Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Even in Committee, I do not think we looked at this issue properly. On page 431, in Schedule 12, under general regulations, the Government included a new provision that says that they may make provision treating the community infrastructure levy as if it were the infrastructure levy. All the flexibilities that are required are available in this Bill. We do not know yet what the infrastructure levy and new delivery agreements will look like, but they could incorporate many of the best features of the community infrastructure levy and the best features of Section 106—but they absolutely will require local authorities to have a charging schedule and require those additional developer contributions substantially to increase the availability of affordable housing. On that basis, it would be very remiss on our part at this stage to remove Clause 129 or Schedule 12 rather than giving us the opportunity to have those improvements in the structure of developer contributions. So I am afraid that I shall not support Amendment 68.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I add a brief footnote to what the noble Lord, Lord Best, said in speaking to Amendment 71, to which I have added my name, and to what my noble friend Lord Lansley has said about Amendment 311. I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Best, and my noble friend said about the willingness of Ministers to listen to us throughout the process. The government amendments respond to the concern that we all expressed in Committee about the potential loss of affordable homes.

I shall pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, about the so-called viability loophole. What has been happening is that well-resourced developers, half way through a scheme, have turned to the local authority and said, “It’s no longer viable—and, by the way, we cannot build the affordable homes which were due to be built right towards the end of the scheme”. That left the local planning authority with the nuclear option of pulling the plug on the whole scheme or allowing it to go ahead and at least getting the open market houses. At the time, Shelter did some research, which showed that the use of viability assessments in 11 local authorities across England contributed to 79% fewer affordable houses being built in urban areas than would have built if the original agreement had been adhered to. Following that controversy, the Government introduced guidance and tightened up the rules in 2018; the new rules limited the use of viability assessments to reduce affordable housing to exceptional circumstances, such as a recession or similar economic changes. That was a step in the right direction.

My concern, which was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Best, is that government Amendment 76 seems to go back on the 2018 changes and revert to the position that generated all the criticism about viability. I note in passing that the technical consultation criticised the current Section 106 agreements by saying that the

“planning obligations are uncertain and opaque … they are subject to negotiation (and can be subject to subsequent renegotiation), can create uncertainty for communities over the level of infrastructure and affordable housing that will be delivered”.

Is that not exactly what Amendment 76 does in referring to a development being economically unviable? It seems that what the Government are doing is virtually guaranteeing that no development will ever lose money, while the developer benefits from any gains above expectation. The levelling up Select Committee’s report expressed the same doubts last week.

I want to say a final word on Amendment 311, to which my noble friend Lord Lansley spoke. On 17 March, the Government published their technical consultation. It ran to 91 pages and asked 45 questions; it is not an easy read. The consultation ended on 9 June and the document said:

“Following the closure of this consultation, the government will assess responses. In doing so, a response will be issued that summarises the themes that emerged, before issuing a final consultation on the draft regulations after the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill achieves Royal Assent”.


This means that we are debating Schedule 12 in a vacuum because we do not know what its structure will be. I am afraid that this is a feature of too much in this Bill.

When it published its report, Reforms to National Planning Policy, the Select Committee in another place picked up the same point. It also said that we are going to have real issues if we run the infrastructure levy and Section 106 in tandem, leading to arguments and complications. I was not wholly reassured by what the Minister in the other place said in response to the Select Committee’s query:

“If they say that it is too complicated and ask to change things, we will consider that”.


I am not sure that that is a great step forward.

So, on both issues—viability and the absence of the structure of Section 12—I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to provide the House with some reassurances.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I will intervene briefly. I declare an interest as a chartered surveyor with some involvement in the development process.

