Town and Country Planning (Fees and Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2025

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a helpful debate. As ever, our great experts on planning in the House contributed to a good discussion. I will, of course, attempt to answer all the questions. I am sure that noble Lords will pull me up if I do not if I do not answer them. I will, of course, check in Hansard afterwards and reply in writing on anything to which I have not responded to fully.

The noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Shipley, asked who is able to apply for planning permission through these routes. Section 293 of the Town and Country Planning Act defines who is an applicant known as an appropriate authority for the purpose of applications under these routes. For example, this includes where land belongs to a government department or is held in trust for His Majesty for the purposes of a government department. That department is considered to be an appropriate authority. For land belonging to His Majesty in right of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Chancellor of the duchy is the appropriate authority and for land belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall, a person that the Duke of Cornwall appoints is the appropriate authority. So land that goes into any of those routes will be appropriate for this route.

The uses for Crown development and confirmation of which developments Crown development can be used for was the subject of the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Young. I am sure that he will ask again if I have got that wrong. It will be for the Secretary of State to assess on a case-by-case basis what is deemed nationally important, and it would not be appropriate to comment now on specific schemes. However, it is likely that the Crown development route will be used most for HMG programmes relating to nationally important public service development. For example, this would include, but not be limited to, new prisons or border infrastructure. Traditionally, those things are difficult in the planning process. The route could also be used for defence-related development, as PINS is able to put in place special procedures to handle information dealing with matters of national security. Special provisions exist whereby the Secretary of State can issue a direction limiting the disclosure of information relating to matters of the security of a premises through Section 321 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The Crown development route can also be used for particularly sensitive or significant development being brought forward by, or on behalf of, the Crown. We expect few applications to be submitted through this route every year. It is not going to be used all the time; it would be an exception.

In terms of urgent Crown development, again, it will be for the Secretary of State to assess on a case-by-case basis what is deemed nationally important and needed urgently. When I looked at the papers for this SI, the first thing that came to my mind was the time when, during Covid, we were getting desperately short of mortuary space. This is a bit of a morbid subject but, in the middle of a pandemic, it is vital that you think about that and you may want to have an urgent process to deal with that sort of thing.

It would not be appropriate for me to comment on specific schemes, but the urgent Crown development route is expected to be used very rarely, where other planning application routes just cannot be used to secure a decision quickly enough. The pandemic might have been one of those instances. It will be used only where development needs to be put in place quickly, in a matter of days or weeks, and where it is in the national interest—for things such as medical centres, the storage and distribution of key goods and services in the event of a pandemic or, potentially, mortuary space.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked who makes the decisions—he was correct in his assumption on that; I hope that that is helpful—and whether the public will be able to object. I will come to those issues in a moment.

The noble Lord asked about how national importance is defined. The Government are committed to a planning system in which decisions are made locally. However, it is a well-established principle that, in limited circumstances, it is necessary for the Secretary of State to make planning decisions where issues of more than local importance are involved. In general, the Secretary of State will consider a development to be of regional or national importance only if it would: involve the interests of national security or foreign Governments; contribute to the provision of national public services or infrastructure, such as prisons or border infrastructure; support a response to international, national or regional civil emergencies; or otherwise have significant economic, social or environmental effects and strong public interest. The applicant will have to set out, as part of a statement accompanying the application, evidence demonstrating that at least one of those principles has been met.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked how “urgency” is defined. The applicant will be required to provide a statement to accompany the application setting out why they consider that the development is both nationally important and needed as a matter of urgency. The Secretary of State will accept applications through the urgent development route only where the applicant can demonstrate that the proposed development is both of national importance and needed urgently. The applicant will need to demonstrate that the proposed development needs to be made operational in an accelerated timeframe and that it is unlikely to be feasible using other application routes, including the Crown development route, and will need to evidence the likely consequences of not securing a decision within the accelerated timeframe. I hope that that is helpful.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, asked me about mayoral powers and strategic planning. I share her pain, as any local councillor will, over the planning process. I will never get back the hours that I have spent in discussion about great crested newts and rare species of bats and insects, so I feel her pain on that. However, these reforms are for national and very urgent issues only.

On mayoral or strategic powers, the Crown reforms will affect the ability of combined or mayoral authorities to call in applications of potential strategic importance. The relevant combined authority will instead be consulted for development coming forward through the Crown development route, so it will be done at that strategic level.

