Local Planning Authorities: Staffing

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, one of the things we have done in our recent changes is make provision for the indexing of planning fees going forward. That will ensure not only that local authorities will benefit from the substantial increase in fees that were put in place in December this year but that, on an annual basis, the value of those fees will be retained in future.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the increase in planning fees, and she is quite right, but when the Government made that increase they knew that it would not cover the costs of planning applications. Can the Minister justify why hard-pressed councils have to take funding from other public services to pay for planning applications?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, we want to proceed in a measured way, providing additional resourcing without disproportionately impacting businesses and householders. Full cost recovery now could result in a substantial rise in some fees, which would adversely impact some developments. Of course, further to the fee increases and the additional specific funding through the planning skills delivery fund, we have made provision for an increase in the settlement to local authorities overall this year.

Temporary Accommodation Costs

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Through their powers, local authorities can look to purchase accommodation. In the last two Budgets, we have given special dispensation to local councils, first, on special borrowing and, secondly, on their moneys from the right to buy. It is up to local authorities to look at the ways they can provide those houses, but I will take that back to the department as an idea.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister has rightly said, the Government are allocating £1 billion to reduce homelessness. Unfortunately, it is clearly not working, as homelessness is at a 25-year high, with the result that local authorities have to spend increasing proportions of their budget on their statutory duty—which they want to undertake—to house people without a home. For example, Eastbourne Borough Council has an annual budget of £15 million but is spending £4.9 million each year on its statutory homeless duty. That is not sustainable. What are the Government to do?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

As I have said, on 24 January, the Government announced additional measures for local authority funding worth £600 million, including £500 million of new funding for adult and children’s social care. It means that core spending powers will be up by £4.5 billion next year. This is what we are doing to help local authorities with all the pressures on their budgets at this time.

Teesworks Joint Venture

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, at the heart of this issue are the people of Teesside and the public asset formerly owned by them, which should be regenerated for their benefit, to generate jobs, employment and industry. They should also be receiving sufficient return for their investment of land and the other value of the site. The governance of the project should ensure an appropriate sharing of the risk taken by the private sector partners in order to justify the returns they have already accrued, as documented in the review. For the Government to suggest in this Statement that the report exonerates all those involved from any questions about what has happened and to insinuate that local MPs’ challenge of the many issues explored in the review was them using the communities of the north-east as a political football is simply not appropriate.

We understand that the project is complex. I have experience of instigating and overseeing a billion-pound regeneration project, so I understand the complexities that can arise. We also recognise that, in an area like Teesside, the urgency of moving at pace on a project which is going to generate jobs and employment is vital. However, that should not give any of those involved carte blanche to ignore the absolute necessity for the project to follow the strongest principles of probity, governance, transparency of decision-making, procurement practice, scrutiny and best value.

This very thorough and detailed report delivers a scathing assessment of the way those principles have been treated. Its 28 recommendations highlight: the need for reviews of financial regulations; better oversight and scrutiny; the make-up of the board; reporting to the board; that the public interest test should be foremost in terms of transparency; and that not enough attention is paid to conflicts of interest, including those of the mayor. Very seriously, the report highlights procurement issues, including the decision in August 2021 to change the balance of ownership in favour of the private owners to a 90:10 split, and the issue of the balance of risk between the public and private sector, when, to date, the public sector seems to have taken the bulk of the risk and been responsible for the costs invested, while the private sector has had the benefit of the profits. I am sure this way of operating would have gone down as a wow factor on “Dragons’ Den”, but has it really all been in the best interest of the people of Teesside? Have they got value for money for their public investment?

The concerns outlined in the report are absolutely not minor or trivial matters. The Minister made much of the fact that the report concludes it did not find evidence of illegality or corruption. Well, good, but surely we have learned from recent high-profile scandals, such as the Post Office Horizon issue, infected blood, and the supply of PPE, that there may be ways of operating that, while not strictly speaking illegal, are certainly not desirable or acceptable.

This scandal has exposed gaps in accountability and proper attention to local democratic scrutiny and a failure to follow the principles of spending public money, which makes it clear that there should be a further investigation by the National Audit Office. The NAO has already indicated that it would be willing and able to carry out that review. The people of the north-east surely deserve reassurance that every pound of their money invested in this project will count and will deliver sufficient return—especially as the private sector developers seem to have reaped a pretty healthy return, with little or no investment. So I ask the Minister: will a proper accounting review by the NAO will now be undertaken?

I understand that the chair of the Public Accounts Committee called the metro mayors together when they were elected and suggested they put robust auditing arrangements in place—as, following the abolition of the Audit Commission, there was no regulated accounting for them. The accounts published recently for Teesside were the first for the public to see. Is the Minister reassured that the advice of the PAC chair was taken?

This review represents a scathing indictment of what has happened on Teesside, and if we are to grow the country’s economy at pace and scale, as is my party’s ambition, surely it is important to understand the detail of the lessons that need to be learned. What steps did the Government take to ensure that officials who have previously worked at South Tees Development Corporation or public bodies on Teesside were free to comply with the investigation, regardless of any non-disclosure agreements they may have signed? The report itself cites that a former monitoring officer who advised on some of the significant decisions—including the move to 90:10 ownership—

“was invited to interview but declined because they felt their professional duties barred them from participating in the review”.

Can the Minister answer the question that so many local people are asking about the sale of scrap metal and aggregate from the site? Is she reassured that an appropriate share of the benefit from those sales has gone to local people?

To conclude, while we all accept that there is a need for major regeneration projects to proceed with pace, is the Minister satisfied with a report which found that:

“We did not see sufficient information provided to Board to allow them to provide effective challenge and undertake the level of due diligence expected of a commercial Board”?


There has been no private finance invested to date, while over £560 million of public funds have been spent or committed. Outcomes are reported quarterly to government, in line with the agreed criteria. However, these do not record the cumulative position on either costs or benefits, nor do they compare the current overall position in respect of costs or benefits with those set out in the business case.

Inappropriate decisions and a lack of transparency, which failed to guard against allegations of wrongdoing, are occurring and the principles of spending public money are not being consistently observed. Does the Minister conclude that the people of Teesside got value for money for their very considerable investment? Does she conclude, as the Minister in the other place did, that there should be no referrals onwards to other bodies for further review? Surely this damning report asks more questions than it answers—questions that the people of the north-east deserve and have a right to have answered.

I will finish with the final words of the report, which ask the questions so many local people, including the Northern Echo, want answered. The report says that:

“Based on the evidence from the review the governance and financial management arrangements are not of themselves sufficiently robust or transparent to evidence value for money”.


What are the Government going to do about this?

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement. What a sad state of affairs it is that a vital and very large regeneration project in the north-east of England has to be the subject of an independent government review because of justified public criticism and concern.

The Financial Times and the Yorkshire Post have both, independently, been investigating the decisions made by the mayor and the development corporation. Senior investigative journalists with considerable experience have been seeking answers to basic questions of openness and probity in relation to the mayor, the development corporation, the joint venture and the local councils. They were absolutely right to do so. What is more, this report confirms their claims.

Unfortunately, this Statement seeks to draw a veil over the very serious conclusions drawn by the independent panel. The starting point is that the Tees Valley project is funded by hundreds of millions of pounds of public money, either from government grant or local prudential borrowing. The investment of public money rightly brings with it higher levels of transparency, challenge and probity.

There are 28 recommendations in the report, and they reveal a damning indictment of the process and procedures adopted by the mayor and the STDC with the joint venture company. The report states that the panel is not confident that

“we have been given access to all relevant materials”,

and that

“we have not been able to pursue all lines of evidence or examine all transactions”.

Anyone reading that will know that the panel is greatly concerned that there is much more to be investigated. My first question to the Minister is whether the panel will be given more time to examine those areas that have yet to be covered, or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, suggested, whether the NAO will be asked to investigate.

In its own words, the panel focused on just six areas, the main one being the establishment of the joint venture. Initially, this was a 50:50 deal between the public and private sectors, and that is a common arrangement for such schemes. However, the arrangement morphed into a 90:10 split, with the private sector taking the 90%. The report states that

“there is no formal partnership agreement that sets out the obligations of the JV partners, although it is clear that the JV Partners are heavily influential within the operations of the Teesworks site”.

My second question is whether the Minister concurs that there is no such formal agreement. If so, will the Government demand that there is one, and that that agreement will be open to public scrutiny?

