Covid-19: Road Map

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Lord Greaves

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am sure that my colleagues will have heard my noble friend’s question. I will certainly pass it on to relevant colleagues in DCMS.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has accepted that we are not going to get rid of Covid and that it is going to be present at some level and endemic at least for quite a long time. Will it not be the case that, when we get the virus down to a level that we think is acceptable, outbreaks will be sporadic and localised? Is that not even more reason for putting testing, tracing, tracking back, stamping out and imposing lockdowns on individuals—self-isolating, if you like—in the hands of people who know what they are doing and who have the local knowledge and the professional expertise; that is, the environmental and public health officers of local authorities and the local health staff connected with GP surgeries?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord, and I hope that I gave some indication of that in my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. As the Prime Minister said, we will take a highly precautionary approach, acting hard and fast to suppress worrying local outbreaks—the noble Lord is absolutely right: there will be local outbreaks. I referred to Middlesbrough and Walsall, where local action of exactly the sort described by the noble Lord has been taken. As I said, we will publish the updated Covid contain framework next month to bring all this together. That will be another way in which an enhanced toolkit of measures to address various concerns at a local level will be set out.

Covid 19: Winter Plan

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Lord Greaves

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

Regardless of faith, Christmas is a time when family and friends come together. It has been an incredibly difficult year for everyone, and time with loved ones is very important. We have been very clear about the rules and we have also been clear that it is for people and families to make judgments about how comfortable they feel in terms of the importance of seeing loved ones with regard to their vulnerability. However, I personally would say no to stopping people seeing family for Christmas. I would prefer to see my family, but obviously I will have to make judgments with them about how comfortable we feel, and I think that that is quite important.

[Lord Greaves (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am reminded of the line from the poem,

“If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

It seems that this is the Government’s last chance to get things right on a lot more testing and distribution of the vaccines. The Royal Blackburn Hospital reports that despite the fact that the number of infections in east Lancashire has started to go down at last, it has twice as many Covid cases in hospital as it had in the spring. That is putting huge pressure on all its services.

I asked about the Nightingale hospitals in a recent Question and was told that each Nightingale team has been developing a clinical model that can be scaled up as and when additional capacity is required. Why are we not using the Nightingale facilities in places like Manchester and Harrogate to relieve the pressure on hospitals like Blackburn?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The NHS Medical Director has made it clear that the NHS has carefully planned to make sure that we can deal with additional demand using, as the noble Lord has rightly said, the mobilisation of the Nightingale hospitals and through partnerships with the independent sector. They will ensure that this is rolled out as and when it is needed. I am sure that they will be cognisant of the situation in Blackburn and will be monitoring it very carefully.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Lord Greaves

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I can certainly assure the noble Baroness that discussions are ongoing across government, including through the Treasury and the Business Secretary, with local leaders, local business leaders, unions and workers’ representatives. Of course, she will be aware that, as part of the announcements we have made, we have extended the job support scheme. She will also be aware that, since the beginning of the crisis, we have provided more than £200 billion of support to business. We completely understand, and by using these figures I am not trying to diminish the issues that people are facing in their daily lives, but I can reassure her that this is top of our agenda. I hope she will recognise that the Chancellor has been working fleet of foot so that he is able to bring forward support packages to help individuals and businesses through this difficult time.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I spent quite a lot of time yesterday afternoon looking at the detailed infection figures for Covid for each Lancashire district on a daily basis over the last 10 weeks. It is absolutely clear that the first main surge of infections occurred during September, particularly around the middle of September. On 1 September the schools went back, and this seems to be the topic that we are not allowed to talk about. The Government have said they are not going to close schools under any circumstances. I am not saying that the statistical correlation—which is clearly there—is a causal one; I am saying it needs to be looked at hard and investigated. I notice that Northern Ireland is closing its schools for a fortnight. Will the Minister forecast how long it will be before schools in the most affected areas in England are closed?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

Within the very high tier—the top level of the new interventions—non-essential retail, schools and universities will remain open. They remain open at all levels. As the noble Lord rightly said, we have prioritised keeping schools open as one of the key things we wish to do because, as we have heard in previous debates in your Lordships’ House, the disadvantage to young people when schools close is something that we really do not want to repeat, having seen what happened earlier in the year. I am afraid I will not make any apology for the fact that we have put that at the top of our priority list.