In response to all noble Lords’ questions about how further information on this will be provided, we will publish updated planning practice guidance to reflect the new routes coming into force. We intend to publish the amended guidance closer to the implementation of the routes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, asked about transparency. As I said, applicants need to demonstrate that the application is of national and urgent importance, and the Secretary of State can accept that application only if she considers that that is the case.

When a decision is made to accept an application, as I set out in my opening speech, a letter will be written to the MP whose constituency the development falls in and will be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses. Application documents will be available and applications to both routes will be determined on planning merits, with the reasons behind whether to grant or refuse set out in the inspector’s report or the Secretary of State’s decision letter. I hope that that is helpful.

In my opening speech, I set out in some detail how community engagement will work; the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Jamieson, raised it again. Of course, community engagement is very important. Any comments made during the consultation and publicity period that raise material planning matters will be taken into account as part of the decision-making process. The local planning authority will also have a role to play. It will need to place the application and documents on its planning register and, as PINS does not have a local presence, the local planning authority will be required to affix site notices during the mandatory publicity period and notify owners or occupiers who adjoin the site. So, for that purpose, it will work just the same as the local planning process.

Regarding urgent Crown development community engagement, as I said, we would encourage consultation with local communities, where possible. If it is possible to do meaningful engagement in a timeframe, we would encourage that. Where it is not possible, the Secretary of State should use alternative methods to make sure that community views can be taken into account.

The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, talked about fixing the planning system; we hope we will be able to do that. Working very quickly, we have already managed a major consultation on the NPPF and published a revised version in December. Yesterday, the other House had a long debate on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which will come to this House shortly. My belief is that there will always be a need for an urgency procedure for decision-making in councils. There will always be a need for some kind of urgent process and for the Secretary of State to be able to make a decision on national grounds. I hope that that has answered all noble Lords’ questions.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

The Minister has been enormously helpful in answering the questions, but she did not touch on the question of whether a decision to use this route would be justiciable. She may not be able to answer that, but I assume that it would be.

The Minister mentioned the case of Covid and the mortuaries. As I understand it, this system can be used only where the Crown owns the land, so if it does not own the land, it will have to buy it before it can use this SI. If something is urgent but the Crown does not own the land on which the building is needed, I wonder whether the CPO will hold things up, or whether that can be part of a streamlined process.

High-rise Buildings: Safety Remediation

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Monday 24th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress has been made on the remediation of high-rise buildings with safety defects.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, before I answer the noble Lord’s question, I pay tribute to all the campaigners and survivors of Grenfell who have moved this along, following seven years when little progress was made. Now, over half of 18 metre-plus buildings identified with unsafe cladding have started or completed remediation. On 2 December last year the Deputy Prime Minister announced the remediation acceleration plan, which sets out key measures to get buildings with unsafe cladding fixed faster, identify remaining buildings still at risk and ensure that residents are supported through the remediation process. This Government have been clear about our intention to deliver remediation faster, with more action from freeholders and developers.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that Answer. Since this Question was tabled, the Public Accounts Committee in another place has published a further progress report on remediation that is highly critical of this Government and indeed the last one. It points out that, of the 5,000 buildings known to the Minister’s department to require treatment, work has started on half, and that 3 million people are living in unsafe buildings, are unable to sell their flats and face exorbitant insurance claims. It also points out that the contract with developers did not require them to remedy all the safety defects. In the meantime, not a penny has been paid by the manufacturers of unsafe cladding. The PAC says that the date of 2029, by which all treatment should have been completed, is unrealistic. Surely we can do better than this.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right to say that we can do better, which is why we have introduced the remediation acceleration plan. The plan’s targets provide greater certainty to residents, a significant acceleration in pace and much greater certainty about when cladding remediation will be resolved. We have never had targets like these before. This Government have put in place a plan to deliver; it is now up to those responsible for making their buildings safe to do so. The plan has been criticised by campaigners for not being ambitious enough and by industry for being too ambitious and unachievable. All plans like this must strike a balance; we believe this plan gets the right balance and is ambitious but also achievable.

