Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I will be brief with this amendment because I anticipate that the Minister’s response will be that it is too prescriptive and that the Government want to leave everything off the face of the Bill and see what happens along the way.

The amendment was raised with us by the RSPB and it raises a particular point that I would like to address. Specifically, it causes the Secretary of State to consult combined authorities over a number of strategic planning areas, in particular areas of,

“mitigation of and adaptation to impacts of climate change … natural resource use including water management … delivery of low-carbon energy sources and infrastructure … landscape-scale conservation, including green infrastructure”.

The helpful briefing note reminds us that the NPPF contains very positive policies for planning for biodiversity, such as planning for the creation, protection, enhancement and management of networks of biodiversity and green infrastructure.

The point that the society makes is that to be effective, it is essential that devolved strategic planning powers enable combined authorities to address and plan for social, economic and environmental issues in an integrated way across England. It points out the failure of the duty to co-operate because it is simply not strong enough. The key point I would raise on this is that whether it is on a more proactive basis or just a wait-and-see approach with piecemeal devolution of some of these strategic planning issues, the opportunity actually to join up across the country will inevitably be limited. Some of these issues ought to be looked at on a basis which is wider than any particular combined authority. It seems to be a component of this debate which perhaps we need to reflect on a bit more. I beg to move.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I certainly support the amendment. Given that the combined authorities will cover quite large areas, I would say that it is essential that an integrated approach is guaranteed and not left to a kind of wider discretion, perhaps as part of a deal if it is less convenient for one combined authority—or, worse still, if there is disagreement within the combined authority. We need to know where these obligations will lie. There is a need for clarity here. I appreciate that we are talking about bespoke deals and that they will be different for different authorities. I am sympathetic to that because we do not have uniformity across the country. Nevertheless, these are important issues which have suffered from a piecemeal approach. There is now a real opportunity for a much more strategic approach and I am sure that the combined authorities will see this as an important matter, not least because some of these areas are quite controversial. So I hope that there will be some clarity around this, despite the need for the Secretary of State to have some kind of wider discretion. These are responsibilities and obligations, and we need to be clear about where they lie.