Baroness Hanham
Main Page: Baroness Hanham (Conservative - Life peer)Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Baroness Hanham Excerpts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, this Bill is primarily a deregulatory measure in support of the Government’s decisive actions to put the country’s economy back on a stable footing and to restore growth. The challenges we face mean that we must constantly keep in mind what more needs to be done to encourage innovation and economic growth, to create more jobs and to tackle anything which acts as a barrier to this happening. That is why the Bill focuses on reforms that will boost Britain’s infrastructure, get rid of unnecessary bureaucracy and ensure that our planning system operates effectively. It brings forward provisions that will remove constraints on economic development caused by the planning system, help to unlock land for housing growth to ensure that sufficient housing can be built for future needs, speed up the essential delivery of superfast broadband—country-wide, but particularly in rural areas—remove barriers and delay to major infrastructure projects, introduce measures to support business directly by providing certainty on business rates, and introduce a new employment status.
Turning to these themes in the Bill itself, perhaps I may start by addressing Clauses 1 and 6 on planning and housing. Despite the improvement in housebuilding starts across England, which were 29% higher in 2011 compared to 2009, and the publication of a comprehensive housing strategy, there is far more to do to provide homes to meet Britain’s demographic needs and to help generate local economic growth. Following the introduction of the National Planning Policy Framework there is now a more positive and inclusive planning system. The framework remains at the centre of our planning policy and the measures within the Bill are all aimed at simplifying and improving the locally led planning system so that it works effectively for local communities and businesses.
Most councils are already dealing with planning applications efficiently; the approval rate is at a 10-year high of 88%. However, a small number of local planning authorities make unnecessarily slow decisions. They consistently fail to meet the statutory time limits within which councils should process major applications, as agreed by Parliament. Others see a relatively high proportion of their decisions to refuse applications overturned at appeal. That is a particular issue with major schemes, given the relatively high cost of preparing them and their importance for growth. Clause 1 therefore provides an incentive for poorly performing councils to improve and an alternative route for developers if they do not. However, as the Planning Minister has made clear in the other place, we fully intend that these provisions will be applicable only to a small number of planning authorities and we would be delighted if it were not necessary for any local authority to be designated under this clause, with all local authorities making sound and timely decisions on applications.
Turning to Clause 6, the need for housing—particularly, affordable housing—remains high. The Government are committed to unlocking stalled sites where previously negotiated affordable housing obligations are unviable because they are currently economically unrealistic. Clause 6 presents an opportunity to stimulate housing growth and will be a vital component in the drive to get more affordable housing built. Stalled sites mean that there is no local growth, community benefit, or new or affordable housing. Across the country there are 1,400 stalled sites, with the capacity for 75,000 homes. Clause 6 will enable developers to challenge the local authority on the affordable housing elements of its Section 106 requirements in a fast-track decision-making process. It presents a real opportunity to ensure that consents are viable and realistic. Furthermore, it addresses the reluctance of some local authorities to renegotiate currently unrealistic affordable housing requirements, agreed in different market conditions. We recognise, of course, that many local authorities have already opened such negotiations, but not all have.
As well as the measures in Clauses 1 and 6, the Bill makes a number of other changes, through Clauses 2 to 5 and Clauses 7 and 9, which will make the planning process simpler while retaining important safeguards. Clause 2 expands inspectors’ powers to award and recover costs at planning appeals. Clause 3 corrects a legislative anomaly to enable the Secretary of State to award costs between the parties when a compulsory purchase inquiry is cancelled and when a party does not appear at an inquiry that is held. Clause 4 will help to ensure that best use is made of existing buildings and brownfield land by making changes to existing powers to grant permitted development rights. Clause 5 will ensure that information requests made by local authorities are genuinely related to planning and the nature and scale of the development proposed. Clause 7 will make it easier for local authorities to choose, if they wish, to dispose of surplus land held for planning purposes, which will help to get more brownfield land back into productive use. Clause 9 will allow mineral planning authorities in England greater discretion as to whether and when to undertake a periodic review of the mineral provisions.
I turn now to Clause 8, which I left out in addressing the first nine clauses. Because of its critical importance to the United Kingdom’s long-term economic future, the Government’s ambition is for this country to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015. Clause 8 is particularly important as it will potentially help to give over 4 million more people access to fixed superfast broadband, particularly those in rural and hard-to-reach areas of the country.
