Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 2nd February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for moving and speaking to Amendment 15, which is in group 9. This amendment, tabled by the noble Lord, would allow local planning authorities to direct the use of land upon which planning permission has expired for the purposes of its priorities, as set out in a local development plan.

Authorities should normally take decisions on development proposals within their area in line with the priorities set out in the development plan, together with the other policies of the plan. That principle is already enshrined in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and set out clearly in the National Planning Policy Framework. Both the Act and the framework are clear that applications for planning permission must be determined in accordance with the development plan, where its policies are material to an application unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Thus where planning permission has lapsed, any new proposals for development which require planning permission must be determined on that basis.

The planning history of a site, including any recently expired planning permissions, may be a material consideration when considering any fresh proposals. The weight to be attached to any earlier permissions will be a matter for the local planning authority but the importance of the plan remains unchanged. I appreciate and support the intention of the new clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. However, I do not believe it is necessary at the moment. The noble Lord mentioned the forthcoming White Paper, which we hope will be forthcoming very soon. It will cover this issue, as I have mentioned many times before in the Chamber and elsewhere. This is an issue that we must confront and not just for London and urban areas. I fully accept what the noble Baroness alluded to there.

Perhaps I may bring the Committee back to this legislation, which is designed to streamline processes and deliver more houses. We should not lose sight of that. We all say that we are wedded to it but we must be careful to ensure that it remains a central feature of the thrust of the debate, and of the legislation. If that much land is held by developers, they have fewer excuses for land-banking. I say gently that if that land were developed more quickly, although it would not crack the problem in its entirety, it would go some way to doing so.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, very much for the invitation to Lewisham, which I look forward to fulfilling—not necessarily on a day when Millwall is playing at home but on some other day. With the knowledge that this issue will come forward in the White Paper and that we will have a longer process of having a crack at it in a deeper dive—along with that friendly reciprocation of his invitation—I ask him to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I want to speak briefly to Amendment 15, which my noble friend Lady Bakewell has spoken to. I know that Lewisham is closer to this place than some places are, but if the noble Lord is issuing a general offer to visit wards that some of us sitting here represent on local authorities, he might have a few letters in the post. But he would be welcome indeed to come to Colne any time he wishes and I would be happy to show him some of the problems we have that are different from those in Lewisham and other parts of the south-east.

Having cheekily said that, there is something behind this amendment about what happens when a planning permission which has been given, perhaps in detail, then lapses and that permission is no longer in line with a local plan. For example, if there has been a local plan and the permission has been given, a neighbourhood plan may then be adopted which does not have to accord exactly, as I understand it, with the local plan on site allocations but has to be in general conformity with it. If a neighbourhood plan for a village says that a piece of land which has planning permission for housing is not the most suitable while a different piece of land can be allocated—one which local people would prefer to be allocated under the neighbourhood plan—and if that keeps the same number of new houses built in that area, or even more, what then happens?

There is a wider issue: developers and planning committees—planning officers—tend to assume that if a planning permission has previously been given, for example for a change of use, and has not been taken up, and the same application is put in again after four or five years, it ought to be granted, on the precedent that it has been granted previously, and yet circumstances may have changed. There is a very important issue here relating to detailed applications which, at the moment, do not always result in the most satisfactory outcomes because of the assumption that although planning permission has lapsed, it is really still there and all you have to do is fill in the forms, pay the fee and everything will be okay.

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Moved by

[Lord Greaves]

16: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Reviews of neighbourhood areas
After section 61I of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 insert—
“61IA Duty of local planning authority to review neighbourhood areas(1) A local planning authority must from time to time review the neighbourhood areas within its area with regard to—(a) the number and distribution of such areas in the authority,(b) the proportion of the authority covered by such areas,(c) the progress made in the creation of neighbourhood development plans in those areas,(d) the proportion of such areas in which the qualifying authority is a parish council or a neighbourhood forum respectively, and(e) the extent and effectiveness of the promotion of neighbourhood planning within the authority.(2) A local planning authority must consider the review undertaken under subsection (1) and in doing so consider—(a) how it may become more effective in promoting neighbourhood planning and adopting neighbourhood development plans,(b) whether to review its statement of community involvement in relation to its policies on advice and assistance in relation to neighbourhood plans in its area, and(c) whether to carry out a local governance review in any part of its area that is unparished.””

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, Amendment 16 is about a review of neighbourhood areas and is particularly focused on the importance of existing parish and town councils as a basis for neighbourhood planning. It is a very important amendment and I am grateful, in promoting it, to the National Association of Local Councils for finding a way of getting it onto the agenda of the Neighbourhood Planning Bill. I should declare an interest as vice-chair—I think—of the APPG on Local Democracy.

One-fifth of the population of England is parished, according to the NALC. I was looking for the statistic—I have it somewhere but did not find it—on exactly how many neighbourhood plans are in parished areas. Perhaps the Minister can help me there. It is certainly over four-fifths. The great majority of neighbourhood plans have been promoted by the town or parish council, which is the qualifying authority in those areas. We know that 1,800 neighbourhood plans have been started, are under way or have been finished. In all of them, there is a clear relationship between the neighbourhood planning process and the town or parish council, but only a fifth of the population is covered by parish and town councils. The fundamental question behind the amendment is: what are the Government doing to set up more parish councils? Clearly, that must be with the agreement of local people, not imposed, but a lot of principal local authorities do not want any more town councils around the place and are not being very helpful.

I do not know what proportion of the population of the country is covered by neighbourhood plans, but it might be something like 5%. If that is the case, everything that we are talking about in earnest is very much a minority interest out in the country. If only one in 20 people in England is covered by a neighbourhood planning process of any kind, either neighbourhood planning is not for most people or, as I would suggest, it is not being sufficiently promoted to get more people involved.

Some planning authorities not only do not like parish councils, they are not very enthusiastic about neighbourhood plans. Clearly, if you are working on a local plan, you may not want to devote additional resources to neighbourhood plans. Although the responsibility for drawing them up lies with the neighbourhood planning group—either the forum or the parish council—it requires time and effort from local planning officers to ensure that it fits with the local development plan, planning law generally, and will work.

Most big urban areas have not got on with neighbourhood planning yet. Most neighbourhood plans are in rural villages or suburban villages. Some areas are pioneering—the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, will tell us about his—but there are not many in the big urban areas. However, it is not just the big urban areas that are a problem. If my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market were here—I think she is occupied in the Chamber—she would be talking about a town in her area that wants to get on with having a parish council and neighbourhood planning, but is being blocked by the local authority. So it is not just the big urban areas: unparished areas are missing out on neighbourhood planning.

I come back to the reasons why parished areas are taking the lead on this. First, the fact that there is a parish or town council means that there is a focus in that community to discuss and promote such a plan. There is an existing body of local councillors who are used to considering and acting on local issues and problems and giving their view on planning applications. Some of them turn up at planning committees for the principal authority to give oral evidence on behalf of their parishes, but send in their views in writing. Parish councillors are used to considering proposals and schemes by principal councils and government legislation. People ask them whether they want to take part, and they discuss it. In many parts of the country, including mine, they are taking part in community transfers, taking over land, property, facilities and services from district councils at parish council level, so they are used to this kind of thing.

Secondly, as well as being focused, they are a source of resources. They are not huge resources, but they have a clerk, to start off with, and perhaps some other staff who can do the initial things that need doing to get a neighbourhood plan steering group going and are used to dealing with correspondence, reports and all the rest of it in legislation. The other resource that parish councils have is money. They can use some of their precept money to supplement grants from the Government towards the neighbourhood planning process. On our previous day in Committee, we discussed how much the grants are and whether they vary, and I do not have any further information on that. Whether or not they are the same for all parishes, whether big or small, in most cases government grants for a neighbourhood plan will not be enough to carry out that plan. In some cases, the grant will be nowhere near enough. Parish councils are one source of local funding. They are not the only one, but they can do it.

On the other hand, forums are ad hoc and random, and they depend on somebody turning up and taking the initiative or a local group learning about it. There is no one in the community who will automatically consider whether to have a neighbourhood plan. This amendment states that local planning authorities must review their neighbourhood areas and look at how many there are, where they are, what proportion are parished, the progress that is being made and, in particular, the unparished areas that are missing out on neighbourhood planning and must consider how to promote neighbourhood planning better. The amendment puts the onus on planning authorities that are not terribly keen on neighbourhood planning to get keener on promoting it in their area. Finally, if places which are not parished ought to have neighbourhood planning, the amendment requires local authorities to consider undertaking a local government review to consider, with the local population, whether to start the process by setting up a parish council or a town council which would have the ability and resources to produce a neighbourhood plan. It would also be able to do everything else that parishes and towns do. I live in a borough which was mostly not parished when it was formed 40 years ago but is now wholly parished and the process has been almost entirely beneficial. I beg to move.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

I apologise for arriving a little late. Trains from the West Country are operating rather badly because of bad weather and the London Tube is operating really badly just because it is the London Tube, but it is a delight to be here now. Before I speak, I should draw attention to one of my interests which I have previously declared. I am the president of the National Association of Local Councils, and I will be speaking on an issue that it has raised. It is reflected in some of my noble friend’s comments.

