Building Repairs: VAT

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, there is plenty of time. It is the turn of the Liberal Democrat Benches.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I have relevant interests recorded in the register. I want to turn our attention to people’s homes. Some 20 years ago, Kirklees Council offered free loft and cavity wall insulation to every home, regardless of tenure. It was largely funded by energy companies, and 100,000 homes benefited from that scheme. Will the Government learn from that pioneering scheme and consider its introduction across the country in order to achieve the COP 28 agreement?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, we learn from all successful schemes in this area, and you will see similar provisions in our current schemes, including the contribution of energy companies to the cost of improving insulation for households. We have a number of different schemes. They tend to focus, at the initial stage, on those on lower incomes who will most benefit from the reduced bills that improved energy efficiency will bring, but as we move towards achieving our net-zero targets, we will need to have the whole country covered. The expansion of our schemes takes it further—for example, the extended discount on heat pumps that we announced earlier this year.

York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority Order 2023

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Grand Committee

In conclusion, this order, which is supported locally, is a significant step forward for York and North Yorkshire and its businesses and communities. It is key to the future economic development and regeneration of the area and will enable local leaders to invest effectively in, and address, local priorities. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee of my interests as a councillor in the adjacent West Yorkshire area and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Devolving powers on local decisions to locally elected representatives has been an aim of the Liberal Democrats for a very long time. It is very important that there is strategic thinking and decision-making across regions and subregions. Perhaps the Minister will therefore expect wholehearted support from the Liberal Democrats for the proposals before us, but she will be only partially right. I will detail the reasons for that.

First, mayoral combined authorities have delegated powers rather than devolved functions. Functions such as transport, housing, regeneration and planning are currently exercised centrally and delegated to the mayoral authority with, as we heard, skills following later. This particular mayoral authority will be granted, from Westminster, the grand sum of £18 million a year, which is specifically referenced within the order, as is the offer from the Government, as part of this deal, of £540 million over the next 30 years, plus additional sums which the Minister referenced. There is no mention of whether these are fixed cash sums, as they appear, or whether they will be index linked. Over 30 years, that potential £540 million will buy a lot less than it will now and be a lot less attractive than it appears within the order. Maybe the Minister can comment on that and say whether it will be index linked.

I acknowledge that this order enables a greater degree of local input in, for example, determining major highways schemes. However, the act of creating a mayoral authority is not a game-changer for more locally determined decision-making, as would occur in comparable local areas across western Europe.

My second point is the loss of democracy. The proposal before us is for the election of a single person to represent the whole of the City of York Council and North Yorkshire Council. The elected mayor will chair the combined authority of the two councils. The Schedule to this SI confirms that two representatives from each of the constituent authorities are required, with a third person acting as a substitute member. No other existing mayoral combined authority that I can think of has so few constituent member councils. It will be interesting to see how effectively this arrangement works in practice. There will be five people making decisions for the combined authority, on these very important functions that have been referred to.

This is a bit of a leap in the dark because of the small number of councils and, therefore, the small number of members on them. My second question is will there be a review of these constitutional arrangements, say within three years, to evaluate its success or otherwise? I think that is important.

The extension of the mayoral model to very rural areas, when the model does not recognise the very significant differences with urban areas, makes this a bit of a leap in the dark. I do not know whether the Minister has been to North Yorkshire. I live next door to it, so I know North Yorkshire and it is a very rural area. It has a population of 615,000, in—importantly—an area of 3,340 square miles, of which 40% is designated as the national parks North York Moors and the Dales. It is huge. With the City of York Council, which deals with a population of 142,000, the mayoral authority will be responsible for just about three quarters of a million people in a vast rural area, from the coast of Whitby to the border with Lancashire, and from the border with Northumberland to the border with Leeds. It is huge. There will be a single person directly elected to take responsibility not just for the mayoral functions but, in this instance, for both the role of police and crime commissioner and fire and rescue, for this vast county and historic city.

Of course, this is too large a range of responsibilities for one person. The arrangements in this order therefore allow for the appointment of a deputy mayor, who will presumably be responsible for police and fire. The upshot of that arrangement is that there is no longer a directly elected commissioner for policing or an elected councillor taking responsibility for the fire and rescue service across this vast county and the city of York. The conclusion I reach is that the Conservative experiment of police and crime commissioners has failed; otherwise, there would still be a directly elected police and crime commissioner for North Yorkshire and the city of York. At the minute, they are going to be appointed. Can the Minister explain whether there is now a policy of gradually removing elected PCCs?

The order states the expected allowances for the mayor, which will be determined by an independent panel. The scale of remuneration packages for combined authority mayors is instructive. In West Yorkshire, the mayor receives £105,000 per year while the appointed—I emphasise that word—deputy mayor receives £72,000 for taking responsibility in West Yorkshire for policing, but with no direct accountability to the people whom they are there to serve. Do not say “scrutiny” to me because it is ineffective.

The order also allows for the employment of a political adviser. I would like some explanation of that. From what I know, those do not exist in other mayoral combined authorities within the orders, so that is an interesting addition here.

In conclusion, a strategic political and democratically elected role is important. However, we Liberal Democrats cannot condone this cynical approach to removing elected police and crime commissioners—they are elected with responsibility for the fire and rescue service—and replacing them with appointed political people where there is no direct accountability through the ballot box, which is the least that taxpayers can expect in a democracy.

Given all that, I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee of my interests as a serving councillor at both county and district level. I am also a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

As a councillor for almost 27 years, a former leader of my council for 16 years, one of the instigators of the Hertfordshire Growth Board and a local enterprise board member since its inception, I am a great believer both in the transformational powers of local government and in far deeper and broader devolution. I see this, as does my party, as the quickest and most effective way of creating economic growth tailored to local circumstances, as well as of providing the levers of economic, social and environmental well-being where they can best be deployed flexibly, speedily and to the greatest benefit of the area concerned.

So, as a passionate advocate of devolution, it would be churlish of me not to welcome an agreement between York, North Yorkshire and the Government where all believe that it is in their interests. If I needed further convincing, it was pleasing to see that one of my local government colleagues—Councillor Mark Crane, the leader of Selby, who had always been deeply sceptical of such a deal for North Yorkshire—now welcomes the proposals; I am pleased to see that. I thank all the leaders and officials from that area who have done so much work to get this deal over the line. My comments concern the principles, with some specific questions about this deal, and are not intended to intervene in this two-year-long process between the councils in York and North Yorkshire, the people whom they represent and the Government.

We have seen highly effective outcomes from devolution in Greater Manchester—with which I worked extensively as part of the Co-operative Councils’ Innovation Network—and in West and South Yorkshire, but no one could argue that the progress of devolution has not been slower than a snail’s pace. It remains fragmented, patchy and piecemeal, with large areas of the country not subject to deals at all, even where they have worked carefully to draw together political, business and social partnerships, because they have clearly not passed the mysterious and indeterminate tests set by the Government. I cite Hertfordshire as an example here. I was very pleased to hear the Minister in the other place reiterate yesterday that a mayor is not the right solution for everybody, but it seems that, if your proposal does not include one, you are far less likely to shimmy under that government bar.

We would like to see a presumption in favour of handing back powers to our towns, cities and communities, with everywhere having the powers and flexibility to turbocharge the growth that works for their area and to attract investment, with the ability to negotiate longer-term finance settlements from government. That would give every area the ability to be ambitious for their residents and businesses and to deliver the real changes on the ground to deliver that ambition.

Too many areas are held back by our antiquated, struggling and definitely not fit for purpose local government funding system. It has been further weakened by years of cuts, use of outdated data that is out of touch with changes in local areas and, more recently, the further blow to finances caused by runaway inflation following the mini-Budget just over a year ago. To authorities in such straitened financial times, a devolution deal can bring some much-needed financial relief, so it is perhaps not surprising that local leaders are tempted. However, we need to see this in context. The York and North Yorkshire deal, for example, apparently equates to £20 per resident of the region per year over the term of the 30-year deal—incidentally, that is more than West Yorkshire but less than Liverpool, the Tees Valley and South Yorkshire, so I hope that local government colleagues working on deals are tough negotiators.

However, IPPR North tells us that the north of England has seen a £413 reduction per person in average annual council spending in each year between 2009-10 and 2019-20, so the deal does not come close to the losses that communities in the north have experienced due to austerity. Does the Minister see this as such a marvellous deal in that context? Is it envisaged that further money might be on the table as plans for the area develop? That was a bit ambiguous in the SI, so I am interested to know whether it is the case.

On the consultation process, I can see from the papers that extensive efforts were undertaken—which the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, went through—to elicit responses from the public on these areas, but does the Minister consider that just over 2,000 responses from a population of almost 1 million people represents a clear mandate? What work have the Government done with the Local Government Association on how we might improve these consultation processes in future? I appreciate that the structure of local government can be confusing, particularly in areas with two or three tiers of local government, but introducing changes of such magnitude on the basis of a mandate of just over 50% of such a tiny percentage of the local population surely suggests that we need more innovation in the consultation processes.

On general questions of governance, the Minister will be aware that we tried very hard to ensure that every place in the area would be represented on the combined authority during the levelling-up Bill, but that was not the outcome. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, I remain concerned about so many powers being vested in one person. It has been the practice in mayoral authorities for mayors to appoint deputy mayors and for them not to be elected. This also applies to police commissioners. These are very important roles, so does appointment rather than election impact on accountability? This is especially the case if the mayor cannot fulfil their role, as it is then delegated to an unelected deputy mayor. Why do the Government consider appointment the best model here and, to go back to my earlier point, why do appointed deputy mayors enjoy a role on combined authorities which is denied to locally elected council leaders?

Have the Government given any thought, for example, to local public accounts committees to mirror their function in the other place? This would widen the scope of the police and crime commissioners, which, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, have not proved terribly effective, and would provide joined-up accountability for the mayor.

We note that for this deal the adult education budget transfer is to come later than the introduction of the combined authority in May 2024. I appreciate that this has been agreed with the partners in this devolution deal, but with skills and training so essential to economic growth, why are they not an early priority for all devolution deals?

I have carefully read Part 5 of the order, which means the authority may introduce bus franchising if it chooses to do so. How would the Government, including the Department for Transport, support the combined authority if it chooses to exercise this power? Do the Government envisage any issues arising from the different transport roles of the mayor, the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority and the constituent authorities in relation to local transport plans, bus partnerships and highways and traffic authority functions?

