Baroness Cumberlege
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Neighbourhood Planning Bill
Baroness Cumberlege ExcerptsThursday 23rd February 2017
(7 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 View all Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 101-I(Rev)(a) Amendment for Report, supplementary to the revised marshalled list (PDF, 61KB) - (23 Feb 2017)
Baroness Cumberlege
“Duty to uphold neighbourhood development plans
(1) In exercising functions under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 relating to development plans, development orders, planning applications and planning appeals, the Secretary of State, or any person appointed by him to exercise such functions on his behalf, must seek to uphold any relevant neighbourhood development plan, and in fulfilment of that duty must not override the provisions in such a plan except where the land is needed in connection with a national infrastructure proposal.(2) If it is deemed necessary to override a neighbourhood development plan and require the provision of additional housing or other development, the Secretary of State must have regard to the policies of the neighbourhood development plan, in particular, policies for employment opportunities.(3) If a neighbourhood development plan has been overridden in accordance with subsection (2) it is the responsibility of the local planning authority, in consultation with the local community, to decide where it is most appropriate to provide the additional housing, and their decision must be accepted by the Secretary of State except where the land is needed in connection with a national infrastructure proposal.”
Baroness Cumberlege (Con)
My Lords, I should first declare my interests. I have a legal case pending. I have taken advice from the Clerk of the Parliaments and I have been told that the sub judice rule does not apply in my case. My other interests are in the Register of Lords’ Interests.
It is good to be back in your Lordships’ Chamber. We spent four days banged up in Grand Committee—perhaps that is not parliamentary language, but sometimes it felt like that—where we probed, examined and debated the Neighbourhood Planning Bill. Now that we are on Report we can go further and are allowed to vote on issues of importance.
Although the Bill may appear modest, it affects every community in England. It reflects the foundations of our society, now and in the future. It is not only about building houses, although we know that they are very much needed. It is about building homes, strengthening communities and ensuring that we create better lives for future generations. The public, parishes and local community groups have been inspired by the Localism Act and have set about producing their neighbourhood plans. Throughout our debates we have agreed that this is not a nimbys’ charter. On the contrary, neighbourhood plans have been drawn up by good people suggesting sites for new homes, conscious of the public good.
During the course of the deliberations, the Government’s White Paper was published, as was promised by my noble friend the Minister. In the White Paper we are told on page 17 that the Government is making it easier for communities to get involved and shape plans for their area. A little earlier it says that they are to be put in charge. This is very good news—but the Bill as drafted does not echo these admirable sentiments. On the contrary, it creates a gulf between these fine words and the reality.
In my community—and daily we hear of others— the cherished neighbourhood plan, created, lovingly researched and compiled, is cut to ribbons, first by the examiner, later by the inspector on appeal and lastly by a Secretary of State who cannot resist the temptation to meddle in business which is not his domain. His duty should be to uphold the neighbourhood plan except in the most extreme circumstances.
Throughout all stages of the Bill I have been clear and consistent. As I see it, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is charged to produce policies which he and the Government believe are right for the country. His policy is to build houses speedily and where they are required and to cut the red tape that thwarts developers from developing. He should demand that sites already granted planning permission should be used and that affordable homes must make up a large part of the building programme. That is his remit and I applaud it, but thereafter it is the local planning authorities that should fulfil the desires and petitions of the Secretary of State in the best way they can with the benefit of knowledge of their local area. Furthermore, individual parishes, town councils and community forums, which have even more intimate knowledge of the communities they care about, should then be given specific parameters such as the number of houses required in their parish or bailiwick. They have a key role in determining where, when and what homes are needed. That fulfils their part in the local plan which, as I have said, is encouraged in the White Paper.
Planning is a somewhat opaque discipline. I have said previously that it is unlike medicine, which I know a bit about and which has centuries of scientific research and data to build on. Planning relies on policies, opinions and a plan-based system. I have to say that it is a system which has worked reasonably well in the past. Through my amendments, for which I am grateful to have strong cross-party support, I seek to make the responsibilities of both central and local government crystal clear: each should respect the remit of the other. I have tried to work with my noble friend and his department to see whether we can reach some sort of agreement on this, but, although I have refashioned all my amendments, they are again up for debate because I honestly believe that the Government do not trust the people and are seeking to micromanage local planning matters.
If each side would just stick to their knitting, these amendments would not be needed. If planners fail to deliver, the wrath of the Secretary of State is justified. Where the Secretary of State interferes with the neighbourhood plan he gets, and deserves to get, the wrath and indignation of those of us who have drawn up plans and had them approved by their local community through a referendum. Subsection (1) of my proposed new clause sets out clearly that when the Secretary of State or those appointed by him are exercising their functions under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 they,
“must seek to uphold any relevant neighbourhood plan”.