I want to speak to the factor that links Amendments 71 and 94 and follows on from what the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, has just said. I have been in the past a technical operator of the dark arts of development appraisal. I would be much less charitable than the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, in my comments about exactly what goes on here; for instance, how land values under option agreements are arrived at and how, with a click of a mouse on a proprietary development appraisal computer package, the matter can then adapt to a viability test for the local authority’s community infrastructure levy or Section 106 contribution purposes. Noble Lords would be astounded at the way in which a yield change here and a cost base there, as well as the adaption of a timeframe or the alteration of a contingency allowance—I mention just a few means—can be used to alter significantly the entire outcome and colouration of what is claimed on the back of it. Further, all this is done by using the same primary data inputs and, unsurprisingly, there are two factors that developers will never reveal to you if they can get away with it. One is the land value that they paid, coloured as it is by all sorts of associated costs before it gets as far as a planning consent; the second is their construction costs, which are entirely opaque.

Alongside all this and of much longer standing is what I describe as the commoditisation of residential property, which started in the 1990s. It has since financed ever more of the items society wishes to have, in terms of affordable housing, infrastructure, schools et cetera. But that policy has created a consistent and ever more bankable asset within an enhanced lending sector. This results in the very unfortunate situation of driving up house prices and creating a model that is less than satisfactory. Core to this is the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell—transparency. Without it, none of this will be demonstrable to anybody, at any time.

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[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 95, I will speak also to Amendments 97, 287 and 293, which address recommendations in the report of your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee on community land auctions—CLAs. I declare my interest as a landowner.

These procedural amendments will change the power of direction in Clause 133(1)(a), which allows the Secretary of State to direct that a local planning authority preparing a local plan may put in place a CLA arrangement. We are changing this, so that local planning authorities wishing to pilot a CLA arrangement should instead be designated by CLA regulations. These regulations will be subject to the negative resolution procedure to allow for an appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny of the selection of local planning authorities to participate in community land auction arrangements. We agree with the argument put forward by the DPRRC that the negative resolution procedure is more appropriate than the affirmative, because it will not lead to the delay of the implementation of CLA arrangements.

The policy intent of these amendments is to allow for the appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny over the selection of prospective piloting authorities. Any potential piloting authorities will need to actively volunteer to participate in CLA arrangements; they will not be forced to do so. These amendments remove any reference to a power for the DLUHC Secretary of State to direct in Part 5, and make associated changes to Clause 231 to ensure that the negative resolution procedure will apply to the new regulation-making power in Clause 133(1). I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 96 and 98 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Lansley.

In answering a question last week, the Minister, my noble friend Lady Scott, said that the levelling-up Bill was a large one; she gave that as a reason for dropping the repeal of the Vagrancy Act. My amendment directly addresses that concern by deleting eight pages from the Bill: those introducing the untested concept of community land auctions, parachuted into the Bill at a late stage in the other place, hot from the bubbling vat of a think tank, without the normal process of cooling and maturing.

I say again how grateful I am to Ministers for their patience in discussions on CLAs and for the very comprehensive six-page letter received yesterday, addressing some of the concerns that I have spoken about.

One would have thought that a novel concept such as this one would have been subjected to some consultation before it appeared in the Bill: first, with those who have to operate it—namely, the planning authorities—and, secondly, with those who represent the landowners, who have expressed deep reservations about the proposal. So we were surprised to hear the Minister say, in winding up the debate in Committee:

“We will consult on community land auctions shortly”.—[Official Report, 18/5/23; col. 430.]


Over the weekend, I was reading the guidance issued in April last year for civil servants who are charged with developing policies such as this one. It says:

“Engaging with stakeholders as soon as possible gives them the opportunity to understand what’s being asked of the service team and why. It’s also a chance to build trust and understanding of each other’s needs and ways of working and lets them plan their time and involvement with the project”.


Clearly, that engagement with the stakeholders simply has not happened here. I am not blaming the civil servants; Ministers clearly insisted on this clause going in. The guidance then adds a warning to civil servants to

“think about what your users need, not what government thinks they want”.

