These amendments concern the detail of how the registration scheme will operate, particularly in relation to data sharing and the safety of properties. These issues will indeed be explored in the consultation, and a registration scheme will be designed to ensure that all providers of short-term lets are aware of their legal responsibilities to ensure health and safety in their properties. Infrequent use should not mean that short-term lets do not need to meet safety standards, but that issue will be considered in much more detail in the consultation.

The shape of England’s guest accommodation landscape has changed greatly over the past 15 years. Online platforms have enabled greater choice in accommodation for holidaymakers and have brought many benefits to the tourism sector. This proliferation of a new type of guest accommodation has, however, been unregulated, which has prompted concerns including on safety, as my noble friend highlighted. We want to ensure that England continues to provide a safe and competitive guest accommodation offer, while also supporting those who live and work in our local visitor economies.

That is why the Government launched a call for evidence on this topic, as an important first step in understanding how we can ensure we continue to reap the benefits of short-term lets, while also protecting holidaymakers and local interests. This initial call for evidence, which ran between June and September last year, was indeed led by DCMS, as it follows on from previous work that that department did, as short-term lets are an integral part of the UK visitor economy. A report on that call for evidence will be published at the same time as the consultation on the registration scheme, this summer, and I reassure noble Lords that both departments are working together closely because of their shared interest in the scheme.

It has become clear from the call for evidence process that there is a compelling case for introducing light-touch regulation in this sector, and that is what we are intending to do through the Bill. The Government are also introducing a registration scheme for short-term lets through the Bill. The details of how the scheme will operate will be explored through a public consultation, which will be published before this year’s Summer Recess with a view to the register being up and running as soon as possible thereafter. The consultation is intended to flesh out many different aspects of how the scheme would operate, such as what information would be collected, who would administer the scheme, which requirements should be satisfied as a condition of registering and whether any fees would be charged; it will also cover any enforcement powers, which were asked about by an earlier contributor to the debate.

The important matters on safety that noble Lords raised—

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

I appreciate what the Minister said about enforcement. It was in fact me who talked about that—not my noble friend Lord Shipley, as was widely said. Enforcement is vital because without it, the scheme becomes a dead letter. Making sure that any costs or fees take adequate account of that is quite important.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The noble Lord has made that point well and I will certainly take it back to the department, which will take note of it.

Regarding a precise time definition for short-term lets, it is not the length of time but the activity that is important. In essence, the definition of a short-term let is a dwelling used by a guest, in return for payment, that is not the guest’s main residence

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, asked whether the planning changes that the Secretary of State referred to are the subject of the planned consultation on a short-term let use class, as discussed by this Committee on Monday. I recognise that a number of the questions asked by noble Lords will be answered only by the consultation process. However, I hope that, in the meantime, I have been able to offer at least some reassurance; I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Foster, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

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

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

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

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

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

I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 180 withdrawn.

Clause 78 agreed.

Debate on whether Clause 79 should stand part of the Bill.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, my amendment would remove Clause 79 from the Bill, and my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage has given notice of her intention to oppose Clause 81 standing part of the Bill. We have also a further amendment in this group. Clause 79 concerns the power in relation to the provision of planning data, while Clause 81 concerns the power to require the use of approved planning data software in England. After Clause 83, my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage’s Amendment 182 would insert the following:

“The Secretary of State may only make planning data regulations which contain provision relating to local authorities after consulting with local authorities.”

We oppose these clauses standing part of the Bill and have laid an amendment to Clause 83 because local authorities should be able to decide what planning data software they use. Also, local planning authorities that have already purchased software and tools may well find in future that what they have purchased is no longer approved for use, meaning that their investment has been made redundant and they have spent money they can probably ill afford to spend again. Will the Minister ask the department to look at this again in the light of local authorities’ concerns, particularly from that financial perspective?

Clause 81 permits the use of regulations to restrict or prohibit relevant planning authorities using software not approved by the Secretary of State, as I just talked about. The other concern is the unnecessary level of bureaucracy. This also risks reducing competition in the market, and I would be surprised if that is the Government’s intention. What is the Government’s intention behind this clause?

The Local Government Association supports our position and has confirmed that local authorities would of course need to ensure that their planning data software allows them to meet any new data standard requirements. It is also right that, where new regulations relating to local authorities are introduced, it should be done only following proper consultation with local authorities that will clearly be affected by this clause. This will help to ensure that the regulations are fit for purpose and that any new burdens are identified and properly addressed, and to avoid any unintended consequences during implementation. Do the Government intend to carry out any consultation before implementation? Have they already spoken to local authorities about this? If so, what was the response?

We appreciate that the Government are bound by public procurement rules. I spent much time on the then Procurement Bill as it went through this House, so I am aware that within the general procurement framework there is a specific set of rules and handbooks for technology procurement.

However, we believe that the powers in Clause 81 are just too expansive. They enable Ministers by regulation to restrict or prevent the use or creation of software that is used by planning authorities to process the planning data. Further checks should be put in place on their usage, and I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response in that regard.

The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, has an amendment to Clause 23 which would require the Secretary of State to publish the results of a consultation and give reasons for any decision reached. We strongly support that amendment. It is an important consideration and consultation should be part of any decision-making in this area. I beg to move.

18:30

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak on this group, and I will speak also to my Amendment 181 to Clause 83. I sat through Second Reading but did not speak. I can claim only that I had intellectual indigestion through trying to understand what the Bill is all about.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is looking at the difficulties from a local authority point of view. My speech is from a devolved authority point of view. It is in Part 3 of the Bill that the devolved Administrations have the greatest worries about infringement of their devolved competence. My interest is as a Scot living in Scotland. Part 3 of the Bill has been referred by the Scottish Parliament to its Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee for consideration, and other sections have been referred to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. That is all very well, but none of these committees has recommended legislative consent, and they are due to give their final conclusions when we get to Third Reading, which is not very far off.

At an earlier stage in the Bill, my noble friend the Minister was telling the House that civil servants are regularly in touch with their Scottish counterparts. Surely a Bill of this complexity must, at some stage, require some negotiation at ministerial level as well. Can my noble friend tell us of any hint of consent from any of these branches of the Scottish Parliament?

I turn to Clause 81 and the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. The clause requires the use of approved planning data in England. It portends that one of the things that the Government will be seeking is to get compliance in due course with the use of their approved planning data from all the devolved Administrations. While this may be understandable on a practical level, it bears the echo of a previous experience that the Scots have had, in a more limited field with which I am familiar. Some years ago, in contrast to England, the Scots developed an electronic sheep traceability system and associated database, known as sheep EID. It has worked very well. Recently, the department in England decided to inaugurate a similar programme and was offered the chance to share the system and the cost. This was rejected for no apparent reason. Therefore, one has misgivings about the application of systems.

At various points in the Bill we have considered whether the requirement for consultation is appropriate. There is much that can be said about meaningful consultation, but this clause requires any Secretary of State to consult in specific circumstances. The amendment requires them to publish the results and give reasons. The issue is of much concern to the Scottish Law Society, which drew my attention to it and which welcomes the obligation to consult and to give the conclusions and reasons for the decision, which would serve the interests of transparency.

In a previous group, we had a magnificent example of people dying to know the outcome of a consultation when the Government were sitting on it. This amendment would ensure that all information was available. It seems obvious that planning was not reserved under Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998 and so it is fair to assume that planning data falls into the same category. Can we assume that as the approved planning data systems for England required by the Bill are developed, we will be aware of what is likely to be required from the existing records of the devolved Administrations?

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

As a Scot by birth living in England, I support my noble friend the Duke of Montrose in his Amendment 181. It is good that in this clause, as my noble friend said, the Government are committed to consulting in specific circumstances. However, too frequently we are not seeing the results of the consultations in a timely fashion, particularly before any regulations under this part of the Bill may be drafted and come before the House. Therefore, I lend this amendment my strongest support.

My noble friend also raised collaborating with the Scottish Parliament with a view to obtaining legislative consent. We have had two recent regrettable circumstances where the Scottish Parliament—and in one case, the Senedd—withheld their consent. This could be avoided if discussions took place with the relevant committees of the Scottish Parliament at the earliest stage and throughout the course of the Bill. I am thinking particularly of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, which has exercised the House at quite some length, and the recent Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill. The withholding of legislative consent could have been avoided by the Scottish Parliament if the Government had liaised with them and the relevant committees at a much earlier stage.

With those remarks, I support all the amendments in this group, particularly that in the name of my noble friend the Duke of Montrose.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, Part 3, Chapter 1 of the Bill, entitled “Planning Data”, asks more questions than it answers. I will be grateful if the Minister can answer some of them.

First, what is the purpose of requiring an approved national planning software? Is it so that the Government can more readily access planning data from across the country? If so, to what purpose do they want to put the data that they acquire in that way?

Secondly, how many different planning software systems are in operation at the moment? Digitising planning is a complicated operation, so you would not expect that many but, if there are, have local planning authorities already expressed a clear preference to use a single system? This takes me to the questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, in that, if the Government are requiring a single approved planning software, there would be considerable costs attached to local planning authorities transitioning to a new software system. You would want to balance those costs against the benefits. The Bill makes no obvious benefit of using a single system. Another issue is about compatibility. If the current software systems are compatible, is this a solution seeking a problem? There may not be a problem if they can already speak to each other.

My third concern with Clause 79, and the stand part question expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, is that planning applications have to be retained for a long time. I cannot remember for how long; I think it is 30 years, but it may be longer. If that is the case, all previous planning applications going back a certain length of time would have to be put on to a new system, so that the systems could talk to each other. As all noble Lords know, there are planning applications made on the same place time and again and in different forms. I want to understand the purpose of this: why and who benefits?

Another of my concerns is this. I am in favour of digitising; I think it has huge benefits for many people, particularly planning professionals, in this case. It would be much easier to have it all online. However, if it is going to be a digital-only system, as seems to be the thrust of this group of clauses, the Government will be guilty of digital exclusion.

The Government must recognise two things. First, many people access all their digital needs only through a mobile phone. Accessing a planning application, with all its complexity, through a mobile platform will not provide the level of detail that they want. Secondly, many parts of the country still do not have either sufficiently good broadband or mobile signal. Digital exclusion could be a growing issue, especially in planning. People get involved in planning applications, big and small, and I am sure that the last thing the Government want is to exclude residents for different reasons—accessibility or knowledge of use.

I have asked many questions, but I hope the Minister is able to answer them. While digitising planning systems has many positives, they have to be weighed against some of the many negatives that exist.

18:45

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, for her valuable contribution to this debate and for focusing our attention on these provisions. In the light of her remarks, it is probably best for me to start by explaining the importance of Clause 79.

Too often, planning information is hard to use for all the purposes that it should serve. Clause 79 is designed to address this problem. Planning authorities often receive large amounts of information which requires manual intervention to make it usable. Re-entry is then required to use that information later in the system. These manual tasks take valuable time away from planning authorities performing their core role of making decisions that matter to communities.

There are three key effects of this clause. First, it works with Clause 78 to ensure that complying with data standards does not create a new bureaucratic burden for planning authorities receiving information and then having to render it compliant. Secondly, it gives planning authorities the power to require information in a manner that best suits their systems and the data standards to which they are subject. Thirdly, it protects against the risk that some may attempt to use the requirements under Clause 78 to inconvenience local authorities’ decision-making by deliberately submitting information in a problematic format that is difficult to extract.

Clause 79 also sets out the process that planning authorities must follow to exercise their powers. Publication of a notice on the planning authority website or through specific communications will be required to inform participants of what planning data will be subject to data standards when it is submitted to a planning authority. In circumstances where the data fails to comply, a notice must be served specifying the reasons for rejection.

I will deal briefly with the power of planning authorities to refuse information as non-compliant. There is no obligation for planning authorities to refuse non-compliant information. However, for the reasons I have just outlined, we expect planning authorities to accept such information only exceptionally. The Committee will see that we have taken steps to protect those who are not able to submit using the means specified by the planning authority or who cannot comply with the data standards in that submission. Where the provider of information has a reasonable excuse, information cannot be refused. Planning authorities will be under a duty to accept—

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for interrupting. I wonder whether the Minister has any statistics about the problem that these clauses are trying to solve. What is the extent of the difficulty such that, when applicants submit their planning applications to the planning authority, they then have to be manually entered or have to use a different system? Do we know the extent of that problem?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

We believe the problem to be quite considerable. I do not have statistics in front of me, but I will undertake to consult the department and see whether I can put some flesh on these bones, if the noble Baroness and others would find that helpful.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

On that point, it would be incredibly useful to have some sort of evidence base for us to consider. Can the Minister ask the department for that?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

Yes. These clauses have not just been dreamed up out of the blue.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I am sure that they have not.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

We have received representations from a number of local authorities on the difficulties that they encounter and the sheer time that it takes to process information that does not conform to their systems.

As I was about to say, where the provider of information has a reasonable excuse, information cannot be refused. Planning authorities will be under a duty to accept and fully consider this information, so those with a reasonable excuse are not disadvantaged. Where information is initially refused by a planning authority, the clause provides the discretion to accept a compliant resubmission.

In summary, this clause will ensure that, by default, information received will be usable for all of the purposes to which planning authorities need it to be put. This will make the system more efficient, enabling planning authorities to work faster and focus on planning rather than data entry. That is the main point.

I turn next to Clause 81. Outdated and expensive software is one of the barriers that local authorities face to achieving more efficient ways of working in the planning process. Systems do not work with one another, forcing manual re-entry of information while locking that information away in formats that are not reusable. Clause 81 is essential for ensuring that planning authorities can benefit from the changes in this chapter through being supported by the right software, which can process standardised data.

