Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, pubs are a vital part of our nation’s life. I am delighted that the Government have decided to take this action, as I am sure are both CAMRA and the British Beer and Pub Association. The Minister has been the essence of competence and courtesy throughout the whole of this debate and I am extremely grateful to him. I trust that in due course glasses will be raised in pubs up and down the land to both the Minister and the Government.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend Lord Stunell for his work on the amendments in relation to the National Planning Policy Framework and for his contribution today. We shall see in the months ahead whether the solution proposed by the Minister manages to hold up against any challenge.

As we have heard, as the Bill progressed we had several lengthy debates in this Chamber on pubs and permitted development for alternative uses. I, too, am grateful to the Minister and to the Government for listening so carefully to the views from across this House and for this revised amendment from the other place, which will help greatly with the protection of pubs at risk. It has the advantage of introducing a permitted development right where the proposal is to extend the range of food to be offered while maintaining the pub itself. Beyond that, planning permission will be required before a pub can be demolished or face a change of use. That puts powers into the hands of local people and local planning authorities—here, I remind the House of my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association—and that has to be beneficial.

I pay tribute to all those who have campaigned on this issue, including the Campaign for Real Ale and the British Beer and Pub Association, and to those from all parties—including my colleague in the other place, Greg Mulholland—who have spoken and campaigned in support of it. I am very pleased to commend the Commons amendment.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I should perhaps also declare a non-interest: I have never been involved in any way in running a pub but am simply an occasional and perhaps too frequent consumer.

I do not think any of us here are suggesting that all pubs should be preserved in aspic regardless of circumstances. Of course pubs become unviable for all sorts of reasons, such as different social trends or changes in the local neighbourhood. There are all sorts of reasons why a pub genuinely becomes no longer viable. However, there is a big difference between “not viable” and “not as profitable as it could be”. In other words, a building can certainly be used more profitably as something other than a pub; the site on which a pub stands could certainly be developed more profitably than by being retained as a pub. That is the difference, but no one here is suggesting that pubs should be retained regardless of local circumstances.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, referred several times to new, additional legislation. I suppose, since we are considering legislation, it is in a sense new legislation, but actually the effect of what is being proposed is simply that the consideration of any demolition or development of a public house should go through the normal planning process. I am not sure that strictly speaking that is what I would have understood by “new legislation”. What we are saying is that the local community should have its opportunity to give voice to its views on any proposed development of a public house in the normal way through the normal planning permission. The position at the moment is that through permitted development rights the owner or someone else has the right to demolish or develop the pub regardless of the local planning authority or the local community’s views. That is what is objectionable and it is one of the reasons, though not by any means the only one, why so many pubs are disappearing—because there are more profitable uses for the building and/or the site. That is what is causing so much concern.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is probably right that some local authorities have possibly used the device of assets for community value rather too liberally or generously. Maybe so, but there is a good reason why they are doing that: it is the only way that they can avoid the problems with the permitted development rights. I think “assets of community value” was an excellent measure, introduced as it was by the coalition Government through the Localism Act—“localism”, incidentally, is a word that we do not hear very much these days—but it was put in there for rather different purposes than a blanket position to refer to all pubs in a particular local authority area regardless of circumstances.

All that is really being suggested here is not strictly new legislation but rather that we revert to the situation that used to apply that, if you wish to make appropriate changes to a building—in this case a public house—whether by demolition or redevelopment of the site, you apply to the local planning authority. It goes through the normal planning process; the local community has its opportunity to make representations and the planning applicant has its opportunity to make representations and the elected planning authority makes the decision. That is what is being proposed here—not that all pubs should be preserved regardless of circumstances or, alternatively, that all pub site owners should have the right to develop regardless. I very much support the amendments and I hope that they will be put to the vote. I hope, of course, that that vote will be successful, and I hope then that the Government will consider very seriously what seems to be—we may be about to prove it—a majority view on all sides of this House, which is most certainly the majority view in most if not all communities.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

I spoke very briefly in Committee in support of this amendment, and I would like to do the same again now. I have no shares in pubs but, like many Members of your Lordships’ House, I have made a considerable investment in a number of pubs over the years and continue to do so.