Let me be clear that it is not our intention to use the Clause 8 power to remove prior approval requirements for mobile masts. We intend to use it for fixed infrastructure: cabinets and poles only. The clause makes no distinction between fixed and mobile infrastructure because of EU regulatory requirements for the communications sector. Article 8(1) of the framework directive requires technology neutrality so far as the primary implementing legislation is concerned. However, the requirement for neutrality does not apply to secondary legislation, and therefore the consultation we will publish later this month on the changes that we will bring forward through secondary legislation will make clear that we propose to use Clause 8 for fixed infrastructure—cabinets and poles—and not mobile masts. In the 1980s, deregulation led to the modern communications industry we enjoy today, through the abolition of special TV licences for satellite dishes and the introduction of permitted development rights for those dishes. The Bill seeks to provide the same impetus to the rollout of 21st-century superfast broadband technology.
Clauses 10 to 16 take forward a number of recommendations from the Penfold review to remove overlapping development consent regimes, where multiple permissions from different government agencies are required on top of planning permission. However, I shall focus today on the proposed reforms to the system for registering town and village greens in England, which will harmonise with the democratically accountable planning system. The changes will prevent green applications being used to stop or delay planned development. Another aim is to reduce the financial burden and red tape for local authorities and landowners. For the avoidance of doubt, the reforms will not affect existing registered town and village greens, which will continue to be given strong protection. We have also set out a new local green space designation to give special protection to local green areas, including recreational land, which local people can affect through local and neighbourhood plans. We have set out in the National Planning Policy Framework how local people can use the designation, together with important safeguards for existing open spaces.
Clause 13 introduces landowner statements. Landowners will be able to deposit with the commons registration authority statements which bring to an end any use of their land up to that point as being “as of right”, which is one of the criteria for registering land as a town or village green. This mechanism will allow landowners to tolerate any recreational use of their land without fear that the land could be registered as a town or village green.
Clause 14 covers interaction with the planning system. This is achieved through making changes to the Commons Act 2006 which will prevent green applications being made where planning permission has been granted or where a planning application has been publicised and the decision is still to be made. Equally importantly, the changes will prevent town and village green applications for land identified for potential development in local and neighbourhood plans, including draft plans.
Clause 15 amends existing fee-making powers for applications to amend the registers of common land and town and village greens under Part 1 of the Commons Act 2006. The purpose is to provide greater flexibility and targeting of fees, in particular to allow them to be levied by different bodies where more than one authority is involved in determining an application.
Clauses 17 to 24 include a number of measures to support the development of the infrastructure that is vital to economic growth. Clauses 17 to 20 have the potential to unlock thousands of new jobs and millions of pounds of new investment in energy projects, and Clauses 21 to 24 will remove delays that can hold back major infrastructure projects. Ofgem’s proposed £160 million gas network innovation competition, specifically the funding mechanism, is currently being delayed because of regulatory ambiguity in the Gas Act. Clause 17 puts beyond doubt Ofgem’s ability to put in place conditions allowing the gas network innovation competition to proceed.
Clauses 18 and 19 enable holders of Section 36 Electricity Act 1989 consents for power-generating stations to have them varied to take account of significant technology and design changes without the need to make a new application under the Planning Act. Clause 20 provides legislative clarity on the requirements for development consents relevant under the pre-Planning Act regime.
Clause 21 makes clear our commitment to expand and improve the one-stop-shop approach for non-planning consents for national major infrastructure projects, while ensuring that interested and affected parties continue to be consulted on proposals. In line with the deregulatory theme of the Bill, Clause 21 and some parts of Clauses 22 and 23 remove the need for a number of additional certificates and consents to be issued separately and allow for the relevant issues to be covered during the development consent order process, which will provide savings to business.
Clauses 22 and 23 update existing legislation on the special parliamentary procedure to ensure that nationally significant major infrastructure projects are brought forward as quickly as possible. The Bill makes changes that will reduce the number of circumstances in which the special parliamentary procedure is triggered. It will also address inconsistencies between different pieces of legislation to limit consideration under the special parliamentary procedure to the compulsory acquisition of special land. This responds to a joint report in 2012 on special parliamentary procedure by the Chairman of Ways and Means and the Chairman of Committees, which urged the Government,
“to rectify these anomalies as a matter of priority”,
and to a commitment made by the Government to reform special parliamentary procedure for nationally significant infrastructure projects at the earliest opportunity.
It is vitally important to the health of the United Kingdom economy that the development of projects of national significance that are needed should go ahead with the minimum of delay. But the speed with which large-scale major applications are determined is falling: the number of cases taking more than 52 weeks to decide has increased from 8% to 13%. Clause 24 therefore includes a measure to broaden the scope of the nationally significant infrastructure planning regime so that developers of business and commercial schemes can choose whether to apply to the local council for planning permission or to request to use the infrastructure regime.
