Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thurlow (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a former chartered surveyor. The current CPO guidance attempts to deal fairly with owners who are caught up in the process of having land acquired under compulsory purchase, but it remains a blunt instrument. This amendment requires the Government to provide a duty of care, which is an excellent proposal. It is also appropriate, as we heard from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, that compensation under CPO is paid on transfer, as it is when any citizen in this country buys or sells any of their private property. I see no reason at all why it should not also be the case under compulsory purchase. I support the amendment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the powers introduced by this section amend and clarify powers and procedures for using compulsory purchase and have been extensively consulted on—unlike some other parts of the Bill. The LGA’s view is that the introduction of measures that would genuinely make the CPO process more efficient for councils is an encouraging step, as it has previously lobbied on the need to reduce the time taken to use the CPO, and it also believes that these changes will make the valuation of change in this context closer to a normal market transaction.

In fact, the LGA view is that the Bill could have gone further. It would also like to see the ability to tackle sites which have had planning permission for a long time but which have not been built out through stronger compulsory purchase powers, and the removal of the requirement for permission from the Secretary of State to proceed with a CPO, which would expedite the process for local authorities. Of course, the Secretary of State could always retain the right to call in in circumstances where it would be necessary to do so.

I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and I am sympathetic to the specific issues they raised, particularly the issue about prompt payment for purchases of land. Perhaps I have had an unusual experience of the CPO process but the conditions are already stringent, both in setting out the process for a site qualifying for a CPO and in the requirement for valuation of that site. Therefore, while I appreciate the thinking behind the amendment, it seems that there is already guidance in place—indeed, the amendment refers to it. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 246, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, would place a requirement on the Government to publish by regulations a new duty of care for all acquiring authorities undertaking compulsory purchase. The proposed duty of care would involve obligations on acquiring authorities to acquire only land necessary for their schemes and to mitigate the impacts of their schemes, as well as to pay compensation to landowners at the date of entry or date of vesting and ensure that all communication with claimants is conducted in accordance with government guidance. I reassure noble Lords that the Government understand the concerns behind this amendment. However, the Government consider the proposed duty of care to be unnecessary for the following reasons.

First, whatever the underlying scheme, a guiding principle of compulsory purchase is that acquiring authorities should include within the boundary of a CPO only land which is required to facilitate the scheme. It is for acquiring authorities to demonstrate that there is justification and a compelling case to support the inclusion of land within a CPO boundary. Where they cannot, a CPO is likely to fail.

Secondly, another principle is that the use of a CPO is lawful only providing that acquiring authorities compensate landowners for the loss of their interests, whether the land is acquired following notice to treat or is vested in the acquiring authority. Where an acquiring authority takes possession of land before compensation has been agreed, it is obliged to make an advance payment of compensation to the landowner if requested.

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[Lord Shipley (LD)]

In moving Amendment 247YYE, I will speak also to Amendment 288B; both are in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath and relate to second homes. They would give a power to the Secretary of State by regulation to permit local authorities, through a licensing scheme, to set a limit on the proportion of dwellings which, at the point of sale, become second homes for council tax purposes.

We have heard about deal on Report on the Bill about the housing crisis, not least a crisis in the availability of truly affordable homes. Government data shows that 7,644 social homes were built in England in 2021-22, while 24,932 were sold under right to buy and 2,757 were demolished. The crisis is particularly bad in rural and coastal areas.

In 2019, the Rural Economy Select Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath, noted that, in rural areas, house prices—and so, in turn, rents—are higher than in urban areas, while incomes are lower. That disparity is widening. In Cumbria, for example, average house prices are 12 times average household incomes. As a result, it is ever harder for people of working age to live and work in rural and coastal areas, with an inevitable impact on their local economies.

There are three principal causes: too few genuinely affordable homes being built; second homes taking over full-time residential homes; and, the most rapidly increasing problem, short-term lets taking over the long-term private rented sector. In Cumbria, for example, there are currently 232 long-term rental properties available, compared with 8,384 short-term lets.

My noble friend Lord Foster of Bath, who is unable to be here today, lives in Suffolk, close to the popular seaside town of Southwold. With the recent growth in second home ownership and the rapid rise in short-term lets, of the 1,400 properties in Southwold, only 500 have full-time residents, while 500 are second homes and 400 are short-term lets. Two-thirds, therefore, are not permanently lived in.

House prices and long-term rents have risen steeply. Local families are being forced out and those working in the local tourism industry cannot find or afford local accommodation. As a result, many of the bars, restaurants and hotels now have staff vacancies. As a local councillor said recently, soon people will not

“want to visit the soulless toy town where no one lives any more”.

In Committee, my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath and I proposed amendments to address the issues of short-term lets and second homes. In particular, we proposed separate use categories for both. Other noble Lords also addressed these issues, with a range of similar proposals. In response, the Government promised to take action. Indeed, as a result, consultation has been taking place on proposals to introduce a short-term let registration scheme, which would allow councils to apply health and safety regulations across the guest sector.

Consultation has also been taking place on establishing a separate use class, C5, for short-term lets. I welcome these proposals and the intention of using permitted development rights so that areas of the country where short-term lets are not an issue are not impacted. Where they are, a planning application will be required for change of use to a short-term let and councils can decide whether, given local circumstances, it should be approved.

Clause 218 of this Bill provides for the implementation of the registration element of these proposals. These Benches welcome the proposals and hope they will be implemented quickly. However, this completely ignores those second homes not being used as short-term lets. They should be known as “second homes for council tax purposes”. On the latest figures, there are some 257,000 such properties in England; although not as rapidly as short-term lets, the numbers are growing year on year.

I expect that the Minister will point to the way in which neighbourhood plans can be used to address this issue and the new power for councils to further increase council tax on second homes. While undoubtedly welcome, these measures do not give affected local councils sufficient powers to address the problem. Can the Minister explain why the Government, having belatedly agreed to address the short-term lets problem, are failing to do the same for the second home problem?

The two amendments in this group in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath propose a solution. We could have adopted a similar approach to the one the Government have proposed for short-term lets and if, in response, the Minister suggests the Government plan to explore that route, we will be happy to support it. However, following a substantial discussion with local councils and councillors, we propose a new approach: a licensing approach available for those councils which choose to adopt it.

It is a simple approach. By restricting its application to the point of sale, it does not impact existing homes. We recognise that it would require a person seeking to buy a property to be used as a second home—not intended to be a short-term let—to conduct inquiries into the likelihood of a council agreeing to a licence. That is no more onerous than many other pre-purchase searches and no different to that required for a use class order change to short-term let. But it would give much-needed powers to councils which face problems caused by second homes. I hope the Minister is in listening mode on this matter.

Finally, on second homes and council tax, can the Minister explain what steps the Government will take to resolve their failed attempt to close the tax loophole? For some years many of us have been drawing attention to the situation whereby second home owners avoided paying either council tax or business rates. They did this by claiming their property was available for rent—and so eligible for business rates—but then ensured that little rental took place and so the business income fell below the threshold, so no tax was paid.

Last January, so-called tough new measures were introduced for eligibility requirements: making the property available for rent for 140 days a year and proving it had been for at least 70 days. However, as the Daily Telegraph reported earlier this month:

“Holiday let council tax crackdown backfires—costing local authorities millions”.


The tough measures have not prevented more and more second home owners registering as a business and then claiming 100% business rate relief. Two years ago, 73,000 such properties were on the business rates list in England; the figure now stands at over 85,000. Can the Minister tell the House what further steps will be taken to address this problem? I beg to move.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the percentage of second homes in so many parts of the country has had such a devastating impact on communities. We heard about that in great detail in Committee and had many examples from all sides of the House. We noted that it particularly impacts on rural and coastal communities. I am also concerned about the tax loophole and that so many second home owners avoid paying either council tax or business rates. This is clearly an anomaly and needs to be resolved.

The amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Foster and Lord Shipley, would be an important next step in tackling this. We too welcome the licensing steps already taken but, if we are going to tackle this, we need to go one step further. We look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the amendments proposed.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 247YYE and 288B, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, bring us to the often sensitive issue of second homes. We recognise that large volumes of second homes or short-term lets can become an issue when they are concentrated in particular areas. That is why the Government have taken decisive action. We committed to introduce a registration scheme for short-term lets in England through this Bill and consulted on the design of the scheme earlier this year. At the same time, we also consulted on proposals for a new short-term let use class with associated permitted development rights. Further announcements on both consultations will be provided in due course.