I understand the points that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, makes in an accountancy sense and a clinical sense. Of course, they are true. He talked about people drinking at home, which people are doing more of, as we know—but this is not about people drinking at home; it is about people drinking with other people, in the community, and all that brings to the community. It is not just about drinking anymore. I think of my local pub, which has wi-fi and excellent food—not just fish and chips on Friday, although it does that very well. It has an art gallery behind it and all sorts of things, including pub quizzes, of course. It is a major hub in the community and would be hugely missed.

I am sure that in your Lordships’ House we all have memories of pubs and pubs we currently use. They are a uniquely British institution. We are losing them too fast anyway and surely we should do anything we can to hang on to those that we have. There are good reasons why we might have some difficulties in keeping them open, but they are a uniquely British institution and this amendment is a very sensible one. I hope that the Minister feels minded to accept it.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, has just said. There is a big problem. The facts are these: more than 20 pubs are closing every week, and 2,000 pubs have been listed as assets of community value, but around another 40,000 have not been listed and, currently, have permitted development rights applied to them. As the London Borough of Wandsworth has demonstrated, it is possible for local authorities to use Article 4 directives on pubs, but that is a very complex process—and certainly in this respect far too complex for most areas.

I puzzled over the question of whether, if you have 2,000 pubs listed as assets of community value, there is actually a problem. If 2,000 community organisations can make a proposal for their pub to be listed, the process seems to work fairly well. However, there is another way of looking at that, which is the view that I take, which is that if communities feel that it is necessary to list 2,000 pubs as assets of community value, there is clearly a problem that needs to be solved, because 2,000 is a very large number. Of course, we have now experienced the fact that, despite 2,000 pubs being registered, large numbers have not been listed and have been lost. The solution is simply a minor amendment to the law to end permitted development rights and to require that any proposed change to a pub should secure planning permission. It is a simple remedy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my chairmanship of the Woodland Trust and my interests as president or vice-president of a range of conservation organisations as recorded in the register of interests.

First I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who, in my absence abroad, led on this amendment in Committee. I also thank noble Lords who spoke so eloquently in support of the amendment. It seems to have done the trick—because I also want to thank the Minister and the Government, who have responded since then, in the housing White Paper, to the evidence of increasing damage to ancient woodland and veteran and aged trees with a strong statement of commitment to increasing their protection. All of us in this House, in the other place and among the wider conservation community, and all those who value ancient woodland, are very grateful. The Minister may therefore find it a bit churlish of me to move my amendment again, but let me explain why I am doing so.

I am delighted that the Government have clearly recognised the importance of ancient woodland and the need for better protection, and put forward a proposal for consultation to include ancient woodland in a rather bizarre little list in footnote 9 of the current National Planning Policy Framework. Planners would be encouraged by this footnote to recognise ancient woodlands as being as valuable as the rest of the list, which includes sites of special scientific interest, national parks and green-belt land, meaning that the development which impacts on them should be more definitively restricted. The list is also strengthened in that it is no longer just a set of examples but intended to be a clear list of categories of land where development should be restricted. I absolutely welcome the Government’s intention to improve protection but fear that the actual proposal will not deliver that very welcome intention.

I have two concerns about the footnote list approach. First, the list includes a range of types of protected land, all of which have got very different levels of protection. I can give two examples. Sites of special scientific interest have had strong protection for some time, and indeed the rate of loss or damage to SSSIs has dropped hugely over the last 20 years—from the early 1990s, when 15% of SSSIs were lost or damaged every year, to the position now where only about 0.1% of SSSIs suffer damage each year. But at the other end of the spectrum of this list are local green spaces, which, alas, get challenged by development on a regular basis. It is therefore not clear what level of protection amending this footnote would result in, in practice, for ancient woodland.

