King’s Speech

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I join others in welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, to the Front Bench. I wish them and the Government well—and, my goodness, they will need it. The scale of the challenges facing this country is immense. They will require enormous unity of purpose between government at all levels, businesses of all sizes and civil society in all its forms. For many of us, the most troubling thing in recent years has been the creation of an increasingly divisive rhetoric that seeks to set groups against each other and achieves nothing at all. I trust that we will see an end to that.

I will focus on one particular area of housing—neighbourhood plans. As I do so, I keep in mind my noble friend the late Andrew Stunell, who is missed by many of us on these Benches and beyond. Neighbourhood planning was very much his brainchild. I declare an interest as president of the National Association of Local Councils. I also ought to say how much I appreciated the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Taylor of Stevenage, during the passage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act last year. They showed a real recognition of the role of town and parish councils, which was much appreciated by the sector. I look forward to their continued understanding and support, now that they are in government.

I turn to neighbourhood plans. As many noble Lords know, I am a huge advocate for the town and parish council sector. There are 10,000 of those councils and 100,000 unpaid councillors, who are operating at the heart of their communities and providing highly visible and accountable leadership. You cannot go out and take the dog for a walk without somebody stopping you and bending your ear about something. The role that they can play in the delivery of new housing is really important and probably not well understood. The neighbourhood planning system is a demonstrably proven way of delivering more housing by involving local communities in the number, type and style of new housing, as well as in realistic assessments of the services required to go alongside them, including green spaces. We need to see local people as allies—not enemies —in the Government’s mission to “get Britain building again”, so I would appreciate a commitment that the Government will continue to ensure that local communities are involved, to some extent, in these decisions.

More than 1,000 areas—90% of which are led by parish and town councils—have now brought together their local communities to agree a neighbourhood plan, and many more are in development. According to the Commission on the Future of Localism,

“neighbourhood planning has been the most successful of the Localism Act’s community rights, due to its mix of … statutory weight and funded technical advice and support”.

It has not been anti-growth. In fact, communities are choosing to allocate more housing than has been prescribed by their local planning authority. Independent research for the department under the last Government showed that, on average, 39 houses more per plan were created by neighbourhood plans than were set out by the planning authority. That came to 18,000 homes in 135 plans. Is that not the Harlech doctrine of having a few houses in many places? I am afraid that, quite often, the local planning authorities have a fixation on putting a lot of houses in a few places, which is the wrong way to think about it.

Separate research was carried out by ONeill Homer. In its selected study areas, between 2012 and 2020 the target number of homes to be allocated was 37,000, but through neighbourhood planning 46,000 were allocated—a substantial uplift. As I said, that is a few houses in many places. In Deddington, Oxfordshire, the requirement was 45 homes but the neighbourhood plan chose to allocate 85 to 90. In Blandford, Dorset, there was a housing requirement of zero but the town chose to allocate 400. As well as supporting a higher number of homes to be built, each plan has passed a public referendum and there is local support for the allocations—a tacit agreement that the community agrees that these are the right homes in the right place and that, quite often, they are delivering new or improved infrastructure.

As well as the buy-in, another advantage of the sites allocated through neighbourhood planning is that they support smaller scales of development. That gives each development a smoother journey through the planning process, minimises delays and supports local small and medium-sized developers—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. As part of their planning reforms, the Government should not only continue but enhance support for neighbourhood planning, enabling town and parish councils and neighbourhood planning groups right across the country to pursue housing growth and economic regeneration.

Areas without parish and town councils are missing out. Around two-thirds of England’s population is not covered by a parish or town council, despite lots of independent research that shows that, across the piece, parished areas score significantly higher in key measures of community strength. It is really promising that more parish and town councils are being established—around 300 in the last decade—but it is quite slow and often in the face of opposition from the next tier up of the council. It would be very useful if the Government could have a look at some of the work that has been done, to see what can be done to speed that up. There is a body of work that makes a powerful case for extending and expanding this hyperlocal level of governance—not least in housing, as I said. Having had a very positive relationship with the Minister while she was on the Opposition Front Bench, I hope that the sector can look forward to a fruitful relationship going forward.