One of the curious decisions made by the Teesside mayor and the combined authority is the appointment of two individuals as partners in the joint venture. In my experience, this is highly unusual in publicly funded projects. My third question is therefore whether a joint venture with individuals is in the best interests of transparency.

I turn to my fourth question. Following the report’s statement that the panel were “surprised” that, when the joint venture was set up in 2020, the report doing so

“contains so little detailed explanation and implies that there aren’t any material implications directly arising from this change in approach”,

even though the result of the joint venture was that

“two or three privately owned companies would likely receive significant financial returns”.

This was indeed the outcome. Can the Minister tell the House whether the balance of reward and liability detailed in the report is a fair one, and one which gives best value to public money?

There are myriad questions that require an answer from the Government. My next question concerns the liabilities apparently unknowingly acquired by the local councils and the Tees Valley Combined Authority. The first two recommendations of the report focus on the issue of who makes the gains and who holds the losses. My fifth question is this: does the Minister agree that passing on liabilities to local authorities while local government is in such a parlous financial state is, at the least, poor management, and, at worst, a deliberate ploy to shoulder local authorities with liabilities that are not rightly theirs?

I turn to my sixth and final question. Will the Minister agree to return to the House with a progress report on the implementation of all 28 recommendations, as I note the mayor has accepted these recommendations only “in principle”? Those of us who care deeply about good governance, probity in the use of public money and transparent decision-making want to see these recommendations implemented in full.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank both noble Baronesses for their questions. Before I turn to the specific points, it is worth reminding the House of the context of both the review and the work being done in Tees Valley by the development corporation.

Remediating and regenerating the former Redcar steelworks is a highly complex brownfield regeneration opportunity. The alternative is a massive liability to taxpayers in clean-up costs and an annual multimillion pound bill just to maintain a highly contaminated site. Most importantly, as my noble friend Lord Heseltine said in his 2016 report on the Tees Valley, the site is also part of a much bigger picture, which provides an opportunity for regeneration that is unrivalled in size and scale and also in potential opportunity, as we are seeing with development of the freeport in the area.

In June last year, at the request of the Tees Valley mayor, my noble friend Lord Houchen, an extraordinary independent review was launched by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. That review was commissioned in response to and to consider the serious allegations of corruption and illegality made by a Labour Member of Parliament in the House of Commons. The findings of the review are clear on this point: those allegations are not true. The panel found no evidence of corruption or illegality. In addition, the panel also made a series of recommendations aiming to strengthen governance and increase transparency. We welcome this oversight, as does the mayor, who has confirmed that he intends in principle to accept all the recommendations relevant to him and his authority. There were two recommendations relevant to central government. We will carefully consider how to support the continued success of mayoral development corporations and the recommendation regarding the landfill tax.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked a series of specific questions about the report’s recommendations. It is right that the panel has considered a number of specific issues in the development of its conclusions and recommendations. The next steps are that the Secretary of State has written to the Tees Valley mayor, asking him to respond to the panel’s recommendations within six weeks, and it would not be right at this time for me to comment any further on specific examples quoted. It is important that the combined authority shows progress, and we will wait to see its proposals before deciding on further action. However, I am confident that the mayor will take these recommendations seriously and I look forward to receiving that update. It is only right that we give the mayor, working with partners, time to reflect on the panel’s report. We will review his reflections and response to the Secretary of State before setting out any further action that may be needed.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, asked whether the NAO would now be asked to come in and do a further report in this area. The Secretary of State considered at the time of the review the suggestion that the NAO should undertake this review. However, it is not its role to audit or examine individual local authorities, and its powers would not normally be used for that purpose. Instead, the Secretary of State appointed a panel of three independent local government experts. It would therefore be duplicative and wasteful to commission a second review. The NAO said it would use our review to understand the implications for its other work programmes.

While the origination of the review is unique in that it was a request from the mayor, the form of the review is similar to others commissioned by the department, including in Croydon, Nottingham, Slough and Woking. We are taking a similar approach to other cases in relation to the next steps following the review by asking the mayor to respond to the Secretary of State about how he intends to respond to the review’s recommendations.

The noble Baroness also asked whether people were free to give evidence to the review, and in particular about the use of non-disclosure agreements. The panel chair has confirmed that she is not aware of any party who could not speak to the review or provide information due to a non-disclosure agreement. She is right that in the review it is stated that one former monitoring officer was invited to interview but declined because they felt their professional duties barred them from participating in the review, but that was not the subject of an NDA. Indeed, Tees Valley combined authority confirmed to the panel that it had informed the individual that it had no objection to them participating in the review.

It is also important in that context and in the context of the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, about whether the panel had sufficient information to draw conclusions from the review and sufficient time to conduct it, to give the full quote:

“We have however secured sufficient consistent evidence to support our conclusions. We have found no evidence of corruption or illegality. We have identified a need to strengthen governance and increase transparency which can be done with limited impact on pace of delivery”.


The noble Baroness was right that the panel could not follow every lead; none the less, it stated that it had confidence in its findings based on the evidence that it had.

In terms of the timing of the review, I understand that it was totally independent of government; the panel was given sufficient time to conduct the review in the way that it wanted and gather the evidence it felt it needed to draw its conclusions. There was no constraint on the panel in that respect.

Finally, I turn to the questions of private involvement in the redevelopment of the Tees Valley, which is essential, as well as value for money and the public benefit that will come from the regeneration project. It is important to acknowledge that, after SSI’s collapse, the Government took on the responsibility for the site via the receivership process. They spent around £18 million annually just to keep the site secure and manage the worst hazards, including explosion and pollution risks for local populations. The site has required investment to clean up and an important principle of devolution is that decisions are taken locally to benefit local people.

While regeneration is still in its early stages and it is too early to make such an assessment on value for money, the report has identified that a number of benefits have already been achieved, including: 17% of the land already under contract, with a further 40% at heads of terms; 940 construction jobs, plus a further 1,950 recently announced; 2,295 direct and 3,890 indirect jobs created once the sites are operational; 450 acres of land remediated or in remediation; £1.3 billion of business rate income potential over the next 40 years, with a further £1.4 billion at heads of terms; and a new £450 million quay.

So both noble Baronesses are right to say that at the heart of this issue are the people of Teesside and the potential value of that site. The figures I quoted show some of the benefits that we are beginning to derive from this major project. We welcome the scrutiny of the panel, and I place on record our great thanks to the three-strong panel for their thorough work: Angie Ridgwell, the chief executive of Lancashire county council, Richard Paver, previously the first treasurer of the Greater Manchester combined authority, and Quentin Baker, the director of law and governance at Hertfordshire county council.

Tees Valley has a proud industrial history, and the Government are committed to giving it the proudest possible future, putting it front and centre of our mission to level up the country.

Long-term Plan for Housing

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, there surely cannot be any debate on the fact that we are in the midst of a catastrophic housing crisis, which figures from Shelter tell us leaves almost 300,000 of our fellow citizens homeless every night, including 123,000 children, and over a million families on social housing waiting lists. A planning policy framework doing its job would at least put the steps in place to start delivering the numbers of homes that would resolve this crisis, but this plan is neither long-term nor a plan to deliver housing.

Sadly, the Government’s caving-in to Back-Benchers in the other place, and developers on housing targets, means this planning policy framework will mean housing delivery falling far from the mark for the foreseeable future. Data published this week showed that consents are at an all-time low, 20% down on last year, and the National House Building Council shows a dramatic fall in registrations, down 42% in quarter two compared with last year.

Commitment to delivering real improvement in housing delivery has to be called into question when we have had no less than 16 Housing Ministers since 2010, and when the Secretary of State delivered his statement on this planning policy framework to a press conference, rather than in Parliament. The National Planning Policy Framework should provide the link to ensure that local councils are taking into account the strategic need for housing, industrial and commercial land, food and farming requirements and the whole range of environmental issues as they apply in each area. Local plans are vital to deliver what is needed across the country, but also to engage local communities in how that is done and to provide the protections needed against speculative, unwanted or dangerous development.

However, the level of uncertainty the Government have generated by flip-flopping over their commitment to housing, by failure to create proper industrial strategy and failure to take environmental issues seriously enough, has fatally undermined all of that and has now culminated in 58 local authorities either scrapping or delaying their local plans as they wrestle with the uncertainty over housing targets. Yet this Statement seems to unequivocally point the finger at local authorities.