It is clear that the great majority of neighbourhood plans that have been brought forward are in parished areas. I have represented a local community for many years, and I continue to live in one, and I have chaired a neighbourhood plan process initiated by a parish council. It is very obvious that parish councils, in communities where they exist, are very successful in moving things forward in representing community interests. In the context of neighbourhood planning, they provide an essential vehicle for initiating a plan, ensuring there is proper accountability to the wider community and, in the absence of sufficient funding for some of what happens, providing funding. In the case of our own neighbourhood plan, we initiated at a point where there was no government funding at all for the interregnum because the old fund had run out and the new one had not been established. The parish council, although a very small and poor one, was able to step into that breach.

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[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the many noble Lords who have participated in the debate on this amendment. Before I turn to the specific amendment, I shall make some introductory remarks which I hope will set the matter in its context.

Community members have said that a local planning authority’s input and attitude can make a significant difference to neighbourhood planning progress. We have also heard during our discussion of the importance of neighbourhood planning groups being able to access technical advice and support and financial support. All parts of the committee have spoken of the importance of ensuring that we promote neighbourhood planning, which is something to which all parties are committed. I am sure that that will make a difference. It is clearly beginning to make a difference, although I accept there is much ground still to cover.

I shall say a little about the advice available through the Government’s support programme for communities preparing a neighbourhood plan before we turn to the specific role of local planning authorities. The Government’s £22.5 million support programme has been accessed by communities across the country and has made more than 1,800 payments since it was launched in March 2015. The support available now is very different from that which may have been available to some of the early pioneers of neighbourhood planning. All those wanting to prepare a neighbourhood plan can apply for grant of up to £9,000 to help them do so. Those that fall into certain priority groups can apply for up to a further £6,000. I am not sure that that is widely known. I think there is work to be done to make sure that it is more widely known.

We have reflected on the experiences of early pioneers and responded to new challenges that groups have faced. For instance, specific toolkits and technical support are now available to help groups establish neighbourhood forums in unparished areas, which are usually urban areas, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, to assist with assessing local housing needs and to support those wishing to allocate sites for development. Any group wishing to modify its existing neighbourhood plan can also apply for support in the same way as any other group can on initially setting up. I applaud the work being done by those who are setting up neighbourhood forums or parish councils. Although there is only one parish council in London, there are neighbourhood forums in London and many work across boroughs, such as the Kilburn Neighbourhood Plan Forum which works across the boroughs of Brent and Camden on specific projects.

The Government have also established a national network of 132 neighbourhood planning champions. These volunteers are drawn from local planning authorities and neighbourhood groups and provide advocacy and peer-to-peer support. We are continuing to support them across England through further training and local networking events. Last year, the Government launched a national advertising campaign to promote take-up of neighbourhood planning, targeting 81 local authority areas through adverts in local press, local radio, online and on-street posters. I shall endeavour to provide more information on that. Perhaps it can be disseminated to particular councils that noble Lords will be familiar with so that we can share some of this information more widely because that would be appropriate.

If I have not said this already, and I do not think I have, I will write again. The letter regarding the first day of Committee is in the process of being finalised, and I would like to write another one to pick up points that I do not cover or fully cover in the course of today’s debate. So once again there will be a write-round.

I turn specifically to Amendment 16. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and others who have contributed to the debate. This is an important area. Already, communities in over 70% of local planning authority areas have taken up the opportunities offered by neighbourhood planning, but I fully acknowledge that that does not capture the fact that there are massive gaps. In other words, there are groups throughout the country but it needs to permeate much more widely. There is much more to do, as noble Lords have rightly said.

Local planning authorities have a legal duty to give such advice or assistance as they consider appropriate to facilitate neighbourhood planning. As set out on Tuesday in response to a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, these duties are funded by my department under the new burdens doctrine. I can confirm that that funding will continue into the next financial year, and the amount of that will be released ahead of the new financial year so details of it will follow.

Planning guidance sets out the Government’s expectation for local planning authorities to take a proactive and positive approach, working collaboratively with those preparing a neighbourhood plan to ensure that neighbourhood plan proposals have the greatest chance of success. Building on this, Clause 5 requires authorities to set out in their statements of community involvement their policies for providing support to their communities. That requirement applies irrespective of whether there is any existing neighbourhood planning activity in the area and will bring transparency to the support that authorities provide, leading to more informed and equitable discussions.

The Government have set out, in the document entitled Further Information on How the Government Intends to use the Bill’s Delegated Powers, our intention to require statements to be reviewed at least every five years. While it will be for authorities themselves to decide whether the document should be revised, should an authority consider change unnecessary then it must publish its reasons why they are not updating the statement. The Government have also tabled an amendment to the Bill that would allow the Secretary of State to specify by regulations the content of those statements, and I think we are coming to those later.

Local planning authorities are also required to publish a map setting the designated neighbourhood areas in their authority area. Regulations also require authorities to publicise on their website, and by other means, when they designate a neighbourhood area or a forum, together with the progress of individual neighbourhood plans or neighbourhood development orders.

I turn to the part of the noble Lord’s amendment concerning community governance reviews, which are the reviews undertaken to decide whether new parish councils should be established. The Government have already taken steps to make it simpler for neighbourhood forums to request that new parish councils are created for their communities, and have supported communities up and down the country to set up new parishes through a £1 million investment over the past three years.

I can therefore reassure noble Lords that current requirements alongside measures in the Bill, together with government amendments that we have tabled, proactively promote neighbourhood planning and, as I have said, that we are seeking to publicise the benefits of neighbourhood planning.

I would like to cover some of the points that were made by noble Lords, if I can pick up those that I am in a position to answer. Those that I cannot, I will identify and write on later. We understand that around 90% of neighbourhood plans are in parish areas, a point that I think was made.

I was asked about the number of communities that have neighbourhood planning. I can say that over 2,000 communities in England have at least started the process of neighbourhood planning. If I am able to give a more detailed breakdown on that, I will do so when I write.

The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, raised the specific issue of the need occasionally, or perhaps more than occasionally, to change the boundaries of parishes that may be quite historic, and it may therefore be appropriate if that is revisited at times. At the heart of the neighbourhood planning process is the principle that it is for communities to decide what they plan for. Therefore the boundary of a neighbourhood area does not need to comply with administrative boundaries, and neighbourhoods can bring plans forward.

Specifically on changes to neighbourhood areas, I direct the noble Lord to Clause 4, which sets out some of the procedure. I appreciate that he was aiming more widely—in the sense of how to tackle the problem—but the procedure is covered by Clause 4. If there is anything else I can pick up on that in the write-round, I will do so.

The noble Lords, Lord Tope, Lord Horam and—I think—Lord Shipley, also raised the issue of how we tackle London specifically, and perhaps it relates to a wider area. I will consider that. There are quite a few neighbourhood forums in London, but no parish councils. I accept that, and I will see whether there is anything that we can usefully contribute on that.

I think that those are the main issues that were raised. If I have missed anything I will pick it up in correspondence. We take this issue seriously, and I will seek to address in correspondence some of the specific points raised in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, in introducing this valuable amendment. With that reassurance, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for the positive and constructive way in which he responded to this amendment. It gives some hope that the Government might, in addition to letting us know what they are doing, put a bit more oomph behind this process. Before I comment on the Minister’s response, I have one or two comments for other noble Lords—and I thank all noble Lords who took part.

My noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor talked about changing parish boundaries. Since responsibility for local governance review passed to the local authority and no longer requires the heavy-handed involvement of the Boundary Commission—I am not sure when it was—the process has been quite easy. If a local authority wants to review parish boundaries it can do so through the local governance review, which sets out exactly how it should take place. It can do it for the whole authority area or for just one or two parishes—to tackle a particular problem, such as the one my noble friend mentioned. It does not, therefore, need a new process, just for the local authority—in this case presumably Cornwall unitary council—to agree to do it.

The noble Lord, Lord Horam, reminded me of the only time I have been to Orpington. It was an extremely long time ago, and the first time I ever knocked on a door was on behalf of a Liberal candidate: Eric Lubbock, in the by-election of 1962. Before his sad death last year he was, of course, for many years, Lord Avebury. I remember it well. I would not claim to be an expert on Orpington but I would have thought that Orpington and perhaps some other communities there, such as Biggin Hill—where I remember traipsing around on unmade roads—would be an ideal place for a parish council. It ought to happen.

I am a member of an authority and was heavily involved in setting up area committees about 20 years ago. It is important for area committees on a local authority to be given real powers and not just be talking shops. We have had area committees with real powers. In fact the political job I most enjoyed in my life was chairing the Colne and District area committee for a number of years—again, quite a long time ago.

