Railway Stations: Ticket Office Closures

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, the ticket office in my local station does not do advance tickets. How can a would-be passenger who wants to book ahead, and thus save quite a lot of money, get an advance ticket with no ticket office?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I cannot comment on the noble Baroness’s ticket office specifically, but 99% of transactions at ticket offices last year could have been made either through a ticket vending machine or online.

Merchant Shipping and Other Transport (Environmental Protection) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 27 November 2018 be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 23 January.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, exactly the same points apply about the protection of citizens.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

Can I also ask in relation to this one if this is required only in the event of no deal?

Ship and Port Security (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a very quick question on this one, to do with air pollution and the Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships) Regulations 2008. This basically moves the responsibility for ensuring minimum air pollution from ships from the European Economic Area to the United Kingdom. I do not want to go into any detail at all, except to say that I hope the Minister can confirm the statement that has been made many times before by Ministers in this House—that when we leave there will be no reduction in environmental standards. I am particularly interested in:

“In Schedule 2 (engines excluded from regulation 21) … before ‘the European Economic Area’ insert ‘the United Kingdom or’”.


I hope the Minister can confirm that there will be no reduction in environmental standards from this change.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend. Newhaven, like many others of our working ports, is also a residential town. People live very close to the port area, so environmental protection from the emissions from ships is extremely important.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

Can the Minister confirm if this is one of the statutory instruments required only in a no-deal scenario?

Merchant Shipping (Recognised Organisations) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not delay the House for long but I have to question the point of this SI. It seems to try to ensure that we have the same safety regulations for passenger ships and many other things as we had before Brexit, this being a post-Brexit SI. But I do not think that we have the same regulations at the moment, because I happened to go on a passenger ship in Brittany last summer which looked exactly like what I thought would be a nice idea for a ship to go to the Isles of Scilly. I had a long chat with the skipper and got hold of all his certificates and the regulations on the board. I asked him, “Can you operate across the English Channel and to Scilly, in all weathers and at all times of day?” He said, “Yes—when do you want me to start?”

I thought this idea would be interesting, so I sent that information to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency but the answer that I got back said, “We do not recognise French legislation”. I thought that there was one common European system for ferries which could go across the English Channel, or anywhere else, to help interoperability so I was a bit distressed that this did not happen. Maybe the Minister will not be able to answer my point but I would be glad to have some response from her, perhaps in writing.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Newhaven coastal communities team, in which capacity I have spent some time going through port-related regulations. I have a general question about all four of these statutory instruments. They are to come into play if there is no deal. As that is the only course against which there is a parliamentary majority, is it really a good use of our parliamentary time to scrutinise these instruments?

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Whitaker]

87: After Clause 20, insert the following new Clause—
“Sustainable development and design
In section 10(3) of the Planning Act 2008 (sustainable development), omit the words “the desirability of”.”

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 87 is in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Jenkin of Roding and Lord Tyler, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who regrets that he is unavoidably absent. I am also honoured to have the support of the Town and Country Planning Association and the Royal Town Planning Institute. We think that this amendment is crucial to realising the aspirations of the national policy statement, which lie behind and above infrastructure development, and to furthering public consent to the essential provision of new transport and energy infrastructure.

First, I welcome the many revisions in the strategic highways company draft licence, in particular paragraph 5.22, which says:

“The Licence holder must have due regard to relevant principles and guidance on good design, such as those set out by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe) and the Design Council, to ensure that the development of the network takes account of geographical, environmental and socio-economic context”.

I salute the Minister on this progress. I hope it is not churlish to do an Oliver Twist act and ask for more. Oliver Twist did, after all, ask for more necessary sustenance. The problem is that the licence does not carry nearly the same weight as the statute. It is the national policy statement that is the critical decision-making document. My plea is for explicit recognition of the crucial role of design on the face of the relevant statute, in this case the Planning Act 2008, where it sets out the obligations of the Secretary of State in preparing the national policy statement. The change that we propose is a modest one. While it strengthens and simplifies the obligation with regard to climate change—extremely important, too—and good design, it makes no change to the overarching and heavily qualified obligations in Section 10(2) that govern the section I propose to amend.

