Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
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Housing and Planning Bill
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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“(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide for temporary arrangements in particular areas to test the practicality and desirability of competition in the processing (but not determining) of applications to do with planning.(1A) The regulations may make provision—(a) for an application for planning permission that falls to be determined by a specified local planning authority in England to be processed, if the applicant so chooses, not by that authority but by a designated person;(b) for any connected application also to be processed by a designated person and not by that authority.(2) The regulations must specify a period after which any such provision ceases to apply.That period (whether as originally specified or as subsequently extended) must end no later than five years after the first regulations under this section come into force.”
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, we had a wide-ranging debate in Committee on competition. My noble friend Lady Williams has reflected on concerns such as whether the private sector could have an inappropriate influence on decisions for planning permission. She has also considered the various reports from the DPRRC and, as a result, we have laid amendments which address many of the issues raised in your Lordships’ House.
Amendment 120A does three things. First, as recommended by the DPRRC, it confirms that the purpose of the clauses is to enable pilots in discrete areas to test the benefits of introducing competition to planning application processing. Secondly, it addresses another committee recommendation by setting the maximum length of pilot schemes. Discussions with local authorities and professional bodies have suggested that a maximum period of five years is prudent to allow for lengthy applications to go through the whole process, including appeals if necessary. Thirdly, local authorities have said the pilots will not be a level playing field if designated persons only process planning applications attracting a fee and local authorities are left to do the other applications connected to the development of the sites, as those connected applications tend to attract little or no fee.
Proposed new subsection (1A)(b) enables regulations to provide that connected applications can also be processed by designated persons. Amendments 121A, 121B, 121D, 121F, 122B, 122C, 123A, 123C and 123F make consequential changes to enable connected applications to be processed by designated persons.
The DPRRC has said that we should put a list of connected applications in the Bill and take a power to add to it. I am afraid in this regard we disagree. Our recent engagement work with over a hundred authorities has highlighted a concern about connected applications. It is right that we now address it with the sector and agree a list to be included in regulations rather than impose an unworkable list now.
In Committee we heard a clear message from your Lordships that a decision on a planning application must be a democratic one by a local planning authority. Authorities cannot be allowed to delegate this decision to designated persons and nothing should bind the authority’s decision. We have always been clear that decision-making will remain with the authority in a pilot area. However, I want to directly address the points noble Lords made in Committee.
Amendment 121C prevents us including in regulations anything that allows or could allow an authority’s decision-making function to be carried out by a designated person. It also puts beyond doubt that any advice, report or recommendation from a designated person will not be binding on the authority responsible for determining a planning application. To support this, Amendment 123D removes Clause 146(2)(g), which was of particular concern to noble Lords in Committee.
Noble Lords wanted more detail about how the pilots would operate and, ideally, to see draft regulations. It is essential that the pilots are designed with local government and professional bodies. We have started an extensive dialogue with planning professionals that has already involved over a hundred local authorities. None the less, I want to respond to noble Lords’ concerns, so Amendment 121C also places a duty on the Secretary of State to consult before making the first regulations to implement pilot schemes. Combined with other amendments, this means that your Lordships’ House will be able to debate the detail of how the pilot schemes will operate after it has been co-designed and consulted on with local government.
Amendment 121 implements a recommendation from the DPRRC that the Secretary of State should be under a duty to bring back to Parliament an evaluation of the pilots and set out any conclusions that can be drawn from them.
The DPRRC recommended that the affirmative procedure should apply to all regulations made under Clause 145. We recognise that the pilots represent a significant change to the planning system and that there are understandable concerns about their potential impact. We therefore agree that the affirmative procedure provides the appropriate level of scrutiny in certain circumstances. However, the affirmative procedure is not appropriate for every exercise of the powers. We may need to quickly make small changes to procedural rules to address something that is not working as effectively as it should.
In these circumstances, we think that the negative procedure is more appropriate. This is consistent with the negative resolution procedure that applies to the development management procedure order, which sets out the procedural rules for processing planning applications. Amendment 135A gives effect to this approach and applies the affirmative procedure to the power to specify the period after which each pilot will cease, specify the description of planning applications which may be processed by designated persons during the pilots, disapply or modify planning enactments to implement the pilot, specify what are connected applications in addition to reserved matters applications during the pilots, set fees during the pilots and require data sharing during the pilots.
