Building Safety Update

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend. I am not sure about whether Dame Judith Hackitt has commissioned any work to look at what is happening overseas or indeed in the USA. She has massive experience in this area and I would be very surprised if she is not looking at what happens in other countries—the USA and elsewhere. I will make sure that she has the benefit of my noble friend’s comments, but I would be surprised if she were not doing so.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome this announcement from the Minister and, in doing so, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the LGA and, more particularly, my practice as a chartered surveyor in the building and construction sector. I join other noble Lords in expressing concern that there are components—whether they be doors or something else—in buildings that are not meeting the standards that are claimed for them. That is a very serious matter that needs to be followed up with great rigour.

On the doors in particular, there are of course questions about the fireproofing of the door panel itself and its frame, but there are also more discrete fireproofing systems, such as smoke seals, intumescent paint and, of course, self-closers. I remember teasing a fire officer years ago, perhaps rather unfairly, by saying that the chief use in a particular building of the two-gallon water extinguishers seemed to be propping open the one-hour self-closing fire doors. There is this issue about the “desire line”—if I can use that term. How people use buildings is a very important factor in all this; we do not want to have fire doors propped open with bicycles, suitcases or anything else that might itself cause an obstruction but, more particularly—as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said—might imperil the very basis of the compartmentalisation. If we allow that to happen, because self-closers are inconvenient or because there are too many doors, we need to look into that. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that that is being looked into at the same time.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl and recognise his vast and detailed experience as a chartered surveyor. In drawing this debate to a close, I say first that I share the concern that he has expressed, but I think that we need to keep a sense of balance regarding what we know at the moment, which is that it could well be just this batch. But the Government are of course concerned and we are moving this forward at pace.

To echo the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I also think that we have to look at all aspects of this in the round—that is absolutely appropriate. The Dame Judith Hackitt review gives us the context for doing that; she really does know what she is talking about and understands this country. Those points are very valid, and so is restating some common-sense advice, as the noble Earl has just done, on ensuring that fire doors are closed. Too often, one enters residential buildings where the fire doors are propped open, particularly in the summer months. We need to bear down on that and ensure that it does not happen. I take on board all the points that have been made and the concern expressed. I will write to noble Lords on all the points that have arisen and ensure that, in addition, we have a statement before the end of April so that all those points are dealt with.

Meanwhile, importantly—this will have particular resonance on Grenfell—officials have been out very early to speak people in Grenfell. The Minister for Grenfell survivors, Nick Hurd, has also been in touch and a letter is going out. This is very much at the forefront of our minds. This was happening ahead of the Statement being given in the Commons to make sure that the process was being carried forward, because it will raise particularly horrid memories and connotations for the people at Grenfell.

Non-Domestic Rating (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2018

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, the Government are committed to delivering a fair and effective appeals system for business rates that provides an efficient means for ratepayers to challenge the valuation of non-domestic properties. That is why in April 2017 the Government introduced significant reforms to the appeals system, through the new “check, challenge, appeal” framework that is being delivered by the Valuation Office Agency and Valuation Tribunal for England. I hope that noble Lords agree that the system in place before April 2017 was clearly in need of reform.

Penalties for the provision of false information, which are the subject of the regulations we consider today, are an important part of these overall reforms. They will act as an important deterrent to providing false information that will help to maintain the integrity of the appeals process and the wider business rates system. Under the “check, challenge, appeal” framework, ratepayers are required to provide information to the valuation officer. This is both at the check stage when the underlying facts are confirmed and agreed, and throughout the challenge stage with the exchange of more detailed evidence. In line with other parts of the tax system, penalties will be an important mechanism to support the submission of accurate information. Specifically, the regulations will, if approved and made, provide the Valuation Office Agency with the power to impose a penalty on a person who provides false information knowingly, recklessly or carelessly.

The regulations specify the level of the penalty, which will be set at £200 for small businesses and £500 for all others. It may be helpful to remind noble Lords that the £500 maximum penalty reflects the level that was specified in the Enterprise Act 2016, which provided the enabling powers for penalties in the business rate appeals system.

