Localism Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Lytton]

My Lords, as I explained to the Minister earlier today, I think that Amendment 128E has largely covered my amendment. However, like all amendments, there was a supplementary purpose lurking behind it, which was to try to probe the wider interaction between the facility of referendums generally, especially in their cumulative effect—the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, who is not in his place at the moment, touched on that a few minutes ago—and the wider family of the statutory functions of local authorities. It is instructive to note Amendment 128C relating to transport.

I have lost count of the number of times that the burdens on local authorities on the one hand and the need to get at the authentic voice of people on the other have been referred to in this part of the Bill. We are considering the effects for a democratically elected representative body whose functions might not work terribly well, or be effectively discharged, if a referendum is imposed. The Bill cannot be all things to all men. We have to have a balance between vox populi on the one hand and the effective administration of local government on the other. That balance needs to be explained.

I hope that the Minister will be able to elaborate on some of these points, but I certainly think that there is an issue here, which was touched on in earlier debates in Committee. We need to be clear to what extent people within a community should engage with the representative and democratic processes of those who are set up to represent those community interests as opposed to reaching for some bypassing measure in the form of a referendum.

[Lord Best]

My Lords, Amendment 128B is in my name. I do not think that we have given the Government enough credit for the amendment that we heard of earlier today, because that seemed to me to satisfy, if not entirely—I want to dwell on that—a good deal of the misgivings that we have had about referendums applying to the world of planning. We now have an amendment that will mean that planning applications are taken out of the reach of petitions and referendums. That is an enormous difference from where we were yesterday. I want to place on record my appreciation to the Government for taking that forward. It means that another laboriously prepared speech of mine is now redundant, but the amendment is extremely welcome.

Our hesitations about where we have got to are as follows. We understand that discretion is there for local authorities not to go ahead with referendums if there is a statutory process that gives members of the public opportunities to make representations and a statutory right of appeal or of investigation through a review. However, although that clearly applies to individual planning applications—great stuff—does that apply to all of the processes of preparing local development plans? I think that it must cover the preparation of the local development frameworks. If it did not cover the local authority preparing its local development plan, that would be disastrous. Throughout local government, we are already way behind in getting those local development frameworks undertaken. The abolition of regional spatial strategies means that we will be in limbo if local authorities do not have their own local development plans. We must get on with that. It would be incredibly difficult for the Government to pursue their growth agenda and do the good things that they want to do in terms of the development of renewable energy and the development of new homes if the threat of referendums was hanging over the creation of local development plans.

Beyond that, there are supplementary planning documents. They may not have the full panoply of examination in public and independent inspection in all cases. For removal of doubt, it would be better to have an amendment such as that in my name or in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that takes the whole of the planning scene out of the referendum process. If we cannot, can we at least have firm reassurance that the process of producing local development plans, with the supplementary elements that go with them—the whole of that process—will be excluded by this excellent amendment?

[Lord True]

My Lords, I am sorry to strike a discordant note, but I strongly disagree with aspects of the remarks of my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Lord, Lord Best, in relation to parts of the planning system. We discussed this briefly earlier, and I will not reiterate my remarks then.

My noble friend Lord Taylor undertook to write to me about referendums where a London borough, in the case I gave, may have set up an indicative planning brief but the higher, regional authority intervened with an alternative proposal. I think it is entirely justifiable—indeed, desirable—that there should be a referendum in those cases. It would be most unfortunate if the legislation ruled out such an eventuality. It would disfranchise people on some of the most basic and fundamental issues that affect their lives and the nature of how their community develops.

I certainly could not support an amendment ranging as widely as that of my noble friend Lord Lucas. “Planning matters” is wording far too widely cast. Of course I agree with the point established in Committee; I think that most noble Lords agreed that we do not want to encourage referendums on individual planning applications. I also have very grave doubt about how far we should cast it in relation to local development plans and frameworks.

We have a local development framework at the moment, which it is clear that the public do not find satisfactory. As neighbourhood planning develops, a referendum might well be desired by people or wished for by the council. That is a useful device in an age of localism in involving people in such fundamental issues.

I hope that my noble friend will resist casting that constriction on the right of people to be heard on the neighbourhood and place in which they live. Nothing to my mind is more fundamental in the 21st century to the role of a local authority than the spirit of place. People’s opportunity to express their view about the nature of their place in terms of the broad planning framework under which they live in their communities seems to be absolutely vital. It would send a hard and difficult message if the Committee were to constrict that opportunity in the way suggested by the noble Lord.