Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Andrews and Lord Lansley

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Thursday 23rd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, I will try not to embarrass the co-pilot any more but he is a reasonable man, and these amendments seem to be reasonable. They attempt to help the Government to make clear what is genuinely not clear at the moment.

On the principle of pre-commencement as set out in the Bill’s requirement for a written consent, the question of evidence is important—that is, whether the lack of that at the moment is generally slowing down the planning application process. I am not convinced, and clearly few other noble Lords across the House are. There is clearly a lack of detail about how this will actually be applied.

However, I am more concerned about the unintended consequences that might occur as a result and the confusion inherent in the situation. I would like to know from the Government whether it is correct—and therefore Amendment 18 would genuinely help—that the Government intend to stick to the NPPF. If that is the case, Amendment 18 would ensure that pre-commencement conditions in line with the National Planning Policy Framework could still be imposed. That is all that we are seeking to do to establish some clarity. If that is not the case and the Government want to go further, we should know exactly what they want to do, how they see any extension of that process working, why they think it is important to do it, what effect it will have, what problem it will solve and what benefits it will bring.

To come back to archaeology, which is a key area and an exemplar of what might happen, there are concerns among the archaeological and heritage bodies about the clause. Of course, for most applicants the archaeological work is done in advance of development work to mitigate risks—we all know that; we have been over it many times in this House. The archaeological bodies are concerned that it would potentially allow less scrupulous developers to try to avoid paying for archaeological work by refusing to accept a pre-commencement condition. That means that, essentially, they could just walk away and nobody would benefit, which seems a rather draconian situation.

I know that the Minister is inclined to say that that should be governed by regulations and guidance, but an awful lot goes into guidance and regulations in this Bill, and something as crucial as being clear about the status of the NPPF in relation to pre-commencement orders should be established in the Bill if there is any difficulty around what is intended.

[Lord Lansley]

My Lords, pre-commencement planning conditions arise in both this group and the subsequent one. Clearly, we have entered into the debate on this group, so perhaps it might be simpler if I speak now rather than in the debate on the subsequent group. I will try not to detain the House for too long, but there are essentially three good reasons why we should proceed in the way the Government propose, by seeking written agreement with applicants before the planning permission is granted.

First, I draw attention to my interests in the register. I am chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum, and in that context I am reminded partly by this debate that, on the last occasion that our forum met—quite contrary to the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, represented the views of the development sector—the head of the historic environment team for Cambridgeshire came to the meeting, made a full presentation on what that team does and why it does it, and responded to questions. They agreed to work on a collaborative basis, because the development community appreciates that satisfying the needs of the historic environment is an essential part of their responsibility. However, I will come back to that as an example in a minute.

The second thing is that we have to remember that at the back of this is the fact that local planning authorities have an obligation not to grant planning permission in circumstances that would be contrary to the National Planning Policy Framework if an applicant would not agree to a condition that was implied by it. We are having a debate that is not based in reality. The implication is that the applicant does not sign up to this pre-commencement planning condition, and therefore planning permission is granted without it. That is not the situation. I am afraid that these two amendments in particular seem to have ignored that local planning authorities would be quite within their rights—and indeed are required by the legislation—to proceed on the basis of the NPPF. If they fail to do so and grant planning permission, they will be in dereliction of their planning responsibilities.

I come back to three points. I do not mean to steal the thunder of my noble friend on the Front Bench, because his thunder will be better than mine, but, first, this is about creating an expectation. The Government are promising to issue guidance. This is driving towards the situation where a written agreement with applicants will direct them towards trying to anticipate and meet the proper expectations of a local planning authority and a local community in advance, and to proceed probably by way of a draft set of conditions associated with a planning application in the first place, which would relieve the pressure on local planning authorities. It is also perfectly clear from local experience that it would also assist local planning authorities, which are short of experienced planning officers. It is the inexperienced planning officers who tend to put forward long—and often arguably unnecessary—sets of planning conditions. Experienced planning officers recognise what is required and are then likely to get to a better result more quickly. It will therefore enable that to happen more directly.

Secondly, it will avoid the ambush—the sense that at the last minute conditions can be applied, and the applicant has very little opportunity to respond or to decide whether they can proceed with a planning application on the basis of something that is applied at the last minute.

The third point is really important. It has come to my attention that pre-commencement planning conditions can create a problem because often, like other conditions, they have yet to be drafted after planning approval is granted. We are trying to avoid delay—we are trying to build the right housing in the right places as quickly as possible. Drafting the conditions after planning approval is granted causes unnecessary delay, and seeking written agreement to the conditions with an applicant in advance will ensure that we get rid of that delay.