My noble friend Lord Tope said that we knew what neighbourhoods were but drawing boundaries was always extremely difficult. I think people bring that up as an excuse for not doing it. Drawing boundaries is not difficult if you know what community you want to define, and its core. Then you have to find a way to draw the boundaries with the consent of the people who live on and around them. It is usually quite possible. People know the part of the borough, or whatever, that they live in and, if they do not, a sensible decision has to be made. However, in most cases, drawing boundaries is not difficult.

The important, and more difficult, job is deciding what the core community is to start off with. Sometimes it is the local authority ward. If the local authority ward has been long established—I was about to say “and has been there a long time”, which would be tautologous—because of the activity that has taken place on a ward boundary basis and because that is what the councillors represent, then those boundaries, which initially were pretty arbitrary, take on meaning over the years. That is the case with some of the new authorities that were set up in 1974. In some cases, wards are perfectly reasonable places but, again, it is a question of judgment. In other places where the wards have recently been redrawn, that has resulted in complete nonsense for neighbourhood and community purposes, and things have to be done differently.

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[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, before I turn to government Amendments 21, 22, 23 and 130, I shall make some introductory remarks which I hope will set the context for our discussion. We have been clear that we want to see a more collaborative and effective planning system. We have discussed the energy and passion that many communities invest in the preparation of neighbourhood plans, and we are committed to seeing that number grow. We discussed that particularly in relation to the amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. We also recognise that not all communities may wish to prepare a neighbourhood plan. Some communities and their local planning authorities are working collaboratively on the local plan for their area, and we want to encourage that. This is also a point we discussed during our first day in Committee.

Clause 11 will clarify how communities can be involved in decisions about the wider planning of their area. It extends the matters to be set out by a local planning authority in its statement of community involvement. This will ensure that authorities include in these statements their policies for involving their communities and others in the preliminary stages of plan-making. Specifically in relation to their functions under Sections 13 and 15 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, these include a local planning authority’s survey function and the preparation and maintenance of a local development scheme. The latter must set out the development plan documents that collectively make up the local plan for the authority’s area, their subject matter and geographic coverage and the timetable for their preparation and revision.

Including an authority’s policies for involving local people in the work an authority will do to survey its area will help local people understand and express views on the changes that may be taking place in the local population, which may influence the type of housing needed, for example, or in the local economy, which may influence the type of accommodation business may need. Changes such as these will drive the development needs of an area that any plan may need to address.

Requiring an authority to set out how it will involve local people when taking decisions on the development plan documents that it will prepare will encourage a discussion between the local planning authority and its community on whether communities may wish to prepare a neighbourhood plan as an alternative to one or more of the authority’s documents. The changes introduced by Clause 11 pave the way for more informed and equitable discussions between local planning authorities and their local communities about the future local growth and development of their area and the sorts of planning documents that will shape these changes.

Government Amendments 21, 22 and 23 will allow the Secretary of State to produce regulations which set out further matters which local planning authorities must address in their statements of community involvement. They will ensure that the Government can clarify further for communities, including neighbourhood planning groups and others, how they can play a role in the development of their area. For example, the amendments will enable the Secretary of State to require authorities to set out how they will provide advice to neighbourhood planning groups on the relationship between a neighbourhood plan and the plans that the authority has prepared or is preparing. This was an issue raised in the other place which my honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Planning committed to consider further. The amendment responds to that concern. It will also ensure that we can leave communities in no doubt that authorities will set out who they propose to involve and when and how they can get involved.

Government Amendment 130 amends the commencement provision in the Bill to ensure that the power to make regulations in Amendment 23 comes into force with the passing of the Act. I beg to move.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, these amendments are broadly welcome—I think. The devil will be in what the regulations say, of course, but if they are not as benevolent as the Minister is suggesting, we will have a row then. Otherwise I think they are all right.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for enlightening me, if not other members of the Committee, as to the otherwise completely incomprehensible terms of Amendments 21 and 22. Not having been given a crystal ball to look into, I could not really understand what they were about, but he has partially explained them, for which I am grateful.

However, on Amendment 23, we are again in the business of secondary legislation. I do not know whether the Government have yet consulted at all on the regulations and whether there is any chance of seeing any draft regulations before Report, but it would be interesting to know whether they had embarked on a consultation with the Local Government Association, for example, about the contents of any such regulations. Again, it looks like the Government imposing a particular way of proceeding on local government, possibly without any real exchange of views about how that might best be achieved. As we know, other Committees in your Lordships’ House have expressed great concern about the increasing reliance on secondary legislation that all too often emerges without any real evidence of effective consultation about what it should contain.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I thank noble Lords for their participation in this debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for his almost wholesale welcome, and I hope to avoid the punch-up—

[Lord Greaves]

The provisional punch-up.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

The provisional punch-up, yes. I will certainly seek to avoid that.

I have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, about the rather obscure, not to say Delphic, nature of the provisions; they took me quite a while to get through as well. With regard to more detailed information on policies and so on, we supplied some supplementary information to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which I will ensure is circulated to noble Lords to provide more detail on the thinking behind this.

We certainly want to ensure that we discuss the way forward on the issue. This provision was widely welcomed in the Commons, and it is our intention that it should be a means of ensuring that communities are properly involved. I do not think there is anything sinister here, so I am happy to share what documents we have and use them as a way forward.

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Judd in saying what a sensible amendment this is, as moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parks. The noble Baroness is very experienced in these matters: she is a former councillor in Westminster, she campaigns for leaseholders and she knows this area very well. She has come to the assistance of the House many times on these matters, and we are again grateful to her today. It is right that public holidays should be taken account of, particularly, as she mentioned, in August and at Christmas. They are not, and it is unfair that notices are slipped out when people are not around. I hope that the Government understand that and give a positive response to the issue raised by the noble Baroness.

I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, has had to leave the Grand Committee tonight. On her behalf, the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, made the sensible and important point that statutory consultees should be made to respond in an appropriately reasonable time. I suspect we all know who we are talking about when we talk about those who do not respond—it is the same all over the place, and we should do something about it.

We support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor. It seems practical and sensible that the power to appoint members of boards on new town development corporations should be devolved to the local authority, along with matters of financial conduct. I hope that we can get that agreed.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I obviously support both the amendments from my noble friends, particularly the one from my noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, which deals with a very important issue. The other two amendments in the group raise what some noble Lords might consider to be fairly trivial issues, but they are actually very important.

I make one further point about the issue raised by my noble friend Lady Pinnock. If you are taking a major planning application to committee towards the end of the 16-week period in which the Government say it has to be determined—for a new housing estate or industry or whatever—and you have not received a response from important statutory undertakers such as the Environment Agency or the highways authority, or if you are a county district and you are waiting for the county to wake up and submit a consultation response, you have a choice. You can either delay it beyond the deadline and take it to the next committee, which might be three or four weeks later, or you can determine the application without the specific expert advice that you need but have not got within your own authority. You will certainly not have the statutory advice in your own authority. If you do that, it adds to the delays in determinations. As we know, planning authorities are in danger of being sanctioned by the Government and having their ability to determine applications taken away if they do not meet the Government’s deadlines. It is out of their hands.

So what do we do? Do we pass an application that we think is dodgy but for which we do not have the evidence to turn down until we get the advice from the county or wherever, or do we risk being sanctioned and delay it? There is a serious issue here; it is not at all trivial.

The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parks, raised another issue. In all the years that I chaired committees with development control powers—what used to be the planning sub-committees, then the area committees—the greatest anger among members of the public came from their belief that they had not been consulted properly. They would be concerned and very worried about the planning application, but they would become angry because they had not been consulted. That is the way it is. They would say, “The notice you put up was too small”; “It was across the other side of the field”; “The bull came and removed it”; “Why did my neighbour get a letter and we did not get a letter?”; “The article in the local newspaper came after the deadline for sending in objections”, and so on. I used to say to them, “For heaven’s sake, you have got five minutes to tell us why you are against this—use your five minutes. You are here. You knew it happened. The consultation worked”. They would say, “No—you did not do this and you did not do that”.