Clauses 25 and 26 concern business rates. As well as measures to streamline planning and boost investment in housing and infrastructure, the Bill includes measures to support business directly. Clause 25 provides certainty by postponing the revaluation of business rates from 2015 to 2017. Tax stability is vital to businesses looking to grow and to help improve the economy. Postponing revaluation in England from 2015 will avoid sharp changes and unexpected increases in business rate bills over the next five years.
As business rates are linked to inflation, there will be no real-terms increase. This reform will provide certainty for business to plan and invest, supporting local economic growth. Independent initial estimates published in full by the Valuation Office Agency suggest that 800,000 premises would have seen a real-terms increase in their rates at a 2015 revaluation. As local government finance is a devolved matter, Clause 26 provides the Welsh Assembly Government with the power to make a similar postponement if they so choose.
Finally, Clause 27 sets out a new employment status of employee shareholder, which will give both companies and people more options. Simon Walker from the Institute of Directors said:
“This scheme has the potential to reduce the employment law burden on companies and make employees better off at the same time”.
Stuart Rose, a former chief executive of Marks & Spencer, said:
“This is a win-win for entrepreneurs and employers in small and medium-sized companies that need a flexible dedicated workforce focused on growth”.
Of course, it is important that existing employees are not coerced into this new employment status. That is why the clause adds a new unfair dismissal right and a right not to suffer a detriment if an existing employee turns down the offer of an employee shareholder contract.
The new status will have all the rights associated with employees, including discrimination rights, except for certain unfair dismissal rights, rights to statutory redundancy pay and certain statutory rights to request flexible working and time to train. Employee shareholders will be required to give 16 weeks’ notice of their intention to return from maternity, adoption or additional parental leave. Importantly, employee shareholders will be given shares in the company of at least £2,000, with the gains made on the first £50,000 of shares exempt from capital gains tax. This new employment status is about increasing choice and flexibility in the employment relationship.
This Bill brings together a range of measures that will simplify the planning system, boost investment in housing and infrastructure, and help businesses and growth. I commend it to the House.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, perhaps I may start by welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, to his position on the Front Bench for the Bill. I am delighted to see him there and, having listened to the debate, he will realise that we are in for a lively time—as I do. I also congratulate all noble Lords for having survived. This is the first time in this House that I have sat in this Chamber and been so hot that I did not know what to do with myself. Noble Lords have all done extremely well to survive.
The noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Whitty, and many other noble Lords have portrayed not only the Bill but the Government as being anti-localist. Perhaps I should say immediately in our defence that we have spent a lot of time in this House making sure that this Government are localist. Beyond the Localism Bill, we have been through the NPPF, and we have had great discussions on localism and giving priority to local authorities. I do not therefore think that this Bill undermines that in any way. The Government are committed to localism. They recognise that in some areas there are small problems that need to be dealt with, and that is what we are trying to do in the Bill.
Perhaps we can start with Clause 1, which has attracted a great deal of attention. The clause is to deal only with those very few situations where an effective planning service is not being delivered locally. We published an impact assessment, which, together with the consultation document on planning performance that supports this clause, is clear about the evidence base. I am sure that by the time we reach Committee, all noble Lords will have read those documents.
As I said in my opening remarks, although the great majority of applications—about 88%—are approved in good time, that is not the situation everywhere. The criteria that we have proposed in relation to local authorities that are failing in their duty would mean designating—I emphasise what my noble friend the planning Minister in the other place said—a very small number of authorities that fail to determine more than 30% of their major decisions on time. That is not a standard of performance that we should regard as acceptable. I will not name specific authorities for the simple reason that circumstances can change before any initial designations are made.
On that point I want to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and other noble Lords that we have been talking to the Local Government Association about the role that the sector can play in helping other authorities to improve and to stop them being designated. We do not particularly want them to be designated; we want to use this as a way of ensuring that standards are maintained. We want the Local Government Association to help authorities regain their powers if they have been designated.
I was asked by various noble Lords how failing councils will initially be designated. They will be designated initially for 12 months, and that will be reviewed before the year is up. It will be done on criteria that I am sure we shall discuss in Committee. Although applicants can appeal against non-determination, once the statutory period is up, we believe that they should have the choice of accessing a better service from day one, where there is clear evidence that the planning service is not being delivered effectively.
I must underscore that these provisions are not mandatory on every local authority. They give the Secretary of State powers to designate, as I said, this small number of local authorities. This is not a case of swiping at localism; this is saying that there are small areas that we need to deal with. The provisions do not entirely take the powers away from local authorities because they enable the applicant to decide whether they want to leave their application with the designated local authority or whether they wish to go to the Planning Inspectorate. I do not think that the Planning Inspectorate, under these circumstances, will be overwhelmed with extra work.
