Land Use in England Committee Report

Lord Greenhalgh Excerpts

Tuesday 25th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register: my residential and commercial property interests and my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association.

It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. We have known each other since university. While his speech was a tour d’horizon, I will keep my remarks focused on issues to do with housing, as a member of the Lords Select Committee looking into the impact of environmental regulations on development.

I pay tribute to the right reverend Prelate for his decade-long contribution to this House and his interest in these matters, and particularly in the long-term future of health and social care. There is no greater conundrum than how we remove the “Berlin Wall” between health and social care and create a sustainable future so that people, particularly in old age, get the care they deserve.

It is important to recognise the scope of this ad hoc committee, which was established last year. It was called to examine the pressures on land use, but excludes the built environment, and to consider land use needs outside the planning system. The central recommendation of the committee is for the creation of a land use commission, although, because of the Government’s negative response, I think the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has potentially reframed that as a panel: an independent, statutory, arm’s-length public body tasked with producing a land use framework. While it is not suggested that this land use framework set any distinct housing development policy or replace the planning system in any way, it is certainly all about the interaction between housing and land use that clearly should be acknowledged.

The report is comprehensive and includes an impressive amount of evidence—both taken orally and written. I will not comment on the many conclusions and recommendations focused on agricultural land use, afforestation and the importance of combining food production and environmental needs, where possible. My focus is on the built environment, given my involvement in the Built Environment Committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Moylan. I will focus on three matters: planning, resources and data.

On planning, my understanding is that the land use commission should assess the amount of new land used for housing and employment on a three-yearly basis, and collate information on existing and future demand; and that this information should be used to help determine what land should be used for housing versus land that is more suited to agriculture or food production, combined with carbon sequestration. That is the nub and is clearly fundamental to the future of our planning system. That is where there is a need for a cross-departmental approach. The Government’s response is that they will establish a land use framework but are not keen on having a separate, independent body. I have some sympathy with that, and I share the concern of my noble friend Lord Moylan that perhaps an institutional response is not needed. Although many noble Lords seem convinced by the case for a separate body, I am not—but I am convinced that we need cross-government working. As someone who worked as a Minister in two government departments, I ask my noble friend the Minister: what is being done to ensure that the land use framework—whose publication is promised for this year—has input from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in particular, so that we get joined-up government and consideration of the very broad land uses that are possible?

I have great sympathy with the committee’s finding on resource, and it is something that has been picked up in our committee. The committee strongly supports the need to increase resources for local planning authorities. Otherwise, we will not hit the Government’s nature recovery and biodiversity net gain targets. If we are to support the delivery of local nature recovery strategies and ensure that they are implemented, and achieve those biodiversity net gains, we are going to need more money. We completely support that. Local planning authorities are not in a place where they can deliver all these additional burdens without significant investment.

I am pleased that the Government have responded with some additional funding—£4.18 million in 2022 and a further £16.71 million between April and November 2023—but I am sure that we have to keep a weather eye on the amount of resource for local planning authorities; that will be critical. I would like to have reassurance from my noble friend the Minister that he will keep a weather eye on the amount of resource that is committed, to ensure that the planning system works to deliver the policy agenda.

The other area I have great sympathy for is the need for data, which is important. I support the committee’s call for an effective and up-to-date evidence base for the land use framework. When we took oral evidence, I was struck by the lack of evidence that there is to develop strategies. We certainly need a structure to capture and update data on land use and ecology at local, regional and central levels, which should be accessible, open source, rigorous and up to date. The Government are doing what they can. My understanding is that £140 million is being invested over three years to deliver a natural capital and ecosystem development, and that there is a national land data programme—which is across government, in this case—exploring how better to use, visualise and communicate the data and analysis; that is also incredibly important. We recognise that we need better data.

In those three areas, including planning, we need to be aware of how a land use framework needs to work across government. I am sceptical about the need for a separate new public body, but I support the committee’s recommendations for greater resource and better data in the absence of enough data at the moment. Let us bring it all together and ensure that, while we protect our rural countryside and have a multiplicity of uses, we also have some chance of building the many thousands of homes that this country desperately needs.