The intent behind Clause 81 is to ensure the provision of software that is compatible with planning data requirements, so software approval requirements will follow on from the development of data standards set under Clause 78.

Our intention is to focus on exploring software that enables better availability of information and unlocks the ability to produce better tools for planning authorities. It is therefore not our intention to require the approval of all planning data software. We will continue working with planning authorities and the technology sector to determine when and where the use of this power will most benefit the planning system. In summary, this clause is essential for delivering effective, high-quality systems which the public rightly expect of government at all levels. I commend it to the Committee.

Amendment 181, in the name of my noble friend the Duke of Montrose, relates to Clause 83, as he explained, and aims to make public the result of engagement between the UK Government and devolved Administrations. I need first to explain how this amendment impacts on the planning data section of the Bill. It is important to understand what is in scope of Clause 83 in relation to the devolved Administrations.

As it stands, the only matters within devolved competence that planning data regulations could apply to would be Part 6 of the Bill, on environmental outcomes reports, or EORs. As such, provisions relating to consultation with the devolved Administrations must be read alongside the wider EOR clauses.

As set out in Committee in the other place, the Government are continuing to work with the devolved Administrations to understand whether there is scope to extend the EOR powers to provide a shared framework of powers across the UK. Once those discussions have concluded, the Government will bring forward any necessary amendments to both Part 6 and Part 3 to reflect the agreed position between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. I reassure my noble friend and noble Lords that, in bringing forward the new system of environmental outcomes reports, the Government are committed to respecting the devolution settlements.

In answer to my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, our discussions at this stage are with the devolved Administrations rather than with, for example, the Scottish Parliament. I hope noble Lords will agree that we should not be required to make public the results of confidential policy discussions between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. For all these reasons, I hope that my noble friend will accept that his amendment is unnecessary.

Amendment 182, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State has consulted local authorities before establishing planning data regulations. Local authorities’ input on the new data requirements is of course important as we look to transition from a largely document-based planning system to one that is data-driven.

However, I reassure noble Lords that the intention of this amendment has already been built into the approach that the department has taken to design and test the new planning data requirements. As I have emphasised, the Government’s policy aim through planning data regulations is to create consistency on a national level. This includes the way local authorities process and publish planning data and will ensure that they are supported by suitable software to meet the new requirements.

Since 2019, we have been working with local authorities to test potential new requirements, such as data standards. This has provided valuable insights on the views of local authorities and the support that they will require to implement the new data requirements. We will continue this collaborative approach to establish planning data regulations.

Local authorities are the experts in the needs of their local areas, and these local views will form the basis of our national strategy around planning data, which these regulations will establish. We will continue to work collaboratively with local authorities, through running pilots and pathfinder projects, to gather our insights and design the new requirements.

I will bring another point to noble Lords’ attention. Planning data regulations under Clauses 78 and 80 will concern the form of planning data to be processed and published by local authorities. The planning information that these regulations will address will already be part of the planning system.

Given the collaborative approach that we are already taking to design the new requirements that will inform planning data regulations, I hope that I have been able to reassure the noble Baroness that local authorities’ views have been, and will continue to be, central to any planning data regulations that will be brought forward.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for giving way. I was much encouraged by his suggestion earlier: it will be helpful if the Government provide guidelines for planning data operating systems at a very early stage. I realise that my amendment was covering a very small part of the subject under discussion, but it was merely for planning data. If the discussions with the Scottish Parliament produce something different, the question of disclosure will still be important.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I take my noble friend’s point. The point that I sought to make was that, of course, the outcome of our discussions with the Scottish Administration should be reflected in the eventual regulations and indeed in what is decided on the software. I hope that he will accept that our internal discussions with the Administration are part of Government-to-Government dealings and, in the normal course, should not be made public.

I was just about to cover very briefly a question that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised about the possible transposition of existing planning records on to a new digital system. I am advised that we will not require planning authorities to completely move all their data on to a new digital planning system. The intention is for this new system to look forward prospectively, if I can put it that way.

19:00

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I thank the noble Earl very much for that information. The danger then is that, if an old software system containing planning applications from before the new software was introduced is incompatible and is therefore not transitioned across, it will not be readable by the new system for future use. That issue ought to have been considered.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

That is a very relevant point. The point that has been made to us quite forcefully is that a lot of the software that is already in use is clunky and outdated, and that somehow a solution needs to be found. Clearly, the state in which systems are at the time any new system comes into play will vary from local authority to local authority. I will investigate that point further and, if I can elucidate the issue, I will gladly do so.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

In his normal calm and reassuring way, the Minister pointed out on Clause 81 that there may be some leeway regarding the software that could be used. However, I will read what is in the Bill, so that the Minister can explain why there will be leeway. The power is

“to require use of approved planning data software in England”,

and the clause says:

“Planning data regulations may make provision restricting or preventing a relevant planning authority in England from using or creating, or having any right in relation to, planning data … which … is not approved in writing by the Secretary of State.”


How will that leeway come in if the Bill says that the software has to be approved in writing by the Secretary of State, and that a planning authority in England cannot use it if it is not?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I simply come back to the point I am trying to emphasise, which is that the watchword here is collaboration, between central government and local authorities. We want to get this right to get a solution that local authorities themselves are comfortable with and which is compatible, authority to authority. Although the noble Lord is correct to quote the Bill as he has, our intention is not to require approval for all planning data software.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

That is impossible given how Clause 81 is written, because it makes provision for

“restricting or preventing a relevant planning authority”

if software is not approved by the Secretary of State. I understand the intention, but does the Minister agree that, as Clause 81 is written, what he wishes to see is actually not allowed by the Bill?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I can only supplement what the Bill says by saying that we do not intend to introduce any requirement for approval without the appropriate exploratory work and engagement with local authorities.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate. I thank the Minister for his customarily very detailed and helpful response. We talked briefly about the evidence base behind these clauses. It would be helpful, as he suggested, to have that provided. It would also be useful to know how up to date the information in that evidence base is.

Regarding Clause 81, will the Government support the changes they are proposing to local authorities to update their software with the resources to enable them to do so? It is pretty expensive, and we know that local authorities are not exactly flush at the moment. It will be important for there to be proper funding and resources for local authorities that need to change their software.

It was good to have the further clarification that the Minister gave to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, just now that the Secretary of State would not have to approve all software. The Minister said that this is the intention. Unfortunately, as has just been said, that intention is not clear at all in the wording. I suggest that he mentions to his department and to officials that the wording, both in the Bill and in the Explanatory Notes, could perhaps be revisited to make that really clear, because many local authorities are worrying a lot about the implications of that wording. Perhaps a slight change might resolve some of the concerns.

Finally, my noble friend Lady Wilcox has now left, but she asked me to point out very politely to noble Lords that, in May 2020, the Welsh Assembly became the Senedd and they are now the Welsh Government.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

Through the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, I apologise for any misspeak that I may have committed. I also take on board the points she just made about costs in particular.

Clause 79 agreed.

Clauses 80 to 82 agreed.

Clause 83: Requirements to consult devolved administrations

Amendment 181 not moved.

Clause 83 agreed.

Amendment 182 not moved.

Clause 84 agreed.

Clause 85: Development plans: content

Amendment 183

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

183: Clause 85, page 94, line 8, at end insert—
“(3A) After subsection (4) insert—“(4A) A local planning authority must review and update the development plan at least once every five years.””Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would require local authorities to review and update the development plan at least every five years.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, as we begin our discussions on the detail of the planning section of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, it is important to explain that, although our amendments necessarily cover the detail of the various clauses, there is huge concern in local government about some of the fundamental principles that underlie the proposed changes in the Bill. We absolutely must ensure that local plans, with the input of local people and democratically elected representatives, retain their primacy over anything that is drawn up centrally in Whitehall.

As currently written, whether intentional or not, the Bill would give primacy to the national department management policies, which is a very significant change indeed from the National Planning Policy Framework that currently exists and which, as we discussed earlier, is guidance rather than statue. We all recognise the need to have a framework to guide planning policy, but it should always give primacy and flexibility to local areas to ensure that planning meets their local needs, enables the voice of their local residents and businesses to be expressed through the planning system, and meets the test of local democratic accountability that is so important in shaping our places.

Noble Lords will have received significant numbers of briefings on this part of the Bill, as we have, from some of the most respected bodies in this field: the Local Government Association, the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Town and Country Planning Association, CPRE and the Better Planning Coalition. It is fair to say that most of them welcome the focus on planning in the Bill, although perhaps some of them, like me, would have preferred a dedicated planning Bill, which would have enabled an even greater focus on what needs to be done to make our planning system fit for the 21st century.

All these organisations focus on the essential element of planning, which is that it must be local and properly engage local people and businesses. The Royal Town Planning Institute, for example, says:

“If those living in newly devolved areas are going to truly benefit from the Bill they need to be given the planning freedoms to innovate and deliver planning policy that works best for them. We’ve seen that development management policies can be an effective tool to stimulate growth, provide energy, transport and housing decisions strategically, and experiment with different policy options to meet local needs.”


The Local Government Association expresses considerable concern about the ability to retain local autonomy and decision-making over plans in the light of the NDMP proposals in the Bill, saying that,

“in reality, local plans will be constrained in the event that they conflict with National Development Management Policies, in which case the latter will take precedence. We have previously sought an amendment to reverse this proposal so that local plans will take precedence in the event of conflict. This is critical to ensure that that one of the key principles of the planning reforms—‘a genuinely plan-led system’— is enshrined in the Bill.”

The LGA goes on to emphasise that local councils should have the flexibility to respond to local, complex and changing circumstances.

The CPRE has gone to the extent of seeking extensive legal advice on these issues. It strongly supports our Amendments 189, 190, 191 and 192, as well as an amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. It has provided a detailed legal critique, particularly regarding Clause 86, which questions whether there is any legal scope for local development plans and NDMPs to vary from each other in any way, which, as it puts it, is likely to dissuade local authorities from seeking to set local policies for fear that they will be rendered obsolete by subsequent changes to NDMPs. It goes on to comment that according to Clause 86 as drafted, if there were to be a tension between a national policy and a local one, there could be no assessment of balance. The national policy would always win out, despite its not having been given any democratic scrutiny. The decision-makers’ scope to make a locally appropriate decision is therefore removed.

The CPRE is also concerned about the fate of neighbourhood plans under this proposed new system, as it says they could become out of date quickly if NDMPs change—for example, if there is a change of Secretary of State, which is not an unusual occurrence in recent times. For communities which have spent months or years working on their neighbourhood plan, this could destroy their trust in the planning system. The CPRE’s legal opinion from Landmark Chambers in November last year demonstrated that the Bill is a radical departure from the current system and would elevate NDMPs to the top of the planning hierarchy, a position which the Government at Second Reading stated was not the intention of the legislation. However, it appears from the way the Bill is currently drafted that it takes planning into uncharted waters which are both centralising and undemocratic.

We come to this important group of amendments with that backdrop, which is a very important context against which we should consider this section of the Bill. My Amendment 183, along with amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Lansley, address issues relating to how local plans are kept up to date. I have to say that planning officers may feel that they are already in a situation where local plans are permanently in preparation. That is because the many stages of plan preparation take a long time, as does the process of inspection, public inquiry and so on. All this means that by the time you have a full plan in place, you are already dealing with the review of that plan.

However, with the pace of change, rapid developments in the economy and the need to take account of demographics and changes in our communities and to tackle climate change, we must ensure that we simplify and enable the renewing and refreshing of development plans every five years. This would ensure that local authorities do not have to face the cliff edge of an enormous, complex and expensive planning exercise which would result in the longer intervals of up to 30 years given between plan reviews. This will require corresponding changes within the Planning Inspectorate, but they would need to be considered in relation to the Bill in any case.

19:15

Amendment 189, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, is a probing amendment to express our concern that Parliament might have no say in determining or scrutinising the national development management policies as the Bill is currently written. Clause 87 appears to give all the powers to the Secretary of State, saying that such policies are

“a policy … of the Secretary of State in relation to the development or use of land in England, or any part of England, which the Secretary of State by direction designates”.

This is an astonishing, centralising and undemocratic move. I doubt whether the current Secretary of State has ever even visited Stevenage, so just how he would be able to come to conclusions about the best planning policies for our area, or any area, from his office in Whitehall, I am completely unsure.

Amendment 190, also tabled by my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, aims to curb the centralising tendencies in Clause 87 by stating that policies in the NDMP should not impose absolute standards on local authorities as they make their local plans, and suggests instead that minimum standards are applied. Amendment 191 probes the powers given in Clause 87 to the Secretary of State unilaterally to amend or modify national management development policies. My Amendment 191B aims to deal with our concerns at the heart of the centralising of planning proposals as currently written into the Bill, by introducing requirements relating to sustainability assessments of NDMP policies and increasing the public consultation requirement and parliamentary scrutiny based on the processes in the Planning Act 2008 for setting out national planning policy statements.

It bears restating that it simply cannot be right that the Secretary of State can determine, revoke and amend planning policies that affect every single place in the country without appropriate public consultation or any parliamentary scrutiny.

Amendment 194 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock addresses transparency relating to the cost of this new NDMP process and would ensure that there is an annual statement of those costs. It also refers to questions which still need to be answered about how local authorities will be supported to make changes arising from NDMPs. Presumably if the Secretary of State can amend them at any time, at any time a diktat could come down and local authorities would have to deal with it. This amendment is about how they would be supported to do so.

