Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for the meeting she kindly arranged last week to enable questions on the Bill in advance of it coming before this House.

When I was growing up in the Sixties, we would occasionally speculate with our pocket money on something called a Jamboree Bag, I am sure that noble Lords are far too young to remember this piece of sweet shop nostalgia, but I say “speculate” because these bags offered far more in hope than they did in expectation. They generally contained about six sweets. Two would be sweets you really liked, two would be sweets you absolutely did not like, and the other two would be too stale to eat. They would also have a novelty or toy, which was inevitably disappointing—unless you got the fortune-telling fish we all longed for.

As I started the marathon read of this Bill, I had that same feeling of expectation. I am passionate about local government and the power of localism— I have spent half my life engaging in it—because I genuinely believe that only local solutions will work to solve some of the endemic inequalities our communities face. At the last general election this Government were elected on a promise to address geographical inequalities and regenerate and level up the UK. This Bill has the very noble aim of delivering that, but I am afraid to say that it lacks the ambition needed to address this mammoth challenge.

It is not just that the missions are not detailed in the Bill; it is difficult even to trace the link between them in some of the provisions, so the Bill is in danger of falling far short of expectations. This is exacerbated by weak reporting mechanisms, allowing for a bizarre pick-and-mix system whereby Government departments can choose which missions they will follow. The Bill as proposed allows Ministers to mark their own homework, so it should be accompanied by some sort of independent oversight and a clear role for Parliament to judge whether each department is adhering to its statutory responsibilities. If Ministers are able to revise, amend and delete missions at will, they absolutely must work with local leaders and representatives from across the UK on that.

On the issue of local voices, I want to turn next to the local government and devolution provisions in the Bill. The House will know that the UK today is the most centralised state in Europe. Stevenage, which I proudly call home, has twin towns in both Germany and France, and things are very different there. Ingelheim, on the west bank of the Rhine, is home to a global drugs company and keeps every euro of business rate that it raises. Autun, meanwhile, in the Morvan Forest, an area as protected as our Lake District, was able to build an agricultural conference complex from concept to first event within 18 months. My point is not that these exact policies are necessarily the right ones for the UK, but that we should be far more ambitious and open to ideas when looking to address the imbalance of power in our country. So I welcome the Minister’s accepting that national challenges require place-based solutions, but I feel strongly that Part 2 would better deliver this if accompanied by greater powers and fairer funding, so that leaders can support local recoveries according to the needs of their own areas.

I do want to welcome the implicit recognition that devolution can drive economic, social and environmental development in local areas, but questions remain over whether the specific model of county combined authorities is the right one for every area. Local residents and leaders will always know their own area best and the powers they need to deliver their ambitions, so we will be seeking amendments to allow greater flexibility for our towns, cities and counties to determine their own future.

Despite its omission, I also want to address the barriers to levelling up presented by the Government’s approach to local government finance. As a local government leader for 17 years, I can say from first-hand experience that the drastic savings imposed on local authorities since 2010 mean that their achievements during this time are all the more impressive.

All major projects coming before any council are always subject to detailed analysis of how the outcomes will be measured and monitored, including the environmental, legal and equalities impacts, and especially the financial impact. At a time when even the Conservative Hertfordshire County Council is announcing that it has “exhausted all options” in meeting its budget deficit, I hope the Minister will reflect on how the Government can better enable local councils to level up their areas.

Turning next to the planning provisions, I am sure I am not the first to suggest that the Bill might better be described as a planning and regeneration Bill. Despite the Government recognising the need for planning reform, Part 3 misses many of the proposals in the White Paper and lacks the ambition needed to address the housing emergency. Local communities deserve a greater say in the housing needs of their area, but I am concerned by clauses which seek to override local voices, particularly those involved in the creation of the national development management policies, and that these may take precedence over local development plans and diminish the local voice in favour of the mysterious “office for place”. That is potentially a retrograde step, making planning something done to, not with, a community. We will examine the clauses on street votes too, including seeking clarification on voting systems, consultation and the registration of interests.

I also encourage the Minister to consider new provisions on how housing and planning can deliver on levelling-up missions. In particular, I hope the Minister will consider amendments from this House urgently to tackle the provision of social housing and ensure the right financial instruments exist to empower local authorities and social landlords to deliver. We will seek further amendments to ensure that local businesses benefit from housebuilding and construction in their area by addressing questions over local procurement. As I will discuss in further detail later, we should also consider opportunities to incorporate our net-zero ambitions into planning policy and benefit from the economic opportunities that this can bring.

Serious concerns were raised in the Commons about the infrastructure levy proposals in Part 4—that the levy as proposed will fail to secure as much, let alone more, public gain from developers as the present Section 106 and community infrastructure levy system. I am sure there will be significant scrutiny of this part, and we will seek particular clarification of how the Government’s plans will address developers’ claims that the levy makes schemes unviable. I hope the Minister can also give greater detail on how the levy can contribute to social housing and schemes of mixed tenure.

Parts 6 and 7 broadly relate to the environment. Whether intentional or not, it is regrettable that the Bill does not take further steps to use the planning system to tackle climate change and its impact on the most deprived communities. I will be particularly interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on how green jobs, new biodiversity targets and environmental planning challenges each relate to the levelling-up agenda. Unfortunately, the Bill does none of this, and we will explore amendments on these points.

I will be taking a particular interest in development corporations and Part 8, given my experience of growing up in a new town under the governance of a development corporation. I welcome the Minister’s commitment to work with the House to ensure that we benefit from lessons learned and are able to strengthen the Bill in this respect.

Determining ownership of land and property can be fraught with difficulty. I am sure the House would agree that local authorities and developers should be able to make better use of brownfield sites for development. However, decontaminating brownfield land too often requires considerable expenditure. Those costs can mean that developing the land is unviable, which then disincentivises developers. Does the Minister believe that Part 9 could help to address this?

The Bill was an ideal opportunity to set out a framework for the regeneration of high streets. While I am pleased that the Government recognise the issue, I am unconvinced that the minimal provision in the Bill for rental auctions and the letting of vacant premises anywhere near tackles the major issues of town centre regeneration set out clearly in the two reviews undertaken by Bill Grimsey. These include looking at the disparity in costs between online and high street retail; creating more workspaces and homes in town centres to drive footfall; ensuring a sound leisure, culture, sport and tourism offer alongside retail to add to dwell time; and incentives for independent businesses. Without looking at these factors, we will never see our high streets thrive.

The Bill before us had enormous potential to genuinely address the structural inequalities of our country. I am greatly encouraged by the interest from this House in ensuring that it meets the challenges facing our towns, cities, counties and villages. We must not let that potential be squandered. Levelling up should be more than a slogan; it must be a cross-governmental strategy. That is why it is essential that the mission statements are embedded in what is proposed in the Bill. The provisions on devolution are a step in the right direction, yet, as the Bill currently stands, they are undermined by the retention and creation of other powers. The emphasis on the future of high streets is welcome, but must be paired with more ambitious action.

Unfortunately, as it stands, the Bill is a wasted opportunity. However, given the interest from all sides of the House in improving it, I have every confidence that, as amended, it will provide much more. I look forward to the debate, particularly the maiden speeches from my noble friend Lady Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent and the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as a serving councillor on Stevenage Borough Council and Hertfordshire County Council, and as a vice-president of the District Councils’ Network.

At Second Reading, I said that to some extent the Bill fails to meet the aspirations of the White Paper, but even the White Paper has significant omissions in that some of the key challenges which impact on opportunity and aspiration in this country are missing. This cannot be a levelling-up Bill without them, and this group of amendments seeks to address that.

In his contribution, the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, said that the missions were not in the Conservative manifesto, so we cannot absolve the Government from parliamentary scrutiny of those missions. However, neither can that proscribe Parliament from consideration of missions that were not there at all, or prevent those missions being added.

I thank my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett for her fantastic speech and amendment on child poverty, along with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, and I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester for delivering another powerful speech on that issue. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady D’Souza and Lady Stroud, for supporting the amendment.

My noble friend Lady Lister referred to an issue raised at Second Reading—that it was the Government’s stated intent that the Bill address child poverty, and yet it is not explicit in the missions. The powerful intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, addressed, among other things, the contribution that social housing can make to tackling poverty. I completely agree, having grown up in a council house myself and seen how good-quality social housing benefited the people around me. That is very powerful. There is also no excuse for not including child poverty in the missions.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester spoke about the difficulties in education when you are facing poverty. When I was growing up, providing things as straightforward as school uniform, ingredients for cooking lessons and sports equipment were all great worries for children growing up in poverty.

The statistics are startling, and my noble friend Lady Lister quoted some of them. Some 27% of children—that is, eight in every classroom of 30—live in poverty, and of course the figure is far worse in some areas. In part of the county council division I represent in Hertfordshire—one of the wealthier areas of the UK, let us remember—one in three children lives in poverty. I have seen at first hand the impact on those children’s life opportunities in terms of educational attainment, health, mental health, economic capacity and every aspect of well-being: cultural, physical, social and academic. To imagine that levelling up can happen at all without a real focus on child poverty dooms the whole endeavour to failure.

For those of us who witnessed the huge impact of Sure Start and the comprehensive strategy of investment in children between 1998 and 2010, as a result of which, the number of children living in poverty fell by 600,000, it was dreadfully disappointing to see that project abandoned and the figures start to rise again. This situation has been exacerbated by the further inequalities that Covid inflicted on deprived communities. The Bill has the potential to start the serious work of tackling child poverty again. Let us not miss the opportunity, simply by not including child poverty as a serious and specific mission. My noble friend Lady Lister rightly asked why it was not in the White Paper or the Bill, and the noble Lord, Lord Young, proposed a solution. There may be other ways of doing it, and I hope that the Minister has taken account of what she has heard in the Chamber this afternoon.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, for his advocacy for our disability community—I am sorry he could not be in his place this afternoon. As he says, this should be considered through every policy aspect of the Bill. Despite successive Acts of Parliament attempting to drive equalities forward in this respect, one has to spend only a very short period in the company of anyone with a disability to see just how far we still have to go. Access to transport, public buildings, education and the workplace, and the ability to participate in the political process, simply must get better if we are to see real levelling up. These are spatial issues, planning issues, and I hope we will see some progress as a result of the Bill.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hayman for tabling the amendment on increasing cultural infrastructure across the UK. Unfortunately, due to the vicious cuts in local government funding in recent years, we have seen local cultural assets closed or mothballed across the country just at a time when creativity, innovation and celebration of local heritage could be creating jobs, developing skills, supporting mental well-being, giving educational opportunities and underpinning social cohesion and collaboration. In an excellent report from the Local Government Association, Cornerstones of Culture, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, chair of the Commission on Culture and Local Government, sets out the incredible opportunities that supporting the development of cultural infrastructure can deliver in terms of levelling up. As a resident of Hertfordshire, which is rapidly becoming the Hollywood of Europe, with film, TV and creative studios driving our economy—there is always a commercial in my speeches—and creating huge opportunities for our county, in particular its young people, I can say that the benefits this cultural intervention could bring across the UK are clear to see.

We have amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, on meeting net zero, which are very welcome. There was a huge discussion on this on Second Reading, and it was notable just how many noble Lords said that without a specific mission to drive the target of reaching net zero across our nations and regions and across all policy areas, the Bill would be significantly deficient and miss a valuable opportunity. It is difficult to understand why amendments tabled the other place that attempted to strengthen the Bill in this respect were not adopted. As far as I am concerned, the situation is quite simple: either the Government mean what they say on net zero and climate change mitigation, in which case, make it the subject of a specific mission, or they do not. The consequences of the latter are enormous and unthinkable. It absolutely must be a target of devolution that every place in the UK fulfil its role in delivering net zero, and that progress be monitored.

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, pointed out that achieving net zero is most challenging in the areas most in need of levelling up. The south-east is improving in this regard while the north-east is continuing to decline. At COP 27 the Prime Minister made a commitment to honouring promises on climate finance. That must apply equally across our nations and regions, as it does to external funding support. Yet, at the moment we do not even have a commitment to financing, for example, the decarbonisation of public housing. I urge the Minister to take seriously the strongly held concerns of noble Lords across this House about leaving out net zero as a specific mission of this levelling-up Bill. I will be particularly interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on how green jobs, new biodiversity targets and environmental planning challenges each relate to the levelling-up agenda, and how the Bill can be improved by incorporating these.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, for her powerful speech on a healthy environment and for pointing out that access to green space is definitely an equalities and levelling-up issue. The link to health and mental health outcomes is clear from all the evidence the noble Baroness cited and that we see elsewhere. Can the Minister say why this cannot be dealt with in the planning frameworks? I was lucky enough to grow up in a new town, where green space such as parks was planned from the very start. It comes under increasing pressure as the cramming of urban areas is seen as a way of solving the housing crisis. That cannot be right, and we need to have a careful look at this from a planning point of view.

We have a group of amendments here that are intended to address serious omissions from the Bill and include missions that will make a significant and important contribution to the levelling-up agenda. I hope that the powerful words of the noble Lords who have contributed to this debate will receive a receptive hearing from both the Minister and the Secretary of State.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments includes those related to new missions and metrics. The missions contained in the levelling-up White Paper are the products of extensive analysis and engagement; this analysis is set out in the White Paper. As I have made clear already, the Bill is designed to establish the framework for missions, not the content of missions themselves. The framework provides ample opportunity to scrutinise the substance of those missions against a range of government policies.

I start by addressing Amendments 4 and 9, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister of Burtersett and Lady Hayman of Ullock, which would require the levelling-up missions to include a mission on child poverty. Let me say that everybody in this Government accepts that child poverty is an issue that needs continually to be kept an eye on, managed and acted upon. However, the way we deal with it is perhaps the issue that we need to discuss. We believe that the best and most sustainable way of tackling child poverty is to ensure parents have opportunities to move and progress in the workplace. Setting targets can drive action that focuses primarily on moving the incomes of those just in poverty to above a somewhat arbitrary poverty line, while doing nothing to help those on the very lowest incomes or to improve children’s future prospects. We therefore have no plans to reintroduce an approach to tackling child poverty that focuses primarily on income-based targets. Ministers and officials engage extensively across government to ensure a co-ordinated approach to tackling poverty, and we will continue to do so in the future.

Moving into work is the best way to improve lives. In 2019-2020, children in workless households were over six times more likely to be in absolute poverty than those in households where all adults were in work. Since 2010, there are nearly 1 million fewer workless households; under the Conservatives, 1.7 million more children are living in a home where at least one person is working. However, that is not to be complacent. The issue for me—the noble Lord, Lord Best, brought it up—is good housing, good education, good skills and good jobs. All these things are covered by the missions, and they do not need to be one separate mission.

While I am talking about living standards, my noble friend Lord Young asked about the definition of living standards. The Bill seeks to raise the living standards of people in work and people who are able to work, or whom we can get into work:

“By 2030, pay, employment and productivity will have risen in every area of the UK,”


getting those who are not already in work into work. That is the definition in the White Paper.

The levelling-up White Paper highlights the challenges faced by children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and how these vary between and within places. It takes a systematic approach, through the missions, to address a number of factors which we believe contribute to child poverty. The levelling-up mission on living standards commits to increasing pay and employment in every area of the UK, which would in turn help to reduce child poverty. We are also committed in the White Paper to investing an extra £200 million to expand the Supporting Families programme in England, which will help to improve the life outcomes and resilience of vulnerable children and their families. Additionally, over £300 million in funding for family hubs and Start for Life has been allocated to 55 high-deprivation local authorities, supporting a focus on perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationships, infant feeding and parenting support. These are very important at the beginning of a child’s life, as we heard again from the noble Lord, Lord Bird.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

6: Clause 1, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(2A) A statement may apply to one or more region or nation of the United Kingdom.”Member's explanatory statement
This probing amendment means that a statement can be directed at a specific region or nation.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall move Amendment 6, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, and speak to Amendment 17, to which she has added her name, Amendments 22 and 23, which are in her name, and Amendments 35 and 40, which are in my own name. I am grateful to noble Lords who have submitted amendments in this group, relating to the very important question of how the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill is treated in relation to the nations and regions of the UK.

In the excellent debate in your Lordships’ House on the scrutiny of common frameworks between the nations of the UK, my noble friend Lady Andrews set out the view of the committee that we could face an unfulfilled opportunity to build a more resilient, innovative and equal union. When I spoke for the Opposition at the introduction of the Second Reading of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, I referred to this and the committee’s work and said there was a huge opportunity in the Bill to ensure that we now build on the work of the noble Baroness’s committee, the work of the Dunlop review and the review carried out by the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and ensure that levelling up across the nations and regions of the UK becomes an absolute of the Bill. It must not be something that needs to be worked on for years after the Bill has passed to make sure its reach is wide enough geographically, ambitious enough to reach every part of the UK equally, and flexible enough to allow for the diversity of economies, geography and demographics that make up our union.

The Minister set out that this legislation is intended to be enabling legislation but, unless there are mechanisms to enable the legislation to take effect, how can we sure that it will be effective across the nations and regions of the UK? Unfortunately, what appear to have been noble aims towards devolution in the White Paper have not been realised in the Bill, which leans towards centralising, controlling the nations and regions from Whitehall, with little real commitment to fiscal or actual devolution. I am sure that that is not what was intended, but it may happen as a result of what is in the Bill. We simply cannot carry on with a model which sees the UK being the most centralised state in western Europe; nor can we see that exacerbated by this Bill and expect that the feelings of communities across our nations and regions that they are ignored, invisible and treated as second-class citizens will get better.

I have been a passionate advocate of devolution for many years because, in local government, we see the strength and energy when local innovation and energy are harnessed to drive economic, environmental and social development. Too often, however, the powers and funding needed to support this are lacking. There is no better example of this than the experience of local government funding over the last 13 years, which has seen £15 billion stripped out of funding in our communities to be replaced by £2.8 billion of funding from the notorious levelling-up fund. It does not take a mathematical genius to see that this is anything but levelling up.

While some in this House may find parts of Gordon Brown’s report challenging—even on this side of the House—the evidence that he cites from Professor Philip McCann, that half the UK population live in areas no better off than the poorer parts of the former East Germany and are poorer than parts of central and eastern Europe and the poorest states of the USA, is irrefutable nationally recognised evidence. The amendments submitted in relation to ensuring inclusivity of the nations and regions of the UK are a vital part of ensuring that we stop developing the potential of just some of the country and make a real irreversible shift in prosperity. As former Prime Minister Brown says in his report, we want Britain to be

“an equal opportunity economy – where, with the right powers in the right places, every community can play their full part in delivering national prosperity.”

Later this week, we will be considering progress on the recommendations of the Dunlop report. In 2019, the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, made recommendations about how to develop relationships, build trust and improve democratic accountability by

“encouraging a better understanding of the respective roles of the UK and devolved governments, and in particular the UK Government’s role in serving people across the country.”

He urged government towards

“a more predictable and robust process for managing intergovernmental relations”.

Of course, there are many elements to delivering this but to completely leave out of this Bill any reference to how levelling up is to be achieved across our nations and regions seems a huge missed opportunity. I hope that the Minister will consider these amendments with favour as the Bill goes through its Committee stage in your Lordships’ House.

All the amendments in this group relate to that. They talk about the statement of levelling-up missions being referred to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland where the whole or greater part of the responsibility lies with Scottish Ministers or Welsh Ministers or the Northern Ireland Executive. The amendments also talk about consulting with representatives of each devolved Administration as the statement comes into effect—indeed, that the statement would only come into effect once that has been done—and that the statement should be approved by Parliament, in consultation with the devolved Administrations. All these amendments are there to make sure that, across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as the regions of England, there is proper consultation on any element within the Bill as well as the way that the missions are formed or changed and on whether there is a mission statement that is required by a devolved Administration or a local authority where it relates to a devolved function.

As I say, I hope that the Minister is taking account of these discussions, and I look forward to hearing the debate.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendment tabled in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay of Llandaff and Lady Hayman of Ullock. I am most grateful for their support.

The point raised by the amendment goes to a very important constitutional issue. We are not discussing what the levelling-up mission should be but the allocation of responsibilities. It takes us to the heart of the devolution settlements. I have used the word “devolution”, and part of the problem arises from the fact that this Bill deals with devolution—there is a whole section on it—meaning devolution to English councils. Maybe the person who started to think about this Bill forgot that devolution in relation to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is something completely different. I think they failed to recall, first of all, that primary legislative powers in respect of many areas to be covered were passed to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Governments of those countries. I use the word “Governments”, because I think this Government have now got away from the Johnsonian phrase of “Administrations”—no doubt an attempt to belittle them. These Governments have responsibility in very important areas.

I wonder if it might be sensible, for the future, to distinguish between the two senses of the word devolution that this Bill has introduced. Maybe we should talk about “home rule” as part of the union for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, or maybe we should talk about it as “national devolution”. We need to distinguish it from English devolution, because that is where the muddle has occurred.

The Minister helpfully sent us the list of subject matters that are to be covered by the mission statements taken from the White Paper. It is quite interesting to look down them and see how they deal with the problem that arises in relation to areas where policy has been partially or completely devolved to the nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. One feels that someone, at some stage, should have understood this.

On education, the White Paper says:

“By 2030, the number of primary school children achieving the expected standard in reading, writing and maths will have significantly increased. In England, this will mean 90% of children will achieve the expected standard, and the percentage of children meeting the expected standard in the worst performing areas will have increased by over a third.”


But what of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? Plainly, at that stage, the person who drafted this had their thinking cap on, because they realised they could not do it. But then one goes on to look at well-being:

“By 2030, well-being will have improved in every area of the UK, with the gap between top performing and other areas closing.”


As a statement of motherhood and apple pie, I cannot think of anything better, but the draftsman has plainly forgotten that Wales has its own primary legislation on well-being.

One could go through all aspects of the White Paper and pull out the details, but I raise these points because there is here the issue of how you deal with wishing to make statements that are applicable across the UK while taking into account that the UK Government have no power over certain areas—they are completely or substantially devolved.

As I understand it, the authors of the White Paper—here I think the problem may have arisen—did not understand devolution. They make the statement, at page 121 of the White Paper, that:

“Unless otherwise specified, the missions apply across the whole of the UK.


But then they go on to say that:

“Devolution settlements mean the policy levers”—


extraordinary words to describe the devolution of substantial areas of government—

“for achieving aspects of these missions are devolved to administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Because levelling up outcomes for citizens needs close collaboration between all levels of government, a period of consultation on the missions will be undertaken with devolved administrations. The best way forward on sharing learning and comparing progress in these areas will be agreed with devolved administrations.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

As the noble and learned Lord already knows, I travel hopefully, so I will take his comments back to the department.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to what has been a thoughtful and interesting debate on this very key topic on the Bill. I will come back to the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, from the Constitution Committee, about respect and co-operation, which are absolutely key to making this work across the four nations and the regions of the UK. I add my support to the suggestion from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, who asked the Minister if, when we get to Report, we could have a letter from the nations of the UK discussing what has been done and the level of co-operation on this subject. That is a very helpful suggestion, for which I am grateful.