In July, the BBC reported that £1 million would be given to support the set up of the new combined authority in addition to £582,000 already spent. Can the Minister update the Committee on funding the direct cost of the combined authority after the inaugural mayoral election? That is not the money allocated for spend for the authority, but its direct set up cost.

In conclusion, we strongly support the principle of devolution to local areas and congratulate all local areas that have navigated the current complex system to get their deals over the line. We will certainly not be opposing a deal negotiated at local level, however we urge that the Government consider how they will accelerate the devolution process and how some of the questions that have come up under this deal and others are to be answered in future.

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The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, referred to funding, addressing the point about cash and the broader context of local government funding. In recent years, local councils have received above-inflation increases to their core spending power, even taking into account higher inflation than anticipated. We recognise the greater pressure that local councils are under and remain in close dialogue with them on that.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I am sorry to interrupt, but government Ministers continually say that above-inflation grants have been provided to local authorities in the last year or so. However, for those local authorities that have social care responsibilities, the social care precept is an additional burden on council tax payers. It is not exactly the case that more money has been provided; it has, but the Minister should give the addendum that part of it is provided by an additional burden on council tax payers. In my local authority, it costs council tax payers £200 extra a year to provide for the social care precept.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I absolutely acknowledge the point made by the noble Baroness. I think I referred to an increase in core spending power, and my understanding of that metric is that it reflects the government grant, the council tax and the additional social care precept. I did not refer only to the government grant. I am sure she will be well aware that additional grant funding has also gone into social care over the last two years to reflect additional pressures in that sector.

I was simply making the point that, since 2019, I believe, above-inflation increases to the core spending power of councils have been made available. The terms of the devolution deal and the money attached to it are as set out. The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, asked about further funding. I will not speculate on that, but I point out to all noble Lords that the Government have made significant amounts of funding available for levelling up through the levelling up fund, the towns fund and the future high streets fund. We are working to simplify that funding landscape, but there is an ongoing commitment from this Government to make funding available for local economic development and regeneration. We have seen that in the significant amounts made available in recent years and the ongoing commitment from the Government in that area.

I am conscious that I have not addressed a couple of the questions, in particular on transport, which the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, asked. If both noble Baronesses will forgive me, I will write to them with further details.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for tabling Amendment 282N and the consequential amendments, and His Majesty’s Government for supporting them. Unlike my noble friend, I do want to talk about ULEZ, although I totally understand and appreciate the points that he made about the importance of local democracy.

Noble Lords will know how important the blue badge scheme is to many disabled people and their families—and indeed their personal assistants, where applicable. I declare an interest as someone who relies on my blue badge for parking in a whole range of places, including town centres.

What noble Lords may not know is how relevant—indeed, how crucial—these amendments are to protecting blue badge holders from disability discrimination. In fact, I only became aware of this thanks to the indefatigable efforts of the formidable disability rights campaigner, Kush Kanodia.

As I understand it, incredibly, blue badge holders who are not in receipt of certain benefits are not exempt from ULEZ charges—unlike in Glasgow, for example. So this is effectively a discriminatory penalty for disability—or, in the case of non-disabled family members or personal assistants who may use a blue badge to assist with transport, a fine for providing support to a disabled person. This is surely not right. Amendment 282N and the consequential amendments would allow this manifest wrong to be put right through this opting-out provision. I wholeheartedly support it.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, here we are on day seven of Report, and up pops yet another amendment on a completely new topic. It is so out of scope that, to debate it, the Long Title of the Bill has also to be amended.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has chosen to discuss, via the theme of ULEZ, the London devolution deal. How much better if he had done so during the very long section of debate on the Bill devoted to devolution. The amendments that he has proposed have only a tenuous link with the prime purpose of this Bill: levelling up. If he wanted to truly level up in the areas of the country identified in the Government’s own White Paper, the amendments would focus on transport issues elsewhere in the country.

Those of us who live in the north, especially in west Yorkshire, can only dream of the quality of public transport available in London. For instance, the government commitment, repeated many times, simply to electrify the trans-Pennine route, has been dropped. The new trans-Pennine route, nationalised because of its previous failure, has the highest number of train cancellations of all train companies. Added to this appalling level of service comes the decision that the 13 new trainsets for the route are to be taken out of service for want of trained drivers. In addition to this very large dent in already creaking connectivity in the north is the increasingly poor service provided by bus companies, which results in growing numbers having to rely on private transport, thus increasing the already poor air quality in many northern urban areas.

How much more beneficial to promoting levelling up—the purpose of this Bill—if the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, had used his talent to direct government attention to levelling up connectivity, which is absolutely essential if areas defined in the levelling up White Paper are to enjoy growing investment and prosperity.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for introducing this group and the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, as well as for drawing our attention to the importance of standards. Clearly, most of the debate has been around the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. As we are on Report, I shall be brief and make just two points in response to the noble Lord’s amendments.

First, I point out that Sadiq Khan has explicitly ruled out the introduction of pay-per-mile charging while he is Mayor of London. Secondly, on Amendment 282N, which seems to be the core amendment within the four amendments introduced, our concern is that this includes a loophole for councils to opt out of such schemes. Introducing that loophole undermines the national objective of improving air quality. We think that it risks increasing public confusion and is not in the interests of preventive health and improving air quality.

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[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I briefly rise to associate myself with the remarks of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and a number of other noble Lords. I have enormous sympathy for the Government. I believe that we absolutely need new housing. We have a problem with the shortage of housing stock. House builders should not have unnecessary barriers placed in the way of them getting on with development. However, I urge the Minister to listen to the sentiments expressed all around this House about the way in which the Government are currently planning to fulfil their laudable desire to ensure we get more homes built.

As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said, Amendment 247YY would give carte blanche to this and any future Government to do what they liked to override the environmental protections of which I am so proud. This Government have done more than most other Governments to implement legislation that protects the environment. However, there is a risk that we will be tearing that up.

I congratulate the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, on his amendments to government Amendment 247YY, which is asking us to ignore the science and local authorities just to assume that no pollution will happen even when they are being told it will or know that it will.

As my noble friend Lord Deben said, the “polluter pays” principle is important, but maybe what is happening here is a cart and horse problem. If my noble friend the Minister were able to assure the House that the mitigation measures that I am sure are genuinely intended to offset the pollution caused by any new developments will be in place before those developments pollute rivers, we would be able to consider that. However, there is no guarantee that any of the mitigation measures, however well meant and well intentioned, will be able to be put in place before the pollution happens.

I therefore urge my noble friend to think again about the Government’s apparently panicked reaction, which perhaps is intended to please housebuilders, who are very keen to get on with developing houses in places that they know would be of great value to them. I have enormous sympathy with my noble friend Lord Cathcart, who wants to do some development and is being blocked. However, we have to protect the environment. I am sure my noble friend would like to do that, but I hope that we can understand that in keeping this delicate balance of building new homes today but protecting our habitats and precious environment in the long run, we must try to prioritise these precious areas of the country that we as a Government have done so much to protect. As I say, I am proud of that, and we must not tear those protections up.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for this constructive debate. It has been wonderful to hear expertise from across the House on such an important issue as environmental protections.

I remind everybody that this is day seven on Report of the levelling-up Bill, which we began in January with Second Reading, and this is the first time this issue has been brought to the attention of the House. We have to ask ourselves, why? I cannot remember who raised the fact that this issue was known about five years ago. The Government have known that it has been an issue of contention for housebuilders for a considerable number of years, yet it is brought to us on day seven on Report, in a form that means we cannot have any prior discussion of it. I wonder whether that relates to a sudden rise in the share price of house- building companies.

The argument that housebuilding is jeopardised unless the Government take action to throw out the protection of our watercourses is completely false. I think it may have been the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who said that more than 1 million planning permissions are awaiting development. As my noble friend Lady Parminter so expertly said, the sites in question—it is not everywhere; it is particular sites—are some of the most environmentally sensitive in this country, if not in Europe. Why would we put those sites at risk when there is an opportunity to protect them for the future of our children and grandchildren?

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I too support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. I am now caring for my mother and am a grandfather to very young grandchildren, so I have renewed my acquaintance with the problem, as he said, of seeking to go from A to B when there are so many obstacles in the way. His amendments go to the heart of the problem by recognising that pavements are for people to walk on.

I am also delighted to support the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and other noble Lords in their amendment. I disagree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. First, I do think that the health gain from this measure would be considerable. We are behind the curve in reaching the smoke-free target. Secondly, I disagree with him about the dissipation of smoke. Anyone who has had to walk past pubs where people are smoking outside would say it does not dissipate quickly enough. Thirdly, I do not think it would harm the pub trade; I think it would enhance it because, frankly, going through a fog to get into a pub is not very attractive at all.

On a more general point, the noble Lord, Lord Young, made it clear that he saw this as a popular public measure. I totally agree. I was a member of the Cabinet committee which basically tore up our 2005 manifesto because it was not strong enough. The result of that very rare rebellion by a Cabinet committee led to the ban on smoking in public places. And it was proved right—it was very popular and very effective.

I also recall moving the amendment on banning smoking in cars where children are present. That was overwhelmingly popular. When it went back to the Commons, the Government agreed. So many of their own Back-Benchers supported it because they had had such a lot of strong messages.

I have no doubt whatever that this will be a very positive and popular measure. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to say something positive about it.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this may be the fourth occasion in the House on which I have debated pavement licensing. There is obviously a reason for that; we have not got the regulations quite right. As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, raised in his amendment, there is a natural conflict between the use of the public highway as an extension of a licensed premises, restaurant or café, and the use of it by the public to get from A to B. I totally agree. At the very earliest iteration of these regulations about pavement licensing, both he and I proposed that barriers ought to be in place to restrict the use of the highway so there would be plenty of room for pedestrians and those in wheelchairs or pushing buggies to get through safely. I am still concerned that that regulation is not part of the licence for use of the public highway.

The second important issue is about smoke free. All I will say is this: it needs to be smoke free. This is a health issue. We need to take every opportunity we can to ensure that there are no opportunities for people who do not wish to inhale somebody else’s smoke to do so. I agree with all noble Lords—bar one—who have spoken on this issue.