I have referred previously to our concerns about the potential for the centralising proposals in the Bill to silence parliamentary and local voices and diminish the democracy of the planning process. My noble friend Lady Hayman’s Amendment 196 attempts to address this by asking for a strategy on public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny of national management development policies to be published by the Government within 120 days of the Act being passed. We are interested to hear the Minister’s views on this.

My Amendment 216 would give local authorities the flexibility and freedom to act in accordance with the needs of their economy, local area and public consultation by removing the requirement that they comply with the NDMP where the national policies conflict with the interests of their areas. In a similar vein, Amendment 220 gives flexibility to local authorities to set their local plans according to local needs where these conflict with national development management policies.

The planning clauses of the Bill as currently written will override the stated intention of the Government, which is towards devolution. Centralising planning and preventing it taking account of the voices of local people and their democratically elected representatives, let alone giving ultimate power to the Secretary of State to determine planning policy with no parliamentary scrutiny, is taking it in entirely the wrong direction, back to the dark ages rather than forward to the kind of democracy where people can participate and engage in decision-making, where they feel they have had a say in place-making for the area in which they live and work, and develop the kind of trust in institutions entrusted with planning that will enable wider confidence in the system to level up and regenerate every part of the UK. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 184A and 187A in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Lansley, which ensure that planning decisions are taken in line with an up-to-date plan. An up-to-date plan is defined as one that is less than five years old. I am a strong believer in a plan-led system. With apologies for referring again to my chequered career in government, the Planning and Compensation Act 1991, which I took through the other place, introduced for the first time the primacy of the local plan. Up until then, it had equal weight with other material considerations. That position was confirmed in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.

However, you cannot have a plan-led system unless you have a plan. Only 39% of local planning authorities have an up-to-date local plan. The number of plans adopted in 2021 and 2022 are 16 and 13 respectively, which are the lowest annual numbers since the inception of the NPPF back in 2012. The average between 2014 and 2021 was 35. More worryingly, since Christmas last year, 47 local plans have been delayed following the publication of the consultation document over Christmas, as local authorities hope to reduce their housing numbers. This is something I will develop when we get to the group beginning Amendment 207.

There is much in the Bill that I welcome. There are measures to streamline and simplify the plan-making process. I welcome the introduction of commencement orders, the uplift in planning fees and the simplification of the procedure for CPOs. But we need to do more to incentivise local planning authorities to produce up-to-date plans, as well as considering more effective sanctions for those that do not.

These two amendments, in effect, put into law the current guidance from the NPPF, which the Government are not proposing to change. Paragraph 15 of the 2021 NPPF says:

“The planning system should be genuinely plan-led. Succinct and up-to-date plans should provide a positive vision for the future of each area”.


The PPG chapter on plan-making says

“local planning authorities must review local plans … at least once every 5 years from their adoption date”.

That is exactly what Amendment 184A does, so I look forward to my noble friend saying that it has found favour with the Government.

On this subject, I ask the Government whether they have a target for a date by when 100% of England will be covered by local plans. The real problem at the moment is the uncertainty of the planning system. It is a real issue for local planning authorities, developers and local communities. Having up-to-date plans in place provides the certainty that everyone requires if the planning system is to be transparent, if it is to minimise risk and if local communities are to know what the future holds. By providing greater certainty through the requirement for development plans to be up to date, the Government can assist everyone to engage with the system and understand the outcomes. All the amendments seek is to ensure that the Bill reflects the guidance set out in the current NPPF in a paragraph which is not to be changed. The amendments seek to reinforce the fundamental underlying premise at the heart of the English planning system that it should be plan-led and give certainty to stakeholders, particularly local communities.

In passing, I ask whether the Government will now close a loophole in the present regime for five-year plans. Under the current system, local planning authorities can review their local plan under paragraph 33 of the NPPF and Regulation 10A of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012, whereby they assess whether the plan needs updating. That process is not subject to any public scrutiny. A local planning authority can simply document the process and resolve through the committee process that the plan does not require a formal update. No one can then challenge that decision and it resets the clock on the up-to-date status of the plan. This means that a local planning authority could underdeliver on housing requirements in the first five years of a plan, simply choose to review the plan using the process I have just outlined and determine that the plan did not need updating. As a result, it would not need to demonstrate a five-year housing supply for the next five years. That simply cannot be right, and I hope that the Government will close that loophole.

While I am on my feet, I will speak briefly to Amendment 221 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, which would enable the Secretary of State to include older people’s housing needs in the local plan. I pay tribute to the work the noble Lord, Lord Best, has done in this area for many years. One-third of local plans have no provision at all for older people, although some 3 million older people would like to move but cannot because of the lack of suitable accommodation. I will amplify the case in a moment, but I begin by asking about progress on the task force announced over a year ago.

On page 226 of the levelling up White Paper from 2 February last year, it says:

“A new Task Force will be launched shortly to look at ways better choice, quality and security of housing for older people can be provided”.


Over 10 months later, nothing had happened. On 22 December the consultation paper said:

“Alongside this, we are also launching a taskforce … This taskforce will explore how we can improve the choice of and access to housing options for older people”.


On 17 February 2023, the shadow Minister for Health and Social care in the other place, Liz Kendall, tabled a Written Question asking the Government when the task force will be launched. The Government’s response did not provide a date and said:

“Announcements will be made in the usual way.”


She then tabled a similar Parliamentary Question on 14 March, which I understand is awaiting a response.

This is not a happy story. I hope my noble friend can explain why there has been this extraordinary delay in the establishment of this important task force. It could address a wider range of issues than just planning; for example, the possible abolition of stamp duty for older people trading down and the role of Homes England in providing affordable homes for rent or shared ownership for older people. It could look at consumer protection issues for older people subject to high service charges. We need an urgent progress report on the task force.

I turn to the amendment. The December consultation paper had a specific question:

“Do you agree that we should amend existing paragraph 62 of the Framework to support the supply of specialist older people’s housing?”


The answer to this is yes. Research has shown that there is demand for some 30,000 units of retirement housing a year, but the current supply is only 8,000. The noble Lord, Lord Best, chaired an inquiry by the APPG on Housing and Care for Older People, Making Retirement Living Affordable. That underlined the need for more investment in the market, focusing on the potential for shared ownership.

The debate on housing often focuses on numbers, such as the 300,000 target. Equally important is whether the make-up of those numbers matches the needs of the population. As England’s demography changes, with the increase in smaller, older households, we are grappling with the legacy of a housing stock configured for a different age. The shortage of accommodation for last-time buyers or renters is impeding the optimum utilisation of a commodity in short supply. To rectify this, we need to focus new build on addressing this imbalance. Because new build is such a small percentage of the overall stock, it needs disproportionate emphasis in five-year plans. One option would be the development of a use class for specialist housing for older people with a specific target; say, 10% of all new units for older people. If one wanted to give this use class a boost, it could be exempt from CIL or Section 106 contributions.

In developing this policy, it is important that older people are not treated as a homogenous group with identical needs, no more than we would treat people with a disability as having identical needs. Planning for the elderly needs to be more granular and assess the various options—for example, retirement or sheltered homes; housing with care, sometimes called integrated retirement communities or supported housing; care homes; and nursing homes—looking at the configurations in each planning area. People do not want to have to move to find a suitable home to retire to.

Then there is the wider benefit if a greater supply of retirement housing can be achieved: significant health and well-being benefits for older people, reduced public spending on health and social care, and an increase in the vibrancy of the second-hand market, freeing up more opportunities for first-time buyers to enter the market. The Bill provides a real opportunity to rectify this imbalance in the nature of our housing stock, and we should take it.

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.31 pm.

Rent Officers (Housing Benefit and Universal Credit Functions) (Modification) Order 2023

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Motion to Regret

19:31

Moved by

[Lord Shipley]

That this House regrets that the Rent Officers (Housing Benefit and Universal Credit Functions) (Modification) Order 2023 will freeze Local Housing Allowance (LHA) at the levels applied in April 2020 and therefore fails to account for inflationary increases in rent, resulting in vulnerable claimants spending a greater proportion of income on rent; further recognises that His Majesty’s Government’s inability to control inflation has resulted in unaffordable rents and contributed to housing insecurity for all tenants; and calls on His Majesty’s Government to align LHA with local housing rates.

Relevant document: 27th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I move this Motion on behalf of my noble friend Lady Thornhill, who cannot be here today because she tested positive for Covid last night. She sends her apologies to the House, and I am sure we all wish her a speedy recovery. I draw the House’s attention to the wording of the Motion. Special attention is drawn to the instrument in the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s 27th report.

No one in our society should be without a home but, due to successive freezes in local housing allowance, more and more people are being pushed into homelessness. This evening I will challenge the Government to reconsider urgently the decision to impose further real-terms cuts on local housing allowance this year. Last week the chief executive of Crisis described this decision as

“nothing short of crushing for people who rely on this vital lifeline”.

More than 1.87 million private renters on low incomes rely on local housing allowance to help pay their rent —this is more than one in three private renters.

It was right for the Prime Minister to act to protect these households during the pandemic, when as Chancellor he invested in the local housing allowance so that it would cover the cheapest 30% of rents in a local area. That meant that people were able to sustain tenancies during a period of hardship, and it also helped people who had been trapped in homelessness into tenancies. It is worrying that this progress has not been sustained. Despite inflation and rising rents, local housing allowance remains at the same cash level as three years ago, based on rent levels from four years ago. As the report by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee highlights, the Explanatory Memorandum did not “explain the policy objective” of the Rent Officers (Housing Benefit and Universal Credit Functions) (Modification) Order 2023 or explain what its effects would be on the recipients of local housing allowance.

However, the Government’s own figures show how severe the consequences are. Landlord repossessions increased by 98% at the end of last year. For every household facing eviction or rent rises it cannot afford, moving house is incredibly difficult to afford; for some, it is impossible. Advertised rents have risen at record rates since 2020, with Zoopla estimating an increase of 12.1% in the last year alone. Some areas have seen particularly high increases: rents are up 15.6% in Manchester, 14.1% in Glasgow and 17% in London.

In recent weeks, DWP Ministers have said that local housing allowance is not intended to cover all rents in all areas—nobody is calling for that, but surely the Government agree that it should cover some rents in all areas. Dataset after dataset shows that, in significant parts of this country, a household would simply not be able to find any properties to rent at local housing allowance levels. In July last year, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that only seven properties were advertised at local housing allowance levels across Wales. More recently, in February, the Bevan Foundation found that 16 local authorities in Wales did not have a single property advertised that was affordable on local housing allowance. Last autumn, Crisis and Zoopla found that only 8% of properties advertised across England over the previous 12 months were affordable on local housing allowance. In Watford, only 4% were affordable on local housing allowance. Overall, nearly a quarter of local authorities had fewer than 20 properties available at local housing allowance rates, and more than 100 local authorities had 3% of properties or fewer affordable on local housing allowance. For context, 38% of private renting households rely on local housing allowance to help pay their rent.

With an acute shortage of social housing, we need far more housing for social rent. As Members in this Chamber today have constantly pointed out over recent years, our building rate of social housing for rent has simply been far too slow. With that acute shortage of social housing, many people on low incomes have no alternative to renting in the private sector. As that becomes unaffordable, homelessness is rising. Having made progress in ending rough sleeping during the pandemic, the Government have now overseen a 26% rise in rough sleeping in England in the last year.

Investing in local housing allowance prevents people experiencing homelessness and makes it easier for people to move out of homelessness. As well as being one of the most effective ways to prevent homelessness, uprating local housing allowance would lead to savings across public services. Almost 100,000 households are stuck in temporary accommodation in England, including more than 125,000 children. Temporary accommodation costs local authorities nearly £1.6 billion a year. Staying in temporary accommodation, including unsuitable hotels and B&Bs, also has a damaging impact on people’s lives, making it harder for people to work, get their kids to school and stay healthy.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has been clear that the choice to freeze local housing allowance is resulting in wide geographic disparities, whereby low-income renters in some areas can get the cheapest rents almost covered, whereas those in other areas must find an extra £150 a month to top up their rent, or face homelessness. Last month, Sam Ray-Chaudhuri of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said of investing to uprate local housing allowance:

“This isn’t an expensive policy”.


In a debate that can be overly focused on averages and aggregate costs, I will conclude with the experience of what it feels like for people on the brink of homelessness. One person—who it is not possible to name, but it is on the public record—has described how the rising cost of living was affecting him. He said,

“I wasn’t even earning enough money to be able to pay for the rent that I had currently for two years been paying, which was £870 a month, plus all of the other bills. And then of course when [the landlord] came back to me he said, ‘I put it up to £1200 because that is the going rate,’ and I just thought I have no hope … of being able to find that extra money, because it was hand to mouth pretty much all the time … to be able to find another £400 a month was just absolutely impossible. So, I had to tell the estate agent that I wasn’t going to be taking the lease on again and I was going to have to find other accommodation.”

There are plenty of people like that, and the other accommodation that they would like is just not there. Hostels, sofas and rough sleeping are what remains for far too many people, and the instrument we are debating does not offer them a route out. Unless the Government change their approach, thousands more people will be forced into homelessness over the coming months. With that, I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for tabling the regret Motion and to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for moving it. I hope that the noble Baroness will be better soon.

The regret Motion follows a highly critical report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. The importance of the issues it raises was reflected in the unusually large number of very helpful briefings I received when I tabled an Oral Question on the issue recently and the “huge amount of evidence” on the impact of the freeze received by the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee recent inquiry into the private rented sector. As the Commons Library briefing on the LHA notes:

“Numerous bodies, including homeless charities, the representative bodies of local authorities and private landlords, are making the case for LHA rates to be uprated to cover at least the 30th percentile of local rents, alongside relinking rates to the real cost of renting for future years.”


