Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I move on to slightly gentler territory this time but of great import nevertheless. We all recognise that, in seeking to do the right thing by wider society, we have real problems about how the actions are to be carried out by the authority. That is why Amendment 74 seeks to insert the words:

“the standards of animal welfare required when carrying out species control agreements and orders”.

I am sure the whole Committee will endorse the view that we must ensure that we abide by the highest level of protection for animal welfare. Concerns have been raised by a number of bodies, including the National Farmers’ Union, Animal Aid and the National Anti Snaring Campaign, which have all cited the threat to animal welfare. We must be alert also to the fact that these control orders might prevent farmers and growers being able to react to market opportunities by growing new varieties of crops. That is why those concerned with the countryside argue for an appropriate system of checks and balances to protect their interests. I am not sure that the Bill meets that test at present. The Government have failed to include anything in this schedule to protect animal rights, despite the fact that we know that representations have been made by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Woodland Trust and the Law Commission that the legislation should indeed provide for the inclusion of animal welfare provisions. I fail to see why these representations, made while the Bill was being drawn up, have not registered effectively with Ministers.

Perhaps that is to do with the fact that Ministers are fresh from the horrors of the badger cull and the problems they had over that issue; there are also the problems we have all had over dangerous dogs legislation in recent years. However, the Government were quick to denounce the presence of beavers from sightings in Devon and to suggest their ability to carry a disease when, from what I can see, the Government have produced no proof or scientific evidence to back up these contentions. What assessments do the Government make when deciding whether an animal is considered dangerous or harmful? Is the fact that it is just strange and new sufficient for forthright action to eliminate it?

Reports show us that there is a case that animals such as beavers might have an effect that is as positive as it is negative. I know that we all have to come to terms with the development of new species when they arrive. I am told that beavers would cause a great deal of trouble wherever floods were likely to occur, but I had thought that beavers were rather good at building dams and that most of the demands being made from the Somerset Levels and elsewhere during the past year were to say, “We want more defences”. Why can we not get the helpful beaver to chip in with his little bit? At the least, I am not quite sure why he is condemned outright before he has had the chance. It seems that the Government are obsessed with controlling anything that they think to be a threat, without properly assessing whether it is a threat or not—and certainly without even beginning to think that there might be benefits.

The Government do not have the best track record in following the advice of scientists, especially when it comes to the natural environment. Their failure over the badger culls, where they have been heavily criticised across a whole spectrum of informed opinion, is a clear example. We must make sure that species control operations are conducted and introduced on the back of a clause that enshrines the need to look at the preservation of animal welfare. I am hopeful that the Minister, while she might think it rare, will see this as a constructive amendment from the Official Opposition and look kindly upon it. I beg to move.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend. There was a good example in Australia, which I could perhaps relay to the Committee. My brother, who lives in housing association accommodation, was invaded by a possum. It was in his roof for about three years before he was able to persuade the housing association to do something about it. Of course, the possum is a protected species but eventually along came Paul, the “Possum Whisperer”, whose job it was to persuade the possum to leave the premises without endangering the species. He did that without any harm to the premises or to the possum, but the end of the story was that the possum re-emerged slightly later, next door but one. The neighbour knocked on my brother’s door and said, “Hey, I’ve got this possum—any advice about how to get rid of it?”. My brother said, “Well, Paul the Possum Whisperer is the person that you need to go to”. So there was a job creator as well as a very skilled person, who could act in a humane way to protect the animal. It may be that the Government could indulge in some job creation activity here by creating skills such as sheep whisperers and beaver whisperers to get these animals off the premises without any harm. This is a very good amendment, which we should support.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

On these Benches, we have some sympathy with this amendment. When we are looking at how we take forward species control agreements, it is important that some principles are set up out front. While I would not go so far as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and talk about animal rights, we on these Benches support animal welfare.

There are two reasons why this amendment has some merit. First, we need these species control orders to be effective and humane. That is where I have a slight difference of opinion with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham. We may have disagreements about the outcomes of the Government’s badger-culling pilots, but the Government went in on the basis that the pilots were to test whether a cull was effective, humane and safe. These species control orders should follow the same principles of being effective and humane.

My second point, which may find more favour with some in government, is that clearly whether species control orders go ahead and the cost attached to them will depend on how they are undertaken. It is a damn sight cheaper to free shoot than it is to trap and shoot. Whether a form of species control is humane will have an impact on the cost. Therefore, when we are setting up the principles behind these species control agreements, it is important that a marker is set down that they should be humane, because that will have an impact on the cost, which will be determined on a case-by-case basis for these species control agreements.

For those two reasons, this amendment has some merit. Equally, I think it has the merit that it does not stipulate the control method to be used for each of these species control agreements but talks about the principles for the code. That is what we should be doing. We should be setting down some fundamental principles in the code which can then be interpreted on a case-by-base basis for each of the species control agreements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I am reminded that I should probably also declare an interest as a vice-president of the LGA, although I think that that is quite well known by now.