I suggest that the Minister in the other place might want to look in the mirror here. The example closest to home for me was that after extensive local research, two years of intensive public consultation and partnership working, and an extended three-week public inquiry, our Stevenage local plan was submitted to the Government on time—and then sat on the holding direction on the Secretary of State’s desk for 451 days until it was finally approved.

It is not just on housing that this framework fails to deliver. Because we have no proper industrial strategy, it is almost impossible for local plans to meet the needs for industrial commercial permissions, and the honourable Member for Buckingham in the other place raised on 19 December that it does not meet the stronger protections for food production land use either, with a wishy-washy statement quoted by the Minister:

“The availability of agricultural land used for food production should be considered”.


What does that mean? Question after question when the Statement was debated in the other place, largely from Conservative Members, sought clarification of exactly what is meant by the fact that housing targets are an advisory starting point. The best the Minister could come up with was:

“I cannot pre-empt or suggest exactly what that will mean in all instances”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/12/23; cols. 1275-6.]


One senior member of a respected planning stakeholder body told me that they stopped taking notes at the Secretary of State’s press conference on this topic because what he said just did not make any sense. Can the Minister please tell us how this process of advisory starting points for housing targets will deliver the 300,000 homes a year that are so urgently needed? We need to be clear here. There will be no levelling up unless we are at least aiming to provide a safe, secure, affordable and sustainable home for everyone. How does this set of policies deliver that?

On the key issue of resources, this is crippling local authorities’ ability to deliver against their planning obligations; indeed, the Royal Town Planning Institute reports 90% of local authorities as having a backlog of cases and 70% as having difficulties in recruiting. How will the Government support local authorities to resource their planning function as demand increases when their budgets are squeezed by the skyrocketing costs of children’s services, adult social care and, of course, homelessness? How do the Government reconcile their threats to remove planning powers from local authorities that do not meet the three-month deadline for delivery of their plan with the absolute obligation for authorities to consult local people? With a significant change on the issue of housing targets, surely it is understandable that further consultation must be undertaken. Has that been taken into account? If, as the Secretary of State has threatened, recalcitrant local authorities have their planning powers removed, who will undertake the planning work for their area? The Planning Inspectorate is already underresourced and its involvement in local plan-making would be a significant conflict of interest.

Time and again in debates during the passage of the levelling-up Act we were told that the Government would not accept amendments because provision would be included in the National Planning Policy Framework; for example, on ensuring that housebuilders focus on healthy homes and on making specific provision for housing for older people, flooding, access to open space, protections for historic buildings and a wide range of environmental issues. What assessment has the department carried out to ensure that all those issues—all those promises that were made to us—are incorporated into this new set of policies?

I return to my initial point: without a determined effort to deliver 300,000 homes a year, which we will need to resolve the housing crisis, we will continue to see the shameful situation where children are homeless, where they share beds with their parents because of lack of adequate space, where permitted development allows appalling housing conditions to prevail, and where poor housing affects the health and life chances of a whole generation. Perhaps it is time for a new ITV drama, “Mr Bates versus DLUHC”. In failing to tackle this through a clear housing strategy and the policies to support that, including targets, this policy amounts just to failure and another missed opportunity.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my registered interests as a councillor in Kirklees—where we have an up-to-date local plan—and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, just said, there are 1.2 million households on the social housing waiting lists and the Government’s own assessment is that 300,000 new homes need to be built every year. Having somewhere to live is a basic human right and a basic requirement that all Governments should fulfil. We have a housing crisis, and the response as set out in this Statement and the newly published National Planning Policy Framework fails to address that crisis. The policies are incoherent and fail on many levels. For example, the newly published NPPF refers to social housing only once and in a single sentence. There is a desperate need for social housing to rent. Can the Minister tell the House how long the 1.2 million households on the waiting list will have to wait for a safe, affordable home at a rent that is within their means?

I could tell the Minister of a family in my ward that contacted me this week. There is the wife, husband and a four year-old boy living with the grandmother, who has serious dementia, and a baby is on the way, in a two-bed Victorian terraced house with a front door that opens on to an A-road and the back door on to a ginnel, as we call it. It is an alley, I guess; we call them ginnels in Yorkshire. There is nowhere, literally no space, for that four year-old to play, or to put the baby. They rang me to ask what chance they had for a council house or a housing association home, and I had to tell them the awful truth: that virtually all the family homes have been sold under right to buy, very few replaced, and their chances are virtually nil within the next five years. How are the Government going to address that example and many, many more like it?

Debate on this vital national policy should have taken place when we debated the levelling-up Bill in this House. Many Members across the House, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, said, asked for the information on the revised NPPF at that time, and it is now clear to me why the Government held back, because the National Planning Policy Framework as published fails to tackle this housing crisis by enabling local authorities to plan with confidence and with the goal of meeting their local housing need.

Housing need is defined not just by numbers of housing units required but also by type and tenure. The Government’s own figures show that 62% of the rise in households is of people over 65 living alone. Perhaps the Minister can say how the Government intend to ensure that this particular need is to be met, given the policies that they have now published. Is it possible, for instance, for local authorities to allocate a site for building with specific requirements to meet such locally determined need?

Next, the Government are relaxing housing targets by describing these as an “advisory starting point”. Can the Minister flesh out “advisory” in this context? How advisory is advisory? What advice will the Government be giving to the Planning Inspectorate on the definition of that word and what they expect it to mean?

Given that housing targets are to be determined more locally, can the Minister explain the rationale behind the requirement for 20 of the largest towns and cities to have 35% more homes than are determined by their local housing assessment? Why is it 35%, not 20% or 40%? Where does the figure come from, and what will it actually mean for those towns and cities?

One of the major holes in the Government’s planning and housing policies is that there are no penalties for developers who, having obtained planning consent, fail to start building or start a site and then delay building out. This is one of the major reasons for the crisis in housebuilding numbers: more than 1 million properties have planning consent but have not been built. Yet local authorities are to be penalised for failing to provide sites while, in those same local authorities, developers are failing to develop sites that have permission. What will the Government do about this dreadful state of affairs? What pressures will they put on developers to ensure that, once planning consent is given, the developer gets on and builds out the site?

Many residents oppose new homes because of the impact on local infrastructure, such as traffic, school places and access to health services. Many are justified in their complaints. For example, in my area of Kirklees, GP patient numbers are at 1,900 per doctor, as compared to the national average of 1,600. When residents raise the issue of more houses meaning greater numbers of patients for their local GP, where I live it is genuinely the case. There are already 20% more patients per GP where I live than the national average. What will the Government do to address the genuine complaints from residents about local infrastructure? That is just one example.

Providing the housing that we need is dependent on local authorities having up-to-date local plans, yet the majority of them do not have one. What action will the Government take to ensure that local authorities have up-to-date local plans? A local plan is the initial building block that unlocks sites for housing of a type and tenure that is so desperately needed. This Statement absolutely fails to address this. I look forward to the Minister’s replies to all the questions that have been raised; if she cannot answer them, I hope that she can give us written responses.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

My Lords, I will endeavour to answer the questions from both noble Baronesses as fully as I can, but it is first worth reflecting on what this update to the NPPF sought to do. Both noble Baronesses rightly situated it in the context of the broader changes in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act to bring forward a reformed planning system that allows more homes to be built in the right places, more quickly, more beautifully and more sustainably.

The right way to do this is through a reformed planning system. In December last year, we laid out our plan to do that. We made it abundantly clear that the only way to do so is through up-to-date local plans, which local authorities can deliver for communities to protect the land and assets that matter most and lay the foundation for economic growth. Part of that plan for reform was the update to the National Planning Policy Framework. In December 2022, we consulted on a series of proposals that received more than 26,000 responses, which we have worked through in detail. The updates that we made, which were announced at the end of last year, strike a careful balance between delivering homes that our communities need and protecting the things that we care most about, such as our natural environment, heritage assets, high streets and town centres—matters referenced by both noble Baronesses. The NPPF update acknowledges that different areas and different parts of the country must be approached in different ways and that local authorities and communities are best placed to ensure that the right homes are in the right places, where they are both needed and wanted.