In addition, they would have a duty not to override the provisions in the plan unless the land is needed for a national infrastructure proposal. By that I mean that the land is needed for, say, an airport expansion, a major highway scheme or a rail scheme of national importance—we discussed HS2 earlier.
In subsection (2) I have provided that, if that is the case, the Secretary of State should set out his requirement for further housing but that he,
“must have regard to the policies of the neighbourhood development plan”.
In our case, not only were our policies ignored—worse, they were reversed by the Secretary of State. We did not want street lighting because we are in a rural village. We have always opposed street lighting but he has insisted that it should be in place. We did not want five-bedroom houses. I know that they are very lucrative for the developer, but we actually have too many. He has planned them in. We wanted a break between our village and the next, but the parish boundary was ignored. No wonder we are furious.
Ancient boundaries should be respected. Communities want to keep their historic identity. Under subsection (3) of the proposed new clause, if more houses are required, it is not for the Secretary of State to decide where they should be sited but the local planning authority, with the local community. The Secretary of State should not meddle in the minutiae of local planning. He should stick to strategy. That is his remit.
My noble friend Lord Bourne has been very generous and considerate to all noble Lords who took part at Second Reading and in Committee. He has looked at our amendments, he has given his time and he has been very diligent in trying to meet some of our concerns—as has his department. His department has been very courteous and considerate throughout. But I urge my noble friend not to give up now but to think a little bit more about how our system works and where the responsibilities lie. Perhaps he would like to think again about my amendments and see what he can bring back at Third Reading. I beg to move.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, I will say a few words which I think will help the House in the context of my noble friend’s amendment. I am very grateful to her for the time that she has spent with me and my officials and for her championing of neighbourhood planning. However, contrary to the advice that she has had, I cannot say anything about her neighbourhood plan. I wish I could because there are things that I would deploy but the matter is sub judice and subject to appeal.
As I said, my noble friend has been extremely generous with her time on this important matter, meeting me five times in recent days to scrutinise the current framework for neighbourhood examinations, and has put her arguments forward for their reform. I am grateful to my noble friend and the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy, Lord Shipley and Lord Stunell, for the time they have given to work with my department to identify possible solutions to address their concerns. They brought practical experience and wisdom, for which my department has been most grateful.
I will take the opportunity to set out what we are already doing in response to these concerns because that is relevant to this amendment and others. I also want to be clear that I am continuing to look further at this matter and will keep noble Lords informed. It may be helpful if I put this in context. We are consulting in the housing White Paper on what changes may be needed to ensure that consultation and examination procedures for all types of plan-making are appropriate and proportionate. This provides an opportunity for communities and others with direct experience of the examination process to inform any reforms. I take this opportunity to encourage contributions to our consultation. Building on our discussions with my noble friend, we are also considering what additional material to support this consultation could be made available on our website.
I have also been talking directly to examiners to understand what action they will take now, independently of government, to ensure that communities and others have confidence in the examination process. Indeed, I had the first of these meetings yesterday with representatives of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which manages the neighbourhood planning independent examiner referral service, and with a number of examiners. The referral service is one of the main providers of examiners used by local planning authorities. I am pleased to inform noble Lords that, in response to our discussions, RICS has committed to producing procedural practice guidance on examination by the autumn for the examiners it works with. The guidance will provide clarity and reassurance that an open and transparent process will be consistently applied to the examination of neighbourhood plans. I will endeavour to supply additional detail to noble Lords who have participated in discussions on the Bill as to how that will pan out.
We will also amend planning guidance to clarify our expectations of local planning authority engagement with neighbourhood planning groups before and during the examination process. We have already made amendments to the Bill in Committee that will enable the Secretary of State to, for example, require authorities to set out how they will provide advice to neighbourhood planning groups on the relationship between a neighbourhood plan and the plans that the authority has prepared or is preparing.
My noble friend and other noble Lords have also highlighted the technical knowledge needed to prepare a neighbourhood plan and the challenges that groups can face without access to specialist skills. We confirmed in the housing White Paper that we will make further funding available to neighbourhood planning groups from 2018 to 2020 and we are continuing to develop the tools and support available to neighbourhood groups. We are already doing more to promote the availability of these tools and resources.
Baroness Cumberlege
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I agree very much with my noble friend Lord Caithness about the start of the debate, when the Minister told us about the new help they are going to give to those making local neighbourhood plans. As has been said, they are volunteers, not experts in planning. The additional help he has suggested will be warmly welcomed, and I thank him for it.