We need to look back to see why this amendment is so important. We need to remember those miles of urban highway that have created lasting problems, which my noble friend Lord Adonis referred to, by dividing communities, by ignoring the beauty element and by despoiling some of our most cherished landscapes; these include the M8 in Glasgow and the M3 in Belfast. Closer to the present time, we can think of High Speed 2’s path through the National Trust’s Hardwick Hall. Although this will be dealt with by the hybrid Bill, the issue illustrates the enormous concern we must have to ensure the right design outcomes for infrastructure with a life of many decades.

The purpose of the amendment is in a non-prescriptive way to ensure that design issues are taken more seriously by decision-makers in the preparation of policy. It does that by strengthening the Planning Act 2008’s obligation to consider good design and adaptability to climate change in the achievement of sustainable development. The 2008 Act says only that the Secretary of State must,

“have regard to the desirability of … mitigating, and adapting to, climate change”,

and “achieving good design”. We think that the words “the desirability of” must go. They make good design desirable rather than necessary, which is a misreading of the function of design. The obligation already includes a significant degree of flexibility, because of the words “contribute to” in the primary obligation of achieving sustainable development.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I, too, acknowledge the work that the noble Baroness has done in this respect. I agree with what she said about good design being necessary. While she acknowledged the steps that the Government have taken in this regard—for which I thank her—she cited Oliver Twist and said that she might be perceived as being churlish in asking for more. I would never accuse the noble Baroness of being churlish. I recall that the response to Oliver Twist asking for more was, “Do you want more?”. That will certainly not be my response at this juncture, but I wish to set out the Government’s position. I also thank other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Jenkin, for their contributions.

I should stress from the outset that the Government are committed to tackling issues such as climate change and the mitigation of, and adaptation to, the impacts of such change, as well as good design for new developments. Where I suspect we will differ is on the extent to which this amendment would bring any discernible change if an infrastructure project was brought forward for consent under the Planning Act.

Part 2 of the Planning Act sets out the legislative requirements where a Secretary of State brings forward a national policy statement. National policy statements form the prime basis for deciding whether a project should be granted development consent. Given this very important role, such statements, as noble Lords will know, are scrutinised by Parliament and subject to public consultation before being finalised. This process of scrutiny provides the most appropriate means of ensuring that matters such as design and climate change are appropriately covered in a national policy statement.

All national policy statements that have been prepared to date have taken into account the issues set out in Section 10 of the Planning Act. Parliament has been given the opportunity to help shape these before they were finalised. That process of scrutiny will continue when new policy statements come forward and existing ones are reviewed. The final version of the policy statement on national networks will be designated soon and the next policy frameworks to be produced will be after the Davies commission has reported in 2015. I therefore suggest to the noble Baroness that the best place in which to seek the changes and improvements that she proposes is in the wording of national policy statements when they are subject to parliamentary scrutiny before they are designated. With those assurances and the clarity that I have provided, I trust that the noble Baroness will be minded to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have supported this amendment and indeed adding the concept of culture, which was implicit in our amendment but ought to have been explicit. I am grateful for the kind words of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and his encouragement. I am half reassured by the words of the Minister. I can see that the close-woven tapestry of the structure that he has outlined could indeed offer opportunities to push the importance of design. I think that that is not as good as having it on the face of the Bill, but let us suspend judgment until we see the next version of the national networks statement. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 87 withdrawn.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I echo all that the previous speakers have said. I share the gratitude that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, expressed to the TCPA about the extremely important work that it has been doing on all this. Like other noble Lords, I had its briefing today and was quite struck by its comment,

“There is a risk that Development Corporations might see themselves as ‘engineering’ departments rather than organisations engaged in the wider social enterprise of place-making”.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, has just said, it is very important that we are not just creating new towns; I referred earlier to my preference for calling them “garden communities” rather than “garden cities”, for exactly that reason. We are seeking to create new communities, and a sense of place is fundamental to all communities, but perhaps more than ever to new communities where it may not be immediately obvious. That is enormously important. The place-making and social enterprise—actually, “social enterprise” is probably the wrong phrase in the current context—rather, the social aspects of creating new communities are, I would argue, at least as important in the longer term as creating the mechanical and technical infrastructure. That is obviously necessary—the engineering part of the work.