Both noble Baronesses asked about the change to the NPPF which clarified that the standard method of assessing housing need is the starting point for local authorities. The NPPF expects local planning authorities to evidence and provide for their housing needs. The Government are clear that the standard method should still be used to inform the process. Local authorities can put forward their own approach to assessing housing needs, but this should be used only in exceptional circumstances. Authorities can expect their method to be scrutinised closely at examination. The standard method remains the starting point for this process and only in exceptional circumstances would we expect local planning authorities to move away from that. However, it is right that we allow for those exceptional circumstances. In the updated framework, the demographics of a particular area are pointed to as the factor which might mean that an alternative method would be appropriate for that planning authority to use.

Part of delivering homes in a way that meets community needs is about having a more diversified housing market. Therefore, the framework also strengthens support for SME builders and the wider diversity of the housing market by emphasising the importance of community-led housing development, ensuring that local authorities seek opportunities to support small sites to come forward and removing barriers to smaller and medium builders in the planning system. In the long run, that will also ensure that we make progress in delivering the housing that we need and keep us on track to deliver 1 million new homes during this Parliament.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked about social housing. Her points were well made. These updates to the NPPF did not have that as a particular focus but the Government are absolutely committed to increasing the supply of affordable and social housing. That is why our latest affordable housing programme is backed by more than £11 billion. We have increased the delivery of affordable housing under this Government. I would be very happy to sit down with the noble Baroness and discuss specific planning barriers to affordable housing further.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, referred to the resources needed to unlock the planning system. She is absolutely right. That is why we have increased the resources going into local planning services. The new planning rules that came into force on 6 December increase fees for major applications by 35% and minor ones by 25%. The indexing arrangements now in place also ensure that they rise in line with inflation. Beyond that, the planning skills delivery fund was boosted by £5 million to £29 million. In the first round of funding, 180 local planning authorities are receiving collectively over £14 million. We recognise that the changes we have made to the planning system in the levelling-up Act and through the changes to the NPPF need to be matched by additional resources, which we have put in.

I turn to housing standards and a range of other issues that were debated at length during the passage of the levelling-up Bill. The Government have committed to bring forward further changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, bringing in a national development management framework. We are committed to consulting on those changes this year but, for the development of local plans, we believe that the combination of the measures in the Act and those announced and changed in the NPPF at the end of last year provide clarity and certainty for local areas to be able to make their plans and deliver on them.

Where that is not proving possible for local authorities, the Secretary of State has been clear that the Government are prepared to intervene. That is why the Secretary of State issued a direction about plan-making to seven of the worst authorities. The best outcome from those directions is that the local authorities themselves bring forward plans within 12 weeks and set out a clear timetable to do so. Should they fail, we will consider further intervention, but it would be based on the particular circumstances of those local authorities and reflect their points. I do not want to pre-empt that, as the best outcome for those areas is for the local authorities to take forward those plans themselves.

We are also taking action in London, because the homes needed in the capital are simply not being built. Opportunities for urban brownfield regeneration are being left untaken, as a result of the mayor’s anti-housing policy and approach. His plan does not contain sufficient ambition for housing, and he is underdelivering against it. That is why we are undertaking an urgent review of it.

There are a number of areas from both noble Baronesses that I may not have addressed. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned infrastructure and of course we have the housing infrastructure fund, which provides the funding needed to ensure that development can take place, is supported locally and comes with the schools, hospitals and GP places needed to support it. I undertake to write to both noble Baronesses in detail on any further points on which I need to follow up.

Building Repairs: VAT

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, there is plenty of time. It is the turn of the Liberal Democrat Benches.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I have relevant interests recorded in the register. I want to turn our attention to people’s homes. Some 20 years ago, Kirklees Council offered free loft and cavity wall insulation to every home, regardless of tenure. It was largely funded by energy companies, and 100,000 homes benefited from that scheme. Will the Government learn from that pioneering scheme and consider its introduction across the country in order to achieve the COP 28 agreement?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, we learn from all successful schemes in this area, and you will see similar provisions in our current schemes, including the contribution of energy companies to the cost of improving insulation for households. We have a number of different schemes. They tend to focus, at the initial stage, on those on lower incomes who will most benefit from the reduced bills that improved energy efficiency will bring, but as we move towards achieving our net-zero targets, we will need to have the whole country covered. The expansion of our schemes takes it further—for example, the extended discount on heat pumps that we announced earlier this year.

York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority Order 2023

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Grand Committee

In conclusion, this order, which is supported locally, is a significant step forward for York and North Yorkshire and its businesses and communities. It is key to the future economic development and regeneration of the area and will enable local leaders to invest effectively in, and address, local priorities. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee of my interests as a councillor in the adjacent West Yorkshire area and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Devolving powers on local decisions to locally elected representatives has been an aim of the Liberal Democrats for a very long time. It is very important that there is strategic thinking and decision-making across regions and subregions. Perhaps the Minister will therefore expect wholehearted support from the Liberal Democrats for the proposals before us, but she will be only partially right. I will detail the reasons for that.

First, mayoral combined authorities have delegated powers rather than devolved functions. Functions such as transport, housing, regeneration and planning are currently exercised centrally and delegated to the mayoral authority with, as we heard, skills following later. This particular mayoral authority will be granted, from Westminster, the grand sum of £18 million a year, which is specifically referenced within the order, as is the offer from the Government, as part of this deal, of £540 million over the next 30 years, plus additional sums which the Minister referenced. There is no mention of whether these are fixed cash sums, as they appear, or whether they will be index linked. Over 30 years, that potential £540 million will buy a lot less than it will now and be a lot less attractive than it appears within the order. Maybe the Minister can comment on that and say whether it will be index linked.

I acknowledge that this order enables a greater degree of local input in, for example, determining major highways schemes. However, the act of creating a mayoral authority is not a game-changer for more locally determined decision-making, as would occur in comparable local areas across western Europe.

My second point is the loss of democracy. The proposal before us is for the election of a single person to represent the whole of the City of York Council and North Yorkshire Council. The elected mayor will chair the combined authority of the two councils. The Schedule to this SI confirms that two representatives from each of the constituent authorities are required, with a third person acting as a substitute member. No other existing mayoral combined authority that I can think of has so few constituent member councils. It will be interesting to see how effectively this arrangement works in practice. There will be five people making decisions for the combined authority, on these very important functions that have been referred to.

This is a bit of a leap in the dark because of the small number of councils and, therefore, the small number of members on them. My second question is will there be a review of these constitutional arrangements, say within three years, to evaluate its success or otherwise? I think that is important.

The extension of the mayoral model to very rural areas, when the model does not recognise the very significant differences with urban areas, makes this a bit of a leap in the dark. I do not know whether the Minister has been to North Yorkshire. I live next door to it, so I know North Yorkshire and it is a very rural area. It has a population of 615,000, in—importantly—an area of 3,340 square miles, of which 40% is designated as the national parks North York Moors and the Dales. It is huge. With the City of York Council, which deals with a population of 142,000, the mayoral authority will be responsible for just about three quarters of a million people in a vast rural area, from the coast of Whitby to the border with Lancashire, and from the border with Northumberland to the border with Leeds. It is huge. There will be a single person directly elected to take responsibility not just for the mayoral functions but, in this instance, for both the role of police and crime commissioner and fire and rescue, for this vast county and historic city.

Of course, this is too large a range of responsibilities for one person. The arrangements in this order therefore allow for the appointment of a deputy mayor, who will presumably be responsible for police and fire. The upshot of that arrangement is that there is no longer a directly elected commissioner for policing or an elected councillor taking responsibility for the fire and rescue service across this vast county and the city of York. The conclusion I reach is that the Conservative experiment of police and crime commissioners has failed; otherwise, there would still be a directly elected police and crime commissioner for North Yorkshire and the city of York. At the minute, they are going to be appointed. Can the Minister explain whether there is now a policy of gradually removing elected PCCs?

The order states the expected allowances for the mayor, which will be determined by an independent panel. The scale of remuneration packages for combined authority mayors is instructive. In West Yorkshire, the mayor receives £105,000 per year while the appointed—I emphasise that word—deputy mayor receives £72,000 for taking responsibility in West Yorkshire for policing, but with no direct accountability to the people whom they are there to serve. Do not say “scrutiny” to me because it is ineffective.

The order also allows for the employment of a political adviser. I would like some explanation of that. From what I know, those do not exist in other mayoral combined authorities within the orders, so that is an interesting addition here.

