Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

Perhaps my hon. Friend will just bear with me for a second, as I am very interested further in the Secretary of State’s answer because he has not defined the worst. I have here before me a list of the slowest decision makers on all applications and the slowest decision makers on major applications. The top three—or the bottom three, depending on our interpretation, in those two categories are Stratford-upon-Avon, Stafford and Warwick for all applications, and for major applications Torbay, Kensington and Chelsea, and North Norfolk.

Government Members really ought to see where their authorities are in the league table that the Secretary of State is in the process of making up as he goes along. They may well find that, unless we remove clause 1, planning decisions will be taken not by locally elected councillors—that is my definition of localism—but by the Planning Inspectorate. The truth is that if he knows the criteria he should make them clear now. Clause 1 will in effect give the Secretary of State the ability to nationalise planning decisions in respect of as many authorities as he likes. It will completely change the basis on which planning applications have been traditionally considered by local communities. That is the very opposite of the localism that he used to speak about, because decisions will be taken not by councillors but by the Planning Inspectorate on behalf of the Secretary of State. There will be a strong reaction when the first local authorities discover that the power to decide has been taken away from them by the Secretary of State under the Bill.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman needs to go back a little in history and look at the imposed housing targets that local authorities were expected to deliver. This scaremongering—that the Secretary of State, in a micro-managing sort of way, will look at every planning authority and decide the plans himself—is frankly ridiculous. I sincerely hope that the right hon. Gentleman gets back to the real nub of the argument, which is that the coalition Government are trying to get away from imposing things on local people and are letting them choose how they want their areas to develop.

[Hilary Benn]

I say to the hon. Lady that it is not ridiculous; it is what clause 1 says. If she has not read the clause, I suggest that she does so carefully. On housing targets, the truth is that under the new arrangements the figures that local authorities will have to come up with for housing numbers in their area will not be very different from the figures produced by the regional spatial strategy, because there is still the same housing need. That is certainly the case for the authority in Leeds, because I have spoken to the chief planning officer about that.

The truth is that if hon. Members read the Bill, they will see that the Secretary of State will decide which authorities will lose the right to decide applications for themselves, he will decide what kinds of applications will come to him for decision, and he alone will take the decision in the place of local councillors. Of course, there will be no right of appeal—something the Bill also states.

I want to turn, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) invited me to a moment ago, to the grounds on which the Secretary of State may designate authorities. Clearly, he has made up his mind; he is just not telling us how he has done it. The clause gives him the power to do that anywhere, on any basis, for as many authorities as he likes, and there will be no check or balance from anybody else.

As for the criteria, when the Minister with responsibility for planning appeared before the Select Committee he said that speed and poor quality measured by decisions overturned by the Planning Inspectorate would be the factors that Ministers would take into account. On speed, I am genuinely puzzled. First, councils currently decide 82% of applications within eight weeks and 93% within 13 weeks. Those are the facts. The percentage of applications approved reached a 10-year high in 2011-12. Secondly, developers can already appeal to the Planning Inspectorate on grounds of non-determination in the required time under section 78(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. What does the Bill add to that power? Thirdly, there is a practical problem, as the planning Minister had to admit. He said that there was a wrinkle in the statistics. The data on timeliness do not take account of planning performance agreements. As hon. Members will know, that is where developers and councils jointly reach agreement to say, “Hey, this development could take a bit more time to approve. Can we agree, in effect, to set aside the time limits?” Instead of there being a simple measure, the Secretary of State will have to decide whether he thinks the reason given by an authority, when decisions are apparently slow, is good enough to justify his not taking the power away from them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s aims for the Bill—boosting infrastructure, cutting red tape and helping local firms to grow are laudable ambitions. I should like to focus on four aspects of the Bill: first, the balance between localism and centralism; secondly, the importance of securing proper infrastructure, both national and local, to support development; thirdly, the importance of the Government’s broadband programme, including in national parks; and fourthly, the overall role of the planning system against the background of wanting to promote growth.