Private Rented Sector: Affordable Rents

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. Of course, I am always happy to meet with trade union colleagues, particularly on important issues such as this. I thank him too for his reminder of the information in that UNISON report. Many of the issues raised in it are being tackled in the Renters’ Rights Bill, and in the leasehold and commonhold reform Bill which we will be bringing forward later in the year. On the right to buy, we have already taken significant steps to make sure that the funds from the sale of social housing go back to those councils to enable them to build more social housing.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, further to the Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, rents in the private sector are rising because supply is falling as many smaller landlords decide to sell up. While there is much of value in the Renters’ Rights Bill, there is nothing in it to increase supply, which is what tenants want. Will the Minister turbocharge the discussions between her department, the Treasury and the pension funds and insurance companies in order to get serious, long-term institutional finance into good quality accommodation for rent and to redress the imbalance between supply and demand?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question and for all his expertise on this subject. A few weeks ago, I attended an investors’ summit in the City of London where there was great enthusiasm about investment in the housing market. We welcome those institutional investors and recognise the crucial role that the build-to-rent sector in particular is playing in building those 1.5 million homes. Last year, we announced a £700 million extension to the home building fund to support housebuilders and to catalyse that institutional investment. This should support the construction of 12,000 more homes, including build-to-rent. We also announced a £3 billion guarantee for SME and build-to-rent housebuilders through the reopening of guarantee schemes, which should deliver the construction of around 20,000 new homes.

Council Tax

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, we all know that there are problems caused by outdated valuations and the regressive nature of council tax. However, a widescale reform of the system would be time-consuming and complex, and we are committed to keeping tax on working people as low as possible. The Government will carefully consider the impact on councils and taxpayers before taking any further decisions on council tax.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the last time we discussed this, on 19 November, the noble Baroness also said in response:

“We all know that problems are caused by outdated valuations and the regressive nature of council tax”.—[Official Report, 19/11/24; col. 118.]


So why are the Government so reluctant to act?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

If there were to be a revaluation, there would be winners and losers. This is one of those issues where whatever we did would cause further problems in the system. It is a widely understood tax and there are high levels of collection. However, the Government are taking part in the fair funding review—we have issued a consultation on that—to make sure we level up the playing field for local authority funding, so that areas which need the money most get the most money.

Local Government: Funding

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Monday 27th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a very important point about working on a consensus, which is why we have launched the major consultation on how we should take this forward. In addition, our English Devolution White Paper, which we published in December, sets out our plans to reset that balance between central and local government. That includes both funding and powers, and it is a new framework for English devolution that attempts to move power out of Westminster and back to those who know their areas best. That is the whole purpose of the devolution agreement. We want to see that done on the basis of it coming from the local areas upwards. We are committed to fixing those foundations, and we will do that with the people in our local areas and not to them.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, on that devolution framework that the noble Baroness just referred to, the Minister in the other place said:

“That is why we are moving power out of Westminster and putting it back into the hands of those who know their area best”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/12/24; col. 36.]


But power involving money was not devolved, leaving local authorities, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said, dependent on a council tax which is regressive and 30 years out of date and business rates which are killing the hospitality and retail industries. Do we not need a much more fundamental review than the one the Minister just referred to?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The English Devolution White Paper sits at the heart of the reform we want, and that will involve both funding and money. I understand the pressure for urgent reform of council tax, but we have to be committed to keeping taxes on working people as low as possible. It is for local authorities to decide where they set their council tax. The Government will consider longer-term options to improve council tax billing and all those things, but council tax is a well-understood tax and it has very high collection rates. In terms of business rates, we published a discussion paper, Transforming Business Rates, which set out the priority areas for reform. We have had very good engagement on that and we will publish our update in due course.

National Policy Planning Framework: Housing

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Monday 6th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Baroness that the terms “affordable housing” and “social housing” have sometimes been conflated, with unfortunate consequences. To make clear the priority that we attach to delivering homes for social rent, we are amending the definition of affordable housing. It will be carved out as a separate category, distinct from social housing for rent. I hope that that gives the noble Baroness a sign of our intention. We will expect local authorities to assess the need in their areas, including in all the categories that she mentioned, and to make provision to meet that need in their local plans.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Has the Minister seen reports that more than 17,000 affordable homes have been made available by developers under Section 106, but no single housing association has been able to take them up? Against that background, would it not make sense for the developers to sell those homes to first-time buyers and discharge their Section 106 obligation by making a financial contribution to the local authority, which could then build some social houses?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

It is possible for builders to change the provision if they need to, but that has to be in exceptional circumstances, because the need for social housing is so acute. The Government have set up a new clearing service for those Section 106 homes via Homes England. That was launched on 12 December, and we hope that it will enable us to match up registered providers with the social homes available under Section 106.