Update to Parliament

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Lord Greaves

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have said repeatedly to noble Lords, we did act in good faith. The Supreme Court has found against the case that we put forward and we accept that. We will reflect on that judgment and we will abide by it. The Prime Minister has spoken to the Queen—I have no idea what that conversation involved—and, as I have said, I will reflect back the views of this House and its reaction to the Statement today.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, in my lifetime, from Mr Attlee to Mrs May, there have been, I think, 13 Prime Ministers before the present one. Would the Leader of the House like to hazard a guess as to how many of them would not have thought it necessary to tender their resignation in the face of such a shattering and astonishing decision against them by the Supreme Court? Secondly, I think she said that the Supreme Court had changed the law. I am not a lawyer but I watched a lot of the Supreme Court proceedings with fascination, as no doubt many other noble Lords did. The very clear impression I got was that the Supreme Court was not trying to change the law; it spent a lot of time trying to establish exactly what the law is and, having decided that, then had the decision to make as to whether or not it had been broken.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

In the other place, the Attorney-General said:

“The Supreme Court has made new law … from now on, the prerogative power”,


can be a justiciable subject and the implications,

“for the future of our constitutional arrangements will have to be reflected upon”.

Flood Defences

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Lord Greaves

Thursday 1st December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Liberal Democrat Benches.

[Lord Greaves]

I am grateful. Last February, £450,000 was allocated to a vital scheme to improve a culvert, called Victoria Clough, in the small town of Earby on the boundaries of Lancashire and Yorkshire, but nothing has yet happened. Is there a problem of capacity or resource constraints in getting the schemes going in Defra, the Environment Agency or anywhere else? If there is, would it not be sensible to let a competent local authority take it over?

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Lord Greaves

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I have given the noble Lord the answer that I can. I am sorry that he is unhappy with it. I will go back and have a look to see whether I can provide him with any other information.

The noble Lord will also not be happy with my response to his question on the DPRRC report. I am afraid that it depends on what time the House rises as to whether noble Lords get it before we rise, but they will get it today. On that basis, I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, there is a lot there to look at, read and think about. In the last argument there was some confusion between compulsory outsourcing and being forced to be subject to competition. Those are different things. I think the Government are saying that some authorities may have a designated person or persons forced on them in their area, but some clarification would be very helpful. The Bill certainly says that that is possible.

I thank everybody who took part in the discussion. Some were more entertaining than others. The noble Lord, Lord True, took us into the details of planning committees, which some of us have spent far too much time in our lives chairing, being members of or whatever. On the point about the relationship between the committee and its planning officer regarding applications where the committee may overturn the recommendation of the officer, there are applications where it is obvious which way they will go: that they will be rejected, or passed. While people may argue one way or the other, there are no sensible reasons and it is a fairly cut-and-dried case. But in most cases where recommendations are overturned, they are arguable both ways. If the planning committee overturns cases where it is not arguable both ways, it is not a very good committee. It is behaving pretty irresponsibly, really.

Under those circumstances, the reports written by planning officers are balanced. They will put forward the reasons an application has been made and the arguments for it; they will put forward the objections to it and the reasons it might be turned down; then they will come down on one side or the other. If the committee takes a different view and it then goes to appeal, a sensible inspector will look at all the original reports and everything else and he will come to the view that it was a perfectly reasonable decision by the committee.

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[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord’s Amendment 102DC is excessive, not least because local authorities tell us that it cannot be beyond us to work together to design a robust system of checks and balances to maintain professional standards. As I have said, we believe that the private sector could bring valuable innovation and efficient techniques to processing and managing planning applications. That said, it is entirely reasonable and understandable to ask how we will maintain accountability, integrity and professional standards with private sector involvement. Key to this is who makes the decision—who can be a designated person, what applications designated persons are allowed to process, and legal safeguards in the planning system.

I have been crystal clear that responsibility for deciding planning applications will remain with local planning authorities, and they cannot delegate that to a designated person. A designated person will not be able to decide on a planning application. Notwithstanding a separate amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, Clause 146(1)(b) already allows us to specify circumstances where a local authority could take over a planning application from a designated person, including where it has demonstrable concerns about the designated person’s work. Persons designated by the Secretary of State will be expected to meet high professional standards and have expert planning knowledge that would enable them to operate in pilot areas with unique characteristics. We will expect them to demonstrate the ability to engage with local communities and councillors so that they can operate successfully in these pilot areas. We expect to put in place mechanisms to address any failure in standards and integrity, such as removing a provider’s designation, or, as I said a moment ago, enabling poor work to be redone.

