Planning: Onshore Wind
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I do not want to get tempted into discussing what the guidance will say. The point the noble Lord has raised is central. However, we have made it clear that the aesthetic as well as the heritage impact will be relevant to what the guidance says. I will make sure that what the noble Lord has asked is taken into account.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, the Answer referred to the cumulative effect of planning applications for wind turbines. In an area such as the Pennines, where there is quite a dense but dispersed network of farms in many of the great open upland landscapes, if each of these settlements puts in for a couple of large wind turbines—which on their own might be acceptable—at what stage does it turn into a wind farm covering the whole area? Are the Government paying attention to this problem?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the Statement refers to major applications. However, as I suggested in the Statement, where wind farms become cumulative it seems to me that that will need to be taken into account.
Garden Cities
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I think that it would be for local authorities to make plans for any refurbishment of that kind within their housing plans. As the noble Lord knows, the Government have a programme to bring back in empty housing and, as I said, the wider programmes for the refurbishment of larger areas are a matter for local authorities.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, can the Minister tell us the difference between a garden city and an eco-town?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, garden cities are what we are dealing with at the moment. Eco-towns were not very successful, but we hope that the larger developments that we are working with will get off the ground.
Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I sometimes think it is not a good idea to give examples so I will move on. The reason that I have said the national planning statement is not being looked at with favour for building commercial is simply because the expectation is that it will be of very little use and that there are other documents and evidence that will be good enough to help in this matter.
We support the intention behind Amendment 79 as we also believe in the important role that parish councils can and do play in the planning system but we are not happy to accept it for the following reasons. First and foremost, the Planning Act 2008 already places a requirement on the applicant to inform local authorities, communities and other prescribed bodies, which include relevant parish councils, about the proposed application and to engage them in pre-application consultation. In addition, should an application then be accepted for examination by the Secretary of State, the applicant must inform those bodies that the application has been accepted so they have an opportunity to make representations and register as interested parties for the purpose of the examination. Therefore, we cannot accept the amendment simply because it is not necessary. Parish councils are already defined as a statutory party in the regulations that accompany the primary legislation. This means that parish councils must be consulted about proposed applications for a development consent order and if they wish to make representations, they are able to do so. With those explanations, I hope that the noble Lord will be able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s comments on my amendment. I am not sure I grasped all the details of the answer but I will read it carefully and if I have any further questions, I will come back. One question I have now relates to the pre-application consultations under the 2008 Act. Does that mean that an application for development consent for business and commercial purposes under the new provisions would not be accepted until those pre-application consultations by the applicants have taken place locally? Will that be the case in future?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, part of the whole system under the Localism Act in particular was that developers should carry out pre-application consultations on every application. The answer to the noble Lord’s question is yes, we would expect that pre-application consultation to take place with everybody who might be affected by the application. That, of course, might include parish councils.
Lord Greaves
I am not sure that the Minister has actually answered my question. I accept what the Minister has said that it is requested—as it is for ordinary planning applications. But in an ordinary planning application, if the pre-application consultations have not taken place, that is not a reason for refusing to accept and register an application. If I am wrong, I would be delighted to hear from the Minister but I do not think I am wrong. But in the case of an application for development consent that is to be dealt with nationally, is it actually a requirement and would the application not be accepted without it?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord’s question is, on both counts, yes. It is part of the regime that there must be pre-application consultation, whether it is going to be done by the local authority or under the major infrastructure plans.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I have added my name to these amendments. I had prepared something to say but it would substantially duplicate what the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, has said. Therefore, I will not say it, except to underline her amendments and what she has said. In the past few years, when we have been discussing planning matters, we have been around these arguments several times under both Governments. There has been continued resistance from government to put too much on the face of planning legislation about the need to tackle climate change. I have no doubt that we will get the same resistance today.
I shall ask the Minister some questions. First, do the Government still accept the requirements of the Climate Change Act 2008? Do they apply that to their decisions, not least within the planning sphere? Secondly, is climate change and the need to tackle climate change one of the factors—whether or not it is in planning legislation—that the Secretary of State takes into account and will take into account when making planning decisions, both in the sphere of planning guidance and in making decisions about such things as applications for development control? Thirdly, is climate change something which the Government expect local planning authorities to take account of when they are making their own plans and their decisions on planning applications?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I start with the three questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. With regard to climate change, Section 10 of the Planning Act 2008 already requires the Secretary of State to,
“have regard to the desirability of … mitigating, and adapting to, climate change”,
when undertaking statutory functions in respect of national policy statements. I think and hope that that concludes that. Planning has an important role in tackling climate change and making the transition to a low-carbon economy. We want to ensure that new development is future-proofed against climate change as decisions are made. As far as I am aware, local authorities would have to take account of climate change where it is relevant under their planning guidance.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for moving her amendment. As I hope I have indicated, the Government remain committed to tackling climate change. We recognise that it is one of the great challenges facing the nation and the planning system has an important role to play, both in mitigation and adaptation. The planning regime can co-ordinate and galvanise community action on renewable energy and help to deal with the growing risks of flooding from severe weather and sea level rise. Many nationally significant infrastructure projects consented to under the Planning Act 2008, such as those that produce renewable or low-carbon energy, are in themselves major contributors to reducing the impacts of climate change.
I will now respond to the noble Baroness on her amendments to the Planning Act 2008. I hope to demonstrate to her that these changes are not needed, given the requirements that are already in place under that Act to ensure that the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change are properly taken into account both for individual projects and in terms of their cumulative effects.
Amendment 81A would introduce a new clause which would allow designation of a national policy statement under the Planning Act 2008 if the Secretary of State were satisfied that the policy in the statement contributed to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change. It is difficult to see how this adds anything to the existing Section 10 of the Planning Act. As I have already said in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, this already requires the Secretary of State to have regard to the desirability of mitigating, and adapting to, climate change when undertaking statutory functions.
The amendment then proposes that a report should be produced annually setting out the cumulative effects of development consents. The noble Baroness’s Amendment 81B, would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the latest version of this report when taking decisions on nationally significant infrastructure projects where no relevant national policy statement had been designated. I suggest that such annual reports would add a new legislative requirement with no discernable benefits. It is important to remember that a key factor in taking decisions on nationally significant infrastructure projects is the framework set out in national policy statements. Where these statements are in place, the Secretary of State is generally required to make decisions on development consents in accordance with them. The statements include specific policies on the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change. National policy statements are also subject to a sustainability appraisal before they are designated, and this appraisal will include consideration of impacts and benefits in terms of climate change. The appraisal of sustainability is also accompanied by a monitoring strategy, which ensures that a strategic-level assessment of the effects of implementation of national policy statements is properly considered.
In addition, most nationally significant infrastructure projects must be subject to detailed environmental impact assessment, and cumulative impacts must be considered as part of those assessments. I know that a number of noble Lords have expressed concern about those situations where no national policy statement may be in place that relates to a development requiring consent under the Planning Act 2008. But, in such circumstances, the Secretary of State must take account of factors that are both important and relevant when reaching a decision on development consent for a project. Such factors are very likely to include planning policies as set out in the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework. A core planning principle of the framework is for planning to support the transition to a low-carbon future in a changing climate. In short, I would argue that we already have structures in place that meet what the noble Baroness is seeking to achieve through Amendments 81A and 81B.
On Amendment 81C, the National Planning Policy Framework already expects local councils to adopt proactive strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change, in line with the objectives and provisions of the Climate Change Act 2008. We have set out clear policies in the framework on how local authorities should support the move to a low-carbon future. They should do this by planning new development in locations and ways which reduce greenhouse gas emissions, by actively supporting energy efficiency improvements to existing buildings and by having a positive strategy to promote energy from renewable and low-carbon sources. We have also made it clear that local plans should take account of climate change over the longer term, including factors such as flood risk, coastal change, water supply, and changes to biodiversity and landscape. I am sure that all of this rings pretty hard with the noble Baroness, who has spent quite a lot of time on all these issues. I also recognise the work of the Planning and Climate Change Coalition in producing cross-sector guidance, which has already helped local authorities to deal with the detail of how to take action.
As local plans are already required by the framework to have climate change policies on mitigation and adaptation that are in line with the objectives and provisions of the Climate Change Act 2008, there is no need for this amendment. The framework achieves this in combination with the existing duty on local authorities: Section 19(1)(a) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, and the requirement in Section 19(2)(a) to have regard in preparing their plan to national policies and advice contained in guidance issued by the Secretary of State.
Furthermore, the amendment raises the possibility of legal challenge if the local circumstances mean strict application of every provision of the Climate Change Act 2008 is not appropriate. Additionally, any future changes to legislation on climate change can be readily reflected in updates to national planning policy, whereas a requirement in primary legislation, linked directly to the Climate Change Act 2008, could not be updated quickly. If the Act of 2008 were to be updated, this could confuse and hinder the production of up-to-date local plans.
In conclusion, the Government remain committed to tackling climate change. Existing provisions in legislation and policy already achieve what the noble Baroness seeks to do through her amendments. Given these reassurances about how we believe that this is all being dealt with, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendments.
Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Greaves
My Lords, I did not quite catch what the Minister said. Will a published summary of the issues encompass a summary of the Government’s views and their response to the consultation, and did she say we would perhaps have that before Report? Some of us did not put down detailed amendments on Clause 24 because we were waiting for some clearer indication of exactly what it means in detail. If we do not get at least a summary or broad overview of the Government’s views on this before Report, we might be tempted to take up more time on Report by putting new amendments down than the Minister would perhaps prefer.
The other questions I wanted to ask were about minerals. Will Clause 24 make a difference, for example, to the way in which planning permission or development consent is given for things such as quarries in national parks—the quarrying of limestone in the Peak District, for example—which are highly controversial and at the moment are done by the local planning authority, the national park? Are decisions like that going to be moved to the Secretary of State and the infrastructure planning regime?
The other question was specifically about the development of fracking for unconventional gas, which is going ahead slowly in Lancashire. Lots of different consents have to be obtained for that, notably from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which takes place at a national level. However, the development that has taken place so far and the scale of it means that the planning permission, as I understand it, is the responsibility of the county council; in the case of the fracking that is taking place, or is about to resume, at the moment on an experimental basis in Lancashire, that will be Lancashire County Council.
It seems to me that with something like fracking, there are two crucial sets of decisions to be made. One is the question of whether the drilling, the fracking and the extraction of the gas should be allowed to take place. Then there are all the environmental issues related to that on the surface, such as the screening of developments and whether pipes from the different wellheads, which are quite close to each other, should be underground, overground or whatever, which is a matter of the local landscape and local planning. I would be quite appalled if the decisions over that kind of local planning were taken away from the local planning authority—in this case Lancashire County Council, as it is a minerals development—and put in the hands of a national authority, which I really do not think would have the local understanding or the ability to do the job properly. There are two separate issues there. Would it be possible for them to be separated, because they are dealing with quite different aspects, and for the decisions about whether the drilling and fracking goes ahead—and I should say that it seems to me that this is development which ought, at least on a pilot basis, to proceed as far as a viable commercial scheme—to be taken nationally through the infrastructure planning process but for the local details of the environmental protection and amelioration connected with it, and how that works on the surface, to be left with the local planning authority?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for those questions. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, asked about the summary of responses. We have that summary of responses, and I think it has already gone to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis; if not, it is on its way. We can make sure that Members of the Committee receive a copy and will put it in the Library, so that it will be available for consideration at the next stage.
We are thinking about the responses to the consultation and whether fracking should be included in the infrastructure planning regime or, as the noble Lord said, stay with the local planning authority. At the moment, a request will have to be made to the Secretary of State to use the major planning infrastructure regime, and the Secretary of State will be interested in it only if the whole proposal was going to raise issues of national rather than local significance. Fracking is a developing area and things may change but, as I understand it, that is the situation at the moment. I hope with those explanations that the noble Lord may be willing to withdraw his amendment and that noble Lords will not press the others when the time comes.
Lord Greaves
I will perhaps take up the question of fracking with the Minister outside the Chamber. However, the important thing before Report is not to get the summary of responses—although that would obviously be useful—but to get the Government’s view of the responses and their view of the way forward.
Baroness Hanham
I understood that that was what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was getting at. I have committed to giving him the summary of the responses and have been told that the Government’s response will come in due course. That does not sound to me as if it will come before Report, but if it does, I will let noble Lords know that it is coming.
Lord Greaves
If there are letters floating around which are being debated here, I wonder whether we might all have sight of them.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the letter in question was to the noble Baroness. If she is happy for it to be made available to the Committee, then, of course, I would be happy, too. I presume that my honourable friend at the other end was expecting at least most of it to be made public because it is a very public response to the questions asked. I do not think that there would be any disagreement with my saying that the local plan and the National Planning Policy Framework are both likely to be important and relevant in these matters. We have issued a consultation paper on extending the regime to business and commercial schemes, seeking views on whether one or more national policy statements should be prepared. These matters are relevant to today’s debate and the answers are the Government’s answers.
I do not think that moving business and commercial applications to the infrastructure regime will be a blow to local authorities. As I have said, we expect only a small number of applications to come forward and for most of them to be dealt with by local authorities.
I was also asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, whether we had any evidence that change is necessary. Over the past four financial years, the proportion of large-scale major applications for commercial and industrial projects taking more than 52 weeks to be decided by local authorities has increased from 8% to 13%, which is quite a significant rise.
We are not proposing to make mandatory this route for developers—it is optional—and there will be a timetabled approach. Developers will have to decide for themselves whether to use the infrastructure regime.
As we set out in our recent consultation document on the new business and commercial category of development, the Government do not consider the case to be strong for one or more national policy statements for this category of development. The consultation closed in January and we are considering the responses to that, including on whether national policy statements should be prepared. I think that we will discuss those later during our consideration of the Bill.
I was asked whether there will be sufficient resources. We are discussing the resource implications with the Planning Inspectorate at the moment.
We also had a question on fracking, which has come up quite a bit through the course of the Bill. It is clearly a developing situation. The information that the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, gave us was interesting and begins to put a scale on what the ultimate development could be. At present, fracking applications will not be taken out of the hands of local authorities. Any developer will have to consult the local community and local people and the local authority will have the right of determination. A request would have to be made to the Secretary of State to use the infrastructure regime and he would agree to such a request only where the proposal raised issues of national significance. It may be that national significance and fracking will be one and the same but that gives an indication that at present we would expect this to be dealt with locally and local people would have a big say in what was to happen.
I think that covers the questions I was asked. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, also asked about fracking and, as I said, gave us very helpful figures from the report. I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Young, whether she would be happy for the letter from my honourable friend Nick Boles to be circulated. If so, I will make it available but if she does not wish that we will no doubt discuss the issues again at a later stage.
Baroness Hanham
I hope I did not speed over the amendment or that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, had not gone to sleep with excitement over it. I said that the Secretary of State is required to give reasons for his decision when making a direction. That requirement is carried forward in Clause 24. That is why I said I was not able to accept his amendment: it is not necessary.
Lord Greaves
Will my noble friend comment on my request for some more detailed statistical information on these matters?
Baroness Hanham
If I can get what my noble friend requires, I will make sure he and the Committee get that before Report.
Waste Management: Refuse Collections
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am inclined to stick to my Question, which is about weekly collections of bins. I reiterate that householders value a weekly collection very much. It had gone out of favour with the previous Government and we see it as being of genuine benefit to local people.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, is it not time that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government spent more of his time fighting for the interests of local people and local authorities within Whitehall, rather than his apparently weekly attempts to micro-manage the local decisions of local authorities on matters such as bin collection and the level of the council tax?
Baroness Hanham
My noble friend knows perfectly well that the Secretary of State has been at the forefront of ensuring that local authorities are able to manage their own affairs. They have devolved funding, are able to manage their own budgets and now have the business rates staying with them. The whole way that local government finance is going is to ensure that local government can answer for itself.
Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am grateful for that and I apologise to the noble Baroness for not realising that. However, that gives me greater justification for doing what I am doing, which is to answer immediately what would have been the clause stand part debate. I think that we will all benefit in the end.