In conclusion, a strategic political and democratically elected role is important. However, we Liberal Democrats cannot condone this cynical approach to removing elected police and crime commissioners—they are elected with responsibility for the fire and rescue service—and replacing them with appointed political people where there is no direct accountability through the ballot box, which is the least that taxpayers can expect in a democracy.

Given all that, I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee of my interests as a serving councillor at both county and district level. I am also a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

As a councillor for almost 27 years, a former leader of my council for 16 years, one of the instigators of the Hertfordshire Growth Board and a local enterprise board member since its inception, I am a great believer both in the transformational powers of local government and in far deeper and broader devolution. I see this, as does my party, as the quickest and most effective way of creating economic growth tailored to local circumstances, as well as of providing the levers of economic, social and environmental well-being where they can best be deployed flexibly, speedily and to the greatest benefit of the area concerned.

So, as a passionate advocate of devolution, it would be churlish of me not to welcome an agreement between York, North Yorkshire and the Government where all believe that it is in their interests. If I needed further convincing, it was pleasing to see that one of my local government colleagues—Councillor Mark Crane, the leader of Selby, who had always been deeply sceptical of such a deal for North Yorkshire—now welcomes the proposals; I am pleased to see that. I thank all the leaders and officials from that area who have done so much work to get this deal over the line. My comments concern the principles, with some specific questions about this deal, and are not intended to intervene in this two-year-long process between the councils in York and North Yorkshire, the people whom they represent and the Government.

We have seen highly effective outcomes from devolution in Greater Manchester—with which I worked extensively as part of the Co-operative Councils’ Innovation Network—and in West and South Yorkshire, but no one could argue that the progress of devolution has not been slower than a snail’s pace. It remains fragmented, patchy and piecemeal, with large areas of the country not subject to deals at all, even where they have worked carefully to draw together political, business and social partnerships, because they have clearly not passed the mysterious and indeterminate tests set by the Government. I cite Hertfordshire as an example here. I was very pleased to hear the Minister in the other place reiterate yesterday that a mayor is not the right solution for everybody, but it seems that, if your proposal does not include one, you are far less likely to shimmy under that government bar.

We would like to see a presumption in favour of handing back powers to our towns, cities and communities, with everywhere having the powers and flexibility to turbocharge the growth that works for their area and to attract investment, with the ability to negotiate longer-term finance settlements from government. That would give every area the ability to be ambitious for their residents and businesses and to deliver the real changes on the ground to deliver that ambition.

Too many areas are held back by our antiquated, struggling and definitely not fit for purpose local government funding system. It has been further weakened by years of cuts, use of outdated data that is out of touch with changes in local areas and, more recently, the further blow to finances caused by runaway inflation following the mini-Budget just over a year ago. To authorities in such straitened financial times, a devolution deal can bring some much-needed financial relief, so it is perhaps not surprising that local leaders are tempted. However, we need to see this in context. The York and North Yorkshire deal, for example, apparently equates to £20 per resident of the region per year over the term of the 30-year deal—incidentally, that is more than West Yorkshire but less than Liverpool, the Tees Valley and South Yorkshire, so I hope that local government colleagues working on deals are tough negotiators.

However, IPPR North tells us that the north of England has seen a £413 reduction per person in average annual council spending in each year between 2009-10 and 2019-20, so the deal does not come close to the losses that communities in the north have experienced due to austerity. Does the Minister see this as such a marvellous deal in that context? Is it envisaged that further money might be on the table as plans for the area develop? That was a bit ambiguous in the SI, so I am interested to know whether it is the case.

On the consultation process, I can see from the papers that extensive efforts were undertaken—which the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, went through—to elicit responses from the public on these areas, but does the Minister consider that just over 2,000 responses from a population of almost 1 million people represents a clear mandate? What work have the Government done with the Local Government Association on how we might improve these consultation processes in future? I appreciate that the structure of local government can be confusing, particularly in areas with two or three tiers of local government, but introducing changes of such magnitude on the basis of a mandate of just over 50% of such a tiny percentage of the local population surely suggests that we need more innovation in the consultation processes.

On general questions of governance, the Minister will be aware that we tried very hard to ensure that every place in the area would be represented on the combined authority during the levelling-up Bill, but that was not the outcome. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, I remain concerned about so many powers being vested in one person. It has been the practice in mayoral authorities for mayors to appoint deputy mayors and for them not to be elected. This also applies to police commissioners. These are very important roles, so does appointment rather than election impact on accountability? This is especially the case if the mayor cannot fulfil their role, as it is then delegated to an unelected deputy mayor. Why do the Government consider appointment the best model here and, to go back to my earlier point, why do appointed deputy mayors enjoy a role on combined authorities which is denied to locally elected council leaders?

Have the Government given any thought, for example, to local public accounts committees to mirror their function in the other place? This would widen the scope of the police and crime commissioners, which, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, have not proved terribly effective, and would provide joined-up accountability for the mayor.

We note that for this deal the adult education budget transfer is to come later than the introduction of the combined authority in May 2024. I appreciate that this has been agreed with the partners in this devolution deal, but with skills and training so essential to economic growth, why are they not an early priority for all devolution deals?

I have carefully read Part 5 of the order, which means the authority may introduce bus franchising if it chooses to do so. How would the Government, including the Department for Transport, support the combined authority if it chooses to exercise this power? Do the Government envisage any issues arising from the different transport roles of the mayor, the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority and the constituent authorities in relation to local transport plans, bus partnerships and highways and traffic authority functions?

In July, the BBC reported that £1 million would be given to support the set up of the new combined authority in addition to £582,000 already spent. Can the Minister update the Committee on funding the direct cost of the combined authority after the inaugural mayoral election? That is not the money allocated for spend for the authority, but its direct set up cost.

In conclusion, we strongly support the principle of devolution to local areas and congratulate all local areas that have navigated the current complex system to get their deals over the line. We will certainly not be opposing a deal negotiated at local level, however we urge that the Government consider how they will accelerate the devolution process and how some of the questions that have come up under this deal and others are to be answered in future.

--- Later in debate ---

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, referred to funding, addressing the point about cash and the broader context of local government funding. In recent years, local councils have received above-inflation increases to their core spending power, even taking into account higher inflation than anticipated. We recognise the greater pressure that local councils are under and remain in close dialogue with them on that.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I am sorry to interrupt, but government Ministers continually say that above-inflation grants have been provided to local authorities in the last year or so. However, for those local authorities that have social care responsibilities, the social care precept is an additional burden on council tax payers. It is not exactly the case that more money has been provided; it has, but the Minister should give the addendum that part of it is provided by an additional burden on council tax payers. In my local authority, it costs council tax payers £200 extra a year to provide for the social care precept.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I absolutely acknowledge the point made by the noble Baroness. I think I referred to an increase in core spending power, and my understanding of that metric is that it reflects the government grant, the council tax and the additional social care precept. I did not refer only to the government grant. I am sure she will be well aware that additional grant funding has also gone into social care over the last two years to reflect additional pressures in that sector.

I was simply making the point that, since 2019, I believe, above-inflation increases to the core spending power of councils have been made available. The terms of the devolution deal and the money attached to it are as set out. The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, asked about further funding. I will not speculate on that, but I point out to all noble Lords that the Government have made significant amounts of funding available for levelling up through the levelling up fund, the towns fund and the future high streets fund. We are working to simplify that funding landscape, but there is an ongoing commitment from this Government to make funding available for local economic development and regeneration. We have seen that in the significant amounts made available in recent years and the ongoing commitment from the Government in that area.

I am conscious that I have not addressed a couple of the questions, in particular on transport, which the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, asked. If both noble Baronesses will forgive me, I will write to them with further details.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for tabling Amendment 282N and the consequential amendments, and His Majesty’s Government for supporting them. Unlike my noble friend, I do want to talk about ULEZ, although I totally understand and appreciate the points that he made about the importance of local democracy.

Noble Lords will know how important the blue badge scheme is to many disabled people and their families—and indeed their personal assistants, where applicable. I declare an interest as someone who relies on my blue badge for parking in a whole range of places, including town centres.

What noble Lords may not know is how relevant—indeed, how crucial—these amendments are to protecting blue badge holders from disability discrimination. In fact, I only became aware of this thanks to the indefatigable efforts of the formidable disability rights campaigner, Kush Kanodia.