My second concern is that each of these categories in the list has its own corresponding policy wording in a specific full paragraph elsewhere in the NPPF, and ancient woodland is no exception. The relevant wording is paragraph 118:

“planning permission should be refused for development …unless the need for, and benefits of, the development in that location clearly outweigh the loss”.

A kind of balancing act is described there. It is absolutely clear that the wording in paragraph 118 is currently failing to deliver sufficient protection for ancient woodland. It seems to imply—and I know that planners interpret it this way—that the protection of ancient woodland is optional if the development has benefits. We know from surveys that that is how planners see it. I believe that paragraph 118 also needs to be addressed if we are really going to secure the clarity of increased protection that I am sure the Government intend in such an admirable way.

My amendment would place protection in equivalent terms on the face of the Bill—though in reality none of us wants that. What we need is one further change in paragraph 118, and I urge the Minister to seriously consider adopting the revised wording that has been suggested previously by several parties who have already considered this matter in some detail, including the Communities and Local Government Select Committee, the All-Party Group on Ancient Woodland and Veteran Trees, and the Woodland Trust. The wording that is being commended by those groups in paragraph 118 would make it clear that:

“Substantial harm to or loss of irreplaceable habitats such as ancient woodland should be wholly exceptional”.


That is an equivalent wording to the level of protection given to heritage buildings.

So I hope that the Minister does not judge me ungrateful. It cannot be often that a new White Paper commitment comes within days of an intervention in the House of Lords. I am sure that it was entirely due to the skilful advocacy of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and the other noble Lords who supported the amendment in Committee, though I have a sneaky feeling that, as a result of the logic of the case and the persuasion by a range of groups and parliamentarians across both Houses, the Minister has actually been cooking up this improved commitment for some time. There was a bit of winking and nodding going on at each of my meetings with Ministers in both Defra and the DCLG.

This further wording would ensure that there was no confusion in the minds of the planning authority or the developers about the Government’s intended protection. That cannot be anything other than a benefit in the drive to deliver houses for people. It would help developers by making it clear that ancient woodland should be avoided, and hence streamline a process that might otherwise get bogged down when the controversial damage of ancient woodland is enthusiastically campaigned against by local communities or conservation bodies.

There is much to play for. Since the NPPF was introduced in March 2012, more than 40 ancient woodlands have suffered loss or damage from development. The Woodland Trust is currently dealing with more than 700 ancient woodlands under threat across the UK, and the number continues to grow. One last tweak to paragraph 118 of the NPPF could deliver a landmark improvement. I hope the Minister, who has been absolutely ace so far in his support, can get that one further change to the NPPF and complete the package. I beg to move.

[Lord Framlingham]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. I think the words “clearly outweigh the loss” are not going to give the same protection that “wholly exceptional” would. For those of us interested in this issue, and that now includes many people, our campaign and indeed our mission is to turn the fine words about and growing understanding of the value of trees and woodlands, particularly ancient woodlands, into action. In this, the lead given by the Government is crucial.

It is a question of priorities. In planning terms, the balance between the built environment and the natural environment is slowly being understood. Trees are not just an adornment to the built environment but play a much more important role in so many ways. In our rush to build more houses, it is important that the role of trees is kept at the top of the agenda. Ancient woodlands are so very valuable and, although planning deliberations can sometimes drag on for years and be extremely complicated, a thoughtless 10 minutes with a JCB can do untold and irreparable damage.

The amendment would give greater clarity to developers, who would be better aware of what they could and could not do. It would fit very well with the idea of every planning authority holding maps and registers of ancient woodlands and important trees, saving everyone time and money as well as protecting the ancient woodlands. The current White Paper is extremely interesting and helpful but the Bill is our current vehicle for these important changes. It is an opportunity not to be missed. If you let one vehicle go, you never quite know when the next one will come along—and what ancient woodlands may be damaged in the meantime.

