Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Porter of Spalding and Baroness Parminter

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Thursday 23rd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 40, tabled in my name, is included in this group and carries on the theme of many of the amendments before us, which is how to give communities confidence that the work and effort they put into a local plan will be taken seriously. In so doing we would encourage more widespread planning in local communities, which is something we want to see. The Minister has suggested that the Bill and the ministerial Statement produced before Christmas are sufficient. Although I acknowledge that they are a step in the right direction, I and others who spoke in Committee did not and still do not believe that on their own they are sufficient. Let me make it clear: a neighbourhood planning body has no right of appeal if the local authority approves an application contrary to the neighbourhood plan or if the development would comprise fewer than 10 homes, which in rural areas means the majority of applications. Their only recourse is to go to judicial review. However, these are neighbourhood planning bodies. They are not all parish councils and they do not have substantial budgets, while of course the judicial review process is costly and largely procedural anyway.

I echo others in saying how helpful the Minister has been in his communications on these matters and I accept the sincerity of his belief that the measures in the Bill are sufficient. I would give him the benefit of the doubt if I knew that the department will be monitoring local planning authorities which do not respect the wishes set out in neighbourhood plans. This is a new process, but when in the future we get new planning Bills, which we surely will as a result of the housing White Paper, noble Lords need to have evidence if the welcome intentions in this Bill are not being delivered. We could then seek to ensure that there is a proper system of review along the lines that I have proposed in the amendment if neighbourhood plans are not being given the weight that they deserve. Here I should say that I am most grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. The time and effort that is invested in neighbourhood plans means that communities have the right to expect them to be taken seriously and we should address the concerns of those who feel that they are simply being ignored and that there is nothing they can do.

I know that the Minister will not accept this amendment, but I would ask him to say in his response whether the Government will commit to asking local planning authorities to notify DCLG when they decide on an application which is contrary to the views of a post-examined neighbourhood plan.

[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

My Lords, I should appear to be sympathetic to anything that seeks to push power back into the hands of local planning authorities as regards their ability to reject a planning application and the Secretary of State having to support the decision. But I am worried about anything that would compel that, on the basis that if developers were not able to appeal to the Government to revisit the decision, they would go through the courts, at which point a council would not only have to employ planning people to deal with a planning appeal, it would have to pay for a barrister as well. So while I am sympathetic to the fact that planning applications which have been refused for non-compliance should not be routinely overturned, I would rather see the Government take a firmer hand with the Planning Inspectorate to ensure that when it does intervene in a case, it does so in a way that has been properly tested by the Secretary of State. I said on the last occasion that people in the outside world are saying that some planning inspectors have gone feral, and that position still pertains today. So rather than compelling the Secretary of State to support a refusal by a council, we need to encourage him to take a firmer grip of the Planning Inspectorate to make sure that in all cases it operates in the way the Government have sanctioned and not in a way that it chooses to sanction for itself.