National Policy for the Built Environment

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Andrews]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Select Committee on National Policy for the Built Environment (Session 2015–16, HL Paper 100).

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, in the unavoidable absence of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, who chaired our committee very ably, it has fallen to me to introduce this debate, with the leave of the Committee.

The intention behind ad hoc Select Committees is, in paraphrase, that they examine subjects which fall across policy areas, are timely, lend themselves to making best use of the expertise in the House, and can be accomplished in a short time. The subject of our report, which was published on 19 February last year, certainly fulfilled that remit. It was widely greeted as long overdue. To my knowledge, there has not been a national discussion on the development and future of the built environment as a whole for many years, if ever, despite the fact that our built environment is under unique and massive stress and constant change and shapes every aspect our lives. I am very grateful that so many noble Lords who were not on the Select Committee are here this afternoon. That shows how widely this subject appeals to noble Lords.

There have been foresight studies, housing reviews and endless partial reviews of planning, which are still going on, but there has been a complete failure to think in the long term about how to improve our urban and rural environments, make them more resilient, balance the use of scarce resources and future-proof housing and planning so they serve people of all ages and get the best for the future. At the same time, unlike the majority of countries in Europe, we have no national spatial strategy, and regional planning was abandoned in recent years. Our capacity to plan intelligently is further compromised by the fact that planning departments are being cut to the bone, and our inquiry was made more urgent by a housing market in crisis and extremely ambitious housing targets.

The credit for this inquiry lies with my noble friend Lady Whitaker, and I was very happy to support her initiative. We took more evidence than most Select Committees. There were 1,900 pages of written evidence. We foraged far and wide over complex and profound issues. For the coherence of the final report, we must thank our special adviser, Professor Matthew Carmona. We had an outstanding team: an outstanding clerk in Matthew Smith and excellent support from our policy analyst Simon Keal and our committee assistant James Thomas. We could not have been better served. Above all, we are in debt to the generosity of our witnesses who came from all quarters of housing and planning and who gave unstintingly of their time and expertise, whether they were environment experts, politicians, housebuilders or whatever.

What we wanted to achieve and, throwing modesty to the winds, what I think we have achieved, was to frame a public debate not on housing, although that certainly was a central feature, but on the wider context—in shorthand, on place-making. We asked our expert witnesses: why we seem as a country, to borrow the term recently used by the British Academy, which is engaged in a similar review, to be so “place blind”; why there was so much ugly and careless building when we had so much talent and resource to build better; where the consistent and new challenges are; where the pressures on the system are worse and how they can be reduced or removed; what are the essential ingredients of a healthy and sustainable community; and how could the role of central and local government be changed so that more impact is made, more ambition is created and more leadership and drive are shown?

The answers we received were that it is possible to build better and to manage environmental change without building fewer homes or creating dysfunctional communities, whether that is expressed, for example, in terms of putting a priority on mandatory design requirements; by achieving carbon neutrality and sustainable drainage; by making lifetime homes mandatory in new housing developments to match the needs of an ageing society; by using the assets of our spectacular historic environment proactively to create character in place; or, indeed, by putting the health and well-being of the community at the heart of place-making. We were ambitious for change because our expert witnesses were ambitious and unanimous that this is within our grasp as a country, and they offered many common solutions. The public and professional responses to the report have been swift and positive. The president of RIBA, Jane Duncan, for example, welcomed the report, anticipating that the,

“House of Lords will now get to work with our members and other professionals to ensure that these important policies are adopted by Government”.

We hoped that the Government would respond in similar spirit. I am extremely sorry to say that we feel they have not. We worked hard, for example, to ensure that our report was out in time to inform debates on the then Housing and Planning Bill. The usual period of reply is two months. We waited nine months for a reply to this report. We received it in November—a record delay and a record silence from government. But what is really striking and, for me, saddening, is the tone of the response when it finally emerged and the failure of the DCLG to engage with the scale, the urgency and the spirit of the report. I feel that it failed to respond as seriously to us as we tried to do to the scale of the challenges we were addressing. With the exception of a very few instances where the Government commit to consider a recommendation—and the commitment is usually of a partial nature—the department has simply ridden over the evidence or the argument, whether it concerns a failure or possibilities for positive change.

This is what some of our experts have said in response to the Government’s response:

“Unsurprisingly the response is mainly a defence of existing Government policies, and to that extent disappointing. There are some glimmers of hope … Other areas of agreement with the Select Committee are so well camouflaged that they could easily be overlooked. To avoid a legacy of a poor quality built environment for decades to come, the Government needs to do a lot more to prove that place quality really is one of its priorities”.


