Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I guess I should rise at this point to follow with pleasure the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, who made a point that I was going to make. I note that in Scotland, they are going for 2025. This is a case where England urgently needs to catch up. I will primarily speak to Amendment 482. It is very simple:

“for “30” substitute “20”.

This is a “20 is plenty” amendment. I am going chiefly to speak to that, but I note that this is a very neat and fit group of amendments.

We express Green support for Amendment 240. We obviously need to get active transport joined up to make preparation to make sure that it happens. Also, we support Amendment 486 from the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Randerson, on disability access in railway stations. Of course, we broadly agree with electric vehicle charging points. However, on the interaction between these two issues, we have to make sure that where vehicle charging points are installed on roads, they do not make the pavements less accessible, particularly for people with disabilities, with strollers and other issues. The space should be taken from the road and cars and not from pedestrians.

Returning to my Amendment 482, this would make the default general speed limit for restricted roads 20 miles per hour. Among the many organisations recommending this is TRL, formerly the Government’s Transport Research Laboratory. Going from the local to the international, there was of course the Stockholm Declaration, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2020, which recommends 20 miles per hour speed limits where people walk, live and play. That is the global standard that the world is heading towards, and we really need to catch up on this. I can see much nodding around your Lordships’ House. I am sure many noble Lords know that pedestrians are seven times more likely to die if they are hit by a vehicle travelling at 30 miles per hour compared with 20 miles per hour. If they are aged 60 or over, they are 10 times more likely to die when hit by a vehicle at 30 rather than 20.

Noble Lords might say this is the levelling-up Bill rather than general provision, but to draw on just one of many reports that reflect on this issue, Fair Society, Healthy Lives: the Marmot Review says that targeting 20 miles per hour zones

“in deprived residential areas would … lead to reductions in health inequalities”.

However, there is, of course a problem. The Marmot report was looking within the current legal framework for travel, but it is extremely expensive to bring in local areas of 20 miles per hour speed limits. There needs to be local signage and individual traffic regulation orders, and then presumably, if there is to be some hope of compliance, there needs to be an education campaign. All of those things cost money, and councils in some of the poorest areas of the country will find it most difficult to find those funds.

If we think about some of the other impacts, as well as road safety, 20 miles per hour speed limits where people live, work and shop reduce air pollution and noise pollution. These are things that particularly tend to be problems in the most deprived areas. The wonderful 20’s Plenty for Us campaign that has been working on this for so long, and increasingly effectively, notes that there is a 30% reduction in fuel use with “20’s plenty”, so it saves people money as well—something of particular interest to the most deprived areas of the country.

This is a very simple measure, by which we could catch up with other nations on these islands and really make an improvement to people’s lives, health and well-being. I have focused on the practical health impacts, but the reason this group of amendments fits together so well is that, if you want to encourage walking and cycling, then ensuring that the vehicles on the road travel more slowly is a great way to open up the entire road network to cyclists and walkers. Of course, it could also build communities: the reduction in noise pollution gives neighbours more of a chance to chat over the garden fence and build those communities that we desperately need.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, my name is attached to Amendment 470 in this group, and it is a particular pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on this. I would like to say a few words about the question of footpath access that he addressed initially. It seems to me—and it was amply spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham—that this is part of the essential infrastructure that enables people to have what used to be, and I hope still is, known as multi-modal travel opportunities. In other words, one has at least some sort of menu of options, and one is not just obliged to be in a motor vehicle. This goes to the heart of what we do about making sure that developments are both related to existing settlements, where these facilities are available, and do not become detached from that unless there is some particular reason—and then only when this infrastructure is put in. So I am very much in favour of that.

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[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 243 is in the name of my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage. Amendments 244 and 246 in this group are both also in her name. I shall briefly speak to them and make some comments on some of the other amendments in this group.

My noble friend’s Amendment 243 asks the Secretary of State to

“publish a report of a review of Local Heritage Lists and the results of the 2018 review of the non-statutory guidance on Assets of Community Value”.

Amendment 246 also refers to assets of community value—ACVs—asking for draft legislation to be published to reform the processes.