Leasehold Properties: Managing Agents

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord. That is exactly what we are doing. The commitment includes raising professionalism and standards among property agents. As I am sure the noble Lord knows, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and RICS, which she is working with, will meet the Housing Minister to discuss a code of practice for property agents. I thank the noble Baroness for all the work she is doing on this, and I welcome her excellent stewardship of the independent steering group as we strive to promote best practice among property agents in future.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Building Safety Act has given leaseholders very welcome protection against the costs of making their buildings safe, following the Grenfell tragedy. But the legislation has an important defect, in that if any leaseholder subsequently extends his or her lease, they lose all their protection. I think my noble friend is aware of this oversight in the legislation, but when will she put it right and will it be retrospective?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, we are well aware of the significant issue concerning leaseholder protections where leases are extended or varied. A change to primary legislation is necessary to ensure the continuation of protection. We are looking to bring forward the necessary legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows. Obviously, compensation will be part of that discussion, I am sure.

Small and Medium-sized Housebuilders

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I can tell the noble Baroness that I will look at her amendment.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, further to my noble friend Lord Swire’s excellent question, the number of sites with planning consent for fewer than 100 dwellings has fallen by 38% over the past five years. These are the sites most used by small and medium-sized builders. Is there not a case for the planning system to promote much more effectively the use of smaller sites, not just to help smaller builders but to strengthen and diversify the construction industry and accelerate the delivery of new homes?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My noble friend is right. That is why the NPPF includes policies to support SMEs; for example, it sets out that local planning authorities should identify land to accommodate at least 10% of their housing requirements on sites no larger than one hectare. That might seem large, but we also make it clear in the framework that local planning authorities should work with developers to look at subdivisions in those areas where we could help speed up the delivery of homes, particularly by SMEs delivering those homes.

Homelessness: Vagrancy Act 1824

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, the Vagrancy Act, as I have said, is an outdated piece of legislation; I agree with the noble Baroness that it needs repealing. However, the House rules on admissibility of amendments are set out in the Companion; amendments we have consulted on that were related to repealing the vagrancy offences have not been considered admissible to the levelling-up Bill. We would not normally discuss the clerks’ advice in the Chamber, but I am sure that they will be very happy to discuss it in the usual way with her.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, an amendment was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Best, to the police and crime Bill to enable abolition to take place, and the consultation to see what, if anything, needed to be carried forward ended in May last year. Against all the commitments that have been given, are we really going to have the Vagrancy Act 1824 still on the statute book in 1924? Oh, I mean 2024.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My noble friend is right. We did consult when the Vagrancy Act was within DLUHC, and the Home Office is holding further discussions particularly with those stakeholders who are important in local authorities, such as the police. However, the anti-social behaviour plan, which was published last March, outlined further details of our plans to introduce new powers for local authorities and police to respond to begging and rough sleeping, coupling this with improved multiagency working between local partners so that vulnerable individuals receive the support they need. This is a complex issue, and further details will be set out in future legislation at the earliest possible parliamentary opportunity.

Homelessness: Homewards Initiative

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

No; it has affected the economic stability of the whole world. We are working continually to try to get back to those Covid levels.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, like the right reverend Prelate, I very much welcome the commitment of the Prince of Wales to help end homelessness, particularly as the numbers of those sleeping rough are beginning to creep up again, having been reduced to near zero during Covid. I particularly welcome the commitment to make Duchy of Cornwall land available for affordable homes. Is this not an example that could be followed by government departments and other public bodies that have surplus land available?

Housing: Modular Construction

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 8th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I know that the noble Lord has been interested in this sector for many years. I assure him that the Government are taking this very seriously. We are focusing on removing all the barriers to growth. These are about insurance, finance, warranties and, as he mentioned, mortgages. It is all about stimulating that pipeline so that these companies can invest and keep those factories going until this becomes a normality in our housing system.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, has my noble friend read the government publication Modern Methods of Construction, published in September last year? It says:

“The government is committed to using its position as the single largest construction client to support the adoption of a more productive and sustainable business model”,


and goes on to say that there is

“a presumption in favour of off-site construction for relevant departments”.