The Government recognise that there may be cases where a person wishes to challenge the imposition of a penalty. The regulations therefore also provide a right of appeal. Any person who is subject to a penalty may, within 28 days of receiving a penalty notice, appeal to the independent Valuation Tribunal for England. Where the tribunal finds in favour of the appellant they will then be able to order the valuation officer to remit the penalty in full. Clearly, it is important that there is no financial incentive for the valuation officer to impose a penalty. The regulations therefore also require that any sum received by the Valuation Office Agency by way of a penalty must be paid into the Government’s Consolidated Fund. This will ensure that the Valuation Office Agency does not benefit financially from the imposition of penalties.

As part of the wider consultation on draft regulations for the new appeals system, the Government sought views on the proposed approach on penalties. The consultation received over 280 submissions, and the Government’s response was published in March 2017. As set out in the government response, there was clear support for the introduction of penalties from local government. Many businesses also accepted the need for a penalties framework, but expressed concern that penalties could be imposed where ratepayers have made a genuine mistake. Some respondents suggested that the level of penalties should be linked to rateable value, to ensure that they are an effective deterrent for large businesses.

In light of the concerns raised, the government response confirmed that the Valuation Office Agency would provide clear guidance to support ratepayers with the provision of information and on the application of penalties. Where ratepayers feel that a penalty has been unfairly imposed, as I have already outlined, they will have a right to appeal to the independent valuation tribunal. While these are important provisions to support a fair system, the consultation also confirmed the Government’s clear view that ratepayers have a duty to take reasonable care in providing information on their tax affairs.

Noble Lords will no doubt be aware that the wider reform to the appeals system is not without its critics and that the concerns of some noble Lords were discussed at length on a Motion to Regret late last year. Given that discussion, I do not propose to revisit those concerns in detail today. Suffice it to say the Government remain clearly of the view that the reforms were an important and necessary step to fixing what was clearly a flawed and inefficient system for all involved. I reiterate that we expect the Valuation Office Agency to continue to work closely with ratepayers to ensure that the system is meeting our objective of a more efficient and effective system.

For the purposes of today’s debate and the specific regulations at hand, I hope that noble Lords agree that it is entirely right that the system is supported by appropriate powers to penalise the provision of false information, and that these are accompanied by appropriate safeguards, such as the right of appeal, to ensure the system operates fairly and effectively. I commend these regulations to the House.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I first declare a professional interest as a property consultant and a member of bodies concerned with business rates, as a vice-president of the LGA and, from time to time, as a non-domestic ratepayer. It will be no surprise, and I am sure that the Minister will understand, that I am coming at this somewhat from the ratepayer standpoint.

My concerns are with the penalty for inaccurate information under new Regulations 9A to 9D. I entirely accept what the Minister has said: the system needed a thorough going over. But I have a question surrounding the terminology of “knowingly, recklessly or carelessly” providing false information in new Regulation 9A(2)(b).

Penalising deliberately providing misleading information is absolutely fine in principle. I make no observation about the quantum of the fine either or, for the most part, the mechanisms for imposing it and appealing it. But if the process of “check, challenge, appeal”, as I perceive it, involves systemic complexity and a requirement for information from a ratepayer that they are unlikely to possess and probably cannot verify, the risks of infraction become unreasonably high. It is the working environment rather than purely the penalties that I will concentrate on.

We know that the intention is to discourage false information and that there was a problem about that in the past. All too often, it was perpetrated by so-called business rates consultants, who were, sadly, on a number of occasions, proven to be neither professional nor honest. But rather than tackle them—they were known firms and bodies—it seems to have been decided to scapegoat by design every appellant ratepayer. I do not accept that approach.

Noble Lords will also be aware that new arrangements for “check, challenge, appeal” mean that most of the proposals to alter entries in the rating list must be made via a government portal. That requires an individually named person to register by giving a lot of personal information. For example, for an SPV that has no employees and no land with buildings for development, that is clearly unworkable. I am also told that a number of local authorities are finding this difficult as well. If you do not have a UK passport or UK national insurance number it has to be done manually. If you register but then forget your password, I understand that there is no reset provision. If you have multiple properties, each must be individually linked to the person registering and the details re-entered for each one. If you appoint an agent, he or she has to go through this again once they have received a formal notification through the system that they have been appointed. Annoyingly, if as sometimes happens the agent does not get the notification, I am told that the only advice the Valuation Office Agency was able to give was that the ratepayer should deregister. In other words, they must reverse the entire process and re-enter the whole lot de novo. That cannot be right.