As I understand it, incredibly, blue badge holders who are not in receipt of certain benefits are not exempt from ULEZ charges—unlike in Glasgow, for example. So this is effectively a discriminatory penalty for disability—or, in the case of non-disabled family members or personal assistants who may use a blue badge to assist with transport, a fine for providing support to a disabled person. This is surely not right. Amendment 282N and the consequential amendments would allow this manifest wrong to be put right through this opting-out provision. I wholeheartedly support it.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, here we are on day seven of Report, and up pops yet another amendment on a completely new topic. It is so out of scope that, to debate it, the Long Title of the Bill has also to be amended.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has chosen to discuss, via the theme of ULEZ, the London devolution deal. How much better if he had done so during the very long section of debate on the Bill devoted to devolution. The amendments that he has proposed have only a tenuous link with the prime purpose of this Bill: levelling up. If he wanted to truly level up in the areas of the country identified in the Government’s own White Paper, the amendments would focus on transport issues elsewhere in the country.

Those of us who live in the north, especially in west Yorkshire, can only dream of the quality of public transport available in London. For instance, the government commitment, repeated many times, simply to electrify the trans-Pennine route, has been dropped. The new trans-Pennine route, nationalised because of its previous failure, has the highest number of train cancellations of all train companies. Added to this appalling level of service comes the decision that the 13 new trainsets for the route are to be taken out of service for want of trained drivers. In addition to this very large dent in already creaking connectivity in the north is the increasingly poor service provided by bus companies, which results in growing numbers having to rely on private transport, thus increasing the already poor air quality in many northern urban areas.

How much more beneficial to promoting levelling up—the purpose of this Bill—if the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, had used his talent to direct government attention to levelling up connectivity, which is absolutely essential if areas defined in the levelling up White Paper are to enjoy growing investment and prosperity.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for introducing this group and the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, as well as for drawing our attention to the importance of standards. Clearly, most of the debate has been around the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. As we are on Report, I shall be brief and make just two points in response to the noble Lord’s amendments.

First, I point out that Sadiq Khan has explicitly ruled out the introduction of pay-per-mile charging while he is Mayor of London. Secondly, on Amendment 282N, which seems to be the core amendment within the four amendments introduced, our concern is that this includes a loophole for councils to opt out of such schemes. Introducing that loophole undermines the national objective of improving air quality. We think that it risks increasing public confusion and is not in the interests of preventive health and improving air quality.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I briefly rise to associate myself with the remarks of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and a number of other noble Lords. I have enormous sympathy for the Government. I believe that we absolutely need new housing. We have a problem with the shortage of housing stock. House builders should not have unnecessary barriers placed in the way of them getting on with development. However, I urge the Minister to listen to the sentiments expressed all around this House about the way in which the Government are currently planning to fulfil their laudable desire to ensure we get more homes built.

As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said, Amendment 247YY would give carte blanche to this and any future Government to do what they liked to override the environmental protections of which I am so proud. This Government have done more than most other Governments to implement legislation that protects the environment. However, there is a risk that we will be tearing that up.

I congratulate the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, on his amendments to government Amendment 247YY, which is asking us to ignore the science and local authorities just to assume that no pollution will happen even when they are being told it will or know that it will.

As my noble friend Lord Deben said, the “polluter pays” principle is important, but maybe what is happening here is a cart and horse problem. If my noble friend the Minister were able to assure the House that the mitigation measures that I am sure are genuinely intended to offset the pollution caused by any new developments will be in place before those developments pollute rivers, we would be able to consider that. However, there is no guarantee that any of the mitigation measures, however well meant and well intentioned, will be able to be put in place before the pollution happens.

I therefore urge my noble friend to think again about the Government’s apparently panicked reaction, which perhaps is intended to please housebuilders, who are very keen to get on with developing houses in places that they know would be of great value to them. I have enormous sympathy with my noble friend Lord Cathcart, who wants to do some development and is being blocked. However, we have to protect the environment. I am sure my noble friend would like to do that, but I hope that we can understand that in keeping this delicate balance of building new homes today but protecting our habitats and precious environment in the long run, we must try to prioritise these precious areas of the country that we as a Government have done so much to protect. As I say, I am proud of that, and we must not tear those protections up.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for this constructive debate. It has been wonderful to hear expertise from across the House on such an important issue as environmental protections.

I remind everybody that this is day seven on Report of the levelling-up Bill, which we began in January with Second Reading, and this is the first time this issue has been brought to the attention of the House. We have to ask ourselves, why? I cannot remember who raised the fact that this issue was known about five years ago. The Government have known that it has been an issue of contention for housebuilders for a considerable number of years, yet it is brought to us on day seven on Report, in a form that means we cannot have any prior discussion of it. I wonder whether that relates to a sudden rise in the share price of house- building companies.

The argument that housebuilding is jeopardised unless the Government take action to throw out the protection of our watercourses is completely false. I think it may have been the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who said that more than 1 million planning permissions are awaiting development. As my noble friend Lady Parminter so expertly said, the sites in question—it is not everywhere; it is particular sites—are some of the most environmentally sensitive in this country, if not in Europe. Why would we put those sites at risk when there is an opportunity to protect them for the future of our children and grandchildren?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I too support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. I am now caring for my mother and am a grandfather to very young grandchildren, so I have renewed my acquaintance with the problem, as he said, of seeking to go from A to B when there are so many obstacles in the way. His amendments go to the heart of the problem by recognising that pavements are for people to walk on.

I am also delighted to support the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and other noble Lords in their amendment. I disagree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. First, I do think that the health gain from this measure would be considerable. We are behind the curve in reaching the smoke-free target. Secondly, I disagree with him about the dissipation of smoke. Anyone who has had to walk past pubs where people are smoking outside would say it does not dissipate quickly enough. Thirdly, I do not think it would harm the pub trade; I think it would enhance it because, frankly, going through a fog to get into a pub is not very attractive at all.

On a more general point, the noble Lord, Lord Young, made it clear that he saw this as a popular public measure. I totally agree. I was a member of the Cabinet committee which basically tore up our 2005 manifesto because it was not strong enough. The result of that very rare rebellion by a Cabinet committee led to the ban on smoking in public places. And it was proved right—it was very popular and very effective.

I also recall moving the amendment on banning smoking in cars where children are present. That was overwhelmingly popular. When it went back to the Commons, the Government agreed. So many of their own Back-Benchers supported it because they had had such a lot of strong messages.

I have no doubt whatever that this will be a very positive and popular measure. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to say something positive about it.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this may be the fourth occasion in the House on which I have debated pavement licensing. There is obviously a reason for that; we have not got the regulations quite right. As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, raised in his amendment, there is a natural conflict between the use of the public highway as an extension of a licensed premises, restaurant or café, and the use of it by the public to get from A to B. I totally agree. At the very earliest iteration of these regulations about pavement licensing, both he and I proposed that barriers ought to be in place to restrict the use of the highway so there would be plenty of room for pedestrians and those in wheelchairs or pushing buggies to get through safely. I am still concerned that that regulation is not part of the licence for use of the public highway.

The second important issue is about smoke free. All I will say is this: it needs to be smoke free. This is a health issue. We need to take every opportunity we can to ensure that there are no opportunities for people who do not wish to inhale somebody else’s smoke to do so. I agree with all noble Lords—bar one—who have spoken on this issue.

Lastly, I will repeat the question that I have raised before. If we are permitting businesses to use the public highway, will the local authority that has to maintain the public highway have the right to require a rent for its use? This would enable continued good maintenance of pavements for people.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for his great persistence and determination regarding common-sense regulation of the use of pavement licences. He spoke powerfully on this issue in Committee and has done so again today. We all recognise the significant boost that new uses of our pavements have given to our high streets and we support that, but it is of course important that the balance is right. Indeed, most of the amendments in this group do give some balance.

Amendments 249 and 250 relate to charging for maintenance and cleansing of high streets. We very much support the principle that the applicant should contribute—it goes along with the “polluter pays” idea—but we should think about the fact that this should really be for local determination. For example, where a local authority is trying to encourage regeneration, it may not want to implement that as part of its process of encouragement, but we certainly support the basic principle behind the noble Lord’s amendment.