We have heard a really clear explanation of what brought these amendments forward: our concern about devolution being completely different for nations which have their own law-making powers and, in some cases, tax-raising powers, and how important it is to distinguish between that and what are, in fact, powers of competency offered to local government under the same word, “devolution”. We have to be cautious of that. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, warned us to be cautious about how consent can be achieved, that consultation is always a better option—I agree—and how funding will be allocated for the purpose of areas outside of competencies. On the experience of local government around funding, we need to be very careful about the boundaries we set between funding for areas that are the subject of law-making in our nations and the funding for areas of competency that come under Bill. We would all want to be cautious about that.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, for her explanation of what is happening in Wales. There is a lot to learn from Wales: earlier, we heard a powerful speech about child poverty, the future generations commissioner—about whom we have already heard—and the way that, in Wales, a well-being provision is set in law. These are very good lessons for us to learn from, and I hope that we will not miss that opportunity.

The noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, also urged the Minister to get around the table. I am encouraged by the Minister’s comments on what has taken place so far, but it has not been very clear, as we have gone through the preparation for the Bill, what has happened. That is why I support the suggestion from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, that we have some indication of how that is being worked on.

We must not miss this opportunity—it has been described as a golden opportunity, and I think it could be—to strengthen the union, and not fragment it, by imbedding the missions in a countrywide and democratic consensus. From what the Minister has said, that seems to be the Government’s intention. I hope that is what will happen because, if it does not, it will be subject to fragmentation.

I spoke about learning from the nations of the UK. I am sure that as well as the specific Welsh examples we have heard here today, there will be examples from Scotland and Northern Ireland that we can learn from, as well as from the English regions. I hope that will be part of the levelling-up experience going forward.

We should not miss the opportunity to instigate a proper debate about the quality of public service delivery, from departments delivering non-devolved services as well as examples of quality where they are delivered in the nations where power is devolved—that will be really important. We do not want to go forward with “one size fits all”. I am still concerned about some of the centralising aspects of the Bill. They come later in the Bill and no doubt we will hear about them in future discussions. However, there is very little in the Bill on funding, which concerned me. We need to know more about the national development plans and how they link in with local plans because, across our nations and regions, that could have the potential to be a centralising factor if we are not careful. Around the models of devolution, I hope they will be flexible to allow areas to have the type of devolution that is wanted and that works for those areas. In addition, there does not seem to be any clear mechanism to draw together the work of government departments in the work of levelling up. I hope that that is set out somewhere clearly, but it did not seem very clear as we went through the stages of preparing for the Bill.

There are some real opportunities here, but there are some real pitfalls that we could fall into—I think they were described that way earlier. As we aim towards levelling up, we fall into the crater of centralisation, making things more centralised in this country, which is the last thing we need. It has been articulated very clearly in this debate that if we really are to level up the country, the best decisions are made at local level. I am a passionate believer in that, and I want to see that work, whether it is in our four nations or in our regions. I hope we can continue to work towards that. There will be more work to do on this, as has been articulated very clearly by the Minister, therefore I beg leave to withdraw my amendment at this stage. However, I am sure there are further discussions to be held on this over the coming weeks and months.

Amendment 6 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, this could be a brief debate on this group of amendments. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, in her conclusions on missions and metrics—and I shall come back to that in a moment. I also agree entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, said a moment ago. I hope I quote him correctly, but I think he said, “The Bill will be useful if it forces a focus on the means of delivering levelling up”. That was particularly helpful, because it is really what these amendments in this small group are about.

In moving Amendment 10, I shall speak also to Amendment 58, to which I have added my name, and I want to support Amendment 48. There has been a lengthy debate on missions and metrics, the existing and the new ones. When I read the White Paper and then the Bill for the first time, particularly the missions and metrics, I concluded that we had to start with how outcomes would be evaluated. The metrics as set out will in most cases be impossible to interpret in the context of levelling up because they cover too large a spatial area. We need to know what exactly needs levelling up and where.

As an example, I take bus services, in the context of services in the past year being cut by 10% across the country. Yet in the document about measuring the progress in levelling up, in figure 16 there are mentions of buses—but it always assumes that there is a bus. It is about whether the bus is running late or not and whether you can get to work by bus on time, whereas the issue is actually whether there is a bus at all that will get, for example, a student in a school doing a T-level to the employer providing the 20% of work experience required for that T-level.

I concluded very early on in considering the Bill that we have to define the Bill’s use of the words “geographical” as well as “disparities”. A lot has been said about “disparities”, so I shall concentrate on “geographical”. Many statistics exist now, but not all the statistics that we would like to have. Some of those statistics that are available now are national, while some are regional and some are local, depending on which body produces them. I propose that we need to assess outcomes with independent assessment of what happens at a very local level, hence my suggestion of using area postcodes—or the first few digits, such as in mine, which are NE3. You cannot get it down to a street level, I concede, and I also concede that another way of addressing the issue is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, said, by doing it by council area and council ward. You could do it by council ward: 40 years ago we were doing assessments and metrics of this kind at a ward level in Newcastle upon Tyne. Most local authorities were able to produce evidence like that.

We have to be much clearer about how we are going to assess outcomes, for we have to do outcomes—it cannot just be about missions. How else will we know that levelling up is actually happening? I have a proposal for the Minister, which is what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, ended up saying. The Government should take back all the missions and metrics that they have put in the Bill’s documentation and then add to it everything that has been recorded in Hansard in all the excellent contributions that have been made. Then they need to reissue all those missions and metrics by the time we reach Report, which, because of recess dates, will be some weeks hence. I have absolutely no doubt that the department can easily do it in the time before we get to Report. I beg to move.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, it is rather a shame that this Bill appears to have become a bit of a Christmas tree Bill, with everything hung on it. As my noble friend Lady Hayman has said, in truth it is three Bills—a levelling-up Bill, a planning Bill and a structure of local government or devolution Bill. In truth, it would have been better had it come forward in that way.

If the Bill is to be true to its title as a levelling-up Bill, it must surely take the serious aspects of regional disparities as essential to making the Bill work. The amendments in this group—I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, as well—are tabled to ensure that the geographical differences between communities are properly assessed so that a baseline can be established and success then measured. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds said that without evaluative processes in the Bill they are just aspirations, and I agree. We can have as many dreams as we want about what might happen but, if we do not actually say where we are trying to get to, it is like setting out on a journey without a destination in mind. You do not know where you are going to end up, and that is really key.

The evidence on disparities between and within communities in the UK is irrefutable. The Government’s own figures show that 37% of disposable household income in the UK went to just one-fifth of individuals with the highest incomes, while only 8% went to those with the lowest. The Equality Trust has demonstrated just how unequally wealth is spread across the UK, with the south-east having median household wealth that is well over twice that in the north of England. It is true to say that some of this is driven by property wealth, but with the north-east, Wales, Yorkshire and the Humber and the east and West Midlands at less than half the wealth of London and the south-east, the impact on economic opportunities is stark. The Equality Trust research states that the UK has the highest level of income inequality than any other European country other than Italy.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds referred to the need to have discrete attention paid to the most serious causes of inequality, which is absolutely correct. We had a debate under the previous group of amendments around health inequalities. Those key areas of disparity between our regions are stark. The Health Foundation shows, for example, that a 60 year- old woman in the poorest areas of England has a level of diagnosed illness equivalent to that of a 76 year-old woman in the wealthier areas. Children in poorer areas are much more likely to be living with conditions such as asthma and epilepsy and, as they get into their 20s, with chronic pain, anxiety and depression—and for the over-30s in those areas there is the prevalence of diabetes, COPD and cardiovascular disease. There are demographic differences, too, with people from ethnic backgrounds all having higher levels of long-term illness.

We have already commented on the missing health disparities White Paper. It is terrible that that has been scrapped, because it would have made the assessment of levelling-up needs in relation to health far easier. We need to find out from the Minister what has happened to that health disparities White Paper. We will continue to support work which means that the Bill will show how levelling up will tackle health inequalities.

There are many areas of disparity. I shall also speak about educational attainment. While educational attainment in London and the south-east outstrips much of the rest of England, evidence from the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that a 16 year-old’s family income was more than four times as strong a predictor of GCSE attainment than their local authority of residence. Both the Sutton Trust and the Education Policy Institute have raised concerns that the pandemic has seen a widening of that educational attainment gap and that that has a lifelong impact on young people. I noted the Minister’s comments on this, but it is hard to see how the current lack of a fair funding system and the regressive nature of council tax will not continue to build in the inequalities that disadvantage those young people. As an example, I was very pleased to see that the Mayor of London used the increase in business rates he had had, which most areas of the country may not benefit from, to provide free school meals for all primary schoolchildren just this week.

As well as disparities between regions, it is important that the Bill recognises that there are also stark contrasts within areas. My noble friend Lady Hayman’s amendment refers to this. Even in London we have the classic examples of increasing levels of inequality as you go along the route of underground lines. This means that, on all measures—economic, health, education and well-being—there are great disparities. If we take the line between Kensington and Barking and Dagenham, we can see that the disparity grows as we go along that route. Similar disparities apply all across the south-east. Even in my own area, the county council division I represent has a difference of nine years in life expectancy from another area in my borough which is just three miles away. These differences are very stark.

I was very pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, talk about bus services. The lack of bus transport in some parts of our country is a real issue, and it affects particular groups of people who do not have access to other forms of transport—to name some, the elderly, students and those on low incomes. It effectively places them under a curfew and stops them having access to all the opportunities of work, school, college, hospital and health access, and social and welfare opportunities that they could take advantage of. It is a really big issue, depending on where you are.

I loved my noble friend Lady Hayman’s example of one bus a week. Obviously, in Cumbria, two buses a week would get us closer to London services, and that shows the difficulty with using faulty metrics: it is not helping anybody much to have two buses a week. I remember discovering, on my early visits to the Local Government Association here in London, that there was a bus literally every three minutes between Victoria and Westminster, which takes about 10 minutes to walk, if you can walk it. It was a revelation to me. Even 28 miles away, where I live, that is not the case. There are big differences and regional inequalities in those services.

I listened with interest to the powerful speeches earlier on housing, another area of inequalities between our regions, but I fear we would probably be here even later into the night if I started on housing. I shall just say that the Housing First provision we have made in my own area—where we put a roof over the head of someone who is street homeless first, in purpose-built accommodation, and then provide a package of complex-needs support—is making a real difference. That probably cannot be done everywhere, but these things make a difference and start tackling the real inequalities between our areas.

I hope the examples I have used, on the economy, health and education, demonstrate how important it is to be able to effectively measure the progress of levelling up if we are to be able to truly demonstrate its impact. The amendments in this group are key to ensuring that the Bill recognises the importance of the evaluation process, including the independent oversight which has been the subject of previous discussions in our first session on the Bill. I hope we can persuade the Minister—I know she has a lot to think about on the Bill—to reconsider some of those issues. If the Bill is truly to meet the aspirations of its title as a levelling-up Bill, we need to think about how we tackle those regional disparities.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

39: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Reports: local authoritiesA Minister of the Crown must publish guidance for county councils, unitary authorities and combined county authorities to publish annual reports on the delivery of levelling up missions.” Member’s explanatory statement
This means that a Minister of the Crown must publish guidance for county councils, unitary authorities and combined county authorities to publish annual reports on the delivery of levelling up missions.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am assuming, optimistically, that local government will be a key partner in levelling up; I hope that is the case. It is therefore a bit disappointing that we had so little knowledge among us about the Spatial Data Unit, the deep dive team and the Levelling Up Advisory Council. I hope that we can put that right as we go through the Bill.

In speaking to these amendments, I hope that the wording of Amendment 39 has not caused consternation among my local government colleagues. If it has, they can blame my inexperience in your Lordships’ House for that. It was certainly not intended to represent a burdensome, bureaucratic reporting process; I have had plenty of those in my time as a council leader.

My point in tabling the amendment was to reflect our overall concern that it is currently difficult to determine from the Bill what mechanisms will be introduced to enable the effective monitoring and management of levelling up, either between government departments or by consolidating the actions of local government with what happens in government departments. I have suggested that guidance be published for the exact opposite reason than burdensome bureaucracy: to give local government clarity about how we would contribute to that monitoring mechanism. That is Amendment 39.

My second amendment in this group refers to the perceived gap between the planning framework and the levelling-up missions. If the two do not correlate, we will once again be in a position where what happens in the day-to-day business of local government is in danger of being disconnected from the overall aim of levelling up. For example, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, referred earlier to the critical role that housing delivery can play in levelling up and my noble friend Lady Young spoke about the importance of the environment. Planning can certainly help tackle poverty of environment. The last example refers to the earlier comments from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the ability of planning to provide the framework to drive local economies. These are vital issues for levelling up. My second amendment is a probing one designed to determine both how that will be done and how the link will be made between the National Planning Policy Framework and the levelling-up missions.

Amendment 55 reflects my experience in local government, where there are always additions—they are generally helpful but sometimes are not quite so helpful—at the end of reports on legal, financial and equalities issues, climate change et cetera. The wide-ranging nature of levelling up means that it stretches right across government, and the business of local government is not necessarily an easy fit with government departments. It has been interesting for me since I came to your Lordships’ House to see that adult social care, for example, which is very much part of everyday local government life, does not sit in the local government department in central government but sits with health and social care. I have a big domestic abuse unit in my council in Hertfordshire; that sits very much with the Home Office in central government. There is not always an easy link so part of the mechanism to ensure that the Bill is considered properly as legislation goes through should be that those impact assessments refer specifically to how legislation reflects the aims of the Bill. Of course, in this case, I am thinking specifically of local government legislation as it comes forward.

I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, has raised some significant points in her amendments in this group. The first is to include in the Bill the engagement of local authorities in reporting on levelling up in their areas. My noble friend Lord Shipley said in our debate on the previous group how there has been an obsession in government, from Governments across the decades, with ruling England from Westminster and Whitehall down to minute areas of decision-making. Certainly on this side of the House, we believe that local people and their locally and democratically elected representatives are best placed in this context to determine what areas within their council boundaries would best benefit from the levelling-up missions and funding. They would also be able to report on them because they have a depth of understanding and data that would help to make clear what progress has or has not been made.

That is a point well made, as is the point that the National Planning Policy Framework, which is currently in review, will relate to many of the missions in the Bill. Are we going to build new homes that are car-reliant or will we ensure that they can access public transport? Are we going to make them safe places in a safe environment for housing? Is there going to be in the framework allocation of land so that businesses are in appropriate places and are accessible for people who want jobs? All of that means that that is a very important point well made. No doubt it will be pursued at later stages of the Bill.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, looks at the role of local government and the National Planning Policy Framework in delivering levelling up.

First, Amendment 39 would mean that county councils, unitary authorities and combined county authorities would publish annual reports on the delivery of levelling-up missions. I hardly need to re-emphasise that local authorities and local leaders have a crucial role to play in levelling up places across the UK. Empowering local leaders, including through agreeing devolution deals and simplifying the funding landscape, is a cornerstone of the levelling-up agenda.

This principle of empowerment is absolutely critical. Noble Lords have tended to criticise the Government for any suggestion of the centre telling local authorities what to do; writing this amendment into the Bill might appear to do just that. Having said that, many organisations outside central government, including All-Party Parliamentary Groups, academics, business bodies, think tanks and local organisations, have been debating and scrutinising the levelling-up agenda and how it could be taken forward in particular areas of the country; I have no doubt that they will continue to do so. The provisions on reporting in the Bill will further enable such independent assessment and thinking but requiring local authorities to report in this way, as I think the noble Baroness herself recognised, would surely be disproportionate and unnecessary.

Amendment 55 would mean that a Minister must publish a report on the impacts of this legislation on local government and a strategy to consider how this part of the Bill will impact local authorities through future legislation. The new burdens doctrine, established and maintained by successive Governments, requires all Whitehall departments to justify why new duties, powers, targets and other bureaucratic burdens should be placed on local authorities, as well as how much such policies and initiatives will cost and where the money will come from to pay for them. It is very clear that anything which issues a new expectation on the sector should be assessed for new burdens. As the Government develop new policies to deliver against their levelling-up missions, they will fully assess the impact on local authorities and properly fund the net additional cost of all new burdens placed on them. Therefore, this provision already ensures that the Government must properly consider the impact of their policies, legislation and programmes on local government and fully fund any new burdens arising.

Amendment 54 would mean that a Minister must publish draft legislation for ensuring that the National Planning Policy Framework has regard to the levelling-up missions. Although it would not be appropriate to legislate to embed the levelling-up missions in planning policy, the levelling-up missions are nevertheless government policy. Planning policy to achieve these will be a relevant consideration when developing local plans and determining planning applications.

The department is currently consulting on updating the National Planning Policy Framework. The consultation document was published in December 2022 and the consultation is due to close in March 2023. It sets out a number of areas where changes to national planning policy might be made to reflect the ambitious agenda set out in the levelling up White Paper, and invites ideas for planning policies which respondents think could be included in a new framework to help achieve the 12 levelling-up missions in the levelling up White Paper. The department will respond to this consultation by the spring of 2023 so that policy changes can take effect as soon as possible.

In summary, I suggest that these amendments, though well intended, are unnecessary. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her Amendment 39 and not move Amendments 54 and 55.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Earl for his thoughtful response. On the first amendment, Amendment 39, I explained that I thought that perhaps the wording was a little confusing. I did not intend to impose a burdensome doctrine on my colleagues in local government; I do not think that they would have forgiven me if I had done that—I want to walk out of here unscathed. I think that is really important. However, it is important that local government understands what its role is going to be in measuring and monitoring the success or otherwise of the levelling-up missions. I will withdraw my amendment, but I hope that Ministers will consider how local government is going to take part in that essential exercise of determining whether the levelling-up missions have been successful and, just as government departments are going to have to pull that together, how local government will be required to do so.

In relation to the second amendment, Amendment 54, I understand that the National Planning Policy Framework is being revised at the moment. I hope that it will be revised with the levelling-up missions embedded in it, because that will help clarify matters for local government. When we get legislation coming forward without the documents to support it, it is difficult to say whether that is going to happen. I hope we will get the opportunity to have good scrutiny of the National Planning Policy Framework when it comes forward so that we can make our decision at the time about whether it actually works in terms of having a countrywide set of levelling-up missions.

On the last of my amendments, Amendment 55, it is always good to hear that financial aspects are being taken into account. I understand all about the new burdens funding—which, I have to say, sometimes works and sometimes does not in practice—but that was not exactly the point that I was making. I was referring to how local government contributes to those missions. We have the Levelling Up Advisory Council, which I presume is going to draw together the work of different departments and how they contribute. My point was about how we make that assessment as legislation is issued and how that legislation contributes to the missions. If this is to be the biggest change we are going to have across local government, then surely it is important that any legislation coming forward talks about the contribution that it is going to make. Of course, it will need funding, and I would welcome new burdens funding for new challenges that it brings with it, but we also need to understand how it works in terms of new legislation that will come forward. I am grateful to the noble Earl for his response.

Amendment 39 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

50: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Levelling Up FundIf an allocation is made from the Levelling Up Fund, a Minister of the Crown must publish a statement explaining how the allocation supports the levelling-up missions.”Member’s explanatory statement
This means that the Government must explain how allocations from the levelling up fund support the levelling up missions.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for an interesting debate on robotics. It was an interesting answer from the noble Earl as well.

I am speaking to Amendment 50 in my name, the amendment tabled in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman and in support of Amendment 57, submitted by the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine. I am grateful for her engagement with me and with my noble friend Lady Hayman on this part of the Bill.

The levelling-up fund, well intentioned as I am sure it was, has generated more light than heat so far. The unfortunate Hunger Games-style bidding process pitted areas that all have legitimate needs against one another, wasted millions in the application process and has seen the bids eaten away by inflation. That has broken too much of the promise with which the fund set out. In fact, just today, SIGOMA—the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities—published its analysis, saying that there is no strong correlation between deprivation and allocation from either round 1 or 2 of the levelling-up fund. It seems that even the Treasury is concerned about the fact that there appears to be little to link the allocations with identified regional inequalities, or any strategy to show the contribution that the fund is making to the overall strategic aims of the missions.

As we heard earlier today, regional inequalities are going in the wrong direction and therefore increasing. I referred earlier to those issues. Transport is one example. There are many examples of bus services being lost up and down the country and an appalling situation relating to train cancellations, which are now at a record high.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, in an earlier group, set out the shocking fact that Leeds has spent a third of a million on the bidding process, which achieved absolutely no return whatever. We do not yet know what the total figure is for the UK but, in these desperate times for local government funding, it is a travesty that authorities are having to put that much money in without any idea as to whether they will get a return—something that you would never tolerate in business, I suspect.

In the amendments debated on day 1 of Committee, a strong case was made for including the missions in the Bill—we heard more about that today—to ensure that there is clarity of purpose and so that we can be sure that funding allocated for levelling up clearly demonstrates which mission or missions it is aimed at. Of course, we are very pleased for those areas that received levelling-up funding. I was with the leader of Broxbourne Council yesterday and he was delighted to have been successful in his bid. But, given that local government has lost £15 billion in funding since 2015, a funding round of £2.8 billion is crumbs from the table when there are communities that are desperate, really desperate, for investment.

It is of great concern that in the round 2 bids, there was rock-bottom allocation for Yorkshire and the Humber, and nothing for Birmingham, Nottingham, Stoke, or the Stonehouse community in Plymouth that is in the bottom 0.2% for economic activity. We really must do better than explaining the criteria for bidding after the submission of the bids has closed, which happened with round 2. It has also become apparent that the impact of inflation on round 1 bids has meant that some of them have had to be re-evaluated, some of them have not even had a spade in the ground so far, and there is no clear path for meeting the added costs. I am sure that the Minister, with her extensive experience in local government, knows that expecting local authorities to meet inflation costs from their hard-pressed budgets, on future bidding rounds or even on the existing ones, is unrealistic.

I am sure that what local government would really like to see is not these constant bidding rounds—it is not just the levelling-up fund, there are others as well—but a real long-term plan for a sustainable and fair funding system meaning that local areas can plan for their own futures and focus on delivering levelling up in their area, rather than competing for successive bidding rounds. I served on the fair funding task force for over five years. It does not seem to have got anywhere very far. It is about time we recognised that real localism means real funding for real local authorities to deliver what their areas need.

The amendments are designed to ensure that we have clarity around the link between the missions and the funding, and to make provision for review after a year to ensure that they are delivering against anticipated outcomes. I am sure that even the Treasury would agree with that. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I will be very happy to provide that information.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for the debate on the levelling-up fund. It is a key issue to discuss as we go into the Bill because, clearly, none of the levelling-up project will happen without proper funding, and most of us in local government certainly feel that the levelling-up fund has not been the way to do it.

I want to start with the issue of categories 1, 2 and 3. Those categories deterred some authorities from applying because people felt that, if they were in a higher-banded category, they would not have any chance of getting any funding. It was very disappointing when they did not bid because they thought they were not going to get any and then found that others in the same category, and some in higher categories, were allocated funding. So I support the request from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for some explanation of how that banding works.