Amendment 244, which is on a slightly separate issue, is about decision-making on temporary stop notices. The amendment says that, when making a decision on the correct recipient of a temporary stop notice, the authority should have regard to the tenancy status of the occupier and their level of responsibility for any works on the property. It is pretty straightforward as to why we have laid this amendment, so I shall be brief. We believe it is really important to guard against a situation where the wrong person may be held accountable for works on a property for which they actually have no responsibility whatever. The Local Government Association was very clear that we should make this point during the debate on the Bill. We believe that other factors should be taken into account before any notice is issued, because we really need to make sure that the correct person—the person liable—is the person that has been identified. It would be very helpful if the Minister could provide some information on how the Government can ensure, in future, that this is what happens, so that we do not end up with people with no responsibility suddenly having a lot of problems with sorting out works on the property in which they are living but for which they do not have responsibility.

We have laid the amendments on the assets of community value because they are very important. We believe that communities should play a key role in both the preservation and the delivery of local assets that sit outside of local authority control. We know that the Localism Act 2011 contains important powers for local communities to be able to do just this, but the problem is that there are issues around how it works. Under current rules, buildings or pieces of land which are, or have been, used to

“further the social wellbeing or social interests of the local community and could do so in the future”

can be nominated to be classified as an ACV by community groups or councils. But if an ACV goes up for sale, a local group that can make a decision as to whether it wants to bid for this is given only six months to gauge whether it is able to bid for it—and it is only during that six-month period that the owner is unable to sell it. After that six-month grace period elapses, they can sell assets of community value to anybody they want to. A report compiled by the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee in Parliament suggested that the six-month grace period was too short and that it would sideline groups in more disadvantaged communities from being able to make bids. We believe that this needs to be changed.

The Labour Party has proposed extending the time frame to 12 months. We believe that local people from every community—not just those who are wealthy and have the resources to put their bids together very quickly—should have the opportunity to take control of, possibly, pubs, historic buildings or, perhaps, football clubs that come up for sale and would otherwise just fall into disrepair. We also believe that they should have first refusal on valuable assets when they come up for sale, including the right to buy them without competition. They should also have the right to force a sale of land or buildings that have been left to fall into a state of significant disrepair. If these processes were reformed to allow and encourage every community to take advantage of it, it would do so much more for the large number of communities that are currently threatened with losing community assets but do not have the ability to put together bids to take them under community control. I urge the Minister to look carefully at how this could be improved for the benefit of all communities.

I would like to make a few comments on Amendment 245, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, about the results of the Historic England pilot on compensation rights. This comes under Clause 98 of the Bill, which seeks to remove compensation when a local authority has wrongly served a building preservation notice which, when it was served, prevented any additional work from progressing. We have been talking to the CLA about this, and it disagrees that this is the right way forward, as not only are there significant property rights implications but it also removes an important check on local authorities that wrongly serve building preservation notices. This can cause huge disruption and costs for the owners. We believe that compensation is key to the protection of individuals’ rights. Moreover, the many compensation provisions across the planning system are a vital part of its fairness. If mistakes happen and people suffer loss then, surely, they should be compensated. I shall not talk any further on this because I am sure that the noble Earl will go into great detail, but we appreciate his amendment. It is an important area that needs to be looked at.

My noble friend Lady Andrews has also put down some important amendments on the demolition of buildings, development rights, reduction of carbon emissions and the importance of local communities’ abilities to shape local places. Currently, most buildings can be demolished without planning permission if they are not listed and not in a conservation area. These permitted development rights for demolition have already been removed for buildings such as pubs and theatres, but there is no requirement for the buildings to be run down or beyond repair for this right to apply. We have had some very helpful briefings from the Victorian Society about its concerns on these issues, and we consider that my noble friend’s amendments are very important. I hope that the Minister can support them. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 245—a probing amendment—in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Devon. Unfortunately, my noble friend cannot be here today due to other pressing matters. I must first declare my ownership of two listed buildings and the occupation of a third. I have also acted professionally as a chartered surveyor who has surveyed many listed and unlisted buildings and structures where works were proposed. I am very grateful for the support and input of the CLA, of which I am a member, and of Historic Houses and the Listed Property Owners Club. I am particularly grateful for, as it were, an introduction by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. It was rather unexpected, because I did not think that it would necessarily be a matter that her party would relate to in those terms.