New Homes

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I quite agree with my noble friend about the importance of the NPPF. That is why we are consulting on it, will review it when we have the results of the consultation and will come back out to consult on our further ideas on how we can update it—we cannot leave it there in aspic for ever. By doing that and by the measures in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill to modernise the planning system, we will deliver more houses through local plans and hit the 300,000 target.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I have relevant interests in this Question. Councils’ local plans incorporate their share of the national housing targets. Can the Minister explain how national housing targets can be achieved when more than 60% of local councils do not have an up-to-date local plan?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right: we need more local plans. That is how we will deliver more houses. We know from evidence that local planning authorities that have local plans deliver more houses. That is why we have the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, are changing and simplifying making local plans and will insist that local authorities deliver local plans. If they do not, we have measures to push them to do so.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

I come to my most serious point. Given the scale of the housing problem, surely it is time for a Government to be bold enough to put social housing on a statutory footing and then conceive a plan to deliver at scale and pace.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I just wish to speak to Amendment 199 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. I repeat my relevant interests at the outset: I am a councillor and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Unfortunately, our wonderful expert on all things transport, my noble friend Lady Randerson, is unable attend this morning but what I shall say comes after having discussed this with her. On this side, we totally support Amendment 199. It is reasonable and filled with sensible caveats such as “so far as relevant” and “must … have regard to”. It is something that local planning authorities can work with but should stimulate to them to ensure that they think of travel from the start and incorporate it into their strategic policies and the local plan. Tacking it on later is never as effective. Doing it that way also ensures that there is integration between different layers of local government, which do not always work perfectly together, as we have heard throughout discussions on the Bill.

Something has to be done. At the moment Governments are failing on the targets. We will have a further discussion on targets in another group but this is about travel targets—cycling and walking targets. The target set in 2017 is for 46% of urban journeys to be walking or cycling, but all activity levels are now lower than when the target was set. For instance, the number of children who walk to school has fallen below 50%. Public rights of way, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, are constantly under threat from developers who regard them as an obstacle rather than—as they should be—a benefit. PROW diversions created by developers are often far less attractive than the original. That, too, is discouraging for those who want to walk. Urgent attention is needed—not more targets but practical steps such as those proposed in this amendment to incorporate active travel into the fundamental fabric of urban and rural planning for the future.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 193 and 194 from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, introduce sensible additions to Schedule 7 on the content of plans. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, reminded us on Monday, just because Ministers assume that something will happen, that is no reason for leaving it out of the Bill. One would assume that any local planning authority would include such vital matters as meeting housing need and the economic, social and environmental needs of its area in its plan, as well as identifying appropriate sites. I agree with the sentiment expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, in that regard. Putting this in the Bill makes sure that it happens.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, was right to draw attention to the distinction between strategic and non-strategic priorities, which will become ever more important as these strategic policies are considered by a potential combined authority for the joint strategic development strategies. If they are not set out clearly in plans, how will the combined authorities identify them and make sure that they take account of them in the wider plan?

Amendment 193A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, goes to the heart of a huge lost opportunity in the Bill, as currently structured, to make a real difference in addressing the housing emergency we face in this country. The figures have been much debated in this Chamber, in Committee on the Bill and in many other debates on housing, but it is a scandal that over a million families are still on social rented housing registers around the UK. With the current rate of building—just 6,000 a year according to Shelter—few of those families stand a chance of ever having the secure, affordable and sustainable tenancy they need.

This problem is now exacerbated by rising mortgage interest rates resulting in many private landlords deciding to sell the properties they were renting out and their tenants coming to local authorities to seek rehoming. Commentators in the sector say that this could affect as many as one in three privately rented properties. The figures are stark. Worked examples show that rents may have to increase by at least £300 a month. For landlords and tenants also facing other elements of the cost of living crisis, this kind of increase in costs is untenable.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Best, proposes that local plans should link the provision of social housing to the provision of adequate housing for those registered with the local authority. This should be a minimum. I think the noble Lord described it as a duty to be clear about the scale of the housing problem and I totally agree. As we all know only too well, the unmet need for social housing also includes many families not on those registers. We will have a later debate about the definition of “affordable housing”, but social housing in particular merits special treatment in how it is addressed by local plans. For some families, it is the only form of tenure that will ever meet their needs. We agree with the noble Lord, Lord Best, about the importance of putting social housing priorities into the planning process, so if he chooses to test the opinion of the House on this matter, he will have our support.

Government Amendment 197 is a helpful clarification that neighbourhood plans cannot supersede the local development plan in relation to either housing development or environmental outcome reports. I was very pleased to see Amendment 199 from my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Lord, Lord Young. As a fortunate resident of a new town designed with the great foresight to incorporate 45 kilometres of cycleways, thanks to the vision of Eric Claxton and our other early designers, I can clearly see the importance of incorporating this infrastructure at the local plan stage.

The experience of Stevenage is that, unless the infrastructure makes it easier to cycle and walk than to jump in a car, the latter will prevail. Our cycleways are only now coming into their own and being thought of as the precious resource that they are, so the vision to include them was very much ahead of its time. It is important that careful thought is given, in all development, to the relative priorities of motor vehicles and cycling and walking.

As my noble friend Lord Berkeley outlined, this amendment is well supported by the Better Planning Coalition and the Walking and Cycling Alliance, which says that embedding cycling and walking in development plans would

“help safeguard land … that could form useful walking and cycling routes, while ensuring that new developments are well-connected to such routes, and securing developer contributions for new or improved walking and cycling provision”.

It cites examples—they were adequately quoted by my noble friend Lord Berkeley, so I will not repeat them—of how this has not been the case in the past. I agree with my noble friend that the consultation on the NPPF makes no mention of, never mind giving priority to, local cycling and walking infrastructure plans. It makes no mention at all of rights of way improvement plans.

On Monday, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, mentioned the new role for Active Travel England as a statutory consultee in planning matters, but surely this amendment would strengthen its role by ensuring that cycling and walking are considered for every development, so that it can focus on the detail of those plans.

Government Amendments 201B, 201C and 201D are very concerning. They represent sweeping powers for combined county authorities to take over the powers of local councils in relation to making and/or revising local plans. Alongside the government proposals that the representatives of local councils will have no voting rights on combined county authorities, this represents yet another huge undermining of the role of local democratically elected institutions in favour of combined county authorities, which are indirectly elected, which may have voting representatives who have no democratic mandate at all and which operate at a considerable distance from the front line of the communities that will be affected by the decisions they are making.

In the debate on Monday, the Minister said that these new powers will be used only in extremis, but one can envisage situations where they could be used for political purposes. I raise the importance of this issue from a background of long experience of plan-making in two-tier areas and the complexities that that brings. On Monday, I mentioned that it was our local MP who held up our local plan for over a year by calling it in to the Secretary of State. Would this, for example, give a CCA grounds to initiate its power grab for the planning powers? If that were the case, you could see this being a very slippery slope indeed. What discussions has the Secretary of State undertaken with the sector on these proposed powers? These powers, like so much else in the Bill, seem to move us ever further away from the devolution and agency for local people that were espoused at the introduction of the White Paper.

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[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I know that we are on Report but in response to that, it is exactly the structure that we have seen before. Essentially, in the five-year period between one local plan and the review of that plan, clearly, the housing delivery test is applied to what is adopted in that plan in the first instance. When it is reviewed after five years then clearly, as the amendment would say, the local plan must then be reviewed, taking account of the Government’s targets and standard method as applicable at that time.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, was absolutely right when he introduced his amendment in saying that this is the most important part of the Bill and is at the heart of the housing debate we have been having. I am very fortunate to be following the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who has given this whole debate a new dimension and a new focus for our thoughts, on whether we should be fixated on numbers or considering other elements of housing provision.

There is complete agreement across the House and support for building the homes that people need and the country needs. It means building homes in all parts of our country. I agree with the argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Young, about how we will provide the homes that folk need, and the analysis of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, on how vital it is that homes be provided for social rent so that families can have a stable background, and with a housing cost that they can meet within their tight family budgets. Like her, I am a councillor, and I am saddened by the number of families where I live who are pushed into renting in the private housing sector on short-term lets and every six months are having to post on Facebook, “Is there a home to rent in this locality at this price with this number of bedrooms, so that I don’t have to move schools for my children?” That is not the sort of country we want to create, in my opinion; we ought to be providing stable homes for people whose incomes restrict their housing options to homes for social rent.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, before I make a few comments about swift bricks, I thought I would address my remarks to the two amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. He is making a case for large sites that take a number of years to build out and where, because of a change in circumstances, there may need to be a substantial change in the nature of the remainder of the site.