According to the IFS, the freeze means that just 8% of low-income private renters now have all their rent covered by housing benefits, compared with almost half in the mid-1990s. For nearly a third of them, the amount of rent not covered eats up at least a third of non-housing benefits income, a situation faced by just 14% of the group in the mid-1990s.

This is one reason why analysis from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation indicates that the cost of housing for private tenants is a key driver of poverty today, most starkly for families with children. The more that private tenants are having to use their non-housing universal credit to meet their rents, the less that next month’s 10.1% increase in universal credit and other benefits—which no doubt the Minister will pray in aid —will help them to meet other basic costs, such as food.

A recent report by the JRF and the Trussell Trust shows how universal credit is too low in any case to meet the most basic of needs. A piece in my local paper, the Nottingham Post, just last week cited the growing gap between the LHA and increasing rents as an important factor in the worrying increase in arrears and everyday living debts seen by the local Citizens Advice.

In his helpful letter following the uprating debate, the Minister said that DWP is working closely with DLUHC to monitor rental shortfalls. Could he tell us what their assessment is of the average shortfall and of the numbers affected? Following my Oral Question, he promised to write to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, with a reply to his question as to what proportion of those receiving the LHA are unemployed and therefore more reliant on this money to pay their rent. Could he share that information—in a letter, if necessary—with the rest of us and include other private tenants without earnings?

The other reason that this is so important is that the inability to meet the full rent can tip people into homelessness, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, and as the homelessness charities have warned. So far, the Minister has carefully avoided answering questions as to the likely impact on homelessness of freezing the LHA yet again. I cannot believe that the Government have not done some kind of assessment of the likely impact, so I would be grateful if he could share it with us.

Hitherto, whenever this issue has been raised in either House, the ministerial response has been woefully inadequate. There seems to be three stock justifications, none of which is convincing. The first is simply the cost, which, it is suggested, cannot be borne in addition to the general benefit uprating. I have already indicated why this is short-sighted from the perspective of individuals suffering the consequences, but as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has highlighted, it is also short-sighted from a public-spending perspective, because of the knock-on effects on public services through homelessness, short-term accommodation and both physical and mental health. Have the Government made an estimate of those knock-on costs? From last week’s Westminster Hall debate, it would appear not, which betrays a very narrow approach to assessing the cost of policies to the public purse.

19:45

Secondly, there is the inevitable reference to discretionary housing payments and, to a lesser extent, the household support fund. Discretionary cash-limited funds such as those are not suitable for meeting ongoing weekly costs, and lack the security provided by weekly benefits themselves. Moreover, according to Shelter, the DHP budget was cut by nearly a third in 2022-23, and the Government’s own data show that councils are already struggling to meet need. Shelter notes that 31 English councils had spent three-quarters or more of their allocation before the winter had even started, with some on the brink of running out of funding. It warns that local authorities are under pressure to cope with the worsening inadequacy of LHA rates with less DHP funding than at any time since 2013. In answer to a follow-up question to my Oral Question, the Minister said that he would see whether it would be possible to publish the information from local authorities on how these discretionary funds are spent. Perhaps he could let us know now or follow up in a letter.

Thirdly, there is an attempt to justify the freeze on the grounds that, to quote the Minister, it

“it is right that the money we give is properly targeted to those who are in genuine need.”—[Official Report, 22/2/23; cols. GC 476]

The LHA is already targeted by way of means testing. Moreover, it provides a vital lifeline for groups in vulnerable circumstances, such as survivors of domestic abuse and violence. As a briefing from Crisis, together with 14 organisations in the poverty and domestic abuse sectors, points out, access to

“affordable housing is a key factor in decision-making about whether they stay with, or leave, an abuser”,

and research shows that possible homelessness is a barrier to many deciding to leave. Crisis cites the experience of the domestic abuse charity Hestia, which is finding that families are having to stay longer in refuges because they cannot meet the rising cost of a home to rent.

To the extent that the LHA helps to prevent homelessness, surely maintaining it at a level that bears a realistic relationship to local rents is a well-targeted use of public money, especially given the impact of homelessness on children and on the ability to respond to the Government’s desire to see more people in paid work.

Crisis concludes:

“Investment in housing benefit rates is well-targeted at people who are facing the greatest pressures as a result of the cost of living crisis.”

Is Crisis wrong? If yes, could the Minister explain why? Are these groups not in genuine need? If they are not, why should local authorities be expected to help them out using their limited funds? How does the targeting argument stand up in the face of the

“(increasingly) large and arbitrary variations in entitlements”

across the country, as demonstrated by the IFS?

It was desperately disappointing that, despite many representations, there was no mention of the LHA in the Budget—a Budget which targeted billions of pounds of pensions tax relief at the top 1%, yet could not find the £600 million to £700 million needed to protect low-income private tenants. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary responded to last week’s Westminster Hall debate with the comment that

“the challenging fiscal environment has led to where we are”,—[Official Report, Commons, 15/3/23; col. 372WH.]

as if the Government had no agency in the matter. In fact, they have made a clear choice to target resources to very high earners at the expense of low-income private tenants. There is no point in those on the Front Bench shaking their heads; it is absolutely true.

It is not good enough for the Secretary of State to say that he will consider the concerns raised by many parliamentarians and others when it comes to deciding on next year’s uprating. That means any increase is at least a year away. What are those who rely on the LHA supposed to do in the meantime? How are they supposed to feed themselves and their families, keep warm and keep a roof over their heads? I have twice asked the Minister what advice he would give to someone in this wretched situation and twice he has avoided answering. Perhaps he could do so on this third attempt.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for bringing forward this Motion, and I send my best wishes for a very speedy recovery to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill.

It is certainly a matter of regret that the 2020 freeze on the local housing allowance is to be perpetuated, despite rent rising considerably in a number of places. When the local housing allowance which caps housing benefit falls behind market rents, tenants must make up the shortfall by finding the money from their other benefits intended to cover food, clothing, heating, et cetera. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in partnership with the Trussell Trust shows that universal credit for everyday living costs is already at a critically low level; there is absolutely no room here to pay for a rental shortfall.

Of course, what these households need is secure accommodation provided at social rents, far below the market rents of the private landlord. But as we all know, there is the most acute shortage of available social rented housing. With the social housing sector halving to 17% and the private rented sector doubling over recent years to around 19% of the nation’s homes, more and more households have had to turn to the private rented sector. But private landlords in most places have no need to take in anyone in receipt of housing benefit at a lower rent than they can get from the market.

The freeze puts terrible strains on local authorities that are working to reduce homelessness. How on earth can they fulfil the statutory duty to house families and vulnerable people when there is an absence of social housing and when rents present an insuperable barrier in the private sector? The only answer is to secure a place for them in temporary accommodation, which, as graphically described by Shelter in its recent report entitled Still Living in Limbo, is often of the most abysmal quality, often overcrowded and far from their previous home, friends, schools and family. Temporary accommodation now accommodates nearly 100,000 households, including over 125,000 children, at a cost of £1.6 billion per annum.

I have heard the argument, which was addressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that the problem of the rental shortfall—the gap between rent and housing benefit—can be overcome by the tenant obtaining an emergency discretionary housing payment, or DHP. Sadly, this safety net is not any kind of proper solution. DHPs represent less than 0.5% of total housing benefit expenditure and are usually for a few months only. There is no way in which DHPs can save tenants in a wide spectrum of extreme circumstances, including all those afflicted by the LHA freeze. I gather from housing expert Sam Lister at the Chartered Institute of Housing that last week, the Treasury announced that the total for DHPs for the next two years will be much lower than in any of the preceding 10 years, despite the extra pressures the continuing LHA freeze will bring.

It is understandable that the Government do not wish to pay more to private landlords. The total cost to the nation of housing benefit is around £22 billion per annum. Blame for this predicament must fall on the Chancellor’s predecessors, who made short- term savings by cutting up-front grants for social housing. Grants paid for new social housing would have secured homes at lower rents for decades. For the longer term, the answer is to rebalance the rented stock so there is more social housing to go around. To accelerate this, government funding for acquisition and modernisation of run-down privately rented stock by social landlords is a solution that saves money over the years ahead.

However, the immediate regret is that perpetuating the LHA freeze will bite harder and harder as private rents inexorably increase. Citizens Advice has calculated the proportion of all households in a critical financial state that would be rescued by the lifting of the LHA cap. The answer is that this action by the Chancellor would take about 10% of these households out of their current financial crisis—by no means a panacea for all the problems of negative budgets and debilitating poverty, but a significant and simple way in which to make a huge difference to the lives of the hardest pressed of our fellow citizens.

I support the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in his Motion to Regret.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I am very pleased to take part in this short debate. I would like to add my support to the Motion proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and along with others wish her a speedy recovery. I am grateful for the impressive way in which the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, took this on at very short notice.

I declare my interest as set out in the register, I am the owner of one apartment, in Birmingham, currently privately let. I echo the concerns of other noble Lords. I had intended to add further statistics—I am a mathematician by background—but I think noble Lords have had enough numbers in this short debate already.

It is my privilege to chair the Manchester Homelessness Partnership, which brings together our city council along with public sector bodies, the private sector, universities, the blue light services, health services and charities. We have fought hard and long and we have actually got rough sleeping down in our city since its peak in 2018. But increasingly, my colleagues and I are finding that those who end up on the streets are not there for the usual reasons, such as the breakdown of a marital relationship or leaving the parental home after a dispute. It is also not just about mental health, although that is still a major concern. Increasingly, it is simply because they have lost a private tenancy due to being unable to pay the rent. We have heard how rents have gone up, but homelessness carries a huge cost. It is a heavy drain on public funds, as we have heard, but even more critically, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has said, it wrecks the lives of ordinary, decent members of our communities. It does not take long to end up homeless, but it takes years to get out of the pit you have fallen into. It is a long, slow and painful process, as I know from having befriended people who have been rough sleepers on the streets of my city.

I am also concerned by the opaque nature of explanatory material on this SI, provided by the Department for Work and Pensions. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report states that the explanatory material laid in support of the statutory instrument

“provides insufficient information to gain a clear understanding about the instrument’s policy objective and intended implementation”.

Indeed, it does not do much more than to state that,

“for 2021/22 and 2022/23, all rates were frozen at the same cash levels that were set in 2020/21”.

That is not an explanation—and there is no understanding of the policy in that. As the committee’s report states, this makes the House’s scrutiny role much more challenging. We need to know why something is being done if we are to scrutinise it properly.

To conclude, I add my support to the noble Baroness’s Motion and echo the calls of many in the housing sector, as well as noble Lords in this debate, who are urging the Government to unfreeze local housing allowance now.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to offer the Green group’s support for this regret Motion and to echo others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, wishing her all the best and thanking the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for his excellent introduction.

In formal terms, this is a Motion to Regret, but what is very clear from this debate is that it is really an expression of horror at the infliction of poverty, inequality and deep suffering on people who are in that situation through absolutely no fault of their own but as a result of—as the noble Lord, Lord Best, said—decades of government policy that have seen housing treated primarily as a financial asset rather than homes that should be secure, affordable places for people to live in. That includes the great privatisation of the right-to-buy policy, the failure to keep building council homes and the reliance on a handful of private sector builders whose profits keep going up while the rest of us suffer—a structure that reflects so much of our economy.

20:00

I echo the comments of the right reverend Prelate. I really think that the Government, reading the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee report, should be absolutely embarrassed. It is clear that the committee had to act like a dentist drilling into a hole so as to uncover basic facts that should have been in the government statement itself We have discussed the issue of cost and, thanks to its work, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has deduced from the information provided by the Government that the decision

“represents a saving to the DWP in the order of £600 million.”

I went looking for comparisons for that and found quite a few. To pick out one: that is 1/60th of the money estimated to be lost to tax dodging every year. Where does the money come from? Let us make corporations and rich individuals pay just a tiny fraction more of what they should be paying in tax and it would cover the Government’s costs.

We have already had an extensive account of just how awfully inadequate the levels of housing support are. The Chartered Institute of Housing has described this as a “huge gap in support” for private tenants. As with so many government decisions, this issue is particularly affecting the young with greatest force. The LHA shared rate for those who are single and under the age of 35 only covered the rents in 10% or less of cases, or seven out of 10 local housing markets. In one in 10 housing markets, there are no shared properties within the LHA rate.

To look at what is happening as a measure of the failed government policy that we started with, a report last year by Shelter showed that private rents across the country have gone up by 5% to 8% since the LHA was frozen in response to the pandemic in 2020. However, that is, again, another best guess, another deduction. If we look at the figures from the Office for National Statistics, rents in the UK increased by 4.4% between January 2022 and 2023 alone. That is the largest increase that the ONS has recorded since it began these records in 2016.

The fact is that this is only what is measured. The reality of rent inflation is worse. Unlike house prices, which are recorded in the Land Registry, there is no central registry for rents. The attempt by the ONS to collect this data is still what it describes as “experimental”. It is based on newly advertised properties and does not cover what happens within tenancies. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence around of private renters saying that their rent has gone up by 20%, 30% or 50% while they stay in place, struggling on as best they can. Those are the kinds of figures that are simply not even being recorded in the horror stats that we are now reflecting on.

This truly is an indefensible statutory instrument. I cannot help thinking that, because it is a financial matter, this House is not in a position to move a fatal Motion—but, boy, should we be doing that if we want to act for some of the poorest, most disadvantaged people in the most desperate circumstances in our country.

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

My Lords, like others, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for tabling her Motion and wish her a speedy recovery. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for moving the Motion on her behalf. I say at the outset that I think I agree with every word that every noble Lord has said so far in this short debate on the regulations before us.