Lastly, I will repeat the question that I have raised before. If we are permitting businesses to use the public highway, will the local authority that has to maintain the public highway have the right to require a rent for its use? This would enable continued good maintenance of pavements for people.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for his great persistence and determination regarding common-sense regulation of the use of pavement licences. He spoke powerfully on this issue in Committee and has done so again today. We all recognise the significant boost that new uses of our pavements have given to our high streets and we support that, but it is of course important that the balance is right. Indeed, most of the amendments in this group do give some balance.

Amendments 249 and 250 relate to charging for maintenance and cleansing of high streets. We very much support the principle that the applicant should contribute—it goes along with the “polluter pays” idea—but we should think about the fact that this should really be for local determination. For example, where a local authority is trying to encourage regeneration, it may not want to implement that as part of its process of encouragement, but we certainly support the basic principle behind the noble Lord’s amendment.

New Homes

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I quite agree with my noble friend about the importance of the NPPF. That is why we are consulting on it, will review it when we have the results of the consultation and will come back out to consult on our further ideas on how we can update it—we cannot leave it there in aspic for ever. By doing that and by the measures in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill to modernise the planning system, we will deliver more houses through local plans and hit the 300,000 target.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I have relevant interests in this Question. Councils’ local plans incorporate their share of the national housing targets. Can the Minister explain how national housing targets can be achieved when more than 60% of local councils do not have an up-to-date local plan?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right: we need more local plans. That is how we will deliver more houses. We know from evidence that local planning authorities that have local plans deliver more houses. That is why we have the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, are changing and simplifying making local plans and will insist that local authorities deliver local plans. If they do not, we have measures to push them to do so.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, before I make a few comments about swift bricks, I thought I would address my remarks to the two amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. He is making a case for large sites that take a number of years to build out and where, because of a change in circumstances, there may need to be a substantial change in the nature of the remainder of the site.

I have a bit of sympathy with that amendment, in that the principle has been agreed for developing the site. The question the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is asking is whether it then matters if what goes on in the rest of the site does not comply entirely with the original planning consent. I then thought about the practical implications of his suggestion. For instance, if it changed from large executive four-bed properties to a higher density housing development for starter homes and so on for families, that would have potential implications for school places. They would not be funded under the planning conditions of the original application where a Section 106 agreement or an agreement under CIL would have enabled funding to be made available for school places, health facilities, play areas or transport requirements. Although I have sympathy with the approach that he has taken, there needs to be a new application if there is a substantial change. I will listen carefully to what the Minister says in response.

On buildout, I get frustrated by developers starting a site but not proceeding to complete it in a timely way. There is nothing worse in a community than seeing a site that has been started but not finished. It will not be like this now, but there was a fairly notorious one in the area of West Yorkshire where I live: the planning consent was derived in the 1940s and the first earth movements were made and tranches dug, but nothing substantial happened on that site until the 1990s. So I encourage buildout and, again, it would be good to hear what the Minister says about it.

That leads me to swift bricks—very swiftly, as one might say. I have an interest, as a member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Having said that, noble Lords will be able to tell that I favour and love watching birds, and I visit the RSPB sites as often as I can, because it is a joy. Over the years, I have seen a decline. Swifts are summer migrants, as everyone will know. I always look forward to seeing swallows and house martins when I am out delivering for the May elections—that is when I see my first swallow or swift. If it is a joy for me, it is a joy for many other people.

So swift bricks and nesting sites that have been lost, and swift bricks being an answer to the loss of those nesting sites, is important, and there has been a passionate argument in favour of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith. Obviously I obviously support swift bricks—who would not? I remember watching a “Countryfile” programme about them on the BBC, and about an individual, whose name I obviously do not remember, who made thousands of these swift bricks—perhaps they were swift boxes—because of his passion for that bird. So let us hear what the Government have to say; it is over to them to make a decision.

My final point is on Amendment 244 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, which would reduce barriers for SME builders to get contracts and to be part of the development process in localities. That has to be positive for the economy and local businesses. So I will support the amendment when the noble Baroness moves it, and I urge the Government to accept it.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 244 in this group and I will then make brief comments on the other amendments. Amendment 244 is designed to cover an issue that arises almost at the intersection of planning and procurement. It can be the case that, where local authorities undertake major development, the nature of the planning system is such that the subsequent tender process will be enacted only for the totality of the development. Of course, the major contractors can subcontract works out, but this process does not always accrue maximum benefit to the local economy. Our amendment aims to ensure that whatever can be done at the stage of granting planning permission is done, to enable SME participation in, and engagement with, those contracts being achieved.

Amendment 217, from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, applies a provision for “drop-in permissions”. We note that this is an acknowledged problem that may or may not require an amendment to planning law. I absolutely take the good point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, about the provision of infrastructure where there is a drop-in permission, and we look forward to hearing the Minister’s view on whether the existing wording is sufficient to enable the necessary change to unblock buildouts on large sites.

In relation to Amendment 219, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, we would of course support refusing permissions to those who have not made buildout applications previously; that is a welcome change. We greatly sympathise with the noble Lord’s point that doing this to someone with an undefined connection with the previous applicant is way too unspecific in terms of planning law, and who that undefined connection would be. We agree that this needs to be either tightened up or taken out altogether, because it could have unintended consequences if it is left in the Bill as it is.

Amendment 221, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, recommends splitting planning applications into two stages for the purpose of encouraging rural economic development. We fully support the notion that anything that can be done within the planning system to encourage rural economic development should be done. But it is difficult to see how, in practical terms, a two-stage permission would work. There is already very strong provision and encouragement in the planning system for outline permissions to be submitted and then followed by detailed permissions for major developments. This is common practice, and I am sure rural areas are not excluded. I wonder whether that would be the type of process, or if there are things I am missing in the noble Lord’s amendment.

We were delighted to see Amendment 221A, proposed by noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, relating to the provision of swift bricks. We very much enjoyed his enthusiastic and passionate advocacy in his introduction, and all speeches made by noble Lords in favour of this. The noble Lord’s amendment follows extensive public interest in introducing this step, which led to the public petition debate to which the noble Lord referred, and to very strong cross-party support. We note also that the Wildlife and Countryside Link is in favour of this measure, as are many recognised experts.

We believe that specifically including swift bricks as a measure in the Bill, to be incorporated in planning law, is justified because of the unique nature of these precious birds’ nesting habits. They add to the biodiversity of urban areas, and I am particularly keen that we support that. I grew up as a townie and the swifts and house martins were a real feature of my childhood growing up in a town. Their decline has been very visible and sad to see. If there is anything we can do to either halt that decline or hopefully turn it around, we should certainly do so. There is definitely a clear and present threat to these species. We hope the Government will accept this relatively a small step, which could make a world of difference to protecting our swift population, and that it will not be necessary for the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, to divide the House—but I hope he knows he has our full support in this amendment.

Amendment 282, in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Northbrook and Lord Bellingham, may relate to issues the Minister referred to in Committee. We comment only that, while we accept that notices published on local authority websites would usually be appropriate, of course there are other ways of drawing the public’s and stakeholders’ attention. We have some concerns about stating that anything must remain permanently on a website, but we understand his point.

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In doing so, I repeat my simple and humble request: we need to have in the Bill a statutory basis with enhanced protections for existing hospitality businesses to mitigate against noise complaints generated by new residential developments. I think all noble Lords will be aware of specific instances in this regard. I am conscious of the fact that the hospitality sector as a whole and, in particular, parts of the night-time economy have suffered dramatically during and since the Covid outbreak in 2020. I applaud many of the decisions that the Minister, her department and the Government have taken but we need to go one step further and enshrine in the Bill the necessary statutory duty on developers so that they cannot shirk their responsibilities. We need a planning balance and it needs to be mandatory as well as absolutely clear and unambiguous. With those few remarks, I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for raising what is often a bone of contention among residents of new properties where those properties have been built adjacent to businesses, often hospitality businesses. They are the latecomers. but they suddenly expect the business to comply with their requirements and not the other way round.

I will give one example that may illustrate the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. Near where I live, there is a long-standing working men’s club with space. Some new properties were built on the land adjacent to the club’s outdoor area. The club decided that, in order to increase its income, it would use the outdoor space as a pub garden. This is in Yorkshire where pub gardens do not get used all year round. The use would have been intermittent, let us say.

However, the residents of the new properties raised such a fuss about it that the working men’s club was forced to remove the tables and chairs—it did not have planning consent or something. As a result, in the end, a couple of years later the working men’s club closed. So I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has said.

It is not just about places of hospitality but also existing business use and leisure facilities—particularly where flood-lights are used at night, on grass areas for football or whatever—that the complaints come. It would be good to hear what the Minister has to say in response to what is a very practical amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting if short discussion which picks up on much of the debate that we had during Committee. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for bringing this back to us again today.

One thing that came across very clearly when we debated this in Committee was that it really is time to review the status and look at the situation. It is important that we return to this. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has said, now and previously, we have got the change of use from office to residential space in town centres, we have the problem of many empty town centre premises, and there have been a lot of changes on our high streets and in our towns in ways that we have not seen before. These challenges are particularly acute for the night-time economy.

The agent of change principle has been with us for some years. This is why it is important that we use this Bill to ensure that it is fit for purpose and doing what we need it to do. As we have heard, it is in the National Planning Policy Framework, but does the licensing guidance, as the noble Baroness said, reflect the principles of the NPPF itself? The NPPF needs to be fit for purpose, as well as the agent of change principle that sits within it.

I asked at Committee and would like to ask again: is the NPPF, when we get to see it, going to reflect the likely focus of future planning decisions on this? How is that all going to be taken into account? This is genuinely an opportunity to enshrine this principle in legislation and get it right. It needs to be fit for purpose and it needs to do what it is supposed to do: to protect both sides of the discussion and debate when you have change of use coming forward. As the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh and Lady Pinnock, said, we need to get this right and it has to have teeth—I think that was the expression that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, used. We completely support her request for clarification on the legislative change referred to by the Minister in Committee and hope that we can move forward on this issue.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

I come to my most serious point. Given the scale of the housing problem, surely it is time for a Government to be bold enough to put social housing on a statutory footing and then conceive a plan to deliver at scale and pace.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I just wish to speak to Amendment 199 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. I repeat my relevant interests at the outset: I am a councillor and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Unfortunately, our wonderful expert on all things transport, my noble friend Lady Randerson, is unable attend this morning but what I shall say comes after having discussed this with her. On this side, we totally support Amendment 199. It is reasonable and filled with sensible caveats such as “so far as relevant” and “must … have regard to”. It is something that local planning authorities can work with but should stimulate to them to ensure that they think of travel from the start and incorporate it into their strategic policies and the local plan. Tacking it on later is never as effective. Doing it that way also ensures that there is integration between different layers of local government, which do not always work perfectly together, as we have heard throughout discussions on the Bill.

