Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2019

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2019 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move that these regulations, which were laid before the House on 10 June, be considered. The regulations will remove a sunset clause in the existing 2012 fees regulations, thereby ensuring that local planning authorities can continue to charge fees for planning applications. They will also introduce a fee of £96 for prior approval applications for a larger single-storey rear extension to a house. If approved by this House, this new charge will come into effect 28 days after the regulations are made. Planning fees are an important source of income which supports local authorities to have the resources and capacity to make effective planning decisions. It is therefore vital that the fee regulations remain in force.

It is vital that we have well-resourced, efficient and effective planning departments, capable of providing a planning service that local people and applicants expect. Planning application fees provide essential income to enable local authorities to deliver this service, and to consider and determine planning applications. In January 2018, we raised planning application fees by 20%. This was the first uplift since 2012 and it has increased income for the planning system and enabled local planning authorities to improve their performance. We estimate that in England, the total income raised through planning application fees is £450 million per annum. If there were no application fee, this cost would have to be funded by the taxpayer.

I turn to the details of the draft regulations. In Regulation 2, we are removing the sunset clause of 21 November 2019 contained in the existing 2012 fees regulations: namely, the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012. The sunset clause and a post-implementation review condition were included in the 2012 fees regulations to ensure that the regulations were kept under review and removed from statute if they were no longer necessary. A post-implementation review was undertaken in 2017 and the outcome report laid before Parliament in December 2017. I am pleased to confirm that the review concluded that the objectives of the regulations remain appropriate in providing for the proper consideration of planning applications; therefore, the national planning fees regime should remain in place.

To ensure that the fee regulations remain in place, it is necessary to remove the 21 November sunset clause. This will ensure that applicants continue to pay a fair and consistent fee, and that local authorities will be able to continue to charge planning application fees and have the resource and capacity to make high-quality and timely planning decisions. If the sunset clause was not removed, the fees regulations would cease to have effect after 21 November of this year. This would mean that local planning authorities would no longer be able to charge any fees for planning applications.

Regulations 3(1) and 3(2) introduce a £96 fee for applications for “prior approval” for existing permitted development rights for a larger single-storey rear extension to a house. Perhaps I may summarise the position as it will be if the regulations proceed. This permitted development right allows householders to build larger single-storey rear extensions that are between 4 metres and 8 metres for detached houses, and between 3 metres and 6 metres for all other houses. Extensions smaller than this do not require prior approval and therefore do not attract a fee. Extensions that are larger than 8 metres for detached houses and 6 metres for all other houses would require planning permission in the normal way, so would attract a full planning application fee of £206.

The prior approval process means that a developer has to seek approval from the local planning authority that specified elements of the development are acceptable before work can proceed. The matters for prior approval vary depending on the type of development, and those are set out in the relevant part of the general permitted development order. A local authority cannot consider any other matters when determining a prior approval application.

The permitted development right for a larger single-storey rear extension to a house was made permanent by way of amendments to the general permitted development order on 25 May, but the associated application for prior approval required to exercise that development right attracts no fee. Now the right is permanent, it is appropriate that we should enable local planning authorities to charge and receive a fee for the work that they undertake to process and determine the applications they receive.

A £96 fee will be an additional cost to those home owners wanting to extend their homes in that way. However, that fee is the same as the fee for other applications for prior approval, as the cost to the local authority of handling these types of application is similar—for example, demolition of a building, agricultural buildings and certain solar developments. It is not fair that this cost should continue to be subsidised by the taxpayer generally. The fee is less than the £206 fee that would be required for a full planning application to carry out these works to a house were it not for the permitted development rights. It will provide local planning authorities with resources that may otherwise have been diverted from other planning applications.

In line with existing fees for planning applications to alter or extend a home, the regulations continue to provide for existing exemptions in the 2012 fee regulations, such as when an extension provides facilities or means of access for disabled persons; those would continue in just the same way.