Whether or not the Minister is about to accept the amendment in its entirety I do not know, but I hope and believe that she will take very seriously the points that are intended here, and that we can use the opportunity of the Bill, during what is going to be quite a long progress through both Houses, to try to have something in the Bill that reflects at least the intent of the amendment and the excellent work that the TCPA is doing to help us to create not just new towns but new communities.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, following the eloquent advocacy of my noble friend Lady Andrews and other noble Lords, I would just briefly like also to register that it seems extraordinary that the Government should not take the opportunity of this new clause to put flesh on their announced intention to make new towns. There are pitfalls if they do not, from the point of view of a lack of overall comprehensive design; a lack of vision—this new clause could propel vision; and, at least as important, a lack of participation on the part of the people affected. The new clause would leave all these problems behind and advance us into a period of proper place-making, to use the word employed by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, which I think stems from an earlier Administration.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who contributed to this debate. I and the Government certainly share the vision that noble Lords expressed for great design and quality, and for the kind of communities that noble Lords talked about today. It is absolutely essential that in developing new places for people to live the kind of points raised in the debate today are very much reflected in the design and execution of those plans. However, it would be unhelpful to prescribe the objects of a new town development corporation in such detail as set out in the new clause put forward by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie.

As the noble Lord said, the objects of the new town development corporations are set out in the New Towns Act 1981. They are quite simply to secure the laying out and development of the new town. We believe that that brevity is helpful because it allows the detailed objectives of development corporations to be established in each particular case, in consultation with the local area and reflecting local needs. Prescribing such detail in primary legislation takes away that opportunity.

I say to all noble Lords who have spoken today that the Government attach great importance to the design of the built environment. It is a key aspect of sustainable development and we have made that clear in the National Planning Policy Framework and our planning guidance. These make clear that local and neighbourhood plans should develop robust and comprehensive policies that set out the quality of development expected for the area. As I have already said, the proposed new clause would mean that sustainable development should be included in the new town development corporations’ objects. Although we strongly support the principle of sustainable development, we think that it is right that it is made clear in the National Planning Policy Framework. Making separate provision for one part of the planning system would serve only to dilute that clarity by defining sustainable development differently for different types of development.

It is worth reminding ourselves that no new town development corporations have been created since 1970. However, urban development corporations have been established more recently and the Government propose the establishment of a new one at Ebbsfleet. Unlike new town development corporations, an urban development corporation can be designated as the local planning authority for its area. Where this happens and it exercises functions in relation to local development documents, it is subject to the duty in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to exercise those functions with the objective of contributing to the achievement of sustainable development.

In the context of Ebbsfleet, I can reassure noble Lords that we want to ensure that Ebbsfleet is a real place where people want to live and work. In setting the vision for Ebbsfleet Garden City, the urban development corporation will look closely at what garden city principles mean in an existing urban context, such as Ebbsfleet. It will work with local partners to support them in developing and delivering a high-quality settlement with locally available jobs and generous green space.

I acknowledge what the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, said. My response to her and to others who have contributed today is that we absolutely share that fundamental principle of ensuring that, where new houses are built, communities are created which are properly designed and in which people want to live. However, we feel that prescribing this in primary legislation as the noble Lord has proposed is unnecessary, and I therefore urge him to withdraw his amendment.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Grand Committee

The threat of significant road expansion under the Government’s plans calls for effective environmental regulation—rather more than is provided for in existing legislation—and this is the obvious opportunity. The Bill does not contain new requirements for the strategic highways company to improve air quality or to increase cycling or any aspects which may be conducive to improving the environment. The impact assessment identifies a risk that environmental and social goals will not be balanced with economic priorities. The amendment therefore proposes duties as to specific outcomes; for example, on air quality and, as my noble friend Lord Whitty just indicated, on safety. Of course, that is difficult include in primary legislation, and I have no doubt that the Government will say that such matters are best dealt with in licence and performance specification, but I want some assurance that the Government are taking these issues seriously.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, in supporting Amendment 15, first, I apologise for not being able to speak at Second Reading. In the mean time, the Minister was kind enough to answer a Written Question from me on the design criteria to be employed by the successor to the Highways Agency. I declare an interest as an honorary fellow of the RIBA and as president of the South Downs Society—that comes in later.

My noble friends have quite rightly stipulated in Amendment 15 that social, economic and environmental objectives must be explicit. Of course, these cannot be achieved without proper design, but not all highway engineers seem to know that. I ask the Minister to answer on how the crucial role of design can be made explicit. A Written Answer to me, although very helpful, did not go quite as far as that. I should add that, if she cannot give me a good guarantee, I think I ought to pursue the subject on Report.