Something has to be done. At the moment Governments are failing on the targets. We will have a further discussion on targets in another group but this is about travel targets—cycling and walking targets. The target set in 2017 is for 46% of urban journeys to be walking or cycling, but all activity levels are now lower than when the target was set. For instance, the number of children who walk to school has fallen below 50%. Public rights of way, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, are constantly under threat from developers who regard them as an obstacle rather than—as they should be—a benefit. PROW diversions created by developers are often far less attractive than the original. That, too, is discouraging for those who want to walk. Urgent attention is needed—not more targets but practical steps such as those proposed in this amendment to incorporate active travel into the fundamental fabric of urban and rural planning for the future.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 193 and 194 from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, introduce sensible additions to Schedule 7 on the content of plans. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, reminded us on Monday, just because Ministers assume that something will happen, that is no reason for leaving it out of the Bill. One would assume that any local planning authority would include such vital matters as meeting housing need and the economic, social and environmental needs of its area in its plan, as well as identifying appropriate sites. I agree with the sentiment expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, in that regard. Putting this in the Bill makes sure that it happens.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, was right to draw attention to the distinction between strategic and non-strategic priorities, which will become ever more important as these strategic policies are considered by a potential combined authority for the joint strategic development strategies. If they are not set out clearly in plans, how will the combined authorities identify them and make sure that they take account of them in the wider plan?

Amendment 193A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, goes to the heart of a huge lost opportunity in the Bill, as currently structured, to make a real difference in addressing the housing emergency we face in this country. The figures have been much debated in this Chamber, in Committee on the Bill and in many other debates on housing, but it is a scandal that over a million families are still on social rented housing registers around the UK. With the current rate of building—just 6,000 a year according to Shelter—few of those families stand a chance of ever having the secure, affordable and sustainable tenancy they need.

This problem is now exacerbated by rising mortgage interest rates resulting in many private landlords deciding to sell the properties they were renting out and their tenants coming to local authorities to seek rehoming. Commentators in the sector say that this could affect as many as one in three privately rented properties. The figures are stark. Worked examples show that rents may have to increase by at least £300 a month. For landlords and tenants also facing other elements of the cost of living crisis, this kind of increase in costs is untenable.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Best, proposes that local plans should link the provision of social housing to the provision of adequate housing for those registered with the local authority. This should be a minimum. I think the noble Lord described it as a duty to be clear about the scale of the housing problem and I totally agree. As we all know only too well, the unmet need for social housing also includes many families not on those registers. We will have a later debate about the definition of “affordable housing”, but social housing in particular merits special treatment in how it is addressed by local plans. For some families, it is the only form of tenure that will ever meet their needs. We agree with the noble Lord, Lord Best, about the importance of putting social housing priorities into the planning process, so if he chooses to test the opinion of the House on this matter, he will have our support.

Government Amendment 197 is a helpful clarification that neighbourhood plans cannot supersede the local development plan in relation to either housing development or environmental outcome reports. I was very pleased to see Amendment 199 from my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Lord, Lord Young. As a fortunate resident of a new town designed with the great foresight to incorporate 45 kilometres of cycleways, thanks to the vision of Eric Claxton and our other early designers, I can clearly see the importance of incorporating this infrastructure at the local plan stage.

The experience of Stevenage is that, unless the infrastructure makes it easier to cycle and walk than to jump in a car, the latter will prevail. Our cycleways are only now coming into their own and being thought of as the precious resource that they are, so the vision to include them was very much ahead of its time. It is important that careful thought is given, in all development, to the relative priorities of motor vehicles and cycling and walking.

As my noble friend Lord Berkeley outlined, this amendment is well supported by the Better Planning Coalition and the Walking and Cycling Alliance, which says that embedding cycling and walking in development plans would

“help safeguard land … that could form useful walking and cycling routes, while ensuring that new developments are well-connected to such routes, and securing developer contributions for new or improved walking and cycling provision”.

It cites examples—they were adequately quoted by my noble friend Lord Berkeley, so I will not repeat them—of how this has not been the case in the past. I agree with my noble friend that the consultation on the NPPF makes no mention of, never mind giving priority to, local cycling and walking infrastructure plans. It makes no mention at all of rights of way improvement plans.

On Monday, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, mentioned the new role for Active Travel England as a statutory consultee in planning matters, but surely this amendment would strengthen its role by ensuring that cycling and walking are considered for every development, so that it can focus on the detail of those plans.

Government Amendments 201B, 201C and 201D are very concerning. They represent sweeping powers for combined county authorities to take over the powers of local councils in relation to making and/or revising local plans. Alongside the government proposals that the representatives of local councils will have no voting rights on combined county authorities, this represents yet another huge undermining of the role of local democratically elected institutions in favour of combined county authorities, which are indirectly elected, which may have voting representatives who have no democratic mandate at all and which operate at a considerable distance from the front line of the communities that will be affected by the decisions they are making.

In the debate on Monday, the Minister said that these new powers will be used only in extremis, but one can envisage situations where they could be used for political purposes. I raise the importance of this issue from a background of long experience of plan-making in two-tier areas and the complexities that that brings. On Monday, I mentioned that it was our local MP who held up our local plan for over a year by calling it in to the Secretary of State. Would this, for example, give a CCA grounds to initiate its power grab for the planning powers? If that were the case, you could see this being a very slippery slope indeed. What discussions has the Secretary of State undertaken with the sector on these proposed powers? These powers, like so much else in the Bill, seem to move us ever further away from the devolution and agency for local people that were espoused at the introduction of the White Paper.

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[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I know that we are on Report but in response to that, it is exactly the structure that we have seen before. Essentially, in the five-year period between one local plan and the review of that plan, clearly, the housing delivery test is applied to what is adopted in that plan in the first instance. When it is reviewed after five years then clearly, as the amendment would say, the local plan must then be reviewed, taking account of the Government’s targets and standard method as applicable at that time.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, was absolutely right when he introduced his amendment in saying that this is the most important part of the Bill and is at the heart of the housing debate we have been having. I am very fortunate to be following the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who has given this whole debate a new dimension and a new focus for our thoughts, on whether we should be fixated on numbers or considering other elements of housing provision.

There is complete agreement across the House and support for building the homes that people need and the country needs. It means building homes in all parts of our country. I agree with the argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Young, about how we will provide the homes that folk need, and the analysis of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, on how vital it is that homes be provided for social rent so that families can have a stable background, and with a housing cost that they can meet within their tight family budgets. Like her, I am a councillor, and I am saddened by the number of families where I live who are pushed into renting in the private housing sector on short-term lets and every six months are having to post on Facebook, “Is there a home to rent in this locality at this price with this number of bedrooms, so that I don’t have to move schools for my children?” That is not the sort of country we want to create, in my opinion; we ought to be providing stable homes for people whose incomes restrict their housing options to homes for social rent.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

I will share one of the examples that the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, gave from her experience—

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Lady Bakewell.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville—it is late. Planning at all levels generally requires mineral extraction. In Somerset, many quarries provide both aggregates and stone of various types for housing construction, and we will need more of it. Some of this comes from the Mendip Hills, some from the blue lias quarries at Hadspen and a smaller proportion from the Ham stone quarries. Not to have the authority whose responsibility it is to license the extraction from these quarries involved in the preparation of the joint spatial development strategy is, my noble friend would say, foolish in the extreme. It could lead to divisions among not only the authorities themselves but the residents they represent, because such an operation involves lorry movement, hours of operation and community facilities to compensate local communities for disruption. We could all provide loads of examples of where such collaboration is vital.

Casting a glance at the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, I say that I was probably the only leader in the east of England—there were possibly two of us—who did not celebrate the scrapping of regional strategies. They were abandoned just as I had begun to learn the value of them and how they would enhance everywhere.

We fully support the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, in his efforts to get this amendment to the Bill and hope that he will be successful, for the sake of all local authorities, which have a legitimate role and a right to be involved. On the other, negative, side of the coin, it could impact adversely if they are not. If the amendment cannot be accepted, perhaps the Minister can explain why not.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I also strongly support what the noble Baroness said on this. It is something that I have been very concerned about for a long time and you cannot divorce it from the way that post offices have been run down by our Government. The reality is that post offices cannot now do many of the things that they used to do. It is a drip-drip thing that is gradually making it very difficult particularly for the elderly and those who have no access to a bank account or are not near a bank.

Whatever the Government might think of GB News, I do not understand why they will not look more at its huge petition to say that we do not want to be a cashless society. This is really important. The noble Baroness is starting the fightback, which I hope the Government will listen to. I hope that she puts this to a vote, because people talk a lot about it but, when it comes to the crunch, noble Lords need to show that they mean it; otherwise, it is useless us being here.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, it is as if we were never away. I remind the House of my relevant interests as a councillor on Kirklees Council and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, made a very strong case in support of her Amendment 164, to which I have added my name. This amendment is so important because this is, after all, a levelling-up Bill. If there is no access to financial services in the very places that are the focus of the Government’s mission statement for levelling up, we are doing them a disservice and not, in fact, helping to level up. So I hope the Minister will take heed of the noble Baroness’s arguments.

The House of Commons Library produced a very informative briefing on this very issue last year. One of its statistics was that overall use of cash payments fell from 45% of all transactions in 2015 to 17% in 2021. However, since the cost of living crisis, there has been anecdotal but substantial evidence that use of cash has increased as families find it easier to control their spending if they make cash payments.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has argued on behalf of those without bank accounts; there are a large number of such people. How will they manage if they cannot access cash? Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, it is also more difficult for some older people and those with disabilities, particularly learning disabilities, to manage bank accounts, whereas they can live more independently with cash.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, all these changes to a more cashless society depend on a good mobile signal or access to broadband. Let us remember that these are simply not available in many parts of the country. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, knows how difficult it is to access a mobile signal, let alone the internet, if you live in the Yorkshire Dales. Moving without thought to a lack of in-person banking access will seriously harm people in rural communities and those folk I mentioned.

So far, we have not thought much about local retailers in small towns and villages, which often carry out their transactions by cash. The question for those retailers, which some of them have raised with me, is where they deposit their cash if there is no bank available. If they have a substantial amount of cash, as some of them will, travelling with it and depositing it is a risk in itself.