We continue to keep the resourcing of local authority planning departments and where fees can be charged under review. Noble Lords will be aware that we announced in the Spring Statement that the accelerated planning Green Paper, to be published later this year, will look at new approaches for local authorities to meet the costs of their planning service through possible additional fees and to deliver improved performance. In the meantime, these regulations ensure that local authorities can continue to charge planning fees, including the new prior approval fee, after 21 November, thus providing them with the resources they need to consider such applications. I commend the regulations to the Grand Committee.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that concise and informative introduction. We understand the technical purpose of the SI, and particularly appreciate the need for local authorities to be able to recoup their costs. The uplift of 20% that he mentioned was certainly welcomed, although he is probably as aware as I am that there is still a gap.

Evidence shows that more and more people extend their homes rather than move, so an increasing number of prior approvals are being sought. Therefore, the ability to charge for that will be welcomed. I know from personal experience that there is a reasonable amount of work involved, the more so in larger extensions. Those usually involve conflict with the next-door neighbour, who of course has no means of stopping the development because these are permitted developments. Despite that, councillors and officers get drawn in and it all takes time. I am curious about how the nationally set cost of £96 has been arrived at, alongside other fees. Perhaps the Minister could point me in the right direction for an explanation.

As the Minister said, councils need well-resourced planning departments to deliver the Government’s ambitious housing agenda; on that we agree. There is also a national shortage of planning officers, and the cost of living in different parts of the country differs considerably and means that councils struggle to recruit or have to pay higher salaries if they are to function. Yet these fees are nationally set, so from Land’s End to John O’Groats they are the same. Are there any plans to allow a fair and transparent scheme to give councils flexibility to set appropriate fees that might reflect local circumstances?

Permitted development rights in general are being extended, the latest being, as the Minister said, in May this year, despite some serious opposition from organisations such as the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Town and Country Planning Association and others that have genuinely well-documented concern that in the Government’s legitimate desire to increase the number of homes, which we would absolutely agree with, issues such as quality and sustainability are being totally neglected, and that the most recent liberalisation of permitted development on the high street could be a blessing or a curse depending on local circumstances. Councils’ only recourse is to apply for an Article 4 direction to remove that automatic right. I know from personal experience of how difficult it was to get an Article 4 direction placed on our premier office headquarters area that this is neither speedy nor simple. We succeeded, but it was an expensive, tough battle. Do the Government keep records of the number of councils that apply for an Article 4 direction and how many are actually granted? The Minister mentioned other reviews; are there any plans to review the impact, good or bad, of the extended permitted development rights, particularly on quality and sustainability?

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I draw the Committee’s attention to my relevant registered interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. As noble Lords have heard, these regulations will remove the sunset clause to enable fees to be charged beyond the date the noble Lord referred to and introduce an additional £96 fee for prior approval applications for larger new extensions.

As far as they go, I am very happy to support the regulations. The increases in fees in recent times have generally been welcome, but it is still fair to say that planning departments are still being subsidised by the local council tax payer. We should try to eliminate that over a period of time. I agree very much with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, who asked how the £96 fee was arrived at. It would be good to hear that from the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, because it is a fair point that there are different associated costs across the country. How was this one figure reached? I look forward to hearing that.

I have mentioned many times during these debates that the Government often want to try new things out, such as new pilot schemes. I have asked many times: why can we not find just one volunteer authority to look at full cost recovery of planning fees? Surely we can find just one council in England to do that for us to see whether full cost recovery would work. It might not, and the pilot might show that that is the case, but I cannot see why we cannot find just one council somewhere in England to pilot full cost recovery on planning fees for the Government to see what effect it has. We hear lots of stuff about planning, most of it a load of old nonsense about how planning committees and planning departments are holding up all this housebuilding. It is absolutely rubbish. Was it 300,000 applications without a brick being laid? I know that the noble Lord did not say that, but we read this rubbish all over the place. I do not see why we cannot look at full cost recovery and at how it is not the planning regime, the council or the planning committees holding up housebuilding.

Having said that, I have no objection at all to the regulations. I am very happy to approve them and I look forward to the noble Lord’s response to the few points that I and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, have raised.