What progress have the Government been able to make in using MMC for the prison and hospital building programme? If there is success there, might it not encourage the housebuilding industry to take renewed interest in MMC for homes?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

On my noble friend’s last point, that is exactly what we are doing: we are encouraging all the time through investment and support to help housebuilding. On other issues of building public buildings in particular, we want to encourage the take-up of MMC across the whole range of traditional building sites. We can do that by sharing across government. We have introduced a presumption in favour of MMC in our capital programmes, such as within the Department for Education’s school rebuilding programme and the Ministry of Defence accommodation programme. Significant progress has been made on schools and prisons programmes, and we are using those examples of best practice to help shape future policy for MMC.

Housebuilding

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government when they expect that they will reach their target of building 300,000 new homes a year.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)]

My Lords, we are continuing to work towards our ambition of delivering 300,000 homes a year. This has always been a stretching ambition, and we have made strong progress: the three highest rates of annual supply in over 30 years have all come since 2018. We are aware that increasing supply even further will be made more difficult due to the economic challenges we face, but we are engaging with Homes England, developers and registered providers to understand the delivery challenges they face.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Has my noble friend seen today’s Times, which reports that new housebuilding is at its lowest level for 14 years, outside the Covid years? Has a much-needed recovery not been delayed by the concession on planning made in another place to a number of government Back-Benchers, which has already resulted in over 50 local authorities withdrawing their local plans with a view to submitting new plans with a lower number? If a Government make a manifesto commitment to build 300,000 homes, can they rely simply on the good will of local authorities to deliver it, or should we amend the levelling-up Bill to ensure that the country gets the homes it needs?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I will start at the end. The proposed changes to the planning system set out in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill are designed to support more areas to get an up-to-date local plan in place, and therefore deliver more housing. The Government do not recognise the figure on withdrawn plans. Pauses and delays to plan-making are not something new, which is why we are determined, through our reforms, to reinvigorate local plan-making by simplifying it, speeding it up and strengthening the weight of democratically produced plans in this country. As for the article in the Times, yes, I have seen it and all I can say is that we still want to build more homes of the right type in the right places. We know that increasing housing supply will be made more difficult because of economic challenges, but we are working with the market very closely on the impacts, and to see what more the Government can do to provide support.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure that we are all disappointed that we will not hear from the noble Lord who also sponsored these amendments—

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

There is a convention that, if you speak in a debate, you have to stay until the wind-ups. Sadly, I have a commitment that means that that would not be possible. I endorse everything that has been said.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

We are grateful to the noble Lord, and we will miss him for the rest of our deliberations.

We have had many interesting debates on the issue of housing during the discussion on the Bill, from the need to introduce the decent homes standard into the privately rented sector or to address much more urgently the need to improve the energy efficiency of our homes. But I would argue that these amendments are particularly critical, not least during the cost of living crisis, as they deal with the really important issue of evictions and homelessness. Of course, they come at a time when there is huge pressure on temporary accommodation, given all the additional demands being made—not least, in housing refugees. We know that local councils are massively stretched and are using bed and breakfasts and hotels well beyond the legal limit.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and thank him for the lead he has taken on this issue. I was pleased to add my name to his Amendments 456, 457 and 458.

I recall our debate on the regulations that were introduced during the pandemic. We were assured that this was a temporary reduction in the notification required and in the rights of local people to object. We all understood that this was an emergency, that businesses were fighting to survive and that restaurants and pubs were doing their best to carry on providing a service at a time when it was clearly unsafe for people to be gathering inside, even if the Government had allowed it. However, there was a debate about this and as I said, we were assured that this this would be temporary.

These amendments are a modest way of ensuring that residents are still given a reasonable opportunity to object to such applications. To this day, the usual way in which people find out about planning applications is via a local notice attached to a lamp post. Most people are not sitting at home scanning council websites on the chance of finding a planning application that applies to their area. Most people object because they see a notice on a lamp post, or their neighbour tells them about it. If you have sight loss, for example, you will need longer to ensure that you are aware and can write in response, because it is not as easy as it is for people with good eyesight.