I believe that that is a measured comment. I am sorry to say that the routine response throughout the report is to tell the Select Committee what it already knew was happening—for example, explaining policy positions which were often the starting point for our recommendations; or providing a defence of the need to go no further on the grounds that what is being done is sufficient. This can only reinforce the sense we got from our witnesses that they were concerned that the Government genuinely lacked the courage to address the systemic failures of the present system and the necessary, though difficult, solutions that were being put forward, the necessity for adapting to climate change being only one example.

There is nothing easy about finding solutions to these problems. The issue we have is that we searched this report to find a serious engagement with them. It is no pleasure for me to criticise the DCLG. I have a great affection for my old department, and I know how well and how hard officials work. I know the present Minister inherited the situation but it is important that we are truthful in our response, because we have to learn from what we have missed in this exchange.

I turn now to a few specifics. I know that other noble Lords will want to speak on many other aspects of the report, so I will concentrate on just three issues: national policy-making, local policy-making and housebuilding.

Underlying the whole report is the need for the Government to set a much more ambitious role for integrated place-making, to make good the defects that come from the divorce between planning for the economy and for transport, health, environment and culture. In short, we need to move place-making from the periphery to the core and make it the driver rather than the receiver of policy. To that end, we argued, first, for an audit of where policies overlap; secondly, for a clear national policy statement about the role of place-making in government and the divisions of responsibilities; and thirdly, for the creation of a new post, a chief built environment adviser. The role of this adviser would be to promote and monitor the integration of policy-making and to be the champion of quality. We suggested this person should be supported by a small strategic unit, which would make up in part for the loss of the excellent work that was done by CABE until it was scrapped in 2011.

This recommendation has been warmly received and widely debated as an essential measure if there is to be any shift away from departmental silos and low expectations. The Government have responded by insisting that there is already strong policy co-ordination across departments, Cabinet committees and task forces and over the transfer of architecture from the DCMS to the DCLG. I do not think that anyone who has ever served on a Cabinet Office sub-committee has any illusion about there being a spirit of co-ordination. It is largely there for departments to state their existing positions. There is no direct response to the recommendations that the Cabinet Office should review areas of overlap, or that a high-level policy should be published. However—and this is the most positive response in the entire report—the Government have offered to consider—no more—the existing role of the chief planner taking on responsibilities of a chief built environment adviser. They said:

“We will look at developing the Chief Planner role to include discussing and facilitating communication and implementation of policy on the built environment and to identifying and sharing good practice”.


I hate to sound churlish, although I know that I will, because this would be a good but very modest step; but, in truth, the chief planner has a very specific and major job to do. What we are talking about is a new way in which to galvanise bringing together the built environment concerns across government—more than telling other departments what is going on in the DCLG. Can the Minister tell us today when we can expect to see the new job description of the chief planner, and what will it consist of? When will it come into effect? Will it, for example, as the RIBA has suggested, require the Government to publish an annual report providing for high-level monitoring of quality and delivery, and establish priorities for research, policy and action? Will it require the postholder to facilitate a single cross-cutting policy for the built environment? Finally, does this mean that the Government have rejected the recommendation for a separate high-level post altogether?

As for local government, we were clear in the report that the capacity of local authorities,

“to plan proactively and engage with communities is vital in delivering this vision, wellbeing, prosperity and a stronger sense of place. We would like to see the planning profession regain the status and prestige it deserves”.

That is a very significant recommendation, which goes to the heart of many problems. Showing confidence in what planning can creatively achieve is long overdue. Planning is usually cast as the villain, particularly in frustrating housebuilding; indeed, what we have seen in recent years has been a marked acceleration of the deregulation of the planning system in the rush to build as many houses as possible as quickly as possible, which is precisely where the cause for concern over quality is rooted.

We are not going to disagree in our committee that the response must be on local and neighbourhood determination, but there is, and must remain, a prime role for local plan-making as a whole and for maintaining the right balance of development and sustainability. We have to have a guaranteed supply of qualified planners for the future as well as the present. That was precisely what was reflected in the stream of evidence that we received of the impact of budget cuts, the haemorrhage of experienced planners and conservation officers and the huge pressures to prioritise housing development over everything else. That concerns everyone with an interest in good place-making, from developers to Civic Voice. This is precisely why we made recommendations to increase the supply and training of planners, and on the necessity to look for alternative ways in which to fund planning services.

The Government made no response to this crisis in planning. What we were told was that there were a number of existing sector-led initiatives, and on the funding evidence, the Government referred us to the consultation on fees which closed last April. These are inadequate responses to profoundly worrying questions. When our proposals were essentially so practical, why were they rejected? What exactly are the Government planning to do to address the problem of capacity?

Finally, when we suggested the need for more incentives to promote greater co-operation between local authorities, the Government referred us to existing NPPF policy around the duty to co-operate. Since then, we know that there is more in the Neighbourhood Planning Bill—but those are not incentives; they are more like sticks, and it is not clear how they will be enforced. They do not compensate for the lack of spatial planning at regional or sub-regional level, where you can really form a policy.

