Housing and Planning Bill

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, Amendment 92HB would rewrite new Section 59A(2) that is inserted into the Town and Country Planning Act by this Bill. I thank the Royal Town Planning Institute for its advice on this amendment. As we know, the Government have indicated that they intend to use local plans and the proposed brownfield register as the vehicles for the new system of permission in principle. This should be made clearer in the Bill, and that is the subject of this amendment.

There are good reasons to limit permission in principle to sites in local plans. Since these have been subject to public consultation and public examination, there would seem to be a strong case for reducing any further handling of the principle of development in the interests of accelerating housing development and, just as importantly, demonstrating the importance of the plan.

However, I think that the Bill should limit permission in principle to sites in the proposed brownfield register. If there is to be such a register—and that is the Government’s intention—we need to know what kind of register it is to be, and whether any other document can be drawn up to grant permission in principle that would run counter to local democratic accountability. This amendment would provide for the qualifying document only to be a local plan or a register of the kind being introduced by new Section 14A.

This amendment would not in itself limit the permission in principle to the brownfield register, but it does limit it to local plans and the new Section 14A registers, which is a great improvement on the Bill. Secondary legislation should then be used to limit new Section 14A registers to the brownfield register. This is because using the Bill to define brownfield may in practice prove an unwieldy mechanism and would actually be better in secondary legislation.

I hope that this amendment is clear. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords, if Amendment 92HB is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 92J to 92M inclusive for reasons of pre-emption.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for his comments on Amendment 92HB. The Government have been clear from the beginning that they consider the qualifying documents capable of granting permission in principle to be limited to development plan documents, neighbourhood plans and brownfield registers. But I agree that it might provide more certainty and assurances to the industry and the key stakeholders to go further and specify these documents in the Bill in the way the noble Lord has proposed. I am happy to take the issue away and look at how we can draft an appropriate government amendment on Report that carefully sets out the documents that are capable of granting permission in principle. With these firm assurances, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

On Amendment 92M, it is extremely important that the wording in the definition of “qualifying document” in new Section 59A(2)(d) remains. This enables permission in principle to be granted for the particulars of the development set out in a site allocation. We currently intend that these prescribed particulars will be limited to use, location and amount of development, and a qualifying document must include that detail if the site is to benefit from the grant of a permission in principle. We are currently consulting on the matters that can be granted permission in principle and will be setting these out in secondary legislation. With those comments, I ask the noble Lord not to press this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, this clause is effectively about brownfield registers and we have already covered some of the points I will make in moving Amendment 96B and speaking to the other amendments in my name.

Amendment 96B probes whether other registers are being considered and, if so, what they are and whether they will grant permission in principle like brownfield registers.

Amendment 96E probes how a register being in “two or more parts” will work. We have been informed that one part of the register will be of brownfield sites in general and the other of brownfield sites which are suitable for housing and will therefore get permission in principle. However, I am not sure how that will work and whether there are other distinctions or divisions.

Amendment 96G puts on record that nonsense sometimes creeps into legislation, though I do not blame the Minister or her colleagues on the Front Bench for this. Clause 137 says that regulations will,

“confer a discretion on a local planning authority, in prescribed circumstances, not to enter in the register land of a prescribed description that the authority would otherwise be required to enter in it”.

I have not got a clue what that means—perhaps the Minister can tell us in plain English. Indeed, perhaps the Minister can prescribe what it means.

Amendment 97C refers to an even more nonsensical provision in the Bill. Again, I do not blame anybody on the Government Front Bench or in the Chamber, but new Section 14A(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 reads:

“The regulations may confer power on the Secretary of State to require a local planning authority … (a) to prepare or publish the register, or to bring the register up to date, by a specified date; … (b) to provide the Secretary of State with specified information, in a specified form and by a specified date, in relation to the register. … In this subsection ‘specified’ means specified by the Secretary of State”.

I really think we ought to do better than that, and this amendment is a protest.

Amendment 98A probes the definition of “brownfield land”. I am not suggesting that my definition is better than the NPPF’s “previously developed land”, but defining it is important. As the Minister said the other day, this is a hobby of mine. Clearly, brownfield land is land that has previously been developed. I am suggesting that it is also land which,

“is not in use or is being used in such a way that the local planning authority considers that a change of use would be appropriate”.

There is an interesting question there as to how far previously used land that is now being used for a less intensive purpose—for example, an old mill that is now being used as a scrapyard—is classified as brownfield land and how far it is just land that is being used for something different.

Amendment 98A also refers to land,

“not of high environmental or amenity value”,

which just parrots what my noble friend Lady Parminter said more eloquently earlier. Importantly, it goes on to say that this,

“does not mean land which has reverted to a condition in which its use and appearance is that of a greenfield site”.

It used to be almost impossible to reclassify brownfield land as greenfield land. The NPPF came along and its wording is actually quite useful in this respect, but when local authorities are going to be put under a duty to provide a register of brownfield land, including brownfield land that might be suitable for housing, is land still brownfield if it is has grown over and been turned into a wood by natural means or if somebody has taken it over and is grazing sheep on it?

The important thing is that, when compiling a brownfield register, local authorities should be able to make their own judgment about this and not be forced to put on a list of potential housing sites land that has reverted to a wild state, a semi-wild state or some greenfield-type of use and which provides a local amenity. For example, in the ward I represent, there is the site of an old chapel where I can remember the chapel still standing, which is now being registered as a little village green, but that is the result of a series of actions on that land in the past 30 to 40 years and it is now being used as an amenity for residents. There needs to be a system where local authorities are not forced to say, “Yes, this used to be brownfield land and therefore it has to have housing on it now”, even if that is not the local view. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, if Amendment 97D in this group is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 98 for reasons of pre-emption.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I will be brief and I will not repeat the rather impassioned speech I made another day on why these wretched registers cannot be more dynamic and give local authorities a bit more power and action to get on with the job.

The thing I am rather curious about is: what happens as time progresses? If we are to list on a register land that is said to be suitable for housing and over time there is a great demand for free schools and population growth in urban areas—it is very tight—the local authority might look at that and say, “Well, actually, that could be a school. That might be better than what we were thinking of before as housing”, and might want to delist and deregister. Once it is on the register, in a sense it acquires a “resi-value” because it is listed there as being for housing. But planning is dynamic and evolving.

I do not necessarily expect my noble friend to answer now, but I would like to know how these clunking registers are manoeuvrable when local needs and priorities change—or is it that once it is there for housing, it has to be housing for ever and we just have to get the numbers? Where is the flexibility in changing?