Therefore, Amendment 457 is particularly important because it would remove approval by default, which is an indefensible approach to local planning. Amendment 458 is important because it would ensure that street furniture is not left cluttering up the pavement, where people fall over it. Also, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, has just pointed out, guide dogs have difficulty. I have a neighbour with a guide dog and if cars are parked on the pavement, the dog takes him around them or stops. So, life is made much more difficult.

Finally, public understanding of smoke drift has been transformed in the last decade. As a keen viewer of old television series, every time I watch them, I realise how different our view and tolerance of other people’s smoke is nowadays, compared with 10 or 15 years ago. What is in these amendments is well within accepted and reasonable expectation, so I support them.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I have enormous sympathy for the case made by my noble friend Lord Holmes and very much hope that the Government respond as positively as they can.

The background to my Amendment 459, to which Peers from other parties have added their names, is the arrangements made during the pandemic to support the hospitality industry. In the interests of progress, not all four of us will be speaking, and it is good to see today’s Marshalled List down to a mere 68 pages for this last day of our debate. Noble Lords may recall that during the pandemic, when it was not possible to go into enclosed premises such as pubs, arrangements were made to grant pavement licences. When the Business and Planning Bill, which introduced this concession, came before the House in 2020, I added my name to a cross-party amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, saying that a condition of licence would be that outdoor seating areas were required to be 100% smoke-free, paralleling the arrangements inside the premises.

Noble Lords across the House supported that amendment, but sadly it was not accepted by the Government, who instead inserted a requirement in the legislation that

“the licence-holder must make reasonable provision for seating where smoking is not permitted”.

Amendment 459 would reintroduce the requirement for all pavement licences to be smoke-free, which was the view of your Lordships’ House three years ago. This would contribute to the Government’s ambition to make England smoke-free by 2030—an ambition we are currently on track to miss by nine years, according to Cancer Research UK. The current temporary requirements, which are being made permanent in this Bill, would mean that councils have two options on smoking: to implement the national condition to provide some smoke-free seating, or to go further and make 100% smoke-free seating a condition of licence at local level.

Since then, two-thirds of the public, polled in 2022, did not think that the current legislation went far enough. They wanted smoking banned from the outdoor seating areas of all restaurants, pubs and cafes. Fewer than one in five opposed such a ban. That was a large sample, of more than 10,000 people, in a survey carried out by YouGov for Action on Smoking and Health.

Some councils are already doing what the public want, with 10 councils in England introducing 100% smoke-free requirements. These are a mixture of Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem-led councils in counties such as Durham and Northumberland, cities such as Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool, unitary authorities such as Middlesbrough and North Lincolnshire, and metropolitan boroughs such as North Tyneside, South Tyneside and the London Borough of Brent. Therefore, in response to the point about practicality made by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, practicality has already been well established by those local authorities.

When we initially tabled our amendments, the then Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government wrote to Manchester City Council, the first council to introduce the requirement for pavement licences to be 100% smoke-free, warning it that this would damage local hospitality businesses and could lead to the loss of thousands of jobs. We do not know whether that letter had the approval of Health Ministers. However, the experience from Manchester and elsewhere shows exactly the opposite: that these bans have proved popular with the public, leading to high levels of compliance, and have not been shown to cause any decrease in revenues. At the time, I reluctantly agreed to the Government’s decision to include the current smoke-free seating requirements, which, while better than nothing, do not go far enough. The current system is not only much more complicated to implement than a blanket ban; it ensures that non-smokers and children continue to be exposed to tobacco smoke, which is both toxic and unpleasant. Of course, those who work for these establishments cannot go elsewhere and will continue to be exposed to smoke.

The Local Government Association of which, uniquely, I am not a vice-president, supports our amendment for 100% smoke-free pavement licences on the basis that

“it sets a level playing field for hospitality venues across the country and has a public health benefit of protecting people from unwanted second-hand smoke … If smoking is not prohibited, pavement areas will not become family-friendly spaces”.