My second point is about how the Treasury is feeling about round 3. I am not clear on what the Treasury has done in terms of the levelling-up fund: whether it has stopped round 3 for the time being, whether it has delayed it or what it is doing with it. It would be interesting to know how that is going to happen going forward.

The Minister mentioned match funding, and I am sure that she is as aware as I am that the various places that it used to come from are scarce and in very short supply these days. So match funding can also deter people from bidding for things. I know that it is not compulsory to have it, but, if you think you will not achieve your bid without it, it may deter people from bidding in the first place. It seems almost certain that the areas that need match funding the most are the least likely to have access to it, so it goes against the principles of levelling up.

I was pleased to hear the Minister talk about the recognition of the need to address the complexities in the funding landscape, which is vital. Moving forward, as the delivery of the missions gets more complex, we absolutely need to be clear about a straightforward mechanism for funding.

I was pleased to hear the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, which was helpful. I am grateful for the work that Business in the Community does across the country in helping to move the levelling-up agenda forward. I was impressed and pleased that she mentioned the issue around capital funding and having revenue funding to support it. Too often, funding pots are allocated and things are built and delivered—because that is what ticks the box for the department concerned—but the ongoing revenue for that project is not considered and ends up being a local burden that can, in some instances, result in the original project never being delivered properly, because there is not the revenue to deliver it. So I hope that future funding pots will take that into consideration.

I was shocked about the Blackpool project being funded but then going into a period in which it is not. You cannot stand these projects up and down at very short notice: they take a lot of planning, and the disappointment for young people engaged in something when the tap is turned off and that project stops is almost worse than doing nothing at all, because it adds to their feelings of having things taken away from them.

On the short timescales and short delivery times, if levelling up is going to work properly, it must work with a great spirit of co-operation and collaboration between those tasked with delivering it—there may be more than one public agency doing that. Having these very short bidding times and delivery times in some instances is not at all helpful, and I hope that that can be taken into consideration.

We heard information about the town deals and the towns fund. I have been quite close to one of them, and, although there is an equal lack of transparency in allocation, there was very serious scrutiny of what the outcomes would be before the bidding and allocation. That is something that we should look to for the future.

I was pleased to hear the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, about the serious lack of credibility in the scheme. I talk to my colleagues in local government all the time, and there is no doubt in my mind that there has been a great loss of credibility in the scheme. The Minister referred to a feedback process; it may be that that has got going fairly recently, because the second-round funding has only recently been announced. But those who were involved at the time certainly felt that they had not had an adequate opportunity to receive any feedback. Of course, they want to learn because, if there will be multiple rounds of this, people want to know what they did wrong and, equally, the ones who got it right want to know what they did right.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, referred to the reason we have been pressing so hard on these definitions of geography, missions and metrics, and how they will be used: because of how they will be used to determine funding. Even if funding for levelling up were to be considered for a completely different model—such as one much more like the sort of model I would like to see, which is local government being given the funding and being allowed to get on with it—surely we must have a method which determines how funding follows need, rather than just whoever puts in the shiniest bid at the time.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

60: Clause 7, page 6, line 33, after “whole” insert “or part”
Member's explanatory statement
This probing amendment means that a CCA can include part of a two-tier council area, rather than the whole area.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, as we start to examine those parts of the Bill which address local government and devolution powers, we might welcome the fact that the Bill addresses the long-standing asks of councils and their representative bodies for greater devolution, and that there is more flexibility in the proposed structure of combined county authorities than we might previously have envisaged. Nevertheless, we had hoped for a Bill that was far more ambitious and open to ideas when looking to address the imbalance of power in the UK.

As we have often heard in your Lordships’ House, the UK today is the most centralised state in Europe and there is too much in the Bill that seeks further powers for the Secretary of State to intervene. I welcome very much that the Secretary of State accepts that the national challenges require place-based solutions—at least, it appeared so from the White Paper. However, I feel strongly that Part 2 would better deliver this if accompanied by greater powers and fairer funding so that leaders can support the local economic recovery according to the needs of their own areas.

We have pointed out before in your Lordships’ House that, without a comprehensive and fair funding system across local government which would properly empower local authorities to deliver what is needed to support, sustain and develop their communities and economies, any steps taken towards devolution will have a hollow ring. Even worse, if funding mechanisms are driven by the current competitive bidding pots, which favour areas that are able to spend the most on shiny bids, they will run counter to the whole levelling-up agenda. I was grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for saying that the sheer number of funds have become onerous and that we certainly need to look at that. There is a further danger in this “bidding bingo” way of funding local areas: it is yet another way of imposing the Government’s policy on growth and infrastructure in local areas and does not make for true devolution in any sense of the word.

We may have wished that provisions for reorganising local government had been the subject of a separate devolution Bill, an issue I have raised before in your Lordships’ House. Given that this does not appear to be on the horizon, we will be seeking amendments to transfer greater powers to local areas. I welcome the implicit recognition that devolution can drive economic, social and environmental development in local areas, but questions remain over whether the specific model of combined county authorities is right for every area, and whether all the current constituent parts of local government will have their importance recognised and their voice heard as the new structures develop. Local residents and leaders will always know best their own areas and the powers they need to deliver on their ambitions. Amendments for this part of the Bill will aim to allow greater flexibility for towns, cities, counties and the people who live in them to determine their own future.

Amendment 60 is a probing amendment to discover what a CCA can include as part of a two-tier council area—will all or only part of it be allowed? The amendment is designed to help us understand whether the Government will prescribe the nature of a CCA area to include all constituent councils. This has been tabled because there has been significant confusion about the geography of CCAs and what is and is not in scope. For example, does the CCA have to include the whole of an upper-tier authority area? In the case of my home county, Hertfordshire, must it include the whole of the county? The Minister will know that this is complicated: in some areas, counties already include unitary areas, and some county areas have enormous populations and significantly diverse demographics.

In previous devolution rounds, we have seen a confusing spectrum of scope—from being instructed on what will be in and out geographically, to documentation saying that it is for local government to decide. The second option is clearly preferable to all of us, but even when that is the stated initial intent, the goalposts are often moved during the bidding rounds to be more prescriptive than was initially thought.

Amendment 99 probably belongs better with the group of amendments relating to consultation on CCAs. If consultation is needed for the formation of a CCA and/or its dissolution, as we contend in other amendments, should there not also be consultation when a CCA is to be amended? Later regulations could determine the qualifying parameters for this, so that extensive consultation is not necessary for minor changes. This and similar amendments seek to determine the principle of public engagement on local government structures. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, is quite right to table this amendment to explore the area that can be included in a combined county authority. As I understand it, a combined county authority is a bit of a misnomer. Last Wednesday, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said in response to an amendment that a CCA could include, for instance, the unitary authority of Wiltshire and the city unitary authority of Swindon. Equally, when I asked her what would happen in Devon, she said quite clearly that the county and district authorities of Devon and the unitary authority of Plymouth would be included. These are not necessarily combined county authorities: they are unitary and county and district combined authorities—if that is determined, we hope, by the people who live there and the councillors elected to represent them.

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[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I am pleased that the Minister has raised the East Midlands. On the northern tip of the East Midlands there is Chesterfield and north Derbyshire. Most businesses in that area would look into the South Yorkshire Combined Authority in terms of their business, and not into the county combined authority. It seems to be an administrative boundary designed down here in Whitehall rather than a true travel-to-work area. How would the north Nottinghamshires and Chesterfields be affected by this when, in reality, the economic performance and activity is actually into the South Yorkshire Combined Authority?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

May I add to what my noble colleagues have said? This goes to the heart of this amendment. We struggle to say how you can have a county with more than one functioning economic area included in that county. To take my county as an example, the south of the county largely relates to London, because some of the boroughs almost are London boroughs, whereas the north of the county relates much more to Cambridge and Bedfordshire. There are definitely two distinct, functioning economic areas within one shire county. The shire counties go back centuries: their economic geographies have changed very considerably since then. If you take the economic geography of my noble friend Lady Hayman’s area, people in Cumbria may even relate to an economic area that includes parts of Scotland. This is not a simple picture around the country.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

Some extremely sensible and logical points have just been made. Perhaps I could address them by pointing out the contrast to what we have seen up to now. Devolution deals, up to now, have typically been put in place in city regions, where they cover the functional geographies in which people travel, commute, work and live.

The Government absolutely recognise that functional economic geographies are far less clear-cut in rural and semi-urban areas, and that the strategic scale and cultural and political resonance of county identities can act as a useful proxy. One can work only on the basis of best endeavours when trying to decide what a sensible area looks like. On a best endeavours basis, deals should be agreed over a sensible geography of a functional economic area, with a single institution in place across that geographic footprint to access more powers. That is the aim.

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[Earl Howe (Con)]

I take the noble Lord’s point. The experience we have had with combined authorities is that local authorities’ natural tendency is to co-operate with each other. We have seen this all over the place: they do not want to operate in silos and they look outside their boundaries. Yes, there may well be cases where at the beginning there would seem not to be a particularly good fit, but that does not preclude two authorities, such as those he mentioned, getting together and finding a way through, if they possibly can, to address the mismatches of the kind he mentioned.

Amendment 99 seeks to amend Clause 23 to require a public consultation before any proposal to change the area of an existing combined county authority. We agree that those with an interest in the area should be consulted before a combined county authority is changed. As I said, we will have more to say about this in the debate on the next group of amendments.

Clauses 45 and 46 set out a requirement for a public consultation on any proposals from the local area on changes to the area of a CCA. Where a combined county authority has been established and subsequently seeks to change its boundary, Clause 23 enables the Secretary of State to make regulations for areas to achieve that. The Secretary of State may make regulations changing the area of a CCA if that is something the area consents to, the Secretary of State agrees and Parliament approves the necessary secondary legislation.

We fully recognise the crucial importance of residents in the local area having a say; that is common ground between us. That is why any CCA or local authority seeking to submit a proposal to the Secretary of State to change the area of a CCA must carry out a public consultation, as set out in Clause 45(3). This consultation must take place in the area covered by the CCA. This enables local residents, businesses and other interested parties to have a strong input into any such proposals. A summary of consultation responses is then to be submitted to the Secretary of State alongside the proposal.

Clause 46 provides an additional safeguard to ensure that there is sufficient public consultation. This enables the Secretary of State to undertake a consultation prior to making any regulations to enact these changes if they feel that there has been insufficient public involvement in their development.

We completely agree with the sentiment of Amendment 99, but I suggest that we already have provisions later in the Bill to address this; we will debate some of these in a few moments. I therefore hope that the noble Baroness feels able to withdraw Amendment 60 and not to move Amendment 99 when it is reached.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased we tabled these probing amendments, because they have brought out some of the discussion we needed to have in these areas. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for her comments. She said that “combined county authority” is a misnomer, and I think she is absolutely correct.

Previous responses indicate that we could include unitaries and counties all within a two-tier area. It is not clear in the Bill what that might mean. In the example of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, with the overlap of economic areas and travel-to-work areas, et cetera, the geography is far more complicated than back in whatever century it was when the county shire boundaries were devised. The purpose of my amendment was to determine whether parts of a two-tier area would be required to join a CCA if it did not work for them. It is really important that we do some more probing around this and think about it more.

We did not get on to the subject of population, which I will come to in a minute. My concern with this is that we have the phrase that the Secretary of State can determine “by regulation” what a combined county authority will look like. That does not seem to me to be in the spirit of devolution in any way whatever. If it is for the Secretary of State to determine that by regulation, I would be interested to know the noble Earl’s view on how that would be conducted in relation to the partners in the local area.

I am grateful for the noble Earl’s extensive response on this, which is an indication that we are moving the debate forward somewhat. I will come back to the issue of the functional economic area. These are not neatly contained now within county council areas. We have heard a few examples of that. We need to focus on that and think about how we might amend the Bill to recognise that.

The noble Earl spoke about streamlining funding. I was grateful for those comments and I am sure they will be welcomed across local government, but when will we see the detail of how that streamlining of funding will work? If he has any more information on that, it would be helpful.

I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Earl said about city regions. They make a lot more sense—I spent quite a lot of time with colleagues in the city region in Manchester looking at how that works. However, that does not mean that that model can be lifted and put down in areas that are very different in this country. The difficulties that we have set out underline exactly why there must be flexibility for local areas to consider for themselves what the appropriate geography might be for them.

I return to the issue of population size. In previous iterations of these bids for devolution, we were told that any bid under 600,000 population would not be considered. My county of Hertfordshire has a population of 1.2 billion—sorry, 1.2 million; I am exaggerating—which is a very different issue from a rural county that might have a population of only 300,000. That is why this is much more complicated in shire areas. Will the noble Earl comment on whether population issues will be taken into consideration in relation to the size and constitution of combined county authority areas?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

It may be helpful to the noble Baroness if I comment on that specific question. We expect upper tier local authorities with a population of less than 500,000 to collaborate with their neighbouring authorities to agree a sensible geography for a devolution deal. Where neighbouring local authorities wish to join a deal which has been negotiated and have the same level of ambition, we will expect other authorities to take this seriously in order to secure devolution and to avoid areas being stranded. Once again, I come back to the point I made earlier that our experience with combined authorities has shown that this kind of co-operation takes place quite readily. That is the position we have taken currently.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Earl for his clarification. It covers one side of the picture with the smaller county areas. However, larger county areas, where the population may not lean towards a single county authority, should still be a subject for discussion.

I agree that we have several amendments relating to consultation processes and that the other amendment in this group probably sits better with those, so I am happy to postpone discussion of that until the future group. However, the principle of consultation, and recognising the importance of local areas having a say, seems to be enshrined for all the other issues around the setting up and dissolution of a CCA. If it is right for those, it must be right for a change of boundaries too. That is the point we were trying to make with Amendment 99. That said, we have had a useful discussion and I am happy to withdraw Amendment 60 at this stage.

Amendment 60 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

61: Clause 7, page 7, line 5, at end insert—
“(3A) The Secretary of State may not lay regulations under this section until he or she has deemed that establishment is supported by no less than 60% of residents in the area.”Member's explanatory statement
This means that a CCA is established only if the Secretary of State deems there is no less than 60% of support from the local residents.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, as we have already discussed this afternoon, the principle of consultation when fundamental changes are being made to governance structures is an important one. Amendment 61 is aimed at establishing the principle of public consultation in relation to the formation of a combined county authority and to setting a realistic threshold for the constitutional reform to proceed.

A fundamental principle of localism is that changes must be made with people and not to them. Without a provision in the Bill like this, it is too easy for a leader or a group of leaders, or even a Secretary of State, to take fundamental governance changes, such as the formation of a CCA, a long way without consulting those who will be affected by them. The complex structure of local government in the UK, which means some areas have multiple layers of local authorities overseeing services, makes this even more necessary. The amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman outlines the process for ensuring that the outcome of the consultation process is publicly available, essentially before any submission to form a combined county authority is made.

Amendment 62 is designed to probe government thinking on the constitution of combined county authorities. With the rolling five-year housing targets potentially being removed, for example, is it the intention that governance structures should be able to consider the impact across a defined economic area, or do the Government envisage that the combined county authority will determine such matters for itself? If the latter is the case, is there to be an arbitration process which will help to determine where one economic area crosses boundaries with another? On the issue of non-constituent members of CCAs, for example, will it be the case that some members of authorities will be required to sit in more than one authority if it affects their economic geography?

Amendment 63 reflects on the nature of levelling-up missions and the significant part of the Bill that refers to planning matters. The Government may have assumed that co-operation between combined county authorities would take place in order, for example, to resolve boundary issues where a service is necessarily delivered across boundaries or where a planning matter either crosses boundaries or requires a facility delivered in one area to have the use of services provided in another. As I make these points, I am reminded of the example of Harlow and Gilston village, which sits in both Essex and Hertfordshire.

Planning history suggests that writing the duty of co-operation on the face of the Bill would be helpful. Whether we are talking about the delivery of missions across rural areas, or in urban areas such as London and Manchester, where the boundaries of CCAs may be complex, guidance and a framework for duties to co-operate would probably be helpful.

Amendment 64 is crucial, particularly as it is difficult to see how missions will be delivered at all with a patchwork quilt of non-coterminous boundaries between public bodies as they are currently constituted. This has been a long-standing issue in local government. The amendment will, for example, enable discussions about the impact of the rollout of ICSs on the potential for future health devolution—a really important issue. If we do not devolve the responsibility for health issues to these new authorities, we will not be able to tackle as effectively the inequalities in health that we discussed in earlier debates on the Bill.

It is welcome to note from the Greater Manchester population health plan that significant benefits have already been recorded for local residents following the devolution of health and social care to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. This includes a substantial increase in school readiness and a smoking prevalence rate falling twice as fast as the national average. We definitely see the benefits of this, and we want to see it extended across other devolved areas. We would welcome further information from the Government on how they envisage the further devolution of health, police and crime commissioner powers, and other public functions which would enable the progress of the missions.

Amendment 65 is probably shaped by my long experience as a district councillor. We in district councils were very pleased to see the original amendment to Clause 18, which enshrines the role of district councils in determining the future governance of their areas; but I always believe in a belt and braces approach, particularly where the track record for inclusion has not always been consistent. The same applies to my colleagues in the National Association of Local Councils in respect of parish and town councils. We want everybody to be included in these discussions.

Lastly, Amendments 101 and 102 refer to the dissolution of CCAs. The first would require that public consultation take place before dissolution. If there is to be consultation on the setting up of a CCA, it follows that it should also take place if one is to be dissolved. Amendment 102 asks the Secretary of State to clarify, upon dissolution of a CCA, how local powers will be retained, and implicitly suggests that they will not return to central government. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on how that might work for the future. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 127, which appears in my name in this group, and to make a couple of brief comments on the amendments so clearly and comprehensively presented by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage.

I refer back to the terminology the noble Baroness used in the previous group when talking about what the spirit of devolution should be: it should surely be a democratic spirit. The decision about the shape of devolution should rest with the local people, the people who are actually affected. Historically, the perception and the reality of some instances of devolution has been deals done un-transparently, in the dark, in what would once have been smoke-filled rooms. The smoke may have gone, but that lack of transparency remains.

What we are seeking here is a different idea of devolution—devolution that is truly transparent and open, with local people in control of the process rather than having it inflicted on them. With that in mind, my Amendment 127 calls for a referendum to be conducted on whether a combined county authority should be established in a given area. It occurs to me, having listened to the debate on previous groups of amendments, that the amendment should say “established or disestablished”, but we are in Committee so we can explore these things as we go along.

I see that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, is in his place, so we might have already had extensive discussion about what happened in Sheffield, South Yorkshire and north Derbyshire. I will not, therefore, go into great detail on that, but it is worth noting that Sheffield voted against having a mayor and then, not long afterwards, found itself with a mayor.

I will also give a more positive, more recent example from Sheffield. Sheffield is the largest local authority to convert, through a referendum, from a cabinet-based system to a modern committee-based system of government. I know many of the people who were involved in that campaign, which was led not by political parties but by a local community group. Many people said, “You’ll never get this referendum through. It’s all too technical, difficult and complicated, and people won’t understand.” But the referendum was voted through. It was a real vehicle for a huge amount of debate and discussion in the city about how it was run and administered, and how that could be done better. Putting a referendum in for CCAs would be a chance to have a discussion and a debate, and to really engage local people, which is what we need in our local areas to improve the quality of local governance.

Of course, the other recent example of such change, driven at the local level with decisions made by local people, is the city of Bristol deciding to get rid of its mayor. That was the decision that the people of the city made. Again, some said, “You’ll never get this referendum through; everyone is just going to shrug and it will all be too difficult.” But people were engaged and involved and they made the decision for themselves. Surely, that is what democracy means, and that is why I have tabled this amendment.

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I hope that these rather lengthy explanatory comments are helpful and that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, will feel able to withdraw Amendment 61.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the noble Earl for his detailed comments on the amendments. I would like to start with a few comments on the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. She mentioned that devolution deals were often done in smoke-filled rooms. I do not think that would have been the case in Manchester because they seem to have cracked the smoking cessation issue in Manchester, which is good to hear. But it is true that there has been an impression that these deals were cooked up behind closed doors. There has not always been a degree of consultation, which is why we have had such a significant discussion this afternoon around what consultation should take place on the setting up of a CCA, the dissolution of one or any boundary changes. The examples that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, gave on the effectiveness of public consultation and referendums in both Sheffield and Bristol illustrate that these things can be done very effectively, if adequate information is provided for the public to have a debate and discussion before they vote.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, raised the opportunity for the Government to issue a statement on consultation, being clear about what the parameters need to be, what the Government’s powers are and what local people can expect to have a say on. That is a vital point.

We also had a lot of discussion under this group of amendments and the previous group on travel-to-work areas. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked whether each CCA is going to have a single economic hub. I do not think that question has been answered yet. We may have multiple hubs in county areas. I will use a local example, as it is the one I know best. In Hertfordshire there are multiple hubs. There are even two very distinct economic clusters: one in the pharmaceutical industry, which is thriving and doing extremely well in things like cell and gene therapy, and one in the creative industries. They are very distinct and different economic hubs within one area. We need to think about how that works in counties where there is not just a simple, single economic hub.

On Amendment 63, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, talked about how previously on this Bill the Government have been clear more than one public authority may be included in the CCA. Non-constituent members have been talked about a lot. If there is more than one public authority in an area—for example, a local enterprise partnership, the National Health Service or a PCC—it can be very confusing when they do not have coterminous boundaries about who is responsible for delivering within that CCA. It is important that we get further clarification on that as the Bill develops and goes forward.

My noble friend Lady Hayman spoke about standards of consultation and the fact that the consultation should be publicly available. Added to our other discussions on consultation, these are important points. I am grateful to the noble Earl for saying that he would come back to us on that strange subsection in Clause 46 that talks about the Secretary of State having the power to say that they do not think that any further consultation is necessary. That will require further clarification.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to members of the Committee for such an interesting debate about statements and guidance on combined county authorities. We agree completely with the need for transparency on the wide range of issues in these amendments.

Amendment 66, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, seeks to place a requirement on the Secretary of State to publish an environmental impact assessment 120 days after making regulations that establish a combined county authority. I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness that in making the regulations, government and Parliament will have already considered the environmental impact of doing so. When deciding whether to make regulations to establish a combined county authority or change arrangements for an existing one, the Secretary of State has to consider statutory tests, including whether it would improve the environmental well-being of some or all of those who live and work in the area. Indeed, the regulations cannot be made unless the Secretary of State considers that this test would be met. There is therefore in our view an ample opportunity for Parliament to consider this.

This amendment would also require a combined county authority to publish an annual environmental impact assessment of its ongoing operation. As a form of local government body, CCAs will be subject to the same requirements as other local authorities to publish environmental impact assessments for specific pieces of work and decisions where necessary.