This is a very sensible proposal because one of the things that people get most upset about is when a consultation happens over Christmas or Easter. They sometimes even say, “It happened in June when I was away on holiday and I couldn’t do anything about it”. As an authority, we are flexible. If objections come in after the deadline but before the committee, they all get reported to the committee anyway—we are not stupid like that—and people can come to the committee. Even so, people get upset about this issue. I do not think it needs primary legislation, it just needs a change to either the development order or the advice and guidance to planning authorities. The Government ought to say to authorities “Do not include bank holidays or holiday periods”.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has reminded me, as a member of the planning committee in Lewisham, that we rarely refuse applications —we always get advice on what we can or cannot do—but on a couple of occasions we have deferred applications on the basis that people have not been consulted properly. Sometimes the worst offender can be the council itself, if the housing department has not consulted properly. Some people come to the meetings and they are very cross because, as the noble Baroness said, the notice has gone through the wrong doors. People find out by rumour but those who should have been told have not been told at all. If that is proved to our committee, we will certainly defer a decision and allow a proper period for public consultation on the application.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 31st January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I should remind the Committee at the outset that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I want briefly to express my support for the objectives set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, in her amendment, which provides a foundation for and gives a clear sense of direction to the Bill. The crucial word of course is “duty” in that the amendment seeks to place in the Bill a duty on the Secretary of State to undertake certain actions, one of which is to uphold neighbourhood development plans and not simply to think that such a plan can actually be overwritten because a planning inspector or the local planning authority suddenly feels that the neighbourhood plan is out of date or may no longer apply. This is important because if the duty does not exist, it means that local people cannot have confidence in the fact that the neighbourhood plan they have produced will actually stand the test of time. The second duty on the Secretary of State would be to ensure that local planning authorities had sufficient resources to enable them to own, implement and defend—a very important word—neighbourhood development plans.

This amendment is important and I hope that discussions may be held prior to the Report stage at which the Minister might give us some indication of what the Government are prepared to do to give greater force than is provided by the Bill to the development of neighbourhood plans which can stand the test of time. One problem we have had to date is that local planning authorities have not been as supportive as perhaps they ought to be, and as I said at Second Reading, there has been a problem about the creation of a five-year land supply. A neighbourhood plan, where it has been adopted in advance of the local plan being agreed, then finds itself under pressure which may, in the view of the Secretary of State, lead to it having to be revised.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, has said many wise things, one of which was to express her concern about poor-quality development in defiance of good planning principles. This Bill is about building communities, not just building houses. The noble Baroness reminded us of how the roles are confused between the Secretary of State, and through the Secretary of State the Planning Inspectorate, the local planning authority and the neighbourhood plan. This needs to be sorted out and I hope very much that the Minister will be agreeable to trying to find a way to do so that gives even greater weight to the statutory importance of neighbourhood plans.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I should declare my interests again as we begin a new stage of the Bill. I am the deputy leader of Pendle Borough Council and a member of a development control committee. I am also a member of the neighbourhood planning steering group for the parish of Trawden Forest, which may provide an interesting view of the planning situation from different sides, not the least of which is discussing a new piece of legislation about it today.

Neighbourhood planning is new, which I suppose is why the Government are feeling their way along with everybody else and why we seem to get an annual Bill to fettle the legislation a little. Although some 1,800 projects have been started, and some finished, around the country, it is still very much a minority pursuit throughout England—that is something I want to return to on another amendment.

It seems more and more important for local planning authorities and neighbourhood planning bodies, whether forums or parishes, to work closely together and have good working relationships. It is becoming clear that in some places where difficulties are occurring in getting neighbourhood planning off the ground or carrying it out it is because those relationships do not exist. From the planning authority point of view—the district, the borough, the unitary authority or whatever it is—there is not an openness and a willingness to change the way they work and to accommodate the whole idea of neighbourhood planning, which can make things a great deal more complicated.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, there is a Division in the Chamber. This Committee stands adjourned for 10 minutes.

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[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, this issue is complicated. I think I was referring to the fact that for local authority planning departments the system is much more complicated if they have a series of neighbourhood plans taking place after their local plan has been dealt with, at the same time as it is being dealt with, or whatever. I think we have 18 parishes in Pendle—we are completely “parished”—three of which have their neighbourhood plans under way and at least two more which are making a serious start on them. This process requires a different kind of relationship between a local planning department, local planning committees and people on the ground in neighbourhoods. The amendment would be extremely useful in getting things going. It refers to the, “provision of additional housing”. I am not clear whether this is additional to that set out in a local plan or is the additional housing required by a local plan. Either way, changing housing needs are at the core of a lot of the problems and difficulties that have arisen, and of this relationship. In our area the district council is just starting the second half of the local plan, which concerns site allocations.

Those of us working on neighbourhood plans are fortunate enough to work with the local authority and, we hope, align the two documents. The local authority has set out the number of houses it expects to be given planning permission in each parish over the period of the local plan. That is extremely helpful because it means we know how many houses we have to plan for as a minimum. The difficulty comes not with the housing allocations in the plan but with the five-year supply. Whereas the plans themselves appear to give certainty, the five-year supply suddenly does not give certainty as it is a moving dynamic that goes on from year to year and can suddenly result in more houses being needed than people are planning for, as we have seen following some appeals.

The five-year supply is worked out in technical, complicated ways. It is very difficult for people to understand how it is worked out, how it is implemented and how it changes. If they have been working on the neighbourhood plan, or indeed an ordinary local plan, it is difficult for them to understand why things suddenly change. The Government need to pull back from the whole concept of five-year supply. It is not necessary, complicates the whole process and renders how the system works opaque for most people—certainly most people who may be interested in planning applications or putting neighbourhood plans together. If it is in a plan, and if it is set out that those houses are needed over a certain period, that gives certainty and clarity—so long as that is stuck to. Perhaps the planning could be revised, maybe after five or 10 years, or whatever. Nevertheless, it gives clarity. This is an important issue. The five-year supply is not appropriate for producing good neighbourhood planning.

The only other thing I want to pick up is the suggestion in proposed new subsection (2) to enable local planning authorities to own neighbourhood development plans. Again, it is very important that once a neighbourhood plan has been adopted the local planning authority thinks it owns it, and not just the neighbourhood that put it together. That again comes back to the relationship between the two and the need to change the culture and attitudes of planners. These neighbourhood plans are not just a nuisance, an awkward complication to be tagged on to the local plan; they are a fundamental part of the overall development plan. Talking to people round the country, that change in culture has not yet occurred in quite a few local planning authorities.

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[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, this is the important, high-level stuff. I raise what might be called the low-level stuff about the nature of the relationship between the local planning authority and its staff, its members and the neighbourhood planners. Does the Minister agree with my assessment that in some places it works very well and in others there is quite a lot of tension, difficulties and resistance on the part of the local planning authority? Would he comment on what might be done, without being too heavy-handed, to get local planning authorities to change their attitude where necessary?

While I am on my feet, the amendment refers to resources. As I understand it, the resources that the Government make available to a neighbourhood planning group, and whether it is a parish or forum, as the Minister referred to, is the same whatever the size of the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood may be quite a small village or a town such as Colne, which I know, which is embarking on neighbourhood planning. It has about 18,000 people and is quite a big town. People in small places are saying that the available grant does not pay for the process, so funds have to be found locally by a parish council or in other ways. Clearly, if my information is correct, the grant available in bigger places will not begin to cover this process, given that everything that the Government set out must be done for a neighbourhood plan costs money, as consultants may have to be brought in and so on. Will the Government look at that to make neighbourhood planning more financially viable than it is at present?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

Some of these points go well beyond this amendment. Nevertheless, I accept that they are important. The noble Lord gave examples of how this process works at the coalface. I suspect that he is much closer to the coalface than I am in that regard. We need to be a little careful about setting up a system that stresses the importance of localism and these things being done locally, and then have central government stepping in and saying, “Do it this way”. As I say, there are growing pains. We may indicate in guidance how better relationships can be achieved. That is what I seek to do through the dialogue I am offering.

On the neighbourhood groups that may benefit from money for the neighbourhood plan and for modifications, I think there is money available if a case is made for an extra sum. If I am wrong on that, I will write to noble Lords. However, if a case can be made, I think there is access to additional funding. As I have indicated, the White Paper will say more about funding and the financial side more generally.

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[Baroness Finn]

I concede ignorance but my understanding is that a number of planning applications have been called in. Perhaps that can be clarified. Basically, there has been significant movement on this and taken together all the current measures give sufficient protection to neighbourhood plans. The amendment proposed is simply not required.

[Lord Greaves]

I have a question for the Minister about Amendment 6, which he spoke to some time ago, while I also support my noble friend with her more ambitious amendment. Amendment 6 would amend paragraph 8 of Schedule 1 to the Town and Country Planning Act, and is about notifying parish councils and so on of planning applications. The inclusion of neighbourhood forums here is extremely welcome, giving them the right to have this. However, parish and town councils already have this right. Reading the amendment, I cannot quite understand what would be different in practice for parish councils from the rights they already have to be told about planning applications when they come in and to have their views on them taken into account—in other words, to be consulted. What is the difference? Why is all this extra wording needed for parish councils over and above what is there already?

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I found this a very helpful debate and conclude that if not now at some point soon the Minister will have to define words. The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, drew our attention to an important issue around the definition of the word “modification”. When I read the Bill for the first time, I assumed that it would be really very minor in practice. However, it may not be and I am not sure that we can wait until a month after the coming into force of Part 1 for that word to be defined. It is material to what is in the Bill.

