Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th March 2017 Commons Chamber

Finally, it would useful if the Minister let us know in passing the progress of those requesting Government money to get housing on the move. With the Bill and the Government putting significant amounts of money into housing development, there is a potential win-win for communities if all the ducks are lined up effectively in a row, whereby local people see huge benefits from planning, as opposed to seeing planning as a problem if they ever want to change anything or as an afterthought if they are ever consulted. That is why I think the Minister’s approach is in exactly the right area, but further reassurance would be very welcome.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

I am grateful to Madam Deputy Speaker and to my hon. Friend the Minister for giving me the opportunity to speak to two amendments that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I have tabled: an amendment to Lords amendment 4 on neighbourhood plan notification, and an amendment to Lords amendment 23 in relation to the powers that may be given to local authorities to set up new towns. I have two sets of concerns in relation to those amendments.

First, on neighbourhood plans, may I echo what the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) just said about the value of neighbourhood plans in often producing more housing than anticipated? That is the case nationally and that was recognised in the Government’s White Paper. In my constituency, neighbourhood plans have, quite often unexpectedly, produced more houses than local villages were required to produce, because the incentives are turned around and people start to ask themselves what they want in their villages rather than what they do not want. The development of neighbourhood plans, giving local communities control over their own area, has been a very important and welcome localist reform introduced under this Government.

However, the last time we debated the Bill, I said, as I have on many previous occasions, that it is important for the neighbourhood planning process not to be undermined by speculative development applications which are then upheld either by the local authority or on appeal by the planning inspector. That has the effect of demoralising those who subscribe to the neighbourhood plan: those who are either in the process of drawing up plans but are at a late stage, or those whose plans have actually been made and are subjected to a referendum. There is then real local anger when it turns out that a neighbourhood plan which they thought would give protection to certain areas of their local community while allowing for housing in others does not give that protection at all when, because there is not a five-year land supply or for some other reasons, the development application is allowed. There is a real danger—I stress this to the Minister—of confidence in neighbourhood planning being undermined if the widespread perception is that the plans are not worth the paper they are written on. I believe that this is an important issue that the Government still need to address.

I recognise the considerable steps forward taken when the Minister agreed in Committee to measures that would give protection to made neighbourhood plans in relation to the five-year land supply issue. I was very grateful, but he will understand that I was utterly dismayed when, last Friday, I received a letter from the planning inspector informing me that a speculative application in the village of Hassocks in my constituency had been upheld against the wishes of the emerging neighbourhood plan. For whatever reason—the Minister might be able to explain why this happened—the welcome measures that he announced when we last debated this issue were of no help in that situation.

The parish council, which has worked very hard on its neighbourhood plan, is now demoralised and is seriously considering whether to bother going ahead with its neighbourhood plan. Why should it bother if this plan can simply be wrecked by developers and, worse, those speculative applications are then actually upheld by the planning inspector, who of course sits in the Minister’s shoes? I take at face value and accept the Minister’s assurance that the Government are serious about protecting neighbourhood plans, but I tell him that the measures that he has announced so far do not go far enough to achieve that. Villages all over my constituency are now saying that they wonder whether the neighbourhood planning process is one they wish to continue with. We must stop that message getting abroad.

[Greg Mulholland]

I praise the right hon. Gentleman for the work and leadership he has provided to many right hon. and hon. Members who have had exactly the same experience as in Aireborough, for example, on this issue. We hear this nonsense that we are not even allowed to go through the neighbourhood planning process unless we entirely agree with the decisions that we have campaigned on and objected to for many years. Does he agree that, working with organisations such as Community Voice on Planning and others, the Minister and his officials now need to sit down and do this properly so that we get the kind of localism that we all thought we were voting for and that he and I supported in 2011?

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I know that the Government have to square the circle in that they want to see a considerable increase in housing, which is the right ambition so that we can spread opportunity in a country in which house prices are out of the reach of so many young people now and rents are correspondingly high. As I say, the Government are right to seek to address that, but the whole point about neighbourhood planning is that it delivers more houses than was expected. This is not a measure to stop house building; it is a way to ensure that we have a system that is planning-led and not developer-led, so that we do not have a return to the unwelcome days of planning by appeal.