The greatest test will come in relation to housing supply and quality, and it is here that the Government’s response has been particularly revealing. Three crucial issues which influence the speed and delivery of new houses were identified in the report but sidelined in the Government’s response: housing finance, land-banking, and viability.

The committee observed, on the basis of a wealth of evidence, that the Government were unlikely to meet their housing targets and increase housing supply significantly by relying on the private sector. The sector agreed. The committee recommended, in all logic, that the Government should review the impact of borrowing restrictions so that local authorities could play a greater and essential role. That is hardly novel or radical. RICS, to cite only one body, agreed with us. It said:

“Put simply, more needs to be done to tackle the housing crisis. We wholeheartedly agree that the private sector alone cannot solve the problem”.


The Government explicitly rejected these recommendations.

Likewise, on land-banking, if noble Lords look at pages 70 and 71 of the report they will see that in September 2015, for example, 251,000 homes were granted permission but only half—124,000—homes were actually built in 2014-15, and they may have been inherited from the previous year. This is about land values increasing and profits accumulating, not problems with the planning system. The committee concluded that the Government must consider helping to,

“accelerate the delivery of housing on sites with planning permission, such as permitting the charge of equivalent council tax rates … subject to safeguards”.

The Government failed to acknowledge or address this recommendation, just as they have historically failed to agree that this is an issue. Perhaps the Minister can tell me, having read the evidence, how the Government intend to deal with the reality of land-banking and the failure to build new housing on sites for which planning permission has been given.

On the impact of the development viability test as set out in the NPPF, witnesses told us that it was proving a gift to developers, who are often able to argue successfully that their proposed scheme would become unviable if they were required to provide affordable housing or other planning obligations. We recommended that the Government revise the NPPF to reduce the unreasonable use of viability assessments and introduce a nationally consistent methodology. The Government rejected the first recommendation, although it is modest and logical, but they have said that they will bring forward a more standardised approach post the 2015 spending review. That is good news, but that is now over a year ago. When can we expect these proposals? Will this be mandatory?

I conclude by quoting the Town and Country Planning Association, which commended our report for focusing,

“on the quality of places that we create, rather than just housing”.

It hoped that,

“the government heeds the advice from the House of Lords”.

As I set out in my introduction, the committee feels that the Government have for the most part not heeded its advice, but resorted to a defence of the status quo. But we live in extraordinary times: a rapidly ageing population; climate change; new technologies that will change the places we live and work; highly stressed and dangerously polluted cities; failing transport systems; increasing demands for clean energy; and a huge, unmet need for affordable housing. Put that against the background of Brexit and there has never been a greater need for facing up to the future, and for ambition and leadership.

Planning can do so much more and so much better than it is allowed to do. The Government have taken three times as long as they usually do to think about a response to our report. Would that they had used that time to develop their thinking of how to promote greater confidence, greater competence and more leadership. These issues will not go away. I just hope our report will serve as a resource of clear thinking and wise advice. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Andrews]

My Lords, I am very grateful indeed for the Minister’s response. I will just pick up a couple of points, as the time is getting on. I thank everybody who has spoken in this debate, both those who served on the committee and those who did not. It has been a rich and wide debate, bringing up issues which we did not address in detail but which are extremely important, not least the questions of how we preserve the historic environment and how we make the most of our woodlands.

The noble Lord’s response was, frankly, more energetic and positive than the response of the department earlier, and we really appreciate that. We also accept the apology for the delay. He reflected on how diverse and how complex this area is, which is precisely our point and precisely why we think there should be an effort to ride over this and create something where somebody has the responsibility of taking charge of bringing this together. That would be in the spirit of what the Prime Minister is trying to do by way of making a more interventionist strategy inside government.

The response on the chief built environment adviser is extremely welcome, and we will certainly want to talk to the noble Lord about that. He has set several tests for the Government now, because there are several hostages to fortune in the Neighbourhood Planning Bill, the housing White Paper and several other things he mentioned, which will create an opportunity for many of our recommendations to be tested out and put into practice. He has offered us the opportunity for an ongoing conversation, which we will absolutely want to take up.

I want to pick up one other thing, which derives from something my noble friend Lord Howarth said. Essentially, when we build quality, we build efficiency. There is absolutely no contrast between getting beautiful things, beautifully made—whether it is places or housing—and delivering the best possible outcome for people and for the country as a whole in terms of building communities. That is really the fundamental point that we are making in the report: we can have it, people deserve it and an intelligent, humane and thoughtful Government can provide it. I am very grateful to the noble Lord and we look forward to more conversation.

Motion agreed.