Lord True
Main Page: Lord True (Conservative - Life peer)Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Lord True Excerpts“Development orders: development within the curtilage of a dwelling house
(1) Section 61 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (development orders: supplementary provisions) is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (3) insert—
“(4) Any development order or amendment to an existing development order made after 1 January 2013 that grants planning permission for development within the curtilage of a dwelling house shall not apply within the jurisdiction of a local planning authority until that authority has resolved that it shall.””
Lord True
My Lords, I will not be moving Amendment 46AA; it represents an attempt to offer a compromise to the Government in discussions on this which, sadly, was spurned.
The effect of Amendment 46 is simple. The Government will still be able to—as they have said they want to—impose a doubling of rights to build without planning permission in back gardens up to 6 metres for terraced houses and 8 metres for detached ones. However, under my proposal, local councils would be able to take a simple, quick decision on whether this change is appropriate for, and beneficial to, their local area. In short, it is a localist idea, which is what we have had commended to us from our Front Bench, quite rightly, for a long time.
It is important that the House understands that this does not stop the Government enabling a general extension of rights. It does not affect any other change in permitted rights that the Government propose, only the issue of controlling large developments in gardens—no more, no less. I serve as an elected council leader and I again declare that interest, so I speak not from some romantic attachment to back gardens, about which I spoke on another day—although I do not actually think that that is an ignoble cause—but on the basis of 20 years’ experience in these matters and with some part in recent discussions on them. In those discussions, like others, I thank my noble friend Lady Hanham on the Front Bench for her readiness to engage and to listen in discussion. She is absolutely exemplary. Sadly, however, I have not found that listening characteristic everywhere and it has to be everywhere for it to mean anything.
I was elected in 2010 on a programme that included a promise to protect local back gardens from overdevelopment. The same promises were given by my Member of Parliament and our Liberal Democrat opponents. Commitments to restrict garden grabbing, as I have said on another occasion, were given in our two parties’ manifestos and also in the coalition agreement. I read those out on another occasion—they were clear and specific. As an elected representative I see it as my duty to try to keep promises that I made when we sought election.
It has been put to me that garden grabbing only meant new development but, in my view, it certainly should embrace the loss of half a back garden and potentially more to big new extensions, which is what the Government’s proposal would enable. The people I represent who wake up to find a 6 or 8-metre extension being shoved up outside their back window and who have lost the chance to have any say in the matter will not be impressed by small-print arguments about what promises meant, nor frankly would many of the people who have supported this. I have been encouraged and heartened by the many people who have written and e-mailed in support of the LGA, supporting the stand first taken by my borough and the borough of Sutton, and I am very grateful to see my noble friend Lord Tope here.
I wonder where exactly this idea of doubling permitted development in back gardens sprang from. As I have demonstrated, it was not in any manifesto—quite the reverse. It certainly did not come from your Lordships’ long debates on planning. It was never mentioned. It has not come from any great public call for action. Indeed, as the LGA has demonstrated comprehensively, most extensions outside permitted development are considered swiftly and most are agreed, but after the normal process of mediation and sometimes modification between neighbours that the planning process deliberately and sensibly allows. This idea just tipped out all of a sudden with a ragbag of other ideas, with no prior notice at all, and a hasty six-week consultation was timed to finish on Christmas Eve. We have seen no formal results from or formal response to that consultation, yet Parliament is expected to opine on planning. I rather suspect that if there had been overwhelming popular backing in the consultation, we would have seen the detailed response long ago. I certainly have not seen it. In short, there is no public call for this change. We have seen no evidence in favour of it and no analysis of the potential effects of making it. I submit that this is no sensible way to make legislation that will affect the home lives of many people in Britain.
Lord True
My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken in the debate, which has been a little one-sided perhaps. I thank my noble friend on the Front Bench. It is a difficult task to defend a policy that manifestly, from the body language and from what people have said, has no support from anybody present in this House. I do not hold her responsible for that. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked where the policy had come from. If he reads earlier discussions on this, he will see that I have expressed a shrewd suspicion as to the answer: some might say the uber-moderniser tendency—indeed, I think that that is self-description.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for whose support I am grateful, is quite right that people will still be able to build extensions, but, as the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Elton, said, as well as the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, in a striking speech which I hope officials will study carefully, they will simply have to negotiate with neighbours, which is part of neighbourliness and living together in a society. It seems in life that many matters depend on which end of a telescope you look in. The Government are talking about extending rights, but they are taking away, if you look in the other end of the telescope, a major right from those who are neighbours of people who want to build very large extensions. I repeat what I said: in some of the small, terraced communities which I and others represent, those extensions in some cases could be more than half the back garden if you take the curtilage of the front garden into account. This is major stuff.
One of my many eccentricities is that I used to spend a lot of time when I was young reading Livy, the Roman historian. The third decade of his books, about the wars against Hannibal, relate that, after three crushing defeats, the Roman generals, Fabius and Claudius Marcellus, although the latter was a little more vigorous, did not take on the Carthaginian field army until the Romans thought that they had the balance of forces in their favour. Despite the overwhelming opinion in the House being in favour of this position, I do not believe that something analogous is likely to happen at this moment. I want to study particularly carefully the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, about Article 4, which is critical. I reserve the right to come back to it at Third Reading, perhaps looking at Amendment 46AA. We need to clarify how local authorities opt out. It is true that the Secretary of State does not have to approve, but the Secretary of State has the power to cancel or modify an Article 4 direction at any point. That is absolutely germane to this, setting aside the other points that I made.
I do not want noble Lords to think that this will be the end of the matter. I have had some experience in the usual channels in this House. There will many opportunities to bring this matter back before your Lordships which I shall explore, including on secondary legislation. I therefore hope that the Government will listen to the mood of your Lordships’ House. What is the point of your Lordships’ House if it does not have the opportunity through its debates as well as its Divisions to express an opinion?
I hope to hear further clarification at Third Reading on how Article 4 will actually work as well as more about the consultation—11 weeks to analyse 1,000 answers is quite a long time in my book. The leader of the council could do that, let alone some of the good people I employ. With the promise that I do not intend to go away on this matter, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.