Housing and Planning Act 2016 (Permission in Principle etc) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (England) Regulations 2017

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Grand Committee

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

My Lords, these regulations are necessary to ensure the effective operation of permission in principle when it is introduced later this year. Permission in principle is a new route to planning permission that will give developers up-front certainty that sites are suitable for housing-led development in principle, before they need to work up detailed and costly development proposals.

Permission in principle will make the planning process less risky and more efficient and, in doing so, will help tackle the undersupply of housing by increasing the amount of land, particularly brownfield land, with permission to build. We secured the primary powers through the Housing and Planning Act 2016 to bring permission in principle into effect. We consulted on the detailed operation of the policy and, taking account of the responses received, are now developing secondary legislation that we intend to lay shortly before this House. These regulations make a small number of minor consequential and miscellaneous amendments to primary legislation.

Regulation 2 amends paragraph 9 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972, which prevents local planning authorities excluding information at a planning committee about an application for planning permission in relation to development on its own land. This amendment will require the local planning authority to comply with this requirement where an application for permission in principle is made in relation to local authority land, thereby ensuring an equal level of transparency.

Regulation 3 amends the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Section 69 of that Act deals with entries on planning registers, which are public records of planning applications and permissions in the local area. Regulation 3 will ensure that records of permission in principle applications and consents are made publicly available on local planning registers, too. Section 75 of the 1990 Act ensures that a grant of planning permission enures for the benefit of the land. In other words, a grant of planning permission runs with the land and is not personal to the applicant. Regulation 3 applies this long-standing principle to grants of permission in principle, so that they also run with the land and not with the applicant.

Section 96A of the 1990 Act enables a non-material change, for example a correction to a spelling mistake, to be made to a grant of planning permission. This amendment will enable the applicant to follow an expedited process to make a non-material change to a grant of permission in principle. Without this amendment, the applicant would have to reapply for permission in principle to make such a change. The final change we propose to make through Regulation 3 is to amend Section 100 of the 1990 Act, which deals with revocation powers. This amendment will ensure that local planning authorities can revoke or modify a grant of permission in principle in the exceptional circumstances where such a course of action is necessary. This is consistent with the current arrangements for grants of full or outline planning permission.

Regulation 4 amends the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990 to ensure that in dealing with an application for hazardous substances consent, the hazardous substances authority shall have regard to any permission in principle that has been granted in relation to land in the vicinity. This change will ensure consistency with the arrangements for having due regard to grants of planning permission in relation to hazardous substances consent.

Finally, Regulation 5 will amend the Commons Act 2006 to ensure that when a local planning authority publicises its intention to grant permission in principle to a suitable site on a brownfield register, the right to apply to register that site as a town and village green is switched off. The right to apply is reinstated when a period of 10 weeks passes from when the local planning authority publicises its intention to grant permission in principle without the land being granted such permission. The right to apply is also reinstated when the grant of permission in principle expires. I commend these regulations to the Committee.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I have two brief questions for the Minister. The first relates to the definition of housing-led development that the Government are currently using. We debated this during the passing of the Bill and, as I understand it, permission in principle can be obtained only in relation to housing-led development. However, questions were posed at the time regarding what happens when the housing element of a development is much smaller than the development as a whole, which may have commercial development at its heart and the housing element is consequential. In other words, can permission in principle be granted for housing on a site where less than half of the total development planned is for housing? A clear definition would be helpful.

The second matter is not so much a question as a request for the Minister to consider producing for the general public a plain-English guide to planning law. There are complexities around the Neighbourhood Planning Bill, which goes to Report on Thursday, and the changes it makes to the Housing and Planning Act, under which these regulations are being made. If one looks at, for example, permitted development regulations, permission in principle regulations and, probably in future, pre-commencement conditions, the question arises of whether there are any plans to consolidate all of them. Perhaps more importantly, it should be made easy for the general public, particularly those who are producing neighbourhood plans, to understand the statutory position of many of these policies in relation to themselves. In other words, it should be written in language that people can understand.

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful, clear and brief exposition. I note that he is a compatriot with a truly Welsh title. I have a brief question on Regulation 4—“Consequential amendment to the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990”—in the knowledge that successive Governments have been encouraging the use of brownfield sites. There must be a relevance to that aspect of policy and this item. What is the consequence of this regulation for builders, local authority housing committees and housing associations? How have the Government reached conclusions affecting the use of brownfield sites? I note the helpful reference to Regulation 4 in the Explanatory Note and the mention of a “hazardous substances authority”. Can the Minister—during the debate, by letter or with help from officials—say what this authority is, who is chairing it and what sort of people sit on it? It is relevant in terms of a genuine debate.