Why does it matter? The past is one reason. Successive highways schemes have made roads fit for motor vehicles and little else. Highways can improve growth and well-being, if well designed, or they can destroy it through environmental impact, isolating communities from amenities and creating pollution and noise; in short, by not paying proper attention to the total place through which they go.

I would like to draw attention to the latest report, published last month, by the Royal Town Planning Institute, titled Planning Horizons: Thinking Spatially. It states that,

“transport policy is an area where spatiality and the interrelationships with these other issues have often been neglected”.

Those other issues are access to goods, jobs, education, health and other services. I looked at the impact assessment, anticipating that I would see some really interesting quantifications of these admittedly hard to define elements. However, the impact assessment is really quite narrow, and I would urge the Minister to provide a more developed assessment of what impact on national well-being highways can have and how the successor to the Highways Agency is going to achieve this through the use of design, which, as I have said, is really the only way it can be achieved.

Finally, I just want to add that the proposal of my noble friend Lord Whitty for Clause 1(4) to have a completely different agency would enable this kind of approach much more easily. It would not be so much an RIS as a TIS; that is, a transport integrated strategy.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for introducing these amendments. I will move the government amendments, as he asked. I very much welcome the scrutiny that noble Lords have given this clause. We have looked very carefully at the issues raised, and I am very glad to be able to bring forward the amendments in this group that respond to them.

In Committee, concern was expressed about the need for greater reassurance and stronger safeguards in relation to the way that this clause could be used. This was also reflected in the reports of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Select Committee on the Constitution. The amendments we propose are designed to provide that reassurance by making very clear in the Bill the circumstances in which this clause may be used and by providing Parliament with an opportunity to consider the criteria by which planning authorities’ performance would be assessed.

Amendment 4 will ensure that applications for major development only can be submitted directly to the Secretary of State. The point was made quite forcefully in Committee that there should be a determination as to which applications were caught by these provisions. A number of noble Lords argued for this, and what we are doing now gives the Secretary of State the power to prescribe what “major development” means for this purpose. We intend to use the existing definition found in secondary legislation; for example, 10 houses or more or an equivalent amount of commercial space. This approach reflects the change that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, proposed in Amendment 3, and I am grateful to him for saying that he thinks what we have done is sufficient for him perhaps not to take his amendment any further.

Amendment 7 makes two important changes. First, it puts beyond any doubt that an authority could be designated under the clause only if it is not performing adequately in handling planning applications. Again, in doing this we are responding positively to the arguments put forward in Committee. Secondly, it requires that the criteria for designating authorities—and, indeed, for lifting any designation—must be laid before both Houses for a period of 40 sitting days before they come into effect only if there has been no vote in either House to the effect that the document should not be approved. We will come to what we expect those criteria to be when we debate the next group.

I believe these changes provide a powerful safeguard against any perceived future misuse of the powers that Clause 1 confers on the Secretary of State. I do not think there is any need to go further and require an affirmative procedure for the criteria, as Amendments 1 and 14 would require, as that would take us well beyond the sort of safeguards that underpin other performance regimes. It is also worth noting that where similar powers were taken by the previous Government in the Local Government Act 1999, the Education Act 1996 and the National Health Service Act 2006 there is no parliamentary scrutiny on the criteria that the relevant Secretaries of State use before exercising their powers. To go further than we propose would mean an unnecessarily protracted process for any changes that do not need to be made.

Amendments 8, 11 and 12 make some minor consequential changes to the clause. A further consequence is Amendment 53, relating to Clause 31, which provides for early commencement of proposed new Section 62B. This is for one reason only, which is to allow Parliament sufficient time to consider the criteria we propose to use while still allowing any initial designations to be made in October this year, as we set out in our consultation paper. This change has no impact on when the remainder of Clause 1 would come into effect.

The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has not spoken to Amendment 10. I am not sure whether I shall move my amendments and give her an opportunity to do that. We have not heard from her. I think this is a bit unusual but since she seems to have missed the cut, I will move my amendments and leave the noble Baroness to speak to hers.