When local housing allowances were introduced in 2008, the aim was to reach up to the 50th percentile of all rents in a broad rental area. In other words, people on benefits could afford to live in the cheapest half of rented properties in the area that they live in. However, from 2011, that all changed. First, LHA rates were downgraded to the cheapest 30% of local properties. Then, rather than moving with rent levels, LHA rates were uprated by inflation, then by just 1% and, finally, they were frozen in 2016. The result was that, by 2020, LHA rates bore no connection to the actual rents in local areas. In 2020, the Government restored them to the 30th percentile, only to then freeze them in cash terms. This year, although Ministers finally agreed to raise most benefits by inflation, they excluded LHA rates. The effect of this freeze is seen in a growing gap between the actual rents that people pay and the amount of housing support that they can receive—an approach that the Institute for Fiscal Studies said was

“arbitrary and unfair, and its consequences will only become more bizarre over time.”

There is deep and widespread concern in the housing world about the effects of this policy. The Northern Housing Consortium told Ministers that

“a continued freeze on LHA would make it even harder for existing private renters to make ends meet, risking homelessness and making it increasingly difficult for local authorities to discharge their homelessness duties effectively.”

It reported in the Northern Housing Monitor 2022 that only 7% of rental adverts were affordable to those reliant on LHA in the north. The National Residential Landlords Association says that the LHA rate freeze has

“led to the proportion of landlords letting to tenants in receipt of benefits falling over the past decade.”

If supply falls, demand does not, if only because there is no alternative. The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, in its report on the private rented sector in February—my noble friend Lady Lister made reference to this report—concluded that the failure to ensure LHA rates keep pace with market rents

“is quite obviously making the private rented sector even less affordable for many people who are only there because the social housing sector has been cut back and can no longer accommodate them.”

That is the problem.

Unsurprisingly, given high inflation and the pressure on supply, while LHA rates are frozen in cash terms, private sector rents have continued to rise, so the gap is getting bigger year on year. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that, compared with uprating LHAs to match local rents, the freeze will reduce support for nearly 1.1 million households by an average of £50 per month, saving the Government more than £650 million in 2023-24. That is on top of the amount that people were already having to find as a top-up. Over 800,000 households in the private rented sector face a shortfall between their rent and their local housing allowance, including over half of all universal credit households who rent privately. The Institute for Fiscal Studies further says that

“two-thirds of lower income privately renting households must cover at least a quarter of their rent from sources other than housing support.”

The House of Commons Library briefing, which has been referred to in this debate, says that, from April 2023, on average, households will need to top up their rent by

“just under £750 a year.”

People in households with a disabled person are more likely to be hit by LHA shortfalls. Paul Sylvester, head of housing operations at Bristol City Council, told the Work and Pensions Select Committee in 2021 that half the households they saw with a shortfall included a disabled person. They were increasingly seeing disabled people forced to use their disability benefits to cover the rent top-up, rather than what the benefits were meant for. Can the Minister say whether the Government have looked at the impact of this policy on disabled people specifically? And the problems are not equally distributed. The IFS cites the example that, while the 30th percentile of rents in Bristol is £100 more than in Newbury, the amount of housing support that those who live in Bristol can receive is £12.50 less than those who live in Newbury can receive. How can this be right? Can the Minister please explain?

I have no doubt that the Minister will try to suggest that there is not a problem, because anyone who is struggling can always request a discretionary housing payment: other noble Lords referred to this in their contributions. But let us be clear: a discretionary fund for one-off payments is not the answer. In any case, a report by Shelter published in February—again, this has been referred to—found that the Government’s own data showed that councils were already struggling to keep up with demand. It says:

“Some were on the brink of running out of funding—31 English councils had spent three quarters or more of their allocation before the winter started”.


It points out that the problem is especially bad in certain regions. Take the north-east: Sunderland, Gateshead and Northumberland spent more than 90% of their allocation by the end of September 2022, and none of this is surprising given that DHP funding was cut by £40 million in this financial year. At a time when inflation is dangerously high and food bank use is at record levels, how do Ministers expect those on low incomes to find ever larger sums to top up their rent?

We see from the figures that homelessness is soaring. Rough sleeping is up by 74% since 2010 and by 26% in the last year; there has been an 83% rise in the number of children now living in temporary accommodation as a result of homelessness. One in 23 children in London is now homeless. The squeeze on local housing allowance is undoubtedly a major driving factor in this situation. It is also hitting local authorities and the taxpayer, as evidence suggests that more people have been forced into expensive temporary accommodation. Can the noble Viscount tell the House what assessment the Government have made of this wider cost to the public purse of the LHA freeze?

Investment in social housing is by far the best solution to this crisis. That is the way to ensure that low-income families can have a secure and affordable home to live in, and a better-managed private rented sector would also be good for tenants. Ministers have promised action for years, but what have we seen? Not a lot. All these things would be better for the public purse too. In the meantime, freezing the local housing allowance makes no sense whatever and serves only to make a bad situation worse.

I ask the noble Viscount whether he might like to join me one day and go out to some of the London boroughs to look at the quality of the accommodation we are asking people to live in. As the noble Lord said, people are being asked to live in the most appalling accommodation, so I hope he will join me. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, came out with me a couple of years ago. It is quite shocking where we expect families to live, so I hope the noble Viscount will accept the invitation to come out with me some day in the next few months. Anyway, I look forward to what he will say in response to this debate.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)]

My Lords, I start by taking up the offer of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. This is a fairly straightforward answer: it is a yes. I would very much appreciate the opportunity to join him and whoever else he might care to bring along to see for myself what is happening. It is very much what I would like to do—genuinely.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for initiating this debate on the Rent Officers (Housing Benefit & Universal Credit Functions) (Modification) Order 2023. This annual legislation informs rent officers in the Valuation Office Agency, the VOA, and rent services in Scotland and Wales of the level at which to set local housing allowance, LHA, rates from April 2023. I also add my voice to those of other noble Lords in wishing the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, a speedy recovery from her illness—as the House is aware, the debate was down in her name.

20:15

This Government continue to spend considerable amounts annually to provide housing support to those on low incomes. We spend almost £30 billion a year on housing support in the private and social rented sectors, supporting those on low incomes. In fact, we currently spend more than any other OECD country as a proportion of GDP on housing support. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, echoed our view that LHA rates are not intended to cover all rents in all areas. We have a fiscal responsibility to taxpayers, but I also say, in terms of what I have just said, that we really do understand—I am personally very aware of this—that global inflationary challenges are putting pressures on household budgets, and rents have risen rapidly in some areas. We are very aware of that, and this is why, in the Autumn Statement, we announced a significant, wide-ranging package of support to help low-income households struggling with the cost of living.

I pick up the theme of homelessness that was raised by several noble Lords this afternoon and evening, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. I start by saying, as the House will know, that the causes of homelessness are multifaceted and often complex, and they interact dynamically, making it difficult to isolate the relative importance of individual factors. Having said that, in answer to questions regarding this freeze, for 2022-23 we are investing £366 million into the homelessness prevention grant in England to support local authorities to prevent homelessness. Local authorities can use the homelessness prevention grant flexibly to meet their homelessness and rough sleeping strategies—for example, to offer financial support for people to find a new home, to work with landlords to prevent evictions or to provide temporary accommodation, among other preventive measures. We have announced over £650 million in funding for the HPG in England from 2023 to 2025.

The homelessness prevention grant helps tackle homelessness before it occurs. It supports local authorities to deliver their statutory duties to prevent homelessness and provide temporary accommodation where required. Tens of thousands of people will be protected from homelessness as a result of this funding. As a reminder, this is for England only: the devolved Administrations have their own policies, as the House will be aware, to tackle this important issue.

I return to the Autumn Statement and remind the House of the detail which is germane to this debate. Measures in the Autumn Budget are intended to provide stability and certainty for households and include further cost of living payments for the most vulnerable, meaning that around 8 million households on eligible means-tested benefits will get up to a further £900 in payments in 2023-24. As the House will be only too well aware, I took through the Bill on this earlier this week, and we hope to receive Royal Assent shortly. We are providing support to all households through the energy price guarantee, which caps the price people pay for each unit of energy and, as I will set out later, and as the House will again be aware, we are extending it. The benefit cap, working age and disability benefits will also be uprated by 10.1% in 2023-24.

For those who need additional support, the Government are providing an additional £1 billion of funding, including the Barnett impact, to enable a further extension to the household support fund in England over the 2023-24 financial year. In England, this scheme will be backed by £842 million, running from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. Total funding for the devolved Administrations is £158 million, and it is for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to decide for themselves how to allocate their additional Barnett. Local authorities are expected to support households in the most need. I noted all the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, in this debate. I know and hugely respect his knowledge and expertise in this sector over many years.

The household support fund can be used to meet immediate needs and help those who are struggling to afford energy and water bills and food, as well as related wider essentials. I make the point that the focus of this is on the essentials, such as bills, clothing and essential transport-related costs.

I will pick up some points made about the private rented sector by the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. We invested almost £1 billion in 2020 to provide support for private renters and have maintained the increase in cash terms since then. As I said earlier, we recognise that rents are increasing in the private rented sector, but the challenging fiscal environment means that difficult decisions have to be made to ensure that support is targeted effectively. The Chancellor announced a package of targeted support worth £26 billion in the Autumn Statement. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is shaking her head, but she must realise that this is true. To protect the most vulnerable, working-age and disability benefits will be increased in line with inflation for 2023-24.

Further on the private rented sector, to respond to the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Best, we also recognise the supply challenges in the PRS and the competitive nature of the market, which drives up rental prices. This theme was also mentioned. We continue to work very closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, which is responsible for increasing the supply of affordable housing. The £11.5 billion affordable homes programme aims to deliver tens of thousands of new affordable homes, many of which will be for social rent.

As I alluded to earlier, in the Spring Budget we have gone further by extending the current energy price guarantee from April until the end of June this year. Taken together, the Government have provided total support of over £94 billion over 2022-23 and 2023-24 to help households and individuals with the cost of living—an average of over £3,300 per UK household. The House will know that, as well as providing support for low-income households, we are focused on supporting people into work by removing the barriers currently stopping them working. We are determined to see people moving into and progressing within employment, creating the conditions to help them move off benefits, improve their lives and boost economic growth.

I remind noble Lords that in last week’s Spring Budget, the Government announced an investment of £3.5 billion over five years to boost workforce participation. This includes help to address the issue of upfront childcare costs by allowing parents to claim back a flexible support fund payment for childcare and increasing the generosity of the universal credit childcare costs caps. This will allow parents to claim back more for their childcare so that those wishing to move into full-time work are not prevented by high childcare costs.

We also announced that, for those who are disabled or have a long-term health condition, we will remove the work capability assessment to ensure that those who are able to can progress in or towards work without the worry of being reassessed and losing their benefits. Moreover, we will launch universal support, a new programme working directly with employers to match individuals with jobs. In addition, we previously announced an increase in the national living wage to £10.42 per hour from April 2023.

I return to the question of renters. As mentioned earlier, we have provided consistent support through DHPs, which we provided to enable local authorities to deliver critical support to vulnerable claimants who need help with their housing costs. Since 2011, we have provided nearly £1.6 billon in DHP funding to local authorities. We made £100 million in DHP funding available to local authorities in 2022-23 and will make a further £100 million per year available in 2023-24 and 2024-25.

In addition to the central government contribution, to answer questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Best, English and Welsh local authorities can top up DHP funding to a maximum of two and a half times this figure with their own funds. Local authorities administer the DHPs, as they are best placed to make informed judgments about relative priorities and needs in their area to ensure that the most vulnerable are supported and the funds are targeted effectively. Officials at the DWP engage with individual local authorities and through regular forums to support effective administration of the scheme. Local authorities have been informed that they will receive the same DHP funding in 2023-24 and 2024-25 as in 2022-23. This provides consistency and certainty for them to plan services to support the most vulnerable in their local areas.

I reiterate that we spent £30 billion to support private renters in the previous financial years. While we recognise that rents are increasing, importantly, we must balance this significant investment with the cost to taxpayers and use our resources in the most effective and efficient way possible.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, expressed concern that local authorities are underfunded. I will try to be helpful by saying that local authorities in England are already funded through the local government finance settlement, on a non-ring-fenced basis, to deliver local welfare provision using their existing powers. Councils have flexibility to use the funding they receive from the annual local government finance settlement for local welfare assistance.

We have invested significant amounts in supporting private renters since 2020. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, this Government increased local housing allowance rates to the 30th percentile of local market rents, investing nearly £1 billion to support private renters. We have maintained those increased levels since 2020, as has been mentioned.

I will address a number of further questions in the limited time I have. First, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked how many claimants have a shortfall. From our figures, 56% of claimants face an average shortfall of £149 per month, as of August 2022. She also raised an important point about domestic abuse victims. She will know that much work on that is going on across government; in my area, child maintenance services are a priority. The Government have brought forward hugely beneficial changes for vulnerable young claimants who rent privately. In October 2022, we introduced two new exemptions from the shared accommodation rate of the local housing allowance for victims of domestic abuse and of modern slavery, brought forward a year earlier than planned. I hope that provides some help.

On the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, I do not think I can add to what noble Lords have read. I have no particular answer, except that it has given its verdict and my department has taken strong note of what it said.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, made a very important point about the disabled cohort. I reassure him that a full equality analysis has been undertaken to consider the impact on those with protected characteristics, including the disabled. I hope that gives him some comfort.