That is why Dr Javed Khan’s independent review of smoke-free 2030 policies, commissioned by the Department of Health and published last year, recommended that smoking be prohibited on all premises, indoors and out, where food or drink is served, as well as a ban on smoking in all outdoor areas where children are present. This 100% smoke-free pavement seating has strong cross-party support from Peers across this House. When the regulations were extended in 2021, the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, tabled an amendment to regret that the regulations were not revised to take account of the evidence of the benefits of 100% smoke-free pavement licences. That amendment was agreed by 254 votes to 224.

Last year, the Government announced several new tobacco control measures and said that in place of the long-promised tobacco control plan to deliver a smoke-free 2030, tackling smoking would be core to the major conditions strategy currently in development. The measures announced today are welcome but fall far short of the comprehensive approach that Dr Khan made clear was essential if we are to achieve a smoke-free 2030. When my noble friend sums up, can she confirm that the Government intend to bring forward further measures to reduce smoking in the upcoming major conditions strategy? We should now take this opportunity, provided by this amendment, to move towards implementing Dr Khan’s recommendations for all hospitality venues to be smoke-free indoors and out—a small but important step towards a smoke-free 2030.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, last week, my esteemed colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, asked whether I would support his amendments on pavement accessibility. I trusted him completely so I said, “Yes, of course, I would love to support them”. Then I read them and, actually, they are quite tough and strict in places, but the more I read them, the more I liked them. I particularly liked Amendment 450, which is about taking bits of the road—I love that idea—and reducing the space for traffic, as well as Amendment 459 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and others, because that is so tough on smoking and I loathe smoking. I support many of these amendments. Obviously, I support all the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. There is, perhaps, some space to bring in the fact that cars park on the pavement. I hate pavement parking and I hate loads of rubbish bins being heaped up on the side of pavements because they inhibit free access.

My local shopping street has gone absolutely bananas with this, and it has changed the whole feeling of the street—it is so much more friendly. At the moment, only the Co-op, Iceland and Boots, I think, do not have tables and chairs outside them, with people eating, drinking and having fun. I am all in favour of this section and look forward to Report, when I would be happy to vote on many of them and perhaps even sign up to them as well.

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That is why we think further action will be necessary, so our Amendment 477 requires the Government to pass a dedicated devolution Bill. We must surely give CCAs, by right, powers which include but are not limited to, housing, energy, childcare, public transport, skills, training and development. Most of the provisions of the Bill have been introduced without sufficient consultation with the sector, which is why the second part of our amendment requires that a new devolution Bill introduce a framework of co-operation between CCAs and the Government based on mutual respect. I beg to move our amendment.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will add a very brief footnote to the speech we have just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor. Amendment 477 asks for a devolution Bill. In a sense that takes us back to the beginning.

In September 2019, at my party conference, the then Chancellor announced that there would be a White Paper on English devolution. The Queen’s Speech in 2019 said that the Government would publish a White Paper on

“unleashing regional potential in England”.

The following year the then Minister, Simon Clarke, said in answer to a Parliamentary Written Question on 9 July that

“our English Devolution and Local Recovery White Paper will set out our plans for expanding devolution”.

It was hoped to publish that in autumn 2020.

After that, the line went dead. In 2021, it was announced that the plans for strengthening local accountable leadership would be included in the levelling up White Paper—so what was initially going to be about devolution morphed into being about levelling up. There is inevitable tension between devolution, on the one hand, and levelling up, on the other. Devolution is about pushing decisions down to the local level; levelling up is about ironing out the differences between regions, which, inevitably, means more central control. This dilemma has gone all the way through the Bill, and indeed through the White Paper—it was not the White Paper on devolution, it was the White Paper on levelling up. There are some powerful words in the foreword by the then Prime Minister:

“We’ll usher in a revolution in local democracy”.


But we have not seen that.