The number of physical banks has fallen by 34% between 2012 and 2021—so says the House of Commons Library briefing. That is a substantial number. The Government anticipate that the loss of banks can, on the one hand, be resolved by people using post offices, but the number of post offices too is in sharp decline. Huddersfield is a very large town of more than 100,000 people. The post office in its centre has now moved into a branch of another shop, so it is not even a post office on its own. You have to walk through the shop to get to the post office at the back. That is hardly a presence in our towns and communities that encourages people to believe they have access to cash and banking facilities.

Finally, during the recess somebody told me about a particular banking problem they had. The bank had made an error in a transaction and wrongly attributed it as a charge on their account instead of as a payment. Resolving this problem took a couple of weeks. The person in question could access their internet account and tried resolving it that way. They failed. They tried to phone the bank: “Press 1, press 2, press 3”; “Hold on: I can’t do it”, they were told, “but ring in the morning, when somebody will know what to do”. In the morning, they were told, “Go to your local branch”, at which point the person in question said, “It closed last week. Where do you expect me to go?” In the end, they had to travel 20 miles to the nearest bank in a large city to try to see somebody to resolve the issue. It was then resolved, because you are more able to get such things sorted in person.

That will not be the only example; if I have heard of that, there will be numerous examples of that sort of situation. If that happened to an older person without access to the internet or the ability to get by public transport to a branch 10 or so miles away, they would have been at a huge disadvantage and lost that money, because there would be no way to resolve the issue. That is why banking and financial services need to have a physical presence in our communities. We do not expect every bank to have a branch everywhere, but we do expect the Government to agree to the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, to try to resolve this issue so that we can help to level up some of our communities and some of our folk. If the noble Baroness intends to move the amendment to a vote, we will certainly support it.

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[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interest as an honorary fellow of the RIBA. I support this amendment because I think there is a huge need for people to know where they are. It is very simple but there is so much of this in government—and probably elsewhere—that people find it very hard to understand and react properly because they do not know where they are. In the planning system, this is particularly notable.

As my noble friend Lord Lansley made his speech, it all sounded so obvious and natural. It is exactly what we should do. Therefore, we know what the Government’s answer will be: “We will do that, so we do not need to put it into the Bill”. I am afraid I am becoming less and less willing to accept the promises of Ministers based on simply saying they will do something. We recently had a very good example of this. I thought we understood that we were not going to make deleterious environmental decisions in any legislation at all because we could trust Ministers not to do that. It is very debatable that that is now being maintained.

I say to the Minister that if it is something we do anyway, there is no harm in putting it in the Bill. If the Government object to something because they do not do it, then they should explain that they do not do it. However, if the argument is that the Government already do it and therefore do not need to put it in the Bill, I do not think the House should accept it any more. If the Government feel unhappy with that, I suggest that they remember they are not necessarily going to be the Government permanently. Therefore, when they are thinking deleteriously of those who might replace them, surely they would want to ensure that were they to be replaced, the new Government would have to accept the same rules. I do not think they need to feel unhappy; rather, they should say they are ensuring that the system works for everybody, whoever may be running it. It is also a good thing for a Government to recognise that people really want to know where they are, and this is one of the areas where we do not.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has raised a very important point about the effectiveness of a plan-led system if local plans are not up to date. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, has enhanced that argument by saying that people need to know where they are. If this is only in guidance, but we require there to be local plans—as we do in a plan-led system—why is it not incorporated in statute? I hope the Minister will answer this question.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has raised a fundamental issue. Local plans are at the very heart of a plan-led system. As well as setting out local planning policies, the local plan allocates land for new housing developments; it allocates land for business development, thereby allocating land for jobs; and it allocates land to be protected, such as the green-belt land allocation.

If local authorities are not preparing, or do not have, an up-to-date local plan, then land is not being allocated for development. We will later have debates about housing targets, but one of my concerns about housing targets is that, if local authorities do not have an up to date local plan, land is not being allocated or set aside for housing development. If land is not being set aside for housing development, it is very likely that new houses are not going to be built.

The government website helpfully has an alphabetical list of authorities and the status of their local plans—although it is unhelpful in being able to look at them more carefully. The vast majority do not have an up-to-date local plan. In fact, one or two on the list do not appear to have updated their local plan for several years. What that tells me is that, currently, the expectation is that local authorities will develop a local plan and have it agreed, with a full review after five years. Helpfully, my own authority is not one of those that does not have an up-to-date plan, and it is currently beginning a review a year ahead of expectation.

If land is not allocated for housing, how on earth do we expect housebuilding to take place? I hope the Minister will be able to help me with this, because some time ago in a previous debate on this, I thought I recalled the Minister stating that a five-year supply of land will no longer be a requirement and will be waived by the Government. As I understand it, at the moment that is the only stick to encourage—or force, even—local authorities to allocate land for housing in a local plan. Currently, although it may be waived—and I am waiting for the Minister to respond to that—as I understand it, if a local authority does not have a sufficient supply of land for a five-year allocation according to government housing targets, then developers can choose where to develop. It is open season for housebuilding. If that one stick is being waived—and I hope I have remembered that correctly—then I would like to hear from the Minister on how they will encourage local authorities to have up-to-date plans, because without them, I do not see how we will meet housebuilding targets.

The issues that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, raised, are fundamental. When he replies, will he say whether he wishes to test the opinion of the House on this? Without an up-to-date plan, all the Government’s housing targets approach—which my party does not necessarily agree with—comes to nothing. Only the authorities that do the right thing, having difficult discussions with communities about allocating land for housing and other development, will supply the houses that need to be built. Everyone across parties accepts the importance of building more houses; how we get there is the issue. However, I would love to hear from the Minister how that will be enforced without an up-to-date local plan. If the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, in responding wishes to push this further, we will support him.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, it is good to be back in your Lordships’ House. I remind the House of my interests as a serving councillor on both a district and a county council, and as a vice-president of the District Councils’ Network. I say for the record that, in spite of the considerable difficulties in doing so, not least the local MP calling our local plan in and it sitting on the Secretary of State’s desk for 451 days, my local authority has an up-to-date local plan.

During my several recent visits to Mid Bedfordshire—for reasons of which many Members of this House will be aware—it has become clear that the public are becoming increasingly aware of the key role that the planning system plays in determining the future of their area. This is very healthy, and I hope it will continue. That makes it even more important that local plans are up to date and meeting the current challenges of local areas and their communities. The importance and precedence of local plans within the new planning system envisaged in the Bill will be even more diminished where local authorities do not take responsibility for updating their local plans seriously. The figures we heard in Committee, that only 39% of local authorities have an up-to-date plan in place, and that there are around 60 local planning authorities whose plans are paused or stalled, already expose those areas to developers who want to take advantage of the absence of clear local direction. They are destined under the new regime in the Bill to see the views of local people overridden by NDMPs and other government direction. Our fear is that this will just reduce the incentive for local government to keep its plans up to date.

We have also seen that, in order to keep pace with rapid changes to local economies, it is vital that local authorities work with their business community to ensure that their local development plan is up to date and fit for purpose for that reason, as well as due to all the issues around land use.

The CPRE’s review of the impact of local plans led to its conclusion that

“the government needs to give councils more support and consider how to redefine the test for plans being ‘up-to-date’ in order to reinvigorate democratically accountable locally-led planning”.

For fear of misinterpretation, this does not mean the kind of centralisation of plans we see via proposed NDMPs or removing the powers to higher tiers, which we see in a government amendment that will be debated later today. Those options simply remove the connection between the local plan and engagement in its development by local people and communities.

I agree with and support all the comments that were made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the weight that is given to out-of-date and emerging plans. They need to have that statutory weight, and that needs to apply to all plans that are considered. On recent issues, the development industry, for example—the noble Lord, Lord Deben, mentioned this—has been very keen to stress the importance of it having more certainty in the planning system. Therefore, without clarifying even this element of plan making, about what is out of date and what is not, we leave the “how long is a piece of string” theory in place, which will hold sway in planning. Placing all these matters into guidance, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said, does not give Parliament any role in this; on many occasions recently we have seen what happens when that occurs.

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, mentioned that the uncertainty about the weight placed on an out-of-date or emerging plan, how out of date it has to be before it is actually out of date, and what a judge is going to say is and is not out of date, damages confidence in and the coherence of our planning system. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, referred to the huge need for people to know where they are, and I could not agree more. If we think we are going to do it anyway, what is the harm putting it in the Bill so that we can all refer back to it? I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for talking about effectiveness of a plan-led system and the impact that out-of-date plans can have on the delivery of housing targets and the amount of housing needed in local areas.

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[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, some issues continue to affect almost everything we do. One is the principle of subsidiarity—that we should ensure that we do not have a system where all power is centred at the top. That was a very important principle that the Popes upheld when dealing with both the Nazis and the communists, saying that both got rid of all the subsidiarity powers and concentrated them at the centre. Of course those people did so because they were, largely, wicked. The trouble is when it is done by people who think it is the best way forward, and that is what I fear here.

The planning system is obviously not good enough. I declare an interest here, having spent almost a whole year trying to turn a house back into the pub that it was before. You would have thought they would have been keen on all that but, my goodness, there are many complications in trying to do it. However, although we recognise this about the planning system, you do not overcome it by putting on top of that system something that is seen by others as being dictatorial. Unless this power is clearly controlled and confined by the parliamentary procedures that enable it to be used in a way that the public will see is subject to democratic control, then I believe it will fail. It is not just a question of it not being suitable, and it is not just a philosophical question; it is that it will not actually work.

One knows what Ministers have been advised to say: the amendment would make the process more difficult, slower and more complex. Well, sometimes doing things more slowly is a good thing because it gives you time to make sure that you get it right. Sometimes making it more complex is necessary because the issue is more complex, and pretending that it is not means that you make a mistake.

I come back to a question that is particularly affecting me at the moment. We have now seen a number of examples where Ministers have said, “It’s not necessary to do this because we’re going to do it anyway”. I remember Ministers who promised us that we would not sign contracts with other nations that undermined our farmers, but we have done precisely that. We have a case at the moment where Ministers said there would be no diminution of environmental protection and therefore we did not need to put it in the Act, but I fear that is precisely what has happened.