Our engagement work with local authorities and the private sector has also highlighted the obligations of Royal Town Planning Institute membership, which was mentioned by noble Lords during discussion of the previous group of amendments. All members of the RTPI are bound by a code of professional conduct, underpinned by a complaints process, setting out required standards of practice and ethics for chartered and non-chartered members. RTPI members are required to adhere to five core principles: competence; honesty and integrity; independent professional judgment; due care and diligence; and professional behaviour. We will look to build these and similar standards into the selection and performance monitoring of designated persons. Crucially, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that a designated person must not be allowed to process a planning application in which they have an interest. Furthermore, after extensive dialogue with local authorities, professional bodies and the private sector, we will set out in regulations the actions and procedures that a designated person must follow in processing a planning application.

I also draw the noble Lord’s attention to Section 327A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, concerning requirements for processing planning applications. A local planning authority must not entertain a planning application where the formal manner in which the application is made, or, crucially, the formal content of any document or other matter which accompanies the application is not compliant with the requirements for processing a planning application. Therefore, an application which has not been appropriately processed by a designated person, or has involved a conflict of interest, could be considered null and void.

I can assure noble Lords that, given the importance of this issue, we will continue this dialogue to ensure that we get the design of the pilots right. I hope that, with this brief overview, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I will. That was extremely helpful and I will read it carefully. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. I too want to get home tonight, and if helps the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, I shall not move the next group of amendments, because I think that we have more or less finished the debate on this for tonight.

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[Lord Greaves]

Briefly, my Lords, there were suggestions earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who is no longer in his place, that the planning system needed an improvement. I apologise for tabling this amendment in a rather strange location in the Bill; that was by accident. I tabled it to suggest that it was time for the Government to pursue an inquiry and reforms to the plan-making system, as opposed to the development control system.

Since then, I have discovered that such an investigation has been taking place. I have a copy of a report which came out a few days ago—I think it was on 16 March—called Local Plans: Report to the Communities Secretary and to the Minister of Housing and Planning from the Local Plans Expert Group. I confess that I have not yet had time to read it, owing to the requirements of research on the Bill, but it is an excellent step forward. I hope that its contents are as good as I am billing them and that we will be able to have a slightly more relaxed debate in your Lordships’ House on this matter, by some mechanism or other, before the end of the Session.

There are defects in the development control system. While nobody is perfect, everybody who gets involved in that system is frustrated by some of the things that have to happen. Nevertheless, it has been my view for a number of years—I have expressed this in your Lordships’ House on a number of occasions—that the main inefficiencies and problems in the planning system are with plan making rather than development control. Plan making is cumbersome, bureaucratic, top-down, top-heavy and not very democratic. Reform is needed, particularly if local plans are to be the basis for planning in principle, so I am delighted by the document that I have received. In order to give the Minister a chance to reply, I beg to move this amendment.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank the noble Lord and I will respond very briefly. We recognise that the process of getting local plans in place can sometimes seem lengthy and complicated, which is why we gave a commitment in the productivity plan to bring forward proposals to streamline them. In September last year, Ministers invited an eight-strong group of experts to examine what measures or reforms might be helpful in ensuring the efficient and effective production of local plans. As the noble Lord rightly said, that group published its report on 16 March. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I am happy to beg leave to do so.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Lord Greaves

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Yes, they are included—I hope.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, the Government Chief Whip has walked in so he will want me to beg leave to withdraw my amendment. I just want to say two things. First, I thank the Minister for a very comprehensive response to this series of brownfield questions we have all been asking. The only point I will pick up again is this: if the Secretary of State is to give guidance or send out regulations to authorities, will the Government please pay particular attention to the question of brownfield turning to greenfield over a period of time? Local authorities need the discretion to decide when that transition has occurred. Otherwise what is clearly, to everybody’s eyes, now a greenfield site will have to be built on because it used to have development on it 40 or 50 years ago or whenever it was. That is an important issue but I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, these are just two straight questions about the status of the register. Will it be a local development document or will it be a development plan document? I beg to move.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Amendments 96C and 96D seek to define registers as local development documents and development plan documents. I understand that the noble Lord wishes to ensure that the process of preparing and maintaining registers has similar protections to development plan documents and local development documents but I hope I can reassure him that our proposals already include strong protections.