The more rural and remote areas, including protected areas, are some of the places where an infrastructure upgrade for broadband is needed the most. Without action, it is likely that these rural and quite remote areas will be left even further behind. I think that noble Lords have acknowledged that people who live in these areas want broadband and that there is a strong rationale for it. There are 700,000 households and businesses in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, and most of these will not be served by the market alone. In England, 25% of premises in these areas currently get less than 2 megabytes per second. We estimate that, in total, potentially 4 million more people and nearly 2 million households could have access to superfast broadband as a result of Clause 8.
Without the rollout of broadband, businesses in these areas would suffer, including those in the tourism service sector, which increasingly find that visitors demand greater connectivity when they come and stay at guest houses, bed and breakfast establishments and hotels, and these businesses are frustrated by the lack of broadband to offer their customers. National parks authorities, along with many other rural areas in England, have cited insufficient broadband provision as a particular barrier to growth.
We are trying to tackle this disparity in the provision of superfast broadband and it is a key priority for the Government. We are spending nearly £700 million to stimulate the market to improve broadband connectivity and we are taking action to ensure that the barriers to deployment are removed. These actions are designed specifically to close the rural-urban broadband divide and promote economic growth. The broadband support package, which the Government announced on 7 September, is key to delivering that.
The consultation paper, Proposed Changes to Siting Requirements for Broadband Cabinets and Overhead Lines to Facilitate the Deployment of Superfast Broadband Networks—succinct as that is—published yesterday by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, to whom we have been talking, brings forward proposals for two changes to the Electronic Communications Code (Conditions and Restrictions) Regulations 2003.
Perhaps I can take a few moments to set out what the consultation covers. The consultation’s first proposal is that we remove of the requirement to underground telecommunications apparatus. This is the only restriction that stops communication providers deploying overhead infrastructure. It does not say that they cannot provide underground structures. They can. If they want to share a gully or a trench with some other provider, they can do it in a way that is satisfactory to them. There is nothing to stop that. All this does is to say that it is not a requirement. If you cannot do it for some reason—
Lord Greaves
This is a crucial point. It is clear that they can still put them underground if they wish to, although there will be the removal of the statutory power of the local planning authority, which is usually the national park authority, to require it, and there will be less time for consultation. If I have understood it correctly, the consultation period will be 28 days and not 58 days in future. It would be helpful to have that confirmed. Do the Government have an estimate of the proportion of the lines in, for example, national parks in England and Wales which, in future, would be put underground compared with the present situation?
Baroness Hanham
I cannot answer the noble Lord’s question. He probably does not really expect me to answer it here. The consultation process will begin to throw up some of that information if we do not have it. If we do have the information, I shall see that noble Lords receive it.
The second proposal removes the prior approval requirements for broadband cabinets in protected areas. Of course, the cabinets have to be there, otherwise you cannot have broadband. They have to be at certain spaces and there are all sorts of things about broadband cabinets that require them to be placed in a specific location. We are bringing forward Clause 8 to enable us to make these amendments to the communications code through secondary legislation.
Let me be clear that the removal of prior approval will be temporary, as noble Lords have seen in the consultation which sets out a period of five years. By limiting the window to five years, this will also ensure that the operators have an incentive to get on with the rollout of that business and community need.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I was citing the reason for the process in conservation areas taking up to two- and-a-half years. Under the measures on which we are consulting, local authorities will still be involved.
Lord Greaves
As I understand it, there are no proposed changes in this legislation to conservation areas. I declare an interest as living in not one conservation area but two—they overlap. Are there proposals for changes to the rules in conservation areas?
Baroness Hanham
I am citing conservation areas that in many cases are in urban areas and have held up some of these decisions. I accept that we are talking about rural areas. I was asked why some of this was necessary. Part of the reason for the decision is the delays caused by conservation areas.
Lord Greaves
I wonder whether the Minister would write to me on that, as she does not have the answer. I asked a specific question about whether the rules in conservation areas were to be changed.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, as I understand it, the rules in conservation areas are not to be changed.
Under the measures on which we are consulting, local authorities will still be involved and will have more of an opportunity to put forward their views on the siting of poles and boxes, and on their appearance. The existing regulations require, and will continue to require, consultation with local authorities. In addition, providers will work to a new code of best practice on the siting of infrastructure. This will contain an agreed set of overall principles on sensitive siting, together with specific requirements for consultation with local communities about new overhead line deployment. My noble friend Lord King asked whether these measures were related to fixed broadband. As I said in my Second Reading speech, these measures cover fixed broadband—poles and boxes.
We will outline the main principles of the code of practice by Report, and the code will be agreed before changes are brought into effect by regulations. We expect broadband operators to adhere to the code that they will be involved in drawing up. We believe that the sector should have responsibility for its own code. I can confirm that the English National Park Authorities Association will be invited to join the group that is drafting the code of practice.
Importantly, local authorities will also be able to influence how new broadband services are deployed when procuring projects under the Broadband Delivery UK programme—including, for example, determining whether lines should be run overground or underground. As I said, the underground aspect is not being removed. This will be balanced against how much coverage can be provided.
I turn now to the specific amendments. I do not agree that there is a need to place conditions on the Clause 8 enabling power.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I apologise for overlooking that. The proposal is that the code should not be statutory. It should be a code of guidance but not backed up by statute.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, perhaps I could ask again: if everything goes well with a particular proposal and notification, is the difference in timing between the present system and what is proposed just 28 days as it seems to be? In other words, does the 56-day prior approval system disappear but the 28-day period still exist for the local planning authority to comment? Can the Minister say, either now or perhaps in writing, what will happen and what is available to people, particularly the local planning authority, under the proposed new system if there is a difference of view that cannot be resolved? If a proposal is put forward and the planning authority has comments—not necessarily on whether the proposal should be there at all but on the two key issues of siting and appearance—and if that dispute between the local planning authority and the broadband provider cannot be resolved, does the provider simply go ahead and do it or is there some other procedure? I am a bit mystified about where the county court comes in but perhaps everybody else understands that.
We have been told that the number of such cases that have been refused is very few indeed—it is a handful. But the fact that there was a handful means that there will be some cases where the local planning authority believes that what is being proposed is unacceptable. So under those circumstances will it be possible now for the proposal to go through?
Finally, with regard to the issue I was talking about before, Section 11A of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act is a general section that refers to everything. We are told that subsection (2) has to be put aside for this specific purpose because when the decisions are being made or the Secretary of State is issuing guidance and regulations under the Electronic Communications Act, if the national parks Act provision remains, there will not be a level playing field and the different considerations that the Secretary of State has to take into account will not be given equal weighting. Since Section 11A of the national parks Act is a general provision on everything that happens in national parks that authorities have to take account of, surely that is the case with all sorts of other things as well, yet all this other legislation that it must apply to—all these other powers of the Secretary of State and other authorities—does not appear to be invalidated by this section of the national parks Act. This is a fairly esoteric legal point but it would be very helpful to have clear legal guidance from the Government as to why they think this particular provision is necessary.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, with regard to the latter point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, this was a discussion that we had last night with the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and I said earlier that the strong legal advice is that it has to be done in the way that has been proposed at the moment. I said that I was happy to go back and have that checked but I expected that I would come back with exactly the same outcome because that is the legal process, but I am happy to give that undertaking to come back on it.
If all else failed and the providers could not get anywhere with the local authority and the planning committee, ultimately, yes, they could go ahead and provide the facilities where they need to. We do not expect that to happen. The whole purpose of this legislation is to ensure that there is good consultation and a clear understanding of where broadband is going to be placed, and that it should be done as quickly as possible so that we can move on.
Operators will have to adhere to the code. They are going to be involved in drawing it up, and we believe that they should have responsibility for their own code. I am sure that if we did not think that was going to happen properly we might consider taking a backstop power to ensure that the code is placed on a statutory footing, but I would like to come back to that on Report.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, that was rather a quick ending. I am grateful for this short debate, which I thought might take a bit longer.
The amendment tabled by my noble friends Lord Tope and Lord Shipley, and Amendment 71A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, have the admirable aim of giving local authorities the power to decide how to adapt nationally set permitted development rights to their own local circumstances. I am pleased to say that that power is already there. Where local authorities have concerns about the impact of permitted development rights locally, they are able to consult their local communities on removing those rights via Article 4 directions. I know that my noble friend Lord Shipley said that that process is complicated, but it is really up to local authorities how complicated it is and how long it takes. It is in a local authority’s hands; it has to consult for 28 days, but after that it can decide whether to confirm an Article 4 direction. Because there are concerns regarding potential compensation issues, local authorities can, if they give 12 months’ notice that they are going to consult on an Article 4 direction, always manage to avoid compensation requirements.
Where the aim is to extend permitted development rights locally, local development orders provide a quick and simple way to do this. After a slow start, the number of local development orders being put in place across the country is increasing. Local authorities are recognising the benefits of this flexible provision, which can be put in place through a simple and streamlined procedure. More than 30 local development orders have now been put in place in enterprise zones, and local development orders are contributing to growth by helping to speed up everything from small domestic alterations to major industrial development. Rather than being a cumbersome process, as suggested, local development orders work quite well.
Amendments 60B and 60C, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Tope and Lord Shipley, are intended to make the local development order process even more straightforward. The amendments seek to remove the Secretary of State’s role in the local development order process and remove the requirement for local authorities to report on local development orders, with the aim of reducing burdens further. The Secretary of State only exceptionally exercises his powers to intervene in local development orders. In many cases, local authorities can proceed to adoption within a few days of submitting local development orders to the Secretary of State. However, that does not mean that we should not constantly be seeking to improve and simplify the processes under which development takes place.
Officials have already begun discussions with the Local Government Association with the aim of learning from the experience of local authorities about the best way of using local development orders. That experience is growing rapidly, and it is important to capture it in deciding whether and how local development orders can be improved, including in the ways that my noble friends have suggested. Given my assurance that local development orders are a perfectly reasonable way forward, I hope that my noble friends are willing to withdraw or not move these amendments. I have also given an explanation of how the Article 4 direction plays, or could play, a particularly big role in the control by local authorities.
I turn now to Amendment 71, tabled by my noble friends Lord True and Lord Tope—I am sorry they are unable to be here—and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, who has spoken to it. I appreciate the noble Lords’ wish to make sure that local authorities are able to take their particular circumstances into account when considering the operation of national permitted development rights. This is indeed a vital safeguard, because nationally determined rights will of course have different effects in different local areas. As I have already outlined, local authorities have this power now through the use of Article 4 directions, which they can implement themselves. However, I remind noble Lords that every time permitted development rights are removed, local people are deprived of the benefits that they offer and become subject again to the additional work and costs of putting in a planning application.
Extending development rights will reduce the bureaucracy and delays that home owners face when they want to carry out what remain, even with these revised proposals, small extensions. That applies to businesses also. This amendment would deny people those benefits on a much wider scale. It would fundamentally undermine the well established and popular system of permitted development rights, which allows home owners the freedom and flexibility to make the best use of their homes without getting bogged down in red tape. However, I hear noble Lords’ concerns and I am sure that we will return to this issue at a later stage, when perhaps other noble Lords who tabled amendments in the group are here.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about the consultation. It ended on 24 December and is being considered at the moment. I hope that we will have some indication of the response in due course. There is no fixed date for the announcement of the response, but I hope, given my explanations, that noble Lords will withdraw or not move their amendments.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, the Minister used the word “small” in reference to extensions. Does she understand and agree that what is or is not small depends to some extent on the size of the existing house and, particularly if it is an extension into a back yard, the existing size of that back yard?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I appreciate that proposals and applications for extensions will always be different because it will depend on the nature of the property—for example, whether it is terraced or detached. Permitted development rights are being removed for small-scale and reasonably small-scale developments.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, in responding to the noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord McKenzie, it may be helpful if I briefly set out why we are reforming the system for registering town and village greens. This explanation will take us through to the next group of amendments. In short, the reforms are needed to prevent the greens registration scheme being used to stop or delay planned development decided through the democratically accountable planning system. The changes will also protect the ability of local communities to promote or support development in their areas through consultation and decision-taking on planning applications and local and neighbourhood plans. Another aim is to reduce the financial burden on local authorities in considering green applications, and the costs to landowners whose land is affected by these applications.
Clause 13 inserts new Section 15A into the Commons Act 2006 which allows a landowner in England to deposit a statement and map with the commons registration authority, the effect of which is to bring to an end any period of use “as of right” for lawful sports and pastimes on that land. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, very expertly went through what lies behind this clause. I will briefly say that under the current system, if landowners want to protect their land from town or village green registration, they may erect fences and/or notices to physically prevent access to the land. However, the courts have ruled that even taking such steps does not necessarily bring to an end any use “as of right”, in particular where fences or notices are not maintained in the event of damage or removal. Clause 13 will allow landowners to achieve the aim of ending use “as of right” through the submission of a statement. We hope that this reform will encourage landowners to allow recreational use of their land, safe in the knowledge that they can prevent the registration of their land as a green. That will then be of benefit to those who use the land, as well as to landowners.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, tabled Amendments 61, 62 and 63. As he explained, their intention is to ensure that, where a landowner makes a statement, notice is given to local people and other interested parties so that they are aware that the clock is ticking on the time that is available for making a town or village green application. Amendments 63A and 63B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, would require that publicising the deposit of a statement should be mandatory.
In line with the statements made by the honourable Member for Sevenoaks in the other place, I offer the Committee the reassurance that we intend that, where a landowner statement is deposited with a commons registration authority, the authority will be required to publicise it. This will ensure that local people and other interested parties are made aware of the fact that a statement has been deposited. We intend to use the power to make regulations, set out in subsection (6) of new Section 15A, to make publication of the statement one of the steps that an authority must take when the statement has been deposited.
It is our view that the specific publicity requirements are best set out in regulations; it is not necessary to include such detail in the Bill. However, my officials will draw up those regulations in close consultation with key interested parties, including the Open Spaces Society and the Association of Commons Registration Authorities. The regulations will require that commons registration authorities take appropriate steps to ensure that local people and other interested parties are made aware of the fact that a landowner statement has been deposited.
Amendment 63 would ensure that a landowner statement under this clause cannot be made until regulations prescribing the detail of the process under subsection (6) have come into effect. However, there is already provision for Clause 13 and those regulations to come into effect at the same time. The commencement provisions in Clause 31 provide that the Government can commence Clause 13 at an appointed time, and I reassure the Committee that the reason that the clause will be commenced in this way rather than on a set date is to ensure that these provisions are not commenced until regulations are finalised. I hope that, with those reassurances, noble Lords will not press their amendments.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am grateful for that detailed response and for the Minister’s comments. I am also grateful to her for referring to Amendment 63, which I forgot to speak to. I thought that I had spoken long enough—and I am sure that the Committee did, too. That is my excuse, anyway. What the Minister said is exactly what my amendment would do, so I am very happy not to press it.
On the publishing of information when a statement is deposited with a commons registration authority, I think that the Minister’s response fitted the bill and that her assurance was okay. We will look at the regulations when they come out and, if they do not say what the Minister has just said, she will have to explain why—but I am sure that they will.
The only point I will make is that it is very important that the publishing of the fact that a statement has been made should be sufficiently local. Some commons registration authorities are big unitary authorities such as Northumberland or Cornwall, or big counties such as North Yorkshire or Lancashire. Simply publishing statements centrally or on a website will not get to the people who are using a piece of land in a village or town. It is very important that publication is sufficiently local so that somebody will pick it up and pass it on. With that comment, I am pleased to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing: New Homes Bonus
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, the new homes bonus is not a regional grant. It is allocated to individual local authorities based on increases in their housing stock. Councils that build more new homes receive more funding. My department no longer produces regional statistics, not least because policies such as the new homes bonus do not operate on a regional basis.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that practical Answer. It is the same one that she gave me on a Written Question on the same issue. I was appalled to find that the Government no longer keep regional statistics and therefore do not know the regional impact of their policies. If the Government do not know, then I will provide the information.