Housing: Social Rent

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I do not have that specific figure to hand, but I will write to the noble Lord with it. As I have indicated, it is important that we build more homes for social rent, and we are intent on doing that outside London. Within London, there will be provision of affordable homes at the level of social rents; that is part of the programme and we are delivering that with the Greater London Authority.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Government’s own social rent policy is a key component in creating a sustainable funding model for building social housing? As this policy is due for review in 2021, will the Government take this opportunity to provide renters, housing providers and investors, including councils, with some clarity, predictability and stability in this market, which at the moment they do not feel they have?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I am a little surprised that the noble Baroness said that. As I indicated, we removed the HRA borrowing cap, which was a substantial barrier to provision of housing at social rent, as was acknowledged across the board. It has been widely welcomed, not least by her own party, and will make a real difference. I am not sure what additional clarity she is referring to, but I am happy to meet her separately if it is helpful.

Housing: No-fault Evictions

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornhill]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the timetable for the recently proposed consultation to end no fault evictions and how it will differ from the consultation Overcoming the barriers to longer tenancies in the private rented sector of July 2018.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, there was no widespread support for a fixed-term tenancy model. We concluded that the best way to introduce greater security was to remove Section 21 no-fault evictions, strengthen existing Section 8 eviction grounds and reform court processes. We want to collaborate with landlords and tenants to ensure that these reforms are introduced effectively. We expect to consult on our proposals over the summer.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for that Answer but I would be grateful for more information on the timeframe for the legislation. This is indeed welcome news for the thousands of tenants who live with insecure short-term tenancies and the fear of eviction on a daily basis, but they need the change soon. Given that there will be opposition from landlords, what measures will the Government put in place to ensure that this excellent policy will be effective and immediate and not delayed or thwarted by the threat of rent hikes or the pulling of properties from the market?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her welcome for the proposal. There is certainly no intention to hang about with this: we want to consult, particularly on Section 8 and what the ground should be for ending tenancies. That is an important part of this. It has been widely welcomed, including by many landlord groups, in all fairness. Responsible landlords have nothing to fear from this; it is essentially about being fair to landlords and tenants.

Residential Construction and Housing Supply

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for bringing this debate to the House. Looking at some familiar faces, we have had some cracking good housing debates over the last year to 18 months. I have to tell the Minister that there is a growing consensus around the issues and around the solutions, so I agree very much with the thrust of what he said. My contribution to this debate is my firm belief that either adding to or reprioritising government housing finance, which is currently very heavily skewed to subsidising homeowners, and instead championing a social housebuilding programme unseen since the post-war boom period, could result in a steady market for the emerging MMC industry and give vital support to SME builders, who, as the Minister said, have been squeezed out of housebuilding in recent years. It would add significantly to the overall housing supply, but most importantly it would provide secure, high-quality homes to those who cannot afford decent market housing to buy or rent.

Current housing and planning policies, according to the Letwin review, show a high dependence on a few large housebuilders as the main providers of homes with what we know is a speculative development model which necessitates a low absorption rate in the market. This has resulted in low supply, slow build out and higher prices, alongside rising homelessness and huge increases in the private rented sector. This is mirrored by increasing tenant insecurity in that sector, while the Government spend billions on housing benefit and councils are spending hundreds of millions on temporary accommodation. These, alongside issues such as land value capture—whose murky depths I have no desire to plunge into, although I am hopeful that others will—point to the need that has been mentioned to bring real diversity to the marketplace if the Government are to achieve their ambition of building 300,000 homes a year, an ambition we fully support. Of that number, some 90,000 should be for social rent, compared with the less than 7,000 such homes built last year. The Chancellor’s recent announcement of the £3 billion affordable homes guarantee scheme is obviously welcome, but when will we get the details? Will it include funding for social housing? We would be churlish not to recognise that there has been some shift back to grant aid for social rent over the past few years, but after a famine, this slight increase is hardly a feast.