I acknowledge the importance to the nation of protecting its heritage. When the listing of buildings first came about in, I think, the 1950s, it carried with it an obligation to seek consent for works that affected the character of a listed building. It was not originally the case that effects on character meant that every alteration required consent. However, over the years, because the citations for listing and the descriptions of the matters of importance were, to put it bluntly, minimalist, that is how it has come to be operated. It has now almost become the norm for common periodic maintenance and repair to be caught by a demand for formal consent—things which, for any other unlisted building or structure, can be done without any formality.

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The noble Earl mentioned Historic Houses. I am meeting its director general, Ben Cowell, next week, so I will be happy to discuss the matter more with him. He also mentioned the Listed Property Owners Club which, by definition, covers properties which are already listed and therefore have the protections that come with that. The Government are confident that the removal of compensation will encourage local planning authorities to make greater effective use of the building preservation notice process, thus helping to better protect our nation’s most important historic buildings from potentially harmful alterations or extensions, or demolition.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

Could the Minister explain why he considers it appropriate for authorities to have this power but, to visit direct—and it must be direct—loss in order to be compensable, he thinks it is not appropriate that the exercise of powers should be accompanied by compensation? What other areas where the compensation code might be deemed to apply does he think are in some way disposable? I remind him of the principles that I referred to right at the end of discussing human rights, on the questions of the reasonable enjoyment of one’s property, not being dispossessed of it by the state other than for an overriding reason, and then only on the provision of proper compensation, determined by an independent adjudicator if necessary. Does he depart from those particular principles?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Earl for his questions. If it is helpful, I am very happy to speak to him in advance of my meeting with Ben Cowell next week, so that I can have a fruitful discussion with him and with Historic Houses on this point.

He asked about the Secretary of State’s declaration on the Bill. That is self-evident: the Secretary of State has found it compatible with human rights laws. But I will leave it to colleagues at the Secretary of State’s department to speak further on that. With the offer to meet the noble Earl ahead of my meeting, I hope that he will be happy with the point that I have outlined about wanting to remove what we see as a hindrance to these notices being served.

Amendments 312G and 312H, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, would require the Secretary of State to remove permitted development rights for the demolition of buildings. These amendments aim to reduce demolition and consequently carbon emissions, to increase communities’ ability to shape local places and to protect non-designated heritage assets. I completely agree with the remarks she made about the value of historic buildings and our historic environment to communities and the importance of preserving them for generations to come. I pay tribute to the work she has done over many years on this at English Heritage, the National Lottery Heritage Fund and in many other ways.

Permitted development rights are a national grant of planning permission that allow certain building works and changes of use to take place. There is a long-standing permitted development right which permits the demolition of buildings, subject to certain limitations and conditions, as she outlined in her speech. Her Amendment 312G seeks to remove this permitted development right for all but the smallest buildings. Her Amendment 312H seeks to remove the right for locally listed heritage assets only. These amendments would mean that works to demolish affected buildings would require the submission of a planning application.

I want to make it clear to noble Lords that the Government are committed to ensuring that planning permission contributes to our work to mitigate and adapt to climate change. National planning policy is clear that the planning system should support our transition to a low-carbon future, including helping to encourage the reuse of existing resources and the conversion of existing buildings where appropriate. The National Model Design Code encourages sustainable construction focused on reducing embodied energy, embedding circular economy principles to reduce waste, designing for disassembly and exploring the remodelling and reusing of buildings where possible rather than rebuilding. I know that our heritage bodies—not just our arm’s-length bodies such as Historic England but right across the sector—are doing sincere and fruitful work to make sure that we have the skills, not just now but in generations to come, to carry out the works to effect that.

I also want to stress that the Government recognise the need to protect historic buildings and other assets valued by their local communities. The heritage designation regime in England protects buildings of special architectural and historic interest, but we understand there are many other buildings and assets that local people cherish. Planning practice guidance encourages local planning authorities to prepare local lists of non-designated heritage assets. I mentioned earlier the £1.5 million we have given to support local planning authorities and their residents to develop new and updated local heritage lists, with the intention that the lessons learned from that work will be shared later this year.