We introduced higher rates of stamp duty for second properties in 2016 and a new stamp duty surcharge for non-UK residents in 2021, and new measures to strengthen the criteria for holiday lets to be eligible for business rates came into effect in April. Furthermore, this Bill will give councils the discretionary power to apply a council tax premium of up to 100% on second homes.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked why we are not making further changes in respect of second homes. Through the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and other measures, the approach we are taking is to boost housing delivery more broadly to make more homes available, including in those areas where there are high concentrations of second homes. Second homes that are additionally let out may fall within the short-term let use class that I mentioned where they meet the definition.

It might be helpful if I say a little more about the Government’s approach to first-time buyers in particular. We recognise the hardship people face when they cannot find a home of their own. Our £11.5 billion affordable homes programme will deliver thousands of affordable homes to rent and buy right across the country. The Government are committed to helping first-time buyers to get on to the housing ladder. We operate a range of other government schemes, including shared ownership and the lifetime ISA and we continually keep options to support first-time buyers under consideration. We are also committed to ensuring that enough homes are built in the places where people and communities need them and our first homes scheme is providing new discounted homes prioritised for local first-time buyers.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, referred to the common perception that some second homeowners may pretend to let out their property in order to benefit from small business rate relief. That is why the Government introduced, from April this year, new criteria for holiday lets to show that they have been let for at least 70 days and have been available for at least 140 days in the previous year. If they are entitled to receive small business rate relief as a holiday let operator, that is perfectly appropriate. If a property cannot demonstrate those criteria, it will be liable for council tax.

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[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 Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, in her response to the debate on housing targets during the Report stage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, the Minister stated:

“To get enough homes built in places where people and communities need them, a crucial first step is to plan for the right number of homes”.—[Official Report, 6/9/23; col. 426.]


The National House Building Council’s statistics show a dramatic decline in registrations in quarter 2 across most regions, compared with the same quarter last year; it was down 67% in the north-west, for example. It is going in the wrong direction. What is the Government’s plan to ensure that local targets meet that 300,000 homes target?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

As I said to my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, we are in an economic situation that is not as favourable for housebuilding as it was, and therefore we have to work with Homes England, developers and local planning authorities to ensure that we give all the support we can, reinvigorate the housing market and get these houses built.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has done a tremendously good forensic job of disclosing the fact that there is an omission—possibly accidental—connecting the whole planning process as far as non-domestic strategic direction is concerned. I look forward to the Minister’s explanation for that and perhaps to her coming back with a correction at a later stage.

The Liberal Democrats will certainly support the noble Lord, Lord Best, if he puts his proposition to the House. There is no doubt at all that it is absolutely necessary to tackle the severe problem of the lack of affordability in the rented sector. It is understood clearly by all that developing the social rented sector is the way to go—this surely must be taken into account in all plan-making. The noble Lord made a valid point about those who are homeless. This is a rising number of people and there is a reluctance among many local authorities to undertake the formidable task of dealing with the circumstances that they face.

Certainly, the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and my noble friends Lady Randerson and Lady Pinnock about active travel are important. I await the Minister agreeing that the connection on this between policy and the NPPF, and between policy and plan-making, needs to be corrected in the direction that this amendment sets out.

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[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Young and the noble Lord, Lord Best —he is also my noble friend in this context—for introducing Amendment 195 so very well.

I want to add my threepennyworth in relation to not only Amendment 195 but Amendment 196; one might think of them as a package. They would require local planning authorities to meet or exceed the Government’s housing target—in so far as the Government have a housing target; we have debated the figure of 300,000, which is what the Government tell us their target is, but it could of course be different if they chose a different target because of their assessment of the demographic and other requirements—and to do this by reference to the standard method. I emphasise that this means whatever standard method is applicable at the time. Personally, I do not regard our current standard method as fit for purpose. There will need to be change. I have said before—let me repeat it briefly—that the relationship between the standard method process and the prospective increases in employment in an area should assume a greater weight in relation to the objectively assessed housing need.

These amendments are a package. Remember, in addition to Amendment 195, which we are debating first, Amendment 196 would require local planning authorities to have regard to the housing target or a standard method respectively. Of course, if Amendment 195 were to go to the Commons, Amendment 196 would go with it as a consequential amendment. The House of Commons would then have an opportunity to consider the questions of whether local planning authorities should have regard to the Government’s target and standard method—that is a bit of a no-brainer; of course they should—and of whether, in addition, they should be required to meet or exceed the resulting figure of objectively assessed housing need for an area. This is the debate that the House of Commons needs to have.

There are two groups of people who should vote for Amendments 195 and 196. There are those who just agree with the policy; I am among them. My noble friends have well set out the policy objective, which fundamentally comes down to this: if a Government have a target, they need to have a mechanism for delivering it. I have had these conversations, for which I am grateful, with the Housing Minister, my noble friend and the Secretary of State. Unfortunately, the Secretary of State in particular—I love him dearly—is trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. He is trying to give local planning authorities, in the minds of a minority of Conservative Members in the other place—I emphasise that it is not a majority but a minority—the freedom to have a different method and to think, “It’s a starting point but we can go south from this instead of north”. It is an opportunity for them to say, “We’ve got green belt, areas of natural beauty, sites of special scientific interest and sensitive areas. We don’t have to have the houses; they can all be somewhere else”.

In some cases, that will be true. Let me pick a place at random. If you were in Mid Bedfordshire and you knew that Milton Keynes, Bedford and Luton wanted development—and, indeed, Tempsford, which is on the new east-west rail link and faces the possibility of taking on a large new settlement of 20,000 homes—you might well conclude that, in Mid Bedfordshire, taking account of the development in all the neighbouring areas, you do not need much development. That would be perfectly reasonable. Actually, the standard method and the way in which the guidance is constructed would allow that to happen because that is precisely what joint spatial development strategies should deliver in an area such as Bedfordshire.

As I say, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State wants those who feel that they have relaxed all these requirements to feel comfortable with that, yet he wants to maintain his target. When challenged, he says, “Well, there’s still an objectively assessed housing need and, if people do not meet it and do not show that they are going to meet that housing requirement, their plans will not be sound”. I have to say, this is not the way in which to conduct the planning system, whereby local planning authorities produce plans and inspectors throw them out. That way lies madness. What we need is for local planning authorities to have the kind of guidance that enables them to produce in the first instance sound plans that are the basis on which local people can rely. That is what we are aiming for: a plan-led system. However, what the Government are moving towards is not a locally plan-led system. In my view, we need to change this.

That is the first set of people who should vote for this amendment, in this case because it is the right the policy. There is a second group of people for whom there is another, different argument. It goes, “How is this supposed to work?” This Bill was in the other place last year. It completed its Third Reading on 13 December. As far as I can tell, there was effectively no substantive debate on the provisions in this Bill relating to the housing target and standard method. Nine days after the Bill completed its passage through the other place, the Government published their consultation draft of the National Planning Policy Framework. In it, they relaxed the housing delivery test; they made the housing targets and standard method an advisory starting point, in effect; and they allowed local planning authorities to have an alternative approach.

As my noble friend Lord Young demonstrated so clearly, all of that added up to local planning authorities thinking that they had been let off. However, none of that was in the Bill. It was not debated by the House. It was not voted on by the House of Commons in any fashion. Today, if we do not send Amendments 195 and 196 to the other place, no such debate will take place in the House of Commons. The issue will go through by default. I agree with my noble friend: the world has moved on and sentiment has changed. He used to be a Chief Whip; I used to run national election campaigns. I used to look carefully at the salience of issues. The salience of housing as an issue has risen and continues to rise. I must advise my Front Bench that the salience of housing as an issue is rising not because we are building too many houses but because we are building too few. The Government may argue, “Well, they’re just in the wrong place”. There are ways of dealing with that but we do need more, which is what the standard method is intended to help us achieve.

We are having this debate today because these amendments are here on Report. If we do not send them down to the other place, the debate will not take place in the Commons. I know that there are colleagues on our Benches in another place who want to have this debate. They think that the Bill needs to show what Parliament thinks about housing targets—the standard method—and how an objectively assessed housing need should be established, and by whom. We need to give them that opportunity. I encourage noble Lords, in looking at these amendments, to realise that this is about not just the policy but the question of whether the Commons should have a chance to look at this matter. I do not mean making them think again, which is our conventional constitutional job; in this case, I mean them looking at this issue for the first time. If we do not send these amendments back, they will not even look at it a first time. We need to give them that opportunity.