I am in the same position here. I am sure that Ministers intend to do the right thing, and I am sure that Ministers coming from any reasonable party might intend to do so, but, as a former Minister of 16 years, I think it was very good for me to have to do the right thing. That is what I think we ought to put here.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this policy proposal is one of the most contentious issues that we have debated throughout the course of the Bill. So far, it has been a very thoughtful and considered debate about the importance or otherwise of having a centralised group of planning policies imposed on local authorities.

This approach, of having a set of national policies that are imposed on local planning authorities, is not new and does not have a happy history. Even from before my time in local government, some will remember the imposition of county structure plans. Local authorities had to agree to those plans and abide by what was stated in them. That did not end very well. Then in 2004 there was the introduction of regional spatial strategies—this just goes to show that all parties in government have a tendency to centralise—which I remember debating, and they did not end well either. My serious point is that these are messages from history for the Minister and the Government showing that, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, has said, trying to impose on local communities the Government’s idea of national policies that must be adhered to does not have a happy history.

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[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as chair of Peers for the Planet and I have a close family member who works in this area. The last two contributions have added to the clear exposition of Amendment 191 put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, so I can say very little.

I will just say this. I seem to have spent the last three years in this Chamber trying to persuade the Government that in every area in which we legislate—pensions, financial services, skills or whatever we are looking at—if we believe that this is a crucial issue, as the Government say and the public support, and we want to keep to the legislative targets we have enacted in statute on environmental issues and climate, we have to will the means as well as the ends and we have to do it in a coherent way.

I know very little about the planning system. What I have learned, through a little bit of personal experience of trying to do something green and through listening to briefings on this issue, is that there is not coherence, consistency or a clear direction from government that goes throughout the whole system, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said. The reason why so many outside organisations, such as the construction industry, town planners and people who work in local authorities and want to do this, are supportive of this is that they want a clear framework so that everyone is on the same page on the need for action. Of all the areas I talked about where we have made legislative progress, planning is central—so I very much support Amendment 191.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who said that our planet faces an existential crisis. We must ensure that we take every opportunity to deliver policies and practices that will enable us to tackle the climate change emergency. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, was right to say that the beauty of Amendment 191 is that it deals with national policy—it could and should be in the national development management policies, but we do not know whether it will be yet—and, equally, is important for local plan-making and local planning decisions. So the amendment deserves and will get our wholehearted support.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Government Amendments 154 to 160 relate to compulsory purchase land compensation. They seek to ensure that the compulsory purchase compensation hope value direction measure already included in the Bill applies comparably and consistently in Wales. The amendments are being made at the request of the Welsh Government, who asked for the hope value direction measure to apply to the Welsh Ministers’ CPO powers under the Welsh Development Agency Act 1975 for housing provision and to Welsh NHS trusts’ CPO powers. The amendments will allow the Welsh Ministers and Welsh NHS trusts to include in their CPOs a direction for the non-payment of hope value, providing they can demonstrate that there is a compelling justification in the public interest to secure the direction. I therefore beg to move Amendment 152 in my name.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for this group of amendments, which largely—not entirely—relate to the rights and responsibilities of Senedd Cymru. Throughout the Bill the Government have had to bring back, as amendments, changes to it to reflect the devolution rights and responsibilities of both the Scottish Government and the Senedd Cymru.

It strikes me as unfortunate that, even 10 years or more after devolution has become fully developed, the Government are still unable to understand that different nations of the UK have particular rights and responsibilities. They are unable to appreciate that or to understand the extent of those rights and responsibilities. It would be good to know that the lesson has reached the distant parts of the Government and that we will have no more of these hasty amendments to put right government legislation impinging on the rights of the devolved nations. Would it not be great if the Minister could give us that assurance?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, this group brings up to date the provisions in the Bill so that they are appropriately applied to Wales. It also updates the list of types of compulsory purchase that can be made, subject to common data standards—we accept that this is important. We have had much discussion about the issues of hope value during the passage of the Bill, and it is therefore absolutely right that the Minister responded to Senedd Cymru’s request to make that apply in Wales as well.

I associate this side of the House with the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. It would be helpful if these types of provisions could be consulted on with the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish Administrations before they come before this House. But I am grateful to the Minister for listening to the Welsh Senedd’s request, and we are pleased to see these amendments coming forward today.

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On these Benches, we strongly support the amendment submitted in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Holmes and Lord Scriven, and my noble friend Baroness Hayman, on the development of regional mutual banks in the UK. I have seen at first hand how effectively these operate in Germany to support the SME sector, and in his excellent article for City A.M., the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, sets out that in 2021 SME funding was £600 billion in Germany, whereas in the UK it was only £57 billion. I am not going to steal any of the noble Lord’s lines, but he is right in his aim to increase financial inclusion for SMEs. I hope our amendments will be accepted by the Minister. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 282D in my name would require the Chancellor of the Exchequer to undertake a review of the business rates system. The Government know that the current system is flawed and fails to reflect modern business practices. There have been several Bills in the last few years that have tweaked the non-domestic rating system—as the Minister knows, we have one currently before the House—but these are just tweaks to a complex set of business taxation that is in desperate need of fundamental reform.

The system is basically flawed, as illustrated by the fact that the Treasury pays out billions of pounds in support of small businesses every year, via the small business rates relief. This demonstrates that there has to be a more effective way to levy businesses to support the local services on which they depend.

It is not only me saying that business rates need fundamental reform. Many business commentators have urged for a fundamental review. The Centre for Cities published a report in 2020 which proposed 11 changes to the business rates system. The IFS has published a report pointing to spatial inequalities that are “profound and persistent”.

A fundamental review is long overdue, and the amendment in my name simply asks that a review considers the effects of business rates on high streets and rural areas, and compares that information with an alternative business taxation system—for instance, land value taxation, which was referred to in the IFS report. The spatial inequalities explored in the report are at the heart of the levelling-up agenda. Any detailed review of business rates should gather relevant data on the impact of business rates on different parts of the country.

The Government have recognised what they have called “bricks vs clicks”, and in the Financial Statement earlier this year raised rates for warehousing. However, that steers clear of the major issue facing our high streets, which is the competitive advantage that online retailers have over high street retailers when it comes to the rates applied for business rates.

I have mentioned several times in this Chamber the glaring difference between warehousing for a very large online retailer, which may be at the rate of £45 per square metre, compared with the rate for a small shop in a small town of £250 per square metre. The change to raise the rates for warehousing does nothing to address that vast gap. For instance, it was reported that the change introduced this year by the Government cost Amazon £29 million. That might sound a considerable sum to some people, but it is pennies in the pot for a big online retailer such as Amazon. It really needs to start paying its fair share towards local services. Its little vans whizz round our streets, and Amazon needs to pay for the upkeep of them. The rate of its contribution is small in comparison to the services it uses. That is the argument for a huge, fundamental review of the system as is stands.

We also have to take into account the impact of any changes on local government. A large portion of a council’s income now derives from business rates, and any changes to the system by the Government to reduce the burden on businesses—which they did in the Statement by freezing the multiplier—results in compensation to local government for those changes. This again demonstrates that the system is not fit for purpose.

We currently have a system that says that these are the rates, but oh dear, they are too big for charities, small businesses and so on, and then provides relief which costs the Treasury billions of pounds a year. When any further changes are made, that has an impact on desperately needed income for local councils. Therefore, there will have to be compensation in that regard also. This demonstrates that the business rates system, as currently set up, is really not doing the job it needs to do. I repeat that a fundamental review is essential.

It is important to add that the way in which business rates income is demonstrated, via the tariffs and top-ups arrangements, creates further unfairness This becomes more noticeable as councils struggle to balance their budgets.

A business rates system that encourages business development and growth must be at the heart of any strategy to bring more prosperity and jobs to those areas defined in the White Paper as being the focus for levelling up. I do not need to spell out what that might mean, but it could perhaps be reduced rates for some areas, to encourage development and the movement of businesses to those areas.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, raised similar issues in moving her amendment to support the pub industry, which we support. My noble friend Lord Scriven has signed the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, who I do not think is in his place, regarding the establishment of regional mutual banks. We support this approach as another way of empowering regional businesses and entrepreneurs to take financial decisions which meet local ambitions, rather than the more risk-averse national banks. The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, used the comparator of Germany. She is right that the mutual banks in Germany have done much to support their regionally-based industries, which does not happen in this country because of the way our banking system is set up.

I really hope the Minister will be able to say in her reply that the Government accept that the business rates system as currently devised is not fit for purpose and that they are looking to have fundamental review to reform it to the benefit of those places—because this is the levelling-up Bill, and I shall keep saying it: anything we do in the Bill should be in support of the levelling-up agenda. This does not do it, and that is why we need a reform of the business rates system.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 163 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, concerns the support for our pubs. We are all aware of the importance of our local pubs; they provide space for people to come together, they provide jobs and they support local economies. But we also know that the past few years have been a challenging time for our pubs, with the Covid-19 pandemic and the current high prices, caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, conspiring to put pressure on already tight operating margins.

Through the pandemic, we recognised that the hospitality sector needed to be more resilient against economic shocks. That is why, in July 2021, we published our first hospitality strategy, Reopening, Recovery and Resilience, which covers cafés, restaurants, bars, nightclubs and pubs.

In 2021—this is important for the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, of listening to the sector—we also established a Hospitality Sector Council to help deliver the commitments set out in the strategy. The council includes representatives from across the sector, including UKHospitality, the British Beer & Pub Association and the British Institute of Innkeeping, as well as some of our best-known pub businesses. While we fully agree with the aim behind the noble Baroness’s amendment, the strategy she asks for already exists.

Moving on to Amendment 279, I notice that my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond is not in his place, but the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, brought it up on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, so I will respond. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament within three months of Royal Assent on the existing barriers to establishing regional mutual banks in the United Kingdom and instruct the Competition and Markets Authority to consult on barriers within competition law for this establishment and identify possible solutions.

I make it clear that the Government are supportive of the choice provided by mutual institutions in financial services. We recognise the contribution that these member-owned, democratically controlled institutions make to the local communities they serve and to the wider economy. However, regional mutual banks are still in the process of establishing themselves here in the United Kingdom, with some now in the process of obtaining their banking licences. It is therefore too early to report on the current regime and any possible limitations of it for regional mutual banks.