Local planning authorities have the power, where they consider it necessary, to remove specific permitted development rights to protect a local amenity or the well-being of an area by making an article for direction. Powers to amend permitted development rights already exist in primary legislation. There are also tools within the existing planning system that can be used to manage demolition more responsively, such as the National Planning Policy Framework and local design codes. So, while we appreciate the importance of reducing carbon emissions, supporting local democracy and of course protecting heritage assets, we do not believe that these amendments are necessary to achieve those aims. I want to assure the noble Baroness that we will of course continue to keep permitted development rights under review and look at them with a heritage lens as well.

I understand the point raised by my noble friend Lord Carrington of Fulham about the protections available to more recent buildings. While the tastes of individual Ministers are rightly irrelevant in the process, I share his admiration for the work of Giles Gilbert Scott. I live close to what was King’s College Hospital in Denmark Hill and is now the home of the Salvation Army. I had the pleasure of speaking on 8 September last year—a date which sadly sticks in the mind—to a conference organised by the think tank Create Streets on diverse modernities, where I was able to talk about his other buildings, such as the university library and the memorial court at Clare College in Cambridge.

I said on that occasion that the Government recognise that the eligible age for protection by statutory listing needs to continue rolling forward. In the past, recent buildings have not been a focus for listing, but I am glad to say that that is no longer the case. One-third of the buildings listed by recent Secretaries of State have been 20th century buildings. I think one of the most recent examples is the headquarters of Channel 4 on Horseferry Road, which dates from the 1990s.

The listing regime is not prejudiced. As per the Secretary State’s principles for selection, planning and development are not taken into account when listing a building—it is done purely on historic and architectural merit. The older a building is and the fewer surviving examples there are of its kind, the more likely it is to have special interest. From 1850 to 1945, because of the greatly increased number of building erected and the much larger number of buildings that were constructed and have survived, progressively greater selection is therefore necessary. Careful selection is of course required for buildings from the period after the Second World War.

I am very grateful to my noble friend for speaking to Amendment 247B tabled by our noble friend Lord Cormack. As my noble friend Lord Carrington said, the noble Lord sends his apologies for not being able to be here in your Lordships’ House today. Noble Lords will know he is the last person who would wish to express discourtesy to your Lordships’ House. He has given me permission to share that it is only because he is collecting his wife from hospital following an operation that he is unable to be here today. I am sure noble Lords will understand and want to join me in wishing Lady Cormack a swift recuperation.

I am grateful to him for his amendment, which highlights the importance of lists of locally important heritage assets. I have been able to speak to my noble friend about his amendment and some of the points that lie behind it. As Minister for Heritage, I am, on behalf of the Secretary of State, responsible for the statutory designation system that lists buildings of architectural and historic importance, and protects monuments of national importance. Local listing is a non-statutory means by which local planning authorities can, if they wish, identify heritage assets that are of local importance but do not meet the criteria for national designation and statutory protection as a listed building or a scheduled monument, and then take account of these assets during the planning process. In recent years, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has provided financial support to selected local planning authorities wishing to develop a local list with the assistance of Historic England.

Local lists are discretionary; some local planning authorities compile local lists and some do not. Under the terms of local listing, it is up to those authorities which heritage assets they include in local lists. I am not, at present, convinced that, given this discretionary nature, we should be legislating for local lists to include all statues and monuments in an area. While many statues and monuments are very clearly cherished by the local community and should be included on local lists, there will be instances where it would be inappropriate to include certain statues and monuments—for instance, a sculpture in somebody’s private garden. Local planning authorities, following consultation with their communities, are best placed to decide what should be included on a local list.

Our national designation system already ensures statutory protection of our most significant heritage assets, including statues and monuments. The national listing process already protects those that meet the criteria of special architectural or historic interest. We have recently increased the protections for non-designated statues and monuments in public places that are more than 10 years old, whether they are locally listed or not. Their removal now needs explicit planning permission, and we have made it clear in national planning policy that decisions on statues and monuments should have regard to our policy of retaining and explaining these important historical assets.

My noble friend raised the question of the definition of “alteration”, pointing to some examples, including the statue of the Earl of Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli. As it is the day after Primrose Day, and the birthday of my noble friend Lord Lexden—the Conservative Party’s official historian—I must echo my noble friend’s comments about Disraeli and the amusement he might find in some of the treatment of statues of him today. But the point my noble friend makes is an interesting one, which I am happy to discuss with him and my noble friend Lord Cormack. As he is not here for me to ask him not to move his amendment, I offer, on the record, to discuss this with him and any other noble Lords. I beg all noble Lords whose amendments I have addressed not to move their amendments and beg the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment at this juncture.