I hope that noble Lords will support Amendment 195 on that basis.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken so eloquently on this subject already. Amendment 200, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman, recognises the need to reinstate the provision for housing targets through the NPPF and associated guidance, and through the housing delivery test, which, I agree with noble Lords who have spoken already, is incredibly important. Similarly, Amendment 195, in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Lansley, Lord Young and Lord Best, and my noble friend Lady Hayman, and Amendment 196, in the names of noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Young, see the essential part that local plans have to play in the delivery of housing need. It is, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, said—rightly, in my view—one of the most important amendments to the Bill that we have discussed on Report.

The much-respected organisation Shelter reports that there are 1.4 million fewer households in social housing than there were in 1980. Combined with excessive house prices making homes unaffordable, demand has been shunted into the private rental sector, where supply has been too slow to meet needs. That means above-inflation increases in rents.

On the affordable homes programme, the National Audit Office reports that there is a 32,000 shortfall in the Government’s original targets for building affordable homes. It goes on to say that there is a high risk of failing to meet targets on supported homes and homes in rural areas. Progress will be further confounded by double-digit inflation, soaring costs of materials and supply disruption, yet the Government seem to have no clue how to mitigate those factors, and in those circumstances the decision to scrap housing targets last December seems even more bizarre.

The National Audit Office is not the only one with concerns about the delivery of the programme. In December last year, the Public Accounts Committee outlined that DLUHC

“does not seem to have a grasp on the considerable risks to achieving even this lower number of homes, including construction costs inflation running at 15-30% in and around London”,

although that is not far off what it is in the rest of the country.

We had extensive debates about the housing crisis during Committee on this Bill, but there was nothing in the Minister's responses to reassure us that the vague promises to deliver 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s would feed through into the planning process—points made very clearly by noble Lords who have already spoken. I do not need to point out to your Lordships’ House that we are just 18 months away from that deadline and the target has never been met. It is being missed by almost 100,000 homes a year, and more in some years. If they are not in the planning process, what chance is there of them being delivered? According to one estimate commissioned by the National Housing Federation and Crisis from Heriot-Watt University, the actual number needed is around 340,000 new homes in England each year, of which 145,000 should be affordable.

Let us consider the latest figures from the National House Building Council. The number of new homes registered in quarter 2 in 2023 was 42% down on 2022. The number of new homes registered in the private sector in quarter 2 in 2023 was 51% down on 2022. The number of new homes registered in the rental and affordable sector was down 14% in quarter 2 2023—declines across most regions compared to the same quarter last year, with the north-west experiencing the sharpest decline of 67%, followed by the east of England at 56% and the West Midlands at 54%. Only London and Wales bucked this trend.

The consequences of not delivering the right number of homes of the right tenures that people actually need are devastating. Those of us who are councillors or have been councillors all know that our inboxes, surgeries and voicemails are full of families with horrible experiences of overcrowding, temporary and emergency housing, private rented homes that are too expensive for family budgets and insecure resulting in constant moves, more young people having to live with their parents for longer, impaired labour mobility, which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, mentioned and which makes it harder for businesses to recruit staff, and increased levels of homelessness. All this is stacking up devastating future consequences for the families concerned, and no doubt a dramatic impact on public funding as the health, education, social and employment results of this work down the generations.

There is increased focus on addressing affordability as distinct from supply—subjects that we discussed in the earlier group. In the foreword to a 2017 Institute for Public Policy Research report, Sir Michael Lyons said:

“We would stress that it is not just the number built but also the balance of tenures and affordability which need to be thought through for an effective housing strategy”.


With local authorities charged with the responsibility for ensuring that their local plans drive economic development in their areas, we simply cannot afford to overlook the place that housing development plays in local economies.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage 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.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 217, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley, would allow regulations to permit variations to an existing permission, without rendering that permission void. We recognise that there is concern in the sector about the impact of recent case law, particularly for large-scale phased development. This is an issue which we have looked at very carefully.

Clause 104 already introduces a new, more flexible route to vary permissions: Section 73B, where the substantial difference test can cover notable material changes. To assist the understanding of the new provision, we propose to amend the headings in the clause to make this clearer and avoid misapprehension. Existing powers in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 would allow us to deal with this issue through secondary legislation, so we do not consider that a further power would be required. Instead, we propose to engage and consult the sector as part of the implementation of Section 73B and, if further action were needed, we would consider the use of our existing powers if warranted. I hope my noble friend is sufficiently reassured not to press his amendment on this.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, way back in March, when we had our lengthy discussions on the planning section of the Bill, we explained that although our amendments necessarily covered the detail of the various clauses, there was huge concern in local government about some of the fundamental principles that underlie the proposed changes in the Bill.

We must ensure that local plans, with the input of local people and democratically elected representatives, retain their primacy over anything that is drawn up centrally in Whitehall. Now that we are on Report, I feel that the amendments in this group reflect that these concerns remain and that the issues we raised in Committee have still not been resolved.

The amendment tabled by the Minister, in relation to determining matters under planning law in accordance with the development plan and any national development management policies, taken together, do nothing to reassure those of us whose concern was about how conflict between national and local policy will be resolved. Therefore, we have tabled Amendment 186 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, which asks for consideration of which policy has been most recently adopted, approved and published, what liaison has taken place with local authorities, the importance of adequate housing supply and the protection of the natural environment. In all those areas, it is vital that the latest information and data should take precedence over policies which may be years out of date. I reiterate the ongoing concerns of the Local Government Association in this regard that

“in reality, local plans will be constrained in the event that they conflict with National Development Management Policies, in which case the latter will take precedence. We have previously sought an amendment to reverse this proposal so that local plans will take precedence in the event of conflict. This is critical to ensure that that one of the key principles of the planning reforms—‘a genuinely plan-led system’—is enshrined in the Bill”.

Amendment 188 in my name reflects our continued concern that the relative weight of various key planning documents and guidance, when taken into consideration with the centrally determined NDMPs, is still not clear enough. When we discussed this in Committee, the NPPF was still out for consultation, but that does not alter the fact that the whole sector must have some clarity before the Bill completes its progress.

In the Minister’s explanation in March, in which she gave the rationale to introduce NDMPs, she stated:

“It will help local authorities produce swifter, slimmer plans by removing the need to set out generic issues of national importance”.


She just repeated that statement in the last group. In Committee, she continued:

“It will make those plans more locally relevant and easier for communities and other users to digest and to get involved in developing, through consultation and communications with local communities”.—[Official Report, 22/3/23; col. 1839.]


However, if local authorities do not have the clarity they need about what lies in the hands of their locally elected members working in consultation with the public and what is determined nationally, the whole system could quickly be mired in conflict and litigation.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly, having attached my name to Amendment 192 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. The case has comprehensively been made by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, so I shall be extremely brief. I note that representations from the County Councils Network over the recess led me to attach my name to this amendment, because I thought that it too comprehensively made the case. At this point, I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and the NALC.

I wanted to make a link to some of our earlier debates before the dinner break. In the last group, we were focusing on the need to tackle the problems of unhealthy communities and making communities healthier, and the mood all around your Lordships’ House was very clear, including from Government Benches and even the Front Bench. Of course, health is a county council responsibility. We talked about part of that being walking and cycling networks, for example, and about things being joined up. We also talked very much, in an earlier group, about the need for planning to consider the climate emergency and nature crisis. Local nature recovery networks are very much a growing area that needs to be absolutely joined up.

It is worth saying that this is not a political amendment; it is an attempt to make things work, to make this Bill hang together and to make sure that it works for local communities. I join others in very much hoping that we will get a positive message from the Minister.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, remember the days of the regional spatial strategies, and long debates in EELGA over housing numbers particularly. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, I did not celebrate when they got the kibosh, because I thought that there was a lot of good in them—particularly in meeting the housing needs in the east of England but also on the economic development side, which was as important. A great deal of very good work was done in pulling together data and information for the whole region, in order to look at where and how best to develop particular clusters and where they would work well. So there was a lot of merit in that very strategic-level thinking.

It has moved on a bit since the days of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, in Hertfordshire, with the Hertfordshire Growth Board looking at issues outside the remit of the straightforward local planning authority. For example, there is the mass rapid transit system that south and south-west Hertfordshire was looking at, which covers a number of different local authorities. Then, there is working with the local enterprise partnerships, as we did on the Hertfordshire Growth Board. There was a clear drive towards the consideration of travel-to-work areas, which was why I spoke so strongly in favour when we discussed this issue before.