Housing: Permitted Development Rights

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government’s aim in the delivery of the 1.5 million homes is to deliver good quality, well-designed, sustainable homes and places that everyone can be proud of. I have already met both the TCPA and the National Housing Federation, which have been campaigning on this. I am very aware of some of the poor practice that has occurred, and we will continue to advocate for the principles of good design, as set out in the National Design Guide and the National Model Design Code. As I say, we keep permitted development under review.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, it must make sense to use redundant buildings to provide good-quality accommodation for those in need, but is there not a loophole in the current fire safety regulations? These apply when a commercial building is converted into flats but not when industrial buildings or storage units are. Should we not use the Renters’ Rights Bill to close this loophole?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the Planning Gateway One fire safety requirements apply to applications for planning permission for relevant buildings. To apply some of the principles to permitted development, there was a prior approval on fire safety impacts in 2021 that applies to class MA: commercial, business and services to residential. It is not, however, as detailed as the requirements for a planning application. For example, it does not require the completion of a fire safety form. We need to continue to look at these issues and to make sure that permitted development is completely safe from fire.

Building Homes

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. We have an Oral Question on exactly the same topic tomorrow, when I am sure I will be able to give a fuller answer.

The noble Lord is quite right. As I come from a new town, I recognise the benefit of not just designing the homes but planning the areas where they are to be situated. They should, of course, be sustainable, healthy and have all the infrastructure that everybody needs. The Government are committed to taking steps to ensure that we not only build more homes but that they are high quality, well designed and sustainable. That is why we have made changes to the NPPF to make clear the importance of achieving well-designed places, and how this can be achieved holistically through local design policies, design codes and guidance. We will be pushing this forward further in the new year.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that there is much in the Statement to be welcomed. It is right that the Government should have a target of 1.5 million, although it is an ambitious one. If any Government are to hit a national target, they must have the levers through setting mandatory targets for local authorities. This was my Government’s policy until 2022. Of course, I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, that these targets must be right. I welcome the recognition that, without some erosion of the green belt, we are not going to get anywhere near the target.

Where I have some difficulty with the Statement is reading it in conjunction with the plans for devolution. Under the Statement which the noble Baroness has repeated, the basic unit is the local plan, and all the districts have to get ahead with theirs. Under the devolution White Paper, they must find partners—other districts—in order to reach the 500,000 target; then, presumably, there will have to be a new district plan for that. At the same time, the Government want to impose mayors everywhere. We read on page 48 that the mayors will be responsible for strategic planning and housing growth. Later on, it says that mayors will have

“an increasingly central role in housing delivery.”

Then, of course, the mayor can set up a development corporation and override the objections of any district. On top of this, the Government can set up a new town corporation. It is not absolutely clear to me how all the moving parts of the planning system fit together.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

There are clear links between the new National Planning Policy Framework and the English devolution programme. The English Devolution White Paper, which was published yesterday, is a consultation document, and we will be taking views on it as time goes on. The noble Lord, Lord Young, is right to say that there is a proposal in that White Paper for mayors to have strategic spatial planning powers. Across those sub-regional areas—we are talking about areas with a population of around 1.5 million—they will be looking at transport, infra- structure, probably housing numbers across the whole area, and other issues that are strategic in nature.

I do not believe that this undermines in any way the status of local plans. Where there is local government reorganisation, there will be some consolidation of plans to make this work at the level of the new councils. The strength of the local plan will be retained in determining where the allocations in the strategic spatial plan will be located. I do not think the intention of spatial planning is to undermine local plans. I remember the days of regional planning; we are not going back to that, because people felt it was too big a scale. It makes a lot of sense to do this at sub-regional level. When planning an economy, infrastructure and housing growth, you start at sub-regional level and then the local plans fit in with that.

Planning Committees: Reform

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Thursday 12th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Baroness that the voice of local people and local councillors in the planning process is absolutely vital. There is no intention to change the consultation rules on planning applications. Representations will be considered by any decision-maker in the process. The best way for councillors and communities to engage in the development proposed for their areas is through the local plan process, which will be agreed by the council. Where a controversial development is proposed that has not been planned for, councillors will continue to play a key role in representing the voice of their communities. There will be no change to the ability of local people to inform and make their views known about planning applications; this is about speeding up the decision-making.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, is not one of the problems with the planning system that a planning application is made which is in clear conformity with the local plan, the planning officers recommend approval but, because it is unpopular locally, the planning committee turn it down in order for the Secretary of State to take the blame? That just wastes a lot of time. Will the proposals that are being considered deal with that?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord is quite right to pick up this point. It is the intention that, where applications are in conformity with the local plan, a speedy decision should be taken. The whole point of these reforms is intended to make that much easier, without removing the ability of local councillors and communities to make their views known on it. This is a working paper for discussion with the sector, and we hope that the sector will put its views forward. The intention is to speed up the process, not to have planning applications stuck in the system.