Amendment 74, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, seeks a public statement of the definition and description of a non-constituent member of a combined county authority. I hope I can reassure her that there is already a definition for a non-constituent member in Clause 9. Paragraph 135 of the Explanatory Notes explains that:

“A non-constituent member of a CCA is a representative of a local organisation or body—such as a district council, Local Enterprise Partnership or university—that can attend CCA meetings to input their specific local knowledge into proceedings”.


The Explanatory Notes go on to explain how a non-constituent member would be chosen. First, the combined county authority may designate an organisation or body as a “nominating body” of a combined county authority if that organisation or body consents to the appointment. A nominating body would be a local organisation such as a district council. The nominating body will then suggest the representative to attend for its body—for example, the leader of the council—and that individual is the non-constituent member.

An associate member is an individual person such as a local business leader or an expert in a local issue whom a CCA can appoint. This enables the associate member to be a representative at CCA meetings and to input their specific local knowledge into proceedings.

I hope I can allay the doubts and fears of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on this issue. This model is designed to allow for genuine localism. It allows the local area to decide which local organisations or bodies will bring the greatest benefit to the combined county authority, and then appoint them. No two areas are the same. Depending on the local area, this will be different stakeholders, but examples of bodies that we expect to see combined county authorities engaging with are, as I mentioned, district councils, local enterprise partnerships, local universities, local health organisations and local registered providers, to name just a few.

The clause provides that district councils can be non-constituent members of a combined county authority. This will facilitate district councils having a formal seat at the table in putting their local expertise and ensuring join-up. Non-constituent members could attend the combined county authority’s cabinet meetings, be on sub-committees, and sit on overview and scrutiny committees and audit committees, giving those organisations that want them a role and voice in the combined county authority.

The model allows for local flexibility to reflect the different situations of different areas. If the combined county authority and all district councils wish to be involved, they can all be non-constituent members. However, if one does not, a devolution deal will not fall, as it would under the current combined authority model.

As stated in the levelling-up White Paper, we expect the upper-tier local authorities that we are agreeing devolution deals with to work with district councils to deliver the powers most effectively being provided. In discussions thus far, we have been pleased to see collaboration between upper- and lower-tier councils on devolution proposals to deliver for their area.

I emphasise that it is down to the combined county authority to decide what voting rights a non-constituent member should have rather than this being imposed by us in Westminster. Depending on the decision of the combined county authority, its non-constituent members can be given voting rights on the majority of matters.

I hope that this provides sufficient clarity on non-constituent members. I shall, of course, read Hansard and pick up any further questions that I feel I have not covered adequately, and I will write to noble Lords on those points.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As a further point of clarification, if the Minister will allow, is that saying specifically that district councils represented on a CCA will not have a vote, whereas the CCA can decide that other non-constituent members can vote? I am not clear about this at all. Unless what is intended is more clearly set out, we could end up in what I would consider to be an unfortunate situation of elected district councillors who sit on a CCA not being able to have a vote, and the potential for that to be manipulated in a political way would still be there. We need to understand the situation around voting and non-voting for non-constituent members.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I understand the noble Baroness’s point. I do think that I covered that in my remarks, but I will reread what I said and, to the extent that I was unclear, I will be happy to write to the noble Baroness. The broad point is that it will be up to the CCA what voting rights it allows to whom, including district councils.

Amendment 76, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, seeks to allow a combined county authority to be able to request that the Secretary of State makes regulations in relation to its membership. In agreeing a devolution deal with councils in an area, we will be discussing what governance arrangements would be appropriate, including the institution to operate the devolved powers, and membership and decision-taking arrangements.

The combined county authority would be able to make such a request to the Secretary of State. Such a request would be formalised through submitting a proposal to the Secretary of State, as set out in Clause 43 for establishing a new CCA and Clause 45 for making changes to the arrangements for an existing CCA. The Secretary of State has to consider such a proposal and, if they deem the statutory tests to be met, can decide to make the regulations. Such regulations can be made only with the consent of the local area—including the combined county authority if one is already established—and with parliamentary approval.

I turn to Amendment 86, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage. The Government recognise the importance of transparency with regard to allocations of funding and regular reporting on the impact of wider and deeper devolution. Section 1 of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 requires the Government to produce an annual report on progress with devolution to combined authorities and local authorities, which covers the areas suggested by the noble Baroness’s amendment; namely, funding and regular progress reporting on devolution of additional public functions.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the register. I am a serving district and county councillor and a vice-president of the District Councils’ Network.

I will speak to our Amendments 78 and 85 and will comment also on some of the other amendments in this group. Many in this House who have connections with local government will be very aware of the significant issues in relation to formal audit over the last three years. This has been the result of a number of issues in the private sector audit regime that we now have, including the increasing complexity of local authority accounts and the resultant demands on training, the recruitment and retention of staff, and rapidly increasing fees, to name just a few factors that have been experienced by the private audit sector. In fact, it was estimated last year that only 9% of local authorities had been able to have their 2021 audits completed on time.

Audit is really vital, as the noble Lord said just now. It provides public reassurance and confidence for both members and officers, and more particularly for the public. It is disappointing that the Bill does nothing to address that issue. However, the amendments in this section are aimed at ensuring that scrutiny within the CCA is as powerful and independent as it can be, which should, in turn, mean that audit is effective and can develop a high level of confidence among members and the public.

Turning first to our Amendment 78, this is needed because of the proposals in the Bill that effectively exclude district councillors from being voting members of the CCA itself. I appreciate that we have some work to do to clarify that point. The fundamental impact of the decisions taken by the CCA must, therefore, be able to be scrutinised effectively by members with a detailed local knowledge of their area. As chairs of overview and scrutiny review the decisions of their own councils’ executive committees on a regular basis, they will have a good working knowledge of the strategic planning for their areas, and therefore will be able to assess the likely impact of decisions taken by the CCA.

There is a precedent for this. For example, in the policing panels, which scrutinise the work and budgets of police and crime commissioners, all districts in a PCC’s area are entitled to be present. It is not intended that this amendment would prevent other members being appointed to an overview and scrutiny committee—for example independent members, as referred to in Amendment 84, from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley.

I turn now to our Amendment 85. This relates to the sharing of best practice on scrutiny, and there is some very good advice and support on scrutiny available from the Centre for Public Scrutiny. It will be vital to the successful operation of the CCA that best practice from around the country is shared among the committees. We appreciate that this is not necessarily the role of the Secretary of State, but it could be made clear in guidance to overview and scrutiny committees that they should give consideration regularly to how they operate and how they assimilate best practice.

I will now comment, if I may, on some of the amendments tabled by other noble Lords. We support Amendment 77, from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, which is designed to strengthen the role of overview and scrutiny in relation to CCAs. The Labour Party has long been advocating that local public accounts committees could be a way of pulling together local scrutiny of the impact of both national and local policy-making and decision-making on local areas. This would be a first step towards ensuring that overview and scrutiny committees have a level of independence from the CCA. The membership of these committees also needs to be carefully considered.

Turning to Amendment 79, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, referred to the fact that overview and scrutiny committees must be able to carry out their work without influence, and I totally support that. The overview and scrutiny committees must be completely unfettered from any interference from the CCA, including such devices as setting out workplans for them or prohibiting them from scrutinising any aspect of work undertaken by the CCA. Neither should the CCA be able to determine the process used by the overview and scrutiny committees. For example, if the committees wish to call witnesses, including members of the CCA, they should be able to do so. We would be grateful for the Minister’s clarification that it is the intention that overview and scrutiny committees are entitled to carry out their scrutiny of the CCA in any way that they determine will achieve effective scrutiny.

The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, raise some important issues around the way in which rural issues—such as housing, education, transport, rural economies and so on—often differ from those that are the main consideration of a CCA. We should support the freedom of a CCA to create any sub-committee that is relevant to the work that it undertakes. If it helps to have a rural sub-committee specifically listed to ensure that rural issues are considered by a CCA, that is no bad thing. This is particularly useful where the CCA covers an area that is largely urban but contains smaller rural areas, as it will ensure that issues relevant to rurality are properly considered and reported back to the CCA. A report from one of our own Lords committees, on rural communities, showed that, on the whole, local enterprise partnerships are not great at delivering for rural areas, so the need for that sort of committee of a CCA is well evidenced.

Amendment 82, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is a belt-and-braces amendment, if noble Lords will forgive the expression, to ensure that, should a Member have recently crossed the Floor from one political party to another—meaning that they would have had very recent contact with the mayor, their decision-making processes and strategy—they are not then placed in a position to be able to scrutinise the mayor’s actions. It truly is belt and braces because, in my experience, people who change their political party do so because of disenchantment with where they have been, so it is possible that they may be the best critics of the mayor and their administration. However, this amendment would ensure that there could be no deliberate manipulation of the scrutiny function.

Similar to Amendment 82, Amendment 83, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, would mean that, if there is no party with an outright majority on the CCA, the chair of overview and scrutiny should not be a member of either of the parties that may hold the majority together. Depending on local circumstances, this might be difficult if, for example, a third or fourth party is very much in the minority and may not be able to put forward a chair. In those circumstances, it might be necessary to make provision for an independent chair; the fact that we need to continue to discuss this means that there are issues here that continue to need resolution.

The LGA has made some extensive comments on Amendment 84 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. It is worth recording what it has said about having independent co-opted members on audit committees; it is certainly in favour of it. It states:

“Having multiple co-optees enables them to have complementary skills (eg finance, risk management, governance) … The constitutional rules should still require the majority of audit committee members to be elected members. This is for two reasons”—


which are fairly obvious to me but perhaps they are not always so obvious. They are that

“audit committees are fulfilling a role delegated by elected members … who are jointly and severally ‘those charged with governance’, and … elected members represent the community and are in a unique position not enjoyed by independent co-optees to understand what the concerns of local people are in relation to assurance”.

So, although we would support the increase in transparency provided by an increased number of independent members participating in an audit committee for all the reasons that the LGA and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, have highlighted, we question the need to have a specific number when the Bill already states that “at least” one member of an audit committee is an independent member. Perhaps it should be for the CCA to determine its preference for the number of independent members, based on the particular skills base that it feels it needs to carry out the audit role. In time, we feel that good practice would be developed by CCA audit committees as they understand what particular skills are needed in relation to CCA audit work; we are sure that they would be supported by national bodies such as the LGA in sharing good practice.

Another important issue arises here: the question of remuneration, which the LGA has raised. Independent members of a CCA audit committee are likely to be necessarily highly skilled individuals in, for example, finance, risk management and/or governance. While one could expect that they will give a certain proportion of their time for community benefit, it seems unreasonable to expect that they would carry out this role without any remuneration at all. Although the cost of the remuneration of independent members is likely to be minimal in the context of the overall budget of the CCA, consideration should be given to this at the initiation of the CCA so that the roles can be properly defined and recruited. The availability of the necessary skills in any particular area can be decided only in practice.

I am grateful to noble Lords for all their amendments in this group.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interest as a member of Kirklees Council and one who has served on its audit committee for a number of years. Scrutiny and audit are close to my heart. My noble friend Lord Shipley has raised some important issues about scrutiny—about the importance of an appropriate person not being seen as a political nominee, because that would undermine the whole purpose of scrutiny, taking an independent view of the decision-making process in the combined authority.

The second thing, which has not yet been explored, is that scrutiny can be post decision-making and pre decision-making. In strategic decisions made by a combined county authority or a combined authority, the primary duty of a scrutiny committee ought to be pre-decision scrutiny, because that is one way of ensuring a very detailed look at what is proposed—through a semi-independent committee one step removed from the decision-makers in the combined authority. I look forward to what the Minister will say on that and whether emphasis could be put on pre-decision scrutiny, particularly in this role.

The audit function has been illustrated by my noble friend Lord Shipley, who pointed out the number of councils that are failing in their financial status because auditors fail to pick up what is going on there. There are two elements of audit, though, which, again, have not been explored today or indeed in the Bill. One is internal audit, which ought to be primarily the duty of elected members, and the other is external audit, where the appointed external auditors of every council have a very important role at looking at where deficiencies might occur and where decisions being made by the council pose a substantial risk to its future. I totally support the views expressed by all Members who have spoken so far about the importance of having independent experts on those committees from a financial, audit or risk sector to support and advise the committee, but in the end, it is the decision of the elected members. It is them who have to carry the can, quite rightly: if they make poor decisions and fail to expose issues of concern in their councils, they too must be held accountable. I look forward to what the Minister will say on those issues.

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

My Lords, the amendments in this group relate to scrutiny of combined county authorities. I think that we all agree that effective scrutiny of a combined county authority, as with any other local authority, is a key aspect in providing the strong accountability that we all wish to see. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is absolutely right: it is about not just scrutiny after the event but overview before the event as well, as any good local authority would be doing at the time. I also say this to her: the Bill makes provision for payments of allowances to local authority members who sit on overview and scrutiny, and audit, committees.

Noble Lords will be aware that Schedule 1 provides the underpinning processes for holding a combined county authority to account. Through Amendment 77 the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, wishes to put provisions in the Bill requiring a combined county authority to publish a report of an overview and scrutiny committee if that committee believes that publication of that report is in the public interest.

I reassure the noble Lord that Part VA of the Local Government Act 1972 provides powers to require the publication of reports of a committee or sub-committee of a principal council, including overview and scrutiny committees. Schedule 4 to the Bill amends Part VA of the Local Government Act 1972 to apply these provisions to combined county authorities. I hope that this provides sufficient reassurance to the noble Lord that further amendments in this area are not necessary.

Amendment 78 was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage. We absolutely agree on the importance of overview and audit, as I have said. We recognise that it could be appropriate for representatives from district councils within a combined county authority’s area to be members of a CCA’s overview and scrutiny committee. However, our approach is that this issue of representation is best decided locally. The Bill provides for combined county authorities to invite representatives of district councils, along with other appropriate persons, to be members of their overview and scrutiny committees. The powers are already available to achieve what she seeks.

I recognise that the noble Baroness is perhaps seeking to place a requirement on combined county authorities to ensure that chairs of overview and scrutiny committees of district councils in the CCA areas have to be members of the CCA overview and scrutiny committees. As we have said many times, we prefer a localist approach of enabling those in the area the ability to form their scrutiny committees, rather than dictating this from central government.

Amendment 79 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, seeks to prevent a combined county authority restricting the work of an overview and scrutiny committee without good reason. The provisions in this schedule mirror exactly for the combined county authorities the overview and scrutiny arrangements in place for combined authorities. It is important to ensure consistency in approach to robust accountability across all those authorities that have functions and funding conferred to them from the Government.

As with combined authorities and local authorities, combined county authorities are public bodies required by public law to act reasonably in making decisions. It is only right that each combined county authority should be able to decide its own overview and scrutiny committee operational arrangements which best match its local circumstances. This is what this provision in the schedule does.

These operational arrangements will be set out in a combined county authority’s local constitution, to which it and all its members are bound. As such, there is no requirement for this amendment. A CCA cannot withhold an overview and scrutiny committee’s powers. Without such proposals in place that have been consented to by all parties, overview and scrutiny committees will not be able to undertake their role effectively.

Amendment 80 was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who I thank for being the voice of rural committees, which are extremely important. This amendment seeks to give combined county authorities’ overview and scrutiny committees the ability to establish a rural sub-committee. I see that is very important for many county authorities, and I can confirm that the existing provisions enable a combined county authority’s overview and scrutiny committee to do this, should it wish. Paragraph 2(1) of Schedule 1 allows a CCA’s overview and scrutiny committee to appoint one or more sub-committees, and they could, of course, be rural sub-committees.

Amendments 82 and 83, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, are about the chairs of overview and scrutiny committees and sub-committees. Schedule 1 sets out that a chair of a combined county authority’s overview and scrutiny committee has to be of a different political party than the mayor in the case of a mayoral CCA and of a different political party to the majority of members in the case of a non-mayoral CCA or an independent person. These amendments seek to provide an additional criterion that the chair cannot have been a member of the same political party as either the mayor or majority of members for a non-mayoral combined county authority for a period of five years prior to appointment.

While we agree with the noble Lord that overview and scrutiny committees are an important part of the accountability process, we believe this amendment to be an unnecessary extra hurdle. Potential chairs’ credentials should be treated on the basis of their current political membership, or lack of it in the case of an independent chair. This is a consistent approach throughout local government. There are no requirements to look back over previously political membership, and we do not think there should be one in these new arrangements.

Amendment 84, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, looks to increase the minimum number of independent members of a combined county authority’s audit committee to three. The Government believe that devolution should be locally led, as I have said many times, and recognise that greater functions and funding must come with strong accountability. The Government’s policy approach is to allow each combined county authority the flexibility to decide its own operational arrangements for its audit committee to best match the arrangements to local circumstances. Currently, this allows CCAs to decide how many independent persons should be appointed to an audit committee, providing that there is at least one independent member.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, brought up the issue of who will be the members of audit committees. The regulations that will establish combined county authorities will set out audit committee arrangements. They will provide that, where practical, the membership of an audit committee reflects the political balance of the constituent councils of the combined county authority. Membership may not include any officer from the combined county authority or the combined county authority’s constituent councils. We await that further information on membership. The amendment that the noble Lord seeks to introduce would take away some of this flexibility, which might not best fit the local circumstances of the combined county authority.

Finally in this group, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, tabled Amendment 85, which would place a duty on the Secretary of State to facilitate the sharing of best practice between overview and scrutiny and audit committees of combined county authorities. We recognise that sharing best practice makes an important contribution to the delivery of effective scrutiny functions across the local government sector as a whole. However, we believe that this works best where best practice sharing is locally led rather being a diktat from above.

When they are established, combined county authorities will become part of a broader local government framework and will receive support in developing and improving scrutiny functions. The existing combined authorities are already working together to share best practice between their organisations, including considering effective scrutiny. This includes via the M10 network, which is led by the combined authorities but which government engages with regularly.

Combined authorities are also supported in their work on scrutiny by the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny, which looks at specific challenges across all local government, including combined authorities, and works with them to enhance the effectiveness of their scrutiny. Once established, combined county authorities will also be able to operate and share best practice in a similar way to those authorities already in place. I hope the noble Baroness agrees that—

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I hope the Minister will excuse me. I find that response about the sharing of best practice a little confusing. What we were trying to understand was how the work across the CCA picture nationally would be shared. I am not clear how that will work across the piece—across the country. There will, clearly, be the development of good practice in audit and scrutiny. Is it intended that that will sit within a framework such as, for example, the Local Government Association? Where will it sit, and how will those authorities be able to share what they are doing properly and effectively?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

For a start, they will still be members of the Local Government Association, I assume, as will their members; so there is that route. As we have said, the combined authorities already in existence are already joining together themselves and sharing good practice. I would imagine that the CCAs and further combined authorities will also be doing that sort of sharing of best practice. The department will obviously keep a close eye on a new structure, work with those local authorities and be able to share any good practice from that as well. As usually happens with change, everybody wants to get together to see how it is going. I can give your Lordships an example of when I took a local authority to a unitary authority, and other authorities were going to unitary authorities at the same time. We all joined together and shared best practice. It did not have to be imposed on us; we did it as a matter of course. I think local government is good at doing that and will continue to do so into these new ways of working.

I hope the noble Baroness will agree that, as the work currently undertaken elsewhere should be locally led, there is no need to place a duty on the Secretary of State to facilitate the sharing of best practice between combined county authorities.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

87: Clause 14, page 12, line 5, at end insert—
“(4) A CCA may request that the Secretary of State publishes an assessment of their funding, including in relation to any new functions.”Member’s explanatory statement
This means that a CCA may request that the Secretary of State publishes an assessment of their funding, including in relation to any new functions.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, with the current local authority funding gap running at over £7 billion a year and much of the supposed increase trumpeted by the Government having to come from the pockets of already hard-pressed council tax payers, it is somewhat disappointing, as I have said before in this Chamber, that the Bill seems largely to overlook the underlying issues of the underfunding of local government generally and the fact that funding is not distributed fairly according to need.

That is key to the Bill, because those financial issues represent a barrier to the Government achieving their ambitions of levelling up. Indeed, the current rounds of bidding to get funding for levelling up only further add to the problem, because the authorities with the resources to put together the shiny bids that appear to be favoured are not always the ones with the most need. In that respect the Government are, at worst, turning the whole concept of levelling up upside down, and, at best, are applying sticking plasters to the gaping wounds of underfunding in our communities.

As a local government leader for 17 years, I can say from first-hand experience that the drastic savings that have been imposed on local authorities since 2010 mean that what has been achieved is all the more impressive. All major projects coming before any council are subject to detailed analysis of how the outcomes will be measured and monitored. That includes environmental, legal and equalities impacts and, especially, financial costs. At a time when even our Conservative County Council are announcing that it has exhausted all options in meeting its budget deficit, I hope the Minister will reflect on how we can better enable local councils to level up our areas. We are proposing a number of amendments in an attempt to address this deficit, and the amendments in this group would be the start of that process.

On Amendment 87, with a local government regime that is already incredibly regressive—from the benefit from council tax being skewed to those areas that are already better off to the many recently introduced funding pots which, as I said, enable those authorities with the resources to prepare the best bids regardless of the needs of the area—it is vital that there is a process to ensure the accountability and integrity of funding directed to CCAs. The publication of an annual statement would enable clear scrutiny to take place, both between and within CCA areas. It would also have the effect of making the funding of CCAs far more transparent for public purposes, as it would enable the CCA and the Government to demonstrate what funding had been allocated.

The second part of the amendment would take that transparency one step further, in that it asks for the annual statement to have a cost-benefit analysis to demonstrate whether the funding allocated to the CCA is achieving the stated aims. Again, that would provide a good opportunity for internal scrutiny via the overview and scrutiny committee, which we discussed earlier this afternoon, and for the public to be assured that the funding provided to the CCA was achieving the aims of levelling up and the strategic objectives that the CCA had set for itself.

The national benefit of these statements would be that, once consolidated, they would provide a national picture of funding, the way that funding was allocated and why, and the benefits that were being delivered through that funding. I would like to think that the discipline of reporting on an annual basis would also ensure that, where bidding pots still got allocated—much as I might prefer funding to be done in a different way—there would be clear criteria for and assessment of those bids, with measurable outcomes, so that these could be reported in the annual statement.

On Amendment 123, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, while the clause in the Bill sets out that the Secretary of State may make regulations in relation to requiring the mayor to maintain a fund in relation to receipts arising from, and liabilities incurred in, the exercise of general functions, and about the preparation of an annual budget, it is not clear whether that power for the Secretary of State extends to subsequently scrutinising that budget and fund in Parliament. Our contention is that local government, including any CCAs set up under this Bill, is already subject to extensive scrutiny through the overview and scrutiny committees internally, and externally through the audit process. So we would be grateful for clarification from the Minister on whether there is to be a further layer of scrutiny set up in relation to CCA budgets.

Amendment 172, submitted in my name and in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, talks about this fair funding review—and I feel fairly strongly about this. The fair funding review has been under discussion for at least five years to my knowledge, and probably longer than that. It was delayed again in October 2022. The methodology we currently have for allocations is both flawed and completely out of date. For example, it takes traffic flows from 2011, unemployment data which is 10 years old, highways data which is 20 years old, and census data—and, as we all know, the census is undertaken only every 10 years and so is nearly always too out of date for allocating funding via that formula. Additionally, we all know about the failure to reset property values, which means that we are using property values from 1991.