Let me now directly address two concerns raised by the DPRRC in its 28th report. The committee said that the Government had failed to give effect to the use of the affirmative procedure on the first exercise of these powers. However, I am afraid that we disagree. For pilot schemes to be run, the first regulations will need, for example, to set out the length of them, the descriptions of planning applications that can be processed by designated persons and how fees should be set. Amendment 135A applies the affirmative procedure for these matters.
The committee also maintained its position that the Government should always consult before making any regulations and that every exercise of powers under Clauses 145 to 148 should be subject to the affirmative procedure. I note that the noble Lords, Lords Beecham and Lord Kennedy, have tabled Amendments 121CA and 135D to this effect, which they will speak to shortly. Again, I disagree. As I have said, the pilots are complex and we may not get the design perfect from the outset. This is the very reason why any Government use pilots to test their new approach. Consulting on every use of regulations combined with using affirmative procedures for them could snarl up the effective operation of the competition pilots, particularly where small changes to procedural rules are required. It would take six months each time we consult and use the affirmative procedure, equivalent to a 10th of the length of the five-year pilots. I appreciate the spirit and intention of the committee’s recommendations, but we believe that they are simply impractical. I hope that your Lordships will agree that we have taken the committee’s recommendations and applied them in a practical and effective way.
Amendment 137 means that regulations made under Clause 145 will not be treated as hybrid and will be subject only to the affirmative procedure usual for this type of scheme. We are implementing a pilot scheme, not a permanent change to the planning system. We are consulting on the first regulations before implementing any pilots, and local communities will have an opportunity to comment. These clauses are about processing, not deciding applications. Crucially, decisions remain with local planning authorities, so I suggest that private rights are not affected. In any case, it is entirely the applicant’s choice as to whether to stay with the existing authority provider or select a designated person. I beg to move.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on racing through the 15 amendments in her name in such a short time and so clearly. The amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Kennedy are Amendments 121CA, 121G and 135D. The noble Baroness has referred to Amendment 121CA, which provides that the consultation should not be confined to the first regulations but should apply to any sets of regulations that might emerge. Amendment 121G would require a full list of the type of applications that constitute a connected application to be defined in regulations by the Secretary of State, while Amendment 135D would require all regulations made under Clause 145 to be affirmative.
The Government’s intention to extend their fetish with privatisation to the provision of planning services emerged only at the last minute during the Bill’s Report stage in the Commons. It was not the subject of prior consultation and, like the Chancellor’s recent announcement about education, seems uncannily more like Lenin’s concept of democratic centralism than the localism which Ministers proclaim is their watchword.
It is instructive to consider the material produced by the Government in support of their proposals. The Bill’s impact assessment proclaims the importance of the planning application process being,
“resourced and organised in a way that allows an efficient and effective service to be provided”,
and cites fee levels as “an important factor”. Fee levels are of course prescribed by the Government themselves. The document stresses the importance of driving down the costs of processing applications and notes that there is,
“cross-sector concern that resource constraints are affecting the overall service”.
Typically, this so-called impact assessment contains no evidence as to the impact of current or future costs on the performance of the planning process, although it affirms that,
“adequately resourced planning departments depend on an appropriate level of income”,
which it fails to define. There is also no attempted definition of,
“well organised, efficient and low cost services”,
even though the costs are determined by the Government.
Lord Porter of Spalding
If we are truly about competition, the people in the competition should be the people setting the charges for that competition. Local government will set appropriate fees. All the Government need to say is, “This is the maximum profit you can make”, and we will all stick to those rules. I am sure local government will be able to drive down costs while putting fees up. As my noble friend Lord True said, we will be doing more shared management, and such arrangements will save some margin, but that will still not be enough to cover the full costs of the planning application. If we are able to put our fees up to recoup the full costs, so be it—bring on the competition. Like my noble friend Lord True, I will probably volunteer to pilot a rural competition.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
My Lords, I hope I gave a full explanation in my opening remarks of our approach to the DPRRC’s recommendations—where we have accepted and taken on board its comments, as well as those of your Lordships—and why we believe that Amendments 121CA and 135D are impractical. Amendment 121G repeats a provision that we have already laid.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, talked about the figures on outsourcing and shared services in the impact assessment. The key point is that, in many services, local authorities have undertaken significant reform and shown significant cost reductions. Some examples are set out in the impact assessment. However, in respect of planning services, authorities have been slow to do such reform, which is why we want to go forward with these pilots.