I am convinced that we need to work jointly, with joint authorities, involving them in particular in the early stages, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said. It is no good waiting until a draft strategy has been produced and, if there is a major game-changer in there, expecting local authorities to pick it apart and change it. It is much better for them to be engaged and involved from the very start.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, mentioned government Amendment 201B, which we will debate on Wednesday, which will allow combined authorities to take on planning powers. I am not going to start the whole discussion now, but we were very concerned about this. We will have a debate about it, but it seems like a very slippery slope indeed. It is far better to include local authorities and all the component parts that make up the combined authority and their neighbours in the discussion from the early days of the joint spatial development strategy.

I absolutely support the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, on the inclusion of districts and councils in a very real way in the decision-making on JSDSs. I think it emphasises the points we made in earlier debates, in Committee and on Report, about the importance of the full membership of combined authorities—for both tiers in two-tier areas. Those organisations are then involved right from the start, and they have a democratic mandate to be so involved.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, made the important point that there are elements that will be included in joint spatial development strategies that do not stop at boundaries, and so it is very important that we work across those boundaries on such things as climate change, healthy homes, sustainable transport and biodiversity. All those things do not come to an end when you get to the end of your local plan area, so we all need to work together on how we tackle those key issues.

We are very supportive of the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. I am interested to hear the Minister’s answer as to whether the part of the schedule that covers this would stretch to make sure that this very important early-stage consultation could be included as a requirement within the Bill.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)]

My Lords, let me first say that the aim of Amendment 192 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lansley is sensible and I understand its intention. Other authorities, such as county councils, will be essential for a successful plan, given that they are responsible for delivering a range of critical services such as highways and transport, flood risk management and waste management. Of course, county councils will also have the role of a statutory consultee for the joint spatial development strategies.

We expect engagement with other authorities to be typical good practice for any group of local planning authorities preparing a joint spatial development strategy—an SDS. Indeed, it would appear unlikely that any joint SDS that did not engage appropriately with other local government bodies could be found sound at examination. Let me make it clear that county councils are going to play an important role in the plan-making process. We envisage them not just as consultees but as being closely involved with the day-to-day production of any joint SDS. The Government have set out our intention to introduce an alignment policy via the National Planning Policy Framework to address cross-boundary and strategic issues such as travel to work areas, and this policy will be consulted on in due course.

Both my noble friend Lord Lansley and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, brought up the government amendments in the next group. Just to make it clear, Schedule 4 amendments will mean that combined county authorities will be in the same position that the Mayor of London and county councils and combined authorities are in currently in relation to the ability of the Secretary of State to invite those bodies to take over plan-making, but where a constituent planning authority is failing in its plan-making activities. It is not that they can just walk in and take over, but if the local plan is not being delivered by the planning authority then they have the right to ask the Secretary of State if they can take it over. I just wanted to make that clear, but I am sure we will have the discussion again on Wednesday.

My noble friend brought up the Secretary of State’s powers in relation to the role of county councils. I do not know that, legally. I will make sure that I find out tomorrow and I will write to my noble friend and send a copy to those in the Chamber tonight.

I am not convinced that this amendment is needed to make local planning authorities work with other authorities, notably county councils, on joint SDSs. I hope that my noble friend Lord Lansley feels he is able to withdraw his amendment at this stage.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, my intervention on this subject will be brief. I did not speak on development corporations in Committee, but I have been following the subject very carefully. In response to this very short debate, or perhaps more appropriately in a subsequent letter, might my noble friend explain to us a little more about how the various forms of development corporations are intended to be deployed?

As far as I can see, in addition to the mayoral development corporations—which are not much affected by this Bill—we will continue to have scope for urban development corporations initiated by the Secretary of State, we will continue to have scope for new town development corporations initiated by the Secretary and we will have locally led urban development corporations and locally led new town development corporations that may be established at the initiative of local authorities under this Bill. By my count, we have five different forms of development corporations.

There is a certain amount of speculation about under what circumstances, in what areas and for what purposes these development corporations may be deployed, and about the Government’s intentions. It would be reassuring to many to hear from the Government about that, and in particular about their presumption that they would proceed, particularly for new towns and new development corporations, by reference to those that are locally led and arise from local authority proposals, as distinct from continuing to use the powers for the Secretary of State to designate an area and introduce a development corporation at his or her own initiative. It would be jolly helpful to have more flesh on the bones of what these various development corporations look like and how they will be deployed by government.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, those who have heard me speak in this Chamber will know that I am a great fan of development corporations, having grown up in a town that, apart from our historic old town, was created and, for the most part, built by Stevenage Development Corporation. At that time, the innovation of development corporations took a great deal of debate in Parliament to initiate, and we have hopefully moved on a bit towards devolution since the middle of the last century.

If there is to be parliamentary scrutiny of the establishment of development corporations, it is absolutely right that it should be done by the affirmative procedure, so we welcome the movement on that in Amendments 146 and 147, to ensure that the establishment of locally led urban and new town development corporations is drawn to the attention of both Houses, in the same way as those that are not locally led.

We hope that it will be the intention of government to scrutinise only the technical aspects of governance, for example, as it would be entirely against the principles of devolution that the Bill sets out to promote for any Government to effectively have a veto on whether proposals for a development corporation go ahead. During the passage of the Bill, we have talked about a new relationship of mutual trust between local and central government, and we hope that such parliamentary scrutiny will not be used to undermine that.

I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the importance of determining the nature of parliamentary involvement in different types of development corporation. Of course, we would have concern about Parliament intending to have a veto on the locally led ones. The other amendments in this group are consequential on the Minister’s previous amendment on page 195. We look forward to her comments about the points raised.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that, yes, locally led development corporations will come from local authorities—they will put them forward.

My noble friend Lord Lansley brought up the different forms of development corporations. Rather than standing here and taking time, I would prefer to write to him and copy everybody in. I suggest that we might have a small group meeting about this when we come back in September so that any questions can be asked. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, for her support for these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I thank the noble Baronesses for their input. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that we understand the devolved authorities’ rights and responsibilities, but, as always, there is negotiation on any legislation that we put through which may affect them. The Government and the Welsh Government did not reach a settled position on the CPO powers until after the Lords Committee stage had concluded. As these things are complex, our devolved authorities also need time to discuss and make decisions. I can assure the noble Baroness that we are working closely with them all the time.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

163: After Clause 202, insert the following new Clause—
“Support for pubsWithin 120 days of the day on which this Act is passed, a Minister of the Crown must publish a strategy to support the pub industry and reduce the number of pubs closing.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is intended to help support the pub industry.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I might take a little longer over this set of amendments. Our Amendment 163 addresses the severe impact that the cost of living crisis has had on the pub industry in the UK and asks that Ministers address it with a strategy to support this trade, which has such a unique and special place in the culture of our country.

The number of pubs in England and Wales continues to fall, hitting its lowest level on record. According to new research by the Altus Group, there were 39,970 pubs in June, down by more than 7,000 since 2012. After struggling through Covid, when it received welcome support from the Government, the industry is now facing soaring prices and higher energy costs. Over the past decade, thousands of pubs have closed as younger people tend to drink less—they do not all drink less; they tend to—supermarkets sell cheaper alcohol and the industry complains of being too heavily taxed. According to Altus, 400 pubs in England and Wales closed in 2021 and some 200 shut in the first half of 2022 as inflation started to eat into their profits. That brought the total number of pubs down to its lowest since its records began in 2005.

My noble friend Lady Hayman, who, sadly, cannot be in her place today, drew to the attention of the Minister during debates on the Non-Domestic Rating Bill concerns from the British Beer & Pub Association about the proposals for improvement relief. That is because pubs that are not directly owned and managed by the ratepayer—namely, those in tied or leased arrangements, which are apparently around 30% of UK pubs—become a much less attractive proposition for investment, as improvement relief can be guaranteed only on directly managed pubs. We urge Ministers to take this seriously and consider working with the pub industry to develop a strategy to support it in the medium and long term.

All the amendments in this group draw attention to some of the serious issues facing our high streets and, importantly, to the negative contribution that the current business rates system makes to those problems. I am very aware of proposals in the Non-Domestic Rating Bill currently making its way through the Lordships’ House, but while we welcome many of them, they do not go far enough. We see that Bill as merely tinkering at the edges of an outmoded and outdated system. During my many years on the Local Government Association’s resources board, successive attempts have been made to encourage government to get to grips with both a fair funding review and a comprehensive review of the non-domestic rating system. Unfortunately, the Non-Domestic Rating Bill does not do that, and even the measures it does contain bring concerns about the capacity of the VOA to enact them. It is a huge missed opportunity.