Clause 3(2) states:

“After subsection (4) insert … A local planning authority may at any time by order modify a neighbourhood development order they have made if they consider that the modification does not materially affect any planning permission granted by the order”.


The word “materially” starts to become very important. What is the difference between affecting and materially affecting a planning permission? We need to get this sorted out so that we understand it, otherwise we will end up with a modification which I thought was minor actually having the potential to be much more substantial, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, pointed out. In addition, I should like to be clearer about what a material effect would be on a planning permission granted by the order. I want to understand that before we reach the Report stage. However, the debate as a whole has been extremely useful.

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[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, first, I will deal—in no particular order—with some of the points that were raised in relation to the government amendments. In relation to a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, about Amendment 6, previously it has been open to neighbourhood forums and neighbourhood groups to ask for notification of planning applications. Amendment 6 makes it automatic. That is the difference: it will happen automatically; there is no need to ask. The concern has been that previously some things may have slipped through the net so that is the reason for that.

[Lord Greaves]

In relation to parishes, as opposed to forums, this is just a lot more words but it is no different from the present system.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

It will be automatic notification. That is the key point.

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[Baroness Cumberlege]

My Lords, this is my swansong; this is the last time that your Lordships have to endure me. I have an amendment coupled with this one, but I say to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, that I so agree with him. It is really important that we do not try—to use an expression appropriate for a planning Bill—to make bricks without straw, because it does not work; we need resourcing.

My amendment is a little different, being about the community infrastructure levy, which it would increase. It is a probing amendment, but if it is intended to continue the direction of travel towards localism and the greater empowerment of parish and town councils, we have not only to find some financial incentives for communities to accept development—although many of them do at the moment—but to encourage planning permissions for the building of houses. That was a significant feature of the coalition Government’s housing and planning reforms and a source of funding to principal councils.

One such initiative was the community infrastructure levy, which came into force in April 2010. It allows principal councils to raise funds from developers undertaking new building projects in their area and to fund a wide range of infrastructure needed as a result of the development. The community infrastructure levy-charging authorities are required to transfer to the parish or town councils 15% of the levy receipts arising from development that takes place in their area, rising to 25% for areas with an adopted neighbourhood plan.

Unfortunately, research suggests that local councils have been passed only 1% of the community levy receipts—just £92,000 despite principal councils collecting more than £9 million between April 2013 and June 2014. That is largely because it is not mandatory for principal councils to have a community infrastructure levy scheme in place and it has the effect of communities accepting development but not benefiting from the share of the levy to invest in local infrastructure needs and priorities.

It is vital that communities which are pro-growth benefit financially from policy incentives such as the community levy so as to invest in locally identified infrastructure needs and other community priorities. The first part of my amendment would address this issue by requiring local planning authorities to introduce the community infrastructure levy within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed. I am sure my noble friend the Minister has more recent and up-to-date information about how this policy is being delivered, so I look forward to his response.

Paragraph (b) of my amendment is simply intended to increase the incentive for communities to embark on the development of a neighbourhood plan. At present, areas with an adopted neighbourhood plan are entitled to 25% of the levy. However, it does not happen everywhere. I should like to see neighbourhood planning grow, and for more communities to get involved and take a positive approach to future development in their area. To accelerate the uptake, I think a further range of measures is needed to build on efforts to date and, in particular, to ensure that communities benefit financially from development. Increasing the amount of the community infrastructure levy would provide an enhanced incentive. It would also have the added benefit of relieving some of the pressure on the parish precept as the principal means of income to invest in local projects, assets and infrastructure. I am sure my noble friend has other ideas as to how some of this could be achieved. This is a probing amendment and something that I think is worthy of discussion.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I understand the reasons behind this amendment and I sympathise very much with them. However, to force all local authorities to impose a community infrastructure levy—a CIL—is actually not practical. I speak as a member of one authority that does not impose a CIL, and there are quite a lot. There are parts of the country where the viability of development is marginal. Whether it is infrastructure, commercial or housing development, the difficulty is making it stack up financially. In my part of the world, there would be more development allowed, promoted—and welcomed to some extent—if it were financially viable. If it is not financially or only marginally viable, imposing a CIL would simply result in less development. It cannot be imposed everywhere, nor should we look at areas that can impose CILs with green eyes—as we look at a lot of the country with green eyes on financial matters. We have to survive in the environment that we are in. From that point of view, I cannot support the first part of this amendment although, where CILs are imposed, the second part might well be reasonable.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

In the debate on the last amendment, I raised the question of the community infrastructure levy and Section 106 because that amendment was more about what the planning authorities can get. This amendment is about what the neighbourhood planning areas will get. I quite understand that the Minister will want to wrap up his responses, so there is the question that I raised on the earlier amendment about the impact of having to be directly attributable on the ability to access this money. I am also told there is a problem in that many developers insist on having specifically costed projects before they will sign an agreement for Section 106 or CIL. That is a problem if this is the first of a number of sequential developments. A local area may very well not have a detailed specific cost, but they are, in effect, building up a pot. In my local area we did that for a new relief road, though it took five years and something like four phases of development to reach it. Specifically, to the point of neighbourhood planning areas, I have also been told that some planning authorities are insisting that the neighbourhood planning areas have to have a general power of competence in order to be able to spend CIL money.

The points I have raised have all been raised with me by the National Association of Local Councils. Perhaps, rather than go into too much detail in his reply, it would be helpful if the Minister could undertake to meet that body again to go through those concerns and make sure that everybody is on the same page. It could then disseminate the information using its networks.

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[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his constructive response. I was rather taken with his notion that the Government have a rigorous policy towards meeting new burdens. I would have thought “rigor mortis” might be a more appropriate description of their performance in that area but he is clearly well intentioned and we hope to see some evidence of that as the legislation goes forward.

Significantly, the figures he quoted on the community infrastructure levy were quite alarming in many ways. From what he said, authorities are not necessarily taking full advantage of what is currently available. Has the Minister considered talking to the Local Government Association about that? This matter should be taken forward in that way. I will certainly ensure that the points he made today are heard. I hope that process can be tackled. It is for the noble Baroness to comment more specifically on that subject since she raised it but there seems to be an issue here. One way or another, the system does not seem to be working adequately, yet apparently the goodwill is there on the government side to ensure it does. Perhaps after the event we could look at ways to promote the use of what should be a helpful instrument for both local authorities and the communities they represent.

[Lord Greaves]

We have had this discussion on previous Bills. In my authority, for example, it is not through lack of willingness or knowledge of CIL that we do not impose it. It is simply that if we impose it, it will make particular brownfield sites even less viable. On brownfield sites, we have to subsidise housing development to get it going and apply a kind of negative CIL, paid for by the council. That is the only way to do it. There is a mismatch here between different parts of the country.

[Lord Beecham]

I am not suggesting that all local authorities are able or would wish to impose the levy, for the very reasons that the noble Lord has just given. The question is whether there are authorities that could do so without the kind of impact the noble Lord described on his authority but have not yet taken advantage of it. It is pointless to speculate on the nature of those authorities but I suspect that some district councils, for example, might not have the officer resource to deal with what ought to be something that would benefit them. That matter should be looked at by the Government and the LGA together. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Greaves Excerpts

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

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to listen to the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. How good it is to have her wisdom and experience on a planning Bill. Another new year, another planning Bill. I am reminded that it is only about a year since we discussed the then Housing and Planning Bill, which is now the Housing and Planning Act. I thank the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Bourne—for his recent letter which set out in detail the timetable for the regulations under that Act and the way in which they are being implemented. That is extremely helpful and will help our consideration of this Bill too.

I need to declare an interest as deputy leader of Pendle Borough Council. I worked out that I think I have spent exactly half the years of my life as a member of a planning committee of some kind on some kind of local authority. It gets worse than that: I have actually enjoyed doing it. I should also declare that I am a member—not a very active one—of the steering group for the Trawden Forest neighbourhood plan, which is an interesting experience.

I say not for the first time in your Lordships’ House that in my view the planning system in this country is bust in many respects. However, it is not bust in the way that housebuilders and the Government think. I too refer to the two main reasons the Government have put forward for the Bill—namely, to help identify and free up more land on which to build homes and to speed up the delivery of new homes.

If we are talking about neighbourhood planning, building new homes is an important part of that but it does not define neighbourhood planning in any way whatever. The noble Baroness said that it is all about vision and that the vision is about far more than simply building homes; rather, it is about the whole future of communities. We should not allow a single-minded objective of building houses in the Bill to make us lose sight of that. It is not what neighbourhood planning was intended to achieve; it is part of it. My noble friend Lord Stunell will no doubt point out that neighbourhood planning is one of the most successful parts of the Localism Act, the passage of which he played a very important part in in the then Government.

