Neighbourhood Planning (Referendums) (Amendment) Regulations 2016

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, although it was very difficult to gauge from his remarks to your Lordships’ House whether or not he supports neighbourhood planning. I make it very clear that I am a huge supporter of neighbourhood planning and neighbourhood plans, which arose from the Localism Act 2011. I was delighted that the Minister made very clear his support for them. I entirely support his and the Government’s desire to speed up and simplify the process so that still more communities can benefit from the opportunities that neighbourhood planning will bring to them.

I share of course the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, that the Government are often very keen to impose tight time limits on other bodies whereas they themselves do not necessarily have to live up to similarly tight timescales. But in the area of neighbourhood planning and enthusiasm for it, while I entirely support these measures, I ask the Minister to look carefully at the departmental website and the way in which it increasingly does not show the same initial enthusiasm for neighbourhood planning that perhaps once existed. For example, the departmental website has had a series of notes on neighbourhood planning. It currently goes up to addition 17—at least, that is what is available on the department’s website. In 2015, additions 14, 15, 16 and 17 were spread over roughly three-monthly periods. Yet, as far as I am aware, there has been no further note on neighbourhood planning from the department. Will the Minister identify whether they exist and, if so, whether they can be given more publicity because they contain—at least up until December—some very interesting and helpful information for local communities that want to go down the neighbourhood planning route.

While on the issue of the departmental website, will the Minister agree to take on a small exercise when he eventually gets home tonight? Will he see whether he can find on the departmental website the results of the consultation to which he referred? No fewer than five people have worked with me on trying to find it. It was only with the help of the very efficient staff in the Library that we were eventually able to find it. But I note that the details provided on the website are somewhat different from the information provided in the Explanatory Memorandum. For example, the website says that there were 362 responses to the consultation but the Explanatory Memorandum says that there were only 321.

The point is that the report, which can eventually be found if noble Lords take the time to get to it, does not provide any helpful information whatever. Clearly, any noble Lord who wishes to participate in this debate would want to know what the objections were from those councils that were not happy with the proposal. The report merely says that the vast majority were in favour and that a few came up with some suggestions for changes. I hope that the Minister will agree to publish a fuller document on the responses to question 5.6 of the consultation.

Having been somewhat niggly, for which I apologise to the Minister, I will say that I entirely share his enthusiasm for neighbourhood planning. In my brief time as a Minister in the department, I had an opportunity, along with Mr Nick Boles, to see many community groups working on them and know the real benefit that they can bring to communities.

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)]

I hope that my noble friend will clarify a few points for me as I found the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, extremely interesting. What role has the main local authority planning officer in this procedure? Can he at any time override or question—possibly for good reasons—conclusions that have been reached? Have any estimates been made of the cost of carrying out these new procedures, and who will pay for them? Finally, will ordinary planning proposals that the local authority planning people are looking at be delayed because they will have to pay close attention to this procedure?