It is evident that to get more homes built more quickly, we need a new and separate strand of housebuilding to take place alongside the big boys currently making staggering profits year on year, thus doing very well out of the current system. A new significant social housing sector could provide that strand but it will take money and political will. The scale of building that needs to take place cannot be done on a shoestring. By committing to a serious increase in expenditure for a new stream of social housing, and looking to promote and use new technologies such as MMC, the Government can make a real difference.

Specifically, as a former elected mayor with a positive attitude to construction, my personal experience of modern manufacturing construction is mixed. It seems that there are clear issues, which the Government need to work with the industry to sort out if this particular mode of building is to be used more widely, as it is abroad. These have been well documented by many organisations, such as the Home Builders Federation, so I will not go into detail. There are simply not enough manufacturers to make a dent in the 300,000-homes target. One issue that surprised me is that there is not enough space to construct and build; for example, a local site of ours could not be used because we did not have the craning space and the road structure for it.

Although there is huge potential, the reality is that investors are slow to lend as the technology is untried and, frankly, the public perception of such homes is far from positive. People moving into one of these homes may find insurers reluctant to insure, or their insurance may be expensive; they may also struggle to get a mortgage on such a property. There are a limited number of suppliers in the supply chain, all of which need more confidence in the industry—I believe that only government can provide that—and several of which have crashed in recent years. However, I am a convert. I believe that these issues can be overcome. I also believe that there is huge potential to be innovative. For example, using MMC, would it be possible to ensure that homes are manufactured to a higher thermal value than conventional builds, thus reducing fuel poverty? The Building Research Establishment in Watford has a stunningly innovative modular dementia-friendly home all ready to go. I say this to the Minister: we could be world leaders in this field.

On a tangential but relevant point, would a well-funded MMC industry be a more benign environment for new recruits and for developing apprenticeships on a sustainable basis to bring some diversity to the construction industry, where only 9% of the present workforce are women?

However, the key issue is funding. Some significant investment has been made by government but we need longer-term security—this is not just about pump-priming—to develop the industry in the long term or, as the Minister said, the whole thing will be stillborn.

Turning briefly to the well-documented shortage of the skills required to deliver homes at the scale and speed we all want, the proposed salary restriction imposed in the immigration criteria and the loss of EU workers who have already left the country begs this question of what plans the Government have to replace these workers, let alone increase numbers to meet future aspirations. At present, the training regime is criticised for being poor and going backwards in terms of delivery. The apprenticeship levy and the construction industry levy for larger firms are hampered by restrictions on what they can be used for, so large sums of money have gone unspent. Can the Minister update the House on the impact of the recent relaxation of the rules to allow subcontractors to benefit? Does he think that it will be enough? It is fair to say that there are chinks of light and positive nudges towards a more sustainable, progressive housing policy, but piecemeal reform will have piecemeal results. We need a concerted effort and strong political leadership to address properly the shortage and quality of housing.

Regarding the impact of a range of new policies to create more homes, particularly permitted development rights to convert office space to residential space without planning permission and the proposed extension to permit shops and other commercial properties to do the same, we believe that such conversions can be successful—but only if they work with local authorities so that decent living and amenity spaces can be created. We would resist any further expansion. Are mechanisms in place to review the impact of such policies? Will the Government listen to the results of the recent consultation, which were overwhelmingly negative regarding expansion?

We welcome the lifting of the borrowing cap. We believe that the right to buy and the discount available should be discretionary and, where possible, allow local authorities to deal with their own circumstances.

Finally, I am aware that the framework for all this lies in the industrial strategy and with the Construction Leadership Council charged with delivering the five-year plan. The Farmer report concluded that the construction industry must modernise or die. As the report is several years old, can the Minister update us on progress as I was unable to find any?

Local Authorities: Fair Funding Review

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornhill]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made towards the completion of the fair funding review to set new baseline funding allocations for local authorities on the basis of relative needs and resources.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, we are making good progress on the development of a fair funding formula that aims to provide a simple and transparent link between local authority relative needs and resources and available funding.