To take this in sequence, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, made such an important point. When we start with a new policy and legislation and are trying to do something really quite different—this is about ensuring that local communities are in charge and can shape their local areas—clearly, we have to retain the confidence of the public. However, some of the things happening at the moment are ensuring that we lose the confidence of local communities who have put their heart and soul into drawing up their neighbourhood plans, sometimes for as long as five years—in our case it was two and half years. It is terribly important that if we are doing something different, we keep our populations with us.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, referenced new Amendments 64 and 68, which come right at the end of the Bill. He is perfectly right on this. It is a major change and I thank my noble friend Lord Bourne again for his generosity and for seeing the sense of what we trying to do with those amendments—although we will of course be debating them later on.
I really thought my noble friend Lord Porter was going to be a lost soul, but I do not think he is beyond redemption. His position is sincere. He is of course using his integrity and telling us that he does not quite believe in neighbourhood planning, but I will bring him around. I still thank him very much for his support for ensuring that when neighbourhood plans are drawn up they are not overridden, and that they should be upheld by the Secretary of State. I want to believe in this wonderful new policy and legislation. The Secretary of State should be the guardian of neighbourhood planning, yet we see different things happening in the countryside, which is very distressing for some of us.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, whose support has been stalwart throughout. I think of the very interesting debates in Committee—or maybe it was on Second Reading—when he came back and back. I thank him for that.
I have been very tempted to test the opinion of the House—I feel strongly about this issue, and I have had a great deal of support from across all sections of the House—and I thought, “Today is the day when I will actually test the feelings of the House”, but I have listened to my noble friend Lord Bourne and heard him say he is prepared to have another conversation with me. As I say, he has been very generous with his time and efforts in meeting all our amendments all across the House.
I live in hope. I am going to read Hansard very carefully and consider what he said. I think he strongly made the point about the primacy of the local planning authority as opposed to the neighbourhood plan, so I need to think a bit more about that. I am not one who gives up easily and I will think about what has been said. I sense from other Members of the House that they do not want this tested today, but there is always Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Cumberlege
“(3C) A neighbourhood development plan may include a phasing condition on development which is agreed with the local planning authority.”
Baroness Cumberlege
My Lords, the amendments in this group concern the position of the examiner. An awful lot of annoyance has been caused by some of the work that the examiners have been doing. I am sorry, these speaking notes refer to the wrong amendment. I apologise to the House.
Amendment 2 refers to the issue of phasing. I feel that phasing is very rational in planning, not just in a neighbourhood plan or a local plan. Phasing is relevant to the developers as well as to those making the plan. Although the Secretary of State may be under the illusion that building hundreds of thousands of houses as quickly as possible is a good idea and that local authorities’ neighbourhood plans should not frustrate that, the reality is that developers are acutely sensitive to demand.
There is a strong need for affordable houses, but for 60%—which for the purpose of distinction I shall call unaffordable houses—the market fluctuates. Developers are well aware of that; they do not want oversupply; and they hold most of the cards. There is a wide difference between the need for homes and people’s ability to pay for them; we know that. Throughout the neighbourhood planning scene, phasing is being ruled out by examiners. The political imperative is houses today at any cost. If achieved, that would end in tears.
I have previously mentioned the uncertainty that Brexit brings. A headline in yesterday’s Guardian read:
“Concerns grow among top City bankers that losing access to the single market will force a wave of relocations and lead to the ‘unwinding’ of key businesses”.
We also know that the future of interest rates is uncertain. Above all, if we get a lot of relocations, we could have negative equity in the housing market, and we know that that certainly ends in tears.
Developers and neighbourhood planners have a plan to fulfil by 2030, not until the next election. The Government have a plan to fulfil nearly a quarter of a million houses by the next election, but neighbourhood planners and developers have a longer-term view, and land banks for developers will be kept or released as the market dictates, not as the Government wish.
Local and neighbourhood planners are fully aware that to absorb newcomers takes time, and the impact needs to be assessed. If established residents feel that they will be overwhelmed, this can have serious consequences for a community. Newcomers and bricks and mortar do not build strong communities; communities that care for each other and cost less for the state to support take time to build.
Those involved in healthcare are all too aware that a quick cure for cancer does not involve giving the full treatment in one go. That would prove fatal. With a rush of injections, the Government are trying to solve the housing problem. The scramble for rooves is a folly. Common sense from neighbourhood planners and economic savvy from developers are both sensible. Phasing must be a key component of proper planning. I beg to move.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, concerns phasing conditions on developments, as discussed on the first day in Grand Committee on the Bill. The amendment is sound, and we are happy to support it. It provides for communities to agree with the local planning authority a phasing condition on new developments.
The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, may tell us in a moment that this can already be done and that the local plan should contain a realistic timescale for delivering development and putting in infrastructure, that decisions should be evidence based and are largely for the local community to take. That is fine, but he must answer the question: if you put all that in place, what happens when it is all thrown out by the examiner? We will listen to his response on that point with interest.