Brownfield registers are not intended to set out policy. By contrast, local development documents and development plan documents set out an authority’s policies relating to the development and use of land in its area. Registers would be a tool to provide consistent, up-to-date information on brownfield sites suitable for housing. It is our intention that registers will complement local plans. Both are designed to promote suitable sites for development. As I noted in my introductory comments, decisions about which sites to include on registers will have to have regard to the NPPF and the relevant local plan. We also propose that strategic housing land availability assessments will be the starting point for identifying suitable sites on brownfield registers.

I emphasise that local authorities will be required to consult the public and other interested parties about sites on their registers for which they intend to grant permission in principle for housing. Where authorities intend to enter a site on their register but are not proposing permission in principle, they will have discretion to consult the public and others before making a final decision. I hope that with those assurances the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

I am grateful for that reply. I think the answer is no. I have the information I wanted, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for his amendment. I reassure him that the Government are fully committed to unlocking new homes on brownfield land, which is why we are creating the £2 billion Home Building Fund to provide the investment in infrastructure and land remediation needed to support major housing developments. The fund will provide long-term loan funding to help unlock or accelerate a pipeline of 160,000 to 200,000 homes. It will support our key manifesto commitment to create a brownfield regeneration fund and to fund housing zones to transform brownfield sites into new housing. The new fund will be available to builders and housing developers across England.

I emphasise that the criteria on which we are consulting to assess the suitability of sites for brownfield registers will include a consideration of site viability. We would expect a site that was not viable to be unlikely to go on the register. I reassure the noble Lord that viability is central to our proposals and ask him to withdraw this amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

I am grateful for that reply. My only comment is that I want the Minister to say that non-viable sites will go on the register and that, together, we will work to find ways of making them viable and develop them. If the fund is now £2 billion instead of £1.2 billion or £1.3 billion, will somebody please tell me how we can get our hands on some of it, because we will use it well and build lots of new houses on brownfield sites? I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Lord Greaves

Thursday 17th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The questions raised by the noble Lord are subject to the consultation and bring up a number of issues. I will certainly write to him with the detail, if that would be helpful.

[Lord Greaves]

That would be extremely helpful. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 85.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Lord Greaves

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord makes a valid point. As he has kindly suggested, I will write to him with further details as I do not have the figures to hand. I hope that, in light of what I have said, the noble Lord will agree to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, half of whose speech was exactly the one I made in listing some of the powers that local authorities have in order to deal with empty homes and reduce their number. She is exactly right that some of those powers, such as levying council tax on empty homes, have contributed to a substantial reduction.

However, the Minister did not home in on my specific point about the relatively small number of properties which have effectively been abandoned and made derelict. They are the rotten teeth of the terraced streets, which cause immense problems. I am sure noble Lords can imagine the social problems that kids get in, or the effects of broken water pipes on neighbours. These problems are quite apart from the fact that people do not want to live on a street facing an empty property and therefore do not buy property on those streets, which reduces property values. This is a major problem in some parts of the country. The point I was trying to make—I thought I made it fairly well, but perhaps the Minister will read what I said and decide whether she agrees with me—is that the existing powers are no longer sufficient for allowing local authorities to deal with these problems.

The Minister mentioned improvement notices, which I deliberately did not include in order to keep my speech within 10 minutes. They are just the same. A council can make an improvement notice and if the owner does nothing do the work by default. It then has to put a charge on the property. Getting money back from people who have abandoned a property is not an easy thing to do and may well take many years, if it can be done at all. This is another example of a funding gap, where there is a cost to a local authority of using these powers in areas where the level of house prices and rents are low but the cost of the work is about the same as anywhere else in the country. In these areas, the cost of buying, doing work to and managing property is not matched by what the local authority can get in from selling, putting a charge on or renting the property. That is the difference. There is a gap and it is a serious problem, which applies to all of the different means that the Minister mentioned.

All I can ask is that the Minister and her colleagues look at this and write to me about how they think it may be solved. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.