[Baroness Thornhill]

I thank the Minister for that Answer, but the sooner the better, please. As this is the biggest change to local government funding in a generation, does the Minister agree that factors such as levels of deprivation are highly significant drivers of spending need in a local council’s budget? Will the Minister explain why deprivation is given no prominence in the new funding formula and how areas of greatest need, with the highest levels of deprivation, will be funded in future?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is right about the importance of deprivation but she is wrong to say that we have not yet issued the policy. It was out for consultation until 21 February, as she will know, and we are now considering the responses. Even in that consultation we recognise the importance of deprivation in relation to, for example, adult social services, children’s social services, fire and rescue services, and public health. The noble Baroness makes a powerful point but it is recognised and the policy is still being considered.

Help to Buy: Housebuilders’ Profits

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right: the new Help to Buy scheme, which will start in April 2021 and run for two years, will be restricted to first-time buyers. At the moment, 81% of the uptake is first-time buyers. We will look carefully across the board at who is designated under that scheme as a provider, and we will have an opportunity to review that because it is a new system. We will look at it in the round to ensure that there is quality and proper consumer reference around some of the complaints that may be made. We will look also at leaseholds, to ensure that is no longer there. In 2021, all the new entrants and refreshed members will be required to sign up to that.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, it is important to state for the public record that the figures provided by my noble friend Lord Shipley are from research done by the Times. Is the Minister aware that in 2018, the largest housebuilders declared dividends amounting to £2 billion? On hearing this, does he have any sympathy for the many council planning officers who regularly do battle with those developers who are still exploiting the Government’s viability loophole to avoid paying the community infrastructure levy and Section 106 money rightly owed to councils, thus depriving communities all over the country of millions of pounds that should be spent on roads, schools and much-needed social housing? When will the loophole finally be closed for good?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the figures are right, to the extent that they stack up mathematically. I accept that the figures set out by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, featured in the press, but they are simply an exercise in looking at the profit and then dividing it by the number of houses built, without any attempt to isolate those in the Help to Buy scheme. It is very much a back-of-a-fag-packet exercise and does not bear mathematical analysis.

I hope the noble Baroness will accept that her more detailed questions have slightly blindsided me because they are not on this specific point. However, I will write to her and ensure that a copy of the letter is placed in the Library.

Local Authorities: Essential Services

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The situation that local government finds itself in is unprecedented. Over my 16 years as the elected Mayor of Watford—the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, may be interested to hear that this covered several Governments, including the last Labour Government—I lived, battled and struggled with these changes.

We are now in an era of increased demand, in particular for services for the elderly, children with special needs, those in social care and homeless families. Yet councils have fewer resources than ever to deal with these demands, and some are at breaking point. This situation—where think tanks, eminent charities, unions and the Local Government Association all agree that the current situation is unsustainable—is the culmination of well over a decade of year-on-year cuts. These need reversing. Local authorities need a significant injection of cash now.

While the impact on these services has been gradual but significant, it has been different in different types of councils, in different areas and in different parts of the country, which is why it took so long to get a collective national agreement that local government is underfunded and at crisis point. As emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Patten, the narrative until very recently, heavily peddled by some Secretaries of State, was that there was plenty of money sloshing around local authorities, reserves were high, they had plenty of capital assets and they were juicy pips that needed a good squeeze. In truth, local government surpassed itself in trying to cope with reduced funding, often finding innovative and enterprising ways to generate income and protect services. As in any sphere of public administration, not all councils were perfect, but each pet peeve of a Minister, an MP or the TaxPayers’ Alliance made a headline that served to reinforce this negative view of local government as an easy target for austerity cuts. By absorbing a lot of the early cuts through innovation and good practice, we found that, instead of receiving due recognition from the Government, we had simply fed a narrative that we could be cut still further.

Back in Watford, we discovered that you could only go so far with efficiency savings. Sharing services, doing more with less, streamlining services and taking out duplication were the stock phrases that we all absorbed. But there comes a point when there is really nowhere for councils to go but to cut services that are relied on by very vulnerable people.