I want more houses to be built, but I also want them to be sustainable and carbon-neutral. We must learn the lessons of the past, not repeat its mistakes. With that, I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for moving the amendment in the second group, and the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Mawson, for their participation.
I can reassure my noble friend that the Government agree that development is about far more than just building homes—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, has just made very forcefully. It is about creating communities, and the essence of this piece of legislation, as we all affirmed when it was going through Committee, is not just about building more houses, although clearly as a nation we need to do that, but about ensuring that it is done at an appropriate local level and giving strength to communities. That is the essence of this legislation.
The recent housing White Paper is clear that communities need roads, rail links, schools, shops, GP surgeries, libraries, parks, playgrounds and a sustainable natural environment. Without this infrastructure, no new community will thrive, and no existing community will welcome new housing if it places further strain on already stretched local resources. I agree with that general point. It is very central to the legislation.
A key benefit of neighbourhood planning is that it enables local communities to provide a long-term strategy for housebuilding so that they can manage when and where homes are built in their local area. Depending on the local situation, the process may include consideration of the likely impact of proposed site allocation options or policies on physical infrastructure, such as the local roads network, and on the capacity of existing services, which could help shape decisions on the best site choices. That provision of local infrastructure could well justify phasing the delivery of development. It may also require neighbourhood planning groups to consider phasing the delivery of development to ensure that they have a realistic plan for delivering their housing policy within required timescales with the right facilities available for the community.
At this point, I must thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. We are beginning to know each other so well in these exchanges that he is able to speak not only for the Opposition but for the Government—I know he is after my job, but there are limits. Neighbourhood planning groups are already able to phase development. We would encourage that, although it has to be appropriate to the circumstances of the local community. It must be backed up by clear evidence as to why there should be a restriction on when a specific site or sites should come forward for development. It should be evidence based, and we would all accept that. This is because we want as a nation to ensure the proposals are deliverable.
I agree with all the sentiments expressed in the debate, but I remind noble Lords that this facility is available at the moment. Provided it is evidence backed, it makes sense and is what local neighbourhood groups should be doing. The Government firmly believe that these matters are best dealt with by local communities and their local planning authority working together, as they are best placed to make decisions that affect their local area. With that reassurance, I ask my noble friend respectfully to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Cumberlege
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his support throughout this. It seems to me that phasing is common sense. It does not have to be something that is scientific; it is very specific. I agree with my noble friend that it is up to local people. I am anxious to ensure that there is freedom with the Act, within planning appeals and applications, and that there should be an opportunity for phasing when the local community feels that that is right.
The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, has had real experience of huge developments across the country. He brings a very special quality to those developments in that he understands communities in a way that many of us do not; he knows the real detail. I have heard him speak on many occasions, and he is ensuring that what is happening works well. The noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Mawson, are right that we have to learn from the past and from when things have gone wrong.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Bourne and think that he does feel that there should be opportunities for this phasing to take place, where the local communities want it. I would like some more assurance, perhaps by letter or however he wants to communicate with me, that we can ensure that phasing is available to local communities. Phasing is not part of the way in which some of these neighbourhood plans are now being drawn up, because it is felt not to be appropriate. If we could have some commitment from the Government that it is appropriate, it would give a lot of comfort to a lot of people.
Baroness Cumberlege
12_ In exercising the powers conferred by sections 61E, 61F, 61G, 61K, 61L, 61M and 71A of, and paragraphs 1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 15 of Schedule 4B and paragraphs 3 and 11 of Schedule 4C to, the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and sections 38A, 38B and 122(1) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, the Secretary of State must—(a) require the local planning authority to provide the qualifying body with reasonable assistance to secure that, as far as possible, the development goals of that body can be drafted in terms that meet the basic conditions in paragraph 8(2) of Schedule 4B to the 1990 Act;(b) enable the qualifying body to brief an appointed examiner on the broad goals of the neighbourhood plan proposal, in order that the qualifying body may take into account any initial views of the examiner before submitting a final proposal to the local planning authority;(c) provide the qualifying body and the local planning authority with the opportunity to attend and contribute to any meeting called by the examiner;(d) require the examiner to—(i) provide the local planning authority and qualifying body with a draft report and recommended modifications to the draft neighbourhood plan only if necessary to secure compliance with the four basic conditions;(ii) consider any representations made by the neighbourhood plan body with a view to better achieving the goals of that body;(iii) provide a final report, taking account of the responses of the local planning authority and neighbourhood plan body to the draft report, and giving clear reasons for any points which the examiner is not minded to accept.”