To take a very small example, I proposed a very modest amendment that would enable local planning authorities to recover the costs of running the planning department—something that at the moment is set nationally. Far from ushering in new local democracy, that decision has to rest in Whitehall. Instead of pushing spending down to the local level and letting local people get on with it, we have all the pots people have to bid for: the levelling up fund, the pothole action fund—which, I think, has now been added to that list—the future high street fund and the towns fund. The thing about all those funds is that the final decision is taken centrally, not locally. So the question I pose to my noble friend is: when it comes to devolution, is this it? Is this all we are going to get?

We are approaching the end of a Parliament, and there may not be time for fresh thinking, but I agree with the thrust of what the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, said: we are overcentralised and need to push decisions down locally. To do that, we need a buoyant source of local revenue, which local government does not have at the moment. When I looked at Amendment 477, the word “devolution” caught my eye. I felt that somebody ought to draw attention to the tension between levelling up, on the one hand, and devolution on the other. To my mind, there is too much about levelling up but not nearly enough about devolution. I suspect that, at some point, whoever is in control in the next Parliament will have to come back to devolution.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young, for reminding us how we got to where we are. He was absolutely right on every single point he made. This is terribly important, and I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, for giving us the amendment. If I have one criticism, it is that I am not sure we are yet at a Bill stage. Although it says “draft legislation” in subsection (1) of the proposed new clause—I understand that—I personally favour a royal commission or something that would actually look at the nature of local government and central government powers.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, has rightly identified the difficulty of devolving and at the same time levelling up, which, as he said, requires a greater element of centralised control. I have said several times over the course of this Bill, and before, that you cannot run England out of London; with 56 million people, we are steadily learning that. One of the reasons we are having these constant changes in the Government’s intentions for Bills is that they do not know either what they want to do—so, in the end, the Civil Service carries on and Ministers carry on trying to move forward.

There are elements in the Bill which are very important in assisting us down the road of greater devolution, and they lie in the combined county authorities. The more we have combined county authorities—much though I do not like the centralisation which can result, because they do not have, for example, a Greater London assembly; they do not have a structure such as that to underpin them—the more we will have a move away from Whitehall.

I do not want to say any more about that; I welcome what the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, has proposed in this amendment. I think we should note what the noble Lord, Lord Young, said about the overall situation that we are in, but I hope that the Government and the Minister will see the importance of trying to bring all this together, because inevitably we are going to come back to this on Report anyway, as we look at the first parts of the Bill that, in Committee, we debated many weeks ago. I welcome the amendment and I hope the Government will see that there would be benefit in moving us forward, not just with structures like the combined counties but actually with real devolution of real things.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, we move on to Part 5, “Community land auction pilots”. This was not in the Bill when it went through Committee in the other place so it has not really had any proper scrutiny.

We are asking: why legislate for pilot schemes? Once again, as I mentioned under the part of the Bill concerned with the infrastructure levy, surely it makes more sense to run pilot schemes before legislation is brought forward, not to put them in the legislation. For example, although we on these Benches were very unhappy with the introduction of voter ID, as the noble Earl the Minister knows, at least the Government spent a couple of years running pilot schemes on it before bringing the legislation forward. Can the noble Earl explain the thinking about the process that is being followed, in this case, of putting pilots in the legislation instead of running them before the legislation comes before us?

As we all know, currently, when planning permission is given for new homes, the land in question can increase in value by over 80 times. The vast majority of this goes to the landowner and other players, with very little being captured by the local authority. Community land auctions would give councils the tools to capture much more of the value uplift, which they can then spend on local priorities such as improved infrastructure and better public services. In theory, this sounds like a really good idea but, as always, the devil is in the detail. We need to understand properly how this would work in practice. What will the impact be on developers and how will they react? What consultation took place between the Government, local authorities and developers before this proposal was put in the Bill?

Under Amendment 362, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, the objective of community land auctions would be to support sustainable development. I am not going to go into all the reasons for that again now. We have had lots of discussions about why it is important that the Bill focus all the time on the sustainability of the development that will take place as a result of some of its provisions, so I do not need to highlight that any further.

Under Amendment 365, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, any relevant combined authority would be given the report to scrutinise. It is very important that we enshrine liaison with local authorities as part of the Bill, and I hope we will be able to do that.