The planning system is broken because it often gets the blame for low housing numbers. Government after Government seek quick fixes by tinkering with the planning system whereas what we really need to look at is the supply of new houses and why people are not building them. There are clearly some instances where people would like to build but say they cannot do so because of bureaucratic obstruction by the planning authority. However, that is not the main reason why the number of new houses being built in this country is not high enough. No doubt we will discuss that as the Bill goes through. As the noble Lord, Lord Porter of Spalding, said, one of the major reasons for that situation is the refusal of successive Governments—I would say the stubborn refusal—to allow local authorities to borrow money against their assets in order to build new houses. It is just extraordinary that we cannot do this.

If the planning system is to blame for this or that or is not working properly, the real problem, as I have said before, lies not with development control—or development management, as we now have to call it—but with the plan-making system. I believe that system is overbureaucratic, overexpensive and sclerotic in many ways. If we go back over the history of this we will see that there have always been local plans of some sort since planning was first invented. Some of us remember the old town maps. However, modern plan-making started with the local government reorganisation of 1974, when, in a two-tier area such as mine, we had county structure plans and district local plans all set out under a development plan scheme. Originally, these were fairly simple affairs. However, they have become more and more complicated as time has gone on, and more and more subject to central government interference and the attempt to micromanage what happens locally. I suppose that peaked under the Labour Government when they invented regional spatial strategies, which were no bad thing in themselves but involved setting out centralised housing targets for a whole region. They were divvied out among sub-regions and counties and were then divvied out to districts. It was all very top-down and prescriptive and resulted in some ridiculous situations.

In my own part of the world in east Lancashire, the district councils were told—10 or 15 years ago, I think —that they were not allowed to give planning permission for any new housing. We wanted to give planning permission for housing but were not allowed to do it unless it was a case of replacing housing that had been demolished, or in one or two very specialised cases such as converting old pubs into apartments. It was called the moratorium. There was a ridiculous moment in your Lordships’ House when I tabled an Oral Question to question the Government on this as part of our campaign to try to get the moratorium lifted. The junior Minister stood up and replied that there was no moratorium, it did not exist. All the planning officers in east Lancashire fell off their chairs when they heard that. Six months later we managed to get the measure through—I suppose that somebody in the department had made a decision on it—and start giving planning permission again. However, we had previously been banned from giving planning permission for new housing. Now the opposite applies. We are being given targets that are impossible to achieve within the housing market in east Lancashire. It is a case of the same problem producing different situations. The problem is that Governments operate a one-size-fits-all type of policy-making which they apply to everybody. If they just left the people in the districts to get on with it, we would do much better.

Then we were told that we had too many houses, so we could not give any more planning permissions. Now we are told that we do not have enough, so our half of Lancashire is being forced to give planning permissions for houses that we know will never get built, at least not within the period of the plan under which they are being given planning permission. Therefore, when the coalition came in in 2010, it said—it sounded great—“No more top-down targets for housing”. But what it actually did was to set detailed rules and regulations on how you had to work out your housing targets locally, which were then subject to inspection. All that actually happened was that an extremely expensive process took place under which each district’s planning authority has to work out its own targets and then impose them. I suspect that they are pretty well the same targets that would be set if they had simply been imposed centrally.

Under the evidential base—as it is called—for collecting information, you have something called a SHMA, a strategic housing market assessment. We also have a SHLAA, a strategic housing land availability assessment. Every district has to produce these. Because they are small planning authorities and do not have sufficient internal staff, they have to employ consultants. The whole thing is an absolute bonanza for consultants who are doing very well. The whole process does not involve common sense or all that much democratic input. It is complex, opaque, impenetrable, costs a bomb and is a field day for consultants, as I said. Neighbourhood planning is working on the ground and is coming up from the grass roots, as it were. However, it is having to be welded or melded—or whatever the word is—into this top-down, bureaucratic, sclerotic system. It is not surprising that there are problems and difficulties in that. As I say, neighbourhood planning has been successful. Volunteers, particularly parish councils, can get involved in it. That is a model for the future. I was going to say that the Government should “let a thousand flowers flourish”, but that may be the wrong analogy and, like other people, I could be accused of being a Marxist. If we were to allow that to happen, the Government would get more of what they wanted, with more success.

My final point is on parish councils. I do not think it is any surprise that the great majority of neighbourhood plans that have been produced, and are being produced, are in areas where they have parish councils—they are parished areas—and the parish council has been either the initial impetus for getting the neighbourhood plan going or the focus of it right the way through. Parish councils have an existing structure and are an existing group of people who have been able to take it on and are used to negotiating with the district council. One of the great challenges of neighbourhood planning now, which we might discuss in Committee, is how to get a lot more neighbourhood planning going in unparished areas. In many cases they are urban areas, but they are not always big urban areas. There are lots of quite small towns that do not have a town or parish council and where a neighbourhood plan is needed.

The Bill will not sort out the fairly shambolic state of the plan-making system in this country. However, it has some things in it that can make improvements, and perhaps we can try to stop it doing much harm.

Business Rates: Devolution

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 21st December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the first point I make to the noble Lord is that, although new responsibilities are being talked about, he will recognise that a considerable amount of new finance will be generated by 100% business rate retention. We are talking about some £12.5 billion—a considerable sum. Yes, of course the discussion is both within government and, as I indicated, with our local authority partners.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that business rate income for local authorities can be quite erratic and unpredictable, particularly for small local authorities, owing to the large number of appeals against business rate valuations now in the system? Will the Minister take steps to speed up the process of dealing with such appeals? Does he understand that, for many local authorities, it is very difficult to plan a budget for the next year without putting aside a serious amount of reserve money—which could otherwise be used for services—as a means of mitigating potential risks arising from a reduction in business rate owing to appeals, which can involve the payment of refunds as well as reducing the current year’s income?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right about there being an element of risk and volatility in the system. We are seeking to address both those points to ensure that we smooth the process. Risk from a single business on which a local authority was very dependent would perhaps create an issue and so would appeals, which, as the noble Lord indicated, can have an effect on cash flow. We are seeking to address both of those in discussions with local authorities. We also have a technical working group drawing on people from local authorities as well as from the DCLG and elsewhere to address the very issues that the noble Lord raises.

Planning: Brownfield Sites

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Greaves]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they are making in encouraging the development of brownfield sites.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and remind the House of my interest as deputy leader of Pendle Council.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, we strongly encourage the development of brownfield land, which has an important role in delivering new housing. We have taken steps to maximise the number of dwellings built on suitable brownfield land, including through the introduction of brownfield registers.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, brownfield registers are welcome but they do nothing to bring forward brownfield land in areas where building houses on brownfield sites is not financially viable, such as where I live in east Lancashire. You cannot make a profit by selling them and you cannot get your return by renting them, because the local housing market is so depressed and prices are so low. Do the Government understand that to develop brownfield land in areas such as this, where the market is not viable, gap funding is required? What are they doing to help local authorities provide such gap funding?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, first, I endorse the good work done by Pendle Council in east Lancashire on brownfield sites. On the comment the noble Lord raised, which was essentially about grant funding rather than loan funding, Pendle has applied under the starter home fund with regard to brownfield land, and I also encourage a look at the Lancashire local enterprise fund with regard to competitive growth deals, which would benefit the area.

Global Climate Change

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, on this matter. His work, throughout his working lifetime, and expertise are of great value to this House and to society in general. I congratulate him on securing this debate.

Quite often in this country when we talk about action on global climate change and what we should be doing here, people say, “Why bother? Our emissions are only a small proportion of those in the rest of the world, and we really ought to be worrying about China, India and many other countries”. There are two reasons. The first is that if everybody took that view, no progress would be made. The second is that leadership has to be provided. During the last Government—the coalition Government—this country was providing genuine leadership on climate change, led by the Energy Secretary at the time, Ed Davey, who of course is a member of my party, the Liberal Democrats.

At the beginning of the last Government, the PM announced that they were going to be “the greenest Government ever”. Whether they were or not is something we can argue about for ever, but what is absolutely clear is that during the coalition there were a very substantial number of green initiatives. Billions were invested in renewables, thousands of green jobs were created and ambitious climate change targets were agreed. Internationally, we were in the forefront of discussion at the Lima conference in December last year and, under the coalition, Ed Davey was arguably instrumental in achieving the European Union climate deal to reduce greenhouse gases by at least 40% by 2030. It is arguable that, had he not been there, that agreement would not have been achieved. He was certainly in the forefront of it.

The question is: have the new Conservative Government followed the work of the coalition? We can argue about particular issues during the coalition—there were many compromises and lots of arguments took place—but, by and large, they were a good Government in this area. Friends of the Earth has now criticised David Cameron and the majority Tory Government for dismantling the low-carbon policies of the past 10 years. It has been said that our Prime Minister has gone from hugging huskies to talking about “green crap”, to quote what he is supposed to have said.