Misgivings have already been expressed this afternoon, and I hope that the Minister will go a long way to reassure all of us on this. I would like to understand better the need for this legislation. I do not know to what extent failure to discharge planning conditions is a problem. What is the evidence of the extent to which there is a problem? I am sure that there must be occasions when local authorities fail to meet the time limit. Very likely, as the noble Baroness said, that is because there has been a huge reduction in the size of planning departments. That was a problem long before the budget cuts started. Too many planning officers were going off to much better paid jobs in the private sector. With the budget cuts, the planning department has been no more exempt from downsizing staff numbers than any other part of a local authority, and that has probably added to it. That may be in part a cause of a problem but I would like to understand the extent to which there is a problem. What evidence is there of the problem that we are trying to solve?

I then come to the question of whether this is the best or the most necessary solution to the problem. I can certainly understand that if there really is a problem—if local authorities are, to any significant extent, simply failing to respond and that is holding up the necessary work—then action needs to be taken. Possibly, in extremis, this is the right action, but let us understand better the extent and cause of the problem that we are dealing with.

A number of questions have already been asked but when the Minister responds perhaps I may seek an answer to another point on the scope of what we are dealing with. Can we be clear that we are talking here about a failure to respond and not a failure to agree? That is quite important because it deals with part of my concern about the extent of the problem. The Minister referred to the very pleasing number of planning consents that are being granted. I have to say that I am much more interested in the number of starts and even more interested in the number of completions rather than the number of consents that are granted, but I hope that it is an indicator that we are moving in the right direction. However, if you ask developers what the delays in implementing planning consents are down to—sometimes they are accused of having land banks and so on, which they all deny—the knee-jerk answer is always “The planning system”, but when you probe a bit more, it is not quite that simple. Therefore, I should like to be reassured that we have evidence that there is a problem here and that we are not just responding to the easy answer that usually comes from developers about the planning system.

As I said, I want to be clear that what we are dealing with here is a lack of response, not a lack of agreement. Part of the concern is that if a developer is not entirely happy with the planning conditions—that is not unknown—that can be used as a means of getting round, wriggling out of or avoiding a consent. I am sure that that is not the intention here but it is something that we all want to ensure is avoided.

There is another thing that I am not clear about. If the Secretary of State gives deemed consent to the discharge of planning conditions but the local authority does not agree with that decision—it may be the local authority’s fault for not responding quickly enough, but one of the reasons for it not responding quickly enough may be that the development is not as straightforward as the developer suggested—can it still use an enforcement order to apply those conditions? Does that happen? I do not know, but I would like to know whether it is still available or if it is also to be taken away. We all have concerns about the detail here, as we always do when more power is given to Secretaries of State. Are we to have secondary legislation that will set out the scope and circumstances of all this? I would assume that we are. If so, when are we likely to be able to see that legislation in draft?

While I do not have quite the strong hostility to this that the Opposition have expressed, I certainly share the misgivings and I wonder whether we are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut that could be better dealt with in a simpler and more straightforward way through discussion, negotiation and agreement—and, frankly, although I never thought I would say it, with more planners.

[Baroness Donaghy]

My Lords, I do not have the expertise of other noble Lords in this area, but I want to bring in the human element, which perhaps needs to be emphasised around this Judge Jeffreys clause. We need a balance between the needs of the entrepreneur and developer and the individual whose life is impacted by these proposals. We need to think about the protection of the individual. I and, I am sure, other noble Lords in this Room know how miserable it is when something is happening next door over which you do not feel you have any control. It might be an overlarge extension that cuts out the daylight from a much loved garden. The impact on an individual is greatly underestimated by the strong lobby that surrounds deregulation. What consideration has been given to individual rights and community cohesion because these things are extremely important?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords, but I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Tope for asking me to be clear from the outset on what the Government intend in Clause 20 and why we believe that it is necessary. It is important that I start there before addressing some of the concerns which have been expressed about how we expect this to operate. I hope that, by responding in some detail today, I can go a long way towards reassuring noble Lords. I have quite a lot of information to share which addresses directly some of the points that have legitimately been made in the debate.

This provision is about ensuring that local authorities hit the deadlines they are already working towards, thus providing the applicant with greater certainty about when a decision can be expected. Unfortunately, we find that in too many instances local planning authorities are not dealing with applications to discharge conditions in a timely manner. The impact of these delays is experienced by all types of applicants, from those building a small development to people who are taking forward a major housing scheme. The impact is most acute where the local planning authority has imposed a pre-commencement condition which prevents any start to the work on site until a further detail is agreed, but it then fails to deal with the matter efficiently. Before I go any further, I want to make it absolutely clear for the record that this clause is all about the conditions that are applied once an application has been given planning approval. This is not about anything to do with decisions before approval is granted; this is about conditions that are attached when a local authority has already decided that something should go ahead. It is at that stage of the process, not before a decision is made to say yes.