To conclude, as reaffirmed by both support packages announced in the Spring and Autumn Budgets, the Government are committed to supporting all members of society, in particular low-income households. We recognise that we must continue to provide that support for the most vulnerable in society while balancing it with fairness to the taxpayer, as I said earlier.

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

I am glad the noble Viscount mentioned fairness to the taxpayer, as it is not only about the sums of money—our whole point is that the Government are not spending it very wisely. If they looked and listened a bit more, they could spend it more effectively and get better value for money for the taxpayer. It is no good saying that they want to spend money wisely. They are not spending money wisely and that is causing huge grief for people. I do not understand why they will not address that. They need to work across departments, address the issues and spend the money better.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I absolutely have listened to the noble Lord, but how Governments spend money and whether they spend it wisely is a subjective issue wherever it is spent. We want and need to spend it wisely and on the most vulnerable.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, in the one or two minutes I have, I thank all those who have spoken this evening. I hope the Minister has been impressed by the unity of view across the Chamber. He said that the Government were spending around £30 billion a year on housing support in the private rented sector. That is a false economy. It is essential to spend it, but the only way to bring down the benefits bill is to build more genuinely affordable social housing, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, has explained.

20:30

The Minister said that the Government increased local housing allowance during the pandemic. That is true, but now it is not being increased and it will be based on rents of four years ago. The problem is that the Government did not increase local housing allowance between 2016 and 2020; during the pandemic they were putting right what had gone wrong in previous years.

Finally, the Minister referred to the affordable homes programme and new homes being built. However, the truth is that each year, there is a net loss of genuinely affordable homes for social rent. Fewer social rent homes are built compared to those lost through sales and demolition.

I hope the Government will reflect on this evening’s debate. There is clearly a lot of concern about what is happening, and something needs to be done about the amount of social housing. I hope the Minister and the Government will reflect on the need to revise local housing allowance. At its heart, it is a solution for the Government in supporting those who are less well off.

Motion withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Committee (7th Day) (Continued)

20:32

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, is Amendment 184 withdrawn?

[Noble Lords]

We are mid-group.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

I beg your pardon. The debate continues on Amendment 183. Forgive me.

Clause 85: Development plans: content

Debate on Amendment 183 continued.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I nearly lost that chance, having sat here for several days waiting for this. I agree with everything my noble friend Lord Young said on the amendments he and I have jointly tabled in this group, except for one word: he referred to his “chequered” career, but I would say “distinguished”. We will replace “chequered” with “distinguished”, but otherwise I agree with everything he said. That helps, because it means that I do not have to repeat the arguments he made.

I want to speak to Amendments 184A and 187A very briefly. I will also explain Amendment 185, which my noble friend did not dwell on, and say a word or two about Amendment 183—the lead amendment in this group, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage—which he did refer to. As my noble friend said, the issue we are turning to now is the plan-led system. How local plans are to be made and what the relationship is to be between the local plan and the national development management policies are very important questions.

To paraphrase one of the key questions that arises out of this, which I think we need to understand now in order to address these issues in the Bill at a later stage, would the Government be kind enough to explain to what extent the provisions presently in the National Planning Policy Framework are going to be national development management policies in the future? They will then acquire a different status—although, I have to say, it is quite difficult in many cases for a local planning authority to proceed on the basis of operating with the guidance in the NPPF, because inspectors will look to the NPPF as a basis for the judgments they make on whether a plan is sound, and indeed whether determinations in themselves are sound on appeal. We may be looking at distinctions or differences between the NPPF and NDMP without there being that much of a difference between them. In practice, the legal differences are clear, and the extent to which the NPPF is going to be turned into NDMP and given that status is important, and we need to know that.

As my noble friend Lord Young said, the revised draft of the NPPF, which the Government have consulted on and have yet to tell us the final outcome of, states:

“Policies in local plans and spatial development strategies should be reviewed to assess whether they need updating at least once every five years”.


My noble friend referred to the loophole or the issue here, which is that local planning authorities decide for themselves whether that review turns into an updated local plan. I give him and the House one very specific example, which is close to me. I should remind the House, as I have mentioned previously, of my registered interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. East Cambridgeshire adopted a local plan on 21 April 2015, which covers the period up to 2031. In April 2020—five years later—the authority conducted a review and decided that it did not need to update the plan, save with respect to the housing supply numbers. So, it conducted a single-issue review.

I will not dwell on some of the issues, but I have various complaints about this. First, there is the idea that the housing number is unrelated to other issues in the plan—that the housing supply in the decade ahead is unrelated to issues of environmental concern or whatever. That seems to have been ignored by them. However, I make the point that the inspector, who conducted an examination in public in the latter part of last year, said that it was not in his remit at all to look at whether the plan should be updated or not, whether anything other than housing should be updated or not, and indeed whether the final date of the plan should be beyond 2031. Of course, what the local authority is planning to do in this case is to update its housing figures, but when it has done so, it will extend for only about six years rather than the 15 years that the NPPF would imply. Notwithstanding that, they got away with it. So I very much agree with my noble friend and hope that the Minister will think hard about how we might make sure that we have local plans.

However, our Amendments 184A and 187A go precisely to the issue of requiring local plans to be up to date. If they are not up to date, in our view it cannot be right that the same principles apply in terms of the compliance or otherwise of determinations made on planning applications if the local plan to which they relate is out of date. There must be a distinction. Our amendments simply add “up-to-date” in front of “development plan.” They do not say, “What’s the relationship between a planning application and a determination on that planning application in relation to a local plan that is no longer up to date?” We need to resolve that. I suggest to my noble friend on the Front Bench that Ministers should think about whether there is as yet something they can do to distinguish between the proper relationship between development plans and in this particular instance determinations of planning applications, which should be made according to an up to date local plan, and local plans that had been adopted but are now out of date. They need to address the question of whether they are proper material considerations but not necessarily determinative. That seems to be the right way to go.

Amendment 185, which is in my name, that of my noble friend, and in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, relates to the question of a determination on a planning application and that it should be made in accordance with the local plan. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 says in Section 38(6):

“If regard is to be had to the development plan for the purpose of any determination to be made under the planning Acts the determination must be made in accordance with the plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise”.


It has said that since 2004, so there is considerable case law relating to this, and those working in the planning system have experience of working with that. They know that it means that, in making a determination on a planning application, local planning authorities have to weigh material considerations. However, courts pretty much do not second-guess the weight that planning officers and planning committees give to various considerations in considering an application. We have had nearly 20 years of that.

The Government have rewritten this bit and inserted the word “strongly”—

“unless material considerations strongly indicate otherwise”.

That says to me that two things are going to happen. First, it is the Government’s intention to limit and restrict the circumstances in which decisions are made other than in accord with a local plan or with national development management policies. That means—which goes to the point that we have been debating in this group—that it reduces the role of the planning committee and the local planning authority, because they do not balance the weight any more. Most of the material considerations, almost by definition, will not be enough to indicate that they should do other than what would be demanded by the local plan and the NDMP.

The second thing that will inevitably result from this is that there will be a large amount of litigation, because the question of what “strongly” means in this context will be hard to determine. There will not be case law or precedent—a large number of decisions will not previously have been made. Where does “strongly” change the balance? How is that weight to be shifted? It is very unwise for the Government to be proceeding down this path. It would create a better balance across the Bill generally and we would be better off in many cases just to leave things as they are if they cannot demonstrate that there is a mischief to which this is the answer.

I will stop there, but I just want to refer to one other thing. I thought that Amendment 216, which is not in my name but in that of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, rather pointed to an issue. Schedule 7 on page 294, which is about plan making, would take out a rather curious few words where the Government say that local plans must not

“be inconsistent with or (in substance) repeat any national development management policy”.

I just have a question: what is the point of national development management policies if it is not essentially to write for local planning authorities large amounts of their local plan? If the local planning authority then puts that language into its local plan, does that mean it is repeating it or incorporating it? What does “repeat” mean in this context? I thought the whole point was that local plans would “repeat” national development management policies, yet we are being told in the legislation that that is not what they are to do. That is a genuine question to which I really do not know the answer, but I hope we can find out a bit more from my noble friend later.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, my name is on Amendment 191A, tabled by my noble friend Lady Thornhill, as is that of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. It stipulates the process for the Secretary of State to designate and review a national development management policy, including minimum public consultation requirements and a process of parliamentary scrutiny based on processes set out in the Planning Act 2008, as amended, for national policy statements. It is an amendment to Clause 87.

Clause 87, which is a matter of only 20 or so lines, defines the meaning of “national development management policy” as

“a policy (however expressed) of the Secretary of State in relation to the development or use of land in England, or any part of England, which the Secretary of State by direction designates as a national development management policy.”

It then says that the Secretary of State can revoke a direction and modify a national development management policy. It goes on to say:

“Before making or revoking a direction … or modifying a national development management policy, the Secretary of State must ensure that such consultation with, and participation by, the public or any bodies or persons (if any) as the Secretary of State thinks appropriate takes place.”


In planning terms, this is the most gross act of centralisation that I can recall from the various Bills we have had relating to planning policy.

20:45

I repeat something I now try to say regularly to Ministers: you cannot run England out of London. England is a country of 56 million people. I regard Clause 87 as an extraordinary abuse of power by the Executive over Parliament and local government. I am very concerned about this, because it means a reduction in the scope of the right to be heard in local plans and a centralisation of power over policy that is now determined locally but no longer will be in the same way.

I could make an exceedingly long speech on this matter, but I suspect your Lordships would like to move on a bit. When we get to Report, we have to get clear exactly where this House is headed on this matter, because the centralisation of power in the hands of the Secretary of State—it could be any Secretary of State of any political party in government—seems to me distinctly unhelpful, and I think the Bill will need significant amendment on Report.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendment 221; I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford for adding their names. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, gave a brilliant exposition of many of the things I was prepared to say, and this amendment is really a prelude to later Amendments 207 and 336. For those two reasons, I will be very brief and save some powder for later debates.

I speak as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Care for Older People, and this is about older people’s housing and the local plan. The amendment enables the Secretary of State to require local authorities to bring forward an assessment of the local need for housing for older people as part of the documentation in preparing their all-important local plan. Sadly, such an assessment is currently a rarity in local plans, despite the ever-increasing number of older people, for whom opportunities to downsize, to rightsize, can meet so many health, care and social needs.

Tailor-made housing for older people preserves independence, prevents or postpones the need for residential care, helps people to maintain fitness, combats loneliness and isolation, keeps people out of hospital, saves the NHS and care budgets, frees up family homes for the next generation and more. But we have a national shortfall in homes being built specifically for the older generation. Production is running at fewer than 8,000 homes per year, but demand is estimated at 30,000 to 35,000 homes a year.

The trouble is that the volume housebuilders are not interested. Given the choice, they will stick to building for the less discerning, more profitable market of young buyers and will avoid having to organise the ongoing management arrangements necessary for developments for later living. Since these housebuilders dominate the industry, nothing will change unless there is some pressure on these developers to do better. This amendment would start the process of getting on top of this key issue and is very much part of levelling up in extending healthy life expectancy and reducing health inequalities. It represents a key step in getting greater momentum behind a national effort to see local plans incorporate requirements for older people’s housing of different sorts.

I hope to build on this case in subsequent amendments but, in the meantime, I give notice that I will pursue the question asked by my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, about the task force on housing for older people. It would be great to hear what progress has been made in that direction. The task force was announced on 25 May 2021 by Chris Pincher, the then Housing Minister, at my all-party parliamentary group meeting. It would be great to hear how that is going, having been launched some two years ago. On that note, I commend this amendment.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I support Amendment 221 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, to which, as he indicated, my right reverend friend the Bishop of Chelmsford added her name. She apologises for being unable to be in her place today; in my own brief remarks, I will make a number of points that she would have contributed had she been here. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, who, like the noble Lord, Lord Best, has a long and honourable history of leading the thinking on housing matters in this land.

I declare my interest in housing for older people: as set out in the register, I am a board member of the Wythenshawe Community Housing Group. In fact, it is more than an interest; it is a passion. In my time as chair of the association, we have opened a flagship development of 135 apartments for older people with mixed rental, shared ownership and outright purchase. Developments such as this enable local people to live in dignity in old age. They provide social space as well as private dwellings. In many cases, they allow residents to remain close to their family networks and former neighbours—the support networks that they need in later life. We can do well for older people but that should not have to rely on episcopal passion or potluck. It needs to be part of how we plan housing provision at a strategic level.

Research by BNP Paribas Real Estate published late last year found that there is a shortfall of more than 487,000 senior living housing units. As our population ages and the housing crisis continues, this housing shortage is set to grow. The 2021 census confirmed that there are more people than ever in older age groups. Some 18.6% of the total population, more than 11 million of us, were aged 65 years or older—an increase from 16.4% at the previous census a decade earlier. There is expected to be a 31% increase in those aged over 65 over the next 15 years. I reached that milestone myself a few months ago; I have a real interest in remaining part of these statistics for many years to come.

Furthermore, as has been indicated, housing is not just for fully able people. Some 91% of homes in England fail basic accessibility standards. Not only do we need more housing but we need to work to improve the suitability of our existing and new housing stock. In doing so, it is important to note that, as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, reminded us before the dinner break, older people are not a homogenous group so needs will vary.

The recent Mayhew review suggested that 50,000 homes are designed for older people annually. Providing suitable housing for seniors not only addresses their housing and care needs but reduces demand for NHS services, as people stay healthier for longer, and frees up housing and surplus bedrooms for younger families. Amendment 221 would facilitate an important part of the solution to these issues, enabling the Government to consider older people’s housing needs in drawing up plans. These should include more integrated retirement communities, such as the one that I referred to in Wythenshawe. They foster social connection, especially for people living alone in the latter years of their lives. This would help to counter the epidemic of homelessness, since over 6 million people will be living in single person households by 2040, half of them over the age of 80.