Is the Minister aware that in relation to the new homes bonus, which is a grant given to local authorities, the three northern regions of England, the north-east, the north-west, and Yorkshire and Humberside, get on average per head of population £8.78 new homes bonus in the current year, and that the four southern regions, the east, London, the south-east and the south-west—
Lord Greaves
This is a question. The four southern regions get £15.07 per person in their regions, which is getting on for twice as much. Is it fair that this particular system is resulting in a movement of funding from the north to the south of England?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am a little bit surprised by the noble Lord’s statement, and particularly his suggestion that there is a per person sum involved in this. The new homes bonus is paid against the background of new homes. It is based on the number of homes that are provided in any particular area and on the average of the council tax base across the country. Where there is a number of band A properties, a certain amount of money will be produced, across the country, and bands G and H will produce the same. If I could just correct the noble Lord, in the top 30 recipients of the new homes bonus, there are seven in the north. Bradford, Durham, Leeds, Manchester, Salford, Sheffield and Wakefield are working hard and doing well.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the Department for Communities and Local Government works on the basis of areas. There might be other parts of the Government that work on a regional basis, but the DCLG does not.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, is it not the case that the south-west gets twice as much per head of this new homes bonus as either the north-east or the north-west, and that London gets more than twice as much? These are the facts, and the Government cannot deny that there is a transfer of resources from the north of England to the south of England through this bonus. Is that not right?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am afraid that the noble Lord is not correct about the basis of the new homes bonus. I have explained to the House that the bonus is based on the average across the country of council tax bands. In the north of England, the chances are that the councils provided are in band A, and in the south of England it is very possible that they are provided in bands E, G and H. Consequently, of course, the sums will be larger in some areas than in others, but then, of course, the cost of living is different across this country.
Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I think that the answer is simply because affordable housing is such a significant element of this particular argument. I may have to write to the noble Lord about this pinch point and come back to him.
As regards the £300 million, I said that we will not make a blanket commitment to fill the gap regarding the aspiration of affordable housing, which is what we have been talking about—the idea of granting affordable housing requirements in the event of a Section 106 agreement being renegotiated. I have not ruled that out entirely but I have, more or less, said that I do not think that we could have such a provision. However, the matter is still being looked at.
Lord Greaves
On the question of the two types of Section 106 agreements, if renegotiation of non-housing Section 106 agreements can be done in regulations, why does it need to be in primary legislation in relation to housing?
Lord Greaves
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, briefly spoke to my Amendment 55BA, which states that,
“a modification under this subsection may have an effect that the obligation is more onerous in one aspect in return for being less onerous in another or others without becoming more onerous overall”.
It is part and parcel of the feeling throughout the amendments in this group that there ought to be more flexibility in the system, and that if there are Section 106 agreements in relation to a development, they should be looked at as a whole, on the lines drawn by my noble friend Lord Tope, rather than simply in relation to obligations for affordable housing.
Earlier, my noble friend the Minister said that the question of non-housing Section 106 agreements would be dealt with by regulation, and that housing was in the Bill because it was quicker to get it into effect; regulations covering non-housing Section 106 agreements would take longer. That does not answer the question of why the Government have not done both together. Common sense suggests that they could either both be in the Bill or both be covered by regulation, whichever is most convenient. I do not understand the lack of logic in doing them separately.
Perhaps the Minister will tell me—I am not clear on this—whether the regulations for non-housing Section 106 agreements will be seen in the same light as those in the Bill. In other words, will developers be given a right to appeal against a local authority that refuses, or does not want, to relieve them of the obligation? Will the same sort of regime apply under the non-housing regulations, or will they simply state that there is an opportunity to ask the authority to look again at development plans, which of course exists at the moment? It would be interesting to know what the Government are intending.
Common sense suggests that in some circumstances it might be better to look at non-housing obligations. For example, if there is a requirement to produce a park or a play area on the edge of a development or as part of the development, for some reason that may become impractical, or it could be thought in the light of viability studies that it is not absolutely essential, but that it is a less undesirable penalty to incur than having no or less affordable housing. There might be a situation in which a Section 106 agreement required a contribution to a local bus service. The way that local bus services are going at the moment, with some county councils cutting subsidies, by the time the estate is built, the bus service might not exist. It might be that that would be an appropriate let-off for the developer. Flexibility is a good idea.
It seemed to me that some noble Lords speaking in this debate were referring to a different world from that in which some of us are trying to make the best of things. In the case of new housing developments—greenfield housing developments in my part of the world—when planning applications come in, the local authority in general does not ask for affordable housing as part of the development, because an affordable housing requirement would very quickly make that development unviable. That is a fact of life. Local authorities in my part of the world—we will debate an amendment on this later—are finding it very difficult to set up a CIL regime, because imposing CIL on developments would make them unviable. Therefore, none of this applies if development is required or is thought to be reasonable.
Coming back to the point I raised earlier in an exchange with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, what is a local authority supposed to do when it owns a brownfield site where housing or industry has been recently cleared and the site flattened and made reasonable, when development on that site for housing for sale or rent is simply not viable in present conditions, even if the local authority has put the land into the equation for free? It is simply not viable to develop given the current equation between local development costs and local house prices. The intention was that there would be a degree of gap funding to cover this; it was assured through the housing market renewal scheme, which has now been stopped. There is no gap funding.
What do the Government expect us to do in those circumstances when development of a perfectly good vacant site—for example, on the edge of a small town with wonderful views across Pendle Hill—is nevertheless not economically viable, so development cannot and will not take place? Somebody somewhere has to provide some gap funding to allow that development to take place if an area such as that is going to contribute to the Government’s aims of more housing. That is a slight variation on this amendment but it is a point that needs to be made and I will keep making it time and again because it is a question that nobody seems to be facing up to at the moment.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I shall start by trying to answer the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, because from what he says he will come back to them again. As I understand it, these sites are unviable but are not included within a Section 106 agreement; they are outside that.
Lord Greaves
The sites are not viable on a commercial basis. It is not proposed to be affordable housing, it is proposed to be commercial housing sold at the market price in the local housing market. It is not possible to build houses in those locations that will sell for a price that will pay for the development. An organisation can build for virtually no profit but it is still not viable.
Baroness Hanham
For the moment I am going to say to the noble Lord that it is not quite relevant to this amendment but I would like to consider it further and perhaps come back to him at a later stage.
Clause 6 introduces a fast-track application and appeal process to ensure that quick decisions can be made on stalled sites. These amendments would undermine this simplicity and add complexity, for very little benefit. Amendments 55AC and 55AE seek to bring into the application process consideration of the development plan and strategic policies contained in it. The development plan will already have been taken into account when the decision to grant planning permission was first made and the development plan will presumably be the same at this stage as it was then. I am aware that local planning policies may include policies for the delivery of affordable housing to meet local needs. It is usual practice to apply these policies in the context of individual site viability. The effect of this clause is to help deliver those policies by bringing forward viable development. It does not require a revisiting of the local plan.
Amendment 55AE seeks also to require an assessment of whether an alternative form of development would be economically viable. This would tie the process into lengthy consideration of alternative schemes. The effect of this amendment would be to establish a complex and lengthy process and clearly act as a deterrent to developers. Similarly, Amendment 55AC seeks to prevent a determination to reduce affordable housing requirements if modifications to other planning obligations would be more appropriate. There is nothing to stop the local authority agreeing to vary any obligation on a voluntary basis, as has been said a number of times this evening. The authority could negotiate with the developer to alter the Section 106 agreement outside the process of this legislation if that would be beneficial to both parties. The purpose of Clause 6 is to provide a quick, targeted review process based on viability related to affordable housing only. The imminent regulation change, which provides for a full review of Section 106 agreements in pre-April 2010 obligations, will enable these older agreements to be reviewed across the piece.
I do not think it helpful to bring community infrastructure levy payments into this consideration. The community infrastructure levy has been introduced to provide a non-negotiable levy that is up front and predictable, and set at the local level in accordance with local viability. Local authorities do not have a general discretion to waive or reduce community infrastructure levy payments. The regulations make provision for exceptional circumstances relief but this is subject to strict criteria.
Amendment 55AD seeks to require that the authority must assess the affordable housing requirement to be the sole reason for the site being economically unviable before it modifies the requirement. This amendment is not necessary. The current drafting requires that if the affordable housing requirement means that the site is unviable, the council must vary the obligation. The applicant will have to present evidence to the authority to demonstrate this. The local authority will have regard to this evidence and have the opportunity to prepare its own evidence to justify any decision.
Affordable housing often comprises the largest single contribution on residential schemes, which is why we have focused there. Research from 2007 and 2008 found that about 50% of all planning obligations are for affordable housing. The local authority and the developer are free to renegotiate any aspect of a Section 106 agreement on a voluntary basis at any time. If an obligation which is not affordable housing is causing the site to be unviable, both parties are free to negotiate around that item.
Amendment 55CA would allow land transferred at nil cost to be excluded from the assessment of viability. I understand the importance that land transfers of this type play in creating mixed communities. This is particularly important in high-value areas. I can understand the temptation to think that we should exclude land transfers from the assessment of economic viability. However, the value of this land can be a significant cost to house builders. It is right that the value of this obligation is considered as part of the overall economic viability of the scheme. If the value of that land transfer is causing the site to be unviable, it should be adjusted; this does not necessarily mean removed completely but adjusted to suit economic conditions. Only where it is no longer viable to transfer the land at nil cost will an adjustment be made. Our policy for mixed communities will be upheld and delivered in a realistic and viable way by these clauses. With these assurances, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Greaves
I am very grateful to my noble friend. I know that she is always very diligent in listening to the House and this Committee. If the relevant years are the two previous years to the end of March 2013, which is only just over two months away, and a local planning authority cannot do anything about the figures in the time that is left, is it not unreasonable to tackle this issue in the way that is proposed, which is what these amendments are all about? One could say to a local authority, “Yes, the figures in these two years are those which apply but you now have a period of time”—12 months, 18 months or whatever—“to put things right”. Is that not the reasonable way to approach this issue?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, you can also approach this matter from the standpoint that the planning authority has not performed correctly over the previous two years and has been on notice of that. If you delay the designation for 18 months, you further delay the possibility of improvement taking place. I hesitate to suggest that we should agree to the delay proposed in the amendment as I think that designated local authorities will begin to improve their performance.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, and other noble Lords asked about peer help. We have already made it clear that we accept very much that the Local Government Association has a role to play in helping designated local authorities to improve, and to do so even within the period of designation. As we will discuss later, that period will be reviewed annually, so local authorities can get out of this situation in a very short time. This clause—
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, that relates to the consultation, which we are moving on to in Amendment 2. Perhaps we might follow the amendments in order, because people have gone to a lot of trouble on that.
Lord Greaves
My noble friend rightly said that in a normal case, if a major application is not dealt with by the local planning authority within 13 weeks, the applicant has a right of appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. What happens if the inspectorate, on behalf of the Secretary of State, fails to determine an application within 13 weeks? What recourse does an applicant have? Can the application be sent back to the local authority to sort out? What will happen?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the expectation is that the Planning Inspectorate will perform against the statutory criteria.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked whether there would be democratic involvement as applications go forward. Local residents will have their normal ability to comment and all the normal planning processes can take place. All that will happen is that the decision will not be made by the local authority at that stage but by the Planning Inspectorate, which may very well have had to pick up the application if the local authority was not performing within the 13 weeks. There is nothing to be gained by delaying the designation. Our intention is to ensure that if a local authority is designated, it is in and out of that designation as soon as possible, given the help, support and encouragement that will be available from the Local Government Association and other planning means.
Baroness Hanham
In the consultation, it is suggested that the length of designation should be reviewed after a year. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, is asking whether you could keep on renewing it so that there would be no end to the time. I do not know the answer to that, and I will drop the noble Lord a note, if I may.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, very briefly, I welcome what I think is a positive response from the Minister about local authorities not being put in a perilous position for reasons which are not their fault. I accept that my amendment was a typical Committee amendment to set out some of the issues in black and white; I did not expect it all to appear in the Bill. However, the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, was that at the moment there is nothing in the Bill. If something can be included in the Bill to give me some reassurance and guarantee that the thinking—I am always in favour of thinking; it is what makes humans progress—that the Minister promised will take place on these matters, that would be extremely helpful. That could be by introducing regulations.
The only other pebble that I want to drop into the pond at the moment is to ask whether there is a danger that by emphasising formal planning performance agreements for major applications, the mere negotiation of those agreements in a much larger number of cases might cause more delays.
Baroness Hanham
On this amendment I shall satisfy my noble friend Lord Deben and practically nobody else because I cannot accept it. I do not suppose many noble Lords will be surprised at that because, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, said quite properly and rightly, if this amendment were agreed to, that would be the end of Clause 1 because there would be virtually nobody left to be designated. If that is the purpose, I understand that, but if it is not, that is what the effect would be.
Amendment 6 would prevent the submission of applications directly to the Secretary of State in any area where the planning authority had not adopted a local plan within the past 20 years. I can advise noble Lords that the city of York is the only one that falls into that category. I am not sure that we want to allow that.
Quite apart from preventing the effective operation of Clause 1, these amendments are not entirely logical. Where applications are submitted directly to the Secretary of State, the planning inspectors dealing with them will have to have regard to flood risk and any designations that affect the site, and to the national policy that enshrines those important protections where local plans are not up to date. They are required to do so by law, just as the local planning authority is. Similarly, there is no logic in saying that local authorities should be exempted from designation just because they have responsibility for protected areas. Applicants for planning permission and local communities should be served by an effective planning service in these areas, just as much as anywhere else.
I note the arguments that noble Lords made about the specific circumstances of national parks. I heard very clearly what my noble friend Lord Deben said about this. We want the process of assessing performance to be fair, which is why the consultation proposes looking at this over a two-year period to ensure that judgments are based on sufficient data. We will, of course, be looking carefully at what the consultation responses say about this, but I do not think a case could be made to exclude national parks from possible designation just because they are national parks and because they may not deal with an enormous number of applications. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, read out the list that I have had passed to me, and it is clear that some have more than others. The same argument can be made for all the other areas that noble Lords want to exclude. I guess most, or a great part, of London is in conservation areas, and I am not sure that we necessarily think that it would be a good idea to exclude them all.
I do not believe that these amendments are necessary. Their effect would be such that I would not be able to accept them because they would make Clause 1 redundant.
Lord Greaves
The table I have is headed “total major decisions” not “total major approvals”. This needs clarifying perhaps, but I would not want to clash with my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding over a technical, statistical thing when neither of us knows whether it is right.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we have Amendments 11 and 17 in this group. Amendment 11 refers to circumstances where a connected application is made to the Secretary of State. It would clarify that the Secretary of State will be responsible for ensuring that all statutory requirements which a local planning authority or hazardous substance authority have to meet will be met by the Secretary of State. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that.
Amendment 17 is very much along the same lines as that pursued by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. It would bring some clarity to the boundaries of what counts as a connected application. The Bill clearly includes listed building consent and conservation area consent, but otherwise means,
“an application of a description prescribed by the Secretary of State”.
This prescription will presumably be via some parliamentary process. Our amendment would require a consultation to be held. However, the particular purpose of the amendment, like the probing amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is to get more on the record concerning the Government’s approach to this. It is understood that this may be driven, at least in part, by the Penfold review, but that was looking at non-planning consent, so I am unsure how that would fit; indeed, some of the other recommendations of the Penfold review are being carried forward in the Bill. Can the Minister say whether anything is in contemplation under Clause 1(3)(a)(ii)?
We support Amendments 10 and 12 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, which would make it mandatory to refer a non-connected application to a relevant planning authority or hazardous substance authority. If it were not mandatory, I am not sure where it would go.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I need to start by explaining why we have made provision for connected applications in subsections (3) and (4) of new Section 62A to be inserted in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 under Clause 1. In the few cases where a planning application is submitted directly to the Secretary of State—that is, at the behest of the developer—it is important that if there are any other consents that need to be obtained under the planning Acts, and which are directly connected to the scheme concerned, it makes sense to have the ability for them to be considered by the Secretary of State at the same time. That would be a normal planning process. This is not a hidden provision that would allow an expansion in the use of Clause 1 by the back door but a common-sense measure to minimise bureaucracy and to streamline the process.
We have not sought to specify every single consent that could conceivably fall into this category but have instead cited the principal ones and given the Secretary of State the ability to prescribe any additional consents that may need to be dealt with in a similar way, which might include, for example, hazardous waste, advertisement consent or tree preservation order consent. There probably are some others but those would be the main ones.