I was very grateful to the Minister for providing me and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, with an extensive briefing on the Non-Domestic Rating Bill. During it, she pointed out that consultation had not resulted in a call for major reform of the business rates system. I looked at the detail of the consultation and it was, as government consultations often are, a technical consultation framed around government’s questions relating to the existing system, on matters such as transparency of the VOA, penalties for non-compliance, transition to online services, changes of circumstance, improvement reliefs, valuations, the multiplier, local discretionary relief, et cetera. What it absolutely did not do was encourage wider comment on whether the business rates system was fit for purpose in the first place.

The Local Government Association published its response to government proposals. It welcomed some of them, but it said:

“The LGA will continue to argue for a sustainable local government finance system which conforms to the principles we submitted in our submission to the Business Rates Review; sufficiency, buoyancy, fairness, efficiency of collection, predictability, transparency and incentive. We published commissioned work examining alternatives for reform in January 2022. Only with adequate long-term resources, certainty and freedoms, can councils deliver world-class local services for our communities, tackle the climate emergency, and level up all parts of the country”.


We firmly believe that there is a case for further reform of the business rates system. Our Amendment 273A and that in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, Amendment 282D, ask that the Secretary of State consider again the issue of non-domestic rates and the contribution they can make to levelling up and regeneration.

The major example I would give is that the Non-Domestic Rating Bill does nothing to address the very unfair advantage currently enjoyed by online businesses as compared to our high street businesses. The Centre for Retail Research found that 17,000 shops closed last year—that is 47 shops a day, the highest annual total in five years. More than 5% of retail staff lost their jobs last year and hospitality suffered a similar fate. Not all those failures are because of business rates, of course, but I am sure they are a contributing factor.

High streets have been hit hard and are increasingly run down, with hard-working business owners having to accept defeat in the face of impossible financial difficulties. While crisis relief was made available during the pandemic, there does not seem to be a long-term strategy to address the issues that businesses are facing, which will be critical to ensuring that every town or neighbourhood centre in the UK has the opportunities it needs to regenerate and level up.

Labour has a clear plan to scrap business rates and bring in wide-reaching reforms to even out the playing field, but we are still not clear about what the Government’s long-term plan for business taxation will be. The threshold for rates relief for small businesses is still too low, and online giants are still not paying their fair share of taxes, with a digital service tax not high on the agenda—as far as we can see, it still sits in the “too difficult” box. How can we say to our communities that high street shops such as Marks & Spencer—known, valued local businesses—are paying more in tax than online giants such as Amazon? That is not levelling the playing field. Each loss of a much-loved store, pub, bank, post office or leisure facility is felt by our communities like a kick in the teeth, and worse than that is the feeling of helplessness that the Government are standing by and watching this happen.

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I reassure noble Lords that the amendment is entirely unnecessary. A review has only recently concluded, and the Government remain committed to delivering on the conclusions of that review. We have already taken the first steps towards that and are delivering on our further commitments through the Non-Domestic Rating Bill. I understand why noble Lords have raised their amendments, but I hope that I have provided assurance that the concerns underpinning the two amendments are already being addressed through the changes the Government are delivering to the business rates system, through both legislation and the generous and wide-ranging support that we have made available to ratepayers. I therefore ask the noble Baronesses not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the very detailed and thorough response from the Minister, as ever. I thank her for her comments on the Hospitality Sector Council. I have a question for her, to which I am happy to receive a response in writing: were the views of the Hospitality Sector Council on the non-domestic rates taken into account in the drafting of both this Bill and the Non-Domestic Rating Bill before your Lordships’ House?

I turn to the issue of regional mutual banks. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, is not in his place, because he has been a very good champion of this sector. It would be a big step forward for levelling up and regeneration to have those banks, which would work with local government and local communities on the economy of local areas.

I point out that, through the work I have been doing with both the Co-operative Party and the Co-operative Councils’ Innovation Network, I know that regional mutual banks are already being delivered in Wales with the support of the Welsh Government, but in England there are still considerable barriers and hurdles to overcome. My colleagues in Preston have been engaging with this process, but it is highly complex.

We appreciate that financial security is paramount in the development of a regional banking sector, and we are very pleased to hear that that sector has the Government’s support, but we need to work as quickly as we can to overcome the barriers to that. We genuinely believe that, without a switch from the centralised banking system that we have in this country to a much more regional sector, we will not be able to reach the full potential of local areas.

On the issues with the business rates review, I have pointed out the technical nature of that consultation process and the concerns we still have about the resources needed to enact the provisions of the Non-Domestic Rating Bill, particularly in relation to the Valuation Office Agency. There are still concerns around the appeals process, which takes far too long and can leave both businesses and local councils hanging on for years, in some cases, while appeals are settled.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, was right to raise the issues of tariffs and top-ups, which are not very efficient at making sure that the funding from non-domestic rates gets to where it needs to go. They are not structured enough to ensure that, where you have poorer parts of better-off areas, the funding gets to where it needs to go.

We note that many concessions on business rates are coming forward in the Non-Domestic Rating Bill, which we welcome, but changes to the multiplier are giving cause for concern; it is no good giving businesses concessions with one hand and then taking them away with the other. Our fear is that if there is not a radical and different approach to both fair funding and the business rates system, it will be more difficult to achieve levelling up or regeneration. That said, I am happy to withdraw my amendment at this stage.

Building Safety (Leaseholder Protections etc.) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

This reminds me of some elements of the Windrush scandal, where a department completely failed to grasp what it needed to do, and the spirit in which it needed to do it, in order to achieve the policy outcome that it said it wanted to achieve. It seems to me, on the third time round, with the promise of a fourth time round, that this is rapidly escalating into one of those circumstances. I hope the Minister can give us some reassurance on that very important matter.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, while we do not object to this regulation’s contents in principle, we too regret that it has been necessary for the Government to bring this instrument forward. After all, the regulations consist mostly of technical amendments to regulations previously made under the Building Safety Act after it came into force. Surely the need for such basic definitions could have been anticipated in the drafting of the previous regulations. We appreciate fully that these are not simple matters, but instruments coming forward to correct what are largely obvious deficiencies and admissions in the drafting of previously approved regulations do not exactly inspire confidence in the Government’s approach to leaseholder protection and to the building safety crisis more generally.

At the heart of this issue are the millions of leaseholders who are losing sleep and their hard-earned cash over the remediation costs issue. During the passage of the Building Safety Bill, Members of both Houses warned about the consequences of rapidly overhauling what was already a complex and technical piece of legislation in order to reflect the Government’s belated change of approach. Indeed, my honourable friend Matthew Pennycook MP said at the time that

“this is no way to make good law”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/4/22; col. 191.]

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, referred to a previous regret Motion tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, regarding judicial reviews and attempts at redrafting.

All this could have been avoided if the Government had just grasped the nettle and brought forward a comprehensive Bill to abolish the outdated and anachronistic system that leasehold tenure is. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark’s work—he has brought this matter before the House so many times—but we still seem to be no further forward. The Secretary of State described leasehold as an outdated feudal system in January this year and promised to bring forward a Bill to scrap it, saying that

“the fundamental thing is that leasehold is just an unfair form of property ownership. In crude terms, if you buy a flat, that should be yours. You shouldn’t be on the hook for charges which managing agents and other people can land you with”.

That should apply to remediation costs, too.

The Law Commission, asked to review leasehold by the Government, produced a report proposing an overhaul of the right-to-manage process and suggested that landlords’ legal costs should not be passed to leaseholders. Yet here we are, seven months later, with no sign of a Bill so far and increasingly complex instruments coming before us to try to sort out the mess that the Government have made in previous regulations. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee said in its report on 29 June, which has already been highlighted by the Minister:

“We are disappointed that this is a further example of a wider concern we have highlighted in recent reports, whereby we have had to ask basic questions about the rationale of changes made in an instrument and report the answers in our weekly reports, when such information should have been in the EM accompanying the instrument”.


What assurances can the Minister give that, in rectifying the deficiencies and omissions in previously approved regulations, the same errors will not recur in respect of the many other building safety instruments we still need to consider? What is the Minister doing to ensure that the overall quality of statutory instruments that come before this House is improved so that they are not the subject of amending instruments and judicial review?

