Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Andrews and Lord Judd

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, I will follow the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in his masterly demolition of Clause 12. My first point concerns the notion of relevance. Clearly, the committee really struggled with notions of relevance and found itself quoting, in paragraph 13, the memorandum, which illustrated,

“examples of the types of condition that the proposed power would prohibit. They include: ‘those which may unreasonably impact on the deliverability of a development, those which place unjustifiable and disproportionate financial burdens on an applicant, or those which duplicate requirements to comply with other statutory regimes’”.

That could probably cover every single impact of every aspect of development. These are vague and general in the extreme, so no wonder the important conclusion of the committee was that it would be,

“inappropriate for the Government to be given a power which could be used to go well beyond the stated aims of the Bill”.

Were these regulations to be enacted, the committee recommended that,

“the affirmative procedure should apply to the exercise of the powers”.

Do the Government agree that if this clause stands, the affirmative procedure will indeed be adopted?

The Delegated Powers Committee, on which I had the honour to serve for many years, does not make such recommendations lightly. This is a very serious indictment and a very serious conclusion. Do the Government intend to accept that the affirmative procedure should apply in this case?

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I find these amendments very important and significant. If we are going to tackle the issue of regulation, it is terribly important that we get it right and that we tackle the real problems, not just theoretical problems or those identified by people who are discussing the issues at a rather remote level.

Let me be very direct: I live five miles outside Cockermouth, in the Lorton Valley. There is a tremendous debate going on at the moment about development in Cockermouth. It is not about whether the houses being built are liable to flooding; that is an issue, but it does not seem that they will be. However, people who have suffered terrible flooding experiences more than once in recent years now say that there is a risk that what is being done will contribute to the flooding of other people’s homes, because the drainage arrangements necessary for the number of houses being built are inadequate. This is a real issue and in our approach to it, we need to be careful and the Government need to take the points raised in these amendments seriously. This is affecting people now, and there is real anxiety. That anxiety is accentuated because in Cockermouth and the surrounding area, people are not convinced that the arrangements being made will prevent the repetition of flooding in future years. A great building programme is going ahead before the people directly affected have been assured that arrangements are in hand to meet the challenges that have arisen.

The issues raised this afternoon are crucial. I hope the Government will think hard about whether the clause is necessary and, if they are determined to go ahead with it, ensure that it meets the real issues that are affecting real people in real situations.