Planning Permission

Lord Burnett Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, perhaps I can answer the second part of the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, as well as this one. In terms of the role of housing associations and reluctance to build, 96% of housing association stock providers have signed up to the right-to-buy deal with the Government. In Scotswood, where I saw the Rise development, which is incredibly impressive, they are building ahead of time. In terms of speeding up the process, we will be bringing forward measures to drive up performance within planning authorities. In terms of capacity to deliver, which we discussed only yesterday evening, there are funds to enable local planning authorities to build in capacity to enable them to deliver some of the Government’s new priorities.

[Lord Burnett (LD)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my entries in the register of interests. The planning process must be profitable for local planning authorities. In the West Country, many local planning authorities have insufficient qualified planning officers. Is there anything that the Minister can do to encourage local planning authorities to recruit more qualified planning officers?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I think that I partly answered that in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. In small planning authorities, particularly in district authorities, there is every reason why authorities should share functions, if the authorities are particularly small.