Once the registration has been done, the check stage comes in. As the Minister has said, that is the point at which a lot of information needs to be put in about the property. Some of the requirements are a little opaque, shall I say, such as how many floors the property has. Apparently one can select from minus nine to plus 55, which is mathematically slightly Quixotic but also happens to rule out the Shard. One may also be asked about the eaves height, for which the Shard would also be a non-qualifier. At other times people have been required to provide a net internal floor area for a property customarily measured and valued on the basis of gross externals. This is beginning to look a little problematic for the ratepayer. One may then be asked when the last refurbishment took place; as if the tenant would necessarily know that. The choices go back in tranches as far as 1900 on the online system. There is also a rather risible suggestion that the lease details or the local planning office might have information on refurbishment. In any case, a refurbishment undertaken 30 years ago is likely to be totally worthless in modern valuation terms.

I do not wish to poke too much fun because actually this is a very serious business. Let us remember that in the middle of all this there is a ratepayer trying to fill in an online form for which there is a potential liability for inaccuracies. The point I want to make is that the architecture is deficient and the system makes unnecessary and time-wasting demands on ratepayers as well as putting in place tripwires that really should not be there.

I note the answer given by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to the Delegated Legislation Committee in the House of Commons on 29 January in answer to the honourable Member for Oxford East concerning rating appeals:

“The technical problems we have had with the system some months ago have largely been resolved”.—[Official Report, Commons, First Delegated Legislation Committee, 29/1/18; col. 6.]


That is not quite the message I am getting through the trade, if I may term it thus. In reality, although the digital platform may have improved, the environment in which it operates has not.

My concerns are the lack of clarity or definition over what will constitute a culpable error. I noted the noble Lord’s comment that guidance was to be provided. I am not aware that guidance has been provided, but I am aware that rating professionals have been asking the VOA whether it will produce anything to clarify the circumstances that constitute a culpable error, but I have been told that it does not propose to do so. This seems a rather one-sided situation, and the decision to impose penalties seems to be in the hands of a party to the matter even though they do not benefit financially. The process is a touch inequitable and asymmetric as a way of dealing with public administration.

I want to ask the Minister what proposals there might be to address some of these continuing problems, in particular the absence of a proper definition and guidance. By “guidance” I do not mean some general comment into which one can read anything, but how this will be dealt with and how individual business ratepayers will be protected from an honest error, because it is not clear how that will be done. In particular, I want to know what further steps the Minister feels could be taken to establish greater confidence among business ratepayers about the CCA system, because it seems to be still distinctly lacking.

National Policy for the Built Environment

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I was very pleased to be invited to serve on this ad hoc Select Committee. Its scope tied in with my activity as a property professional and my involvement with the APPG for Excellence in the Built Environment, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Best. I also declare my vice-presidencies of the LGA and the NALC, and I am an owner of several historic buildings.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, for her introduction to the debate, and to her and to the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for conceiving of the committee. I too pay tribute to our excellent chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, who kept us in order, despite some strongly held, persistent and vocal views. I echo the appreciation from the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, for our special adviser and our excellent clerical team. They were absolutely first class.

One thing one learns quickly in this House is that, however knowledgeable one may be as a practitioner in matters to do with the built environment, there are always others from other backgrounds who can effortlessly surpass one’s own knowledge and experience. So it has been for me in this very highly qualified group. Indeed, I suspect that I learned more on occasions than I contributed, and I am very grateful to my fellow committee members for that indulgence. I echo the noble Baroness’s comments that, for all the expertise and devotion to task, it feels as if the effort has rather sunk like a stone, almost without trace. I will address only a selection of what is a very broad canvas indeed.

We all aspire to successful built environments. They are the backbone to our sense of place, our feelings of inclusion and safety and the public-spiritedness of our nation. Old and historic or brand new and flashy, they underpin our work/life balance, quality of life, productivity, individual and family financial security, and human aspiration. Our national residential real estate inventory depends on this success, and with it our banking and finance systems. The quality of the built environment is, in short, a key economic driver, even if its definition escapes accurate codification.

The Government’s response disappointed me. Paragraph 20 claims that there is,

“strong policy co-ordination on matters that affect the built environment”.