Average council tax as a share of disposable income in London is the lowest in the UK. That does not mean that there are not areas of deprivation in London, of course—some of the most deprived areas in the country are there—but it is just over half of that in Yorkshire and the Humber, and in the north-east. So, in a dynamic economy and at a time of a cost of living crisis, this outdated and flawed approach, which penalises and exacerbates economic equalities, will not do—it is the exact opposite of levelling up. Our amendment is there to suggest that we need to get on with this fair funding review and get it enacted quickly, because we have got no chance of levelling anything up unless we get this fair funding review completed.

There have been comments from the LGA, which supports the fact that the fair funding review needs to be done. It makes a very good point that there needs to be enough time to allow formal consultation with local authorities, but I cannot believe that, after five years of working on this, that could not be done fairly quickly. When the review does happen, it needs to consider both the data and formulae used to distribute funding, and the Government need to ensure that overall local government funding is sufficient when the new-needs formulae are introduced. That will ensure that no council sees its funding reduced and that there are transitional arrangements for any business rates reset. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I think that these are three very important amendments, and my name appears on Amendment 172. It goes without saying that the fair funding review has been undertaken for too long and that it is reasonable that within one year of this Bill being enacted the publication of the fair funding review should happen. I also think that the other amendments are very important, but Amendment 87 really matters because it says that

“a CCA may request that the Secretary of State publishes an assessment of their funding, including in relation to any new functions”.

In other words, is the right amount of money being given to undertake the tasks which the CCA is due to undertake?

All of this relates to the amendment in the names of my noble friend Lord Scriven and myself that relates to fiscal policy. There is an issue that we need to debate about fiscal policy and the powers of CCAs—we have the concept now of “trailblazer authorities” and I think the trend is a good one. Nevertheless, I want to be reassured that Ministers understand that local authorities cannot be expected to undertake things, and nor can CCAs, unless the local authorities or CCAs are able to fund them. For that reason, all three amendments in this group seem to me to be particularly important.

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[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments relates to the budgets and funding of combined county authorities and the scrutiny of them. Amendment 87, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, seeks to place a requirement on the Secretary of State to publish an assessment of a combined county authority’s funding, including in relation to any new functions.

The Government fully recognise the importance of transparency with regard to allocations of funding and regular reporting on the impact of wider and deeper devolution. That is why we introduced a measure to that effect in the Cities and Local Devolution Act 2016. This provision requires the Government to produce an annual report on progress with devolution that covers the areas suggested by the noble Baroness’s amendment; namely, funding and regular progress reporting on devolution of additional public functions. Combined authorities and local authorities are already covered by this provision. We laid a consequential amendment, government Amendment 152, on 9 February that will bring combined county authorities into its scope. I hope that is helpful to the noble Baroness.

It is also worth noting that combined county authorities will be subject to the same accounting and audit provisions as combined authorities and individual local authorities. Government Amendment 151, laid on 9 February, extends the provisions of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 to combined county authorities. These provisions include the requirement for them to have locally audited annual accounts available for public inspection on request. Taken together, these measures will ensure that combined county authorities operate in a transparent manner and are held to account for successful delivery in the same way that other institutions in England with devolved powers already are. The Government therefore feel that there are effective, proportionate reporting mechanisms already in place for combined county authorities that will cover what the noble Baroness is seeking to achieve.

I read Amendment 123, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, as probing whether Parliament will be able to scrutinise CCA budgets. I agree with what the noble Baroness said: combined county authority mayors and their budgets should be subject to scrutiny. Where I differ from her is that I believe that it should be a local matter. If it is to be worth the name, devolution should combine strong, empowered local leaders with stronger accountability and transparency. A directly elected leader, such as a mayor, with a fixed term and a clear mandate makes it much easier for local communities to make judgments based on local performance and local delivery, rather than the ebb and flow of national politics.

All combined county authorities will be required to have at least one overview and scrutiny committee and an audit committee. These will be instrumental in holding the authority and the mayor to account for their decisions and activities. The Government will be publishing a new devolution accountability framework to ensure that all devolution deals lead to local leaders and institutions that are transparent and accountable, work closely with local businesses, seek the best value for taxpayers’ money and maintain strong ethical standards. Requiring combined county authorities to lay their budgets before Parliament would be excessive and would also place CCAs on a different footing from combined authorities and all other local government institutions.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I think I said when I moved the amendment that our contention was that local government, including any CCAs, is already subject to extensive scrutiny, so we agree with that. I would be grateful if the noble Earl could clarify that no further layer of scrutiny will be applied to CCA budgets. Was that the content of the his response?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

In broad terms, yes. But if I can elaborate on that, I will certainly write to the noble Baroness.

Amendment 172, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, seeks to insert a new clause following Clause 76. This proposed new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish the fair funding review. I take this to mean the most recent government consultation on fairer funding for local government, which is the 2018-19 review of relative needs and resources.

The review of relative needs and resources was undertaken in 2018-19. As the noble Baroness rightly pointed out, this assessment is now out of date. It does not take into account more up-to-date census and demographic data. The events of the past five years, including, notably, the Covid-19 pandemic, mean that the world has moved on. I therefore suggest to the noble Baroness that there would be little benefit to publication in its outdated form.

The Government have already set out, in the local government finance policy statement on 12 December, that we would not be implementing the relative review of needs and resources in this spending review period. Instead, that policy statement sets out details of the funding policy that will be maintained for a second year into 2024-25. In making this decision, the Government were clear that now is the time for stability for the sector, not reform, given the turbulence of the Covid-19 pandemic and the more recent economic issues relating to high inflation.

I emphasise that the Government remain committed to improving the local government finance landscape in the next Parliament and beyond. The department is keen to work closely with local partners and to take stock of the challenges and opportunities that they face to build on the work of the review of relative needs and resources and to ensure that plans for reform are contemporary, robust and informed by local insight. Again, this is set out in the local government finance policy statement, published in December. This is an important issue and one that we should certainly discuss in the coming months.

I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, will understand the Government’s reasoning on this, and that she will not feel the need to press this amendment when it is reached.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am very grateful for the responses from the Minister. As was said earlier in the debate, we know that he always listens to the points being put forward, and I thank him for that.

On Amendment 87, which proposes that the CCA can request the publication of fair funding for new functions, I think that it is fair to say that local authorities cannot be expected to undertake bureaucratic burdens such as those. However, we want to see the records of reporting on CCAs, in particular around the cost-benefit analysis of what is being achieved by a CCA.

In response to the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, I say that there is a significant difference between the funding we see for initiatives and the funding for core services. There has been a great deal of the former and not so much of the latter in recent years. What happens, as we constantly see in local government, is that core services are undermined, and it hollows out the ability of local authorities to deliver the initiatives. I agree with the noble Lord that, whenever we raise these issues, we always get told that there will be new-burdens funding for things. In effect, while we occasionally see some money coming forward, we get things such as the new homes bonus. That is a good example, because the bonus was simply top-sliced from the rest of local government funding, so, in effect, they did not give us any new money at all; they just gave us our own money back. There are also things such as the Government setting rent policy for local authorities, telling us how much rent we can charge our tenants and placing additional burdens on housing authorities, and then saying, “No, you can’t have any new-burdens funding, because you should have been doing all that in the first place”. So there are problems around the whole issue of the new-burdens regime, and we need a genuine increase in funds in local government.

The points from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, on how local government is financed, by whom, and how the resources are allocated and so on, were very well made. I would like to see the Government be brave enough to get on with this fair funding review. From the Minister’s response, I feel that it has been pushed into the long grass again. It was set up in 2018; we all understand that the pandemic had an impact on it, and perhaps during the pandemic was not the time to go into a full review of local government funding. It was delayed again in October 2022. Hearing that it has now been moved to the next Parliament is a concern, because this is urgent now. In 2023, we really cannot go much further forward with the system we have, which does not respond to local economic needs or local data, is very slow to respond, and, in many cases, is using data that is between 10 and 20 years old—that is not helping at all with the levelling-up agenda.

I spoke earlier about the difference between initiatives funding and core funding. It is all very well putting money into areas for local initiatives—often that is capital, and we have heard that the Secretary of State has now been stopped from signing off any further capital initiatives, so even that might not happen at the moment—but, if you do not keep the core funding going as well, and make sure that it is rising by inflation at the same time, it will be much more difficult to deliver any levelling-up initiatives whatever. So the amendments are important in making the point that we need to ensure that local government finances are duly and properly taken into consideration in the Bill. As I said earlier, it is disappointing that it is not there in a stronger way and we will look at the government amendments on the reporting on CCA funding to satisfy ourselves that they are right.

In the meantime, I am happy not to press the amendments. However, I hope that the Government are taking the point that we take very seriously this issue of local government finance and its rightful place in the levelling-up agenda; we may come back to it later in the debate.

Amendment 87 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I did not say that the councils do not have any concerns or interest in the role of the PCC. Of course, they do, as we have heard, with community safety committees et cetera. What I said was that the councils do not deliver any of the services required by the PCC. That is the job of the local police. Therefore, there is no crossover in that way.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I do not know where that information has come from about councils not delivering community safety-related services. It is just not the case. We look at anti-social behaviour; we look at domestic abuse. In my own local authority, we have a very big and effective domestic abuse service, and we work with our colleagues in the police. We have issues related to local area policing. We set our priorities with our local policing teams and deliver services jointly to address those priorities. I could go on—I know the noble Baroness will know some of this from her own experience in local government. It is just not the case that local government does not deliver community safety services in the same way that we deliver health prevention services and so on.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I think we are going to disagree on this, and there is a fine line. I also want to answer the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Bach, that I did not answer at Second Reading, for which I apologise—I am conscious of that—but because the amount of information I have is not sufficient to answer them today, I will write to him and talk to Home Office colleagues as well, because I think it is important we get their views. I will also write more about the responsibilities of the PCC and the local authorities, because it is important that we get this right and that noble Lords understand the reasons why we are doing this.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I do not know about buses, but I imagine that there may be the ability for a mayor to appoint somebody to be responsible for transport in a large area. I will check that, but I am sure that it is within their powers. It is probably a very good thing to have in large geographical area, as the mayor cannot do everything in detail there. I hope that that satisfies noble Lords.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I have a question on the issue of buses. We have seen millions of bus miles removed from the system altogether. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has very carefully and thoroughly articulated why they are so essential. It is really important that we get this bus strategy as quickly as possible so that we can start to get a sense of how local authorities can play a part in restoring some of the bus services that we have lost. Can the Minister give us any idea of how quickly that will come about? It would seem that the Bill is an ideal opportunity to put that into place. Otherwise, we will have to go through the same discussions again in a few months, a year or two years’ time to give local authorities that power. Why not use the Bill as the ideal opportunity to reinstate what we used to have back in the day? I remember a very good bus service in my own area before the powers were taken away from councils.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

This is the responsibility of the Department for Transport. I will be in touch with the relevant Minister to explain the Committee’s deep concern about the issue of bus services and say that an early solution to this would be considered appropriate by the Committee. I will also find out how long it will be before we get this strategy in place. I will write that at the end of the letter, which will go to all noble Lords in Committee. I hope that noble Lords will withdraw their amendments.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th March 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

103: Schedule 2, page 257, line 23, at end insert—
“(e) as to the holding of by-elections for mayoral vacancies.”Member's explanatory statement
This is to probe the possibility of Mayoral by-elections.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to my Amendments 115, 118 and 119 and Amendments 116, 117 and 125 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock.

In general terms, these amendments have been tabled to probe some of the issues around what appears to be a democratic deficit in both the existing elected mayoral system and the new provisions proposed in the Bill. They also consider how the Secretary of State will deal with the financial consequences of the powers given to him or her in the Bill to transfer functions to the mayor, as well as some further issues around the communication of issues relating to the mayoral system to members of the public in the area that he or she represents.

I know that communication has been covered extensively in our previous debates in Committee—we have heard extensive responses from the Minister and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on that subject—so I will be brief. However, if the new CCAs that choose to go down the route of an elected mayor are to be successful, it will be vital that all matters relating to the mayoralty are set out clearly and communicated effectively to the public in the area concerned.

Amendment 103 is intended to probe the possibility of mayoral by-elections. We need clarity in relation to what would happen in the event that a CCA mayor resigned or left office for any reason. Does there need to be specific provision in the Bill to enable a mayoral by-election should this happen? As the current proposal seems to be that the deputy mayor is simply appointed by the mayor, it does not seem appropriate for an unelected deputy mayor to step in and take over until the next cycle of mayoral elections is due. Can the Minister clarify whether it is the Government’s intention that a mayoral by-election should possible if the mayor is unable or unwilling to carry on in their role in a period that is not close to the date in the normal cycle of mayoral elections?

Amendment 115 would insert:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision as to the scrutiny of deputy mayor appointments.”


This amendment has been supported by the Local Government Association, which thinks it gives greater power to combined authority members to hold the mayor, and the mayor’s choice of deputy mayor, to account. We heard a great deal earlier this afternoon about the flaws in the process for appointing deputy mayors. The current system of appointment by the mayor to the role of deputy mayor seems to leave a gaping hole in any democratic process in this respect. Deputy mayors have powerful roles within the executive and administration of the CCA. As we have heard, they could potentially take the role of the current police and crime commissioner. They also receive remuneration from the CCA, which can be at a significant cost to the taxpayer. But this can be done without any provision in the Bill for scrutiny either by the overview and scrutiny committee or by an equivalent body, let alone any external scrutiny, which seems to set those roles apart from both the democratic process, in that they are not elected by the public, and the provisions that would be made in a local authority, for example, for the appointment of a senior member of staff. Would the Minister give consideration to any further provisions and safeguards that could be built into the Bill to ensure that CCA members and the public can hold the mayor to account for the appointment of deputy mayors?

Amendment 116, tabled by my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, would mean the Secretary of State must publish a statement confirming what additional funds will be made available to a mayor when making regulations under Clause 28, so we are back to funding again. This amendment is supported by the LGA. The clause gives the Secretary of State significant powers to transfer responsibilities for certain functions and activities to the mayor and the CCA. In some circumstances, we accept, this may be subject to the normal process of new burdens funding, although that process in itself has its own challenges. We would be more concerned that devolution may be used as an excuse to reduce funding for services, particularly core services. We absolutely support the transfer of powers from central government to local leaders, but of course these powers must be accompanied by appropriate funding levels. Our amendment would ensure that the Secretary of State would confirm what funding was being allocated along with any new powers that are conferred. The LGA agrees with that opinion, saying that

“powers must be accompanied by appropriate funding levels, and devolution should not be used as an excuse to reducing funding”.

So, on that amendment, we have the support of the LGA.

Amendment 117, again in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, is on an annual summit of CCA mayors. This is similar to earlier amendments we laid down around the sharing of good practice. It is a probing amendment designed to explore how CCA mayors will share information on the implementation of the new types of combined authorities and best practice. It would give them a forum to enable them to discuss any issues arising from the operation of the CCAs, and liaison and co-operation between them and the Government, and to understand how different models of CCA are working—for example, those that have taken the powers of police and crime commissioners. We appreciate that there may be a role for the LGA. We discussed that earlier this afternoon; we can discuss it further in later stages of the Bill. Other bodies may have an interest in this area in relation to CCAs, but it is certainly not clear from the Bill how joint working, sharing of good practice and achieving an agreed stance where issues arise on policy matters around the structure of CCAs and so on would happen.

Amendment 118 is a probing amendment which would prevent the Secretary of State from conferring only partial police and crime commissioner functions on the mayor. This relates very much to the discussion that we had earlier under other amendments. I hope that it is not related to the issue raised by my noble friend Lord Hunt earlier, where a mayor does not agree with decisions made by a PCC of a different political persuasion—or even the same one, if you are in one of those types of political arrangements and they have had a fallout. It seems strange to have provision in the Bill which could lead to the possibility of a patchwork of different policing responsibilities being conferred on CCA mayors. This begs a further question about the role of police and crime commissioners in those circumstances.

This probing amendment seeks to understand the Government’s view on whether they would prefer the default position to be to transfer all the functions of police and crime commissioners to mayors in most circumstances, except where the CCA particularly expresses a wish not to transfer any of those powers, or whether it is to be left to CCAs at local level to determine which functions will be transferred to the mayor. Can the Minister please clarify this point? Policing is just too important in our communities to see it haggled over between different bits of local authorities. I hope we can have a clear line on this.

Amendment 119 is a probing amendment to allow the person appointed deputy mayor to be appointed as the deputy mayor for policing and crime. Again, we had a very long discussion about this earlier today, but it is certainly not clear in the Bill whether it is the intention that a deputy mayor should never take the function of a deputy mayor for policing and crime. We have raised other amendments, and under those is our concern about the democratic deficit in the appointment of deputy mayors. However, if and only if the issues around accountability for those appointments can be resolved, it would seem perverse for the mayor not to be able to delegate this part of their responsibility. Indeed, in practice, it almost certainly would happen. Can the Minister comment on how this aspect of the Bill might be clarified to make that issue clearer?

Lastly, Amendment 125, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, would mean that a change in the mayoral title must be communicated to residents. We agree with Amendment 124 by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley: a list of possible alternative titles for mayors is really unnecessary, as the CCA already has powers to choose alternative titles if it wishes. My noble friend’s amendment is intended to make sure that, if there is a change to the title, that is communicated to the public—to residents—and that that should be written into the process for any mayoral change of title. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, my name is attached to Amendment 124 in this group, which relates to Clause 40, “Alternative mayoral titles”. I challenge the notion that a choice of titles is required on the face of the Bill. Powers to decide a title already lie with the CCA, under Clause 40, in line 25 of page 35, and to attempt to define possible titles is an unnecessary addition.

The titles suggested are,

“county commissioner … county governor … elected leader … governor.”

I am not clear where those four titles came from. I guess we could all add some more, but it is confusing since everybody else is using the word “mayor”. I do not understand why another title is necessary. If I look at the word “governor”, I immediately think of a school governor, the governor of a US state or the governor of a prison. I am not sure it helps public understanding of what is proposed with a combined county authority to have a mixture of titles for roles. The public will have great difficulty engaging with them, because the titles could be different in one place from another. The power is there for people on the CCA to decide what title they want but, frankly, if I had my way it would be “mayor” because that has become the term. For the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Tees Valley and so on, the word is “mayor” and I am not sure it helps to have suggestions that they could be called “governors” or “county commissioners.” I hope the Minister may be able to look at that and come up with an explanation about why the Government want to confuse things so much.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

That is understood. I will take that back and do what I can; I will see what we have already.

On Amendment 115 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, I agree with her that the decisions of a mayor of a combined county authority should be—as I said earlier—subject to effective scrutiny, as should those of any leader of any council. Devolution should combine strong, empowered local leaders with strong accountability, but also transparency. The Government will publish a new devolution accountability framework to ensure that all devolution deals lead to local leaders and institutions that are transparent and accountable.

Schedule 1 provides that a combined county authority will be required to have at least one overview and scrutiny committee, as we discussed earlier, which can review and scrutinise decisions made or actions taken by the combined county authority and the mayor. The schedule provides that the Secretary of State may make regulations about the overview and scrutiny committee, including membership, voting rights, payment of allowances, chair, appointments of scrutiny officers, circumstances in which matters may be referred to the committee, and the obligations on persons to attend and respond to reports that the committee issues. This will ensure a robust framework within which overview and scrutiny committees will operate.

We think that this gives sufficient scope for local scrutiny on decisions taken by the CCA or mayor, such as the appointment of a deputy mayor by the mayor from among the combined county authority’s membership, if that is considered appropriate. I make it clear that the statutory deputy mayor will have to come from the members of the CCA—from those local authorities. It is not the same as a deputy mayor for police and crime, who could come from somewhere else, because they would possibly be required to have different experience and background. I hope that makes sense. It is quite important that we have those two deputies separated.

On Amendment 116, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, we agree that information on funding should be available, and I can reassure the noble Baroness that that will be the case. Information on the funding available to a combined county authority and mayor will be in the public domain. The deal agreed between the Government and the area sets out both the funding arrangements and the powers to be conferred on the combined county authority and the mayor. The deal document is published and therefore publicly available. There must also be a public consultation locally on the area’s proposal to establish a combined county authority. We expect this to set out how the CCA will work and include the powers to be conferred on the CCA and the mayor and the funding available. The final proposal, which must be accompanied by a summary of the consultation, will constitute the formal submission to the Secretary of State seeking the establishment of the CCA.

In Amendment 117, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, probes whether there should be an annual summit of the CCA mayors. The existing combined authority mayors have themselves established the M10 group to enable them to work together. The Government engage with this group on a regular basis. We expect the M10 and the new combined county authority mayors to consider how best to work together. We think a locally led arrangement is better than a centrally imposed approach, and I expect it will evolve as more areas agree devolution deals.

In tabling Amendment 118 to Schedule 3, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, is seeking to prevent a combined county authority taking on part of the police and crime commissioner role. Schedule 3 provides further detail, setting out the matters on which the Secretary of State either may or must make regulations to enable a transfer of police and crime commissioner functions to a combined county authority mayor. It provides the framework and arrangements for the mayor to exercise these PCC functions on a day-to-day basis.

The amendment would limit the ability of the Secretary of State to determine an appropriate limited scope to the conferral of PCC functions to combined county authority mayors. Combined county authority and combined authority mayors should have parity where possible to ensure that all areas of England have the same options. The schedule achieves this consistency by mirroring the scope of regulations that govern the conferral and exercise of police and crime commissioner functions by combined authority mayors, as set out in Schedule 5C to the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. The amendment would create an inconsistency between the schedule governing the making of regulations related to combined county authority mayors’ exercise of PCC functions compared with its equivalent for combined authority mayors, leading to unnecessary inconsistency in the legislative framework for the PCC model.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am still a bit confused about this. The Bill says that some mayors taking on police and crime commissioner powers can take certain powers to themselves and others can take others, so you end up with a picture around the country where they have different powers in different places. That was my concern, not that there would be an inconsistency between police and crime commissioners and mayors. What I wanted to understand with the amendment was whether, if the powers of the police and crime commissioner are transferred to the mayor, they will all be transferred. We do not want a different picture around the country depending on which powers of the police and crime commissioner have been moved over.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

All the powers will go. There will not be half a PCC left. Does that make sense?

Amendment 119, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, seeks to allow the person appointed as statutory deputy mayor of the combined county authority to also be appointed as the deputy mayor for policing and crime. Schedule 3 prevents this because the deputy mayor and deputy mayor for policing and crime are two distinct, separate, and weighty roles. The role of the statutory deputy mayor is to step in and act as mayor should the mayor be unable to act or if the office of mayor is vacant for a time, as well as assisting across a whole range of general mayoral functions where applicable.