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord McKenzie’s inference from the responses to the consultation and welcome the direction of travel of the Minister’s amendment, but I shall argue for more specificity in the Bill. I speak to Amendment 10 in my name and that of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who regrets that he cannot be here today. What I shall say has been drawn up with him, and I am grateful for his expert support and that of the Town and Country Planning Association. Perhaps I should also declare that I am an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Our amendment is tabled because of a gap in the concept of designation. Of all the evidence of poor performance by a planning authority, the one that has a particularly adverse effect on quality of life, as well as the local economy, is bad design, coupled with lack of sustainability, but that is not specified in the Bill. That power is open to wide discretion, whereas, at the other extreme, the consultation’s proposals for failing authorities are pretty mechanistic and relate to speed and appeal decisions—not tests of quality but, rather, tick-box exercises to check compliance. The impact of designation on local democracy is very powerful, and speed and compliance with the NPPF with regard to appeal decisions should not, I submit, be enough to prompt a designation decision. That should be taken in the round and take full account of the quality of outcomes. That is particularly important because the broad principles in the NPPF are themselves open to quite a degree of interpretation.

The two extremes of a vague, wide power in the Bill and narrow, mechanistic tests for failure omit the real point of good planning—to approve development that is durable and practical, acceptable to residents and capable of improving their total environment as well as, in the long term, saving public money. That cannot be done without an informed approach to design; but design capacity is still very patchy among planning authorities, and many succumb to the will or blandishments of developers who may well not have the long-term interest of the local community at heart.

Therefore, the amendment makes it necessary for the Secretary of State to consider what the authority has done by way of contributing to sustainable development and good design, which complements existing duties in planning legislation rather than enabling them to be overridden. He has also to consider, in addition, what the local views are so that, for instance, if a neighbourhood has developed design criteria but cannot get the planning authority either to accept them or to draw up its own, it is not short changed by the process. Finally, he must consider what any wider public interest might be. That latter obligation enables discretion to be used when necessary, so that it is not a matter of a fixed threshold being triggered. Finally, the Secretary of State must publish his or her reasons for designating according to the criteria in the amendment, which element of transparency I hope that the noble Baroness will also support.

In conclusion, the amendment would go a long way to protect residents from the kind of system failure in design and sustainability which poor planning authorities all too often let themselves in for. In that way, growth and infrastructure really could work properly. I commend the amendment.

[Lord Best]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 10 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. As this is my first intervention on Report, I note my relevant interests as president of the Local Government Association, chair of Hanover Housing Association and, in the context of the amendment, which concerns good design, vice-president of the Town and Country Planning Association and honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

In support of the intention behind this amendment, I would like to quote from an excellent speech delivered by the Minister for Planning, Nick Boles, to the Town and Country Planning Association shortly before Christmas. He said:

“People look at the new housing estates that have been bolted on to their towns and villages in recent decades and observe that few of them are beautiful. Indeed, not to put too fine a point on it, many of them are pig ugly”.

He went on:

“Since new housing estates are all too often soulless and formulaic ... existing residents oppose any proposal to build new houses on green field sites, even when the land is of low environment quality”.

He continued:

“In a nutshell, because we don't build beautifully, people don't let us build much. And because we don't built much we can't afford to build beautifully”.

He later said:

“It is now for the planners, architects and developers, large and small, to seize the opportunity we have created and start designing beautiful places, which local people will welcome”.

Poor design not only affects the lives of the people who occupy the new buildings, it also affects those who live in the same neighbourhood. Because so much new development has been, as Nick Boles says, “pig ugly”, the great British public regularly turn out to stymie and oppose the creation of the new homes that are so essential to ending acute housing shortages.

This amendment would strengthen the emphasis on good design, which should always be a hallmark of projects obtaining planning consent. It would, thereby, make it easier to gain the consent of local communities to the building of the new homes this country needs so badly. I strongly commend it.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, in speaking to this group of amendments, I declare my interest as president of the South Downs Society, which co-ordinates NGO representations to the South Downs National Park Authority. The risks to our national parks were well rehearsed at Second Reading and I do not propose to repeat them.

