Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Viscount Hanworth Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hanworth]

My Lords, I have a completely different take on the National Planning Policy Framework from the previous speaker. Our present—perhaps I should say pre-existing—planning system had its inception in the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, which was enacted by the post-war Labour Government. But planning in the UK has had a far longer history.

The 1947 Act was inspired, in large measure, by such advocates of town and country planning as Octavia Hill, Henrietta and Samuel Barnett, and Ebenezer Howard, but the line of descent extends back at least to the Welsh social reformer Robert Owen. The history of planning is closely aligned with that of the socialist movement. However, that has not prevented some in the Conservative Party honouring the early protagonists of planning.

In a recent speech, delivered at the annual conference of the Town and Country Planning Association, Planning Minister Nick Boles extolled the virtues of this long tradition. He described the planning system as a means by which villages, parishes and other neighbourhoods can take control of their future and decide for themselves how and where development should take place. Here there was surely an allusion to the Conservatives’ localism agenda. Of course, this is not the principal virtue of our planning system. Our planning system is a means by which the conflicting interests of diverse parties on a national, regional and local level can be reconciled in an orderly manner within a rational framework and in a way that might help to preserve or enhance our urban and rural environments.

Notwithstanding the acknowledgements of the Planning Minister, it is undoubtedly true that in the perception of many Conservative politicians the planning system is tainted by socialism and is therefore the object of much thoughtless criticism. The planning system’s careful provisions and restraints are characterised as so much red tape to be cut through, to release debris that can be swept away vigorously. The Government’s National Planning Policy Framework, which is a precursor to the planning and innovation Bill, is a product of this Conservative mentality and gives a good indication of the equivocation and confusion to which that mentality can give rise.

A boast that was proclaimed by the previous Conservative Planning Minister, Greg Clark, in his introduction to the document issued in March 2012 by the Department for Communities and Local Government, is that the National Planning Policy Framework has replaced more than 1,000 pages of guidance and regulations with 50 pages, written simply and clearly, that are aimed at allowing people and communities to participate in the business of planning. In the main, the nostrums of the National Planning Policy Framework are unexceptional, and some are even laudable in a manner that befits a Government who, at the outset, declared their intention to be the greenest Administration ever.

On the strength of the text, it might seem that the Conservatives have absorbed the ethos of town and country planning and that they are intent on making it their own. However, the words of the document are an utter deception. Its real import is contained in a mere two pages of an annexe, which lists the 44 planning documents that are replaced by the new planning framework. The two pages are evidence of an extraordinary act of vandalism. A set of sophisticated and carefully crafted documents, which have provided policy guidance in many specific circumstances and have been developed and refined over the past 25 years, have been tossed into the rubbish bin, to be replaced by 50 pages of vacuous pieties.

The atavistic attitudes of the Conservatives have come to the fore in the Bill that we are considering, which is remarkable for the way in which it represents the Conservative mythologies regarding the planning system. The Bill proposes to promote investment in infrastructure projects and reduce delays in the planning system. Under the proposals, many infrastructure projects will be referred to the Secretary of State rather than to local planning authorities, supposedly in order to expedite the progress of those projects. This extraordinary and high-handed measure will give arbitrary and exorbitant powers to the Minister and represents a complete reversal of the Government’s localisation agenda.

In a manner that is reminiscent of the Government’s attack on supposed benefit scroungers, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, is proposing to target recalcitrant councils and planning authorities with special measures. However, when challenged to name any such authorities or to declare the criteria against which they might be judged, he has not been forthcoming. No evidence has been provided to show that the planning process is imposing costs or delays on private developers that are not justified by the protection of the public interest.

Merrick Cockell, the Conservative chairman of the Local Government Association, has recently demolished the idea that planning regulations are inhibiting the building of houses. As we have heard, Cockell pointed to the fact that 400,000 plots across England and Wales already have planning permission, which is enough to last for three years at the current rate of construction. He has indicated that the problem lies not in the planning process but in financing. Developers cannot borrow money to start building homes, and potential homeowners cannot get mortgages. Nor are the developers willing to proceed before they can see a prospect of increasing house prices.

The Bill will also allow planning obligations relating to affordable housing, established under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, to be renegotiated and, in effect, suspended, with the aim of making development more profitable to construction companies. It is extraordinary to be contemplating such a measure at a time when we need affordable housing in a way that has never been more acute. One is reminded of the fact that, in a previous period of prolonged economic distress, the 1930s, local authorities were actively encouraged by central government to provide affordable housing on a large scale, in the form of so-called council houses. A policy of this sort is something that the present Government are unable to contemplate.

Of course, housing is not the only concern of the Bill. Many national projects such as airports, power stations and railways are to be taken into account. In this connection, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, is on record as expressing his regret that we cannot proceed in the manner of China, which is to ride roughshod over all interests that might be adversely affected by such projects. However, it is not on account of unconquerable opposition that this country is failing to proceed with the major projects that are necessary for the revival and maintenance of its prosperity. In every one of these connections, it is the Government’s failure of political will that is at fault. The Government are fearful of the effect on their electoral prospects that the pursuit of such projects might have. Surely it is only by reconciling conflicting interests via a vigorous planning system, involving proper compensation of disadvantaged parties, that such major infrastructure projects can be pursued to the advantage of all of us.