Baroness Cumberlege
My Lords, the amendments in this group concern the examiner. The examiner comes into the scene quite late on when a neighbourhood plan is being drawn up. The examiner looks at the plan; he arrives; and in our case he did not talk to anybody. We were told that he had driven around the area, but we did not know that. We never saw him, met him or explained to him what we were trying to achieve. He disappeared and left us with sweeping changes to the years of work that had been undertaken by good people in the community—people who were the first to admit they were not professional planners. But our examiner was never seen. People say that their examiner did not understand. We hear people say that. The question is how to get this to work in a much more inclusive way, because the volunteers who make the development plan need to talk to the person who is examining it. The examiner needs to talk to the community to understand what it is trying to achieve.
There was a problem in our community because our village was at the vanguard of making a neighbourhood plan. When the examiner came in and made these enormous changes, of which we knew nothing until we received the written material that he gave us, we were completely dumbfounded. This was not the neighbourhood plan that we wanted to put to the public. It was a plan that was written by the examiner, who deleted pages and pages of our plan which we felt were informative and useful to the local community when it came to vote in a referendum.
I have probably been unfair and too hard on examiners, but I think that they have been tied up in a process that has not been inclusive and which Ministers, not least my noble friend, have recognised as unsatisfactory. Of course examiners must respect planning policy in law and need to make sure that neighbourhood plans are sound and respected, and they do that. However, they do not take on the wishes and aspirations of the community. The makers of the plan have their expectations and it is right that the examiner should at least hear them and meet the community that is drawing up the plan.
The amendments that I am putting forward in this group are designed to bring mutual understanding and realise the aspirations of both parties. I am very pleased that my noble friend the Minister has encouraged me to negotiate with his department, following our debates in Committee. We may well see that we have a basis for agreement on these terms. His department was very kind to me and gave me a flow chart that was hugely helpful, showing how the process should work.
The first part of what I am trying to achieve is a pre-submission health check, which is offered through the department and done by an experienced examiner, drawn from a pool of examiners. This examiner will not be involved later on, but is there to make an initial assessment—a health check—concerning the ideas that are being put forward by the neighbourhood plan makers. Secondly, I think that there needs to be a clearer duty on the local planning authority to assist the qualifying body—the neighbourhood plan makers—with drafting, so that there is much less need for modifications later in order to satisfy the basic conditions. We have had an earlier debate on modifications and I have not put down an amendment on this occasion because I accept what my noble friend the Minister said about that issue. The third thing that is needed is a provision requiring the examiner to meet the qualifying body in advance of submitting a draft plan to the local planning authority. The purpose of this is to help avoid the need for technical modifications later and after the plan is submitted to the local planning authority and public representations are invited.
The fourth element is a duty on the examiner: where he is minded to delete or amend a housing or economic development policy, he should seek to reach agreement with the local planning authority and the makers of the neighbourhood plan about alternative locations and about the phasing of the plan. The fifth is a provision requiring the examiner to share a draft report, with proposed modifications if he feels that they are necessary. He should be open to suggesting alternative ways of meeting the problems identified, before signing off the examination. This is of course very common practice in the finalising of local development plans. Lastly, I think that there should be a duty on the examiner that, where there are concerns that remain about the drafting, he should seek to find alternative wording to achieve the aims of the plan-making body, rather than recommending crude deletions.
I have had a lot of discussion on this and I have very much welcomed the advice that I have had from my noble friend Lord Bourne and his department and I think that, if he were to consider some of six elements that I have put forward, we could come to some really good agreement at Third Reading. I beg to move.
Baroness Cumberlege
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said about listening to people. As a councillor—I have been a parish, district and county councillor—I know that you resolve matters only when you see the people who are complaining about a certain issue, and you have to dig quite deep to find out exactly what their concerns are. That is so true of building a neighbourhood plan, where the examiner is concerned.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is also right about the words we use. We had a debate last time in Committee on the word “modification”, and we have had debates on “substantial” and other words. I appreciate that it is difficult for my noble friend Lord Bourne to have a definition that will hold water in all sorts of different circumstances. However, where the neighbourhood planners are meeting the examiner, those are the sorts of things they can discuss, and each can understand what the other means when they use certain words.
The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, is absolutely right about building relationships with people to achieve what you want to achieve. In this new entrepreneurial world, that is the only way forward. I think about what we are doing in the National Health Service with long-term conditions and maternity services. We are giving people their budgets to spend as they wish, because we believe that those people know best the care that they want. The results are amazing. Therefore we have to trust the people and think carefully about the way we involve them in all sorts of aspects of government, including planning. What the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said about disputes and the unhappiness they can cause was so true. Do let us iron them out before we get too far down the line.
My noble friend Lord Bourne rightly said that my amendments are faulty. I absolutely accept that. I am not a planner; I have not had the Local Government Association and various others behind me. Probably, these words are not quite right. However, I think that my noble friend understands that we can go further on this. I was interested that in our discussion in Committee he said that he accepted that something must be going wrong with some of the plans that have been produced. He said:
“I am happy to look at that to see how we might address it. The general position is satisfactory, but I accept that something can obviously be done to make it more watertight”.—[Official Report, 31/1/17; col. GC 214.]