There is a real opportunity in this Bill for His Majesty’s Government to work more comprehensively to address the housing needs of our ageing population. I urge them to take it.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have not heard Amendments 191A and 191B extensively discussed; it is possible that I zoned out earlier. I have two points. First, proposed new subsection (5) in Amendment 191A says that a national development management policy must contain

“explanations of the reasons for the policy, and … in particular… an explanation of how it takes account of Government policy relating to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.”

That is a very welcome requirement, if the Government pick up on it, but it is huge. Having that in there will have a vast impact on policy and what will be done, because so many aspects of our life impact on our response to climate change—the design of our transport systems, how we handle our energy, the kind of houses that we are building, how we make the facilities outside the house that people need accessible to them. This would be a really encouraging development if the Government were to go down that road. I had hoped to hear from the Benches opposite some advocacy of their amendments in this direction. I hope that they mean this seriously.

My second point concerns the aspect of these amendments and others that says what the role of Parliament is in looking at the development of national development management policy. We have another Bill with us, the REUL Bill, in which this is a very cogent consideration. I very much hope that this House holds firm and says that Parliament does have a role here and that we will not let this Bill away without insisting on it.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I want to ask a question based on the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. He said that the crucial point of the Bill and these clauses is the role and primacy of the two documents—the development plan and the national development management plan—and where they stand in that relationship. Clause 86 makes it clear that the NDMPs take precedence over the development plans if there is a conflict. But where does a third document stand, which the noble Lord also mentioned, the NPPFs, which were introduced via the Localism Act 2011? The document replaced a two-foot-high pile of codes, practice notes and so on about planning. In the instant that it was introduced it was controversial because it reduced the amount of planning paperwork that people needed to have knowledge of and refer to, and it made access to the planning process much easier for lay people and for councils. It seems to have proved its worth and to be a useful document. Echoing the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, my question is: is this document now effectively a dead letter? If it is not, where does it stand in relation to the two documents which are given a mention in Clause 86 and in subsequent policy?

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is probably one of the key groups of amendments on planning in the Bill, as it sets out the strategic framework under which local plans will be created and planning applications will be determined. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, started us on the right track by saying that we believe in a plan-led system; the question is, “Who leads the plans?” Which one is going to be most important —the national management development plan or the local plan? The local plan currently has primacy in planning legislation.

21:00

At the moment, the National Planning Policy Framework is under consultation for an update. That provides guidance, but it is a material consideration in any local plan. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who said that the Bill spoke about the folly, or waste of space and time, of having to repeat national planning policies in the local plan, so in the Bill the Government say, “Let’s create our own national policies in the NMDP, to which local planning authorities and councils will have to agree.”

The big difference of course is that, in their development, local plans can incorporate—I think that was the word used by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley—issues from across the range of those raised in the NPPF. There are 17 key decisions in the NPPF, including the green belt, the supply of homes, making a stronger economy, the vitality of town centres, and heritage. Those will have a different weight in local plans depending on the locality. If you live in the Yorkshire Dales area, policy on the green belt and national parks will, I guess, have a far greater weight than it would in other parts of the country. If you live in York, I guess that heritage is very important. That is the flexibility that the current system provides for strategic planning. The Bill is proposing a definitive move away from a flexible system where local councils can reflect the needs of their area to one in which there is an absolute insistence that the policies within the NMDP must be followed.

The next question is “What is in it?”. There is a trend in the Bill of having a headline, such as that on the missions, and then a blank space. We have the same here: there is going to be a national management development plan, but then we have a big blank space. That is totally unacceptable. I think it was my noble friend Lord Shipley who quoted the Bill as saying that

“A ‘national development management policy’ is a policy (however expressed) of the Secretary of State … which the Secretary of State by direction designates as a national development management policy”—

and that is it. It could be anything you like. However, when a local plan is created, every one of those national planning policies within the framework is part of the debate, in which local people can take part, about the policy, plan and strategic plan for the council area.

This is a huge move away from localism—I thought that was what we were doing here, by the way. The levelling-up Bill was all about helping different parts of England to have a bit more control over, and involvement in, policies that affect them. Well, this is a very significant move in the other direction. The NDMP positively prohibits a local plan that is not in line with those national policies. This centralising move is unacceptable.

My noble friend Lord Shipley said that Clause 87 is an extraordinary abuse of power by the Executive, and I agree. If we live in a country where local democracy means anything, local planning must mean something. Currently, under these proposals in this Bill, that will be removed. After many years as a local councillor, I can tell you that the one issue that really stimulates big discussion and debate in a locality is planning applications. People get involved in neighbourhood planning applications, which cover a small area— I have just dealt with a very large one on which 2,000 people wrote individual letters of objection. Where people live matters to them. Pride of place is one of the missions in the White Paper, but how can you have pride of place when you take from the council the very tools that will create it? It is not just about whether a place looks beautiful; it is about whether people are engaged and involved in creating pride in the place where they live. As far as we on these Benches are concerned, the proposal to centralise to this degree is simply not acceptable.

I will say a few words about the revision of local plans, which has been raised by a number of noble Lords. It is important. It is not clear from the Bill whether there will be any change to the requirement to set out a plan that has five years’ worth of housing supply in it. It seems to me that revisions ought to take place more frequently. If it is every five years, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, says, it seems to me that you would only just get over the last one and start again. But there is merit in constantly having a look, because the parameters of a local plan change. If there were a significant economic development in an area and a higher demand for housing, a plan ought to be able to respond to that. If it were not revised more than, say, every 10 years, that would not be possible.

I agree with having more frequent revisions, but I have to say that one of the rules in local plans is that you have to have a five-year housing supply—in other words, enough houses in your plan to last five years—which is determined by a sort of government calculation. If you do not, developers can develop where they want to, so the incentive is there to revise.

To end, apart from the issues about the strategy, this is about public involvement in planning. I feel very strongly about this because there is a tendency to do to people; what we should do is work with people and listen to what they have to say. Planning is a really good tool to do that, because people can see how it will change where they live, for good or ill as they see it.

Another issue in the Bill, apart from Clause 87, is Clause 85 and Schedule 7. I thank Landmark Chambers for providing this information; I am not sure I would have been able to read through all the schedules as it has done. Schedule 7 states that a spatial development strategy must involve an examination in public, which is what happens now, unless the Secretary of State directs otherwise. It might not even go to the public to be looked at. New Section 15AC(6) states:

“No person is to have a right to be heard at an examination in public.”

So you have a local plan, it goes to a nominated planning inspector to be heard in public and no person is to have a right to be heard at an examination in public. Now then: what is the quickest way to aggravate people? It is that: taking away their chance to have their say. With those fairly stringent remarks, I leave it to others to further comment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a really fascinating debate on a key part of the Bill. It has been good to hear voices with such great expertise and wisdom around the Chamber this evening. I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part. They have rightly emphasised the importance of a development system that is properly plan led. I greatly appreciate that.

If the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester has declared his passion for housing for older people, I should probably declare that mine is localism, devolution and community engagement. So I want to be optimistic about this Bill, but in these crucial aspects of planning I genuinely feel that it is going in the wrong direction.

I should probably give a brief confession that I am very bruised by experiences I have had relating to the planning system. Our Stevenage local plan, after some two and a half years of public engagement and consultation, a public inquiry which was extended to three weeks, which is quite unusual for a district local plan, and the approval of the inspector, was then called in by our local Member of Parliament and held by the Secretary of State for 451 days while we waited for a determination to be made about whether it could go ahead. It was eventually released under certain conditions, which I will not try noble Lords’ patience by going into. So the thought of this kind of centralising tendency in planning in the way proposed in the Bill makes me exceptionally nervous. I hope that explains a little bit why.

It was, as ever, a pleasure to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Young. I respect his great knowledge and expertise in these areas. It is very concerning that only 39% of local authorities have a local plan. One reason for that is that, if you do not have a local plan in place, developers can pitch up and do virtually whatever they want in your area because you cannot resist it. That is not the whole case because you can use an extant plan, but it is much more difficult to resist unwanted development. I completely support his points on stream- lining and simplifying the process.

21:15

The noble Lord, Lord Young, also spoke about incentivising local authorities to get on with their plan-making and having some kind of enforcement in place for those which do not. I think that is important. He pointed out the loophole around local authorities being able to update their plan without reverting to consultation processes. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, raised this as well. It is an important loophole that we could take the opportunity of this Bill to close.

The noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Young, raised issues about the extraordinary delay in the appointment of the task force in relation to older people’s housing. I hope that the Minister can give us some answers on that; if not here, then perhaps we can have a written response about the reasons for that delay. There are big issues around housing stock developed for people who need to move into supported or sheltered housing or specially adapted housing.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred to the relationship between local plans and the NDMP and to what the extent the policies in the NPPF will be moved over into the NDMP remit. I am concerned about that as well. It is not clear enough in the Bill how that relationship is going to work. There are flaws in the system of the NPPF in any case, and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred to an inspector saying that this is outside their remit. If it is not in the inspectors’ remit, I do not know whose remit it is in. That reflects my comments that there may need to be consideration of the operation and resourcing of the Planning Inspectorate anyway as a result of this Bill. We should not leave that out of our considerations.

On Amendment 185, which would remove “strongly” from new subsection (5B), the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred to the Government’s intention to restrict decisions other than those in accordance with the plan and said that that diminishes the role of the planning committee and increases the possibility of litigation. I absolutely agree. It is a great concern. Can the Minister shed any light on why “strongly” has been introduced in that clause? Again, if it is not possible to do that now, we will happily take an answer in writing.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, echoed our concerns about the centralising elements of the Bill, particularly in relation to Clause 87, which defines the NDMP. I support those comments. It is our major concern. Probably one of the major concerns about the Bill overall is this centralising proposal.

I support Amendment 221, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, on older people’s housing, as did the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. I would probably want to consider that that reflected a slightly wider group of housing. We have developed specific housing for people with learning disabilities. The people who go into that special type of housing support each other and are able to be supported better in that housing, and people with physical disabilities might also benefit from that type of housing. It might be worth thinking about widening that a bit as well when we get to later amendments. I am very grateful for the comments on that. As was said in that part of the debate, developers will always focus on the profitable side of housing, so we need to think about how we incentivise that type of building. There is a great role for social housing here, and I am sure we will have wider discussions about social housing as the Bill progresses.

I just want to comment on the points the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made. I spoke extensively on the inclusion of environmental provisions in the second group of amendments and I did not want to try the patience of the Committee by repeating myself. That is why I perhaps did not cover that in enough detail in this group, but of course we believe it is a great omission for the Bill not to have it firmly embedded in statute. We must look at the very key issues around climate change and the environment on the face of the Bill.

I hope I have given a good summary of what noble Lords have said. It has been a very interesting debate and we retain our concerns about the centralising tendency of this planning section of the Bill. I hope the Minister has heard the strength of feeling in the Committee on these matters and I look forward to hearing her comments.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, this might take a little bit of time. It was quite an in-depth and complicated group of amendments. I want to try and give it as much time as I can. I will go through Hansard, but if I miss anything out, I ask noble Lords to come back to me and I will make sure they get a Written Answer as soon as possible.

I want to start where the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, started: why are we having a national development management policy in legislation? Why are we having this change? The case is fivefold. First, it will do what a number of noble Lords have said that it will not do—it will do completely the opposite. It will help local authorities produce swifter, slimmer plans by removing the need to set out generic issues of national importance. It will make those plans more locally relevant and easier for communities and other users to digest and to get involved in developing, through consultation and communications with local communities.

It will be easier for applicants to align their proposals with national and local policy requirements and, where they wish, to go beyond them. We expect that this will be particularly valuable for SMEs. It will provide greater assurances that important policy safeguards which apply nationally or to significant parts of England, such as protections for areas at risk of flooding, policy on climate change and policy to protect the green belt, will be upheld in statutory weight and applied quickly across the country, including when any changes are made. It will mean that this framework of common national policies can guide decisions, even if the local plan is significantly out of date and cannot be relied on. For example, where there is no up-to-date local plan, it will ensure that the national protections for things safeguarded solely through the planning policy—local wildlife sites, for example—have clear statutory status equivalent to an up-to-date plan. I hope that gives some context for what I am going to go through in relation to the amendments.

Amendment 183 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, seeks to require local authorities to review and update their development plan at least every five years. I reassure noble Lords that we recognise that if local plans are to be effective, they must be kept up to date. Currently, plans must be reviewed to assess whether they need updating at least once every five years and should then be updated as and when necessary. The Government made it clear in the policy paper published alongside the Bill introduction in May 2022 that we intend to require through regulation that authorities commence an update of their local plan every five years. They do not consider it; they do it. Although I fully understand the spirit of the amendment, these procedural matters have traditionally been addressed via regulations and it is our intention to maintain this approach. Consequently, we cannot support this amendment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, mentioned the right to be heard, or not heard, in an inquiry. No right of appearance at an examination applies only to the strategic-level spatial development strategies. This is already a well-established practice and the only spatial development strategy that exists at the moment is the London plan. That one is very specific.

I turn to my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham’s Amendments 184A and 187B, which aim to ensure that decisions on planning applications are taken in line with an up-to-date plan, which is defined as one less than five years old. As previously mentioned, we know that, for local plans to be effective, they must be kept up to date. Currently, plans must be reviewed to assess whether they need updating every five years, and they should then be updated as necessary. As I said, we will replace the current review requirement, which is a source of confusion and argument, with a new, clearer requirement in regulation for authorities to commence an update of their local plan every five years. However, it is important that we do not create in law a cliff edge that forces important aspects of plans to be out of date for decision-making purposes just because they are more than five years old. This would, for example, very considerably weaken green-belt protections.