This is a common approach in legislation, which avoids the Act becoming unnecessarily detailed and complicated. In practice, it will relate just to a small number of applications and consents that are required only occasionally, and which are, additionally, limited to consents required under the planning Acts and not under any other legislation. Nor is there any need, as Amendment 11 seeks to do, to say in the Bill that in dealing with such applications the Secretary of State should comply with relevant statutory requirements. We will ensure through the secondary legislation that all statutory requirements apply, whoever the decision-maker is.
Amendment 17 seeks to make decisions about the submission or transfer of connected applications subject to published criteria. Once again, I do not think that placing such a requirement in the Bill is at all necessary. It usually will be a matter of common sense as to whether a particular consent is “connected” or not. Therefore, we do not need to add to the mountain of planning guidance that already exists. Indeed, as noble Lords will know, the Government are undertaking a radical streamlining of the planning guidance under the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. He probably would not welcome our adding any more to his work.
I can deal quite briefly with Amendment 12, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has said, concerns the language—we have discussed this on many occasions as regards many amendments—and whether it should say “may” rather than “must”. However, this is consistent with the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which is the legislation that this clause would amend. This is a matter of drafting convention that we should respect. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, asked me where the advice would come from and whether an application is connected. We would expect that that would be covered in any pre-application discussions either at the time the application was moved to the Planning Inspectorate or initially.
I would like to reassure noble Lords that there is absolutely no question of the Secretary of State holding on to a “connected application”, should it be found to be unrelated—unconnected—to the planning application that he is considering. There would be no reason for him to do so and it clearly would not be at all sensible. I hope with those explanations that the noble Lord is willing to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I think I have got the answer that I was seeking on the “may/must” issue: the Secretary of State would send it back to the local planning authority and there would be no question—I think that those were the Minister’s words—about that, which is okay. As someone who believes that words must mean what they mean, I do not understand why it should say “may”. Nevertheless, I accept the Minister’s assurance.
I can understand how the conservation consents and the listed building consents fit naturally with the relevant application with which the Secretary of State is dealing. I started to get a bit alarmed when the Minister referred to advertisement consent and TPOs. Advertisement consent tends to concern things that happen over a period of time. For example, at the beginning of a big new development, there will be some adverts. But what happens if someone comes along two years after the development has taken place and asks for more or different advertisements, or whatever? Because the application originally had been a relevant application dealt with by the Secretary of State and assuming that the authority was still designated two years later, would it still go to the Secretary of State or would it be regarded as a completely new application, although not a major application because it refers to just advertisement consent, and be dealt with by the local authority in the normal way? In other words, what would the system be for minor additions or changes to the development once the development had been completed and signed off? That is the question that arises in my mind.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, there is always a danger in being clever. I found a briefing note about the extra provisions and I thought that it would be sensible to read it out. I am now regretting it enormously because the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has raised further perfectly sensible and relevant questions about it. As regards the tree preservation order and the advertisement consent, I can see how they could be connected applications but the noble Lord might be happier if he gets a proper response and I will make sure that he does. I am very sorry but I have completely forgotten what else he asked me.
Lord Greaves
I asked about what will happen when further minor applications or advertisement consents come up—for example, if a big development has taken place and people want to change it or to put up adverts.
Baroness Hanham
I apologise for that. I was getting the small things right. They would be new applications and therefore they would be considered in the same way, depending on whether the authority at that stage was designated or not.
Lord Greaves
Perhaps the Minister would include that in her clarification letter. Clearly, if the authority is no longer designated, it would deal with applications because there would be no procedure for sending them off. But if it was still designated, at what stage does a development break free from being a relevant development and is treated like any other development?
Baroness Hanham
My understanding is that any fresh application, even one which is associated with a development, would be considered to be a new application. It would therefore fall to be considered on the basis of whether or not the authority was designated and whether the developer under those circumstances wanted to take it back to the Planning Inspectorate. If that is not correct, I will let the noble Lord know.
Lord Greaves
We could go on talking about this for a while but I think that it would be better to clarify it outside the Chamber. I am very grateful for the answers that I have been given. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I think that I am talking about just the main local grant that comes with the formula grant. I may need to write to the noble Lord on that aspect. With that reservation—it needs to be part of the compendium that will come after this session—I hope that noble Lords will withdraw or not move their amendments.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, there used to be something called the planning performance grant, but my understanding is that it had been abolished. I do not know if any answer on that will be forthcoming, but it would be helpful.
Local authorities will have this extra cost because their income from planning applications, particularly major applications, will decrease or be taken away. The authority will therefore have no choice but to attempt to downsize its planning department. However, downsizing a small department and saving money is not always easy because the authority may have staff in whole numbers and it may not be possible to split them up into part-time staff. The authority may have to choose, if it has four development control staff, to get rid of a whole person. That may be more of a reduction than is reasonable for the continued efficient operation of the department. Who knows? All circumstances may be different but it is ambitious for the Government to suggest that costs will be minimal.
In addition, confining the department to performing basic administrative tasks simply may not be possible in reality because, with the best will in the world, the Planning Inspectorate will as much as possible want to tap into local information and knowledge, which will reside within the local planning department; there is no doubt about that. Is the idea that the department will perform only a few administrative tasks and that staff will not receive telephone calls, e-mails or whatever asking for more information? When you are dealing with a major planning application, all the time you are seeking lots of information from lots of sources, and some of it will be ambiguous and you will want to know its planning history. You will therefore go to the local planning officers to get that information. That will inevitably take up their time and some of the resources of the local authority. The idea that the local authority planning officers simply bang up a few notices on site or put them in the local paper is utterly unrealistic. They are going to get involved because it will be in the interests of the Planning Inspectorate that they do so; and that will be the way to get a good, quick and efficient decision. The inspectorate should not have to seek information from scratch when it is there within the local planning department. That will happen all the time and it will cost money. We may continue to talk about this and—
Baroness Hanham
Local residents will of course have the same right to put their representations directly to the Planning Inspectorate as they would to a local authority.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has raised some extremely important issues. Perhaps this is a matter on which we could receive a letter but my understanding is that the imposition of conditions will be part of the planning permission. I am not sure what “discharge of conditions” means, but if it means checking that they are taking place, and monitoring and supervising that, if the local planning authority is to carry that out, depending on what the conditions are, it will take time and resources—particularly staff time. If there are then complaints from anybody that it is being done wrongly, the local authority will be responsible for enforcement. That costs money, which, in a normal state of affairs, would be partly paid for by the planning application fee. In the case of big applications, the fee can be considerable.
The other thought that I had when the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was questioning the Minister was that it is inconceivable that a local planning authority—by which I mean the councillors—will not want to act as a consultee if it is a major planning application. It is inconceivable that the planning management committee, or whatever it is called in a particular area, will not consider that application, just as the local parish councils will do. In doing so, it will want quite a lot of solid evidence from its officers. It will not be prepared to behave like a parish council that simply gets the application and talks about it but does not really have any expert advice, the advice being based on local knowledge and so on; it will be a planning committee which expects a proper report and which expects to make representations to the Secretary of State—or Planning Inspectorate—who makes the decision. It is inconceivable that that would not happen.
As a councillor, I do not envisage that my authority will be designated. I would be ashamed if it were and I am sure that it will not be. However, if I was on a council that was designated, as a councillor it is inconceivable that I would not want the councillors to put in their two pennyworth. That, too, will cost money, and for the Government to say, “Oh well, that will just have to come out of the general funds”, is very unsatisfactory.
I am very grateful to the Minister for her response to my first amendment and I raise my glass to her on that. I think that there is more to be talked about on the general financial issue between now and Report and, on that basis, I am pleased to—
Baroness Hanham
Before the noble Lord withdraws his amendment, I need to correct what I said so that we are absolutely clear. I should have remembered that the proposal in the consultation is that the planning authority will continue to deal with Section 106 and the discharge of conditions, although we will of course need to look at what people have said in the consultation. However, the proposal is not as I think I presented it; it is that the planning authority will continue with Section 106.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, this gets a bit more mysterious. The decision on whether or not to grant planning permission sometimes depends on whether a satisfactory Section 106 agreement is available. That is what tips the balance one way or the other if it is a marginal application. Certainly, I do not know what “discharge of conditions” means. Perhaps we need to understand that, as I have already said. However, the decision as to what the conditions are is an integral part of granting planning permission. You do not grant planning permission and then sit around thinking, “What conditions shall we put on it?”. You discuss the conditions and all the arrangements and then, on the basis of the whole package, you say, “Yes, that’s okay”. You might take off one condition that is proposed and put on another, or you might say, “We’ll have another condition to make it reasonable for people within that particular street”, or whatever. That is how it works, and I simply do not understand how the Planning Inspectorate can give planning permission without conditions. I do not believe that it is going to do so because, with regard to appeals, when an application is turned down the inspector decides what conditions to put on at that stage. He will always ask the local planning authority that turned down the application for a list of possible conditions if he decides to approve it. That is how it works. I think that we need some clarity on this. Having said that, I shall make a further attempt to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hanham
Every local authority has its own methods, which must fall within the statutory consultation process. It would not be out of order for a planning inspector to hold a direct hearing to hear from local people; I do not see why he should not be able to do that. That would happen now anyway if the local authority thought that it was required. The process would be exactly the same as that available now. We do not think that this requires anything other than secondary legislation. It will be in secondary legislation. I am prepared to keep that under review for a little while to make sure that that is correct.
In answer to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, planning inspectors will need to take into account all material considerations, which will include any local or neighbourhood plans. I am sure that any statutory obligation to undertake consultation with parish councils will remain. With those reassurances, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am grateful to a number of speakers who took part in this debate. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for his support on the issue of parish councils. I think that I have an up-to-date version of the 1990 Act, but one can never be totally sure about these things. I think that my amendment stands up, but I will look at it again, and perhaps the Minister will clarify the issue.
What the Minister said on parish councils did not quite meet the case. She said that the present statutory position would still apply. However, the statutory provision is in relation to planning applications made to the local planning authority. The question is: will it automatically transfer as a statutory provision to the Planning Inspectorate? If not, should paragraph 8 of Schedule 1 to the 1990 Act be amended to make it absolutely clear that it does apply to the Planning Inspectorate, and that parish councils will have a right to notification—which I think now is an automatic right, but I will check this—rather than having to ask for it?
I was particularly grateful for the splendid speech of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who said some things that I would like to have said in your Lordships’ House but stepped back from saying because noble Lords might have thought that I was threatening to organise all the Swampys of the world to go and make a nuisance of themselves—which of course I would never do, but might have done in my youth. However, I will march hand in hand with the noble Lord, Lord Deben, leading a band of people behind us.
I will be serious, because this is a very serious matter. The Minister said that people like to be consulted. They do—that is absolutely true—but nowadays they demand to be consulted, and are very unhappy if they feel that they have not been consulted and, whatever the final decision is, that their representations and views have not been taken seriously. That is the important thing that we must get right, and I am not sure that the Bill does that.
The Minister said that all the same processes would take place, but the question is: given that they are different in different planning authorities, can the Planning Inspectorate cope with doing different things in different areas? The basics of what it does will have to be the same. There will have to be site notices, appropriate notices in the newspapers and so on. However, because some planning authorities go much further than they have to under the legislation, will it be local custom and practice—local policy—that applies, or will the Planning Inspectorate try to apply the same thing everywhere? That is the fundamental question that needs more thought.
Baroness Hanham
I will give the noble Lord a response, but I may have to change it. My instinct is to say that the Planning Inspectorate already deals with innumerable applications from different local authorities. I do not see why the processes that it will follow when taking an application initially will be any different from those that it follows when it considers an appeal. That seems to be the sensible answer. If there is another answer that does not come under the heading of “sensible”, I will let the noble Lord know.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, that was a very interesting dialogue. Most of the things that the Planning Inspectorate deals with now are appeals, for which there can be a standard system everywhere. Dealing with initial applications is different everywhere. These are things about which we need to think further, not least to avoid revolution in the land, particularly in rural areas. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
National Planning Policy Statement
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(11 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord Greaves
My Lords, in asking the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I remind the House of my active membership of my local planning authority.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, the Government’s policy, as set out in the National Planning Policy Framework, is that councils should have plans in place that meet their housing and development needs. These will vary across the country, depending on local circumstances and demands.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on not answering my Question at all. The first half of my Question is to ask the Government whether the statement by the Planning Minister, Mr Boles, in recent days that the amount of countryside that will need to be built on is such as to increase the amount of built-up area in England by one-third. Was he giving his own opinion or was he speaking as a Minister and giving government policy?
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Hanham
The answer to that is yes. Local authorities have been asked simply to take those who have council tax benefit already and those whose applications have been made already and to transfer them on to the new system.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about housing benefit costs. This relates to applicable amount and income so that it does not skew the award. We will be happy to write on this matter, which, judging by the noble Lord’s face, would be a very good thing. We are continuing to work with the Department for Work and Pensions to develop the treatment of universal credit as these regulations are finalised. There is still work to be done, but we will write to the noble Lord and give other Members of the Committee a copy of that letter, as we have done previously, so that, if we have to have discussions before the next stage, we will have the answers.
Let me read the replies that I have, as we need to put them on the record. Some of this will answer the questions that have been asked and some of it will not, but it will show what we thought the whole question was really about. Amendment 79B seeks to clarify that income from universal credit can be taken into account in determining eligibility for council tax reduction. We touched on this issue in the previous Committee session, when my noble friend Lord Attlee explained that, while local authorities would be free to take universal credit income into account as they saw fit in their local scheme, the Government would be prescribing how this income would be treated in the default scheme. I am pleased to confirm that the regulations are there—noble Lords have seen them.
I think that it would be helpful to explain paragraph 2(2) of new Schedule 1A of the Local Government Finance Act 1992. This is an illustrative provision, intended to show that local authorities can define the classes of person entitled to reductions by reference to such matters as a person’s income and capital and the income and capital of any other person who is resident in the dwelling. The many precise types of income that may be taken into account in relation to council tax benefit are, as the noble Baroness will know, currently listed in regulations. The draft default scheme regulations confirm that this will still be the case in future and, in relation to the default scheme, make it clear that universal credit will be among the types of income to be taken into account. Of course it is right that references to specific benefit incomes should be in regulations given the extent of the detail involved.
The noble Baroness may be seeking assurance on the way in which universal credit income will be able to be taken into account in calculating future awards under the default scheme—that is exactly what she was doing. Perhaps I could try to reassure her further than I have been able to do so far. Universal credit is a working-age benefit and it will normally fall to local authorities to design how income from this award will be taken into account in local schemes for working-age claimants. However, paragraph 4 of new Schedule 1A of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 requires the Secretary of State to make regulations providing for a default scheme. This will come into effect for any authority that has not made a scheme by 31 January 2013 and is to be in place for the financial year 2013-14.
As the noble Baroness will know, there are pathfinders for universal credit, which will commence in April 2013, and the migration to universal credit will commence in October 2013, so it is right that the default scheme should make provision for the treatment of universal credit income, although it will not be relevant to start with. The regulations for the default scheme set out how we intend to treat universal credit income under that scheme. As I said, we will continue to work with the Department for Work and Pensions on the detailed approach. However, we believe that this provides a clear general indication of how we intend to take universal credit income into account in the default scheme. The draft regulations explain that a person in receipt of universal credit will have a means test applied.
Previously, applicants of three benefits being replaced by universal credit—income-based jobseeker’s allowance, income-related employment and support allowance, and income support—would automatically have received 100% council tax benefit. However, universal credit will not distinguish, in the way that those benefits did, between those who are in work, and those who are out of work. This is an important part of the Government’s welfare reform agenda, ensuring that the return to work does not result in benefits dramatically dropping away, so that work pays and is seen to pay.
Claimants will be means-tested, using and appropriately modifying the assessment of income made for the purposes of universal credit. Broadly speaking, after the application of this means test, those who currently get 100% support will continue to do so. Those with a higher income will have their support tapered, as at present. So effectively, there will not be much difference. I can confirm that, in this case, universal credit income itself will also be taken into account, as I have said.