That has been his view throughout the discussions we have had and the discussions I have had with his department.
We therefore need to go further on this. We need to ensure that at Third Reading we get something in the Bill that is more watertight and which ensures that the work of the examiner is respected. As the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, said, they are honourable people, but they are working in a difficult situation. They are too constrained. We therefore need to open this up and ensure that planners, local people and the examiner get together to iron out some of the difficulties that there are. They need to see each other, talk to each other and take the measure of each other. With the generous undertaking my noble friend made, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Cumberlege
“Planning appeals
Where an application for planning permission has been refused by the relevant local planning authority, on the grounds that it is not in accordance with adopted local development plan documents, including adopted neighbourhood plans, and the applicant appeals the planning decision, the Secretary of State must uphold the decision of the local planning authority unless it contravenes a development scheme of national importance.”
Baroness Cumberlege
My Lords, the amendment is self-evident. It harks back to my opening remarks and seeks to clarify the respective responsibilities of the Secretary of State and local neighbourhood planners. It is all a matter of trust.
I was appalled by the figures that my noble friend gave in a previous debate on the number of appeals being made. Our planning is in danger of becoming rule by appeal inspectors who overrule democratically elected councillors. I trust the Minister will uphold democracy over the ruling of inspectors. The inspector’s role is to examine whether the decision of a local planning authority is clearly at variance with its own policies. However, inspectors are now venturing into making planning policy, overruling totally legitimate plans.
Unusually, I am delighted that my amendment is grouped with others. Amendment 6A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is eloquent, and I totally support what they are trying to do with it. As a farmer’s wife I know what it is like when you have a building on land that you want to reclaim and that it is very difficult to do. In our case it was only a couple of cottages. However, it is not practical to think that we can build on great swathes of open land and then reclaim it in time. That will not happen. Amendment 40, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is comprehensive and well thought through. It goes into some depth and has true clarity and also has my full support.
In Committee, we debated the question of appeals, and in replying to the debate, my noble friend Lord Bourne said,
“we place great importance on local development plans. They provide the local community’s vison of how it sees its area developing. It is right that they should be given the weight they deserve within the planning appeals process”.
He went on to say:
“As I have said, where a development plan’s policies are material to an appeal, a decision must be taken in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. This does not mean that a planning appeal that is not in accordance with the local development plan will always be dismissed. It means that the appeal should not normally be allowed and that the planning permission should not normally be granted”.—[Official Report, 31/1/2017; col. GC 203.]
There is leeway in this amendment and the ones proposed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Parminter, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. We have to be careful that we do not have planning by appeal, a phrase that is used around the country at the moment. I beg to move.
Baroness Pinnock
My Lords, I draw attention to my entries in the register of interests as a councillor in the borough of Kirklees and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
I support wholeheartedly Amendment 6, which has been moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. My Amendment 6A simply adds detail to the broadness of her amendment in relation to planning appeals.
Noble Lords will recall that in Committee I raised the issue of the importance of enabling development on contaminated brownfield sites by the provision of a government fund for remediation. Since that time we have learned from the housing White Paper that action may be in progress on that. However, in the Minister’s response to my amendment in Committee, he reiterated the Government’s commitment—I am pleased about this—that brownfield sites should have development precedence over greenfield sites. I want to explore further that commitment because experience and evidence point in a different direction.
In the National Planning Policy Framework of 2012 the Government introduced the concept of a five-year housing land supply within any local authority area. Initially the concept was to be gradually introduced in order to give time for councils to develop new plans to take this requirement into account. But that transition did not really happen and from the start, green belt land, urban green space—which is the equivalent of the green belt within an urban conurbation—and even land in areas of outstanding natural beauty became vulnerable to developers seeking to build on attractive sites; that is, attractive to residents who wanted to retain them as green spaces, and also very attractive to developers who wanted to build on them.
The CPRE commissioned an analysis of the outcomes of planning appeals and the results were published in September 2014. It found that of around 270 planning appeals between 2012 and 2014 lodged in areas that did not have a five-year housing land supply, three-quarters were granted despite their allocation in the existing planning policy of the local council as green belt, urban green space or an area of outstanding natural beauty. I repeat, three-quarters of those appeals were granted, and that equates to rule by planning appeal, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, said earlier. It certainly seems to be the case. This demonstrates conclusively that a local planning authority which does not have a five-year housing land supply is vulnerable to developers who will cherry pick green belt or greenfield sites because the land is easier to develop and the value of the properties is thereby enhanced.