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, set out in great detail the technical issues in relation to this regulation. Our concern is that, while we understand that the Government’s intention is to ensure that landlords cannot avoid their responsibility to leaseholders in relation to building safety through complex corporate structures, if the instruments are not properly drafted, they will provide loopholes that enable that avoidance. What reassurance can the Minister give us today that this new instrument is sufficiently tight in its drafting to ensure that landlords will have to meet their obligations? The introduction given to us by the Minister, which referred to potential further redrafts and potentially even further primary legislation, does nothing to reassure us.

We note that Regulation 4 adds Homes England to the list of interested persons who may seek remediation orders and remediation contribution orders. Leaving aside the obvious question of why it was not included from the outset, particularly given that it administers the Building Safety Fund outside London, the Minister in the other place, Rachel Maclean, clarified that it is not the Government’s intention that Homes England takes over these responsibilities from government. However, the regulation does give it new responsibilities, so will Homes England be provided with further funding to fulfil these new responsibilities?

While we understand and share some of the concerns that sit behind the amendment moved by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, the instrument contains a series of perfectly sensible refinements to previous regulations, the effect of which, we hope, will be to streamline the landlord certificate and leaseholder deed of certificate process. We take no issue with those measures, but we regret that, although the instrument makes the necessary changes, it is a missed opportunity to resolve other glaring deficiencies in the Building Safety Act that the Government should have resolved by now, such as the gap relating to leaseholders extending or varying their lease on or after 14 February 2022, which the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred to, which the Government promised in this House on 2 May that they would legislate to resolve as soon as parliamentary time allowed, and the fact that service charges to cover remedial acts were sent out to leaseholders quickly before the Act came into force, because those charges could not be applied retrospectively. That has left leaseholders at the expense of litigation to resolve the matter. We, too, are interested in the cost to the Treasury of claims that exceed the cap referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. Why are the Government not using this instrument to address the shortcomings I have mentioned?

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for moving his amendment to give us the opportunity to have this debate, and I thank noble Lords who have contributed. I look forward to hearing the response from the Minister.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I thank the noble Lords for their contributions today. I will try to answer as many points as I can, but I imagine that on many points, particularly those from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, I will have to write. I reiterate my invitation to him to meet us to talk about some of his concerns.

The noble Earl asked about the complexity and clarity of existing regulations and what they do to address the concerns of the SLSC and the JCSI. As I said, this is what these regulations are for. They are there to address those concerns. The department will be publishing further guidance on GOV.UK to accompany the regulations. This will be published shortly after the regulations come into force.

The noble Earl also asked why the regulations do not address his concerns in relation to some leaseholders being liable in some circumstances. I am aware that I responded previously to the noble Earl when he brought forward his “polluter pays” amendments recently, which I now understand are being called building safety remediations. He seeks to return us to a subject that your Lordships debated extensively in the spring of last year, in what was then the Building Safety Bill. I say once more to the noble Earl, with the greatest of respect, that this House and the other place considered his arguments very carefully last year and rejected them. I still do not think that the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill is an appropriate place to try and reopen these issues.

In any event, the noble Earl presents his amendments—I thought it was “polluter pays”, but it is now building safety remediation—as though that is not what the Act and the various government schemes do. His scheme seeks to use the planning system to force compliance, as does the Government’s responsible actors’ scheme. We are told that the proposed scheme would avoid expensive litigation, yet it would replace the expanded jurisdiction of the First-tier Tribunal, which is now dealing with a significant number of cases, with that of the High Court, where costs and delays are far higher. The noble Earl’s scheme would not make a significant difference to leaseholders, other than to set back the progress of remediation by over a year as the industry and leaseholders work to understand yet another new system, just as they get to grips with the Building Safety Act.

The noble Earl also asked whether liability should fall on L for unavoidable errors in certificates. Under the leaseholder protection regulations, as he will know, L is the person with managing and repairing obligations. It is the current landlord who must provide the landlord certificate, not L. Where the current landlord produces a certificate that does not meet the prescribed requirements, liability for the relevant defect falls to them. L, the person responsible for the maintenance and repairs, may pursue them for amounts owed via a remediation contribution order.

The noble Earl also asked about consultations with practitioners and leaseholders, including those who have been prevented from selling. I set out in my opening speech that the department has engaged with numerous practitioners, including landlords, named managers, conveyancers and lenders. I can confirm that this was done through written correspondence to the department and stakeholder round tables. I reiterate that the department is not required to consult on these regulations.

The noble Earl also asked about the ability of leaseholders or professionals, in particular, to check facts in landlord certificates. There is no expectation on any party to verify the information set out in the landlord certificates, and these regulations do not change that. Regulation 11 of SI 2022/711 provides that those leaseholders may apply to the First-tier Tribunal for an order, where they have a reason to believe that the information in a landlord certificate is incorrect. He also asked about the volume of information required to be sourced and collected. I have said before that regulations reduce the evidence requirement or burden on landlords where they accept liability for a relevant defect.

The noble Earl asked about the disparity between ascertainable facts, as at 14 February 2022, and subsequent facts coming to light at a later stage. The tests apply on 14 February 2022 to ensure that landlords cannot circumvent the rules, particularly in relation to their net worth. Subsequent facts are not considered for the purpose of the tests. Where the landlord has since sold their assets then their liability, determined on 14 February 2022, falls to the person who bought the landlord’s asset, but the original landlord may still be pursued by a remediation contribution order. The Building Safety Act 2022 provides for insolvency orders to recover remediation amounts from a company that is in the process of winding up, and associated companies of that insolvent company may be held liable.

The noble Earl then asked about the need for the landlord to gather information from L. We are aware of the issues concerning the landlord being unable to legally enforce the provision of information in relation to relevant defects in the building. It is of course in the leaseholders’ interest for the person responsible for repairs and maintenance, often resident led, to provide that information to reduce a qualifying leaseholders cap. We are looking to bring forward primary legislation to resolve this issue as soon as parliamentary time allows.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

67: After Clause 78, insert the following new Clause—
“Bus companies: powers of authorities in EnglandIn the Bus Services Act 2017 omit Section 22 (Bus companies: limitation of powers of authorities in England) and insert—“22 Bus companies: empowerment of authorities in England(1) A relevant authority may form a company for the purpose of providing a local service.(2) Subsection (1) applies whether the relevant authority is acting alone or with any other person.(3) A relevant authority may request further powers in relation to local bus services, including but not limited to the franchising of local bus services and the power to consult local residents over fares, routes and funding.(4) If the Secretary of State receives a request under subsection (3), they must introduce regulations subject to affirmative procedure to transfer the powers requested.(5) The Bus Directorate in the Department for Transport has a duty to provide advice to authorities in relation to this section.(6) In this section—“company” has the same meaning as in the Companies Acts (see sections 1(1) and 2(1) of the Companies Act 2006);“form a company” is to be construed in accordance with section 7 of the Companies Act 2006;“local service” has the same meaning as in the Transport Act 1985 (see section 2 of that Act);“Passenger Transport Executive” , in relation to an integrated transport area in England or a combined authority area, means the body which is the Executive in relation to that area for the purposes of Part 2 of the Transport Act 1968;“relevant authority” means—(a) a county council in England;(b) a district council in England; (c) a combined authority established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009;(d) an Integrated Transport Authority for an integrated transport area in England;(e) a Passenger Transport Executive for—(i) an integrated transport area in England, or(ii) a combined authority area.””Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would remove the current ban on establishing new municipal bus companies and would expand the powers required to franchise bus services, which are currently only available to Combined Authorities, to all local transport authorities.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interests as declared in the register, which are that I am a serving councillor at both district and county level and a vice-president of the District Councils’ Network.

My Amendment 67 would permit local authorities which wished to do so to establish bus companies and would expand the powers that local authorities currently have to franchise bus services, which are currently available only to combined authorities. We have tabled this amendment to highlight the recommendations drawn out of the Select Committee report Public Transport in Towns and Cities and subsequent discussions of that report in your Lordships’ House in April. Fundamental to the recommendations of the report was that a firm link be established between local plans and transport plans. Our amendment would give local authorities the powers that they need to enable that link.

Last week I attended a select committee meeting in my local authority on bus provision. It was a long session in which members were keen to point out the considerable difficulties caused to our constituents by the combination of unreliable, infrequent or non-existent bus services. The Conservative county councillor who holds the cabinet responsibility for transport was open in saying that the privatisation of bus services that happened in the 1980s had not helped local authorities to ensure that there were efficient and effective bus services provided for their areas. I have no doubt that such scrutiny of bus services happens across the UK, because bus users are utterly fed up with the level of service they receive.

