Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Baroness Pinnock

Report stage
Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interest as an honorary fellow of the RIBA. I support this amendment because I think there is a huge need for people to know where they are. It is very simple but there is so much of this in government—and probably elsewhere—that people find it very hard to understand and react properly because they do not know where they are. In the planning system, this is particularly notable.

As my noble friend Lord Lansley made his speech, it all sounded so obvious and natural. It is exactly what we should do. Therefore, we know what the Government’s answer will be: “We will do that, so we do not need to put it into the Bill”. I am afraid I am becoming less and less willing to accept the promises of Ministers based on simply saying they will do something. We recently had a very good example of this. I thought we understood that we were not going to make deleterious environmental decisions in any legislation at all because we could trust Ministers not to do that. It is very debatable that that is now being maintained.

I say to the Minister that if it is something we do anyway, there is no harm in putting it in the Bill. If the Government object to something because they do not do it, then they should explain that they do not do it. However, if the argument is that the Government already do it and therefore do not need to put it in the Bill, I do not think the House should accept it any more. If the Government feel unhappy with that, I suggest that they remember they are not necessarily going to be the Government permanently. Therefore, when they are thinking deleteriously of those who might replace them, surely they would want to ensure that were they to be replaced, the new Government would have to accept the same rules. I do not think they need to feel unhappy; rather, they should say they are ensuring that the system works for everybody, whoever may be running it. It is also a good thing for a Government to recognise that people really want to know where they are, and this is one of the areas where we do not.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has raised a very important point about the effectiveness of a plan-led system if local plans are not up to date. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, has enhanced that argument by saying that people need to know where they are. If this is only in guidance, but we require there to be local plans—as we do in a plan-led system—why is it not incorporated in statute? I hope the Minister will answer this question.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has raised a fundamental issue. Local plans are at the very heart of a plan-led system. As well as setting out local planning policies, the local plan allocates land for new housing developments; it allocates land for business development, thereby allocating land for jobs; and it allocates land to be protected, such as the green-belt land allocation.

If local authorities are not preparing, or do not have, an up-to-date local plan, then land is not being allocated for development. We will later have debates about housing targets, but one of my concerns about housing targets is that, if local authorities do not have an up to date local plan, land is not being allocated or set aside for housing development. If land is not being set aside for housing development, it is very likely that new houses are not going to be built.

The government website helpfully has an alphabetical list of authorities and the status of their local plans—although it is unhelpful in being able to look at them more carefully. The vast majority do not have an up-to-date local plan. In fact, one or two on the list do not appear to have updated their local plan for several years. What that tells me is that, currently, the expectation is that local authorities will develop a local plan and have it agreed, with a full review after five years. Helpfully, my own authority is not one of those that does not have an up-to-date plan, and it is currently beginning a review a year ahead of expectation.

If land is not allocated for housing, how on earth do we expect housebuilding to take place? I hope the Minister will be able to help me with this, because some time ago in a previous debate on this, I thought I recalled the Minister stating that a five-year supply of land will no longer be a requirement and will be waived by the Government. As I understand it, at the moment that is the only stick to encourage—or force, even—local authorities to allocate land for housing in a local plan. Currently, although it may be waived—and I am waiting for the Minister to respond to that—as I understand it, if a local authority does not have a sufficient supply of land for a five-year allocation according to government housing targets, then developers can choose where to develop. It is open season for housebuilding. If that one stick is being waived—and I hope I have remembered that correctly—then I would like to hear from the Minister on how they will encourage local authorities to have up-to-date plans, because without them, I do not see how we will meet housebuilding targets.

The issues that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, raised, are fundamental. When he replies, will he say whether he wishes to test the opinion of the House on this? Without an up-to-date plan, all the Government’s housing targets approach—which my party does not necessarily agree with—comes to nothing. Only the authorities that do the right thing, having difficult discussions with communities about allocating land for housing and other development, will supply the houses that need to be built. Everyone across parties accepts the importance of building more houses; how we get there is the issue. However, I would love to hear from the Minister how that will be enforced without an up-to-date local plan. If the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, in responding wishes to push this further, we will support him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, some issues continue to affect almost everything we do. One is the principle of subsidiarity—that we should ensure that we do not have a system where all power is centred at the top. That was a very important principle that the Popes upheld when dealing with both the Nazis and the communists, saying that both got rid of all the subsidiarity powers and concentrated them at the centre. Of course those people did so because they were, largely, wicked. The trouble is when it is done by people who think it is the best way forward, and that is what I fear here.

The planning system is obviously not good enough. I declare an interest here, having spent almost a whole year trying to turn a house back into the pub that it was before. You would have thought they would have been keen on all that but, my goodness, there are many complications in trying to do it. However, although we recognise this about the planning system, you do not overcome it by putting on top of that system something that is seen by others as being dictatorial. Unless this power is clearly controlled and confined by the parliamentary procedures that enable it to be used in a way that the public will see is subject to democratic control, then I believe it will fail. It is not just a question of it not being suitable, and it is not just a philosophical question; it is that it will not actually work.

One knows what Ministers have been advised to say: the amendment would make the process more difficult, slower and more complex. Well, sometimes doing things more slowly is a good thing because it gives you time to make sure that you get it right. Sometimes making it more complex is necessary because the issue is more complex, and pretending that it is not means that you make a mistake.

I come back to a question that is particularly affecting me at the moment. We have now seen a number of examples where Ministers have said, “It’s not necessary to do this because we’re going to do it anyway”. I remember Ministers who promised us that we would not sign contracts with other nations that undermined our farmers, but we have done precisely that. We have a case at the moment where Ministers said there would be no diminution of environmental protection and therefore we did not need to put it in the Act, but I fear that is precisely what has happened.

I am in the same position here. I am sure that Ministers intend to do the right thing, and I am sure that Ministers coming from any reasonable party might intend to do so, but, as a former Minister of 16 years, I think it was very good for me to have to do the right thing. That is what I think we ought to put here.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this policy proposal is one of the most contentious issues that we have debated throughout the course of the Bill. So far, it has been a very thoughtful and considered debate about the importance or otherwise of having a centralised group of planning policies imposed on local authorities.

This approach, of having a set of national policies that are imposed on local planning authorities, is not new and does not have a happy history. Even from before my time in local government, some will remember the imposition of county structure plans. Local authorities had to agree to those plans and abide by what was stated in them. That did not end very well. Then in 2004 there was the introduction of regional spatial strategies—this just goes to show that all parties in government have a tendency to centralise—which I remember debating, and they did not end well either. My serious point is that these are messages from history for the Minister and the Government showing that, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, has said, trying to impose on local communities the Government’s idea of national policies that must be adhered to does not have a happy history.