The Government have also commissioned their own report. The Local Plans Expert Group published its findings in March last year. The report states that Section 78 appeals, which are appeals against determinations by local planning authorities,
“by developers bringing forward new evidence”—
mainly the lack of a five-year housing land supply—
“leading to extensive dispute and the release of unplanned sites … brings the local plan process into disrepute”.
And so it does, because the third piece of evidence I have is from my own experience in my authority where, this year, planning consent for two sites that had been allocated as urban green space—which is precious to those living in built-up areas because such sites are their only green areas—has been granted on appeal because the report of the Planning Inspectorate deemed that a five-year housing land supply is more important than land being allocated as green belt or urban green space. As the Government’s report states, local people feel that they are powerless, have no say in local planning, and are wondering about the point of going through the long-drawn-out process of developing a local plan for the planning committee. The decision is taken out of their hands and sites are allocated without any reference to the need for infrastructure in the form of school places and so on.
I ask the Minister to give me confidence that, as the amendment seeks, equal weight will be given to the fundamental policies of either a five-year housing land supply or designation as green belt or urban green space. I would prefer the weighting to favour allocations as green belt, urban green space and areas of outstanding natural beauty. They should be paramount to other uses because in any local authority area there is plenty of land that is not designated, including in my own authority where reserve sites are still available. But no, developers go and cherry pick the green belt sites. As noble Lords can tell, I am extremely cross about what has happened. Again, I hope the Minister will be able to say that green belt and its equivalents will be given greater priority and that applications from developers will have to be refused when other sites are available. I look forward to his response.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I thank my noble friend very much for that point and I apologise for not picking it up in my earlier response. I will go away and reflect on it. Certainly, it would be helpful if we could give more information about how this process operates—how people are qualified, what the training is and so on. Perhaps we could do that on the website. I will look at that and I thank my noble friend also for the constructive discussions we have so far had on the issue of permitted development, which I know is of concern to him.
Baroness Cumberlege
My Lords, I thank those noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I particularly value the support from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley.
It was interesting that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, talked about green belt land. My experience has been with areas of outstanding natural beauty, which in a way have a synergy with green belt land, and it seems that those areas are not designated easily. It takes a lot of effort to get the designation and they should therefore be treated with real respect. I was also interested in what she said about the urban green spaces. In my area I know that they are much cherished by local people, who are forced to live in small and crowded accommodation. They can go to those spaces and there is some relief—relief for all generations but particularly for young children and, I think, for boys who want to kick about a football and all the rest. If we build on all those areas, we will have much more trouble with our future generations.
I was interested in what my noble friend Lord Bourne said about London and how it is not a very densely populated city. We should rejoice in that and think of all the wonderful parks we have, and the gardens shared by inhabitants in the area. When you fly over London, you see in its centre these wonderful green areas. I am sure that my noble friend does not think we would want to build over them all. For me, they are precious—but more precious are the small, green urban spaces, which really affect the people who live in difficult circumstances and find in them a relief or a way out.
The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, was so right: we need the evidence and to know what is going on. It is so easy to continue with policies that are really not assessed. We need some assessment to ensure that what we are doing is the right thing. My noble friends Lord Porter and Lord True were interesting on the role of the inspector. The system is strained and once we get real strain, we get confusion. That is not good for government; government needs clarity.
I very much accept the view that the amendments I tabled can be mightily improved and I appreciate that those who are in the business as council leaders and so on feel that the language is too strong. Perhaps we should avoid “must” and say “have regard to”. We need to make sure that what we are doing allows some flexibility.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, again talked about how we have had some difficulties with the three-year supply, the five-year supply and all the rest. In summing up, my noble friend Lord Bourne said that there were issues which needed demystifying. We need to do that and to think about the role of inspectors. I look forward very much to what the Minister can tell us in more detail about their role and whether guidance is considered inappropriate—although we use it in a lot of other instances. I accept that inspectors are professional people and clearly need to come to their own conclusions—but not in a vacuum. We need to consider carefully what happens when these appeals are allowed outside the neighbourhood plan and are called in by the Secretary of State. What has been carefully crafted is then blown to pieces. So I am grateful to my noble friend for the assurances he has given and I look forward to further negotiation on this aspect of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Lansley
My Lords, the noble Baroness mentions Cambourne, which of course was in my former constituency. The benefits did not dribble away; they disappeared because the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, when Secretary of State, imposed a density requirement on building so the masterplan could no longer be effected. That is why the change from the original planning had such a material impact on the environment in the village.