Your Lordships’ House recently published a very detailed report on Public Transport in Towns and Cities. During the debate on that report, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, described the Government’s performance, measured against their pledge to bring public transport up to standards in London. The Government had done:

“The brief answer is, not terribly well”.—[Official Report, 17/4/23; col. GC 147.]


He set out some mitigating factors as to why that would be the case, but surely we must all ask ourselves whether in the current circumstances, and with bus services failing passengers in so many places across the country, we can carry on with the vague expectation that eventually—they have already had four decades to do it—the private sector will start to deliver the level of service we know is needed to persuade far more people to leave their cars at home.

As Manchester has been able to go further with this than other local authorities, it was interesting to read Andy Burnham’s evidence to the Select Committee. In advocating franchising, he pointed out that his case was strengthened

“because large subsidies are being paid at the moment to various operators in the deregulated model, which in my view delivers very limited returns for the public”.

He also asked whether public operators would be allowed to take part in the franchising schemes as well. We agree that they should be able to do so.

During the debate on the report, it was pointed out, as it has been many times in this Chamber, that buses provide two-thirds of public transport trips in this country. The evidence shows that passenger numbers grow where services are of sufficient frequency and reliability to mean that passengers can just “turn up and go” without consulting a timetable. This is common practice in London but very unusual outside the capital, where sometimes the very fact a half-hourly bus has turned up at all can be subject to comments on social media. Councillors often take the brunt of these failures when services are late or cancelled at short notice or routes are taken out with no notice or consultation.

I also have to say a word about rural bus services, which are rapidly falling into extinction. Telling people who may have only one bus a day—or in some cases one bus a week—that the aim is to provide London-style bus services will most likely be greeted with derision. Some good work is being done to pilot on-demand bus services for rural areas, but these may prove too expensive for many users. Most rural users like those in towns just want to know that there will be a bus service and that buses will turn up on time.

There is such a simple solution to this, and that is to extend the powers currently granted to combined authorities, which can both establish bus companies and franchise services to meet customers’ needs, to all transport authorities. If we do not hear from the Minister that some movement has been made from the Government, I would like to test the opinion of the House on this. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, having attached my name to Amendment 67 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, I will speak briefly while noting my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, has overwhelmingly made the case for this, but I want to reflect on a number of things. She referred to the importance of reliability, and I can share her reflections on how rare that is. I was in Gloucester on Friday with Learn with the Lords and I waited for a bus—and it turned up at the time it was supposed to. I was quite shocked. It is such a rare occurrence, particularly when you are in a town that you do not know and you hope to rely on the timetable but you have no idea whether it is going to work. We cannot continue to have that situation.

Of course, that is an issue for visitors and for tourism but, overwhelmingly, it is an issue for local people. It is about reliability. I know of many people who have not been able to take jobs. We are greatly concerned at the moment about the shortage of labour supply in some areas, but you cannot take a job if you are not sure whether there is a bus or that the bus is not going to turn up reliably. You tell your employer, day after day, “Well yes, I was at the bus stop at the right time, but the bus did not turn up”. That is simply not a sustainable position.

On the idea of having local control, buses are a public service. They are essential to the operation of our communities. They should be controlled and run by local hands for the public good, not for private profit. There is no doubt. I do not believe that anyone can get up and say that the situation we have now, with buses being run for private profit, has been anything but a disaster. It is time to give back and—dare I borrow a phrase?—allow local communities to take back control of their bus services.

I can certainly assure the House that the Greens are firmly behind this amendment. I urge the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, to push it through if we do not get a strong response from the Minister because I think that, were we to hold a referendum—dare I use that word?—across the country, we would get an overwhelming win for this amendment to the levelling up Bill.

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[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, but I think several factors have impacted on the use of buses and the ability of local authorities to run satisfactory services. I shall certainly ensure that the point he has made is registered in the Department for Transport, and I am grateful to him.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for co-signing the amendment. She referred to the link between bus services and people’s economic activity, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred to the link with education and skills training; both are very important points. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for her support in this. She also said that the Bill gives us the opportunity to reverse the decline in bus services, and I genuinely believe that this is the quickest way to go forward with that.

It requires a deal of trust between the Government and local authorities, and on many occasions in the debates on the Bill we have had evidence to suggest that we need to demonstrate the new relationship needed between the Government and local government before we can go forward and make real progress on devolution. To me, good public transport is axiomatic with levelling up. We have to have it to make levelling up work at all.

I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his usual thorough reply, but there is clearly a disconnect between what powers the Government think they have given to local government and what local government is experiencing. The councillor I referred to was the transport portfolio holder for Hertfordshire County Council. He clearly does not think it has the powers to deal with transport in the way that he would want to. Something is clearly not right somewhere with all this. I understand the points about BSIPs and statutory enhanced partnerships, but it seems that the powers are conditional on approval from the Government, and we would like a relationship of trust in which these powers are given to any council transport authority that wishes to have them.

The noble Lord mentioned the important issue of fares. Funding comes into this, of course. The cuts to rural services bus grants, for example, make the provision of bus services in those areas very difficult.

For all those reasons, I am not convinced that we have a clear link to local authorities setting up their own bus companies or franchising services themselves, so I would like to test the opinion of the House.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I hoped we were hearing the voice of future generations up in the Gallery when the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, was speaking. Perhaps they were reminding us to think about affordable housing. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said that affordable housing was at the heart of some of this debate, and that is certainly the view of our Benches.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, set out the issues relating to the infrastructure levy that are causing such great concern across the sector. As she mentioned, this has resulted in an unprecedented step in my time in local government, with over 30 key organisations writing jointly to the Secretary of State to set out their concerns. They are united in saying that the introduction of the infrastructure levy could

“make it harder, not easier, for local leaders and communities to secure the benefits of new development”.

They point to the developer contributions that are being generated by the community infrastructure levy and Section 106 systems, which generated £7 billion in 2018-19 to support housing, infrastructure and services. I share their concerns that this new levy has the potential to reduce this amount.

I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the discussions that we have already had in Committee, but these views have been expressed by powerful bodies in our sector. His points about the design of the system are well made, but that should have been considered before the Bill came to the House. Points from the noble Lord, Lord Young, about trying to operate this discussion on a key part of the Bill in a vacuum are also well made.

The main concern of the organisations that wrote to the Secretary of State is the potential for this reform to

“leave communities with fewer new social and affordable homes, mixed and balanced developments and less of the infrastructure they need”.

They fear that the “upheaval” of introducing a new system would build delays and uncertainty into the planning system at a time when there is an urgent need to deliver affordable housing quickly, and that CIL and Section 106 would

“not be improved by these reforms”

and would need to be managed alongside the new levy. They welcome the principle of allowing authorities to borrow against developer contributions, but point out that the financial risk of doing so, when the final assessed amounts are “uncertain”, would probably be too great for local government finance officers.

In addition to the risks flagged by these key representatives of the sector, it is not yet clear what impact the infrastructure levy will have on permitted development. At present, developers engaging in permitted development make little, if any, contribution to infra- structure, in particular to affordable housing. This anomaly also needs to be resolved in any new infrastructure levy system.

I am grateful to many of the organisations that signed that letter which have also been kind enough to send us briefing material, and to the office of the Mayor of London, which has provided us with very strong evidence about the potential detrimental impact this would have on building more affordable housing in London. Its figures suggest that, had the levy been in place over the last five years, it would have resulted in between 4,500 and 10,000 fewer affordable homes, and could have made up to 30,000 homes of all tenures unviable.

We completely understand the need to ensure that developments provide the infrastructure to support them, but this proposed new levy adds layers of complexity, because it is being grafted on to an already complex system. The money that developers will have to pay to support transport, schools, health centres, open and play space, and, critically, affordable housing will be calculated once a project is complete instead of at the planning stage, as it is currently. This has resulted in concerns that the funding will be delayed or, potentially, lost altogether. The charging system will be complex and labour-intensive, putting further pressures on the local authority planning departments that we know are already at breaking point.

The reply to the organisations that wrote to the Secretary of State from the Minister responsible, Rachel Maclean, said that she would be looking at the issues they raised in detail and would be organising a round table very shortly. I believe that round table may have taken place in very recent days. However, as the sector has been raising these concerns since the infrastructure levy was first mooted, it is a shame the round table did not take place many months ago.