There is also a stand part debate on Clause 127. I will be interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, discuss the purposes and mechanisms of community land auctions. It would be useful to hear about the relationship between community land auctions and the plan-making process, and how they will fit in as the process takes place. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to the proposition in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Lansley that Clause 127 should not stand part of the Bill. My noble friend and I are job-sharing for much of this section of the Bill.

This clause deals with pilots for community land auctions, which aim to give local authorities the ability to benefit far more greatly from new development than they do under the current system, even as proposed in the Bill. Basically, it takes the principle behind Section 106, the new homes bonus, CIL and the infrastructure levy a stage further, but in doing so it risks compromising the integrity of the planning system by moving more towards the sale of planning consents.

The Explanatory Notes to the Bill are normally quite helpful, but the 10 lines on the background to CLAs, on page 126, do not explain what is going to happen. As I understand the proposal, a landowner can name the price at which he is willing to sell his land to the council—it would probably be agricultural land, but it could be industrial land—which then has an option to purchase the land at that price. The price will be somewhere between the current value and the hope value with planning consent. The local authority then develops its plan, and if that land is deemed suitable for housing development, it buys it at the option price and resells it to the developer, pocketing the difference. I assume the Government hope that many landowners will take advantage of the scheme so that the local authority has a choice and the ability to choose best value. I think it clear from that scenario that the local authority has a financial incentive to designate land for development over which it has an option, in preference to land over which it has no option but which may be more appropriate for development. I will return to that in a moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, the process will not be as my noble friend has described. The simplest way I can describe this is that community land auctions will be a process of price discovery. In the current system, local planning authorities have to make assumptions about the premium required by a reasonable landowner to release their land for development. For Section 106 agreements, this manifests itself through viability negotiations between the local planning authority and a developer. As these can be negotiated, there is a higher risk that, in effect, higher land prices lead to reduced developer contributions, rather than contributions being fully priced by developers into the amount that they pay for land.

For the community infrastructure levy and the proposed infrastructure levy, a levy rate is set for all development within certain parameters. When setting rates, the local planning authority has to calculate how much value uplift will occur on average, and has to make assumptions about landowner premiums and set a levy rate on that basis. The actual premium required by individual landowners will not be available to local planning authorities and will vary depending on individual circumstances. If the local planning authority makes an inaccurate assumption about landowner premiums, they may either make a lot of sites unviable by setting too high a levy rate, or else they will collect much less than they might have done otherwise by setting too low a levy rate.

Under the CLA process, landowners bid to have their land selected for allocation in an emerging local plan, as I have described, by stating the price at which they would willingly sell their land to the LPA for development. The offer from the landowner, once an option agreement is in place with the LPA, becomes legally binding. The LPA can either exercise it themselves, thereby purchasing the land, or auction it to developers. The competitive nature of CLAs incentivises landowners to reveal the true price at which they would willingly part with their land. If they choose to offer a higher price, they risk another piece of land being allocated for development, in which case they will not secure any value uplift at all.

I do not want to prolong the debate unnecessarily, so I will respond to my noble friend in writing on the other questions I have not covered.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for the very patient way he dealt with the argument I put forward. I will take him up on two points. First, he said that the Government will consult local authorities about this. Surely, before introducing primary legislation on a major planning system, they should consult the local authorities first, rather than after the Bill has gone through. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I think he said that when the local authorities were drawing up the plan they could take into account the financial benefits. I think that is moving towards what he subsequently deplored: namely, the sale of planning permission.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

The extent to which those financial benefits can be taken into account will be set out, as I mentioned, in regulations. My noble friend makes a fair point, but parameters will be set around this. On the issue of prior consultation, which the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, also raised, one can take two views: one is to go through the process that my noble friend advocated, and the other is to say that the integrity and workability of the scheme is such that we can afford to come to this House and the other place first before launching a pilot. Our view is that it will be perfectly satisfactory to take that course.