New Homes

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, mentioned a shortage of 251,000 skilled construction workers if the Government are to hit their target. Modern methods of construction have the potential to help meet that shortage and drive up productivity, but have had a mixed reception in this country because of a lack of sustained demand. As many of the 1.5 million houses will come from the public sector, can the Government use their purchasing power to relaunch modern methods of construction with a sustainable level of demand, to meet the productivity requirement and give the country the homes it needs?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving me the opportunity to say that I went to visit British Offsite with Weston Homes in Braintree earlier this week. What a fantastic example of British innovation, using recycled steel to build MMC products. MMC is an important opportunity to improve productivity in the construction sector, to deliver quickly the very high-quality energy-efficient homes we need, and to create new and diverse jobs. We are working to address the strategic barriers to the further uptake of MMC, including improved supply chain confidence, clarity for warranty and insurance markets, and planning reform. We will say more about that in the long-term housing strategy next year.

Housebuilding: Regional Mayors

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The full details will be published in the English devolution White Paper, but the intention is that mayors will have some strategic powers over major infrastructure in their areas and land use planning for housing. Noble Lords will see the details in the English devolution White Paper, which will be out shortly.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are planning a new generation of new towns to help achieve their targets, at the same time as they are planning to devolve more powers to regional mayors, as we have heard. The location of these new towns will be decided by central government and the new homes will be delivered by development corporations run by central government. Is there not some tension between their policies on new towns and on regional mayors, about which we heard a few moments ago?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As a new town girl, I absolutely celebrate the drive for new new towns. I know that Sir Michael Lyons, who is in charge of the task force for new towns, is working hand in glove with mayors and combined authorities to deliver this new generation of new towns. He will undertake significant consultation with them about both planning and location. The mayoral strategic development strategy will be part of this process as well. There is no conflict between new towns and devolution; they work very well together.

Planning Reforms: Net-zero Carbon Emissions

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. I agree with both him and Nye Bevan: this is a very important issue, and we need to set out how we support the transition to a low-carbon future in a changing climate. The National Planning Policy Framework will set that out, including the ways that both shaping places and building homes can contribute to radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and support renewable and low-carbon energy and associated infrastructure. The place-making aspect is very important. As someone from a new town, I have seen the benefit of good place-making. Of course, when my town was built, the idea of net zero was not on the scene, but we now need to take that into account too. We have consulted widely on the future homes standard, and we are currently considering further representations on solar. As I said, we will publish the NPPF before Christmas and the future homes standard early in the new year.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness just said, the Government will publish their conclusions on the NPPF by the end of this month. The consultation document suggested important new policies on housing targets, the grey belt, solar energy and wind farms. Will the House have an opportunity to debate the Government’s conclusions?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his contribution to all the discussion on this issue during the passage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. The NPPF will be published before Christmas and there will be an Oral Statement to both Houses, so there will be a chance to question that Statement then. I will take back his point about a debate on this subject, but of course, any noble Lord is able to submit any topic for debate, as we know.

Cladding Remediation

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Monday 25th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress has been made on remediating flats with dangerous cladding.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish the noble Lord better—I know he is not feeling so great today. The pace of remediation has been far too slow, with only 50% of identified buildings beginning or completing works, and just 29% fully remediated. This has caused untold distress and expense for all those concerned. Further strong measures will be detailed in the forthcoming remediation acceleration plan. As set out by the Prime Minister, we are willing to legally require those responsible to assess their buildings and promptly enter remediation schemes. We will bring the full power of government to bear on this task.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that reply. In the debate on Grenfell on Friday, the Minister’s colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Khan, said:

“Yesterday the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published its monthly remediation statistics. They show that, of the 4,834 residential buildings 11 metres and over in height with unsafe cladding that the department is monitoring … 50% … have still not started remediation”.—[Official Report, 22/11/24; col. 431.]


That is 250,000 families living in buildings that are not safe, in flats which they cannot sell, and who are confronted with high insurance premiums and service charges; and some of them are also confronted with unlimited remediation costs.

None of these leaseholders are responsible in any way for the difficulties they find themselves in. The NAO has now said that it may take until 2037—20 years after the Grenfell fire—for all the dangerous cladding to be put right, and we still have not identified all the dangerous buildings. I appreciate that the Minister has come to this relatively recently, but does she accept that if we do not get a grip on it, it will be the next major national scandal?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very glad to say that we now have a Government, and a Deputy Prime Minister who is responsible for this area, who take this incredibly seriously. We will soon be publishing a remediation acceleration plan, which outlines the specific measures we are going to take to increase the pace of remediation, to find all the at-risk buildings quicker and to ensure that the residents at the heart of this terrible issue are supported in the process. There is no longer any excuse for those responsible failing to fix dangerous cladding on their buildings. The message is clear: use the routes we have created to get buildings fixed, and get on with the job.