Amendment 123B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, proposes an alternative pilot to test fee flexibility alongside the competition pilot scheme. I cannot accept this amendment because we already have the necessary powers and are already taking forward the proposal with the intention of evaluating its effectiveness. Section 303 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 allows us, through regulations, to set different fees for different local planning authorities, although Clause 141 of this Bill will make such an approach easier.
Our recent consultation paper included a proposal to test the provision of greater flexibility in fee setting, on top of our proposals for national increases in fees linked to inflation, where local authorities come forward with ambitious plans for reforms and improved performance. The noble Lord raised concerns that our proposals in the consultation are too narrow. The reference to a fast-track service was one example. We will explore a range of options for fee flexibility with areas and have started to have those conversations in some areas.
Lord Shipley
I thank the Minister for her response so far, but I want to be clear that I am talking about a measurable pilot, not one which is simply a set of options which may prove not to be measurable because they have not been set up properly. If a competition pilot is to take place, it has to be measurable; otherwise, the outcomes cannot be measured. Any fee flexibility pilot would also have to be measurable. The powers may be there already for the Government, but this has to be set up in a way that can be measured.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Our aim with these pilots is certainly to be able to measure and look at differing effectiveness. As the noble Lord rightly said, the consultation is still out, and we will obviously be coming back with further details, but our intention is certainly to test the effectiveness of the different approaches. Furthermore, recent devolution deals included a commitment to this effect, and discussions are starting with these areas.
I will respond to the points raised by my noble friend Lord True in the next group, but I can say now that we will use regulations to prevent conflicts of interest and maintain ethical and professional standards. Local planning authorities will retain responsibility for deciding the planning application, having received a report with a recommendation from the provider that the planning applicant chose to submit their application to for processing. As I say, I will speak a bit further about this in the next group.
I hope that noble Lords recognise in my opening comments and the government amendments that we have sought to be reasonable, to address key concerns and to implement, in an effective way, the recommendations of the DPRRC. I hope on this basis that noble Lords will not press their amendments.
“( ) The Secretary of State must— (a) review the operation and effectiveness of any arrangements made under the regulations;(b) no later than 12 months after the date when the arrangements (or the last of them) cease to have effect—(i) lay a report before each House of Parliament, or(ii) make a statement to the House of Parliament of which that Secretary of State is a member,setting out the results and conclusions of the review.”
“( ) The regulations may not contain anything that allows or requires, or could allow or require, the responsible planning authority’s duty to determine an application to be carried out, to any extent, by a designated person on the authority’s behalf.“( ) Nothing said or done by a designated person appointed under the regulations to process an application is binding on the responsible planning authority when determining the application.“( ) Before making the first regulations under this section the Secretary of State must consult such representatives of local planning authorities, and such other persons, as the Secretary of State thinks fit.”
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I have a good deal of sympathy with the points of both the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Shipley. I am concerned how it would be seen by the public generally, but also by those applicants who have paid for a report to be prepared, which may make a recommendation. The decision will certainly be made by the committee. That is more or less the position that operates now in the existing system. Sometimes, council planning officers’ recommendations are not accepted by the committee, and they may help appellants on appeal. However, if you are paying for that advice as an applicant, it creates a different ambience altogether, it seems to me. It makes the whole process rather more confusing and difficult for the applicant, as well as for the local authority. I hope that the noble Baroness will look again at how the process works, because it is fraught with danger for both the authority and public understanding of what is happening.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
My Lords, I will not repeat the detail of what we have already done to strengthen Clauses 145 to 148 but turn straight to the amendments.
Although I cannot accept Amendment 121E from my noble friend Lord True, I agree with its intent and commit to take the issue away and address it in the design of the pilots and regulations. Authorities have said clearly to us that it will be very inefficient if designated persons do all the background work but they are required to review it all and then pull together their own recommendation in a report that they write. They are not saying to us that they must make the recommendation or write their own report. Instead, they are saying that simple and efficient mechanisms are needed to ensure that quality and impartiality are maintained. This amendment could lead to inefficient behaviour.
