Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I welcome the aspirations in the Bill to build more homes and the potential of neighbourhood planning to help in a discrete but important way. I certainly concur with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, that this was one of the proud moments of the coalition Government. It was one area where both parties saw the value of giving local people a stronger say in planning communities for the future. Therefore, it is right that we are returning today to this issue, to ensure that we create the best conditions for those plans to be drawn up. In my contribution, I wish to return to the issues that I raised during the passage of the then Housing and Planning Bill; namely, how we create the conditions to encourage more communities to prepare more neighbourhood plans and to ensure that the buildings that result from that contribute to a sustainable future for those communities.

The first issue is that of encouraging the creation of neighbourhood plans and giving them due weight. As the Minister rightly said, we know that neighbourhood planning delivers 10% more homes. It also ensures that communities have a say in the shape of their area, which means that the new buildings are more welcome. I am sure I have no need to remind the Government or the Minister how strongly the House felt about this issue and about the need for due weight to be given to neighbourhood plans, which resulted in the Government being defeated twice in this House during the passage of the Bill. On the basis of that, the Government promised to return to this issue in due course, as long as the House did not push the matter at that time. So return again we now do.

The Government’s policy fact sheet contends that Clause 1 of the Bill and Section 156 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 are sufficient to address the concerns that we raised. I say emphatically that they are not. I welcome Clause 1, but it does not go far enough in giving neighbourhood councils the reassurance that the time and effort is worth while. I echo very much the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, who outlined the work by local people that goes into putting together these neighbourhood plans and how, at the moment, the Bill does not give reassurance to individual communities that they have the protection to ensure their plans will be delivered. Nor does it give potential areas the incentive to take the time and effort to bring forward future plans, which we know deliver more homes.

Clause 1 says that local authorities must “have regard” to neighbourhood plans, but there are no sanctions in the Bill if they do not act on them, and this applies only to post-examined plans, when case law says that draft plans should be taken into account. The Bill is the vehicle to strengthen the weight of communities’ views expressed in neighbourhood plans, such that they should not be ignored by local planning authorities or the Planning Inspectorate. Some volunteers work 20 or 30 hours a week and have extremely limited financial resources, particularly if they are not a parish council. My contention is that the Government are insufficiently supporting them in those endeavours to build stronger communities and deliver more homes. It is welcome news that the Government intend to bring forward amendments on this issue. Will the Minister tell us at what stage we will have sight of those? At the moment, I serve notice that we will be bringing forward amendments on this matter in Committee.

The second issue is making sure that those homes are more sustainable. Although we were not able to persuade the Government during the passage of the then Housing and Planning Bill of the need for primary legislation on the issues of carbon-compliant homes and protecting residents and properties from increasing flood risk, we welcome the two reviews that the Government are undertaking on those issues. It is interesting to see that other Governments, notably in Wales, have realised the need to break the policy stalemate on sustainable urban drainage systems and are powering ahead with their own review. I look forward to the Government making progress on both these issues when their reports are completed in the spring. However, we intend to use the Committee stage of this Bill to flesh out some of the hopes we have in the area of carbon-compliant housing. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Stunell will refer to this later. We will also identify concerns we have about measures in the Bill that impact on future success in this area.

Pre-commencement has been raised by a number of noble Lords. It is one of the tools that authorities use to improve sustainable urban drainage system provisions where developers put forward a weak plan. SUDS are an important tool in reducing surface water flood risk, as well as improving water quality and amenity and providing habitats for wildlife. Curtailing local authorities’ ability in this area is potentially a step back for sustainable urban drainage, at the same time that the Government are notionally looking at a way forward. I agree that planning conditions imposed by local planning authorities should be reasonable and necessary. However, pre-commencement conditions should be seen as a positive tool to ensure that permission can be granted.

Although I agree with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, on the coalition’s commitment to neighbourhood planning, I strongly disagree with her assertion that pre-commencement conditions are a major cause of delay. I ask that the Minister, when he writes to us, talks further on this issue and gives concrete evidence of where pre-commencement conditions are a major obstacle to bringing forth new development. There is a real and substantive risk to our natural environment, heritage and culture as a result of what seems to me to be no more than protests from those in the development industry.

The Minister talks about protecting valuable pre-commencement conditions. However, the only way to do so is to turn down the entire application. Will a local authority do that when the development is supported by a neighbourhood plan and members in the chamber but has drainage provisions that are not quite ideal? If they are prepared to do that—it is a very big if—frankly, that slows down the whole planning process for a broadly supported development. It strikes me that that is not the right way forward. It seems clear to me that the ability of local planning authorities to apply pre-commencement conditions should be retained to ensure that development is environmentally and socially sustainable, particularly to protect residents and property from increased flood risk. We will certainly bring up this matter in Committee.

Finally, another issue I wish to return to, which I raised during the course of the then Housing and Planning Bill, is that of any changes to legislation around inalienable land. I am aware that the National Trust is concerned that the Government’s proposals in this Bill on temporary possession would reduce protections for its inalienable land. This is a subject that the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, raised during the Housing and Planning Bill debates, and we both intend to cover it in more detail in Committee.