The Minister has been extremely helpful and constructive in all these debates, but he knows what a significant effect a modest tightening of the law can sometimes have without detriment to the planning process. This is just such an issue, and I hope he will be able to accept the amendment.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I am very attracted to the amendment. I agree with everything that I have heard, and I am encouraged. I know the Minister is himself very keen on trees, green spaces and ancient woodland.

It is terribly important, given what the noble Baroness was saying, not to forget how, especially in underprivileged areas, trees and green spaces have been shown in recent research to have a quite astonishing effect on the well-being, the social cohesion, of a society. We really have to treasure these trees. I am pleased to see that we are talking about not just ancient woodland but the odd oak tree that has been there for 300 years and which can be for a community a kind of fulcrum—a meeting point, something which generates huge affection. The fact that sometimes these trees have been, as the noble Lord has just said, bulldozed out because of a slip or because stringent due attention was not paid to them is often a tragedy for a local community.

I note that in proposed new paragraph (c) in Amendment 38A there is the caveat that the development in that location is “wholly exceptional”. The Government and the Minister therefore have a way out in this clause—it is not absolute. Where woodland communities are concerned in their relationship to them, we have to be as strong as possible in protecting ancient woodland, trees and green-space areas.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, as someone who has lived all his life with trees, I feel that this afternoon’s debate has suddenly taken off. We are talking about buildings and planning, which is interesting but some could think a tad dry from time to time, but trees come into the picture and one wonders why. However, we should be talking about trees and buildings because they should live together. Look at New Palace Yard and the catalpa trees; look at Tate Britain and the plane trees.

National Policy for the Built Environment

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, I want to say a few words about something that nobody has so far mentioned, and that is trees. I want to say a few words about the balance between the built environment and the green environment, between buildings and trees. I appreciate that the committee’s brief was to examine the built environment, but given the importance of trees, I am surprised that they received so little attention.

I do not blame the members of the committee; I suspect the problem arises from their terms of reference. Perhaps we need a Select Committee on Trees in the Built Environment—it would make more sense, I think, to me. In the committee’s summary, neither the word “tree” nor the word “green” appear. It does, however, recommend that we appoint a chief built environment adviser. I suggest that perhaps we need a chief green environment adviser.

This is much more than a matter of emphasis on the relative importance of soft and hard landscapes. Trees are not just an optional adornment but must be seen as an integral part of the whole planning process, from start to finish. A big, concentrated push is needed to turn the general acknowledgment by everyone now that trees are vital to our health and well-being into a reality, and to give trees and the professionals who understand them the recognition and standing they deserve. There is no shortage of organisations and individuals with the knowledge and experience to bring this about. I was surprised by how few of these were called to give evidence and, to be frank, how many environmentally related organisations—

[Baroness Whitaker]

I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord, since what he says is extremely congenial, but I would like to draw his attention to our slightly jargonistic term “green infrastructure”, dealt with at paragraph 217, which is emphatically meant to include trees. I could not agree more with what he said, but we did look at it.

[Lord Framlingham]

If I erred, I apologise hugely, but I was looking at the summary that the committee produced and there is no mention of it there. But I take the point that the noble Baroness makes. I was surprised by how few of these experts were called to give evidence and, to be frank, how many environmentally related organisations which could have mentioned the importance of trees failed to do so.

It can be done. Long before I became a Member of Parliament, which was a long time ago, I was involved with the building of Milton Keynes. There great trouble was taken to identify any trees that should be kept and looked after properly during construction, and a massive tree-planting scheme was planned and carried out on completion. On a smaller scale, when the Clore extension was added to the Tate Gallery, I was retained to ensure that no damage was done to the London plane trees nearby. They are still there, and they are as healthy as ever.