Finally, we need to minimise the number of pre-commencement planning conditions. There is always a debate about whether something is pre or post commencement. If the number of pre-commencement planning conditions can be minimised, that too will help with the difficulty of discharging the conditions. Where there are a lot of consents, discharging the conditions is often a considerable source of delay in moving from planning approval to the point where build-out actually starts on site. We want to see those starts on site taking place. For all those reasons, I feel that the Government have a perfectly reasonable basis for proceeding in the way they have set out in the Bill.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Andrews and Lord Lansley

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Andrews]

My Lords, my noble friend has done the House a service in identifying what is at the very least something of a confusion and by quoting various paragraphs from reports and policy statements. There may even be a contradiction in the policy. As my noble friend and the noble Lord have said, the whole justification for the policy was that we faced a housing crisis of such proportions that a new fast-track approach to commandeering brownfield sites needed to be introduced through permission in principle. In my view, that breaks most of the rules for decent planning and healthy communities, but it was justified because of the scale of the housing developments that are so urgently needed.

Our contention has been that this is reflected in later amendments on sustainability, for example, and that yesterday’s mistakes in terms of the awful housing estates that were built without any thought being given to what communities needed to thrive should not be repeated. Therefore, proper attention, full information and provision should be made to ensure that housing developments, as planned, are served properly by infrastructure and green space. That has been much of our concern at previous stages of the Bill. There was no indication that these could be anything other than housing-led, so the possibility that has been raised by paragraph 36 of the Select Committee report, which has been quoted, is extremely significant. What was in the Minister’s mind, or that of the department, when this was put forward? Was it zones of massive DIY retail stores? What is meant by that paragraph?

This goes against the grain of good planning in many respects, as I have said. It is zoning, and it is zoning in its worst form. It is not the zoning that was recommended by the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he referred to it. The model he had in mind, I think, was as in parts of Europe, where zonal plans are extremely detailed, they are contested, they are democratic and they are effective. But these plans will not be like that because PIP does not provide for that. These plans do not allow for the high-level speculative, off-plan development that is currently seen in England; for example, through appeals. I believe that permission in principle will work properly only if we consider the full range of planning considerations before the key in-principle decision is made. That seems merely logical, and we have argued that consistently on this side of the House. To introduce confusion such as this at this stage of the debate is very serious. I hope the Minister will be able to clarify her intention.

[Lord Lansley]

My Lords, I did not intend to contribute to this debate but, having seen the amendments and heard how the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, introduced them, I will say a word or two. I draw noble Lords’ attention to my interests in the register, as I have done on previous occasions when speaking to the Bill: I am chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum.

We shall go on to discuss permission in principle, of which I am very much in favour. However, Amendment 102D would insert the word “brownfield”, and so restrict permission in principle to brownfield land. That is not what the Government intended and, as the Government have made quite clear in their amendment that says what the qualifying documents are, it clearly extends beyond brownfield land. Nor did I think from previous debates in Committee that it was the intention of the party opposite simply to restrict it to brownfield land. However, as the Members opposite are proposing to amend Clause 136, perhaps they do not support permission in principle at all.

Amendment 102E, which would change the wording to “land for housing”, seems to contradict the idea of housing-led development. If you can grant permission in principle only for housing-led development for “land for housing”, you have created a contradiction in the first subsection of the clause, such that it is only for housing, even though it may be “housing-led”. Amendment 102E seems defective.

I am against Amendment 102C, not because the Government do not want it to be housing-led development, but because if in the primary legislation we put “housing-led development”, we would have to define it there. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, made it clear that it could be defined in all sorts of ways: the definition could apply to a very small number of houses in a large mixed-use development or to a large number of houses with very modest additional development. How it is defined matters. If one puts into primary legislation at the top of the clause, “housing-led”, but does not define it anywhere, it will be defined only in the Government’s subsequent guidance. However, because it is in the primary legislation, the interpretation in that guidance would be subject to judicial review as to whether it satisfies the argument that it is housing-led. That is a recipe for delay: each application would be subject to judicial review as to whether it satisfies the primary legislation.

The point is that the Government, quite rightly, since it will be a matter of detail, make clear in new Section 59A(8) to be inserted into the Town and Country Planning Act that guidance will be issued. Clearly, given the nature of the fine distinctions that need to be made about what housing-led development looks like, it will be for the Government in that guidance to set that out. These amendments should therefore be resisted.