An individual in receipt of universal credit will already have undergone a complex Department for Work and Pensions assessment of income. It is proposed that, to reduce bureaucracy and red tape, this universal credit income assessment should be reused in the means test for council tax reduction, with certain appropriate adjustments for the calculation of council tax reductions; for example, the council tax reduction income disregards will be applied.
It is also envisaged that the DWP universal credit assessment of what the person needs to live on will be used in the means test in the form of the universal credit maximum award, again with some proposed adjustments to take off the housing element, which is disregarded under the existing council tax benefit system. That matter was raised by the noble Lord opposite. Final figures will not be required to finalise the default scheme regulations, as these refer to elements of universal credit award and calculation, rather than specific amounts.
I have answers to some questions that the noble Baroness asked me, but I should never have too many pieces of paper; they are a disaster. Our stated aim is that the default scheme should be as close as possible to the existing council tax benefit scheme. I can confirm that we are also pursuing this policy by looking to achieve, through our regulations, equivalence between the applicable amount in council tax benefit and maximum award in universal credit. It is already well known that the elements that make up the universal credit maximum amount and the elements that make up the council tax benefit applicable amount will have some broad equivalence. We continue to work closely with the DWP on this as well.
Clearly, the exact rates for each element of the universal credit maximum amount have not yet been finalised. The Department for Work and Pensions explanatory memorandum for the Social Security Advisory Committee, published in June, states that at paragraph 42. Should it, ultimately, be the case that the rates awarded to an element were different in universal credit, it would be a simple matter for us to adjust that by topping up the relevant element of the maximum amount so that it was equivalent to the council tax reduction applicable amount. That would still relieve local authorities of a considerable additional administrative burden in which they would otherwise be involved.
The draft default scheme regulations make clear the Government’s intention that local authorities in their schemes should be able to count universal credit income as a type of income to determine who is in a class. It is not necessary to amend paragraph 2(2) of new Schedule 1A to refer to universal credit, as authorities may already take this into account when determining the class of person entitled to a reduction under a scheme. Furthermore, it is not practical. If we were to refer specifically to universal credit in this provision, we might also need to refer to other individual benefits and types of income that may be taken into account. That would entail introducing references to myriad other types of income on the face of the Bill.
Amendment 83 would extend the requirement for local authorities to consult on their schemes so that they were required to do so under the current benefit structure or under universal credit. At present, council tax benefit is centrally prescribed. It is not clear to me what purpose a requirement for authorities to consult on a centrally prescribed set of requirements would serve. We have been clear that council tax support will not form part of universal credit in future, so a requirement to consult on schemes under that structure similarly does not seem needed.
The noble Baroness may be seeking to make clear that the consultation should explicitly seek views on the interaction between their proposed scheme and other current benefits, or the interaction between the scheme and universal credit. This is very sensible, but it does not require regulation. Local authorities are already required to consult on their schemes; we have been clear that we do not intend to prescribe how this consultation should operate, as local authorities routinely consult on matters and have settled policies and procedures, which we expect they will continue to follow.
I recognise that there is a great degree of interest from Members in this Room about how local schemes will take universal credit into account. I hope that some of the responses that I have given will provide greater clarity on that. We can perhaps discuss that before Report and have a proper session on it.
Local authorities’ schemes will be subject to consultation and authorities will need to be prepared to defend their schemes. Members in both Houses and from both sides of the House have expressed their support for the principle of localisation. We trust local government to administer the key services that will make a crucial difference to people’s lives in relation to benefits.
I hope that with that plethora of explanation, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Greaves
I may be the only person in this Committee who has not completely understood everything that has been said. If that is the case, I apologise. My noble friend the Minister seemed to say twice that under the default scheme people of working age who currently get 100% council tax benefit would continue to get the 100% reduction under the new scheme. Is that what she said? Under the default scheme, where is it proposed that that should be paid for, given that there is a 10% cut across board that does not apply to pensioners—and therefore it might be up to 20%? Then there are vulnerable people. If in addition to that people who currently get 100% council tax benefit continue to get that 100% reduction, will the cost of that fall on the remaining people of working age who are means-tested and get part council tax benefit, or does the council tax benefit assume that the council finds the money in some other way?
Baroness Hanham
I think that the last point that the noble Lord made is the right one. We have been at pains to point out that council tax support will come into the general business rates retention scheme support. The local authority will have to make its decision based on its entire income as to how it funds and creates support for council tax benefit. It is not restricted only to the amount of council tax benefit support related solely to that, which will come from the benefit system.
Baroness Hanham
The default scheme is the default scheme, and the default scheme comes into operation in two ways. One is that the local authority does not have a scheme by the time we get around to 31 January next year, in which case the default scheme would be imposed. The second is that it can choose to use the default scheme as its scheme, and that will then still be the same. If it then does not have enough resources, it has to make the judgment as to where it gets those resources from. As I already explained to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that would not necessarily come just from the council tax support; it would come from its wider budget and whole programme.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I think I understand this now and I am certainly beginning to look at this whole scheme in an entirely different light. My understanding in the discussions we had in previous meetings of this Grand Committee was that lots of authorities would be operating on the basis that everybody of working age would be means-tested and would end up paying something. We discussed at great length two or three Committees ago that this would result in a lot of people only paying very small amounts of money—£1 a week, and so on—and the difficulty of collecting this. I know one thing definitely and have been told another. I definitely know that my own authority is looking at a scheme that involves all council tax payers paying something, and I am told that that is typical of the schemes being looked at, certainly by councils in our part of the world.
We might find out in the next few weeks, but a large number of authorities will probably be surprised to learn that the default scheme involves 100% benefit or reduction for people who get it at the moment. The schemes that are being looked at in many cases at the moment do not involve that, which will mean that the authorities then have to look at where they will find the money from. On my previous intervention, the Minister said that the money would not just come out of the council tax reduction money that comes from the Government. We understand that; it is being cut by 10%. It is not being cut for pensioners or vulnerable people as defined in each area, and if it is not being cut for people who are already on 100% reductions that is another burden on somebody else. It either comes from the rest of the working-age population, whether in benefit or otherwise, who will be means-tested, or, as the Minister rightly said, it has to come from general council resources.
Some of us will have to make these decisions, such as the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, who is not here today, and we do not have those extra resources. We are desperately looking at ways of reducing our councils’ spending overall to comply with whatever grant settlement we get next year, and it is simply not going to be possible to say, “Here’s another burden that we’ll just take into general resources”. I do not believe that a lot of authorities will give 100% benefits to people who get them at the moment, and that is a major worry.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, we are still on the default scheme. If the council is required to adopt the default scheme, the benefits remain at 100%. If it takes on the default scheme as a local scheme, it will make its own adjustments to whatever it believes that it can do. If it sets up its own scheme, the 100% will only come about for a limited number of people on very low income, and it can then taper it up and down depending on people’s income because they will be means-tested at that stage. I am trying to make it clear that the default scheme is the legal backstop for local authorities that do not have one on 31 January. They do not have to adopt it, but they can as their own local scheme. I hope that I have contributed as much as possible on this matter.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, this has been an interesting discussion. The trouble is that it has been negatived to some extent by the fact that there are already duties on local authorities, as described. With regard to Amendment 80, local authorities already have a duty to consult persons whom they consider likely to have an interest in their schemes under paragraph 3(1)(c) of new Schedule 1A to the Local Government Finance Act 1992. That is inserted in the Bill by Schedule 4, so that is already there. I do not think we can start setting out on the face of the Bill all those people and organisations to whom local authorities might want to put their proposals, so the amendment is not necessary. I do not say that it is not a sensible point; it is, but it is not necessary.
Of course, local authorities will have to consider carefully the number of potential applicants when they design the scheme, so that they have a sound basis for their financial planning. However, I do not think, and I know that it will not be accepted, that creating a requirement for local authorities to do so would be particularly helpful. To create an additional requirement would duplicate what should already be standard good practice in their financial management.
The amendment also requires authorities to publish as part of the scheme the steps that they will take to ensure that people are informed of their entitlement and what assistance they will offer. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, spoke in favour of that. Sub-paragraphs (1) and (5) of paragraph 2 of new Schedule 1A to the Local Government Finance Act 1992 already require authorities to set out the classes of person who are entitled to a reduction and the procedure for making an application. That seems to cover more or less what the amendment is about.
In fact, local authorities will want to ensure that those who are eligible for support claim what they need to, so that they avoid going into arrears with their council tax, which would not help them or indeed the local authorities. Again, to stipulate how local authorities should do that is to put an unnecessary requirement on them when they are already responsible for the administration of council tax generally and the provisions that already exist.
We are absolutely clear—and let me make this very clear today—that people should claim what they are entitled to. It is absolutely true that not all eligible pensioners or people who are eligible for benefits take them up, and there are a number of reasons for that that I am sure noble Lords could explain. One of the reasons is the stigma attached to council tax benefits. Some people say that they do not particularly want their personal circumstances divulged, however beneficial it would be for them, and not everybody knows how to tackle what is sometimes quite a complicated system, although I accept that there are many organisations available to help them. Under the Bill, those organisations will be available to take claimants through the system, and they will. There is no barrier to people making a claim.
As it designs its scheme, the local authority will have to take into account the fact that it may not have all the claimants available to it to start with. Part of the reason for putting this scheme of business rates retention and council tax benefits into the hands of local authorities is that it is expected and hoped that local authorities will continue to encourage enterprise and business, as many local authorities do at the moment, to get people out of benefits and into employment. We hope there will be a balancing act between those who need and are entitled to benefits and those who are perhaps just working their way through them on a temporary basis. However, how its scheme takes care of that is a judgment for the local authority.
When I was speaking earlier, I pointed out a fact that is relevant here: between 1997-98 and 2009-10, council tax benefits doubled. We are not talking about insignificant sums of money but about huge sums of money. We are trying to ensure that we get unemployment down so that those benefits are not required in the same way, but the 10%—
Lord Greaves
I am again seeking information as I do not know as much about this as other members of the Committee. When the Minister says that council tax benefit doubled over that period, is that before or after taking account of inflation? It obviously makes a great deal of difference.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, it is after taking account of inflation, so it is a very substantial increase. The 10% saving across the piece in the council tax benefit scheme is making a small contribution to help tackle the deficit.
Localising support for council tax increases financial accountability and helps to make local authorities fully responsible for decisions over council tax levels. They now have a requirement to make sure that that is transparent to people who are claiming it and to people who are helping with it.
Amendment 81 would not only prevent a reduction in funding to local authorities. It could, in fact, lead to an increase in government expenditure because it would require the Secretary of State to provide funds to cover all eligible claimants under a new local scheme, however the scheme had been designed. One of the things that would be quite difficult to work out is how many people are eligible for the benefit if they do not apply for it. The amendment is simply not credible or affordable. The saving scored in the spending review has to be delivered, and local authorities are charged with finding ways to deliver that.
It may be helpful if I tell noble Lords what they already know: local authorities will receive the same amount of money this year to support council tax benefits as they received last year, minus 10%. That will be fixed for seven years until the next business rates reset. Meanwhile, if they can get the number of council tax benefit claims down, if they can get people into employment, if they can make a scheme that goes across the whole of their business front, then from now on they will know how much they will get. It is extremely helpful to them because they can always work within those parameters.
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Greaves
I apologise to my noble friend, who is doing rather well. In what context will council tax benefit regulations apply when council tax benefit is abolished?
Baroness Hanham
I suspect that they will stay in place, but I will answer that later. I will write to my noble friend. I do not want to be wrong because I am doing very well here.
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Greaves
Perhaps I can follow with a much smaller-scale example. I ask noble Lords to imagine an old warehouse that has low-level use and is paying relatively low business rates. There is a joint proposal by the council and its owners, if it is near the centre of town, say, to work together to turn it into a modern retail facility with a much higher rateable value: the same building, on the same footprint, with no change to the shape of the building so there is no expansion. What is the difference between doing that and, for example, demolishing that building and then having a completely new retail building, which would presumably provide an extra rateable value that could come within the scheme and have 50% of it going to the local authority? There seem to be marginal cases here, either on a larger scale—such as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, spoke about—or just individual things. I think we need an answer to that. In the case I am talking about, there is no difference in terms of the input of the local authority between the new building and the renovation of the old building.
Baroness Hanham
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves—and again I think that we need to look into this—it seems to me that where you have a building which goes out of business, and consequently the rates from it may go away as well, if that building is converted for another use and there is a revaluation then the local authority can keep that growth, subject to the conditions that arise from growth. It contributes to the local authority’s income from the rateable value. I do not see that there is a problem with that in terms of what the local authority subsequently receives as a result of having maintained its proportion of that rateable growth. We can check that through, but I think that is correct.
Lord Greaves
In practice, if the property has been empty for a certain time—I am not sure of the details—they will have to pay rates on it anyway.
Localism Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(13 years ago)
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Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the initial expectation in the NPPF was that there would be a balanced approach to this. There are the three legs that are really relevant to planning: economic, social and environmental. Brundtland, of course, includes science, and we have been given lots of other ideas of what it might include. If I can just leave it at that, we expect this to be a balanced approach to sustainable development and we recognise that there are elements that are more reflective of the planning system. Then we will have to wait and see what comes out of the discussions.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am extremely grateful for that reply from my noble friend the Minister, who I think went as far as she could—in fact, I think she pushed the limits a little further than some of her more cautious advisers might have liked. I hope that what she said turns out to be satisfactory in the long run.
I just want to say another couple of quick things about sustainable development. Going back to what Greg Clark said in the House of Commons debate on the NPPF, which I think is extremely important, this is not just about balance. Balance is very important indeed, but really good planning can enhance all the three legs, or pillars, or whatever they may be called, of sustainable development. That is possible with good planning. Clearly individual decisions may be balanced one way or another, but overall there has to be balance and enhancement, particularly of the environment. Again, I hope that the issue of environmental limits that you cannot go beyond will be addressed in the NPPF.
Listening to this debate, I was musing that we have not only had the four debates on sustainable development in this Bill and the two NPPF debates; the debate seems to have gone on over the years. I was thinking back to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, the Planning Act 2008, the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, when there was a willingness of the then Labour Ministers to think about what they could do about putting this into the Bill. In the end, however, they said, “No, it cannot be done, for all the reasons that have been put forward”, and all the legal reasons put forward by their advisers. Having struggled against a Labour Government on four of these Bills and trying to find our way through this one under the coalition Government, we are where we are.
Will the outcomes be satisfactory? Will we look back on these debates and say, “Yes, the NPPF is okay, despite the inauspicious way in which it was launched upon the world and despite a lot of the unfortunate wording within it”? Will that all be sorted? Will we get a document that will work? All I can say is that I hope we will. We have a lot of good intentions from the Government and from Ministers, not least my noble friend the Minister here. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches will certainly be keeping up the pressure, and we simply ask them not to let us down. On that basis, I withdraw the amendment.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I think there is an important point here. Will the certificate of conformity be available to planning authorities that have an approved local plan that is waiting for inspection before it is inspected, or will it be only for local plans that have already been adopted?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thought the noble Lord had had his last word on this Bill, so I am a little bit taken aback. I will get an answer to that question as we go along. The answer is no—only adopted plans will have the certificate of conformity.
I hope that I have made it clear that the transitional arrangements are still under consideration but that there will be transitional arrangements. I have been asked whether there will be guidance from the Secretary of State. It will set out as clearly as possible what the transitional arrangements are and any other procedural issues.
Let me conclude by reiterating—this is not my last word, unfortunately—the importance that this Government place on local plans and the need for effective arrangements, delivered through policy or guidance, to manage transition. I want to offer a firm reassurance that the Government recognise the importance of this, as I said earlier today, and will ensure that this is addressed alongside the revisions that are made to the NPPF itself. We are of course looking very closely at all the suggestions that have been made about transition during the consultation process.
We recognise there are genuine issues to be addressed about the status of local plans during the transitional period. I hope that I have addressed some of these tonight, but we will also be considering them further. With these reassurances I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.