I am conscious of not having a lot of time. Perhaps I can turn to Clause 5, which deals with information requirements. The noble Lords, Lord True, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, Lord Teverson and Lord Shipley, all raised points on why that clause is needed as the policy is already set out in the National Planning Policy Framework. The clause is needed because there have been court cases and we need to ensure that applicants can get to appeal, if they need to, when there are disputes about information that cannot be resolved. It is also quite unnecessary for local government to have to seek, particularly with smaller applications, a whole raft of information that does not necessarily appear to be germane to the application. People can always ask for that information as the application proceeds, if they wish, but it is clearly not helpful if there is so much information that it never sees the light of day.
Section 106 renegotiations on affordable housing have received quite a lot of attention. As I made clear in my opening remarks, there are already 1,400 stalled sites with more than 75,000 houses that should be under construction. A number of those homes will be affordable, so it is not that there will be 75,000 affordable homes, but within that figure will be such homes. We know that there are many reasons as to why development is not coming forward, and those reasons will vary from site to site. We accept that there will be financial implications as well, so this is not the entirety of the problem.
At the moment there is no central assessment of the viability of every site. Noble Lords asked whether that would be a general requirement, and perhaps I may come back to the point in Committee. However, we know that Section 106 agreements are a significant cost to developers, and historically 50% of the cost is on affordable housing. Our measure provides for a quick and focused review of the Section 106 agreement without reopening the policy context or merits of the planning consent. It will deliver the development of affordable housing. That is because this particular clause relates to the affordable housing aspect of Section 106, and we know that a number of authorities are already carrying out those negotiations. I agree that the assessment of viability will be key to the consideration of appropriate affordable housing requirements. We are going to issue guidance to establish the key considerations for assessing that viability for the purposes of this clause. I do not agree that the Planning Inspectorate is not able to consider matters of viability. Inspectors regularly examine that aspect in planning appeals and local plan considerations.
My noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor asked why we should single out affordable housing rather than use the Homes and Communities Agency to help deliver affordable housing obligations. I have said that we know historically that 50% of the value of obligations is on affordable housing, and councils are already free to renegotiate any aspect of that Section 106 obligation at any time on a voluntary basis. This measure only provides a backstop where local authorities may not be prepared voluntarily to undertake those negotiations. It gives the developer the right to make sure that they take place. Funding historic aspirations on individual sites for affordable housing is not going to be the best way of securing value for money from the Homes and Communities Agency investment, and our aim is to use guarantees to deliver 15,000 new affordable homes.
One of the other areas that was the cause of considerable discussion is that of Clause 8 and broadband. The provisions of this clause will be instrumental in removing the planning red tape that is currently slowing down, and in some places blocking, the rollout of broadband. The question of state aid was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. I accept immediately that state aid has been a delaying factor, but it is not the only one. Planning issues have been the cause of delays as well. As I said originally, the Government’s ambition is for this country to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015 and it is vital that the rollout of this infrastructure is fast-tracked in order to kick-start economic growth, create jobs and support the country’s long-term economic future. However, it is also absolutely vital to ensure that rural areas have broadband and are thus able to take part in that growth and economic improvement. So we believe that the introduction of short-term planning relaxations is justified and we will ensure that the Government’s ambition for superfast broadband and universal broadband coverage is not prevented by planning objections where we believe that they are causing a blockage.
I understand the concerns regarding protected areas, but it is the communities in some of these areas that are in the most need of the upgraded infrastructure. Certain rural areas are in danger of being left behind and are the most expensive and difficult to reach, where underground cabling is often difficult to put in place. If these remote areas are excluded, a number of households and businesses will be left completely behind. In the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, broadband is an essential infrastructure. My noble friend Lady Brinton described eloquently the ways in which broadband is essential to the rural economy.
Lord Adonis
I thank the noble Baroness for giving way. These are crucial issues. She says she will update the House as guidance is developed. Will that be before Committee stage?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I do not know the answer to that. I will let the noble Lord and the House know as soon as I can get an indication of when that guidance is going to be available, but I would expect that we would be able to discuss it. We want to give employers and people more choice. Clause 27 does that and when we reach Committee stage, we will be able to deal with some of the more detailed points.
In concluding, I again thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I believe the measures in this Bill will build on the steps that this Government have already taken to make the planning system simpler and make sure that we encourage economic growth. I hope that we can all agree that freeing up businesses from the swathe of red tape that has engulfed them is a suitable objective for this House in passing legislation. I hope the House will support the Bill. I am sure that it will in the end and I look forward to the discussions in the middle.
Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.