The Deputy Prime Minister recently held a national roundtable with mayors, regulators and national building safety bodies to press home the urgency of this work, and most developers have now signed up now to the plan that she set out. But please be assured that we will not hesitate to use enforcement measures, and we have provided local authorities with funding to undertake the enforcement necessary.

Council Tax

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments. My honourable friend Minister McMahon is very clear that we need to set up a fairer funding settlement for local government. It is our choice to do it this way, rather than by a complicated and time-consuming reform of council tax. In this year’s funding settlement, the noble Lord will hear news about reshaping the way that funding is distributed, and there will be further news on it in the spending review next year.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, further to the questions posed by the noble Lords, Lord Clarke and Lord Tyrie, if the Government are not prepared to do a wholesale revaluation, and I understand why, could they not at least introduce two new higher bands of council tax to produce more revenue for social care?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord has made this point in the House before. It is a good point; it needs to be considered alongside further reform of council tax. That is not our priority at the moment, but when it comes to be done, I am sure that his point will be taken on board.

Gypsy and Traveller Communities: Accommodation

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, if Gypsies and Travellers are not to camp illegally then, of course, authorised sites must be provided by local councils. After legislation was introduced some 50 years ago, there was a count of how many Traveller and Gypsy caravans there were in England, and the answer was 8,045. There are now 20,000 authorised sites, but 25,000 Traveller and Gypsy caravans. What is behind this increased demand for a nomadic Gypsy and Traveller lifestyle?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord will know that we face the most acute housing crisis this country has ever had. I cannot help but feel that the issue of further caravan provision is partly to do with that. However, there is a difference between that and the culturally specific provision that needs to be made. I cannot answer directly his question about the numbers, but there may be some further insight in the department. I will ask that question and write to him if there is more information.

Social Housebuilding

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, there are multiple reasons why properties may be empty, but it is important that we bring as many homes as possible into use. Councils are being given greater powers to charge additional council tax for empty properties, and I know that they will be looking very carefully at the stock of housing to make sure that it is brought into use as quickly as possible. We are also looking at things such as compulsory purchase order powers and so on. Councils already have those but it is very important that we give councils as many tools in their armoury as possible to prevent houses falling into dereliction or simply being left empty because they have been bought as investments and are not let out or used.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister said a few moments ago that she could not anticipate the Budget Statement, but did not the Sunday Times do that yesterday, with an authoritative leak that local authorities are to spend £1 billion more on council houses? I welcome that, but how confident is she that there is enough capacity in the construction workforce to respond to that demand?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point. I will not comment on leaks, to the Sunday Times or anywhere else, but I have been talking extensively with the development industry about skills in that area, not just for traditional methods of construction but to deal with modern methods of construction and the whole range of new skills that we will need to fit properties to make sure that they are net zero. We are looking right across the board at that and working with the construction industry to see what needs to be done to help it develop the level of skills that we know we are going to need.

Lease Extension Policies for Residential Properties

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his championing of Crown leaseholders and the Scilly Isles, and for this offer to visit. You do not have to be a Foreign Office Minister to go to beautiful and exotic places. The undertaking confirms that the Crown will act by analogy, but it is well established that Acts of Parliament for England and Wales do not bind the Crown unless the Act expressly states that this is the case or does so by necessary implication. Instructing the Duke of Cornwall is probably a bit beyond my ministerial powers. The undertaking for the Act delivers similar improvements to those that leaseholders would have if the Leasehold and Reform Act 2024 were to bind the Crown directly. The difference is therefore largely a matter of delivery. Binding the Crown to the Act’s provisions is therefore felt to be unnecessary.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