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Tabled by

[The Earl of Lytton]

245: Clause 98, page 108, line 19, at end insert—
“(3) Subsections (1) and (2) shall only take effect following an order made by the Secretary of State.(4) The Secretary of State may only make the order in subsection (3) once a public consultation on the case for the change, drawing on the results of the Historic England indemnity pilot, has been completed.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that the results of the Historic England pilot are taken into account and that there is public debate and scrutiny before compensation rights are removed.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I will not move this amendment, but I look forward to meeting with the Minister about this, and I may well return to it at a later stage in the Bill.

Amendment 245 not moved.

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I am not saying that was the right policy or the wrong policy, but it was one that should not have been made by the stroke of a pen in secondary legislation— unamendable—and that could not be properly debated, and on which local thoughts and views could be taken more properly into consideration. If the Government are to push on with Clause 101, I hope they will think about ways whereby some of the powers can be constrained, in light of the way we have seen the envelope of the power being pushed very greatly in the past.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. My concern is to do with not the specific examples referred to, but that we seem to be in a situation where we are asked to confer an unconstrained power in relation to an undefined objective. The undefined objective is “national importance”, and I have not been able to find a definition of what that might be. I suppose you would say that I might ask from these Benches: is the national importance clearly distinguishable from the political aspirations of the Government of the day? Is it something different? I would want to know because I would not want to confer a power without having a very clear sense of purpose.

We turn to the matter of “urgency”—not emergency, I stress, but urgency. We need to understand what that amounts to. It may be irksome to Governments of the day—the more centralist and command economy-type the thinking, the more irksome it becomes—to go through hoops to do with projects that involve Crown land. But it is the price of democracy, and the price of the maintenance of the rule of law and the continuation of what might be regarded as the rules-based system. That demands a degree of consistent approach. Without having some definitions in the Bill, it is difficult to see how there could be any consistent approach here, as opposed to one based on whim.

Some of the examples that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, produced in her excellent introduction made it look like Government gaming the system, and that worries me very greatly because it is not just the Government that may be here today, but one tomorrow or in future years, and perhaps—who knows?—one that is more extreme of right or left; I say not which. I get back to the rules-based system. Are we in that environment or are we getting into the area where anything goes?

I mention the following because I do not want it to be used as the lever by the Minister when he comes to reply. Wrapped up in the middle of page 123 of the Bill, in new Section 293B(11), is the provision for matters of national security and public disclosure that would be

“contrary to the national interest”.

I get that, and I do not have any principled objection to it, subject to adequate definitions and safeguards. I want to know how “national importance” and “national interest” interface for a start.

Going over the page in the Bill, page 124 states, in new Section 293C(3), that:

“A development order may make provision as to the consultation”—


“may”, but does not have to. That cannot be an entirely optional extra at the whim of whichever Secretary of State happens to be in power at the time. Still on page 124, new subsection (8) states:

“The following provisions do not apply for the purposes of determining an application … sections 66(1) and 72(1) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act”.


Section 66(1) is in relation to the desirability of conserving and protecting listed buildings, and Section 72(1) is effectively the same but for conservation areas. But when the Bill says:

“The following provisions do not apply”,


they clearly do not apply to anybody, not even the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State is, in other measures, asking the general citizenry to comply with precisely the same burdens that they decide, on a whim, that they are going to relieve themselves of. I am behind the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, because this is just not good enough.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support my noble friend Lady Hayman, who performed an excellent destruction of this clause. Other noble Lords have said much the same thing. I have one question for the Minister, because this is all about the Crown, but I cannot see any definition in the clause of who “the Crown” is. There are other definitions in other parts of the Bill, which include the Duchy of Cornwall, which I shall come on to in the next amendment, the Duchy of Lancaster, and the Crown Estate. It makes me think that what we are really trying to do is to go back to a time when we had “the Crown” in the shape of Henry VIII, who could do more or less what he wanted. This seems a very good start to the Government’s plan to give Henry VIII, in the shape of whoever is in charge at the time, carte blanche to do what they want.