I know that my noble friend Lord Holmes was interested in how regional mutual banks have performed in other jurisdictions and how we could use these examples to consider the UK’s own capital adequacy requirements. In this instance, international comparisons may not be the most helpful to make. The UK is inherently a different jurisdiction, with different legislation and regulatory frameworks from those in the US, Europe and elsewhere. Abroad, some regional mutual banks have been in existence for centuries and have been able to build up their capital base through retained earnings. In the UK, regional mutual banks are not yet established and are continuing to progress within the UK’s legislative framework.

Additionally, the Competition and Markets Authority plays a key role in making sure that UK markets remain competitive, driving growth and innovation while also protecting consumers from higher prices or less choice. It is very important to note that the CMA is independently responsible for enforcing UK competition and consumer law. The Government cannot instruct the CMA to undertake a consultation. The Treasury is continuing to engage with the mutuals sector and other industry members to assess how the Government can best support the growth of mutuals going forward. I hope that this provides sufficient reassurance to my noble friend on this issue.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, before I start, I repeat my relevant interests as a councillor and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

This group of amendments concerns the Government’s proposal to introduce the infrastructure levy as a replacement for the existing community infrastructure levy—CIL—and Section 106. My Amendment 68 seeks to leave out Clause 129, which establishes the infrastructure levy, and Amendment 90 would delete the relevant Schedule 12.

My reasons for this dramatic action are these. The infrastructure levy as currently proposed is contrary to the purpose of the Bill, which is to enable the levelling up of areas that are defined in the White Paper. The IL fails to contribute to that levelling-up mission because the amount that it will be possible to set as an infrastructure levy rate will be dependent on land values. Land values are much lower in the very areas that are the focus in the White Paper of levelling up. Using the existing community infrastructure levy as an example, land is zoned according to land values. At the independent examination of CIL in Kirklees, where I am a councillor, the planning inspector reduced the CIL charge to nil pounds—nothing—per square metre for a zone which includes the allocated site for 2,000 houses. This is not levelling up.

One of the criticisms of the infrastructure levy is that it will not be site specific. That means that communities that have large housing developments will not necessarily benefit from improved facilities, such as open green space, play areas, and funding to support school places as well as affordable housing on site. Any infrastructure levy can be spent anywhere in the council district.

Another of the major criticisms is that the charge will be paid by the developer only towards the end of the construction period, which may be a number of years. Meanwhile, it is expected that local authorities will have to borrow to build the new facilities needed in the expectation of funding at a sometimes much later stage.

It has also been argued that developers avoid funding infrastructure because of claims about the financial viability of a development. My noble friend Lord Stunell’s Amendment 94 aims to shine a strong light of transparency on viability. I agree with him.

The main contention during the debate on the infrastructure levy was on the provision of so-called affordable housing. There are amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, and of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, that have the worthy aim of linking the income from the infrastructure levy to the building of houses for affordable sale or rent. We support those aims, but one of the downsides of this approach is that the infrastructure levy is designed to fund affordable housing and local facilities. There is a risk that, in some areas, it would all be spent on housing, which is positive but to the detriment of important local facilities.

Such is the level of concern about the infrastructure levy proposals that representations have been made by more than 30 organisations, including the County Councils Network, the Royal Town Planning Institute, Shelter, the Local Government Association and the National Housing Federation. The concerns expressed are about complexity, upheaval and uncertainty.

Finally, the Government have stated that the infra- structure levy will be in a test and learn state. This creates further uncertainty. Further, because the infrastructure levy is to be phased in, developers will be dealing with different charging regimes in different parts of the country for many years to come. That clearly adds to uncertainty and complexity for developers. Perhaps the Government have lost confidence in the scheme as proposed.

The difficulty with the infrastructure levy is that this is not the right time to change developer charging systems, nor will it provide sufficient funding at the appropriate time to fund affordable housing and local facilities for developments. It is time for a total rethink. I will listen very carefully and closely to the Minister’s response. If I am not entirely satisfied with the response she provides, I will be minded to test the opinion of the House. I beg to move.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 70 and 94 in my name in this group. I want to add my strong support to Amendment 68, moved by my noble friend Lady Pinnock, which aims to get rid of the IL altogether. She has spoken very powerfully to that point, saying not least that it is contrary to the central purpose of the levelling up White Paper and to the whole substance of the mission statements, which are set out—or rather, the skeletons of which have been laid—at the front end of the Bill.

The complexities and the unintended consequences of the infrastructure levy were explored in depth in Committee. The Government are now reduced to saying that it will be piloted first on a “test and learn” basis, and that it may be introduced piecemeal over the next decade rather than as a big bang, which I suppose is the beginning of some sort of reality check. The Government’s own amendments, which are in this group and which we shall hear about shortly, are an attempt to water it down a bit further. As my noble friend said, the Government seem to have rather lost confidence in the infrastructure levy providing the solutions that they originally imagined.

Well, we are a little bit ahead of the Government. We have completely lost confidence in the infrastructure levy as a vehicle for positive change on the delivery of affordable homes or indeed decent infrastructure associated with new development. The infrastructure levy is beyond repair. This duck is dead. I certainly hope that, if my noble friend Lady Pinnock does not get the assurances that she is looking for and a vote is called, noble Lords will go into the Content Lobby with her.

I wait to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, has to say about Amendment 69 and what the noble Lord, Lord Best, has to say about Amendment 71. I would say that what they are offering is palliative care rather than resuscitation of the levy. Either or both of those amendments would be definite improvements on anything the Government have tabled, so I will wait to see what is said about that.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has tabled Amendment 311, which is an admirable setting out of preconditions—preconditions which are so obvious and sensible that I fear the Government will reject them out of hand. Instead of seeing this for what it is—an attempt to introduce sound legislative principles into the Government’s Bill management, which I would have thought they would welcome—I suspect they will just see it as some kind of amendment to kick the whole project into the long grass. But in default of anything else, will the Minister please give the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, some help with getting those preconditions written into this model?

I turn to my Amendment 70. This returns to the vexed issue of what is affordable when we talk about affordable homes. Affordability is used in legislation at present based on the idea that, provided that there is a discount on the going market rate, a home in the private sector is thereby affordable. It is currently a standard discount, which takes no account at all of incomes in the locality, nor does it pay any attention to price differentials between similar homes. For instance, similar homes in an outer London borough such as Sutton, where I was born, are a factor of two more expensive than those in the metropolitan borough of Stockport, where I live. So for “affordability” to mean the same in the two boroughs, incomes in Sutton would need to be double those in Stockport to match the ratio of incomes to the discounted sale prices in the two boroughs.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions and challenges to what I have said during this important debate. I particularly thank the Minister for being so generous with her time prior to Report in order to discuss these issues and to respond so constructively to the elements raised in Committee about affordable housing concerns, as well as for having spoken so persuasively—although maybe not quite persuasively enough—in response to this debate, giving as always a full reply to all the issues that were raised.

I come back to the fact that this is not about reforming a planning system; it is a levelling-up Bill, part of which will have to look at how we build more social and affordable housing, and communities that are healthy, safe and ready for the future. However, I come back to the fact that was raised by the Minister: these regulations could be disapplied by some local authorities if the development was deemed economically unviable to raise the funding. Those are the very same places which this Bill and the Government’s own White Paper wanted us to focus on, to raise up those communities so they can enjoy the same level of prosperity as other parts of the country. I repeat that the CIL level in a large part of the authority which I represent was set by the planning inspector at zero. That is the problem with the infrastructure levy. The example that the Minister gave of Pendle demonstrates that some authorities will not be able to build enough affordable housing under this system.

The organisations that wrote to the Secretary of State retain many of the concerns about the infrastructure levy. The system remains complex and very uncertain, for developers and for local authorities. It will be expensive to operate, and difficult to set the levy at the right level. I accept there is a need for reform of the existing CIL and Section 106, but this is not it. This is adding on something, as we have heard, so that we will have three different systems running side by side. People and developers will be confused, and local authorities will not be sure how much money they will be able to raise.

I hear the strength of feeling the Minister expressed in her response to the debate. Nevertheless, given all those worries that I have—fundamental concerns— I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.

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[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I want to speak to Amendments 96 and 98, to which my noble friend Lord Young has just spoken so eloquently and compellingly. I share with him a sense of gratitude to our noble friends for the time they have given and for the way in which they have addressed a range of concerns. However, I have to confess that not least my noble friend’s detailed examination of community land auctions in theory caused me to inquire of several people how it might work in practice, although we have not seen that in reality. Those are a few hours of my life I shall never see again, but the conclusion I reached at the end of that was that it will not happen. That is probably the main reason why my noble friend may choose not to press this amendment to a Division to remove this provision from the Bill: it will sit in the Bill, it will become part of the Act and it will never see the light of day beyond that point.

Why? First, because as we have just debated, Part 4 provides for what is, in effect, a mandatory system for all local authorities for deriving developer contributions. Unless that is an utter failure, I cannot see why local authorities would want to go down the path of community land auctions, as opposed to having a much fairer and more equitable system of levy. Secondly, let us look at how it actually works. My noble friend is saying that the regulations will tell us in due course under what circumstances a local authority can enter a scheme. Clause 133(2) says:

“The local plan may only allocate land in the authority’s area for development … if the land is subject to a CLA option or a CLA option has already been exercised in relation to it”.


So, in preparing a local plan—this is before the planning process is completed, so following a call for sites—the local planning authority must seek options from all the sites put forward before they are chosen to be allocated or not to be allocated.

Let us have a look at that. I declare my interest again as chair of Cambridgeshire Development Forum. In 2019, in preparation for a local plan, the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning service issued a call for sites. It received 675 applications. In 2020, it allocated 19 sites. We therefore have, I think, in this joint plan area, 656 sites that have to go through the process of agreeing a community land auction option and disclosing the price—actually, as the lawyers rightly tell me, not only disclosing the price, which many landowners and developers will resist, but agreeing a legally watertight potential option before the point at which the allocation is made. These options will cease to have effect only when the plan is adopted or approved. In this instance, that is expected to be in the middle of 2025, just ahead of the Bill’s cut-off date. That means that, under these circumstances, the community land auction options would subsist for nearly six years, during which 656 sites will be held in abeyance and nothing can effectively be done with them. The price on those 656 sites, at which they are willing to sell, would have been disclosed, while the actual value will continue to change.