But does the Minister remember the debate on an amendment to the then leasehold Bill in my name on this very subject? Although as she said, in a nutshell, the Crown Estate is not bound by the law on enfranchisement, it voluntarily agreed 30 years ago, when I was the responsible Minister, to abide by its provisions. It has broadly done so in respect of freeholds that it originally owned, but it is not doing so in respect of freeholds that it acquires by an obscure process known as escheat. I believe this is contrary to the agreement that I reached with it 30 years ago, so will the Minister agree to support my amendment to the Crown Estates Bill to close this loophole?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord says, when property becomes ownerless, the land and buildings escheat to the Crown. That includes the Crown Estate and the royal duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. If a purchaser is interested, the Crown can sell it so it goes back into private ownership, or the leaseholders are able to collectively purchase the freehold from the Crown. The Government recognise very much that when a freehold becomes ownerless it causes significant problems for leaseholders, but ownerless goods and escheat are complex areas of law, as I have discovered since I heard the noble Lord’s original discussion on this, and need to be considered very carefully. The Law Commission has flagged ownerless land as a possible project for inclusion in its 14th programme of law reform; I think we will be very interested to see what comes out of that review.

Building Homes

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, there is a lot to welcome in what the noble Baroness has said. I welcome the reintroduction of housing targets, unwisely abandoned by my party 18 months ago. I welcome the flexibility on RTB; receipts for streamlined planning application; cost recovery on planning application; and the long-term housing strategy, on which I hope the Minister will consult widely, particularly with the recent Church document.

On neutrality, what the Minister sounds as if she wants to do is very much like what she voted down last September. Labour said in its manifesto that it would

“implement solutions to unlock the building of homes affected by nutrient neutrality”.

We await that, but the key question, and the missing element in this, is resources. We all want to do what the Minister has said, but her department is unprotected. The forecast is for a 1.6% to a 2.9% reduction every year for the next three years. What she has announced is going to cost a lot of money. I welcome a reinvigorated council house programme. She wants more affordable houses and fewer houses for sale, and within affordable housing she wants more social houses on social rents. That is going to cost. How confident is she that she has the resources? When she goes to the Chancellor, might not she say what she said yesterday? She said that

“if we cannot afford it, we cannot do it”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/7/24; col. 1036.]

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments and question. The point is that, without growing the economy, as we need to do, we will not be able to afford any of the public services that we need. That is the first priority of this Government. But we have an immediate housing crisis, so we will do what we can to solve it now, and develop things further as we begin to create the economic growth we need to solve it. But it is not just a problem of government funding; we need to create that affordable housing. The noble Lord will be as aware as I am that it has been more and more difficult to deliver the social and affordable housing that we need through things like Section 106 agreements and other forms of planning gain, so we will need to assist with that as well. But it is a priority that we tackle the homelessness crisis now and we start on the journey of improving the housing supply, because that is the only long-term way to solve the housing crisis in this country. It will take some time to develop the economic background to do that fully, but we can make a start right now.

Spending Commitments to Local Councils

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Monday 22nd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, neither I nor this Government are under any illusion about the scale of the pressures that local authorities are facing. Successive years of underfunding and increasing demand for services have left councils experiencing significant budget pressures and vulnerable to shocks, impacting the services that they provide to local people—these are key services, as the noble Lord set out. These will all have to be considered as part of the next spending review and I am sure that key adult care and children’s services will be very high on the list. I will look at the report with great interest.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness to her post. Further to the question about spending commitments, can she confirm that the firm commitment in the Labour manifesto,

“Labour will not increase taxes on working people”,


applies to council tax?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. Council tax increases, of course, are ultimately decided by local authorities, but the Government are committed to keeping taxes on working people and households as low as possible. We will carefully consider the impact on councils and taxpayers before making any decisions on taxes. Decisions on referendum principles will be part of the next spending review process and of course we will seek the views of local government before we take any decisions on those.

Levelling Up

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, can I ask her some very quick questions? I am happy to take answers in writing.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 235, which I proposed in Committee and to which the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has just spoken. Since Committee, the need for it has become more urgent, as reflected in the report of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee in July, which concluded:

“The Government’s reforms to national planning policy will fail if local authorities lack sufficient resources to implement them. The package of support which the Government has outlined does not go far enough to address the significant resourcing challenges which local authorities currently face”.


I support the amendment for two reasons. First, I do not believe that the Government should be controlling the fees charged by planning departments, as a matter of principle. They do not control other local authority fees—building regulations, parking fees, library charges, school meals, swimming pool charges—so why planning? A national cap does not reflect the different circumstances of local authorities.

The case for relinquishing control is made stronger by the aspirations in the levelling up White Paper, with its commitment to

“usher in a revolution in local democracy”.

The revolution is stopped in its tracks by the notion that local authorities should not be free to recover the costs of their planning departments.