The deputy mayor of a combined authority is typically also a council leader, and we anticipate this will likely also be the case in combined county authorities. This would mean that this person is already accountable for the decisions and activities of the council they lead, in addition to their combined county authority responsibilities, where they will be accountable collectively, and possibly personally, for some of the CCA decisions, including personally for the mayor’s functions if the mayor cannot act. The role of the deputy mayor for policing and crime is to dedicate constant focus and attention to crime and policing and is usually a full-time role. Clearly, both the roles of deputy mayor and deputy mayor for policing and crime are significant and we believe that they should remain separate and distinct.

Amendment 124, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, seeks to allow CCA mayors to be called by their choice of alternative title. Clauses 40 and 41 already enable mayoral combined county authorities to resolve or choose to use an alternative title to “mayor” for their directly elected mayor. They can choose from a shortlist of titles listed in the Bill, or a different title not on the list, having regard to other titles used in the area. I understand where the noble Lord is coming from regarding the fact that the title “mayor” is beginning to take on some level of credence within the country, but if you come from a particularly rural county area—I counted last night that where I was leader of a council, we already had 16 mayors—an elected mayor would be confusing for some people. The role of a mayor in some rural areas is seen as a civic role, rather than a leadership role, which is very different.

--- Later in debate ---

Finally, Amendment 125 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would require combined county authorities to communicate to all residents in their area changes to a mayoral title. We entirely agree that it is important that residents are aware of the title used by an individual representing them. Clause 41 requires that combined county authorities publish a notice in their area whenever there is a change to the mayoral title. This requirement is to ensure that residents are aware of the change in that title. The Government therefore feel that they have already provided for effective, proportionate reporting mechanisms for changes to mayoral titles that cover what the noble Baroness is seeking.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her detailed responses and the other noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned that the detail in the Bill is insufficient on how CCAs operate. That goes to the heart of a lot of these amendments. We have tabled a lot of probing amendments to try to find out some of the detail about how all this is going to work.

In relation to Amendment 103 and the appointment of deputy mayors, in local government we have an appointments committee, as the Minister will know, which oversees the appointment to local authorities of any senior post. When we tabled the amendment, we had not understood that it was going to be essential that the deputy mayor would be one of the councillor members of the CCA. I hope that we have been able to clarify that through the submission of this amendment.

Matters of governance and constitution are essential. I would normally say I understand that we have to wait for regulations, statutory instruments and so on, but as this will be such a major change for our areas, it is important that both the local authorities and the members who will enact this legislation—and the members of the public who are going to live in the new CCA areas—understand in great detail how it is going to work before we go into the new system. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, made a comment about having some draft regulations in front of us before we get to the end of the Bill. That would be incredibly helpful.

On provisions for by-elections, I understand the Minister’s comments about that being in the schedule. However, it sounds as if it will be a little in the hands of the Secretary of State as to whether to call for an election. That gives me a bit of concern because if a local councillor resigns midterm, you have to hold a by-election if the members of the electorate call for it. Unless it is very close to an upcoming local election, you have to do that between elections. I do not see any problem with having something further in the Bill so that we could understand how that works. It would be the same process, in effect, as for a local councillor.

On Amendment 115, I understand the responses. But would the accountability include the PCC or the mayor as PCC? The Minister mentioned a whole raft of accountabilities that the mayor comes under. Would it include the PCC and the mayoral role as PCC? I would like to understand that a little better. Is the whole policing element of the mayor’s role going to be undertaken a bit under the radar, as it is now, by a local policing committee?

On Amendment 116, the noble Baroness said that the deal agreed sets out the funding arrangements and that it is a public document. It was helpful to have that clarified. Her response to Amendment 117 was that there is an existing body, the M10 group of CCA mayors, and it is helpful to know that the Government expect mayors to participate in some kind of forum.

On Amendment 118, the schedule sets out the functions. Thanks to the responses we have had, we now know that they would be the same options, whether it was going to be a police and crime commissioner or the mayor undertaking those duties. I want to just ask one further question: does that mean that the deputy mayor for crime and policing does not have to be a councillor member of the CCA? Could that person be just appointed from outside the CCA? We would take an interest if that was the case.

On the list of titles, we just disagree. The amendment states quite clearly that we think it should just be left to authorities to determine that; there is no need for a list of titles on the face of the Bill. We have been told over and again that we do not need so much detail in the Bill, but in this case we have a whole list on the face of the Bill that we think is entirely unnecessary.

I am grateful for the points about communication because it is really important that, with a new system like this, the public understand exactly what is happening. If there is to be change to the title that should be communicated. “Communicated” is not as effective as I would like it to be. I would like them to be consulted on it, but communication is better than nothing.

That said, I am happy to withdraw my amendment for now. I stress the point that the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, made about having some draft regulations in front of us so that we can understand very clearly exactly what the provisions are. If the noble Baroness could write to us about the issue of the deputy mayor with responsibility for police and crime functions and whether that person is going to be a councillor or not, that would be helpful.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I am happy to answer that straight away. That person does not have to be a councillor. The statutory deputy mayor needs to be a councillor and the police and crime one does not.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

With that, I withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 103 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

I will speak very briefly; I will certainly not debate with the Minister all 35 amendments. I am taking on a brief inspection that these are indeed just minor and consequential. I want to use this as the opportunity to say that the Minister has written to us today, advising us of a whole range of further amendments that the Government will table. While most of them flow from the debates we have had so far, one particular amendment relating to the building safety regulator is completely off-piste, as far as I can see. In responding, can the Minister—perhaps being grateful for me not debating all 35 amendments—assure us that sufficient time will be given for us to think through some of the new amendments the Government have tabled today?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am sure that the Minister will be pleased to know that I too will not debate all 35 amendments. They are largely consequential and drafting amendments. I noted that, earlier in today’s debate, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, referred to the consultation provisions contained in Amendments 151 and 152, so we will have a closer look at those, and we may write to the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, if we have any further concerns on that.

I have one tiny question—forgive me: I know that it is late—on Amendment 143. The proposed new paragraph 7ZB in Schedule A1 to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 states:

“If the Secretary of State … thinks that a constituent planning authority are failing or omitting to do anything it is necessary for them to do in connection with the preparation, revision or adoption of a development plan document, and (b) invites the combined county authority to prepare or revise the document, the combined county authority may prepare or revise (as the case may be) the development plan document.”


I do not necessarily need an answer now, but I would be grateful if the Minister could write to me. Is it the Secretary of State or the constituent planning authority who invites the CCA to intervene in the preparation or revision of the document? That was not clear. The amendment also makes provision for the CCA to charge the non-constituent authority for work done on the development plan. Would those charges be agreed between both parties in advance, subject to a fee scale or limited fixed charges? I ask that question because it may be that the financial position of the constituent planning authority was the reason for the delay in the first place. It may be that, either in preparing the plan or if the recruitment of planning staff in the area is difficult, the authority is not in a position to increase salaries and so on, so if there were to be a massive charge to it from the CCA, that might be an issue. I am happy to take a written response to that question in due course.

Other than that, I have no questions or comments on the amendments.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her offer; I would prefer to give a written answer to that question, because it was quite complicated, and I do not want to give the wrong answer.

On the question of sufficient time for the new government amendments, I will ensure that I talk to the usual people to give plenty of time for noble Lords to look into them, because they were more substantive than this group of amendments. Saying that, I beg to move.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th March 2023 Lords Chamber

I cannot go back to 1906 or whatever the date was—1974, I think. I go back to only 1979 so I am quite young in this, but I did manage to fit in 11 years on a district council, 10 years on a county council and then eight years on a metropolitan borough, so I have a well-scarred back. If you get partnership and ownership, you can get joint endeavours and you success. If you get alienation, that is a recipe for failure. If you leave district councils out of the equation—if you make them subsidiary, just adjuncts to CCAs—I would not be surprised if, at least in some places, their co-operation was significantly less than it would be if they were active and valued partners of the CCA. I say that to the Minister because, sometimes, politics has to give way to human nature or at least has to recognise the existence of human nature, and if district councils are spurned, they are going to be less helpful and co-operative. He may say, “We’ll soon deal with that”, but that is not a recipe for success. All I say to him is that he should please give serious consideration to what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, because he is giving the Government an avenue—a gateway—to unleash that co-operation between the two tiers of local government so that CCAs in fact prosper.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Hunt for tabling the amendment. I take this opportunity to congratulate him on his 50 years in local government and the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, on his many years in local government. I went into local government in 1997. I was leader of my council for nearly 17 years before I joined your Lordships’ House, so I am the baby of the party here. However, I learned a few things along the way, as the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, kindly remarked. I want to cover some comments about my noble friend Lord Hunt’s amendment and to make some general points about the role of district councils in the new world that we are looking at following the Bill.

The big question here was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Mann, which is: where does democracy lie? This is a very important question. We think about it often in local councils. In previous sittings, we have heard set out clearly before your Lordships’ House the incredibly valuable role that district councils play in many of our communities in the UK, and I am grateful that this has been brought before us once again today. That is why it is so disappointing that the Bill, which purports to be all about devolution and bringing decision-making closer to people, seems to ride roughshod over the very tier of local government and the 183 councils that are closest to many people and communities. District councils outstrip county council colleagues and national government by a very long way indeed on issues such as helping people feel proud of their area, tackling social issues in our neighbourhoods, responding to and dealing with emergencies and, importantly, bringing the views of local people into decision-making in their local area. The figures are 62% for the district councils, 32% for county councils and 6%—yes, just 6%—for national government. As my noble friend Lord Hunt said, district councils cover about 40% of the UK’s population but, importantly for the purposes of the Bill, they cover 68% of the land of the UK.

In this country we already have the lowest number of elected representatives per head in Europe; France has 35,000 communes with mayors and Germany has 11,000 municipalities. It is the UK that has abnormal levels of underrepresentation, and our councillors lack the powers and finances of many of our continental counterparts. Across the country we have around 2,000 electors per district councillor, which may account for their approachability, whereas there are 9,000 electors per county councillor.

They also represent communities that people recognise —I think this is key for the Bill. The comments by the noble Lord, Lord Mann, were very important here; people relate to the communities represented by our district councils. Surely the Bill should aim to keep the devolution we already have, not snatch it away to bigger and bigger combined authorities. That does not sound like progress to me.

This is not to set up any false conflict or rivalry between counties and districts. We all have a job to do and county councils are currently doing a valiant job in very trying circumstances. But with the high-cost services at county level, such as adult care services and children’s services, impacting on around just 5% of the population, whereas district council services impact on 100% of the population, it is perhaps not surprising to see how valued district councils are by their communities. As well as environmental services like the ones that my noble friend Lord Hunt commented on—waste collection, fly-tipping, street cleaning, licensing and food safety—districts look after leisure, parks and culture. They often take a role in preventive public health initiatives—in my own borough we have a Young People’s Healthy Hub tackling mental health issues for young people—town centre and high street management, tourism and so on. They also deal with key strategic services. I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, on this, because without key strategic services such as planning and economic development, there would be no levelling up. Leveraging £1 billion of town centre investment, as we have done in my borough, and £5 billion for a cell and gene therapy park—these are important contributions to the local area.

The noble Lord, Lord Mann, referred to neighbourhood planning, which is a key part of how we drive forward issues around housing. It is well documented that it is neighbourhood planning that has actually delivered housing; it is a very important part of what has been done. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, referred to issues around the structure and architecture of the national development management policies. Frankly, I do not understand how this is going to work in the way it is currently set out in the Bill.

There are plenty of other contributions that district councils make. It was alarming to hear the Minister contend in our earlier session this week that

“councils do not deliver any of the services required by the PCC.”—[Official Report, 13/3/23; col. 1143.]

That does not take into account the very successful partnership working between district councils and the police. As well as managing CCTV systems and often funding neighbourhood wardens, districts have extensive programs for tackling anti-social behaviour and for drug and alcohol rehabilitation, and are often linked with Housing First provision, domestic abuse, engaging communities in setting local policing priorities and tackling enforcement issues in licensing, fly-tipping and environmental crime, to name but a few. During the pandemic, in two-tier areas it was often district councils that stepped up to either take on the support of those who were shielding or help mobilise hyperlocal resources to do so.

Forgive me for perhaps labouring the point a little, but the premise of the Bill, which seeks to override the very important role that district councils play in our communities, may be based on a misunderstanding or an outdated view of what district councils actually do. Of course, on planning issues, when we are looking at big strategic planning, districts have to work in partnership with other bodies—the health service, local enterprise partnerships and county councils—but I contend that this means they must have a vote and a voice around that table. Therefore, I support my noble friend Lord Hunt’s amendment in this group, as I have with others in earlier sessions that give district councils—and indeed town and parish councils—the voice that they deserve and that their communities expect them to have.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 125A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, brings us back to a set of issues that we have discussed in a number of our earlier debates: the question of which authorities can prepare a proposal for the establishment of a combined county authority and submit the proposal to the Secretary of State. The amendment seeks to add second-tier district councils within the proposed CCA’s area to this list of authorities. However, as the noble Lord is aware, the Bill provides that only upper-tier local authorities—county councils and unitary councils—can be constituent members of a CCA. District councils cannot be constituent members of a CCA and, as such, cannot prepare and submit a proposal for a CCA.

Let me take the Committee through the rationale for this approach. When CCAs come into being, they will ensure that there is a mechanism for strategic decision-making across a functional economic area or whole-county geography; in other words, co-operation over matters for which upper-tier local authorities already have responsibility.

In the Government’s view, therefore, it makes sense to enable upper-tier local authorities to decide, albeit following appropriate consultation, whether a CCA across a wider geographic area might offer advantages for such whole-county strategic decision-making. That is not to say that district councils should have no voice in the way a CCA comes into being; quite the contrary. While we believe that it is right for district councils not to form part of the constituent membership of a CCA, they are nevertheless key stakeholders in the devolution process. As we stated in the levelling up White Paper, while we will negotiate devolution deals with upper-tier local authorities across a functional economic area or whole-county geography, we expect county councils to work closely with the district councils in their area during the formulation of the proposal and subsequently. This is exactly what has been happening to date, and we have been pleased to see it.

How can we ensure that the voice of district councils is heard as a CCA proposal is being put together? As discussed in Committee previously, authorities proposing a CCA must undertake a public consultation on the proposal. As key local stakeholders, district councils would be consulted. Their views would be reflected in any summary of consultation responses submitted to the Secretary of State for consideration.

The task of the Secretary of State is then to assess whether the consultation has been sufficient. In doing so, the Secretary of State will have regard to whether it reflects the views of a full range of local stakeholders, including district councils should there be any. The Cabinet Office principles for public consultations are very clear that those conducting a public consultation must consult the full range of local stakeholders, not simply local residents but businesses, public authorities, voluntary sector organisations and others with a legitimate interest. If the Secretary of State, mindful of those principles and in the light of the evidence presented, deems the consultation not to be adequate, they themselves must consult on the proposal. Any such consultation would include consulting district councils.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl for giving way. I do not accept the principle that the district councils in an area, which are the democratically elected representatives for their people, are the same as all the other stakeholders that the noble Earl referred to and just another consultee in this process. Fundamentally, that is where the discussions we have had on this so far have given us such a deal of trouble. District councils have an elected mandate from the people they represent. I appreciate that there are very strong rules around Cabinet Office consultations and so on in the principles that the noble Earl has set out, but surely there must be a different approach to district councils because of the elected mandate that their representatives hold.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friends Lord Scriven and Lord Shipley for raising this important part of the levelling-up agenda. I of course also thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for linking it to the estimable White Paper on levelling up which, in many ways, has pointed to the importance of full devolution being equated with autonomy over local funding.

At the moment—I have probably said this before in the Chamber—we have the delegation of powers and funding from the centre to local government, be it combined authorities or local councils. This is therefore an important debate because, if we really want to be on the path to devolution, we have to address the issue of more autonomy and fiscal powers for local government.

The Minister may wish to pause at this point and take time over the weekend to refer to a House of Commons report that called for more autonomy and fiscal powers for local government. To be fair, it is 10 years old but sometimes, these big changes take a long time. It was published by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, which was of course all-party. I draw the Minister’s attention to two elements of the conclusion, and I hope she will then have time to read more of it:

“Power and finance must go together if local government is to become an equal partner… any attempt to make the relationship between central and local government more balanced would be meaningless without giving local government its own source of revenue… to achieve fully the potential of localism, a key plank of the Government’s policy platform, local government requires financial freedoms.”


The report stated that the Government, under the same political colours as now, should consider giving local authorities in England a share of the existing income tax for England. The committee did not propose a change in income tax rates, but:

“The concept of tax transparency would allow local people to see more clearly what their taxes pay for locally and encourage them to hold local councils to account for their expenditure.”


I agree. There is obviously much more in that report.

The debate here is about having real devolution. If Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can have it, why not Yorkshire, the population of which is bigger than each of them?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Why not Hertfordshire, with a population of 1.2 million people? I join the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Young, for drawing us back to the White Paper and the ambition contained therein. One of the key themes of discussion on the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill so far has been the missed opportunity to tackle some of the critical financial issues that, in my view, are holding local government back from playing as full a part as it can in delivering the Bill’s stated agenda and missions. There is a significant lack of ambition in not taking this further, described by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, as the elephant in the room. The noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord Shipley, rightly highlighted that a key aspect of this is the extent to which the Government seek to reduce the current chronic overcentralisation of decision-making in the UK by empowering CCAs with enhanced fiscal powers. A great deal more could be done in that regard.

In the probing and thoughtful report referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, the LGA carried out a comparative study of fiscal devolution in the UK, Holland, Germany and Switzerland. It concluded that the UK should be working with local government to explore the full extent of fiscal devolution and what it could add to ensure that authorities have the strongest financial muscle to deliver what they know their areas most need. Commenting on the Netherlands, for example, the report says that

“fiscal freedom means that the broad suite of local taxes available to Dutch municipalities, and their tendency to collaborate cross borders, gives local government more placemaking levers while also providing residents with greater transparency on council finances. Fiscal freedom means a difference between money for core services and for place-specific social and cultural issues. It does not argue for fiscal autonomy with the idea that local government can become fiscally self-sustaining units of tax and spend but focuses on the potential that revenue-raising could have for placemaking.”

That goes right to the heart of this argument.

Even with the so-called trail-blazer authorities in Manchester and the West Midlands, one often gets the impression that achieving the fiscal freedoms they feel they need to serve their communities is like getting blood out of a stone. In previous sessions we commented frequently on the regressive, unhelpful and expensive method of creating multiple funding pots that means councils have to waste their precious funds pulling bids together.

If the amendment proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord Shipley, were adopted, or something very similar to it, it would set into legislation the devolution of fiscal powers that, in my view, should always have been in the Bill. On Budget Day, it is important to say that no one in local government believes that a magic money tree is coming our way. I quote the LGA report again:

“Fiscal devolution entails the same suite of local taxes as we currently have in the UK, except with a higher level of devolution of central taxes. Unlike with fiscal freedom, this would not necessitate the introduction of ‘new’ taxes, but rather a reconsideration of the obligations and duties of each level of government. If fiscal devolution deals were done on the basis of local need for finance, following this German model would mean local authorities could fund their own care services in line with their own requirements.”


Europe also benefits from federalised banking institutions. How much more ambitious could local government be if that were the case here?

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, referred to all finance being controlled from London. I am pleased to say that, in Wales, the Labour Government have already developed this and are making great strides in developing local banking institutions. Incidentally, Wales is also undertaking a comprehensive review of council tax.

Earlier this week a Question was asked in your Lordships’ House on the huge potential of pension funds in contributing to fiscal devolution. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, spoke about the extent to which local government and local decision-making is controlled by national finance, with council tax set by Parliament, business rates set by the Treasury and even rents set by DLUHC. That does not make any sense. It is a nonsense, as the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, to end up needing a pothole fund. When that announcement was made earlier today in the Budget, my first comment was, “Why don’t you fund local government properly? Then we could fix our own potholes.”

These revenue-raising powers are important to local government. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, rightly pointed at self-sufficient, independent and confident local government, and finding ways of delivering that through a different fiscal settlement. That is really important. We are not a federal state, as the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, said, but surely an aim of the Bill must be to create the kind of state where we can have a much more effective system of fiscal devolution, with local government having the freedoms to fund itself properly.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

The noble Baroness is making a very good point, but she will no doubt agree with me that sometimes things go wrong— for instance in the recent experiences in Slough and Thurrock —with inappropriate spending or error. In the absence of the Audit Commission, which I remind noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches was abolished under the coalition Government, surely there must be some sanction at central government for inappropriate expenditure. It may be just incompetence, and not even at a criminal level. In the absence of an equivalent to the National Audit Office for local government, there must be ways for Ministers to exercise discretion on financial issues in local government on behalf of taxpayers.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I do not disagree that audit is required. We debated that earlier on the Bill. The authorities mentioned are Conservative authorities, as in Northampton, where my good friends in Corby lost their council because of the actions of a council of another political persuasion. That is a political point, which I probably should not make here.

A proper consideration of the role of further fiscal powers, with full engagement of local government— I am not suggesting that this is done to us because it would go against all the principles that we are talking about—could provide the basis for an empowered, innovative and dynamic shift for CCAs and their constituent members, sitting alongside the completion of the fair funding review, which has been outstanding for years now and which we have discussed previously.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 128 tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord Shipley, relates to the potential fiscal powers of combined county authorities, although we were slowly moving into a debate on English devolution, which we should leave for another time.

As set out in the levelling-up White Paper, level 3 devolution deal areas can look to finance local initiatives for residents and businesses. These include regeneration through a mayoral precept on council tax, and supplements on business rates. The Government are already considering putting powers in the hands of local people through greater fiscal freedoms and are exploring this further fiscal devolution, initially through the trail-blazer devolution deals with Greater Manchester and the West Midlands combined authorities. Negotiations are ongoing and progressing well. It says in my notes that they are expected to conclude in early 2023, so I assume that it will be very soon.

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[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, we have had a short debate and it will be very interesting to see how the Government respond to it. I wait in hope that something can be done, as my noble friend said in moving this amendment, to turbocharge local democracy. There is no doubt that it needs turbocharging: we see elements of its alienation every day of the week. We are moving closer and closer not to better local democracy, but to perhaps better but certainly more intense local administration. I have spoken on that already today. My noble friend made the extremely powerful point, and certainly a very good debating point, that if ID cards are good enough for Northern Ireland, surely a proportional voting system is good enough for England. I hope the Government have a really plausible reason for not accepting that argument.

My noble friend Lady Harris has accurately reported, I am sure, the views of Richmondshire District Council—incidentally, it is in North Yorkshire, which we were of course discussing earlier today—and the value of every vote being equal and the opportunities for regeneration that flow from that. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, drew our attention to some examples of bad practice and pointed out the damaging impacts of single-party rule. Since we certainly think it is inappropriate, to say the least, in North Korea, it ought to be inappropriate in our town halls in England as well. Restoring that element of local choice and broader representation ought surely to be one of the objectives of this levelling-up Bill.