First, on localism, clause 1 allows, as has been noted, direct applications to the Secretary of State if a council is placed in what could be described as special measures. The criteria for so placing a council have yet to be set out. However, I hope we remember all the reasons why, over the course of the past two and a half years, the Government felt it was important to devolve power to people and communities, not least in housing and housing policy.

Devolving power in planning decisions is also important, because there is a great danger that people will feel that decisions may be taken away from them. If decisions are taken away from local communities, the danger is that responsibility is also taken away—the responsibility of community leaders to take decisions that are sometimes difficult. Another danger is the paradox of the top-down housing targets of the previous Government. The very high stated housing numbers that were never achieved did not deliver, but merely set up conflicts between local communities and the Government.

[Mrs Main]

Not only did the previous Government create conflict within communities, they skewed how communities developed. Developers moved into my constituency to deliver the targets—particularly density targets—and we ended up with heaps of flats, which were bought speculatively, but not enough of the family homes that the communities wanted. I therefore welcome this Government’s approach. We can actually start to determine what we would like to be built rather than be told what to build.

[Nick Herbert]

My hon. Friend expresses eloquently one virtue of ensuring that decisions can be taken on a local basis.

The power of the Government’s changes to the planning system, which were set out in the Localism Act 2011, is this: they introduced the idea of neighbourhood planning, with communities judging for themselves where best to site housing and what is necessary for their areas. Neighbourhood planning is an incredibly good concept. I would like to see it flourish, but it is in danger of being undermined by a series of things. I hope that the Government will look again at the neighbourhood planning process and how it might be boosted, because it is the right way to provide sustainable levels of housing provision.

First, the concept has been undermined by the continuation of regional spatial strategies. I know that there has been a problem with the European Union holding up the effective abolition of the strategies, which has been legislated for by this House. However, while they remain in place—for instance, the south-east plan affects my constituency—the danger is that, in the absence of effective local plans, the countryside can be vulnerable to speculative housing applications, with communities powerless to oppose such applications, which, if rejected by local authorities, can be appealed to the Planning Inspectorate. The consequence of such applications is that the process whereby communities come together over planning in the neighbourhood is undermined, with local consent—which can be built for reasonable levels of housing—undermined too. The swift abolition of the regional spatial strategies is therefore essential if the process of neighbourhood planning is to proceed.

Second is the issue of expense. The Government provide some support to local communities to proceed with neighbourhood planning, but it is an expensive process. More support—not necessarily financial—has to be provided to local communities. That issue is not addressed in the Bill; it usefully could be. Such support is essential also from district councils. Some councils are unwilling to yield power. Localism is not a process whereby power is simply handed down to elected district councils; where possible, power should be placed in the hands of the people and communities. That is being undermined by some district councils that do not wish to support the process of neighbourhood planning.

Thirdly—this issue has already been raised in the debate—there is the question of whether the overall housing numbers set by the regional spatial strategies will simply be reinstated if the assessment of housing need undertaken by district councils comes up with the same number. We need to take a close look at the instructions being given to district councils as they assess housing need. Otherwise, the very principle that we set out in the Localism Act 2011—that regional spatial strategies should go and that powers should be handed down to local communities—will, in effect, be undermined. If the Planning Inspectorate ends up taking decisions that should have been taken locally and imposes the same numbers as those proposed previously, nothing will be gained and localism will be undermined.

It is worth restating the virtue of the neighbourhood process. It means that communities will plan responsibly, with local democratic buy-in to the housing levels arrived at, because there will have to be a referendum. I know from my area that where parish councils are setting up local plans, they are—perhaps for the first time—looking carefully and responsibly at where a sustainable level of housing provision could be sited. The sustainable provision we wish to see in future years will be threatened if we slip back into a top-down approach, which is clearly the risk in clause 1.