In reply to my amendment in Committee, my noble friend the Minister said that

“having different fees creates inconsistency, more complexity and unfairness for applicants, who could be required to pay different fee levels for the same type of development. Planning fees provide clarity and consistency for local authorities, developers and home owners”.—[Official Report, 24/4/23; col. 1003.]

Let me briefly dissect that. As far as local authorities are concerned, they are the ones who sponsored my original amendment. They have since confirmed their continuing support with this statement:

“We support this amendment. Planning fees do not cover the true cost of processing planning applications. In 2020/21, 305 out of 343 local authority planning departments operated in a deficit, which totalled £245.4 million”.


As far as developers are concerned, they already have to cope with myriad different local plans and can well manage different fees. What the developers want are well-resourced planning departments that can effectively process their applications quickly. One of the reasons for the disappointing housebuilding performance is planning delays. The amendment addresses that. As for home owners, I do not think that they know that planning fees are set centrally and they are used to local authorities having different charges for libraries, parking, allotments and the rest. I do not think that they would mind if fees were set locally, as long as they got a good service.

Secondly, I do not think it right that council tax payers should have to subsidise the planning system—the hidden subsidy referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. There are more important calls on those resources, underlined by the financial problems facing Birmingham City Council. The Minister told us that the Government were consulting on increasing the fees, but in the words of the Local Government Association:

“We welcome the Government’s commitment to increase planning application fees. However, our modelling has shown that even if all application fees were uplifted by 35 per cent, the overall national shortfall for 2020/21 would have remained above £80 million”.


In his opening speech, my noble friend referred on several occasions to full-cost recovery for provision of services. That is exactly what this amendment does.

I conclude by quoting the Times, which recently, on 7 July, summed up the position:

“Britain’s planning system is grinding to a halt, with four out of five big applications now being delayed by up to two years.


Official figures show that more than half a million new developments have been delayed during the past five years as threadbare planning departments struggle to cope with even routine cases.


Industry experts said the delays were exacerbating the housing crisis, with developments now taking up to three years to get started. Councils are supposed to give developers a decision on big projects within 13 weeks, but the latest official data shows that only 19% of applications were processed in this time over the past year, down from 57% 10 years ago … Developers say that performance is damaging efforts to tackle the housing crisis and other government priorities such as installing wind and solar farms. They warn that unless the government insists on proper funding for planning departments, the housing crisis will worsen as councils will always choose refuse collections over planning when allocating scarce resources.”


The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has made a powerful case and I hope that the Government will reflect in their reply on the further measures that are now needed.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, before I talk about the amendments, I take this opportunity, on Back British Farming Day, to pay tribute to and celebrate our wonderful farmers across the country—a big thank you to them.

I draw noble Lords’ attention to my interests in the register: I am now vice-president of the LGA, vice-president of the District Councils’ Network and a serving councillor in both Stevenage and Hertfordshire.

As the Minister mentioned, the government amendments in this group are technical and consequential and I do not intend to comment on them other than to link some of his comments to the other amendments.

My noble friend Lady Young’s Amendment 227A is a sensible proposal that those organisations charged with providing supporting advice to planning applications should be able to recover fees for that advice directly from applicants. For too long, the weight of providing specialist advice has fallen on the public purse or on the budgets of hard-pressed third sector organisations, as my noble friend outlined so clearly. Anyone looking at this from the outside would consider that to be unreasonable. I hope that the Government will consider my noble friend’s amendment and take it seriously. Indeed, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said that there should be full cost recovery for NSIPs. We need to think about that amendment and the one that I will talk about in a moment and how we create a level playing field in this respect.

Amendment 235 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Young, seems to me the no-brainer of the Bill. For many years, the LGA has been campaigning for local authorities to be able to charge full cost recovery in relation to the actual cost of processing applications. A government report proposed this in 2010, following a consultation by Arup that demonstrated the extent to which councils are undercharging for planning under the current fixed-fee system. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, quoted the figure, which was from 2021; I expect that it is a lot more now and probably way over £250 million a year.

Of all the problems in the planning system, this seems the simplest to resolve. Over time, it would enable authorities to recruit the number of planners that they need and it would shift the cost burden of planning from the local taxpayer to the developer, who, after all, will receive the benefit of the application. I can only quote from my experience of a major town centre regeneration scheme. There were two years of planning discussions on the scheme and then literally a vanload of papers for the application when it came in, and we have just three planners in my local authority. That shows the kind of pressure on the system. Local authority budgets are more hard-pressed than they ever were, so it is hard to imagine why the Government would not accept that full cost recovery should be a basic principle of planning and that it is up to local authorities to charge their own costs.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

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.