We really need to think about what we are doing to London. If you stand by the Tate Gallery, admire the balance between the Tate and its surrounding trees and then look across the river at what is being built there, I am sure that, like me, you will be filled with trepidation and concern. The Woodland Trust is one of the organisations deeply concerned about these issues and I can do no better at this stage than to finish by quoting at some length from its briefing for today’s debate:

“Central to the Woodland Trust’s submission and the subsequent report was that a more coordinated, cross government approach is needed on the built environment. The Government’s response fails to recognise this and persists in … continuing the business as usual approach through the Cabinet Office despite mounting evidence that this is not working for the built environment … Environmental matters should be firmly embedded into the built environment as well as the natural environment so it is critical that every opportunity is taken to ensure cross departmental cohesion”.


It goes on to say:

“Of particular disappointment to the Trust is the Government’s insistence that it is not appropriate to set minimum standards for green infrastructure provision. This is despite the recommendations of the Lords Select Committee and mounting evidence showing that access to the natural environment is critical for everyone’s wellbeing”.


Finally, it says:

“In not accepting the thrust of this very well evidenced report the Government response is missing the opportunity to improve the wellbeing of over 80 percent of the UK’s population who already live in the urban environment. We hope that the Housing White Paper demonstrates that further thought has been given to its recommendations”.


I hope the Government will listen to those points and, having listened to them, will act.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

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

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. We hear so much about young people not being able to buy their houses that it is nice to hear about the difficulties of older people from someone who clearly knows so much about it.

The purpose of the Bill is to streamline the planning process and to build more houses, which I am sure we all agree is a good idea. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Young, I think there is a bit more to it than that; when producing neighbourhood plans or development plans of any sort, the protection of ancient woodland should be automatically included in the terms of reference. The value of trees to society is becoming better understood and more obvious every day. Today’s debate is not the occasion to list all over again how much they contribute to our lives, but not to set out how important trees are and how important their protection is in a planning context would be a serious omission. Ancient woodland is irreplaceable—that is self-explanatory. I am not going to rehearse all the good things about ancient woodland because the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has already done so in considerable detail. However, I shall say that ancient woodland and all the flora and fauna that go with it, once lost, is gone for ever, together with all that it brings to our pleasure, our well-being and our heritage.

Because of all that it contributes to our lives, ancient woodland should be seen in planning terms as a valuable asset, not a liability or an obstacle to development. Every planning authority should recognise that and take the necessary steps. They should know precisely where their ancient woodland and other very important trees are, and keep a clear register of them. That would enable them to be identified to developers well in advance of any planning proposals so that they could be avoided or, perhaps, carefully incorporated in any planning scheme. It should be trees with buildings rather than, as so often happens now, trees versus buildings. This would reduce the delay and the problems caused when people end up at loggerheads over these issues.

In all this, the role of the professional arboriculturalist is key. I declare a non-pecuniary interest: for some years I was president of the Arboricultural Association, which does such an excellent job in this field. It maintains a register of consultants and contractors in arboriculture who are able to advise on all the complexities involved in the care of trees and woodland. It is my belief that in planning matters, where trees are concerned, an arboricultural consultant should be the equal in status to an architect or a landscape designer. Sadly, too many planning authorities lack the full-time services of arboricultural officers, which puts them and the trees that they seek to protect at a serious disadvantage.

None of us wants to live in houses without trees, or to be unable to walk in and enjoy our ancient woodland, so it is vital, when we are considering any development plan, that trees in all their forms are given the highest priority. I shall follow with interest the fortunes of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Young.

Energy: Carbon Capture and Storage

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, my noble friend is right to address the enormous cost of the competition. It was going to cost £1 billion. We remain very active in sharing information and data with the United States, Canada, Norway, South Korea, Japan and China, all of which are pushing forward on this, and we are sharing research and information.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, although methods of capturing and storing carbon are becoming more and more sophisticated, the simplest, pleasantest and most efficient way of doing it is still by the use of trees. Can I urge the Minister to do all he possibly can to urge the Government to apply maximum energy on the care of trees and planting of trees, particularly in our towns and cities?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right on the vital nature of this. It was a leading part of the discussions in Paris and was spearheaded by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The United Kingdom is very much of the same view, as was the rest of the world at Paris.