Draft National Planning Policy Framework
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the local plans will remain part and parcel of the requirements that people have to pay attention to. Those that have already been developed can and should be updated. That is going to be done on a fast-track basis. I said earlier that discussions were going on with the inspectorate. Those policies that have relied on the regional spatial strategies will maintain until and unless they are changed, and with the adoption of the National Planning Policy Framework. Where they are completed, they are the supporting documents; where they are not completed, they will have to be completed as quickly as possible. In between that, account will have to be taken of the national planning policy framework in any decisions being made.
Lord Greaves
Before the noble Baroness sits down, can she just clear up one point that has been raised? Who will have the responsibility of issuing the certificates of conformity on those local plans and local government frameworks that have already been adopted?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the planning inspectorate will be responsible for issuing the certificates and also for ensuring that the fast-tracking of plans is put in hand.
Localism Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Hanham
My Lords, while the regional strategies are there and before they have been revoked, the plan will have to have regard to them. They will also have to have regard to the emerging NPPF in determining a planning application. Unless they conflict wildly, that should work very well. There is going to be a short period only before the regional strategies are revoked. I do not think there will be any inconsistency. Local authorities are going to want to keep only part of the regional strategies in their local development plan and they ought to be able to work in conjunction with the NPPF for the short space of time, if that is necessary.
With the explanations I have given, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Best, will feel able to withdraw his amendment. I am afraid I said that the NPPF consultation ended yesterday; in the interests of accuracy, it ends today.
Lord Greaves
Before my noble friend the Minister sits down, would she consider the possibility that not giving any indication at all to local planning authorities of the time they have got to get themselves sorted out—I completely share her view that they need to get on with the job—might prolong the process rather than speed it up? In that context, I do not think she answered the question of what the Government are going to do to assist the Planning Inspectorate to cope with what everybody thinks is going to be a very substantial increase in its workload in the short run.
Baroness Hanham
Discussions are going on with the Planning Inspectorate at the moment to see what is required to make the examination process quicker. Under the new way of working, local authorities will be able to have single areas examined one at a time instead of the whole policy having to be dealt with. It is well understood that the Planning Inspectorate will be put under pressure and we hope and expect that that will be able to be worked around.
I have said all that I can say about a transitional period. The transitional arrangements will come about as a result of the consultation on the NPPF. The noble Lord thinks that a set period might be a good idea. However, as I said, with the experience of the previous set period, which does not seem to have put any pressure on local authorities, we would need to consider very carefully whether there is any value in having that.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am going to leap in because I think, with the greatest respect, that the noble Earl is out of order. On Report, we normally get the Minister to wind up after the Opposition. But I hear what he says.
The amendment has its faults, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has already recognised that. But having said that, we are not unhappy about the principle of neighbourhood forums investigating opportunities to create town or parish councils for their area, and we accept that that gives greater democratic legitimacy. The noble Lord is also correct that there were a great many standards inquiries on parishes, but we also accept that they have responsibilities, duties, income and powers that would bring benefit to these neighbourhood proposals.
This is why we have already committed, in the Open Public Services White Paper, to look and see how to make it easier for neighbourhood forums and others to have a parish or town council for their area. In doing so we are looking at streamlining the community governance review process, to which the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred in rather uncomplimentary terms, but we need to strike the right balance so that neighbourhood forums or communities that want a parish council can get one relatively quickly. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was correct that this is not a speedy process at the moment, but if we speed up the process there will have to be safeguards to ensure that parish areas reflect community identity and interests.
The listening phase—which I have written down here, by which I assume consultation is meant—on the Open Public Services White Paper has just finished, and we are looking at cross-government implementation plans being announced in November. Building stronger neighbourhoods, including making it easier for people to set up parish councils, will be a priority for us in those plans.
While I do not want to pre-empt this work that has got to be done, I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that we will consider the issues raised in this amendment in conjunction with that. I hope that, as I said, that process will not be terribly long in coming to conclusions. I hope that with those reassurances, the noble Lord is willing to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am grateful to everybody who has taken part. I have to point out to my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree that there is a fundamental difference between a parochial church council and a civil parish. If he would like to do some historical research he will find that a not very great Liberal Government in the middle of the 1890s—perhaps in 1894, but I would not stick to that—introduced the concept of civil parishes against the hysterical opposition of Conservatives, particularly in your Lordships’ House, who thought that the idea of elected parish councils in the countryside was the nearest thing to communist revolution they could think of. But it was forced through, and it was just about the only good thing which that short-lived Liberal Government managed to do before they lost power.
Having made the party political plug, if I can comment very briefly, the point is —and I am grateful for the support from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton—I accept the nitpicking complaints about the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. If he were to investigate the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 he would find out what is in this section which this amendment is referring to. In my opinion, it is all together far too long-winded and bureaucratic in terms of community governance reviews. On standards, it is often little rural parishes which cause the most bother.
However, I am extremely grateful for the Minister’s comments, which are extremely positive. I look forward with enthusiasm and anticipation to the Government’s proposals in November, which some might say is a pleasant change for me, although it is not entirely. I thank her very much for what she has said. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has quite rightly said that I brought this amendment forward at the Committee stage. I apologise to him because I had intended to add my name to his amendment at this stage, but in the hustle and bustle of the Bill, I failed to do so. The noble Lord has set out the position clearly and I do not have anything to add other than to support his remarks.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am not going to be able to take this any further, so the response I made in Committee is the one I am going to give to the noble Lord again. Neighbourhood forums are not public bodies and therefore by definition they are outside the requirements of the Equality Act. Their purpose is to form themselves in order to make a neighbourhood plan and subsequently, when they have done that, to disband, so they will have a shortish life. By definition they are expected to be widely inclusive in terms of who is on them, and that will be checked by the local authority. The neighbourhood planning proposals cannot be approved unless they are compliant with human rights obligations. Built into this is an expectation of equality both in terms of who should be on the neighbourhood forum and in the way that plans have to be compatible with human rights obligations. It is a requirement, but it is not an absolute legislative requirement because it cannot be one. I hope that, with my explanation, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Greaves
My noble friend has just said something I have not heard before, which is that the expectation is that neighbourhood forums will be short-lived. They will be set up for a particular purpose and they will then close down. I wonder if she would like to comment on that because it is something that we would like to take away and think about, particularly in light of the comments made on earlier amendments by the noble Lord, Lord True.
Localism Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Greaves
My Lords, we discussed this issue at some length when debating a previous group of amendments. The Minister gave a clear assurance that we can have discussions before Third Reading. I hope that we can come to some consensus. On that basis, there is nothing more that I need to say.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am in an interesting position. I offered discussions when debating the last group of amendments, but the offer was rejected forcibly by the vote. I have now been asked whether I will have discussions on these amendments, and I am happy to say that I am content to have them.
Lord Greaves
I think that that was an acceptable answer. I understand that we cannot bring back the amendment that was defeated in the vote, but there are plenty of things in these amendments that we can talk about in relation to what the Bill states. That gives us sufficient leeway to talk about what we want to talk about. Whether the Government will extend their offer of discussions to the Opposition, who rudely threw it back in their face on the previous group of amendments, I do not know. I would welcome their participation, but that is up to the Government.
Lord Greaves
These are all interventions on my speech, but that is quite all right. I happily give way to the Minister.
Baroness Hanham
I will try to dig us out of this muddle. I am happy to have discussions and to include the Opposition. The discussions might be overshadowed slightly by the way in which we proceed on these amendments. However, it is perfectly proper that we should have them and include everybody.
Localism Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Greaves
My Lords, without actually going back to it and looking it up, I do not think so. If that is what it says, it was a mistake. Perhaps it is the wrong line.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I can probably enlighten the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on what his amendment was about when we get to it. Amendments 153ZZAKA to 153ZZAKF all relate to the provisions on charges that we started discussing in the last group. Amendment 153ZZAKA would make it a requirement for the Government to introduce regulations imposing such charges. It is our intention to introduce charges that would be payable by developers on development that has been given permission by a neighbourhood development order. However, that is not to say that, in future, a decision could not be made to meet some of the costs of neighbourhood planning in a different way. We do not, therefore, wish to tie our hands by making it a requirement to regulate in this way. Having said that, before the next stage I would like to test out the business of when the charges are paid so that I can have a sensible answer about it. It is very late for a charge to be made at a time when permission has been given and just before development.
Amendment 153ZZAKB would specify that the costs that can be covered by such charges include the cost of holding a referendum. That is already implicit in the current provisions, and specifying a single cost like this could be taken to imply that other costs have been excluded. They have not, and that would be included.
Amendments 153ZZAKC and 153AKD both relate to the point at which any charge should be made. I am sorry—I leapt in on the previous amendment with what I should have said on this one. Our view is that developers should pay a charge when development commences. We just need to get a little more advice on that, and as to why it is there. It would be more helpful if the fee and charge were made earlier. I will come back to that.
Amendment 153ZZAKE says that, when charges are imposed in relation to a local development order, the charge must be made before the authority takes any further action in relation to that order. The provisions do not extend to local development orders. In the case of neighbourhood development orders, if full permission has been given for development, there may be no further action for a local planning authority to take. So this provision would have no teeth.
Amendment 153ZZAKF would restrict the ability of the Secretary of State to make regulations about the collection and enforcement of charges on a neighbourhood development order. This was the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, could not quite remember. The consequence would be that charges would still apply in relation to neighbourhood development orders, but the collection and enforcement of those charges would be constrained. These powers are designed to ensure that the regulations can deal flexibly and efficiently with changes in circumstances or with problems which become apparent in the future.
There were five amendments on financial assistance. Amendments 153ZZAKG, 153ZZAKH and 153ZZAKJ relate to the provisions on financial assistance for neighbourhood planning. Amendments 153ZZAKG, 153ZZAKH seek to prevent the provision of financial assistance for promoting the benefits of neighbourhood planning, and Amendment 153ZZAKJ seeks to prevent assistance being given to other bodies or individuals. We believe that, in addition to central government funding to local planning authorities for their neighbourhood planning functions, communities that wish to engage in shaping their future should receive support. This could be achieved through funding an independent advice service, through direct funding of neighbourhood groups or through a mixture of both approaches. We would not want to rule those out. The amendments would limit our flexibility.
I recognise the concerns behind Amendments 153ZZAKG and 153ZZAKH. It is certainly not our intention to finance reams of propaganda in support of neighbourhood planning. But we do want to ensure that communities, especially those communities with little prior knowledge of the planning system, can understand what neighbourhood planning can do for them. This is what this provision is aimed at. Similarly, Clause 105(2) would allow us to enter into contracts with training providers or to give grants to voluntary sector organisations to work with communities to help them realise their goals. That reinforces what I said to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, under previous amendments. It is important that when these neighbourhood forums are set up they have the support they need to enable them to do the job that has been put before them. I hope that that answers the noble Lord’s questions and that he can withdraw his amendment.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply but it does not really take us much further than we can deduce simply by reading the Bill. Concerning financial assistance, I am trying to find out how it is going to work, how much money there will be, who will be responsible for handing out the dosh, how people apply for it and who then makes a decision between the different people applying. Perhaps the Minister does not have any of that information, but that is what I was really trying to probe. Does she agree that somebody can write down what the Government’s thinking is, as far as it goes, together with who has had the money so far and on what basis they have been chosen? Would it be possible to write about that?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I will certainly write. Regarding the four organisations that have already received the money, I think there was a full tendering exercise but I will certainly ensure that the noble Lord has the details he asked for. I regret that, both when listening to him and reading his amendments, I was not aware of quite the details that he was looking for but with him having made them clear now, I will make sure that he has answers to them.
Lord Greaves
That is fair enough. When you put down amendments to delete pieces of Bills to probe things, it is sometimes difficult to get through exactly what you are trying to get at. Concerning the charges, the amendments that I put down should be seen as a whole. Individually, they make no sense at all but, taken as a whole, I am trying to suggest that the point at which the charge is being levied is too late at the moment—the Minister had some sympathy with that and is going to look at it—and that it should be paid upfront. People should go in and hand their money over the counter, or however they pay, rather than being sent a bill and then having all this chasing and enforcement procedure. In the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, did not understand, I was just taking out all the chasing-up-the-money procedures. If you take a planning application in and do not hand your money over, your application is not dealt with; it is as simple as that. It seems to me that the same thing should apply for this.
However, the Minister said that she would look at this other point and I look forward to learning the results of her researches. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Localism Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I think that the short answer to my noble friend’s question is that I understand that the powers in relation to national parks are extremely different from what we have been talking about. Neighbourhood development orders would be allowed in national park areas, but they would still have to be in general conformity with the strategic policies of the local plan. I also understand and appreciate that national parks may cover more than one local authority, and it would therefore depend on which area they were in with regard to the local plan. NDOs would have to be appropriate and have regard to national policy. The national policy framework would govern that, but there is an area within that that we can discuss. The situation is covered, and the fact that NDOs would have to conform with the local plans and the national policy frameworks would be enough to suggest that development orders could be formed in that area.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am not sure that that is a satisfactory answer. I thank my noble friend for it but there needs to be further discussion about this matter and exactly how these new types of local plan will impact on the very special areas that are national parks. There is time for further discussion and, on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hanham
I ask noble Lords to withdraw the amendments that they have put forward on the basis of my responses.
Lord Greaves
I asked two questions. If a neighbourhood development order gives outline planning permission, which body is then responsible for dealing with the detailed planning permission which presumably has to follow? That was the first question, and the most important one.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I do not know if the scheme we are running can do that. I will check and I will write to the noble Lord, but my gut feeling would be that if they were in the same neighbourhood area it would probably be two if they were separately rated because it is one per listed non-domestic ratepayer. If that is not correct, I will write to the noble Lord.
I will just say to my noble friend Lord Lucas that I thought I had addressed his concern about financial inducements by saying that there could only be an exchange of money around planning on the basis of agreed local development plans and any negotiations that have been done on those to reduce CIL or Section 106. Having said that, I also agree that anything that is done needs to be transparent, and we will make sure that that is the case.
Lord Greaves
On this question of voting, if there is a small business, a corner shop, for example, where the shopkeeper also lives, does that shopkeeper then have two votes?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for his amendments and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for his comments. Our position is that the safeguards are in place in the neighbourhood planning provisions. Neighbourhood forums do not exercise a public function, so the public sector equalities duty does not apply. The Bill requires forums to have an open approach to their membership and to have sought secure membership from across the neighbourhood area, so there is more than an expectation that everyone will be represented in the area, particularly if there are ethnic minority groups living together, because there often are. Neighbourhood planning proposals cannot be approved unless they are compatible with human rights obligations, and will be subject to consultation, publicity requirements, independent examination and a community referendum.
We particularly want neighbourhood planning to be an open and inclusive process, and we want the whole community to be at its heart. I want noble Lords to know that we will set out regulations and requirements for consultation with and participation by the public to ensure that this is the case. I hope that with the assurance I have given that the amendment is not totally necessary—we do have in mind the areas that have been discussed—the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am grateful for that response, but the answer was not exactly what I was expecting. I thought that the Minister was going to say that neighbourhood forums were exercising a function of a public nature and therefore would be covered by existing legislation. However, she said that they would not be exercising a function of a public nature and so ought not to be covered by the legislation. The purpose of the amendment is to try to make sure that they are covered.
If what the Minister has said is correct, we will have a situation in which neighbourhood plans and development orders are treated differently in parishes from neighbourhood forums in unparished areas. Parish councils are covered by the duties in the Equality Act, and they could not possibly argue that in the production of neighbourhood plans and development orders, they were not exercising a function of a public nature. Everything they do is a function of a public nature. One group will be covered, but in the unparished areas of our large cities and towns, where on balance it is perhaps more important that the legislation should apply because many of the local people may be classed as disadvantaged, hard to reach and so on, it will not apply.
It is difficult to argue that promoting a neighbourhood development order, and particularly promoting and putting together a local plan, is not a function of a public nature. Putting together a plan at any level, whether it be for a district or a neighbourhood, has to be a function of a public nature. I have not been given the answer I expected and I think the response I got initially makes me even more concerned that this ought to be in the Bill to make sure that the Equality Act applies.
For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I give notice that we shall certainly want to have further discussions with the Government about this before the Report stage, and I may wish to bring the matter back then.
