Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Haskel

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the previous discussion highlighted some of the concerns we have about the contradictions between the matters that have been enshrined in the Bill, which some of us might think are not quite so important, and those which have been left out. Getting the balance right is clearly important. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and my noble friend Lady Hayman all said, now really is the time for nature recovery and such issues to be a clear focus and for them to be put into the Bill.

We have had lengthy earlier discussions relating to the unwelcome and centralising shift represented by the introduction of NDMPs. I hope that the Government have been left in no doubt about the deep disquiet in the local government community about this provision. Further to the earlier comments made on those serious planning matters, we believe that the Bill is simply not clear enough about how conflicts between local plans and NDMPs are to be dealt with. Our amendments in this group therefore address these issues.

Amendment 185A in my name seeks to take out the lines from Clause 86 that give automatic primacy to the NDMP where a conflict arises between it and the local plan. It is simply unthinkable that this could happen by virtue of statute, with no dialogue relating to why the local authority or the combined county authority considered it necessary to depart from the NDMP. Let me be provocative and suggest that it would, in effect, mean there was almost no point in preparing a local plan at all, if any conflict arising is to be determined in favour of the NDMP—which is, after all, determined in Whitehall. I will be interested in the Minister’s comments on this. Surely the provision goes against the key principles of devolution.

Amendment 186 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is similar but refers to “insignificant conflicts” between the local development plans and the NDMPs. If I know local government, I fear that this would involve considerable arguments, perhaps even resulting in legal arguments about what is and is not insignificant.

My noble friend Lady Hayman’s Amendment 187 aims to clarify the situation relating to how conflicts between local plans and the NDMP might be dealt with. It would add a further subsection to Clause 86, setting out how conflicts could be resolved in favour of the local development plan where a CCA had been handed powers over planning, highways, the environment and other functions of public bodies under the circumstances outlined in Schedules 16 and 17 or where the development plan comes under a joint spatial development strategy, or if it is in Greater London.

Amendment 192 is a probing amendment. It would insert a clause in the Bill setting out the primacy of the development plan over the NDMP, should there be a conflict. This amendment sits alongside other amendments to Clause 87 which aim to ensure—I want to be really clear about this—that the voices of local people and their democratically elected representatives have the primacy in determining the development of local areas.

Amendments 193 and 195 probe if there is to be any role for parliamentary scrutiny of how conflicts between development plans and the NDMP are resolved and/or whether Parliament is to be informed of the Secretary of State’s intention to override the local process. They also probe what role there is to be for a CCA whose constituent member or members may find themselves in a conflict between their development plan and the NDMP.

In summary, what is the mediation process to be? Surely there will not be an automatic assumption in favour of the policies produced centrally with no reference to local people. There is not much in the way of devolution in that proposal. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have to inform your Lordships that, if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 186, 187 and 187A because of pre-emption.