We accept that the Government have made some concessions on the infrastructure levy clauses, but they do not meet the basic challenge of explaining to the sector just how this new proposal will deliver more resources more effectively than the current system. For that reason, if the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, wishes to test the opinion of the House on her amendment, she will have our support. We understand that Amendment 90 is consequential to Amendment 68.

Turning to other amendments in this group, we hope the Government recognise the importance of the infrastructure levy supporting the delivery of the levelling- up missions. Our concern all through the passage of the Bill has been what mechanisms there are to link the missions to planning, funding and the infrastructure levy. My Amendment 69 to Schedule 12 is intended to address this, as well as ensuring that there is a commitment to the infrastructure levy being shared between tiers of local government in non-unitary areas.

My Amendment 70A wound enshrine in the Bill that the application of the infrastructure levy is optional. I am very grateful, as others have said, to the Minister for the many discussions we have had in relation to the Bill, in particular this part of it. I believe, and hope she will confirm, that it is the Government’s intention that infrastructure levies should be optional, and that government Amendment 82 enshrines this in the Bill.

Amendment 71, in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Young, and my Amendment 71A have similar intentions of ensuring that the level of affordable housing funded by developers in the local authority area will meet the needs of that area as set out in the local development plan. I referred to the critical links that need to be built between planning and the infrastructure levy earlier on. When it comes to affordable housing, this is absolutely essential. We recognise the very significant concessions the Government have made on affordable housing, so, rather than pushing Amendment 71A to a vote, perhaps we can have further discussions before the planning and housing sections of the Bill to build that link between the provision of affordable housing through the infrastructure levy and the local plan.

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, gave clear evidence of the principle behind the current definition of affordable housing. We agree that the current definition is wholly deficient, as much of the housing included in it is absolutely not affordable to many of those in desperate need of housing. We feel that the Government should take an inclusive approach to developing a new definition by working with the sector and housing charities to reach an agreed, appropriate definition of affordable housing. We would support the proposal in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that a link with the median income in the relevant local planning area would be a good starting point for this definition.

As mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Best, we are very grateful to the Minister for tightening up the wording she introduces in Amendments 72, 73 and 75 to ensure that developers must now “seek to ensure” the affordable housing funding level is maintained. We are also grateful for her clarification in Amendment 74 that funding of affordable housing is to be provided in the charging authority’s area and, in Amendment 79, that charging authorities can require on-site provision of affordable housing through the infrastructure levy. We believe this change will encourage the development of mixed housing and hopefully mixed tenure communities, which have proved over time to be far more sustainable and successful.

We are also pleased to see government Amendment 80, which requires a report to be laid before Parliament on the impact that the infrastructure levy is having on the provision of affordable housing. It perhaps does not go as far as our Amendment 81, which would have made provision for a new levy to be introduced where IL was shown not to be successful, but we recognise that the Minister has listened to our concerns and we hope that placing a report before Parliament on the success, or otherwise, of IL will encourage further thinking if it is shown not to be delivering.

We have some concerns, which we have shared with the Minister, in relation to Amendment 76 on the thorny issue of viability. Our concern is that this clause, which allows the infrastructure levy to be disapplied where the charging authority considers the application of the levy, including its provision for affordable housing, would make the development unviable. The process of negotiation on infrastructure contributions between local planning authorities and developers can be very long and complex, especially when major developments are involved. We would not want to see any further pressure being put on local authorities in that negotiation process by having this clause dangled in front of them as an incentive for developers to proceed. It has been hard enough in the existing system to resist the weight of financial and legal expertise that the developers have put into these discussions, as mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Young. We do not want to give them another weapon in their armoury—we do not think that is necessary.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young, for setting out the potentially devastating impact the viability get-out clause can have on affordable housing. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred to the inclusion of contingencies in that viability calculation. When you start to pick apart that contingency—I have done it—it is very interesting to see what sits underneath it, which is often some very wild assumptions in my experience. I am sure that that is not always the case, but it can be.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is right to flag up in his Amendment 77 the question of the relationship between Section 106 contributions, which have been most effective in securing affordable housing through planning contributions, and the infrastructure levy. Lastly, we welcome the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, which would require a response to the technical consultation on the infrastructure levy before it comes into force.

In summary, we feel that an opportunity has been missed by introducing IL to be grafted on to an already complex system instead of using this Bill for a new, simplified and comprehensive approach to the provision of infrastructure developed with and for the sector, and with an implementation plan to smooth the transition so that it would not disrupt local authorities from the urgent work of solving the housing crisis. However, I once again thank the Minister for the amount of her time she has given to meet noble Lords on this subject and for the amendments that have subsequently come forward. It is the best of this House that the expertise we have here is used to improve legislation, and I am sure today’s debates are a good example of that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 68 and 90, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, seek to remove the provisions in the Bill which provide the imposition of the new infrastructure levy in England. I regret that these amendments have been proposed, but I recognise the need for serious and open debate on this subject.

We covered the shortcomings of the existing system of developer contributions at length in Committee. There is a clear case for reform. Since 2010, average new-build house prices have risen by more than £250,000, and land prices have also risen substantially. This increase in value must be captured within the levy system, allowing for more local benefit, but we recognise the need to get these significant reforms right. That is why I can commit to the House today that the Government will undertake a further consultation on fundamental design choices before developing infrastructure levy regulations. Through further consultation and engagement, and the test-and-learn approach, which we discussed in detail in Committee, we will seek to ensure that the levy achieves its aims and that it is implemented carefully. I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, will feel able to withdraw Amendment 68 and will not press Amendment 90.

My noble friend Lord Lansley has tabled Amendments 311 and 312, which seek to prevent the introduction of the infrastructure levy until the Government have published proposals for its implementation. I know that my noble friend has formally responded to the recently concluded technical consultation, which we are carefully reviewing. I can confirm that we will not commence the levy provisions in Part 4 until we have responded to that further round of consultation. The regulations themselves will be consulted on in future as well. I hope my noble friend Lord Lansley is therefore content not to press his Amendments 311 and 312. I assure him that he is correct: there is scope in the Bill for us to vary the approach set out in the technical consultation, and I reiterate that, if we do that, we will be consulting further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, we find that we form some unusual alliances in your Lordships’ House, especially in relation to protecting our environment. On this topic, I was very happy to put my name to Amendment 102 in the names of the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. The reason I did that was that I am lucky enough to have spent my life living in the wonderful county of Hertfordshire. For those of you who are not aware, Hertfordshire contains over 20% of the world’s unique and special, natural and precious chalk streams. The noble Viscount has already explained that this country is the custodian of the vast majority of this precious natural resource—more than 85%. To have 20% of that in my county is a real reason for doing all that I can to ensure that they are protected.

From the Rivers Chess and Colne in the west of Hertfordshire and the River Beane, which runs alongside my town, to the Rivers Lea, Stort and Ash in the south and east of the county, along with many others, we are blessed with what should be vital water resources, providing habitats for a huge diversity of species, from damselfly to salmon. Sadly, as we have heard, they are under increasing pressure from overextraction and pollution and, while progress is being made through the catchment-based approach mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, they are still struggling and under pressure. We need to improve their health and focus on that through the chalk stream strategy. There is still much more to be done.

I am most grateful to the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, which does so much work in this area and has been incredibly helpful in providing information for me. Our precious monuments and ancient buildings have huge protection in the planning system through the mechanism of listing, but we do not seem to take these precious natural resources as seriously in this regard. I support the aims of the amendment in attempting to do that by ensuring that any development in the area of chalk streams explicitly considers the impact on them and sets out what mitigations will be needed. If our chalk streams were buildings, they would be UNESCO heritage sites. Let us protect them as though they were.

[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.

Leasehold Properties: Managing Agents

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, estate agents are regulated through the Estate Agents Act 1979. As I said, that is currently enforced through the National Trading Standards estate and letting agency team, which makes it very clear that estate agents are expected to exercise due diligence and check whether the information on anything they are selling is correct. The Government expect all property agents to ensure that customers are aware of anything to do with the property that they are negotiating on and to work within those trading standards rules and regulations.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, we keep getting vague promises about action being taken on leaseholder reform. For all leaseholders, the prospect of hikes in their service charges hangs over them like a sword of Damocles. It is about time that this was sorted out. The present provisions are too opaque and leave leaseholders at the mercy of unscrupulous managing agents. If we are to have transparency of service charges, when will this reform come forward? Please can we have a bit more clarity about when the Government will tackle it?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right: leaseholders need that transparency to better understand what they are paying for and for it to be harder for landlords to hide any unreasonable charges. As I said, we are looking at it. We will bring forward legislation later in this Parliament.