Authorities have also said that designated persons must share some of the risk and cost of defending appeals. I am concerned that the amendment could make it harder to argue that designated persons should share any risks which will concern authorities. There is a complex set of interrelated issues which we need to explore in detail with authorities to avoid perverse behaviours and outcomes. We will explore a range of safeguards. I ask noble Lords to let us explore them with authorities and bring them forward in regulations. We would be very happy to have further discussions with my noble friend and others about how we can best do that. I hope that reassures him that we will take this away.
I am afraid I cannot accept Amendment 122 from the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Beecham, limiting ‘designated persons’ to local authorities and public bodies and ruling out private sector companies and individuals. This amendment says, “It is the public sector way and there is no other way”. In contrast to noble Lords, the dozen or so local authorities considering being a pilot area are not arguing for the exclusion of the private sector. They believe that they can compete with it and, indeed, beat it. If that is the case, what have local authorities got to fear? If they provide the best service, they will hold on to the business. We believe that the concerns at the heart of this amendment are about any potential for the private sector to have undue influence on planning decisions, and we believe these can be managed.
We have strengthened planning authorities’ retention of decision-making during the pilots following concerns expressed in Committee. Our amendments mean that regulations cannot contain anything that allows an authority to delegate decision-making to designated persons and make clear that advice from designated persons will not be binding on authorities. However, other safeguards will also exist. We will set out high professional standards, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, outlined, drawing on codes of conduct such as that of the Royal Town Planning Institute, which requires competence, honesty, integrity and independent professional judgment from its members. We will remove someone’s designation where they fail continually to meet these high standards. We expect to prevent designated persons processing applications in which they, their company or its subsidiaries have any interest. I have committed to explore how we can maintain high-quality, independent advice being presented to decision-makers and having designated persons list their interest with authorities, as suggested by my noble friend Lord True. Section 327A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 provides that where the necessary procedures have not been followed appropriately an application can be declared null and void. We believe that enabling the private sector to compete with local planning authorities is likely to drive greater reform.
Some in local government have said that it may not be possible to process some applications, such as householder applications, for a price even close to the fee. Our initial dialogue with the private sector indicates that it might indeed be possible to process such applications, and we want to test this belief.
Finally, I cannot accept Amendments 123 to 126 from the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Beecham. We all want a planning system fit for the 21st century, so we believe that, in order to achieve it, it would be wrong not to explore alternative delivery models for handling planning applications. Currently, local planning authorities have a monopoly which denies the user choice and does not incentivise service innovation and the provision of the most efficient and effective service. Alongside this, reform of planning departments lags behind most other local authority services. Local authorities can do a lot more to transform their planning departments. Indeed, many have introduced new ways of operating and have shown that performance can be improved and costs reduced, but we believe that more should follow their lead.
We have heard concerns about the undue potential influence of the private sector in the pilots. My noble friend Lady Williams has laid amendments to strengthen local authorities’ decision-making function, and I have set out other safeguards we intend to put in place. I have also committed to explore proposals raised by my noble friend Lord True. Your Lordships’ House has been concerned about the lack of detail about how the pilots will operate. Our amendments mean that we will debate the regulations in this House following a consultation before pilot schemes can come into force. Noble Lords have queried whether we intend to evaluate the pilot, and we have laid an amendment committing us to sharing our assessment of the pilots in the House. The RTPI and the LGA rightly highlight areas where we need carefully to consider the design of the pilots, and we will work with them to explore their ideas, but they have not opposed the principle of the pilots. Local authorities are telling us that we are right to challenge the current delivery model and, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Porter, some want to be pilot areas. Despite this, the noble Lords opposite want to say that they cannot.
We listened very carefully to the debate in Committee and today, and I believe we have taken significant steps to ensure that the pilots are workable and to address many of the concerns that noble Lords have raised. I hope that, with these reassurance and the commitments I have made in these remarks, the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.
Lord True
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. She is right to say that on this subject the Government have listened, and are listening, carefully. That is entirely welcome and I am grateful for it. Not only will I shortly withdraw Amendment 121E but, as I indicated previously, I will not be pressing Amendment 122A on the basis of the assurance that we have been given.
On Amendment 124A, which I have degrouped here, there are questions about fees, on which my noble friend Lord Porter and I and others have spoken, that might bear further clarification in discussion. I welcome the assurances that my noble friend has given. I was interested when she said that the fees currently allowed would be adequate to enable the private sector to operate. So with the assurances that she has given, for which I thank her, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.