My noble friend Lord Judd and other noble Lords have tabled an amendment to delete Clause 8. I have a great deal of sympathy with that. On past history, the national parks have done much to facilitate broadband, and delays in its rollout have not been caused by them, as my noble friend Lord Adonis said in such comprehensive detail, but I sense a strong concern in your Lordships’ House about the rollout of broadband in rural areas. If the Minister is not persuaded that Clause 8 is unnecessary, I support my noble friend Lord Adonis in Amendment 59B to safeguard our national parks by restricting activity only to broadband, and my own amendment, Amendment 59C, to further protect our national parks by codifying the installation of any equipment with an opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny.

The Minister gave some assurances in her closing speech at Second Reading, but I think that more precision is needed. She also said that,

“it is absolutely vital to ensure that rural areas have broadband”.—[Official Report, 8/1/13; col. 107.]

As it is broadband that she is concerned with, she will surely accept that Amendment 59B makes it clear that these easements should be available only to procure broadband equipment, and if there is parliamentary approval for the response to the mandatory consultation, as the amendment provides, Parliament will have the opportunity to check that best practice is followed.

Amendment 59C in my name strengthens the proposal of my noble friend Lord Adonis in Amendment 59A for a statutory code by again bringing Parliament into the process of verifying best practice. The code would ensure that there is no postcode lottery for different national parks; all will have the standards of the best. It will make it easier for the installers of broadband equipment to plan and to have clear expectations from local authorities. It is also entirely right that Parliament, which passed the great 1949 Act setting up the national parks, should have the opportunity to consider fully and scrutinise any modification of its intentions via affirmative resolution.

These amendments set out minimum requirements from which we should not resile if we are to give out the pro-broadband message while preserving the essential nature of our most cherished national landscapes. I beg to move.

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, I support the deletion of Clause 8 and in so doing I thank my noble friends Lord Greaves and Lord Marlesford, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for joining me in this. The debate today is complicated, given that we are considering the Government’s proposed approach to deliver broadband to remote and special areas through new secondary legislation that was set out in a consultation published only last night, which they argue requires changes to be made to primary legislation as set out in Clause 8.

The first issue for the Committee to consider must be whether a case has been made for any legislative changes. The examples given by the Government in support of this legislative change do not, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has said, demonstrate convincingly that national parks and AONB planning authorities are the barrier to delivering the broadband that rural communities want and rural economies need. The few examples of broadband planning delays cited are in areas outside national parks and AONBs. Indeed, the argument used in the Government’s consultation document to support changing the law is not that planning authorities in national parks and AONBs have been to date a barrier, rather it is the need to cut the costs of deploying broadband infrastructure to enable it to go as far as it can.

The second issue is whether the secondary legislation the Government want to introduce requires the proposed changes to be made to the primary legislation. Of particular concern in that regard is why there is a need to change the long-standing duties in national park and AONB legislation. I can see the argument to add a further consideration to the Communications Act 2003 for the Secretary of State to have regard to promote economic growth at the same time as other existing duties, which is what subsection (1) of Clause 8 proposes. This means that the Secretary of State would be obliged to consider the need to promote economic growth alongside and, crucially, give equal weight to, other considerations, which would include having regard to the need to protect the environment, and in particular to conserve the natural beauty and amenity of the countryside. However, I fail to see why the following eight subsections of Clause 8 are necessary to ensure that these pieces of legislation are consistent with the amended Communications Act.

I am not convinced that amending the Communications Act requires the disapplication of the duty to have regard to conserving beauty in other pieces of primary legislation. If this House is to accept changes to the legislation, the Minister must make clear the legal case for the necessity of such a disproportionate measure. It is a disproportionate approach, which not only sets a dangerous precedent for weakening the protection given to national parks and AONBs but creates the impression that the Government are intent on nibbling away at protection policies for our most valued landscapes and countryside; protection which has been in place since 1949. This approach makes the commitment in the recent National Planning Policy Framework to give great weight to conserving landscape and scenic beauty in national parks and AONBs sound very hollow indeed and is disproportionate, given that national parks authorities are not inflexible regulators, bystanders or obstacles to broadband rollout. National parks authorities are leading the development of local broadband programmes, with the New Forest National Park Authority supporting parish councils in a joint bid to Defra’s very welcome £20 million rural communications broadband fund and the Lake District National Park sitting on a Cumbria-wide steering group aiming to get superfast broadband coverage to 90% of the county, including the national park.