I sincerely hope that it is now irrefutable that local government cuts have impacted on the poorest people in the poorest places. They are also those people least able to both cope and protest about it. It is not only the welfare and benefit cuts but the luncheon club not operating or the reduced days that the library is open, the community centre offering fewer activities and the youth services that are slashed. Often the precise impact of cuts is underestimated because the real problem can be the compound effect of cuts by different councils in two-tier areas, of local charities and of partners in the same area all scaling back their provision because of the loss of grants from the local authority or funding from health and well-being boards, which are all cutting back. It seems that nobody is holding the ring for the cumulative impact on a neighbourhood except councils—and we, for too long, were not listened to.

Even street cleaning and bin collections impact most on the poorest areas. While we and other councils bent over backwards to prevent the front line being cut, that was unsustainable. The front line is being impacted more and more. Our staff are up against it. Staff reductions have meant that there is just no slack in the system. District councils are feeling it the most. Services that prided themselves on being proactive, such as environmental health and enforcement services, have been pushed into reactive mode, fearful of yet more work coming down the tracks and feeling overwhelmed and unable to respond.

On the recent Homelessness Reduction Act, for example, every councillor I knew applauded the Government’s intentions, but also dreaded not having the resources to do the job properly. I applaud those thousands of staff who with expanding workloads even worked unpaid overtime, with new roles, more responsibilities and far less funding, and still served their communities well. Yet a recent Unison survey showed that their morale is low and their confidence level in being able to deliver for their most vulnerable residents is dropping.

Many services report that there is a worrying increase in the impact of funding cuts on the mental health of their residents. Our housing partners will say that nowadays what was once exceptional behaviour is becoming commonplace and that the resources to deal with it are just not there. Access to services is more limited, there are longer waiting lists and the entry bar for help gets set higher. With the health service, running red is now the new normal. Even police services admit that they are now pushing back on mental health-related issues that they used to take in their stride. Is that really what we want?

As for prevention, upstream work, which we all know works and will ultimately save us money, is being squeezed out. It is a short-sighted, costly mistake. We are being pushed into sacrificing long-term solutions and sustainability for short-term expediency. For many, just legally setting next year’s budget is as far as they can look.

The Government are holding out for the holy grail of the business rate retention to give a major investment of cash to local authorities—but will it? Councils are already collecting an increasing amount of business rates for central government, while their revenue support grant continues to be cut. Surely it is time to redirect this money back to local authorities and local communities. With the rumours coming out regarding the fairer funding formula, which appears to be taking deprivation out of the formula in favour of “rurality”, will we see a further increase of the least-deprived areas getting the most money? The staggering 2015 survey by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation showed that that was the case. More recently, the IFS concurred that the most deprived local authorities had seen cuts of £220 a head compared with cuts of £40 a head in the least deprived areas.

I remain uncharacteristically pessimistic about the future without a radical overhaul of local authority funding. Which tax has to have a referendum before it can raise more money? The answer is none except council tax—and if a similar measure is required the following year, it needs a second referendum. This capping, plus years of central government diktat making councils keep council tax rises low, has contributed to the state we are in. It is surely time to end this.

Finally, and very worryingly, two recent reports from the APPG on children in social care highlighted how financial cutbacks have meant that local authorities can now intervene only when problems reach crisis point and children’s lives are potentially at risk. Early intervention work no longer happens, and social workers are overwhelmed by large case loads, high turnover and poor supervision. These problems for the future are stacking up now. Our children are the future, and they deserve better.

Parking (Code of Practice) Bill

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 18th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I wholeheartedly thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, and Sir Greg Knight for their work and commitment to get the Bill thus far. If anything is designed to raise the temperature and noise level in the local pub, it is discussions about parking.

I rise to support the Bill in its genuine attempt to create a level playing field for all private parking providers. It appears to be largely uncontentious and to have the support of trade bodies such as the respected British Parking Association, which has regularly called for a single standard body, a single code of practice and an independent appeals service for all operators, regardless of the trade association the individual operators belong to. That is an important point.