I make it clear to noble Lords that we are retaining the current provision that gives precedence to the most up-to-date development plan policy, should conflicts occur. For example, where the local plan is out of date but a more recently approved neighbourhood plan is in place, the latter would take precedence, which I think is good. I fully understand the intention behind these amendments—they would certainly focus authorities’ minds on plan-making—but I believe that our legislation and policy provisions for keeping plans up to date strike a better balance. As a result, we do not feel we can support these amendments.

My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham also asked what happens if a local authority does not produce a local plan. The Bill retains and updates local plan intervention powers, which have been an important safety net to enable the Secretary of State to take action in certain circumstances in order to ensure that communities can benefit from a plan-led approach to growth.

My noble friends Lord Lansley and Lord Young of Cookham asked about local plans and whether government reforms would close what was referred to as a “loophole”. We intend to introduce this requirement for local authorities to commence the update of their local plans at least every five years, which will close that loophole in the future.

The question from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on the important issue of the five-year housing supply, probably relates to this group. To incentivise plan production further and ensure that newly produced plans are not undermined, we have made clear our intention to remove the requirements for local authorities to maintain a rolling five-year supply of deliverable land for housing where their plan is up to date—that is, adopted within the past five years. So, carrot and stick.

I move now to noble friend Lord Lansley’s Amendment 185, which tests the Government’s rationale for inserting “strongly” into the new decision-making test for planning applications. This is an important reform that seeks to provide greater certainty in decision-making, so I welcome the opportunity to explain our logic behind the change. Clause 86 reforms decision-making to strengthen the role of the development plan in practice. This includes strategic plans such as the London plan, as well as local plans and neighbourhood plans. Planning application decisions would be able to depart from the development plan and any national development management policies only where

“material considerations strongly indicate otherwise”.

It would no longer be enough for those other considerations merely to “indicate” otherwise.

Simply put, this will support the plan-led system by making it harder for planning decisions not to accord with the development plan and the national development management policies. The bar for developers will be higher if they wish to argue at appeal that their proposals should still gain planning permission even though they do not accord with the development plan and the relevant national development management policies. As a result, the changes are likely to reduce the number of planning appeals that local authorities face and the number of unanticipated developments that communities face on their doorsteps.

21:30

I appreciate that there may be concerns that the change could give a greater weight to plan policies which are no longer up to date, but, in these cases, the introduction of the national development management policies provides an important safeguard, as they will ensure that important policy principles, such as the green belt or heritage protection, are recognised and given statutory weight. We do not believe that resiling from this reform would be appropriate, and therefore the amendment is not an amendment that we can support.

The noble Lords, Lord Stunell and Lord Lansley, asked where NPPFs stand in relation to NDMPs. The NPPF will be retained to guide plan-making, but those parts which relate to decision-making will form the basis of the new suite of NDMPs, which will be given statutory weight by the Bill. They will be coming in as we are consulting. As the consultation comes to the fore, it will guide the NDMPs for the future. I hope that that makes sense.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am sorry; I do not want to try the Minister’s patience, but we are not understanding how the various things sit together—the NPPF and the NDMPs. It is not quite clear to me how that will work, and it will make life very difficult for planning inspectors. We have talked before about a meeting to explain some of this in more detail, and that would be extremely helpful to those of us who are considering the Bill closely. If we could get a better understanding of that, it would be very helpful.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I am really happy to do that, because it is complex; there are a lot of acronyms and what have you. I do not think that this is the time of night to be discussing detail, so I am happy to put together a meeting as soon as possible, and we will go through it in detail.

I turn now to Amendment 189, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, which would allow Parliament to make national development management policies itself. Like national planning policy made at present through the National Planning Policy Framework, national development management policies will serve a broad purpose and will sit alongside policies in locally produced plans as a starting point in considering the suitability of development proposals. They will carry forward the role that successive Governments have played since the 1940s in setting high-level national policy that influences plans and decisions. This is a key function of government, which would be undermined by the creation of a dual-power system, as this amendment seeks to do. An effective planning system cannot be achieved if Ministers and Parliament could create contradictory policies by both having the vires to do so. Such a role for Parliament in planning has not been previously proposed, and I am afraid that it is not one that we can support.

Amendment 190, also in the name of the noble Baroness, would impose a legislative restriction on setting fixed standards through national development management policies, while retaining an ability for those policies to set floors which could be exceeded. Unlike building regulations, national planning policies are not used to set specific standards in most cases. Nevertheless, I understand the concern behind the amendment: that national development could, potentially, be used to constrain what locally produced plans are able to do.

The question about how national development management policies are to be used is one that we have consulted on recently. Through that, we were clear that our intention is that they will address planning considerations that apply regularly in decision-making across the country, such as general policies for conserving heritage assets and preventing inappropriate development, including on belts and in areas of high flood risk—the types of policy already contained in the National Planning Policy Framework. Our consultation also said that we were minded to retain the scope for optional technical standards to be set locally through plans so that local planning authorities can go above minimum building standards. The responses to the consultation are being assessed at present, as noble Lords know.

More broadly, it is important that we do not impose restrictions on the national development management policies, which could prevent sensible use of them. It may be appropriate to set absolute standards in one or two instances for reasons of consistency or to prevent harm—for example, in relation to pollution limits. This is best addressed through policy on a case-by-case basis rather than blanket restrictions in legislation. For these reasons, we do not think it necessary or appropriate to impose specific requirements or limitations of the sort that this amendment would entail, so I hope the noble Baroness will understand that we are not able to support it.

I move to Amendment 191, which seeks to probe the direction and modification powers of the Secretary of State to revoke and modify national development management policies. The power to revoke and modify the policies is bound by the same requirements as those to make them, including those on consultation. We recognise that, once the first suite of those policies is published, there must also be a clear legal framework for modifying and revoking them. Like the National Planning Policy Framework, national development management policies will need to evolve over time, reflecting new government priorities and changing economic, social and environmental challenges, as well as trends in planning practice. That is why the Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to revoke and modify these policies; without this power, they would become too rigid and potentially ineffective.

However, I would like to reassure noble Lords that the power to revoke and modify the policies will not be used lightly. It is not a mechanism to remove long-standing national planning policies, such as protecting the green belt or tackling flood risk. We want to see consultation, engagement and debate across the sector about potential changes to the policies, in the same way as happens now with the National Planning Policy Framework. Given that any revocation and modification must follow the same procedural requirements as the creation of the new national development management policies, we feel that this amendment is unnecessary and, therefore, not one we can support.

I turn to Amendments 191A and 191B in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornhill, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Taylor of Stevenage, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, which seek to change the requirements for making national development management policies so that they more clearly mirror those for national policy statements. National policy statements are used to set out the policy for nationally significant infrastructure projects—planning decisions that are made by Ministers. National development management policies will serve a broader purpose than this and will sit alongside policies in locally produced plans when local decision-makers consider the suitability of development proposals. As previously mentioned, they will carry forward the role that successive Governments have played since the 1940s in setting high-level national policy that influences plans and decisions.

Clause 87 already imposes an obligation on the Secretary of State to ensure that consultation and participation take place as appropriate, and our recent consultation on the future of the NPPF and the NDMP confirms that public consultation will be carried out before they are designated.

The requirements in this Bill set out that the Secretary of State must explicitly consider public consultation when determining what consultation is appropriate. This is similar to the approach for national policy statements, which also require consultation as the Secretary of State thinks appropriate, although they do not include explicit consideration of “public” consultation as in the existing clause.

I acknowledge that the existing clause uses the phrase “if any” in relation to consultation. It includes this as there may be rare occasions where it would be appropriate not to consult on a draft national development management policy, such as if urgent changes are needed in the national interest. For example, during the pandemic, the Secretary of State was able to issue an urgent Written Ministerial Statement in July 2020 to temporarily change national planning policy so that theatres, concert halls and live music performance venues could be given a degree of protection where they were temporarily vacant due to Covid-19 business disruption.

The changes that we discussed earlier to the decision-making test in Clause 86, which strengthen the weight given to the development plan over material considerations, mean that such a policy would have had significantly less weight in planning decisions today, unless it was made a national development management policy.

I hope I have reassured noble Lords that we have developed a proportionate framework for creating national development management policies, and explained why we have taken a different approach from that for national policy statements, meaning that we do not feel able to accept this amendment.

Amendment 196, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy for public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny of national development management policies within 120 days of the Bill’s passage. As I have set out, the Bill makes appropriate provision for consultation, which is reinforced by the clear commitment in our recent consultation that we will consult on these policies. Against this backdrop, we believe that a legal obligation to publish a strategy for consultation is unnecessary, and so this is an amendment that we feel unable to support.

I turn next to Amendment 194, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, which would require the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to publish annual reports reflecting the cost of producing and maintaining national development management policies and any support given to local planning authorities. I reassure the noble Baroness that national development management policies will not create a new financial burden for local planning authorities or central government. The cost of producing national development management policies as a function of the Secretary of State will fall to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. We expect that the cost of preparing and maintaining national development management policies—in Civil Service resource and specialist expertise—will be similar to that for producing and maintaining the National Planning Policy Framework. We will also ensure that the Planning Advisory Service, which my department funds, provides local planning authorities with training and support to help manage the practical transition to using national development management policies when they are making decisions.

Against these upfront costs, local planning authorities will financially benefit from national development management policies, as they will not need to develop or justify these policies themselves when their plans are examined by the Planning Inspectorate. As our impact assessment makes clear, national development management policies will provide greater certainty to developers and communities, potentially providing significant savings for businesses. Our impact assessment estimates that the benefits of increasing certainty in the planning system due to the measures in the Bill will be just over £2.8 billion over a 10-year appraisal period. For the reasons that I have set out, while I thank the noble Baroness for her amendment, it is not one that I am able to support.

Amendment 216, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, and Amendment 220, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would remove the requirement for local plans to be consistent with national development management policies and prevent such a requirement in regulations. These amendments would fundamentally diminish the ability of our reforms to make local plans easier to prepare and to create more certainty for applicants, communities and local planning authorities. Through the Bill we are strengthening the role of the development plan in decision-making by changing Section 38 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 so that planning applications must be decided in accordance with the development plan and the national development management policies unless material considerations strongly indicate otherwise.

21:45

National development management policies will provide greater certainty for planning decisions and strengthen the legal position of important national policies, removing the need for them to be repeated in local plans. This will improve outcomes for communities, helping to restore trust in the planning system. Removing the need for local plans to be consistent with national development management policies would hinder effective operation of the amended decision-making test. If decisions are to be made in accordance with both the development plan and national development management policies but plans do not need to be consistent with these policies then this would increase the likelihood of conflicts between them emerging and generate uncertainty for everyone involved. It would also increase the risk of unnecessary duplication between plan policies and national policies, with the accompanying risks of making plans bigger, harder to digest and slower to produce.

Therefore, while I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Taylor and Lady Hayman, for their amendments, I hope I have explained why we believe the current requirement for local development plans to be consistent with national development management policies is needed to achieve some of our key aims for planning reform. That is why we do not support these amendments.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I hope my noble friend will forgive me for interrupting. I understand the point she is making about Amendment 216, and why she is resisting removing the idea that local plans must not be inconsistent with national development management policies, but it also says, “or (in substance) repeat”.

I am trying to understand. Let us take the chapter in the NPPF on green belt. The first part is about plan-making for the green belt, and the second part is about proposals coming forward within green belt land and the criteria that should be applied as to whether or not an application would be accepted. On that latter part, is my noble friend saying that the local plan cannot repeat that—that it must therefore refer to it but not repeat it? Is that the point she is making?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The whole idea of moving national policies away from local policies is that we do not have to repeat them. I will reflect on what my noble friend says about how it is referred if an area has a particular issue with something such as the green belt and come back to him, because I think he has a point.

Amendment 221, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, seeks to require older people’s housing needs assessments to be included in the evidence for local plans and would require local authorities to consider the needs for older people’s housing when preparing such plans. While I entirely understand the sentiment behind this amendment, the proposed approach is not needed. National policy already sets strong expectations, and we recently consulted on strengthening this further. The existing National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that the size, type and tenure of housing needed for different groups in the community, including older people, should be assessed and reflected in planning policies. In 2019, we also published guidance to help local authorities implement the policies that can deliver on this expectation.

I also make it clear to noble Lords that, to further improve the diversity of housing options available to older people and to boost the supply of specialist elderly accommodation, we have proposed to strengthen the existing policy by adding a specific expectation that, when ensuring the needs of older people are met, particular regard is given to retirement housing, housing with care and care homes. We know these are important types of housing that can help support our ageing population.

Furthermore, there is already a provision in the Bill that sets out that the Secretary of State must issue guidance for local planning authorities on how their local plan and any supplementary plans, taken as a whole, should address housing needs that result from old age or disability. These are strong legislative and policy safeguards which should ensure that the needs of older people are taken fully into account. For that reason, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Best, will understand why we do not support this amendment.

I note that there is a question from my noble friend Lord Young and the noble Lord, Lord Best, on the task force. I will go back to the department and ask for an update. I can assure noble Lords that I will give them one in the next couple of days—certainly before Recess or Report.

I hope I have said enough to enable the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, to withdraw her Amendment 183 and for the other amendments in this group not to be moved when reached.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 183 withdrawn.

Clause 85 agreed.

House resumed.

House adjourned at 9.52 pm.