Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord True

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I have an amendment in this group, which the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has effectively summarised in the points made. I do not pretend that the specific wording or format is necessarily correct, but none the less the broad principle enshrined in it, and in what the noble Lord has just said, is important. As this process goes forward there will inevitably be fears that a Government—not this one necessarily—may in time use this process to ensure that it is made easier to secure agreement to major developments against the wishes of the local population. It might be feared that that could be done either by having a process that is conducted through written procedures or by a rather cursory appearance from an inspector for a hearing in the local area. In this process, a great deal also goes on in the pre-planning stage. Good developers are these days very active and are often encouraged by local authorities to meet local populations to discuss and undertake consultation, perhaps in relation to what might be the specific local community benefits that come from the development. All those things are best conducted locally, in the place and community where the development will take place and which will be affected by it.

As I said, I do not intend to try to write law that is prescriptive. My noble friend gave some general reassurances earlier, but in both the pre-planning stage and the period in which a planning application is under consideration, it is absolutely essential that the Government leave no suspicion in the minds of the public about their rights, about which they feel ever stronger. Those of us who have the honour to represent people in local authorities know that the people’s wish to have their voice heard is greater, not less, as time goes by. I hope that we can hear a very strong reaffirmation from my noble friend that if not the specifics of my amendment, certainly the spirit of it will be written into whatever provision the Government might follow up with as they refine secondary legislation, codes of practice and so on, once the legislation becomes law.

The public must not believe, or have any justification to believe, that there is something herein that makes it easier for development to take place in the teeth of what local people believe to be in their interests. That is not nimbyism; there is a balance in these matters. Giving people a chance to have their day in court and to have their voice heard is extremely important in the principle of securing consent to planning developments, which all of us in this House know that this country will need in the decades ahead.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I remind the House that I have declared an interest as someone helping people through a company with sustainable development. It is on that point that I support what has been said. It is not just a question of community not feeling that it is being bypassed, although that is crucial and the gravamen of the whole discussion. We also want to support those developers who do the job properly, as against those who think that there is a short cut.

One of the encouraging things of recent years has been the increasing number of developers who have understood that proper community consultation early on makes their development not only more likely but probably better. Many of them are taking seriously the fact that input from the community can be not an incubus but a considerable advantage. Therefore, I, too, hope that my noble friend will be able to give us an assurance—which I am sure she would wish to give—that this is a mechanism to achieve things which cannot otherwise be achieved, rather than a mechanism to make easier to achieve things that should not be achieved and would otherwise be stopped. That is the distinction that we are trying to draw.

My concern in respect of developers, therefore, is that we do not want the less good to triumph over the good. Moreover, as my noble friend Lord True rightly pointed out, we do not want the public to feel that they are being railroaded about things in which they are increasingly interested. We in this House ought to remind people that this is not some evanescent view that will disappear. People will increasingly want to have control over what happens in their own area; that is why we had the Localism Bill. It is also true that, as the world outside becomes more and more complex and people feel it is more and more difficult to decide on how they will have some control over energy policy, the European Union, the work of the United Nations and all the rest of it, localism—the concept of at least having some real control over the area around you—becomes a greater demand rather than a lesser one. This is a crucial moment in this Bill, and the ability of my noble friend to reassure the House is of great importance.