I have not really noticed that. Paragraph 23 goes on to state:

“The planning system supports good design and place making”.


Really? I acknowledge that it does not militate against them, but to suggest any proactivity is a trifle far-fetched, given the dearth of resources available to local authorities and the overwhelming pressures to build more houses. One cannot help feeling that, just as it was on the last occasion we were under such housing pressure, pursuit of numbers may well come at the expense of quality, as has been mentioned by others.

I remind the Committee that the Built Environment All-Party Parliamentary Group, of which I am a vice-chair, also reported, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, noted, on build quality last year. In the last two years, I have had to advise, on a professional basis, on solutions for excessively poor acoustic insulation in one new residential construction and woefully inadequate thermal insulation in another. I do not believe either was a one-off situation, even if it cannot necessarily be described as systemic. The recommendation that there should be a chief built environment adviser to government should have been an easy one for the Government to accept.

We risk causing damage in a number of respects. One has only to look at the dynamic of government insistence on more houses as compared with many communities’ natural wish to ensure that they do not get lumbered with more than their fair share, or more than they are capable of absorbing without destroying their own essential sense of place. It is not difficult to see that outcomes here can be capricious. As someone who advises on development land, I can safely affirm that the process remains the preserve more of the bully than of the conciliator.

I have always regarded successful built environments as much as a social condition subsequent as a design construct. The new towns of the 1950s, devised on the then innovative “neighbourhood concept”, often took decades to bed in socially and become settled communities. Meanwhile, care for the surroundings suffered. Some locations never came good: bleak post-war tower blocks with a rat run of galleries, passages and landings wrote their own social and environmental epitaphs nearly from day one. Yet some other, low-rise developments that might have been likened to rabbit warrens—I have come across a few—very often were highly successful and well regarded by occupants. Success levered in occupier commitment, care for appearance and maintenance, and regular reinvestment. Not all successes continued to be so, but the failures seldom, if ever, recovered, and it is these failures that affected the health and well-being of occupants.

Critically, this depends on, and is underpinned by, the people who make the community, and their willingness to be helpful, considerate, good neighbours, and so on. Insert one problem occupier, and it is easy to see how that can unravel and the cohesion being lost through such things as loutish behaviour, noise, antisocial activity and perhaps crime. I declare an interest in that I am married to a community mediator, so I hear some of this across the kitchen table. Just as there are, and should be, incentives to invest, renew and better one’s home and its environment, so there should be incentives for others, who may not be quite so inclined, to at least tolerate and accord with that basic instinct and aspiration of the community. There probably needs to be a better process for mediating out some of these problems. It is not about deprivation: I have come across plenty of wealthy, well-educated but undeniably loutish and antisocial types in high-value locations. As the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York said, there is social capital at stake here, and that has economic worth.

On the physical scale, the first question that seldom seems to be asked is where it would be most convenient for people to live, work and transact their daily lives. This is not the same as municipalities and communities deciding where the least worst place is to put housing development. The entire concept has to have a human scale, be inherently convenient and function well. Just as medieval settlements were based on strategic locations with access to materials, transportation, alternative means of getting about, trade, communications and perhaps defensive qualities, so we need multiple advantage as a backcloth to planning built environments, not just to assume that advantage can be created on the drawing board.

The next question is about optimising space. An environment must, to some degree, uplift, inspire and be durable, and not compromise lifestyles through inadequate living space, poor external spatial attributes or disregard of relationships to on-site or off-site amenities. The green space and trees mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, would certainly correspond with that. Constructing a block with minimal-sized accommodation for, perhaps, first-time buyers risks building in a societal monoculture. We have seen what excessive uniformity does from examples in the past. I seem to recall them being called,

“little boxes made of ticky tacky”,

in the 1960s. Now, one of my children refers to much modem urban flat development as “white boxes”. Are we building the modern versions of an overnight bivouac or are we creating homes to which people relate emotionally and about which they have a feeling of contentment beyond designer-box ticking? Does development cater for future lifestyles, for singles, couples, families, extended families, those with disabilities and those in old age? Some claims for lifetime status are more than a country mile from the facilities and infrastructure necessary to make it a reality. The lifetime homes approach will be built only at a rate that hugely underestimates the core importance of this concept to the well-being of society, besides which it appears at the moment to be a planning optional extra.