This country should not be in that position. In the five or six months since the coalition left office, the Conservatives have ended all government funding for the Green Deal, which was an attempt to do what is vital: to make homes more energy-efficient. Much better insulation of homes is a vital part of reducing carbon use, because it reduces the amount of energy needed. The Green Deal was in my view not perfect by any means, but it was a start. The Conservatives have scrapped subsidies for onshore wind and commercial solar power. Noble Lords who have followed these debates will know that I am not a huge fan of terrestrial wind power because of the threat to the landscape in our uplands, but I am not saying that there should not be any. Maritime wind power should certainly have a great future, but the future of that industry is in doubt.

The Government have announced plans to sell off the Green Investment Bank. The green bank was never on the scale or ambition that our party wanted, but again it was a very useful start. There is now real worry that if it is sold off, its objectives will be profit-maximising rather than green. The tax break for clean cars was abolished in the Budget. Rules on zero-carbon new housing have been scrapped in the drive to build houses regardless of the consequences. The so-called tax for clean energy—removing the exemption from the climate change levy for businesses that source renewable energy—has been done away with.

Meanwhile, the Government are putting all their hopes in what for many of us is the very worrying deal with China over the Hinkley Point nuclear plant—it seems to be wrong on almost every count and very worrying for the future security of this country—and in fracking. I have not been a total opponent of fracking; I have spent a lot of time looking into it and considering the position. It is absolutely clear that fracking in this country is not the answer to our future energy problems. The more I look into it, the more I think that it really is not the answer to anything very much at all.

The Government are going up the wrong tracks on all these matters and will possibly be the least green Government for a long time. There has been a total reversal of policies since the coalition. While I was not a fan of everything the coalition did, this area is one where the lack of Liberal Democrats in Government is something the country will come to regret.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I was interested to hear that the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, thinks that we will be able to demolish the Conservative Party in future. We might demolish the Labour Party as well—who knows?—and then we will have achieved our goal in life. However, at the moment we are in coalition and we shall be loyal members of the coalition.

This has indeed been a very interesting debate. The one thing that has united everybody who has taken part is the importance of the Bill. It is a slim but important Bill. I am strongly in favour of the principle of fixed-term Parliaments, which forms the basis of the Bill. I believe that the power of a Prime Minister to seek a Dissolution is a democratic outrage and should have been abolished long ago. As noble Lords will know, I am also strongly in favour of this House doing its job properly and of the practicalities of this legislation being properly scrutinised and discussed in this House. I hope that that will happen and that we will not again witness the fairly deplorable events that occurred during the passage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. I am not at this stage pointing the finger at anybody. The House got itself into a huge tangle on that and, as they always say, it takes two to tangle. I do not believe that the Government were blameless although my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness played a blinder during that Bill.

The principle of this legislation has been Liberal Party and Liberal Democrat policy for decades. If anybody suggests that we have just invented it for party political advantage, that is complete nonsense. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, who is not in his place, said that the Liberal Democrats have an obsession with constitutional reform. Constitutional reform has certainly formed a very important part of our party policy and our party election manifestos for as long as I can remember. If we are now in a position to try to do something about that, we shall do so. It has been pointed out that it is also a Labour manifesto commitment—I assume that it is still Labour Party policy—that the principle we are discussing is correct. At some stage we want a very clear statement of what the Labour Party now stands for as regards fixed-term Parliaments.

I listened with great interest to the fluent, eloquent and interesting speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, and to those of other speakers. I listened carefully to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who is not in his place, and to that of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, who said that he was not persuaded by the Bill. I think that is his normal way of saying that he is completely against it but we will find that out. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that he was against all change. He thought that our constitution was wonderful and marvellous and that it should not be messed about with at all. Having listened to the speeches of a number of Labour Members, I got the impression that they could not imagine that anything different from what happens now was remotely desirable. We have seen on the part of quite a lot of Members the deep well of conservatism which exists within the Labour Party on constitutional matters. It was not always thus. Robin Cook was a pioneer in constitutional reform and the Cook-Maclennan agreement formed the basis of a lot of what the Labour Government did in the years after 1997 in setting up the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, changing the role of the Lord Chancellor, introducing changes in this House and, indeed, in phase 1 reform of your Lordships' House.

So there was an agenda there—it was a radical agenda but in latter years the Labour Government ran out of steam. We need to know what Labour policy is now and specifically what its policy on a fixed-term Parliament is. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said that the proposal had a high-minded aim. I agree with that but he then went on to say it is damaging and at the end of his speech he said it is an utter disaster and it is messing up the British constitution. Well, let us put on one side the way in which the legislation has been brought in. We have a job to do here—

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I did not say, I am afraid, it had “a high-minded aim”. I said there is very little to be said for this Bill and that it seeks to dress up as a piece of high-minded constitutional reform the chronic mistrust that the two parties, in my view correctly, have for each other. It is my fault for not expressing it clearly but I certainly was not intending to say it had a high-minded aim.

[Lord Greaves]

I am grateful for that correction but the noble and learned Lord allowed me to use the words. I believe it has a high-minded aim and it is something with which we agree. However, we still need to know, as a basis for our discussions in Committee and at following stages, what the Labour Party would like to do. What policies would the Labour Party be putting forward on this if it was still the Government? We have been told that we have to operate on the basis of what Mr Asquith said 100 years ago. Well, no one has greater admiration than me for the achievements of the great Liberal Governments in the eight years before the Great War. Really, things have changed a little bit in the past 100 years and if we are to argue on the basis of conditions 100 years ago we are not going to get very far, although the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, did say that what he said was for reasons of nostalgia and it would not have allowed Mr Callaghan to make his wonderful speech in 1979. I think we have got to start looking into the situation in the second decade of the present millennium.

Does the right of the Prime Minister to call an election give the Prime Minister a great advantage? We are being asked to believe that it does not. Whether or not it does it certainly dominates politics in the months and sometimes years leading up to a general election. It dominates politics, in my view, in a very undesirable way. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that Mr Blair and Mrs Thatcher were evidence that it did not work. They between them fought five elections, I think, and won them all as Prime Ministers. That is a very strange argument.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, in a very thoughtful speech from her position as chairman of the Constitution Committee, said that what we need is more accountable Government. I agree that Governments need to be much more accountable than they are now and have been for as long as I have known—and I think that the position has probably got worse over the years—but I believe that that accountability is far more to do with the relationship between government and Parliament; both Houses, but particularly the House of Commons. We have a convention here. One cannot be too acerbic in one’s criticism of the House of Commons so I am not going to be. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, is encouraging me to be critical. I am very critical of the way the House of Commons works. I do not think it holds the Government to account properly. There have been some recent changes which are beneficial but I believe that that whole area is far more important than whether it is elected for four or five years. I am disappointed at the way in which the coalition Government have related to Parliament. I understand why—the enthusiasm of new brooms wanting to sweep clean and wanting to get things done but I believe that they have been careless. In some areas they have been too bullying and I believe that is probably coming to an end now. I hope it is; we will see. It is up to Members of Parliament in both Houses to stand firm and say this must not continue. I believe that slowly that is beginning to happen.

We have a system in this country where people elect Parliaments. I know that a lot of people think that they are voting for the Prime Minister. At the previous election, the single most common telephone call made to the election department in my own area of Pendle was from people who had postal votes and were ringing up to find out why they could not find the names Cameron, Clegg and Brown on the ballot paper.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

They were very stupid.

[Lord Greaves]

I do not think that people in my part of the world are any more stupid than anywhere else, but scores of such telephone calls were being made all over the country. We have moved to a more presidential system in recent years, but we nevertheless elect the House of Commons and not the Government. It is up to the House of Commons to decide who will form the Government, and it is up to the House of Commons to decide whether the Government still have their confidence. All the talk about a five-year Parliament putting more power in the hands of the Executive is not necessarily correct.

A number of important issues will have to be discussed. For example, what constitutes a vote of confidence must be clear. However, once that is clear, all the talk about what happened in 1895—I think that it was the vote of no confidence in Campbell-Bannerman and the attempt to take away his wages—as well as in 1910 and 1951, will become irrelevant. What will be important is what people think and know they must do in order to express no confidence in the Government. That must be absolutely clear, but it will then define the behaviour of politicians in the House of Commons.

I do not believe that whether the fixed term should be four years or five years is a major issue; other people do. I was fascinated by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, talking about biorhythms. I know that when I am going through a low patch my wife always looks up the book of biorhythms and tells me what is happening. If that does not work, she looks at the phases of the moon. I say to her, “Well, it’s to do with the viruses I’ve got in my head. It’s the head-cold viruses, or perhaps it is just to do with the latest government announcement I don’t agree with”. I am not quite sure that parliamentary biorhythms are much to do with it, but I shall be interested to hear more about that fascinating theory.