I have a bit of sympathy with that amendment, in that the principle has been agreed for developing the site. The question the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is asking is whether it then matters if what goes on in the rest of the site does not comply entirely with the original planning consent. I then thought about the practical implications of his suggestion. For instance, if it changed from large executive four-bed properties to a higher density housing development for starter homes and so on for families, that would have potential implications for school places. They would not be funded under the planning conditions of the original application where a Section 106 agreement or an agreement under CIL would have enabled funding to be made available for school places, health facilities, play areas or transport requirements. Although I have sympathy with the approach that he has taken, there needs to be a new application if there is a substantial change. I will listen carefully to what the Minister says in response.

On buildout, I get frustrated by developers starting a site but not proceeding to complete it in a timely way. There is nothing worse in a community than seeing a site that has been started but not finished. It will not be like this now, but there was a fairly notorious one in the area of West Yorkshire where I live: the planning consent was derived in the 1940s and the first earth movements were made and tranches dug, but nothing substantial happened on that site until the 1990s. So I encourage buildout and, again, it would be good to hear what the Minister says about it.

That leads me to swift bricks—very swiftly, as one might say. I have an interest, as a member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Having said that, noble Lords will be able to tell that I favour and love watching birds, and I visit the RSPB sites as often as I can, because it is a joy. Over the years, I have seen a decline. Swifts are summer migrants, as everyone will know. I always look forward to seeing swallows and house martins when I am out delivering for the May elections—that is when I see my first swallow or swift. If it is a joy for me, it is a joy for many other people.

So swift bricks and nesting sites that have been lost, and swift bricks being an answer to the loss of those nesting sites, is important, and there has been a passionate argument in favour of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith. Obviously I obviously support swift bricks—who would not? I remember watching a “Countryfile” programme about them on the BBC, and about an individual, whose name I obviously do not remember, who made thousands of these swift bricks—perhaps they were swift boxes—because of his passion for that bird. So let us hear what the Government have to say; it is over to them to make a decision.

My final point is on Amendment 244 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, which would reduce barriers for SME builders to get contracts and to be part of the development process in localities. That has to be positive for the economy and local businesses. So I will support the amendment when the noble Baroness moves it, and I urge the Government to accept it.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 244 in this group and I will then make brief comments on the other amendments. Amendment 244 is designed to cover an issue that arises almost at the intersection of planning and procurement. It can be the case that, where local authorities undertake major development, the nature of the planning system is such that the subsequent tender process will be enacted only for the totality of the development. Of course, the major contractors can subcontract works out, but this process does not always accrue maximum benefit to the local economy. Our amendment aims to ensure that whatever can be done at the stage of granting planning permission is done, to enable SME participation in, and engagement with, those contracts being achieved.

Amendment 217, from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, applies a provision for “drop-in permissions”. We note that this is an acknowledged problem that may or may not require an amendment to planning law. I absolutely take the good point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, about the provision of infrastructure where there is a drop-in permission, and we look forward to hearing the Minister’s view on whether the existing wording is sufficient to enable the necessary change to unblock buildouts on large sites.

In relation to Amendment 219, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, we would of course support refusing permissions to those who have not made buildout applications previously; that is a welcome change. We greatly sympathise with the noble Lord’s point that doing this to someone with an undefined connection with the previous applicant is way too unspecific in terms of planning law, and who that undefined connection would be. We agree that this needs to be either tightened up or taken out altogether, because it could have unintended consequences if it is left in the Bill as it is.

Amendment 221, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, recommends splitting planning applications into two stages for the purpose of encouraging rural economic development. We fully support the notion that anything that can be done within the planning system to encourage rural economic development should be done. But it is difficult to see how, in practical terms, a two-stage permission would work. There is already very strong provision and encouragement in the planning system for outline permissions to be submitted and then followed by detailed permissions for major developments. This is common practice, and I am sure rural areas are not excluded. I wonder whether that would be the type of process, or if there are things I am missing in the noble Lord’s amendment.

We were delighted to see Amendment 221A, proposed by noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, relating to the provision of swift bricks. We very much enjoyed his enthusiastic and passionate advocacy in his introduction, and all speeches made by noble Lords in favour of this. The noble Lord’s amendment follows extensive public interest in introducing this step, which led to the public petition debate to which the noble Lord referred, and to very strong cross-party support. We note also that the Wildlife and Countryside Link is in favour of this measure, as are many recognised experts.

We believe that specifically including swift bricks as a measure in the Bill, to be incorporated in planning law, is justified because of the unique nature of these precious birds’ nesting habits. They add to the biodiversity of urban areas, and I am particularly keen that we support that. I grew up as a townie and the swifts and house martins were a real feature of my childhood growing up in a town. Their decline has been very visible and sad to see. If there is anything we can do to either halt that decline or hopefully turn it around, we should certainly do so. There is definitely a clear and present threat to these species. We hope the Government will accept this relatively a small step, which could make a world of difference to protecting our swift population, and that it will not be necessary for the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, to divide the House—but I hope he knows he has our full support in this amendment.

Amendment 282, in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Northbrook and Lord Bellingham, may relate to issues the Minister referred to in Committee. We comment only that, while we accept that notices published on local authority websites would usually be appropriate, of course there are other ways of drawing the public’s and stakeholders’ attention. We have some concerns about stating that anything must remain permanently on a website, but we understand his point.

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In doing so, I repeat my simple and humble request: we need to have in the Bill a statutory basis with enhanced protections for existing hospitality businesses to mitigate against noise complaints generated by new residential developments. I think all noble Lords will be aware of specific instances in this regard. I am conscious of the fact that the hospitality sector as a whole and, in particular, parts of the night-time economy have suffered dramatically during and since the Covid outbreak in 2020. I applaud many of the decisions that the Minister, her department and the Government have taken but we need to go one step further and enshrine in the Bill the necessary statutory duty on developers so that they cannot shirk their responsibilities. We need a planning balance and it needs to be mandatory as well as absolutely clear and unambiguous. With those few remarks, I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for raising what is often a bone of contention among residents of new properties where those properties have been built adjacent to businesses, often hospitality businesses. They are the latecomers. but they suddenly expect the business to comply with their requirements and not the other way round.

I will give one example that may illustrate the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. Near where I live, there is a long-standing working men’s club with space. Some new properties were built on the land adjacent to the club’s outdoor area. The club decided that, in order to increase its income, it would use the outdoor space as a pub garden. This is in Yorkshire where pub gardens do not get used all year round. The use would have been intermittent, let us say.

However, the residents of the new properties raised such a fuss about it that the working men’s club was forced to remove the tables and chairs—it did not have planning consent or something. As a result, in the end, a couple of years later the working men’s club closed. So I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has said.

It is not just about places of hospitality but also existing business use and leisure facilities—particularly where flood-lights are used at night, on grass areas for football or whatever—that the complaints come. It would be good to hear what the Minister has to say in response to what is a very practical amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting if short discussion which picks up on much of the debate that we had during Committee. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for bringing this back to us again today.

One thing that came across very clearly when we debated this in Committee was that it really is time to review the status and look at the situation. It is important that we return to this. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has said, now and previously, we have got the change of use from office to residential space in town centres, we have the problem of many empty town centre premises, and there have been a lot of changes on our high streets and in our towns in ways that we have not seen before. These challenges are particularly acute for the night-time economy.

The agent of change principle has been with us for some years. This is why it is important that we use this Bill to ensure that it is fit for purpose and doing what we need it to do. As we have heard, it is in the National Planning Policy Framework, but does the licensing guidance, as the noble Baroness said, reflect the principles of the NPPF itself? The NPPF needs to be fit for purpose, as well as the agent of change principle that sits within it.

I asked at Committee and would like to ask again: is the NPPF, when we get to see it, going to reflect the likely focus of future planning decisions on this? How is that all going to be taken into account? This is genuinely an opportunity to enshrine this principle in legislation and get it right. It needs to be fit for purpose and it needs to do what it is supposed to do: to protect both sides of the discussion and debate when you have change of use coming forward. As the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh and Lady Pinnock, said, we need to get this right and it has to have teeth—I think that was the expression that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, used. We completely support her request for clarification on the legislative change referred to by the Minister in Committee and hope that we can move forward on this issue.