Do our developments have durability at their heart, or do bits fall off? Is maintenance made difficult through inaccessibility? Are repairs rendered troublesome because the designers did not think hard enough about what could go wrong? What about repairing parts of the structure if things do go wrong? Look at basic service components— electrical controls, tap washers, locks, draught seals and extractors—that cannot be replaced because there is no maintenance built into the design and no obligation on anybody to provide matching spare parts for the normally expected life of the component. Repairing them or retrofitting becomes expensive and disruptive. It is a poor reflection on the corporate social responsibility of providers and specifiers.

What about the wider environment in respect of the protection that communities need for the longer-term putting down of roots? Do open spaces get built over and low-rise dwellings become overshadowed by tower blocks or other environmental degradation? In short, does accommodation provide comfort, convenience in use and reassurance in terms of its effect on the human psyche, or does it confuse and unsettle, become threatening or even risky? Such failings may not be a cost that falls on the public purse, but it falls on the nation none the less. In other words, it is a cost that occurs somewhere. Often residents in older parts of larger town and cities are literally miles from the nearest green space. Not very long ago, planning departments in my part of the country were saying that it was okay to build on urban playing fields and green space and to provide a replacement on the urban fringe.

I do not believe that there is adequate co-ordination of many of these factors between government departments, between them and local government or between either of them and local communities, let alone with residents. I do not believe there is anywhere near adequate spatial planning at neighbourhood level or post-construction evaluation by government. Most of the Government’s response to our report seems to be explaining how they have enabled others to do various things without any notion of their own role in making sure that it is actually delivered. This approach is much too diffuse, fragmented and unco-ordinated; it lacks an insistence on minimum standards, as other noble Lords have said, and this matters. The Government aimed to provide 1 million new homes between 2015 and 2020; they are well behind target. They also said that the population will grow by 4.3 million in the next 10 years, which must mean in excess of 200,000 homes a year, every year for the next 10 years. Our report is entitled Building Better Places. Even at this build rate, it is a very small proportion per annum compared to the necessary maintenance, management and upgrading of the existing housing stock, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, of perhaps 24 million homes. A good proportion of them have poor thermal insulation, expensive or obsolete heating systems, wasteful combined drainage arrangements and environmental challenges due to traffic and air pollution, yet they are rich in the embedded energy of what is already there, and a good deal of them have considerable character and charm.

I move on to one other recommendation that we made about new construction methods—namely, modular or offsite construction. I have seen some of this in action, mainly around lightweight steel-framed construction, and it is very impressive. I also have professional experience of timber-panel and timber-frame construction. It can clearly provide a partial answer to a yawning skills gap, is less weather sensitive and has the potential for better quality control, in the sense it is not being done in outside conditions. The argument against it seems to be that it is currently much more expensive than comparable traditional build, but I am certain the cost will come down with volume as it rolls out. The second problem is that the market apparently likes traditional build. For “market”, one might read mortgage lenders. Although I cannot be certain, I suspect that it is their concerns that fuel this sentiment. European neighbours with harsher climates have no such concerns, so I think we are missing a trick here in not rolling this out more. But I suspect it is never going to be the major component of housing.

I have learned one thing about modern, and particularly very energy-efficient, construction with intricate installations, which is that it is extremely demanding of design performance and build quality. It matters if the potential for the occasional peril—the leaking roof, the burst pipe, flood, fire or tempest—is not factored into the equation at the design stage. All buildings should have a degree of flood resilience. It does not matter whether they are in a particular flood area or not, because it can happen for other reasons than conventional flooding. They should be relatively incombustible and not designed so that a dead pigeon in the rainwater outlet can cause tens of thousands of pounds of damage. There should be space around for maintenance and repair, as well as of course for visual and other amenities. I despair that after four years, some of the buildings with so-called maintenance-free cladding go green with algae, which has to be expensively washed off with biocides. That does not match my idea of sustainability criteria, even if the solar panels on the roof of the building mean that they are net contributors to the electricity grid.