Localism Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
Lord Greaves
Am I right in thinking that during the six-month period there is a moratorium on disposal but not on putting property or land on the market? The land could be marketed during those six months and, presumably, if it was a competitive market, the resultant price would be the price that the community group would have to cough up if it wanted to buy it.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is correct. The moratorium does not prevent property being put up for sale or marketed. All it does is to prevent the sale taking place before the community group has had an opportunity to consider whether it can match or beat what has been brought forward.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I have tabled the amendment in order to discuss the role of local authorities and other public bodies—but particularly the role of local authorities—in assisting with community purchases as a result of this legislation. The amendment states that the local authority may acquire and make fit for community use any property which is the subject of these proposals; that an acquisition could be by a compulsory purchase order, with the approval of the Secretary of State in the usual way; and that the local authority could sell or let a property or a business to a community interest group, and could do so by not charging the full market value—in other words, by subsidising the purchase or the maintenance of the community asset. I think the definition of a local authority should include a parish, although I have not included it.
I am not suggesting that this proposal should lead to a large-scale acquisition by local authorities of new community assets. Given the present financial circumstances of local authorities, that is unlikely to happen anyway in most places. However, this will change. In the very nature of things there is a cycle, which many of us have seen more than once, in which local authorities, for various reasons, are more flush with money at one time than they are at others for this kind of purpose. However, being practical, in many areas the only way in which the purchase or the running of community assets that are being disposed of is going to work is through some kind of subsidy from the local authority. It may be from some other public body but it is most likely to be from the local authority. In many areas, it simply will not happen and simply will not work unless that happens.
The subsidy might be relatively modest or it might be quite substantial—or it might be a big subsidy to purchase the asset and then no subsidy, or a small one, towards the maintenance of it, or the other way round. It all depends on the circumstances. But in practice, unless there is an active interventionist policy by local authorities in areas that are not as prosperous as a few places appear to be, it is simply not going to happen. It may happen on a small scale. The noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford, said earlier that communities can raise money. I agree with him. They can. But very often they will raise money as targets and as matching funding as against other grants, and so on. Therefore, it seems to me that local authorities ought to have those powers.
I may be told that, at least in the areas that do not involve subsidising a purchase or passing it on at a lower price than cost, the local authority has these powers anyway—and if they have not, they will have them under the general power of competence, and therefore this amendment is not needed. A short debate is needed on the role of local authorities in this matter and the absolutely central role that they will have to have if this is going to work in a lot of areas, and certainly the areas that I am familiar with. I beg to move.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, we appreciate the intention of this amendment and agree that local authorities have an important role in assisting community interest groups to take on assets of community value. Indeed, the Secretary of State has announced a social responsibility deal for councils, asking them to give greater support to voluntary and community groups. However, that does not need new powers; they already exist. Therefore, this amendment is not necessary.
Local authorities already have wide powers to acquire land by compulsory purchase—for instance, to secure the proper planning of their area and grant public access to land for recreation. In June, we published revised guidance to local authorities to take seriously all viable requests from voluntary community groups put to them for the compulsory purchase of a threatened community asset. But community purchase is not a step to be taken lightly, and the local authority has to demonstrate a compelling case in the public interest that outweighs the private interests of the current owners.
The amendment goes further to suggest that local authorities be given the power to sell the acquired site to a community interest group. Local authorities already have extensive powers to dispose of land, including under the general disposal consent the power to sell land at less than market value, if it is for the social, economic and environmental benefit of the community. We therefore ask that the amendment be withdrawn as it is not necessary.
Lord Greaves
I am grateful to the Minister for saying what I thought she would say—but it is important to have it on the record in relation to the system or scheme that is proposed. One problem with compulsory purchase is making the case that the interests of the wider community outweigh those of the individual who owns the property in the first place. When you have community facilities that are not being put on the market and whose owners are closing them down and refusing to consider transferring them, or are putting them on the market deliberately to be bought by people who are not going to use them for community purposes, an interventionist role for local authorities may be necessary in some cases. I am grateful for what the Minister said and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Localism Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their points on this matter, to which I shall respond briefly. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred to Amendment 133A, but I think we should be referring to Amendment 133E. The amendment would remove the time limit all together. We do not think that this is a good approach because a fixed-term listing will ensure that assets do not remain on the list when they are no longer considered to be of community value.
Under Amendment 134, rather than a fixed period of five years for listing, the local authority would be able to remove the asset from the list at any time but no later than five years after listing. Amendment 135A would introduce different fixed terms for listing depending on the type of asset in question. Both amendments would have an unwelcome effect. They would make it unclear to community groups how long the listing would last and on what basis it could be brought to an end—consequently, reducing the transparency of the whole process. Under our proposals the fixed term will apply unless the site is sold in the meanwhile or the local authority changes its decision on review of the listing.
Amendment 135 would remove the power for the Government to change this period by order after the Act comes into force. We oppose this because the power will enable Parliament to review the five-year limit in the light of experience. The noble Lord, Lord Howard, suggested that this would require primary legislation but as things are in the Bill at the moment it would have to come back to Parliament without ever introducing primary legislation but on secondary legislation. We will also want to take account, for example, of the frequency with which listed assets come on to the market and how often communities wish to re-nominate assets that have changed hands.
In answer to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, yes, after five years an asset can be put back on the list but only if it is re-nominated and again goes through the process of the local authority having to judge whether the asset still meets the definition. The noble Lord, Lord Howard, asked whether the change of the five-year period and the period that land is listed would affect sites already listed. The answer is no. A change would affect only land listed after the change.
I hope that that answers the questions and satisfies both noble Lords for at least the time being. I ask that noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am grateful for those answers. The question in the back of my mind is the extra staffing resources that local authorities will need in order to compile and maintain these lists of community assets. I suppose the answer is that we do not know because we do not know how many nominations there will be. I suspect that in some places there will be a lot and in others there will be very few. We will find out in due course. However, on the basis of the Minister’s response, I am happy to withdraw Amendment 133E. I apologise if I got the number wrong earlier. I have not brought the right glasses for reading and I will have to get them.
Localism Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(13 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this quite long debate on the amendment, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on introducing it succinctly.
The Bill seeks to remove the current prescriptive and overly burdensome rules and procedures for local authority governance arrangements. I am not sure that I am quite on line with my noble friends behind me because, for instance, the Bill allows councils greater freedom to determine their governance arrangements. We have been asked to allow a committee system ever since the previous legislation, when it was arbitrarily removed by the previous Government. We accept that local authorities, as practitioners, are experts in the field of governance, and that most proposals for additional governance models will come from them.
Amendment 34, on the Secretary of State’s power in Schedule 2 to make regulations on this issue, fails to understand that ideas for new governance models may also come from other sources—from government, local government representatives or other bodies. There seems to be some sort of idea that everything has been forced on local authorities. We are not forcing them to do anything; they do not have to adopt the arrangements set out in these regulations for a committee system and can carry on as they are. These regulations—with the prospect of other, newer forms of governance; I cannot think what they are at the moment but there might be some—give them the opportunity to carry them out if they wish.
The restated conditions in Amendment 35 would do little if anything more than recast the existing provisions in the language of today, rather than the language of a decade ago. They are arguably less demanding, since the explicit requirement that the new arrangements must be an improvement on what is already there has been removed. However, it is hard to imagine prescribing a new arrangement unless it achieved something more than what was currently on offer. In short, I do not believe that these amendments would make a substantive difference in how the powers in this section might be operated.
Amendment 36 significantly weakens the conditions, apparently allowing new arrangements that did not provide for decision-taking in an efficient, transparent and accountable way. I am sure that no one would wish to see this. Certainly we do not.
Amendment 37, as the noble Lord, Lord True, said, is all about allowing a district council, for example, to make proposals for governance arrangements that would improve the accountability of the county council to the people of that district. I think that he also mentioned London boroughs as part of that. Effective collaboration between tiers, shared services and shared chief executives, which are coming about more and more, might all be effective ways of improving local governance. I am not certain that we need more central regulation to achieve this. I noted exactly what my noble friend Lord Howard said, that in his area that did not seem to operate. On the other hand, it is a mechanism that I would strongly recommend.
Amendment 37A would disempower local authority leaders by allowing authorities to resolve that the full council, rather than the leader, should appoint the members of the executive cabinet. I remember dealing with the previous local government legislation, where this was accepted as rather a good move, so I am not certain why we now want to get rid of it again.
Lord Greaves
I, too, remember the previous legislation, which brought in this new system. I do not know whether it was accepted as a good move, or by whom, but it was certainly not accepted as a good move by the Liberal Democrat Benches in this House, because we challenged it at the time. The point is that if it is such a good move, surely most authorities will continue to do it that way. But if we are talking about localism, why should they not have the choice?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, we believe that the leader and cabinet model is a good one. We also believe that the leader should be able to select those whom he wishes to have with him. It is a very close relationship, and it is very important that it works well. We think it right for a leader to be able to appoint his own executive team.
Amendment 38 would prevent the maximum size of an executive being set at a figure lower than 10 members. I accept that current experience with 10 members is about right, but I would not accept that future circumstances will be such that, while it might be right to increase the maximum limit of the size of an executive, it might not be right to have a lower limit. I think that that is what the noble Lord’s amendment suggests. Experience demonstrates that 10 is about the right number, and that a lower number may be too little and a higher number too much. Most of these cabinet systems are working quite well as they are. One might also point out that the more cabinet members you have, the more you have to pay. I hope that that resolves some of the questions.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, on this debate, I hear what noble Lords say. I shall reflect carefully on what has been said and I shall ask noble Lords to withdraw their amendments for the time being.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I commend the reply of the Minister on this group of amendments. I advise her to use that exact wording for every group of amendments that we put forward throughout the rest of the Bill; however, I do not say that very optimistically. There are clearly some discussions to be had.
I would just like to respond to the amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and particularly to Amendment 43, which I disagree with fundamentally. In a sense, the amendment reflects the diversity and variety of local government and the representation of local government in your Lordships' House and in this Committee. It is a big-city view, a view of big authorities: in a big city, an area committee of 40 per cent would, in almost any conceivable situation, be ridiculous. However, that is not necessarily the case in smaller authorities.
Perhaps I can tell the Committee the position in my own authority in Pendle. We have five area committees and they range from 32 per cent—these figures are based on mid-year population estimates for 2008—down to 10.7 per cent. The 32 per cent is for the town of Nelson, which has an estimated population of 28,745, which, by big-city standards, is not excessive—it might be just two wards or one and a half wards in some big cities. It would be ridiculous to split Nelson because it is a community with a town centre. You walk from the middle of the town centre and you get to the edge of the town and Nelson stops and you are in the countryside and into smaller communities. I believe that the figure of 40 per cent is right. Quite clearly, there needs to be sensible reflection on the basis of local knowledge in a particular area.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I speak to Amendments 49 and 49C, and I support the comments of my noble friend Lord Tope about district councils. Whether the prescription on scrutiny should exist is a matter for discussion. If it should, then it should apply to district councils as well as to everyone else.
There is a view across parts of the legislation that was brought in 10 years ago that district councils’ overview and scrutiny functions are in some way less important than those of bigger councils. However, for some of the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord True, talked about earlier, because district councils are smaller councils and there are more councillors per elector—often a lot more—scrutiny of local services generally, as well as of their own services, is something that they can do very well indeed.
That leads me to Amendment 49, which removes more classic words. The new subsection states that an “excluded matter”, which I shall describe in a minute,
“means any matter which is … a matter of any description specified in an order made by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this section”.
What major national imperative is there that the Secretary of State should make an order excluding matters from discussion? The matters to be discussed are defined as “local government” matters. This exclusion allows the Secretary of State to produce a list of things that the Secretary of State says are not local government matters and, therefore, under this new section, cannot be referred to an overview and scrutiny committee by a member of the council. This is silly.
I do not know what other provision we are using to do it, or if we are just doing it, but my council has decided on and is getting on with scrutiny of part of the local health service within east Lancashire. It provides a vital service that is not provided by the local authority, although it has some limited influence and joint schemes. However, the local authority is performing some scrutiny. Clearly, it will have to do it with the co-operation of those parts of the health service that are being scrutinised, but that can take place. It may or may not be a local government matter. I do not know whether the Secretary of State wants to exclude it under this provision, but it is the sort of situation in which you should let the local authority get on and do what it wants to do in the interests of the people in the area.
The purpose of the second amendment, Amendment 49C, is probing. It refers to new Section 9FF(1)(b) on page 202 of this compendium Bill and to recommendations relating,
“to a local improvement target which … relates to a relevant partner authority, and … is specified in a local area agreement of the authority”.
I have never really understood local area agreements or got too involved in them, but my impression was that this Government were scaling back on the importance of such agreements and perhaps were looking to abolish them. Perhaps the Minister can tell me where we stand on that.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I shall start by saying that I recognise a lot of what I have heard from noble Lords regarding how councils operate. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, would make it compulsory for scrutiny committees to be chaired by the leader of the opposition party on a council. This amendment is unnecessary. I know of many councils that do precisely that, whereby a leader or senior member of the opposition party chairs review and scrutiny meetings. That is absolutely proper, but such a provision does not need to be couched in either guidance or legislation. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, pointed out, there may be some areas where there are no opposition members, but the amendment would make such a provision mandatory. There are some areas where all members are Conservatives and the issue is the same. I hope that from the tenor of the debate noble Lords will agree that such a provision is neither appropriate nor necessary, and that we should not return to it. The annual scrutiny survey, which, I must say, I did not know existed, shows an upward trend, with 42 per cent of authorities allocating scrutiny chairs to members outside the majority group. This idea is clearly taking off well enough, without any interference from Parliament.
Amendments 46 and 47 would change the arrangements on designated scrutiny officers, particularly to make it clear that a designated officer could lead other officers in the discharge of scrutiny functions, as well as requiring district councils in two-tier areas to designate a scrutiny officer. Again, the amendments proposed are not necessary. Of course, we envisage that scrutiny will involve a number of officers to support a scrutiny committee. That already happens, it is part and parcel of the way scrutiny committees are run, and indeed in some councils they are completely separate from the rest of the administration so that they are completely independent. It is unimaginable that one scrutiny officer could not appoint somebody to help him. It is certainly not necessary to make that mandatory because I am quite certain that in most local authorities that is precisely what happens. There is nothing to prevent a district council in a two-tier area designating a scrutiny officer but statute does not require this. Noble Lords have made the point that district councils perhaps do not have quite such onerous responsibilities as county councils and therefore it is not mandatory for them to have a designated officer, although of course if they choose to have one they can. That is perfectly in order.
Amendments 48 and 49 remove the requirement on members to have regard to the guidance and the regulation-making powers of the Secretary of State in relation to referral of matters to a scrutiny committee. These powers enable the Secretary of State to ensure that certain important safeguards are in place. Regulations made under the power that noble Lords are seeking to remove protect against vexatious or discriminatory matters from being placed on the scrutiny committee meeting agenda. They also exclude matters for which there are already statutory processes and rights of appeal, such as planning and licence decisions or matters relating to an individual. It is not unreasonable that those matters should be placed before scrutiny committees in the course of their business.
We believe that the existing framework is working pretty well without removing the requirement for scrutiny committees to make reports and recommendations relating to partner authorities and local area agreements. Having said that, I have some sympathy with Amendment 49C, which is seeking to remove the link between local improvement targets and local area agreements—that might indeed become otiose. We are absolutely clear that where authorities operate executive governance arrangements, scrutiny arrangements must be in place. We recognise that scrutiny plays an important role in holding the executive to account and contributing to policy development in authorities. I certainly support what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, says—that overview and scrutiny committees, like planning committees, should not be whipped. They are clearly committees where scrutiny and challenge should take place and that should not be done against a background of being told what to do.
Amendment 69 would make it mandatory for councils with committee systems to have an overview and scrutiny committee. That is not necessary. The committee system in itself should have a scrutiny role and always did in the past—that was one of the benefits of the committee system. Therefore, that amendment is not necessary.
With the various explanations and assurances I have given, I hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments.