The noble Lord has outlined the Bill in detail so I will not repeat that, but I take the opportunity to lament the narrative around parking controls. In general, it goes something like this: the motorist is king—or queen—and it is those rotten councils and nasty landowners trying to stop us parking where we want, when we want, for free, anywhere. It is also regrettable that the language and actions of some of the media have endorsed this view. I exaggerate for effect, but I am sure we all recognise the picture.

This attitude and approach to a valuable and much-needed service is at best unhelpful and at worst could be behind the levels of aggression and abuse that parking attendants face every working day. That is shameful and largely goes unnoticed, and I feel very strongly about it. It is the actions of those private companies at the bottom of the league table—if there is such a thing—that give rise to this. The noble Lord is correct: self-regulation clearly has not worked.

My daughter having experienced a really dreadful parking incident, I know its effects. To cut a long story short, she was intimidated into paying up there and then by the kind of chap, to coin a phrase, you would not want to meet in a dark alley. On further investigation, it turned out that the strip of land she had parked on was adjacent to a legitimate car park that she had paid for and believed she was parking in. However, she was not—it was a kind of ransom strip, and a ransom was indeed demanded. When we went to check the so-called notices and signs to demarcate the difference, you needed a ladder and a set of binoculars to see them. So I assume that signage will be part of the code.

News of this incident was quoted in our local paper, where I, like several MPs during the Bill’s passage, used words like “cowboy” and “rogues”. I was then invited to meet a local private parking company, which dutifully pointed out to me, as their mayor, that I should know that not all companies are rogue or cowboys and that they provide a legitimate service and provide it well. My wrist was duly slapped. Thus, for companies such as these, the Bill will be welcomed and consistency and fairness will be hallmark words. But for the very rogue and very real cowboys will it be business as usual, hopefully with a lesser degree of success, leading to more of them going out of business? That said, as my daughter discovered, intimidation makes you just pay up. My precise concern is that, as I understand it, the code will not apply to those who do not belong to one of the accredited trade associations and those who issue tickets outside the current framework. How will we deal with these? Perhaps the Minister could clarify that it is they that give the rest of the sector a bad name.

Controlling and enforcing parking will never be popular. Council parking services have been under attack in recent years in many ways, having to defend themselves from various claims, not least that they are responsible for the closure of shops and the demise of the high street due to parking charges. Thankfully, evidence has now firmly rebutted that claim, but it is still true that there is much government pressure through statute to ensure that councils do not profit—that is the word used—from their parking service, as if a well-run, effective council service actually catching people who are contravening the law is a bad thing. Councils are still not allowed to use surplus revenue to subsidise other public services to survive in a time of diminishing budgets.

Thus, while the Bill seeks to make it a level playing field for all private contractors, there will not be the same rules that local government have to abide by, rules that could change at the whim of the next Secretary of State—and they do. So my next question to the Minister is this: when the code is drawn up, could there be a degree of synergy with the rules that local government have to adhere to? Otherwise, the Bill will clarify matters for the public in part but not entirely, and we will still have a two-tier system.

The real test, however, will be in the enforcement of the code—I mean real enforcement—particularly in the early days, to lay down a marker that this code is not a crocodile with rubber teeth but has some bite. The penalty of not being able to get driver data from the DVLA should be enough of a deterrent to ensure that standards rise across the board, but therein lies an area of concern: the DVLA handing over our personal data to myriad private parking firms. It is a legitimate view, held by some of my colleagues, that in this instance, private companies should not have access to any of our data. Can the Minister reassure us as to how this will be monitored, and what safeguards might there be to prevent the abuse of this data? I am sure we will discuss that at a later stage.

As the code is developed, there will be much more to say on matters such as the amount of fees. I genuinely feel that a lot of the animosity towards parking is due to the disproportionately high fees charged by private companies. The level of fees local authorities can charge is prescribed by government; there is no such control over the private sector. If, say, a person parks in a legitimate parking space in a hotel car park, attends a conference held there but fails, in rushing in late, to give their registration to the hotel reception, a fine of £100 may be given. This is surely disproportionate when compared to parking that jeopardises safety or causes an obstruction, enforcement against which is still unsatisfactory, and is far in excess of what any local authority outside London can charge.