Baroness Cumberlege
My Lords, we have had examples of new developments that were produced centuries ago, in the 1800s or whatever, I think we should look to today. Poundbury near Dorchester is a very interesting new development. Of course, it has a very distinguished landowner, and I am sure he or his people negotiated extremely well with the local authority. My nephew lives there, so I know it quite well. There is a variety of housing there, which is a good start for a community. It was phased—it was grown over time. Critically, it has employment; it is not a dormitory. It has Dorset Cereals and all sorts of different employment opportunities. It is not all on an industrial estate that is marked “Industrial Estate” on a map. It weaves through the whole of that village and community—that growing little town. We must think seriously about this issue in our planning; otherwise, as I have said before—I apologise for repeating it—we are going to have a Secretary of State not for communities but for dormitories. We should avoid that. We should be building proper communities, and proper communities have employment.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate. I thank the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York for his very helpful tour d’horizon. Something occurred to me regarding what he said and the recent work on the bridge at Tadcaster. He rightly talked about the mixture of tenures that is in the White Paper, affordable housing and a sense of place and community. We have broad support for this amendment. I thank him most particularly.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for moving the amendment so effectively in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, who, unavoidably, is not in his place today. I am sympathetic to the case she made and to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, about the importance of garden villages and towns. We have of course initiated a programme extending to 10 garden towns and 14 garden villages. I thank my noble friend Lady Cumberlege, who rightly said that there are examples such as Poundbury that should act as signposts for what we can accomplish.
I think there was general support for this measure. I understand the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young—I applaud her for the work she has been doing on ancient woodlands—who said that it has to be done with consideration and sensitivity. I support the concept, as do the Government, as outlined in the White Paper. We are strongly of the view that this should be put in local control, so I am very sympathetic to the amendment. I would like to discuss the matter further between now and Third Reading with the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Best, because they have great experience in this area—with an undertaking that I would really like to do something on this, as would the Government, and return to it at the next stage.
This has been a particularly enlightening debate. There was clear support across the Chamber for taking action; there are lessons that need to be learned, but strong examples of what can be achieved. I hope that, with that assurance, the noble Baroness will withdraw the amendment. However, I would be very happy to discuss the issue further with the noble Lords, Lord Taylor and Lord Best, and indeed any other noble Lord, with a view to coming back on Third Reading with at least a report on the discussions, and perhaps firmer action based on them.
Baroness Parminter
My Lords, as these amendments are also in my name, I want to add that I think that they are an incredibly eloquent solution to the position that the Government now find themselves in, for which I commend my noble friend Lord Stunell. As we have heard from noble Lords around the House, there has been no real evidence put by the Ministers of the problem that these pre-commencement condition limitations are seeking to solve. We have had single citations from developers and development organisations, but there has been no clear indication of the scale of the problem—no indication at all. It is, I am sure, no surprise to noble Lords to find out that, when the Government consulted on this matter, there was not a majority in favour of pushing ahead with these proposals. Only a minority of people supported them.
In Committee, I spoke about the need to ensure that the housing we build in the future is truly sustainable, particularly from the perspective of dealing with flooding issues. I have genuine concerns that if the Bill goes ahead in its present form the limitations on pre-commencement clauses will limit the ability of local authorities to ensure at an early stage in the planning process that the homes of the future that we need are robust and do not add to flood risk. I contend that as regards not only flood risk but also risk to our natural environment, heritage and culture, the Bill does no more than respond to protests from developers, and will constrain our ability to build the homes that we need in the future.
My noble friend’s amendment is absolutely right and is a very clever way of ensuring that the Government achieve what they want to do, which I am sure we all agree is reasonable—namely, to ensure that unreasonable pre-commencement condition clauses are not put forward and that we focus on ensuring that anything that comes within the scope of the National Planning Policy Framework is deemed to be suitable. That seems to answer all the questions that noble Lords might have about that. Therefore, on that basis, I fully support these amendments.
Baroness Cumberlege
My Lords, I strongly support these amendments. If my memory serves me right, in Committee we voted against what was then Clause 12 standing part of the Bill. Clearly, that was not acceptable to my noble friend Lord Bourne. In the intervening period a lot of thought has gone into how we arrive at what the Government are trying to achieve. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, put forward a case that was persuasive, clear, simple and elegant. As a latecomer to this debate on neighbourhood planning and local planning, I have learned a lot about the NPPF. I say with respect to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York that it is the bible of planning. It is the document that everybody looks to. The most reverend Primate whispers at me. I will seek absolution later.
This measure is a very clever way of meeting everybody’s needs. When one takes part in a Bill such as this, it is interesting to note where the traffic comes from in terms of the people who write to you and all the rest of it. I have not had any developers write to me but I have had correspondence from a lot of other people. As I say, this measure is a very clever way of trying to find a way through this issue. I hope that my noble friend—in this case it is my noble friend Lord Young, of whom I am an admirer, possibly a groupie, I do not know—with his intellect, and with the great intellect of my noble friend Lord Bourne, will say that we can find a way through this. This measure is probably the very best way we could find of doing so.