I tabled my amendment with the support of many right hon. and hon. Friends who are equally concerned about this issue, as the Minister will know. It states not just that the neighbourhood forum is entitled to give its views to the planning authority about a planning permission that will have an impact on its emerging or actual neighbourhood plan, but—this is the crucial wording—that the authority must “take into account” the views of the neighbourhood forum. It is very important that that happens.

Frankly, I would personally rather go much further. It is not within the scope of the amendment or the Bill to do so at this point, but I would give much more weight to emerging neighbourhood plans and I would make it very hard for neighbourhood plans to be overturned. The Minister will find that unless that happens in the future, the neighbourhood planning policy will start to be eroded. I hope that the Minister will nevertheless go as far as he can at this point to give the required reassurance to local communities that it is worth pursuing a neighbourhood planning process, that neighbourhood plans will be respected and that speculative developments will not normally be allowed. I would like to understand what I should say to the people of Hassocks about the decision that the Minister made, which has so dismayed them.

Let me deal with the proposed delegation of powers to local authorities to create new towns. I have no objection in principle, speaking as someone who has always advocated localism, to the delegation of these powers, but I want to talk about one possible practical effect that this House should consider when it comes to the making of the future regulations that would allow this to happen.

At the moment, the powers of compulsory purchase that are needed for the creation of new towns under the New Towns Act 1981 rest with the Minister, which I think is right because the compulsory purchase of land is a serious step. Essentially, the state is confiscating land from private ownership, and I think that that should be authorised by Ministers, after very careful consideration. If the power is handed to local authorities, we will risk the creation of serious blight all over the country when authorities, working with developers, consider that they may have designs on land that was previously not available for development or where developers have no options.

In my constituency, a proposal for a new town has been strongly rejected by the two district councils concerned, Horsham and Mid Sussex. Both councils are planning for the right number of houses to be built elsewhere in their districts, but this is an inappropriate location for a new town. The developer, Mayfield, owns very little of the land concerned, and has options on very little of it. A huge number of landowners, responsible for some 4,000 acres of the area, are saying that they do not want their land to be developed. The new town, therefore, could only be built in future in the event of compulsory purchase of the land.

The developer has sought to disrupt the planning process at every stage, arguing against the plans of Horsham and Mid Sussex district councils in an attempt to get its own way. I should point out that an adviser—a paid adviser—to this new town promoter is Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, who was the promoter of the amendment. He declared his interest properly, but it is nevertheless important for us to understand that. Lord Taylor gave the game away when he moved his amendment. He said that what he wanted was a device whereby it would be possible

“to capture the value of land in order to create supplements.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 March 2017; Vol. 779, c. 1894.]

I want the House to understand what Lord Taylor meant. He meant that he wanted to give powers of compulsory purchase to local authorities so that local authorities could purchase land at below the market rate.

Huge blight has already been created in that part of my constituency because of the predatory activities of a developer that does not have sufficient options on the land for a new town in an area where it will never be built. Can the House imagine what would happen were we to give these powers to local authorities which, all over the country, could start to consider where, using powers of compulsory purchase, they might acquire at below the market rate land on which they simply had designs to build?

[John Mann]

Under the code of conduct on standards in public life, someone who has declared an interest—certainly in this House—is prohibited from moving an amendment in which that person has a pecuniary interest in relation to any organisation, as has been the case ever since the Nolan Committee reported in 1996. Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that the House should reflect on that?

[Nick Herbert]

I should emphasise that Lord Taylor made his interest clear when he moved the amendment. As for the rules in the other place, I am not aware of them, but it is the case that Lord Taylor has had in the past, if not currently, a commercial interest with one of the developers that would stand to gain from the transfer of powers that may be effected by the permissive legislation that the Government wish the House to accept.

I believe that this raises a question of principle, namely whether the powers of, specifically, compulsory purchase should ever be delegated to local authorities. I suggest to Members on both sides of the House that we should not allow that. While it might be appropriate to delegate other powers to make it easier for new towns to be established by local consent, I think it would be a grave mistake to delegate powers of compulsory purchase in a way that would cause Ministers to lose control altogether of the process whereby land may be compulsorily purchased. It would have the effects I have described in this area all across the country. The amendment would forbid such a transfer of power in this specific instance in relation to powers of compulsory purchase, and I seek reassurance from my hon. Friend the Minister that the Government have no intention of allowing such a transfer of powers of compulsory purchase. He will know that this is also of huge concern to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), who is unable to be here today but shares my concern about the impact of the Mayfields new town, which crosses both our constituencies.