It has been said that the average length of Parliament since the war has been three years and 10 months, which I assume is true, but that has been utterly distorted by the fact that there were three very short Parliaments in 1950, 1964 and 1974. If one takes those out, the average rises to something over four years.

Of course, it can be argued, as we will do, that having a longer Parliament gives the House of Commons more time to scrutinise what the Government are doing. That is a perfectly good argument to use if Parliament is doing its job properly. At least, if one knows when a general election is going to be, one of the democratic outrages of Parliament, the wash-up, will not take place That is when Bills which have often had little or no scrutiny are nodded through behind closed doors by the parliamentary parties, leading to a lot of bad legislation. If the wash-up is done away with, that is a good thing.

The clash of election dates is a very important issue which we will have to discuss. I do not believe that the new system will, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, suggested in different words, allow the Prime Minister to fiddle when he wants an election anyway, because discussion on it will have been taken out of the context and dynamic of the politics of the time.

I hope that we will not have a major trial of strength over this Bill. There are very important issues to discuss. It may take some time to scrutinise the Bill in Committee, but I hope that it will all be done constructively on both sides. I have great confidence that the Government will be prepared to approach it in that way. I hope that the Opposition will do so, too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, here we are again, less than two weeks have passed and here we are, debating another constitutional Bill, claimed by the Government to make a long-term constitutional change based on principle, thought through, properly considered, well researched and thoroughly argued in another place, but which in reality—as nearly everyone acknowledges—is a short-term measure, with its driving force the political necessity of the coalition and its need, given the desperate lack of confidence between its parties, to ensure that it survives until at least May 2015. In other words, it is a short-term political fix masquerading as serious constitutional reform. Of what other Bill—I ask rhetorically of course, but I may give a clue—what other Act of Parliament does that remind noble Lords?

In these circumstances, it is perhaps not too surprising that the Bill is so deficient in so many ways. From the choice of five-year terms to the lack of any clarity on the issue of confidence Motions, the Bill looks what it is—a ridiculously hurried, unconsulted-on piece of rushed legislation, whose consequences, if it were passed unamended, might well be dire for our constitution. Surely our duty, as a revising House, is clear; we must do all we can to improve the Bill, to build up consensus around the House that says that the Bill in its present state is deeply unsatisfactory. The least the House can expect—and here I really am looking at the Minister—is that the Government remain open-minded to sensible changes. Not just Ministers in this House—I am sure they are open-minded to sensible changes—I mean the Government as a whole.

Having set out the Opposition Front Bench’s view, let me say, in case I should be accused of being a trifle negative, that the Second Reading has given rise to an excellent debate. It would have been surprising, given the expertise, experience and indeed wisdom of noble Lords who have spoken, if the debate had not been good. There have been some very powerful speeches on all sides of the House; it would be quite invidious to pick out any in particular. However, I do want to say that the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, was very impressive indeed. For those of us who have not heard him speak before, either in another place or elsewhere, it was a breath of fresh air to hear what he had to say. The House very much appreciated the way in which he said it and looks forward to hearing a lot from him in the months and years to come.

A whole number of issues have been raised but there are three I wish to concentrate on. The first is whether the practical effect of the Bill as drafted would be seriously to circumscribe a Prime Minister’s powers or whether the Bill allows, frankly, for a coach and horses to be driven through the principle of a fixed-term Parliament. My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton and others too have dealt effectively with this issue. Having listened to nearly 30 speeches, no noble Lord has been brave enough to attempt any serious criticism of my noble and learned friend’s analysis of the Bill in this regard. It is sad but true that any consideration of how Prime Ministers are likely to act in the future should start from a fairly cynical viewpoint. If legislation allows Prime Ministers to behave badly then I am afraid to say that there will be occasions when they do behave badly. Mr Harper in Canada is no worse or better in that respect. As the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, said, any Act of Parliament based on this Bill would inevitably be stretched as far as it could be and then perhaps—and here I am speaking rather than the noble Lord—a little bit further too if the survival of a particular Prime Minister was in question.

Secondly, there is the issue of four or five years. That is a very significant issue, not a minor one, which goes to the heart of the Bill. We do not think that the Government have ever really even begun to explain why five years is to be preferred. The consensus, not universal of course, is that four years is to be preferred. I accept that the Liberal Democrat Benches have been loyal to a man and that the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and also perhaps, on occasion, the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, have been in support of the Bill. No other Conservative was actually very supportive at all. Both Select Committees, in our House and in the other place, came out in favour of four years. Academic opinion seems overwhelmingly in favour of four years, yet the Government say five.

The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, asked us, the Labour Opposition, to adhere to the principle of fixed-term Parliaments. Perhaps he should ask his colleagues why they are not adhering to their commitment to four-year fixed Parliaments. We all know about the Liberal Democrat policy paper of 2007 in favour of a four-year fixed Parliament. Even more telling was David Howarth’s Private Member’s Bill, whose Second Reading was heard on 16 May 2008 in another place. That Bill was a model of brevity and simplicity: the kind of Bill that my noble friend Lady Gould was talking about when she complained about the complexity of this Bill.

From that Bill—remember, this was a 2007-08 Bill—it said, at Clause 1(1):

“The next general election shall take place on 7th May 2009”.

Clause 1(2) said:

“Each subsequent general election shall take place on the first Thursday in May in the fourth year after the previous general election”.

That is pretty simple and clear. When the Bill was published in December 2007, who supported David Howarth? It is a stellar list. It has Westminster glitterati of the highest order, who would grace any Oscar shortlist. Let me remind the House who supported that proposition by supporting that Bill in print. First, there was David Heath, now the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons. There were two who are now Cabinet Ministers: the right honourable Chris Huhne and the right honourable Danny Alexander both put their signatures to that Bill. There were two who are now junior Ministers, as I understand it, Ms Featherstone and Mr Burstow. Then there was the Colin Firth of the list, the Oscar winner himself who is now the Deputy Prime Minister, the right honourable Nick Clegg.

All those Members of another place put their name to a Bill that was clearly stating four-year fixed Parliaments. I pose the question: what has changed all their minds so that within three years they are voting for a five-year period, attacking a four-year period and arguing strongly for the five years. Not just one but all of them seem to have changed their minds simultaneously. Is it some sort of Pauline conversion on the road to Whitehall?

[Lord Greaves]

The noble Lord is having his bit of fun. I think he has come to the end of it now. It is of course a matter of whether noble Lords think four years or five years is fundamental or not. I understand that they do. Will the noble Lord now answer the basic question that the noble Lord asked: do he and his party still support the principle of fixed-term Parliaments?

[Lord Bach]

I will of course be more than happy to answer the noble Lord’s question. I was waiting for it. We have not changed our position on the Front Bench since the last election—an election, I remind the House, that we lost. We support fixed-term Parliaments. Thus we are doubly disappointed by this disaster of a Bill, which has been rushed through with no proper consultation—no real consultation at all—and thus got so many vital, important things entirely wrong. First, on five years instead of four and, secondly, on the no-confidence safety valve, as it is called. That is drafted in a completely unsatisfactory way. It is unclear and, indeed, may turn out to protect the power of a Prime Minister so that there is no point at all in a fixed-term Parliament in any event. I hope that answers the noble Lord’s query.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I shall read from a report of the Constitution Committee of this House, to which I know the noble Lord will wish to defer, although he may wish to do so on his feet. It unanimously said that in general,

“it is a matter of principle that proposals for major constitutional reform”—

which is what this is; remember the Great Reform Act 1832—

“should be subject to prior public consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny. We recognise that there may exceptionally be good reasons for departing from this principle, but the perils of doing so are well illustrated in the present Bill”.

The case for proceeding rapidly with one part of this Bill is far stronger than the other. That is why I am on my feet tonight. Let me make it absolutely clear that I object, as a Member of this House, to the way in which this Bill is being driven through Parliament when it has huge constitutional significance. Everybody, including all the officers of the House who are probably worried about what is going on in the Chamber, should be well aware of that.

I now turn to the amendment, which is very interesting. It was born not in my mind but that of our very brilliant Jessica, who has been a considerable help in providing research support to a number of us during the course of the Bill. I shall refer to it as the Jessica amendment. It has been adopted by me because it gives me the opportunity to help the Liberal Democrats. I am glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is in his place because he may wish to intervene. I was thinking of him specifically when the amendment was tabled.

[Lord Greaves]

Considering the quality of debate I have listened to in the past hour and a half, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, might want to go home and go to bed.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I am in all in favour of the noble Lord going home to bed. All the Government need to do is accept that this is a constitutional Bill and proceed on that basis. They have not done that, so I find myself having to move amendments of this nature.

It gives me the opportunity to argue the case for a recalibration or readjustment in the relationship between the two elements in the coalition. The relationship at the moment is unbalanced; it is one-sided. In questions on the Statement on banking yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, drew attention to the way in which the arrangement in the coalition agreement is unbalanced and favours the Conservative element.