The fact that these things are still going on reinforces me in the belief that the Government need to take the recommendations of this Select Committee rather more seriously than currently appears to be the case and to understand that a strong economic rationale sits behind this.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, my interest in the matters covered in the Bill as a property professional and landowner are probably well known, as is my vice-presidency of the National Association of Local Councils and of the LGA. I too welcome most of the Bill for reasons similar to those already given by other noble Lords, but it will be necessary to examine the detail. Most of the provisions are necessary and desirable. However, I regret that the housing White Paper is still not with us and will not be until the end of the month. It would have been better—certainly from my point of view—to have been informed of the philosophy the Government are following by having it before the debate.

By way of an overview, I repeat an economic truth I previously made in the deliberations on the then Housing and Planning Bill: from government and departments of state at one end to the happy occupants of their first home on the other, there are few if any advocates for lower house prices either in relative or absolute terms, fuelled as they are by scarcity, revenue, capital growth and personal tax advantage. This is the driver behind all this planning policy. But here is the rub: whereas the costs and hard graft leading to a successful housing development are today, the gains are distinctly jam tomorrow. The discounts from future gains to reflect the interim speculative costs, uncertainty, complexity and delay are, if anything, greater than they have ever been in history and any time I can remember. In short, the complete evaporation of a project’s value is easy: just add an unmeasured dose of risk. Various noble Lords have referred to the cost structures involved. I can relate to all of them.

On responsibilities and resources, the pool needed today is already drained seemingly dry and tomorrow is too uncertain to bridge that gap. I see limited signs that the Government understand this and are willing to address this systemic problem. This goes beyond what the Bill sets out to do.

As we have heard, planning and development is clearly not for novices or amateurs. It is a highly specialised skill, very complex and legalistic, and an activity conducted for high stakes, monetary and community. Even so, we have heard that 2,000 communities have made or are far advanced with their neighbourhood plans. But there are at least 10,000 existing local councils, according to the figures given to me by NALC, and many more still in unparished areas. There is a long way to go. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, referred to just 10% of the population being susceptible to neighbourhood plans. I agree with that statistic. What of the rest? Will they be put off by the entry standards required or the caprice of the outturns referred to so eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege?

I advocate a more aspirational and opportunity-led approach for communities. Some already do it extremely well, but many others do not and see the neighbourhood planning process as a largely defensive measure to keep away unwanted development. I do not see proactivity as a general characteristic of neighbourhood plans. That is not to demean those who have been proactive. It is still far too adversarial generally. With due deference to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, his experience is not quite as I see it in the neighbourhood plan forum dealing with the areas I know best, which are all between London and the coast.

We have principal authorities with inadequate resources to formulate local plans as coherently as they need to and communities with virtually no resources at all to formulate neighbourhood plans. This is coupled with a certain amount of manoeuvring, with each hoping that the other will be the bulwark against unwanted or excessive development. I encountered recently a situation where a local plan made provision for a certain number of houses—it may have been 1,500 or so—of its planned total, ostensibly to be split between a dozen or so larger outlying rural communities but seemingly without suggestion as to how this might be allocated. It is not difficult to imagine the scramble that may result from such an arrangement or the difficulties of making sure that a neighbourhood plan is indeed in compliance with the local plan in circumstances of such a roulette approach to site allocation.

With the benefit of the briefing I received from NALC, I can summarise by pointing to the fact that local councils are the neighbourhood plan driver. The neighbourhood plan process must be operable at community scale. The powers must be given and the responsibilities that go with them must be accepted. Both require financial and other resource. Done correctly, the neighbourhood plan must be given the status and protection promised or credibility simply fails. It must have tangible prospects for delivery of some sort—cash or kind or whatever—to justify the expenditure and risk to the community of taking it on and assimilating the development that arises afterwards, because it is a question not just of building houses but of how you integrate that over time, especially with large developments in relatively small communities. If the resources are not there, the only other variable is the parish precept. We know how that will be looked at.

The larger proportion of the new homes bonus at the very least should go to communities that meet the required standards. The whole neighbourhood planning process needs to be rolled out to another 10,000 or 15,000 communities with proper resources for them to do so.

I will skip the issue of pre-commencement conditions, so ably covered by a number of other noble Lords, but I will address what I believe to be a general criticism of local government performance in getting new housing permissions under way, because I believe that there is a reason for this to do with the larger management of the process nationally. No amount of finger-pointing will resolve that.