Baroness Hanham
There is quite a lot of common sense in what the noble Lord has said. I am not going to make any commitments but I would like to talk to the noble Lord before the next stage because I accept that things have changed a lot since the previous committee system was in place, not least partnership working and working across public bodies. It may be that as part of the committee system we at least ought to give tacit acknowledgement to the fact that there may be joint issues they need to discuss. I am not sure whether that needs to be a full scrutiny role or whether it should simply be that the local health authority, or whatever it is, turns up if invited by the committee. Perhaps the noble Lord and I could discuss that before the next stage.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, the Minister said that there might need to be some modification in relation to local improvement targets and local area agreements. Perhaps she could write and tell me exactly where we are with these now, what their status is and what the Government’s intentions are.
Baroness Hanham
I will happily do that and I will lay a copy of the answer in the Library.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I support this sensible and well drafted amendment; my noble friend understands that joke. I want to make two points. First, if councils are to be able to choose the system of governance that they want, let it not be too bound by lots more regulation. Councils used to exist before 2000 and operated committee systems. They did not have lots of statutory guidance, regulations and orders telling them how to run them. They do not need that. Councils can perfectly well set up committees and run sensible committee systems without lots of new regulations.
Secondly, let us not imagine that there was a wonderful era of local representative democracy before 2000, when local authorities everywhere used the committee system, and that it suddenly all went bad when we had to have the executive/scrutiny split, the appointment of leaders, and so on. Life is not and was not like that. In the past, there were councils that operated efficiently, openly and transparently, involved residents and carried out their duties sensibly and efficiently; and there were councils that were pretty hopeless. That has remained the case, even though their systems have changed. Surprise, surprise—those councils that were not so good before 2000 have been not so good since. Of course, councillors can improve and some go the other way but, by and large, it is simply not true that everything was wonderful before 2000 and that everything has been awful since. Different systems may well suit different types and sizes of councils, and the dispositions of different councillors.
I hope that my council will adopt a new committee system and abandon the executive/scrutiny split, although I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that when you are in control of the council, the executive system allows you to do all sorts of things fairly quickly, and you can just get on and do it. Looking back on the five or six years during which we controlled my council and I was involved on the executive, I have to say that I am not terribly proud of the way in which we made some of the decisions out of the public gaze. Of course, they were all rubber-stamped in a proper and legal manner but, in practice, the decisions were made by a small group of people consisting of top councillors and officials who decided what we wanted to do. It may be that that was always the case and that it will happen under a committee system, but the importance of a committee system, as a noble Lord said earlier, is that the scrutiny process can take place at the time that the decision is being made in the committee. This is one of the real reasons for committees and for not having single-party executives making all the decisions.
I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, is not in her place. She and I were together on Lancashire County Council and we have discussed this in the past. I extolled the virtues of the committee system when it all changed to what I think is the appalling way in which that council now makes decisions, a large number of which are made by a single member of the executive—a cabinet member, portfolio member, or whatever they call themselves—sometimes meeting as a single-person committee, with all the officers and just one person in the middle making all the decisions. That is not the right way to do local government. The noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, would say, “Yes, but even under the committee system, when the Labour Party controlled the county council, the decision was made in the Labour group and very rarely changed”. I would say, “Yes, but occasionally it was changed, particularly when I stood up and pointed a few things out. You made a few changes”. The point is that the decisions were subject to debate and scrutiny in public at the time and at the moment they were being made. That does not happen under a lot of executive systems. The decisions we made on my council, when we were able to do so through the executive route, might have been better if we had had more people there challenging what we were saying and the workability of what we were doing, and persuading us to make some improvements. That is the advantage of the committee system.
However, I hope that people will not continue talking about “going back” to the committee system. We do not want to go back to the old committee system. We who hope that our councils will now move to a committee system want them to learn from the experience of the last 10 years and adopt some of the good things that have happened—scrutiny done well is very good. I know that many councils do not do scrutiny very well at all and that scrutiny committees are simply places to make back-bench councillors think that they actually have a job on the council, but scrutiny can be done very well indeed.
I am sorry that my noble friend Lady Hamwee is not here because she is an expert in scrutiny and would wax more lyrical about it than me. However, I hope that councils which are going to move forward to a new committee system—not an old dinosaur system—will keep the best parts of scrutiny because, done well, it has a role to play. What it does not do is the day-to-day, week-by-week scrutiny of decisions as they are taking place and that is why we want to go back to committees.
I say these things because this is the first time we have discussed the very welcome proposals by the Government to allow councils to make the choice, which some of us have argued for whenever it has come up in this House in the last 10 years. It is very welcome, the Government are to be congratulated, and I hope as many councils as feel it is sensible will go ahead with it.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, that was a short debate and I can probably give a reasonably short answer. We have some sympathy with the points that have been raised, particularly about the time that has to elapse before the changes can be implemented. I will not accept the amendment today but I am happy to take it away and consider whether those provisions are as good as they can be.
Localism Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
Lord Greaves
My Lords, on the affirmative business, I think that the noble Lord and the Minister will know that the proposal has our support. It seems that the Government are looking hard at recommendations made by the Delegated Powers Committee. We look forward to their comments in due course, but there is clearly a head of steam round the House over this, and I hope that the Government are sensible.
On the question of parishes, I have seen a draft version of the proposed order. I am not sure how widely it has been circulated or what its status is, except that it has “Draft” stamped all over it. It would be very helpful if it could be circulated widely. I think that it is a good order in its present form; it makes it much easier for a parish council to become eligible than it is under the present set-up. We will find out whether the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, will also think that it is good, since it may well apply to quite small parish councils. There is no point in discussing that further today—but clearly, before Report, it needs to be in the Library of the House so that everybody can see it.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I confirm that the statutory instrument relating to this is in the Library and has been there since 15 June.
Clause 8 defines local authorities for the purposes of the chapter, which are the bodies that will have the new power. By restricting the definition to “eligible” parish councils, the clause provides a power for the Secretary of State to set conditions by order for which parish councils will have the general power.
We are not making the general power of competence available to all parish councils, as the noble Lord suggested. Our view is that, given the breadth of the power and the widely varying circumstances of parish councils, there should be some criteria in place to demonstrate that the parish is representative of its community and has some understanding of the power to help to prevent misuse.
The draft statutory instrument that we made available to the House in the Library on 15 June indicates our intention that, to access the power, two conditions need to be met. These are that two-thirds of the councillors are democratically elected and that the parish clerk has received training in the use of the new power. These criteria have been discussed with the National Association of Local Councils and other interested parties.
Our aim is to ensure that eligible parish councils will be able to use the new power at the same time as other local authorities—an improvement over what happened with the existing well-being power, which was extended to some parish councils only in 2009. However, the noble Lord asked me particularly about the criteria, and those are the criteria that will be in the statutory instruments.
Amendments 26 and 28 are being considered. I will come back on these at a later stage.
Localism Bill
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham(13 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, of course we expect councils to act in the best interests of the communities that they serve, but we do not believe that it is for the Government to dictate what that means. Local authorities are, as we know, accountable through the ballot box and the other provisions of this Bill, not to mention our system of administrative law, which requires the statutory powers for any public authority to be exercised reasonably, in good faith and for proper purposes only. I think that that covers the questions that my noble friend Lady Hamwee has asked and sets into context the provisions in the Bill.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am not sure that I understood that last exchange; I shall read Hansard carefully so that perhaps I will understand it. I am grateful to the Minister for her response and to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for assisting her. These were probing amendments—nothing more—and I shall read carefully what has been said. On that basis, I ask leave to withdraw Amendment 2.
Baroness Hanham
I will have to take advice about that because I was not expecting that question. I will write to the noble Lord and not hazard a guess because we might end up offending each other. If I may, I will make sure that he gets an answer to that specific question.
With that explanation, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, will feel able to withdraw his amendment. I think the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was very much heading to get the sort of answers that I have now given, so I hope he will feel able to withdraw his amendment on the basis that I have given sufficient information.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that. I will read it carefully, and I will take advice from people in our group who are more Welsh than I am and see whether they agree with it too. On first hearing, it does sound a fairly straightforward explanation of where we stand in the Bill, which was the purpose of putting down the amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, asked me whether I wanted to re-reserve powers. I do not, in any circumstances —this was merely a useful peg to pin a couple of questions on, which have been answered fairly satisfactorily.
The only question that comes to mind listening to the Minister, which she may not be able to answer, is how widely the Welsh Ministers consulted local authorities in Wales on whether they wanted the general power of competence. She may not have that information, but it is an open question that someone might have the answer to.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, suggested that the devolution settlement in Scotland was simple. It may be more straightforward than in Wales, but one of the last big Bills in which I was involved was the Marine and Coastal Access Bill in the previous Parliament. The whole relationship with Scotland was an absolute nightmare. It was all down to the details of the way in which the devolution settlement for Scotland affected a whole series of matters in that Bill. However, Scotland is not much affected by this Bill, and perhaps we should be grateful for that.
The Minister’s first remarks on the way in which the Government are thinking about releasing some of the controls on Wales were welcome. If that comes about, I think we would be very much in favour of it. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I will try to be a little more helpful. Part of the answer is that the Government believe that a local authority service should not make a surplus year on year. I think that that was one of the points raised earlier. By providing a power to charge for discretionary services, the Government’s aim is to encourage authorities to provide the sort of services that they would otherwise decide not to provide or improve at all because they cannot justify or afford providing them for free or improving them. I do not think that that actually answers the question, so I am going to write to the noble Lord before the next stage.
Lord Greaves
Before my noble friend responds, the crucial question that comes to mind is this: if the provision as it is in the Bill is passed, does it change the existing situation?
Baroness Hanham
To be a little bit pedantic, I am perfectly happy to answer those questions, but I think we are on the seventh group of amendments, with Amendments 12 to 17 to Clause 5, and Amendments 22 and 23. The noble Lord has just referred to Amendments 20 and 21, which I think come in the next group. It may be more convenient if they could be considered there.
Lord Greaves
I apologise. I shall explain it all again, because there is a mess-up in the groupings and it is best to discuss the questions under the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, rather than under mine that come later. I keep referring to mine because my notes obviously refer to them.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I hope that I said in my remarks that I understood what the recommendation was and that we would look at it further. It is almost inconceivable that a recommendation from that committee would be ignored.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I shall comment briefly on the consultation amendments in my name, Amendments 16 and 17. The noble Baroness said that they would gold-plate the legislation. As I understand it, they would simply put this legislation on the same basis as the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act and the Public Bodies Bill, which was in this House only recently. I am tempted to ask why those pieces of legislation were gold-plated. I hope that this might be looked at again.
The noble Baroness also said that adding a requirement for consultation with representatives of people who are likely to be affected could restrict the amount of consultation that took place, but as it would be an additional requirement—the requirements in the Bill would not be changed at all—and would include the words,
“such other persons that the Secretary of State considers appropriate”,
it is difficult to see how it would restrict anything. It would simply extend the amount of thought that the Secretary of State would have to give to exactly who is being consulted and provide a bit of guidance to him. The two arguments that the Minister has put forward seem a bit weak. When Hansard comes out tomorrow, I will read exactly what was said, but I think that it would be no skin off anybody’s back to accept the amendments.
Finally, I asked why the words “if any” had been added to the similar provisions in other legislation that this is based on. Perhaps the Minister will write to me and explain the significance of that.
Allotments
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, bees are a little beyond my brief and a little beyond my department’s brief. I am extremely happy to refer the question, probably to Defra, and to ensure the noble Baroness has a reply.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I remind the House that I am a local councillor; I am pleased to say that we have just provided some new allotments in my ward. In areas with town and parish councils, the town and parish councils are the statutory allotment authorities and very often run all the local allotments. They are often very good at managing the allotments and running them in an economic and financially viable way. The problem of producing new allotments is providing the capital funding in the beginning to set up the allotments before they can be managed. That is a real problem for town and parish councils. Will the Government look again at it?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, it is right that local authorities have the statutory responsibility for allotments, and it would be up to them if they wished to put aside a capital sum to provide more in their area. I do not think that the Government can direct them to do that, although we recognise that many people want allotments. I certainly do not think that my department would tell local authorities that they had to provide them.
English Language Learning
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
Lord Greaves
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the role that learning English as a foreign language plays in the integration of people from different backgrounds.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, the ability to speak English is important for playing an active role in society. Lack of English can be a factor in social exclusion and a barrier to the integration of migrants. English language skills allow individuals to realise their potential in education and in the workplace, to get on with others in their neighbourhoods, and to make informed decisions about health and other public services.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that helpful reply. Today is a day of action in communities all around the country by people who are campaigning to save ESOL provision, which is threatened with big cuts. What meaning has the big society for people who cannot communicate with their neighbours or take part in their local community? In particular, restricting free ESOL classes to people on so-called “active benefits” will be disastrous for many people—for example, women who are full-time housewives in Asian households and who will lose their lifeline to the wider community. Will the Minister talk to the department responsible for these cuts, and does she think that that department is meddling in areas which it does not know much about?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, in the current economic climate, different decisions have to be made on ESOL as well as on everything else. The Government are prioritising investment in training for unemployed people who are actively seeking work. We expect those who come from other countries to work in England, or their employers, to meet the cost of their English language courses. We will no longer fund ESOL in the workplace. On the division of responsibility between departments on this matter, I will make sure that the BIS aspect goes back to that department.
Audit Commission
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, 1981 was quite a long time ago, just in case that has not been appreciated. Also, since then, the Audit Commission has assumed far greater roles than my noble friend Lady Thatcher ever envisaged it doing. It is now our view that it is time to put audit into the hands of local authorities so that they can demonstrate for themselves that they can choose auditors. Some inspection powers will still be in the hands of Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission to ensure that there is value for money and propriety in those services. Local authorities will have to take a very keen interest in how their services are run, the value they get for the money they pay, and the standards that they achieve.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, it is good to know that this coalition Government are not very Thatcherite. There was rejoicing among local authorities throughout the land when Eric Pickles announced that the Audit Commission was being abolished. The succession of top-down schemes, from best value to the comprehensive performance assessment and the comprehensive area assessment and so on, have wasted vast amounts of time and money in local authorities. Although it will take time to close down the commission, will the Minister confirm that new Labour attempts to micromanage anything on the ground that moves have come to an end and that local authorities can now use their resources to get on and do the jobs that they were elected to do?
Ports: Business Rates
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that and I know that he has taken an interest in this matter over some time. The Valuation Office made its decisions and has been criticised by the Select Committee on the handling of the review of ports. I think that the Valuation Office itself recognised that its communications with businesses affected by the revaluation were deficient and, while it is not clear that a formal inquiry on the handling of this matter is necessary, the Government will be looking at the issues raised.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats I, too, welcome the change of policy which the Minister has revealed. Did she say that the revaluation has been cancelled and, if so, on what basis will the rates now be paid by port-side businesses? If the revaluation has been cancelled, will those businesses which have already paid their backdated demands in part or in full be refunded?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I said that the backdated rates will be cancelled—for the years between 2008 and 2010—and any that have already been paid will be refunded.
Housing: Market Renewal Partnerships
Debate between Lord Greaves and Baroness Hanham
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. Due to the unprecedented deficit, the Government announced savings of £6 billion to government spending in 2010-11. Much of the housing budget is already committed, and as such the necessary cuts will fall on areas where less has been committed for 2010-11. As part of the £6 billion savings package, therefore, the Government are consulting with pathfinders on achieving a saving of £50 million, approximating to a 17.5 per cent reduction across the pathfinders programme.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the Minister on her appointment. We had some good campaigns together in opposition and I hope that we will have some good campaigns together on this side of the House.
I understand the problems that the Government have and the position that the country and the Government are in and the need to make savings. However, does the Minister understand that the £50 million of savings required from the housing market renewal pathfinders and the councils in those areas are, in the proposals put forward to the pathfinders and councils, concentrated entirely on the capital programmes on the investment for the regeneration side of the pathfinders rather than on the revenue? The revenue is much smaller, but would it not be sensible to allow pathfinders and councils to make savings in revenue spending, which goes partly on administration and, in my view, on some top-heavy and unnecessary bureaucracy, rather than in all cases in the investment in regeneration projects, which the pathfinders are about?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, capital is capital and revenue is revenue in local government terms, and seldom the twain shall meet; there really is not an option to move between capital and revenue in this instance. That will not provide flexibility. However, the Government announced on 9 June the removal of ring-fencing, so there will be flexibility in local government to deal with issues such as this.