I hope there will be an opportunity to look at this issue, the appeals process, grace periods and much more in Committee. But as was said earlier, the closer the local government regime and this new regime come together, the less confusing it will be for the public—the motorist—and the fairer for all. Parking control is not popular but it is a vital service and services have to be paid for. When my residents used to ask me regarding controlled parking zones, “Why should I pay for a permit to park outside my own home?”, my reply was, “You are not paying to park outside your own home. You are paying to stop everybody else parking outside your home all day, for free, which prevents you parking”. I learned quickly, though, that you can never win with parking.

With the caveats that I have raised, we support the Bill and wish it a speedy passage.

Planning: Permitted Development Rights

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornhill]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to increase permitted development rights, following their consultation Planning Reform: Supporting the high street and increasing the delivery of new homes.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the far less exciting Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and remind the House of my declaration of interests.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, it is very exciting in its way. We have consulted on a package of proposals to support the high street and speed up the planning system to deliver more homes. This includes new national permitted development rights—for greater diversity on the high street and to create additional homes by extending certain buildings upwards. Decisions will be taken in due course on the introduction of any new permitted development rights, taking account of the responses received to the consultation.

[Baroness Thornhill]

I thank the Minister for that Answer, but I seek an assurance that the Government will review and evaluate the impact of the current permitted development rights—which, in my experience, have resulted in poor-quality homes in inappropriate locations and a significant loss of developer contributions for local infrastructure and social and affordable housing—before there is a further expansion, with even more development going ahead without planning permission.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will be aware that the consultation closed on Monday. We have had more than 400 responses. One thing that people will be able to comment on is design, which I think the noble Baroness referred to tangentially. Obviously, we will want to analyse those responses before going further, but this is about ensuring that there are more homes available and seeking to liven up the high street, which is much needed.

Tenant Fees Bill

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 11th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as one of the happy band of vice-presidents of the Local Government Association. I agree with much of what the Minister has said, but with specific reference to Amendment 48 I thank the Government for listening and accepting our amendment, moved in Committee, regarding letting agents and landlords receiving multiple holding fees from several people for one property. The arguments for this were well made in previous stages of the passage of this Bill. It has been recognised by pressure groups, by the industry itself—interestingly enough —and now by the Government that taking financial advantage of prospective tenants is totally unacceptable and bad practice. This simple but significant amendment corrects an injustice and will help many for whom navigating the private rental market is already a stressful and expensive business. We look forward to a speedy implementation, which I believe will be in May 2019.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the LGA and also as a practising chartered surveyor and private rented sector landlord. Mercifully, I have managed to steer clear in a personal capacity of managing agents—at least for the last many years.

I have one query on the way in which the holding deposit arrangements are intended to function. I quite understand the geometry that sits behind this and the reason for it, so I will not go over it again. But let us suppose that a prospective tenant, having been provided with all the relevant information, pays a holding deposit and then, through some reason of default which would allow the agent to retain part or all of that deposit, there develops an argument as to what proportion—perhaps the whole—should be retained or not. That could take some while to resolve. Meanwhile, the agent is debarred from taking a holding deposit from anybody else, even though it may be clear beyond peradventure that the original deal with, and intention of, the tenant, whose holding deposit is still being hung on to, will not go ahead.

I can see that this could put an undesirable element of drag into the situation. I can also see that it might be the godmother of unforeseen consequences, in that the agent may feel that it is becoming a problem—a rather metropolitan problem, if I may say so; I think of zones 2, 3 and 4 of central London as the areas where a lot of this goes on, although I know it is not unique to there. The corollary to that is that the agent may say, “I’m not going to take a holding deposit at all. It is on a first-come, first-served basis. I have various people interested and the first who comes through my door with the relevant boxes ticked gets it”. That does not seem at all helpful either. That does not happen in my part of leafy Sussex, because we do not deal with things in that way and do not have that sort of high-pressure tenant demand. But I can certainly see it happening in zones 2 and 3 and I wonder what the Minister has to say about how he sees that working in practice, without having some perverse effects on the market.