Local authorities are responsible to their electorates, who frequently do not want housing above their local needs. In particular, local government is not responsible for the imposition of the sustainability standards that result in all the investigation into the newts, toads, bats and everything else we have heard from my noble kinsman, the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley. These have enormous up-front costs. Local authorities do not control the activists, who sometimes use the bats, newts and toads as a weapon of resistance, nor the activities of some of the utility and infrastructure providers. Neither the activists nor the infrastructure providers are generally democratically accountable.

Local authorities are not responsible in particular for a planning framework that is still coloured by largely preventive and negative terms, as opposed to positive or proactive ones. When councils do become proactive the private sector often cannot tell, and indeed complains that it does not know whether it is dealing with the objective administrator of the planning code or a potential commercial rival.

My experience of proactive engagement is not as fruitful as the Minister would have us believe, but I ask him this: given that proactivity is not a hallmark everywhere—I am very pleased to know it is working well in the Cambridge area—what is stopping better and more opportunity-led long-term land-use planning and financial dialogue between landowners, developers, communities and principal authorities? Is it some concept of bias or predetermination that is in the way? Will the Minister explain why this seems to be a problem?

I live on the edge of an identified development zone colloquially known as the Gatwick diamond. Gatwick Airport’s owners have recently said that for their own expansion plans alone and not dependent on an additional runway, an additional 13,000 direct jobs will be created by 2025. Add this to the persistent housing underperformance of some local authorities and the fact that some development quota must be accepted from other authorities constrained by the national park status of the South Downs, and it is not hard to see that the developmental pressures are overwhelming.

The Government want more housing. I agree with that. The obvious place to put it is in an identified growth area where there is economic activity. The Bill is insufficient given that the Government’s target is now to produce at least 250,000 or 300,000 homes a year in very short order and will run into the same or greater problems of procedural churn, administrative drag, infrastructure issues, workforce and back-office skills and materials shortages, never mind the sustainable rate of buildout of much housing development. In short, it is a bigger picture. The noble Lord, Lord Porter, referred to the number of unimplemented planning consents. That reinforces my point exactly: we are not proceeding with development.

The risk is of development by brute force or fiat by default and I fear that the results may be, as they have been in previous such circumstances, poor—a solution in local planning terms with little concern for place-making or necessarily for where it is most convenient for people to live, work and have their leisure time, even less for buildings they want to cherish because they work well. We risk squandering the investment, building inappropriate homes in the wrong places and creating the failed schemes of tomorrow. We will not succeed if we do not get right communications and connections between towns and villages and their regional hubs. This matter needs careful consideration.

On the compulsory purchase provisions in Part 2, I am concerned that measures seem to be split between the Housing and Planning Act, this Bill and the Digital Economy Bill. This seems to me designed to confuse rather than simplify matters. I suggest that it will not be long before some astute legal advocate argues that, because various provisions appear in different Acts passed at different times, Parliament must have intended some different mode of application in each instance—I wait to see further. The Law Commission recommended consolidation and greater coherence of the patchwork of compulsory purchase laws going back to the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act 1845. The Government’s approach appears to do the opposite. I will reserve judgment at this juncture on the Bill’s scheme-versus-no scheme criteria—more of that anon.

I broadly support the temporary occupation provisions, but I have had the benefit of discussions with the Compulsory Purchase Association and am aware of and agree with its concerns about the treatment of subordinate interests.

I regret the proposed repeal of Part 4 of the Land Compensation Act 1961. This was intended to prevent profiteering by an acquiring authority. That it is seldom invoked is, I suspect, less a mark of redundancy than it is of its efficacy. If anything, with all the bodies that now possess compulsory powers, many of which are privatised and conducted for profit, this safeguard should be retained even if not in precisely the same form. I therefore agree with the Country Land and Business Association—I am a member of it—which states in a briefing that the safeguards for property owners faced with the use of compulsory powers remain as important as ever and that past examples of appropriation without proper compensation have invariably ended in disinvestment, disengagement and systemic failure.

However, if the Government are as open to discussion as they say, I see this Bill as an opportunity. I suggest that we need smarter ways of working—in taxation and planning strategy at all levels—upskilling of the people necessary to deliver objectives, new ways of constructing homes and of financing, and modernisation of large parts of our infrastructure. Even if all these things are not in the Bill, the opportunity is there. We had better get our act together in this respect if we are to make a success of Brexit.