I do not see any evidence that local planning authorities have any desire to go down this path and engage in this process. Of course, it is optional, as my noble friend will no doubt remind us—local planning authorities do not have to do it. The conclusion I have reached is that they will not do it. Therefore, in reality, my noble friend did the Government a service by suggesting that it be taken out and the Bill be lightened. As it happens, I suspect Ministers will not do that, but I think they must be realistic and understand that this is proceeding with very little chance of success.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Lansley, for throwing some much-needed light on the practicalities of community land auctions. During the debate in Committee, a number of us expressed scepticism about the value of having this in the Bill and how it will work. Nevertheless, it is a pilot scheme; there are plenty of reservations in the Bill itself that may make it more difficult for the blue-sky thinking of the think tanks, this having been brought forward at a late stage of the Bill.

There are some voices in the housing sector that support the proposal of community land auctions. Their argument is that this is the best way of extracting a fair portion of the enhanced land value that allocation for development ensures. That is what they say. Others argue, as did the noble Lords, that it will have the perverse effect of buying planning permissions—I think that was the phrase the noble Lord, Lord Young, used in Committee. For me, time will tell. The noble Lords have said they will not push this amendment, so time will tell whether the scheme is attractive to councils and whether it will then deliver what its proponents claim.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. I listened with great interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, said. The issue is that, on paper, this looks quite sensible, but when we start to dig into it and look at it, that peters away. That is one of the problems.

There is an assumption that the option value will be significantly less than the market value for housing development, which we have mentioned. That is not necessarily going to work out in practice; it is a flawed idea when you look at how it works practically. The circumstances for which the theoretical arrangement is designed are really a collection of small, completely substitutable land parcels with a number of different owners. I do not know that that necessarily bears much resemblance, in reality, to the characteristics of land management and the market across the country. That is one of our concerns. Further, the idea that auctions are going to drive down land prices in the absence of any element of compulsion is, we think, pretty unlikely, to say the least. There is an example of that with Transport for London’s disappointing experience with the development rights auction model, which failed to deliver.

Thirdly, if the arrangements prove to be workable in practice, it will almost certainly be an attractive proposition only in areas where there is significant housing demand and high land values; so I do not necessarily see it as something that will be practical to roll out around the country.

On those key points, I think it has been a discussion worth having.

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For me, “overall” means “on the one hand, on the other hand”; it means trade-offs. We all know that trade-offs notoriously diminish levels of protection and often promise jam tomorrow that never materialises, so I am deeply suspicious of anything that looks at overall levels of environmental protection when we are in fact assessing a mechanism that will look at specific cases over time. I believe that Amendment 106 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, would provide a much more robust assurance and non-regression test by taking “overall” out of the equation, so I hope that the House will support the noble Baroness’s amendments.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is an important set of amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. They seek assurances from the Government that the replacement for the existing environmental tests for development—environmental outcomes reports—will be as robust as the ones they will replace.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, made a powerful case for a non-regression clause with her Amendment 106. Recently, there has been a lot of debate about this and pressure from those who want to point the finger of responsibility at the planning system for failing to produce the right number and quality of homes that are desperately needed in this country. When they do so, they point out the additional responsibilities of developers to adhere to environmental responsibilities and regulations, which are causing the difficulties they express. Of course, it is never as easy as that.

It seems to me that, after many years, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, we have a much better balance now between development and protection of the environment in which developments are set. There are responsibilities that developers have to take up in order to make sure that they construct and do not destroy; to make sure that they create communities that sit well in their environment; and to make sure that nature and the environment are looked after for existing and future generations. So the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has made important points here; I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to them, because they are important. I guess that they will be raised again later on in our debates on Report.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 100 and 101 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would require that all regulations made under Part 6 specify environmental outcomes, whether or not they actually relate to the outcomes themselves. This would place a significant burden on subsequent regulations and would require outcomes across every process element, even where not relevant—for example, on regulations related to enforcement, exemptions and guidance.

We recognise that framing will be critical and recently carried out a consultation on how we can translate the Government’s ambitions into deliverable outcomes, which is surely the key consideration here. The Government have also legislated to ensure additional consultations on future outcomes, as well as adopting the affirmative procedure in Parliament on the associated regulations.

Regarding Amendment 101, the Government have been careful to ensure that the new system is capable of capturing all the current elements of the environmental assessment process. This allows the Secretary of State to consider health matters such as air pollution when setting outcomes. Impacts on human health are covered by “protection of people” in Clause 143(2)(b). When developing secondary legislation, we will consult with stakeholders to ensure that health-related commitments are sufficiently captured.

On Amendment 106, the drafting of Clause 147 mirrors the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement to ensure that, when bringing forward reforms, we live up to our commitment to non-regression. As well as departing from the existing drafting, Amendment 106 would create a rigid approach to non-regression. Removing “overall” from levels of environmental protection would remove the ability to look at the effect of reforms as a whole. When read alongside the commitment to international obligations and expansive duties to consult, we feel that the non-regression clause strikes the right balance to ensure EORs can be an effective tool in managing the environment.

Let me respond to all the noble Baronesses who have spoken by making it clear that, in creating a new system of environmental assessment, it is essential that the standards are kept high. The Government are committed to improving what exists and ensuring that we can deliver on the challenges we face in the 21st century. Focusing on environmental outcomes will allow the Government to set ambitions for plans and developments that build on the Environment Act and other environmental commitments. The legislation is clear that the Government cannot use these powers to reduce the level of environmental protection, and it includes a clause setting out this commitment to non-regression.

On Amendment 107, I have no reservation in saying that the UN sustainable development goals are crucial ambitions. The UK is committed to achieving them by 2030, as affirmed in the international development strategy and integrated review. The expansive nature of these goals is such that it is not possible for the planning and consenting frameworks within which EORs operate to support them all. To require the EOR regime to do so would significantly expand the scope of the assessment beyond the existing legal frameworks of the environmental impact assessments and strategic environmental assessments.

This amendment would exacerbate the biggest issue with the current process, which is a mandatory list of topics that are required to be considered for all assessments, whether relevant or not. Listing matters to be considered in this way has resulted in overly long, complex and inaccessible documents, full of unnecessary material in case an omission invites legal challenge. It would thwart our efforts to make the process more effective, meaningful and manageable.

Environmental assessment was established as a tool to ensure that the environmental impacts of a development were not overlooked in favour of the social and economic priorities that drive development activity. A requirement to support the delivery of all goals would divert attention away from the EOR’s core purpose of providing an additional level of scrutiny of the effects of the development activity on the environment.

I hope this provides the reassurances necessary for the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, to withdraw her Amendment 100 and for the other amendments not to be moved when they are reached.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

One of the problems that I raised during our debate on 18 May in Committee was the problem of surface water run-off from farms and roads, which was causing problems for our rivers. I am extremely grateful to and would like to thank my noble friend the Minister for the letter that he sent me on 23 June, in which he commented a bit more on the points that I raised. The interesting thing about that letter was his comment on the surface run-off from roads. He said that Defra was

“working with the Department for Transport to reduce the impact of the strategic road network and roads managed by local highways authorities on water bodies”.

It just shows what an important cross-government issue this is.

The difficulty that my noble friend has is that he has to work at one remove from the local authorities. The reason I stress the local authorities is that the next day, on 19 May, I was on the River Piddle, a lovely chalk stream, and at 3.30 pm the river was gin clear—it was what a chalk stream should be. We had quite a good thunderstorm and within an hour that river was chocolate brown; it was full of silt and run-off, and the roads were under water. There was run-off from the farmland adjacent to the river—the whole aquatic environment of the river was affected by that thunder- storm; it was a short-term disaster for the river, created by human behaviour. Something similar happened to us humans when we had the smog in the early 1950s. We tackled that problem; it was a manmade problem and we tackled it with the Clean Air Act. It is equally important that we now tackle the problems facing our rivers. It will take a major effort by the Government and across government to do that.

All our rivers are important, but why are the chalk streams just that bit more important? It is worth reiterating that 85% of the world’s chalk streams are in England; they are our equivalent of the rainforests. We have a special responsibility to those rivers, and if we do not give a lead to the rest of the world on such an important issue, we will not be doing nature justice.

There are three key indicators of the ecological health of rivers: water quality, water quantity and the physical habitat. The key to getting all of those right is management. The Government will need every single tool in the toolbox and every policy to be able to take the necessary action to fight off the vested challenges from all quarters that they will need to do to establish chalk streams to the standard that we expect and fulfil the one big wish, so rightly mentioned by my noble friend Lord Trenchard.

The Bill is about regenerative action and levelling up, and it is intended to give places a sense of identity. As my noble friend Lord Trenchard said, many of the rivers flow through towns as well as the countryside. The restoration of the rivers could bring huge opportunities and benefits to those towns and to the countryside for both nature and humans. If we do not take this opportunity, we will be letting nature and ourselves down.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville is unfortunately unable to attend today, as she is not well. I will say a few words on her behalf.

First, I endorse entirely what has already been said about the environmental importance of chalk streams. I think it was David Attenborough who described them as one of the rarest habitats on earth. If David Attenborough says that, we must listen and listen carefully.

Secondly, I want to say something about pollution and about water extraction. The Environment Agency has responsibility for giving permission to water companies for the level of extraction, be it from rivers or aquifers. Indeed, there are aquifers in Yorkshire—not in my part, but in the East Riding—which Yorkshire Water extracts from. What I do know is that aquifers take a long time to refill after periods of extraction. I look to the Minister to respond on water extraction from aquifers. The amount of water taken from aquifers obviously then impacts on the flow in chalk streams, which is essential for their protection.

What I want to say about pollution from sewage overflow discharge is this. About 150 years ago there was a Conservative Prime Minister in this country who had a policy of sewage. That is exactly what this country needs now. A Conservative Government run this country, so perhaps they can adopt Disraeli’s policy of sewage. It would be a bit late, but it would not be before time if they did.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness and others who have spoken. The noble Baroness should read our Plan for Water, which does exactly what she said. I refer noble Lords to my entry in the register.

I turn to Amendment 102, in the name of my noble friend Lord Trenchard. I defer to no one in the verbal arms race that usually takes place in these debates about who can be the greatest supporter of chalk streams. I am passionate about them, and I want to see our chalk streams, which are one of the most valuable ecosystems in these islands, restored to pristine health. I note the passion from across the House on the need to protect these habitats further.

The Government recognise that chalk streams in England are internationally important and unique, and in many cases in poor health. We are committed to restoring England’s chalk streams. We have recently reaffirmed this commitment in our Plan for Water, which I just referred to, which recognises chalk streams as having special natural heritage.