It is right that local planning authorities are involved in decisions which balance the need for broadband and countryside protection. Cabinets are big and intrusive—nearly two metres tall—and the noble Lord, Lord True, gave some excellent examples at Second Reading of insensitive siting. Efforts to camouflage cabinets green are wasted when operators such as Virgin and BT use them as advertising hoardings to promote their campaign that, “Fibre broadband is here”. In Guildford this week, Virgin Media is having to remove 200 posters on such street cabinets. Experience to date hardly suggests that operators are going to site in the least visible places, unless they are under some duty to consult. It is right that planning authorities work with providers to ensure that the effects on the landscape are minimised while delivering the economic and social benefits we need.

If the Government intend to regulate to temporarily remove the current requirement for communication providers to seek prior approval from local planning authorities in protected areas before permitted development can go ahead—that seems to be their direction of travel—I, too, would support a code of best siting practice between operators and local planning authorities to show how broadband undertakers should work with local authorities on siting. The Government’s consultation does not make it clear whether the code they propose is voluntary or mandatory. It should be mandatory, to give operators the certainty they claim they want in planning procedures and give local authorities the certainty that their legitimate concerns will be heard. As the Government seek to champion the speedy and cost-effective rollout of broadband to deliver economic growth, it should reflect on the need to ensure that the measures they propose do not unwittingly compromise the visual amenity of rural areas which underpin rural economies.

The impact assessment for this legislation and the Minister’s remarks at Second Reading make it clear that the Government have no idea of the number of overhead lines, poles and masts which could end up pepper-potting our most treasured landscapes if these changes go through. The cumulative visual impact of broadband infrastructure could have a chilling effect on the rural economy. Of people who were asked why they went to the Peak District, 85% said it was because of the visual appearance. However, the proposed regulations would leave broadband infrastructure siting at the discretion of the operator. It is crucial that the consultation period on the proposed regulations identifies the scale of infrastructure that rural areas may need to accommodate. Every step must be taken to ensure effective dialogue with local authorities about siting, or the cumulative effect of these changes could undermine rural tourism and local economies.

In that regard, it is worth reminding ourselves of the significant investment made by Ofgem and electricity distributors over recent years to enhance the beauty of treasured landscapes by burying overhead lines. They are doing this because local people recognise the value to local tourism and the economy of maintaining the visual amenity in their most precious landscapes. They have already spent millions removing 223 kilometres of overhead electricity lines and now Ofgem has given approval for £500 million of investment until 2021 to underground more lines. While electricity companies are working with local communities to protect valued landscapes from visual scarring and ensure that rural tourism can flourish, it would be inconsistent, to say the least, if government broadband policy allowed the insensitive siting of broadband cabinets, poles, lines and masts to disfigure the areas and undermine the tourism industry.

We all fully support the provision of broadband to rural communities, but this clause is a disproportionate response to deliver that. The clause should be removed and I hope that the Minister will use the time before Report to reflect on that, and on the merit of a statutory code of practice showing how broadband operators should work with local authorities on siting in protected areas and thus deliver the broadband that we and—crucially—rural communities and businesses want.

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Tabled by

[Baroness Whitaker]

59C: Clause 8, page 10, line 31, at end insert—
“( ) The Secretary of State must by regulations introduce statutory guidance on how statutory undertakers will consult local planning authorities, and these regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure.”

[Baroness Whitaker]

On the basis of the discussion of consultation, I shall not move the amendment.

Amendment 59C not moved.

Gypsies and Travellers

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, my noble friend’s question on whether local authorities have identified the land suitable for pitches is a matter for them. If I have any further information that I can give him, of course I will do so. In response to the most important question put by my noble friend, the new homes bonus will match fund the additional council tax raised for new homes, including Traveller pitches, for the next six years. Traveller pitches are usually rated as band A so at present local authorities will get a bonus of £959 per year for six years for each new pitch. Traveller pitches owned by local authorities and housing associations will attract an additional £350 per year enhanced bonus, like other affordable homes.

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, one of the key points made by Dr Hammarberg in his letter to Mr Pickles was about the “significant hurdle” concerning the requirement that for planning permission, the applicant has to establish “Gypsy status” and demonstrate particular “working patterns”. Will the Government now dissociate the granting of planning permission from these inappropriate and restrictive criteria?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the Government will publish the national planning policy framework by the end of this month, and shortly we will announce our conclusions resulting from all the consultations we have held related to Travellers.