My noble friend Lord Foster of Bath drew attention to the not untypical situation with East Suffolk Council whereby a party with less than 40% of the vote finishes up with over 70% of the representation and therefore of the decision-making. We had debates earlier about the Government’s intention, set out clearly in the Bill, to suspend the operation of proportionality in local authorities in the formation of CCAs. I hope the Government Front Bench will take note of some of the malign consequences that can arise when proportionality is not adhered to. Of course, in terms of representation, a sense of alienation can grow in voters, and in non-voters but electors, who repeatedly say, “It’s not worth voting because they always get in”. That happens time and again, particularly in local government. Surely, we have to make sure that the voices of the silent ones—the voices being suppressed by that system—are in fact heard.

I want to hear the Government say, “There are things about this we do not like; we do not really want anything other than first past the post; but we do recognise that local communities, local councils, should have the right to choose for themselves the voting system they use”. My noble friend has set out in considerable detail a very compelling case: we are not suggesting throwing the whole system up in the air, but simply using systems already in operation in various parts of the United Kingdom, including in England.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Harris, Lady Pinnock and Lady Bennett, and the noble Lords, Lord Foster and Lord Stunell. It has been a very interesting discussion. The arguments I have heard articulated many times over the years on voting methods have been rehearsed with great conviction this afternoon.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and to join her in commending the noble Lord, Lord Best, and his expert collaborators on tackling a huge issue for communities up and down the land, but particularly for some of our most disadvantaged communities. It is important that we put this in the context of where we are now. Since the late 1970s, about half of all public land— 2 million hectares in total—has been sold from public to largely private hands. That means that local government has 40% less landholding than it did four decades ago; the NHS estate is down by 70%.

What we have seen, as we have heard from other speakers in this group, is not just a loss of land—people might or might not have ideological views about that—but a loss of capacity, facilities, access for local people, and the simple destruction of what had been a public resource. I think of one of these that I visited a few years ago on the Isle of Wight, a particularly tragic tale. The Frank James Hospital had been donated as a charity—a beautiful, big piece of land. It was a public facility that over decades—the best part of a century—the public had raised money for and put money into, but was sold 20 years ago to a developer and is still sitting there rotting.

Closer to us here, some noble Lords may know of Caxton Hall, which was a huge centre of historical interest and a place to hold public meetings in the vicinity of Westminster, at one point fairly affordably—something that anyone who has tried to organise one of those will know is a very rare breed indeed these days. Now it is, of course, private flats.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, has hit on something really important here, and I offer to do what I can to work with him if he wishes to take this forward into the next stage of the Bill. We have lost space for political campaigning. We have lost space particularly for our young people—those public spaces were often where young people gathered and where they were not surveilled, overseen, and expected to spend money; they were just a public space for young people to gather. So much of that has been lost. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said through the ventriloquism of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, this is very much a levelling-up issue. When you go to the poorer communities around our country, the public spaces have been sold off, but they also do not have even private spaces that you could rent because there is not enough money to support that kind of private space. This is a crucial issue to pick up in the Bill.

I will briefly comment on the Government’s Amendment 165, which broadly concerns the principle of choosing to dispose of land for “less than best” consideration. It is an excellent idea. The example that comes to mind is of a police and crime commissioner deciding to give at very low cost, perhaps even at peppercorn cost, a piece of land that might be used to build a youth centre on—that facility that we have lost so terribly in most parts of the country. That would clearly be a very good thing for a police and crime commissioner to do, directly serving their mandate.

What worries me a little about this is the Secretary of State consent element, which is just one more centralisation. I wonder whether there should not be a range of local and regional bodies having an input, rather than it coming down to Westminster. None the less, I applaud some degree of progress.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate on a number of important amendments. It is, of course, essential that these new combined county authorities and constituent local authorities should be able to use land in their ownership and negotiate with partners to use land resources to create facilities, regenerate their areas, and make best use of the scarce land resources we have. The other reason this is so important is that making best use of these brownfield and previously developed sites affords the ability to make environmental protections to those parts of the country where we do not wish to see development. That is another reason for doing this. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, also takes into consideration the fact that there may be attempts to frustrate development. That certainly struck a chord with me, as the saga of the development of my town to the west of the A1(M) has dragged on for over 27 years without resolution—but that is enough about my personal pain.

I welcome the Government’s amendment on the issue of there being no specific provision relating to disposal below value. This is a big issue for local authorities whenever we are looking at these things. I think there is a degree of misunderstanding about it in local authorities, where a lot of arguments go on between the legal side and the policy side about how the power of environmental, social and economic improvement works, in conjunction with the audit side of having to achieve best consideration. I hope that these amendments will help to resolve some of these issues. The ability to empower PCCs to include considerations other than monetary value alongside local authorities is welcome, although I will come on to some of the issues around that in a moment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, rightly pointed to the very steep price rises and the 160% inflation that is currently linked to valuations. The words of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, channelled through the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised the issue of the assets available to more deprived communities and what we do about making sure that we do not exacerbate that rather than using the powers of the Bill to level up. Using the power of land to provide preventive facilities—as in the example the noble Lord, Lord Best, used—which will do long-term good for the community and potentially save long-term revenue funding for the public bodies concerned is a really important way forward for determining how the value of land is determined in the first place. If it is going to provide facilities for that community and save revenue for the public body in the long term, surely that ought to be one of the considerations we can take into account.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester highlighted the outdated nature of the figures currently used. This has been one of the common themes of the data used that we have highlighted throughout the consideration of the Bill. We must get up-to-date data here, otherwise we will end up giving ourselves problems that we should not need to have.

Turning to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, he made a very clear exposition of why the need to be able to make best use of public land—and therefore improve the built environment—is crucial to levelling up, and how the use of public land charters could help. It was interesting to hear that the work of the Select Committee had looked at that closely and determined it.

We cannot blame hard-pressed public bodies, which are so desperate for cash, for sometimes having to go for the option that will give them the most funding when looking at valuations on their land. Of course, the long-term solution to that is to fund public bodies properly in the first place—they would then not have to make those tough decisions—but we are where we are with that.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

173: Clause 77, page 86, line 23, at end insert “and it has considered the historical, cultural or archaeological significance of a name change”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires cultural, historical and archaeological factors to be considered before making a name change.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

My Lords, I come to this amendment with a deal of frustration about the clause being in the Bill at all. I have a great deal of support for the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, to Clause 77 in that I really have no idea what such an issue is doing in a Bill aimed at tackling big, strategic issues of levelling up and regeneration—never mind devolution. We have been told many times in debates on this Bill that the Government’s business is not to intervene with matters when they should be devolved to local authorities. So I can only assume this is there to pacify a noisy bee in someone's bonnet, perhaps on the Back Benches in the other place. The inclusion of this clause is even more peculiar when you consider the major issues that we think have either been left out of the Bill or skipped over, like local government finance, the business rate discussion we just had, proper consideration of environmental issues, delivery of social and affordable housing and even the Government's own levelling up missions, which are considered too transitory to be included in the Bill.

In my opinion, councils are perfectly able to deal with issues relating to street names without government legislation or intervention. If there are legal issues relating to that, perhaps they need to be covered. However, being realistic, I am aware even in my short time in Parliament that bees in Back-Benchers’ bonnets can be exceedingly loud and powerful. So if we are not going to persuade the Government that this clause has no place in a strategic Bill, my thought was that we had better make it add some value to the existing process for street naming.

Because I live in a town that was subject to a fantastic and visionary master plan back in the 1940s and 1950s, it was designed so that street names are zoned. For example, in one part of the town, you have streets named after women pioneers, which I really approve of: Ferrier Road, Nightingale Walk and—my favourite—Pankhurst Crescent. Another area is great architects: Telford Avenue, Wren Close, Nash Close and so on. So with a modicum of knowledge of my town, you can navigate your way around. Our street naming committee maintains a list of further names for that area to allocate as developments occur, upon which extensive community consultation takes place, as you would expect from a co-operative council.

I presume that this clause is aimed at tackling issues which arise when it becomes apparent that an individual after whom a street is named does not have quite the gilded reputation that they may have done previously, or when our view of part of our history as a country alters because of cultural changes. That will happen from time to time; there is nothing wrong with that so far. But surely it is in a council’s gift already to consult with local people, set out the reasons for the change and get on with it.

My first amendment is to ensure that appropriate thought is given to the context, history, potential connotation and local perceptions of the proposed change. In relation to the point about archaeology, I think this does need consideration, as a brief search will determine whether any future development is likely to reveal earlier uses of the land which can help in determining new names. For example, the huge hoard of Roman coins which was found on one of our estate developments resulted in the proposed road names being scrapped in favour of Augustus Gate, Valerian Way and Jupiter Gate, to remind us of their Roman history. That is the kind of thing that can occur with a very brief search before naming occurs.

On Amendment 175 in my name, if we must prescribe the process for changing street names—my preference is obviously that we do not—then it is vital that effective consultation is carried out with all of those who live in the area and those who may have businesses there. For those who are resident, I hope it is obvious that they should be consulted. For business owners, there may be a cost involved—sometimes considerable—in changing their business address and ensuring they are given adequate time to assess and comment on any change is clearly vital. I beg to move.

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[Earl Howe (Con)]

We cannot, at this stage, prescribe particular percentages to particular situations. This is to be worked through in regulations and guidance, which was, as I emphasised, the approach that respondents to the consultation felt was right: we should not be unduly prescriptive in primary legislation, but rather allow for some flexibility at local level depending on the situation under consideration.

I turn to Amendment 175 in the name of the noble Baroness. As I outlined, our view is that local people should have the final say on these matters, particularly, as the noble Baroness’s Amendment 173 demonstrates, when it comes to their local heritage. In this context, I agree with the underlying intent behind this amendment. There should be clear processes for making sure that views from all relevant groups that might be affected by a street name change are taken into account. It is, however, important that we do this in the right way so that the processes are robust but can be adjusted if needed.

The approach in these amendments would be prescriptive and would limit our ability to go further than simply consultation by making local views determinative, as the clauses do at present. But I want to reassure the noble Baroness that we will be setting out clear, transparent and robust arrangements in secondary legislation, as we set out in the consultation I already mentioned. In addition, by setting out the detail for how consultation on street naming will work in regulations and guidance, we can maintain flexibility to update processes in line with different local circumstances and changes such as new technology. I hope these remarks are helpful in explaining the Government’s approach to what is a sensitive issue.

My noble friend Lord Lansley asked whether there were any local Acts of Parliament that might affect this issue. I am advised that the Oxfordshire Act 1985 might be relevant here. I think I had better do further research for my noble friend to find out whether there are others—but that was the advice that I have been able to receive.

On his other question of the power to name new villages, I have no direct experience of this. My understanding is that what normally happens is a conversation between a private developer and the local authority and an accommodation is reached. The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, who clearly has direct experience of this, is shaking her head, so I do bow to her experience. It would seem appropriate that I look into this further and write to my noble friend once again.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part. I thought this would be quite a short debate, but you never know here, do you? I am also grateful to the noble Earl for, as usual, a very thoughtful and considered response to the debate.

Our contention in tabling the amendments in this group was that the Government’s introduction of this clause to the Bill was kind of bizarre in a way. We have looked at some very key strategic issues in the debates already—we are likely to come to more in the days in Committee to come—around local finance, business rates, environmental issues, affordable housing and so on, and found that there is not as much in the Bill as we would like to see on those. However, what seems to be an issue covered by previous legislation and seems for the most part to be managed perfectly well in local areas—there may be some notable exceptions—gets a whole clause in the Bill.

I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, for his careful evisceration of the clause—that is what it was. He used the term “a clause in search of a problem” and asked the clear question: what is the problem here? He also referred to the impact statement having no reference to this clause. I think the idea is that there may be—let us face it, there probably are—some councils around the country which either insist on name changes that have not got public support or resist name changes that have. But the existing powers, as has been consistently referred to through the debate, require a consultation of ratepayers to vote in favour of a name change, so it is difficult to see where the push comes from.

I know that this issue causes a great deal of concern in local areas if there are things that have gone wrong, but surely the pressure on a democratically elected council would be to make sure they had their residents alongside them if they were going to present a change of name, not to push against that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, talked about the LGA supporting getting rid of this clause. I noted that from the LGA’s briefing. The idea that people really want to get tangled up in these issues in Parliament is odd, to say the least, as far as I am concerned.

The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, talked about measuring sufficient local support. Leaving this to regulation seems, again, to be a huge sledgehammer to crack a nut. If we are going to have regulations around the conduct and timing of a referendum and what percentage is going to get us over the line in terms of what we call our road, that kind of centralised direction has no place in a Bill that is supposed to be concentrating on devolution. I do not want to get caught up in the issue around roads in Haringey particularly. It may be in that case that the consultation did not take place; I do not know.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I do not think the noble Baroness has understood the issue. This has everything to do with devolution; that is the whole point of the clause.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Well, I think that regulating to the extent of telling where signs can be put and whether they should be painted or printed really is against the spirit of devolution.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, made good points on what powers local authorities have to name which things. We should not avoid the fact that private developers will of course choose to name things in a way that they think will help them to sell properties in an area. They will choose either road names or settlement names because they think it is in their interest and will help to sell properties. If we are to have this clause—I assume we will, because I doubt the Government will withdraw it—we need to think about this as well. Areas should be named according to some kind of local connection, whether it is history or individuals connected with the area—my second amendment refers to this—and I do not think that this should be entirely in the hands of developers.

I have not changed my view on this clause. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that it does not have much of a place in the Bill, but if it is going to be in there, when name changes are made we need to think about what the connections are. I am grateful for the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on this. We also need to think about proper public consultation on matters such as this. If it has to be in the Bill, so be it, but local authorities have managed this perfectly well so far and there is no need for a clause such as this in a broad-ranging, strategic Bill. That said, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 173 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

This is the prime opportunity to clarify in statute our planning system’s role in delivering on our climate change and environment targets and removing the ambiguities and inconsistencies of the current system. I hope that the Government will agree that now is the time to seize this legislative opportunity, because there will not be another in the short or medium term. Now is the time to act.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak next as I have an amendment in this group. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for his excellent speech on his amendments and for meeting with me and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, to discuss the Bill. I was pleased that he mentioned Peers for the Planet; I am not yet a member of that group but I will be a very enthusiastic joiner. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has greatly encouraged me in that respect.

The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, spoke about giving local authorities the tools that they need. That is also an important part of my Amendment 179A in this group, which I will speak to. The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, referred to the Skidmore review and the Climate Change Committee’s work—which are both crucial to his and my amendments in this group—and to having a net-zero test running through the planning system. That is absolutely crucial, and now is the opportunity to do just that.

We have spoken before about the fact that there are some key strategic omissions from the Bill. Ensuring that climate change is fundamentally enshrined in law in the planning process is one of the most critical. My amendment is designed to address this too, by including it as one of the key purposes of the planning process. Over 80% of councils have now declared a climate emergency, with a pledge to net zero sitting alongside that, so surely it is time that the Government and legislation caught up and helped provide the tools to do that. The amendments in this group are designed to set out: first, an overall purpose for the planning process; secondly, to make absolutely sure that that includes the sustainability of all development; and, thirdly, to ensure that every individual development proposal is assessed to ensure that it is part of the solution to climate change, not adding to the problem.

As far back as November 2021, the Local Government Association commissioned a wide-ranging report to show how critical the local contribution to climate change could be. There are many important contributions recorded in that report, including one from Richard Blyth, head of policy at the Royal Town Planning Institute, who said:

“Collectively local activity and investment (for example on housing, infrastructure, water management) will only contribute positively to the ambition to leave the environment in a better state if there is a shared spatial framework for improving local environments”.


He pointed out that the Environment Act could take this only so far, but some of the measures it contained risked adding to the piecemeal landscape of environmental plans without clear directions for economic decision-making. The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, referred to the piecemeal approach that results from some of the provisions in the Environment Act. The only way of ensuring that a holistic approach is taken to environmental issues is to ensure that all the relevant issues are built into local plans and considered for each development, whether that is water, flooding, soil, air quality, transport, access to open spaces, biodiversity, energy, waste or the whole-life carbon impact of buildings. These should all be part of the consideration of planning.

Net zero can be achieved only if decarbonisation happens in every place, everywhere across the country. These amendments would incorporate in the Bill plans for an overarching clause that would do just that. At the moment, if the overarching framework of the national management development plan, whatever it contains in relation to net zero—I am probably not the only one in this Committee who fears that this will be nowhere near ambitious enough in response to the climate emergency—does not have a corresponding network of local plans setting out clearly how development will take a radically new and ambitious approach to this, we will, I fear, continue to move at the current snail’s pace.

Local plans also need to reflect the needs of mitigation of climate change. In a paper from the University of Strathclyde by Dr Hawker and Dr Wade, they say:

“In particular, local planning decisions around land use and infrastructure must be made with acknowledgement of their implications for living with climate change. For example, increasing green spaces can support drainage in urban areas, helping to alleviate future flood risks”.


We have seen some magnificent examples in recent years—for example, pocket parks in high streets, which help with flooding issues—but they are by no means common enough yet. Local authorities often hold large building portfolios, including social housing. If they can be supported with long-term future funding, they can take action now to ensure that properties are energy efficient and much more cost effective for residents.

At Second Reading in the other place, the Secretary of State’s contention was that proposals in the Bill would strengthen environmental protection. He explained that a National Planning Policy Framework document would be published in July—that is July last year—setting out how environmental outcomes were to be driven. As far as I know, that document has not yet been published by the department. So, while we await specific policies on specific aspects of tackling environmental outcomes, fundamentally writing climate change into both development planning and mitigation measures for the planning system of the future is the only way of ensuring that they reach every part of the UK. If we do not do so in this Bill, we will have missed a huge opportunity to align the planning system with the climate change goals that should be right at its heart.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 179 and 271 from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. I thank him very much for bringing them to your Lordships’ Committee. I will make three quick points.

First, I do not understand why the Government are not using this Bill as a vehicle to embed the approaches that they have signed up to on net zero and climate change targets more generally. Surely this is the ideal legislation to ensure that our planning system supports what the Government say they wish to do.

Secondly, the noble Lord quite rightly mentioned the Skidmore review, which is very telling, and we have also heard from the Climate Change Committee. However, the National Audit Office’s report should not be ignored. It said that

“there are serious weaknesses in central government’s approach to working with local authorities on decarbonisation, stemming from a lack of clarity over local authorities’ overall roles, piecemeal funding, and diffuse accountabilities”.

The Government need to listen to the National Audit Office, because that is based on its expertise in monitoring and evaluating what local authorities are doing and the confrontations they are having on some of these issues due to flaws in the current local planning system and arrangements.

Thirdly, my background is mainly in health, and there is no doubt that unlocking economic growth through planning reform, as was highlighted in the net zero review, could achieve real health benefits by fully aligning our planning system with climate change and nature targets. The point has been made by the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, which says that a healthy neighbourhood can also be a powerful levelling-up tool, leading to better mental and physical health and well-being outcomes through active travel, social connectivity and access to green spaces. Statistics published by the UN only a few days ago show that life expectancy in this country has deteriorated dramatically in comparison with many other countries since the 1950s. We were then one of the top countries for life expectancy; now we are in danger of dropping out of the top 30.

There is such a persuasive argument for tying in strong public preventive health with what must be done on climate change and net zero. Surely the planning system is one of the most powerful levers that we can use to make it happen. I hope we will come back to this very important matter on Report.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, to begin with, I do not agree that local authorities across the UK are not taking net zero and sustainability seriously. We know that local authorities across the country are making great strides towards our net-zero future. There are some brilliant examples of local action, innovation and excellence in this area, so I do not agree with the noble Baroness. When we get national planning policies that make these issues important nationally, councils will have to take them seriously and align their local plans with them. I would not want anybody to think that local government is not taking this seriously, because it certainly is and it is doing a huge amount to deliver our net-zero targets.

In December we published a consultation on updating the national planning policy, focusing largely on changes to housing policy that we intend to make in spring. This consultation closed on 2 March this year. We also sought initial views on some wider changes, which we will take forward into a fuller review of the framework. This fuller review will consider the scope to go further on a range of areas, including ensuring that the planning system capitalises on opportunities to support the natural environment, respond to climate change and deliver on the levelling up of economic opportunity—so there is more to come.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for her response so far. Can she pick up the points that the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and I made about the piecemeal nature of how this works and the legislation that informs planning? The Minister herself set out some of the many pieces of legislation that come together to drive forward the statutory framework instilling this in planning, but at the moment that makes for a fairly piecemeal approach that requires drawing together. These amendments were tabled to enshrine in legislation the overarching purpose of building sustainability into the planning system.

I think everybody who has spoken has made the point that the National Planning Policy Framework is not statutory; it is guidance. Different planning inspectors will interpret the local authority’s interpretation of that guidance differently. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and others outlined, sometimes the most ambitious authorities find themselves coming into conflict with their planning inspectors in this respect, because they do not accept the ambition that has been put into their local plan. Can the Minister pick up those points?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

A number of pieces of legislation from a number of different areas of government and beyond have an effect on net zero, sustainability and climate change. That is going to happen. I know that this was brought up in our meetings with noble Lords prior to the Bill, and it is a complex area. I will once again try to show your Lordships how this all fits together to ensure that we are all working in the same direction and delivering what we know we want for climate change, net zero and sustainability.

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I will briefly conclude by saying that I strongly support what my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath said about electrical safety. There seems to be absolutely no reason or argument to oppose his amendments, which would ensure that those who occupied short-term lets and dwellings, or indeed any accommodation, had a guarantee of a safe environment in which they could operate.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, in an earlier debate on these topics on Monday, we heard the noble Lord, Lord Foster, discussing Southwold, where I spent many happy hours on holiday as a child and which now has, if I remember my figures from Monday rightly, only 500 permanent homes out of 1,400 homes. In that same debate the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred, as he did again today, to the fact that have not just a numbers problem but a distribution problem around the country because of the lack of available data.

We are all aware of the considerable issues presented in parts of our country related to second homes and short-term lets. That situation was clearly articulated by my noble friend Lady Hayman in our debate on Monday, when she articulated that communities are hollowed out because of the second homes left empty for large parts of the year, which means that all the community facilities that permanent residents need struggle to be viable. In addition, we see local house prices forced out of affordability for local people as second homes and holiday lets contribute to the housing pressures.

An amendment creating new use classes for second homes or holiday lets was rejected in the other place. Although amendments on the same subject were withdrawn on Monday, I hope that we come back to this, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Best, because it is critical that we tackle this issue. In the House of Commons, the Government claimed that these were not necessary as neighbourhood plans could create principal residence policies. However, I wonder whether the full extent of this issue and its impact, particularly on rural and coastal communities, has been properly assessed and understood. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, would enable the collection of data relating to this problem which might help to develop the picture further. However, we should encourage the Government, through the Minister, to consider this matter as urgent; it may already be too late for some of the communities worst affected. Surely we will not abandon these communities to the opportunities they offer for a small number of people to make a fast buck.

On the amendments tabled to Clause 210, which were clearly articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, we too are interested to hear the Government’s thoughts on the registration of short-term rental properties. It was interesting to hear about the work of the Built Environment Select Committee in that respect.

In the Commons, Ministers referred previously to the ongoing consultation on this matter—indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to it again this afternoon. What is the outcome of that consultation—it has not been published yet—and what conclusions will the Government draw from it? I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Young, referred to this in an earlier debate on this topic.

I was very interested in the comments on the work of the Built Environment Select Committee, and it is fascinating to hear that this issue sits with the DCMS rather than DLUHC. I hope the Minister will respond to that. It is disappointing to hear that a Minister thinks that the whole Bill has already been enacted. In view of the fact that none of these issues has been dealt with, I think we are glad that it has not been so far, and I am sure that noble Lords here will improve the Bill as we go along.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

May I just briefly say, as a matter of courtesy, that the reply to the letter that I referred to came from a Minister in the other place? I just thought, in all fairness, that I should make that very clear.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that clarification.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, set out the four questions asked by his amendments, and they are all very important questions on which I hope we will hear further from the Minister, particularly Amendment 446, which addresses how this is going to be paid for. That is one of a number of questions on fees and costs that appear about many other clauses of the Bill, so I hope we will have responses to those questions.

The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Foster, largely relate to ensuring that the safety of short-term let properties is not left to chance. It is particularly important that properties left empty for periods of the year are subject to detailed regulation on safety matters. This would also encourage absentee landlords to ensure that their responsibilities are met. Recently, we have seen increasing pressure on social landlords to address safety provision—in fact, there are very stringent new requirements on them—so it is clearly an issue that the Secretary of State takes seriously. We should not have what would amount to an exemption for the owners of short-term let properties in this respect. I hope that may be addressed.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, also referred to the difficulty of enforcing licensing restrictions without data from booking platforms. Although I agree with him that booking platforms may be unwilling to release that data, it is really important and, without it, enforcement is difficult to address. Local authorities would struggle without effective data collection methods to enforce some of the matters raised in this debate.

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred to the perverse incentives that exist between council tax and business rates. This is really important to data gathering: there is no incentive for councils, because if they collect business rates, they have to send it all off to our good friends at the Treasury, whereas if they collect council tax, they keep it to deliver services to their communities, so there is not much incentive for them to get matters straight here.

My noble friend Lord Berkeley referred to the importance of being reassured of the safety of the building, regardless of the length of time of the let. If you stay somewhere, even if just overnight, you want to be assured that the building is subject to the same safety regulations as would apply anywhere else you stayed.

Turning to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, I am very sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, is not in her place today and I hope he will send her our very best wishes for a speedy recovery. He spoke about evidence to the Built Environment Select Committee from south Devon. I heard a great deal on this from my former colleague on the District Councils Network, Judy Pearce, who is the leader of South Hams Council and has been a powerful advocate of a great deal more action on second homes. The suggestion of pilot schemes—or taking advice from Wales, as I am sure my noble friend Lady Wilcox would say—is always a very good idea.

On 21 March, it was reported that changes aimed at restricting the way that homes can be turned into Airbnbs were being introduced, as the Secretary of State for DLUHC was going to bring them in. He acknowledged a problem with holiday lets preventing young people accessing jobs and homes. Can the Minister give us further information on whether that will come into the Bill as government amendments and when we will see government amendments to this effect?

Those are our comments on the amendments submitted. We support the amendments on registration and we certainly support the amendments on safety.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register as the owner of a second home in Pembrokeshire, one of the three local authorities that is introducing a licensing scheme—actually, it is not introducing a licensing scheme but a 300% increase in rates unless you rent your house out for more than six months, which I generally do.

This group of amendments concerns the operation of the short-term letting registration scheme introduced by the Bill. To start with Amendment 180, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Foster of Bath—I, too, send my good wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and hope she recovers swiftly from Covid—I start by acknowledging the important topic this amendment raises relating to holiday lets and second homes.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

183: Clause 85, page 94, line 8, at end insert—
“(3A) After subsection (4) insert—“(4A) A local planning authority must review and update the development plan at least once every five years.””Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would require local authorities to review and update the development plan at least every five years.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, as we begin our discussions on the detail of the planning section of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, it is important to explain that, although our amendments necessarily cover the detail of the various clauses, there is huge concern in local government about some of the fundamental principles that underlie the proposed changes in the Bill. We absolutely must ensure that local plans, with the input of local people and democratically elected representatives, retain their primacy over anything that is drawn up centrally in Whitehall.

As currently written, whether intentional or not, the Bill would give primacy to the national department management policies, which is a very significant change indeed from the National Planning Policy Framework that currently exists and which, as we discussed earlier, is guidance rather than statue. We all recognise the need to have a framework to guide planning policy, but it should always give primacy and flexibility to local areas to ensure that planning meets their local needs, enables the voice of their local residents and businesses to be expressed through the planning system, and meets the test of local democratic accountability that is so important in shaping our places.

Noble Lords will have received significant numbers of briefings on this part of the Bill, as we have, from some of the most respected bodies in this field: the Local Government Association, the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Town and Country Planning Association, CPRE and the Better Planning Coalition. It is fair to say that most of them welcome the focus on planning in the Bill, although perhaps some of them, like me, would have preferred a dedicated planning Bill, which would have enabled an even greater focus on what needs to be done to make our planning system fit for the 21st century.

All these organisations focus on the essential element of planning, which is that it must be local and properly engage local people and businesses. The Royal Town Planning Institute, for example, says:

“If those living in newly devolved areas are going to truly benefit from the Bill they need to be given the planning freedoms to innovate and deliver planning policy that works best for them. We’ve seen that development management policies can be an effective tool to stimulate growth, provide energy, transport and housing decisions strategically, and experiment with different policy options to meet local needs.”


The Local Government Association expresses considerable concern about the ability to retain local autonomy and decision-making over plans in the light of the NDMP proposals in the Bill, saying that,

“in reality, local plans will be constrained in the event that they conflict with National Development Management Policies, in which case the latter will take precedence. We have previously sought an amendment to reverse this proposal so that local plans will take precedence in the event of conflict. This is critical to ensure that that one of the key principles of the planning reforms—‘a genuinely plan-led system’— is enshrined in the Bill.”

The LGA goes on to emphasise that local councils should have the flexibility to respond to local, complex and changing circumstances.

The CPRE has gone to the extent of seeking extensive legal advice on these issues. It strongly supports our Amendments 189, 190, 191 and 192, as well as an amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. It has provided a detailed legal critique, particularly regarding Clause 86, which questions whether there is any legal scope for local development plans and NDMPs to vary from each other in any way, which, as it puts it, is likely to dissuade local authorities from seeking to set local policies for fear that they will be rendered obsolete by subsequent changes to NDMPs. It goes on to comment that according to Clause 86 as drafted, if there were to be a tension between a national policy and a local one, there could be no assessment of balance. The national policy would always win out, despite its not having been given any democratic scrutiny. The decision-makers’ scope to make a locally appropriate decision is therefore removed.

The CPRE is also concerned about the fate of neighbourhood plans under this proposed new system, as it says they could become out of date quickly if NDMPs change—for example, if there is a change of Secretary of State, which is not an unusual occurrence in recent times. For communities which have spent months or years working on their neighbourhood plan, this could destroy their trust in the planning system. The CPRE’s legal opinion from Landmark Chambers in November last year demonstrated that the Bill is a radical departure from the current system and would elevate NDMPs to the top of the planning hierarchy, a position which the Government at Second Reading stated was not the intention of the legislation. However, it appears from the way the Bill is currently drafted that it takes planning into uncharted waters which are both centralising and undemocratic.

We come to this important group of amendments with that backdrop, which is a very important context against which we should consider this section of the Bill. My Amendment 183, along with amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Lansley, address issues relating to how local plans are kept up to date. I have to say that planning officers may feel that they are already in a situation where local plans are permanently in preparation. That is because the many stages of plan preparation take a long time, as does the process of inspection, public inquiry and so on. All this means that by the time you have a full plan in place, you are already dealing with the review of that plan.

However, with the pace of change, rapid developments in the economy and the need to take account of demographics and changes in our communities and to tackle climate change, we must ensure that we simplify and enable the renewing and refreshing of development plans every five years. This would ensure that local authorities do not have to face the cliff edge of an enormous, complex and expensive planning exercise which would result in the longer intervals of up to 30 years given between plan reviews. This will require corresponding changes within the Planning Inspectorate, but they would need to be considered in relation to the Bill in any case.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

So you have a local plan, it goes to a nominated planning inspector to be heard in public and no person is to have a right to be heard at an examination in public. Now then: what is the quickest way to aggravate people? It is that: taking away their chance to have their say. With those fairly stringent remarks, I leave it to others to further comment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a really fascinating debate on a key part of the Bill. It has been good to hear voices with such great expertise and wisdom around the Chamber this evening. I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part. They have rightly emphasised the importance of a development system that is properly plan led. I greatly appreciate that.

If the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester has declared his passion for housing for older people, I should probably declare that mine is localism, devolution and community engagement. So I want to be optimistic about this Bill, but in these crucial aspects of planning I genuinely feel that it is going in the wrong direction.

I should probably give a brief confession that I am very bruised by experiences I have had relating to the planning system. Our Stevenage local plan, after some two and a half years of public engagement and consultation, a public inquiry which was extended to three weeks, which is quite unusual for a district local plan, and the approval of the inspector, was then called in by our local Member of Parliament and held by the Secretary of State for 451 days while we waited for a determination to be made about whether it could go ahead. It was eventually released under certain conditions, which I will not try noble Lords’ patience by going into. So the thought of this kind of centralising tendency in planning in the way proposed in the Bill makes me exceptionally nervous. I hope that explains a little bit why.

It was, as ever, a pleasure to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Young. I respect his great knowledge and expertise in these areas. It is very concerning that only 39% of local authorities have a local plan. One reason for that is that, if you do not have a local plan in place, developers can pitch up and do virtually whatever they want in your area because you cannot resist it. That is not the whole case because you can use an extant plan, but it is much more difficult to resist unwanted development. I completely support his points on stream- lining and simplifying the process.

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The noble Lords, Lord Stunell and Lord Lansley, asked where NPPFs stand in relation to NDMPs. The NPPF will be retained to guide plan-making, but those parts which relate to decision-making will form the basis of the new suite of NDMPs, which will be given statutory weight by the Bill. They will be coming in as we are consulting. As the consultation comes to the fore, it will guide the NDMPs for the future. I hope that that makes sense.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am sorry; I do not want to try the Minister’s patience, but we are not understanding how the various things sit together—the NPPF and the NDMPs. It is not quite clear to me how that will work, and it will make life very difficult for planning inspectors. We have talked before about a meeting to explain some of this in more detail, and that would be extremely helpful to those of us who are considering the Bill closely. If we could get a better understanding of that, it would be very helpful.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I am really happy to do that, because it is complex; there are a lot of acronyms and what have you. I do not think that this is the time of night to be discussing detail, so I am happy to put together a meeting as soon as possible, and we will go through it in detail.

I turn now to Amendment 189, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, which would allow Parliament to make national development management policies itself. Like national planning policy made at present through the National Planning Policy Framework, national development management policies will serve a broad purpose and will sit alongside policies in locally produced plans as a starting point in considering the suitability of development proposals. They will carry forward the role that successive Governments have played since the 1940s in setting high-level national policy that influences plans and decisions. This is a key function of government, which would be undermined by the creation of a dual-power system, as this amendment seeks to do. An effective planning system cannot be achieved if Ministers and Parliament could create contradictory policies by both having the vires to do so. Such a role for Parliament in planning has not been previously proposed, and I am afraid that it is not one that we can support.

Amendment 190, also in the name of the noble Baroness, would impose a legislative restriction on setting fixed standards through national development management policies, while retaining an ability for those policies to set floors which could be exceeded. Unlike building regulations, national planning policies are not used to set specific standards in most cases. Nevertheless, I understand the concern behind the amendment: that national development could, potentially, be used to constrain what locally produced plans are able to do.

The question about how national development management policies are to be used is one that we have consulted on recently. Through that, we were clear that our intention is that they will address planning considerations that apply regularly in decision-making across the country, such as general policies for conserving heritage assets and preventing inappropriate development, including on belts and in areas of high flood risk—the types of policy already contained in the National Planning Policy Framework. Our consultation also said that we were minded to retain the scope for optional technical standards to be set locally through plans so that local planning authorities can go above minimum building standards. The responses to the consultation are being assessed at present, as noble Lords know.

More broadly, it is important that we do not impose restrictions on the national development management policies, which could prevent sensible use of them. It may be appropriate to set absolute standards in one or two instances for reasons of consistency or to prevent harm—for example, in relation to pollution limits. This is best addressed through policy on a case-by-case basis rather than blanket restrictions in legislation. For these reasons, we do not think it necessary or appropriate to impose specific requirements or limitations of the sort that this amendment would entail, so I hope the noble Baroness will understand that we are not able to support it.

I move to Amendment 191, which seeks to probe the direction and modification powers of the Secretary of State to revoke and modify national development management policies. The power to revoke and modify the policies is bound by the same requirements as those to make them, including those on consultation. We recognise that, once the first suite of those policies is published, there must also be a clear legal framework for modifying and revoking them. Like the National Planning Policy Framework, national development management policies will need to evolve over time, reflecting new government priorities and changing economic, social and environmental challenges, as well as trends in planning practice. That is why the Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to revoke and modify these policies; without this power, they would become too rigid and potentially ineffective.

However, I would like to reassure noble Lords that the power to revoke and modify the policies will not be used lightly. It is not a mechanism to remove long-standing national planning policies, such as protecting the green belt or tackling flood risk. We want to see consultation, engagement and debate across the sector about potential changes to the policies, in the same way as happens now with the National Planning Policy Framework. Given that any revocation and modification must follow the same procedural requirements as the creation of the new national development management policies, we feel that this amendment is unnecessary and, therefore, not one we can support.

I turn to Amendments 191A and 191B in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornhill, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Taylor of Stevenage, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, which seek to change the requirements for making national development management policies so that they more clearly mirror those for national policy statements. National policy statements are used to set out the policy for nationally significant infrastructure projects—planning decisions that are made by Ministers. National development management policies will serve a broader purpose than this and will sit alongside policies in locally produced plans when local decision-makers consider the suitability of development proposals. As previously mentioned, they will carry forward the role that successive Governments have played since the 1940s in setting high-level national policy that influences plans and decisions.

Clause 87 already imposes an obligation on the Secretary of State to ensure that consultation and participation take place as appropriate, and our recent consultation on the future of the NPPF and the NDMP confirms that public consultation will be carried out before they are designated.

The requirements in this Bill set out that the Secretary of State must explicitly consider public consultation when determining what consultation is appropriate. This is similar to the approach for national policy statements, which also require consultation as the Secretary of State thinks appropriate, although they do not include explicit consideration of “public” consultation as in the existing clause.

I acknowledge that the existing clause uses the phrase “if any” in relation to consultation. It includes this as there may be rare occasions where it would be appropriate not to consult on a draft national development management policy, such as if urgent changes are needed in the national interest. For example, during the pandemic, the Secretary of State was able to issue an urgent Written Ministerial Statement in July 2020 to temporarily change national planning policy so that theatres, concert halls and live music performance venues could be given a degree of protection where they were temporarily vacant due to Covid-19 business disruption.

The changes that we discussed earlier to the decision-making test in Clause 86, which strengthen the weight given to the development plan over material considerations, mean that such a policy would have had significantly less weight in planning decisions today, unless it was made a national development management policy.

I hope I have reassured noble Lords that we have developed a proportionate framework for creating national development management policies, and explained why we have taken a different approach from that for national policy statements, meaning that we do not feel able to accept this amendment.

Amendment 196, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy for public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny of national development management policies within 120 days of the Bill’s passage. As I have set out, the Bill makes appropriate provision for consultation, which is reinforced by the clear commitment in our recent consultation that we will consult on these policies. Against this backdrop, we believe that a legal obligation to publish a strategy for consultation is unnecessary, and so this is an amendment that we feel unable to support.

I turn next to Amendment 194, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, which would require the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to publish annual reports reflecting the cost of producing and maintaining national development management policies and any support given to local planning authorities. I reassure the noble Baroness that national development management policies will not create a new financial burden for local planning authorities or central government. The cost of producing national development management policies as a function of the Secretary of State will fall to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. We expect that the cost of preparing and maintaining national development management policies—in Civil Service resource and specialist expertise—will be similar to that for producing and maintaining the National Planning Policy Framework. We will also ensure that the Planning Advisory Service, which my department funds, provides local planning authorities with training and support to help manage the practical transition to using national development management policies when they are making decisions.

Against these upfront costs, local planning authorities will financially benefit from national development management policies, as they will not need to develop or justify these policies themselves when their plans are examined by the Planning Inspectorate. As our impact assessment makes clear, national development management policies will provide greater certainty to developers and communities, potentially providing significant savings for businesses. Our impact assessment estimates that the benefits of increasing certainty in the planning system due to the measures in the Bill will be just over £2.8 billion over a 10-year appraisal period. For the reasons that I have set out, while I thank the noble Baroness for her amendment, it is not one that I am able to support.

Amendment 216, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, and Amendment 220, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would remove the requirement for local plans to be consistent with national development management policies and prevent such a requirement in regulations. These amendments would fundamentally diminish the ability of our reforms to make local plans easier to prepare and to create more certainty for applicants, communities and local planning authorities. Through the Bill we are strengthening the role of the development plan in decision-making by changing Section 38 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 so that planning applications must be decided in accordance with the development plan and the national development management policies unless material considerations strongly indicate otherwise.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 183 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

185A: Clause 86, page 94, leave out lines 28 to 30
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would remove inserted subsection (5C), which would give primacy to the national development management policies over a development plan in the event of a conflict.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the previous discussion highlighted some of the concerns we have about the contradictions between the matters that have been enshrined in the Bill, which some of us might think are not quite so important, and those which have been left out. Getting the balance right is clearly important. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and my noble friend Lady Hayman all said, now really is the time for nature recovery and such issues to be a clear focus and for them to be put into the Bill.

We have had lengthy earlier discussions relating to the unwelcome and centralising shift represented by the introduction of NDMPs. I hope that the Government have been left in no doubt about the deep disquiet in the local government community about this provision. Further to the earlier comments made on those serious planning matters, we believe that the Bill is simply not clear enough about how conflicts between local plans and NDMPs are to be dealt with. Our amendments in this group therefore address these issues.

Amendment 185A in my name seeks to take out the lines from Clause 86 that give automatic primacy to the NDMP where a conflict arises between it and the local plan. It is simply unthinkable that this could happen by virtue of statute, with no dialogue relating to why the local authority or the combined county authority considered it necessary to depart from the NDMP. Let me be provocative and suggest that it would, in effect, mean there was almost no point in preparing a local plan at all, if any conflict arising is to be determined in favour of the NDMP—which is, after all, determined in Whitehall. I will be interested in the Minister’s comments on this. Surely the provision goes against the key principles of devolution.

Amendment 186 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is similar but refers to “insignificant conflicts” between the local development plans and the NDMPs. If I know local government, I fear that this would involve considerable arguments, perhaps even resulting in legal arguments about what is and is not insignificant.

My noble friend Lady Hayman’s Amendment 187 aims to clarify the situation relating to how conflicts between local plans and the NDMP might be dealt with. It would add a further subsection to Clause 86, setting out how conflicts could be resolved in favour of the local development plan where a CCA had been handed powers over planning, highways, the environment and other functions of public bodies under the circumstances outlined in Schedules 16 and 17 or where the development plan comes under a joint spatial development strategy, or if it is in Greater London.

Amendment 192 is a probing amendment. It would insert a clause in the Bill setting out the primacy of the development plan over the NDMP, should there be a conflict. This amendment sits alongside other amendments to Clause 87 which aim to ensure—I want to be really clear about this—that the voices of local people and their democratically elected representatives have the primacy in determining the development of local areas.

Amendments 193 and 195 probe if there is to be any role for parliamentary scrutiny of how conflicts between development plans and the NDMP are resolved and/or whether Parliament is to be informed of the Secretary of State’s intention to override the local process. They also probe what role there is to be for a CCA whose constituent member or members may find themselves in a conflict between their development plan and the NDMP.

In summary, what is the mediation process to be? Surely there will not be an automatic assumption in favour of the policies produced centrally with no reference to local people. There is not much in the way of devolution in that proposal. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have to inform your Lordships that, if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 186, 187 and 187A because of pre-emption.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The point is to make clear that there is no conflict.

Amendment 193, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would require the Secretary of State to

“lay a Statement before both Houses of Parliament”

if there is

“a conflict between the national development management policy and a development plan”.

As I have noted, actual instances of conflict between national development plan policies and those being included in the plans should be relatively unusual, as the Bill makes clear that planning policies should avoid such conflicts—something that will, in cases of doubt, be assessed transparently through public examination of those emerging plans as they are made. Should any conflicts arise when considering individual planning applications or appeals—for example, where the local plan has become very out of date—this will need to be made very clear through the report on the application, or the evidence before the planning inspector. These procedures will ensure transparency for communities. At the same time, it would be impossible for the Government to track every instance of such a conflict arising and to report to Parliament on it. Therefore, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, will understand that this is not an amendment we can support.

Amendment 195, also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would require the Secretary of State to consult county combined authorities if it is deemed that there is a conflict between the national development management policy and a development plan. As I have already explained, where any inconsistencies arise between an emerging plan and the national development management policies, these will be evident during the plan preparation and examination. We expect that any county combined authority will be engaged in this process at the local level. There is no need for an additional statutory requirement to be placed on the Secretary of State in the way the amendment would do.

I have also pointed out the impracticality of applying a requirement of this nature in relation to any inconsistencies which might arise in the handling of individual planning applications, the great majority of which will not be cases that the Government are party to. Consequently, I hope that the noble Baroness will understand that we are unable to support this amendment. I hope that I have said enough to enable the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, to withdraw her Amendment 185 and for other amendments in this group not to be moved as they are reached.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, asked what intervention powers the Government will have to get involved. We think that local authorities know their area best and, unequivocally, are best placed to produce their own local plans. However, if local plans are not produced or are failing, or if something is absolutely wrong with that plan, the Secretary of State will retain the power to intervene if necessary.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the problems that those of us who have been very involved in the planning system are having is that we cannot see how this all fits together and works in practice. In her last statement, the Minister said that local authorities know their area best, and those who have been involved in this system would certainly agree with that but, as we go through the process of looking closely at the Bill, it is getting more rather than less confusing.

We had a good discussion and some key issues have emerged, first around how little detail there is about the hierarchy of this new planning process. I accept that the Minister has offered to have a round table with us to discuss what that structure looks like and to listen to more of our concerns about how this is going to work in practice. There was a great deal of consideration of the issues around the strategic development plans for these new CCAs. A lot of work will go into the joint working on those strategic development plans, with their constituent members and partners. They reflect the significant new powers that they will have over transport, environment and issues relating to some other public bodies—potentially health, policing and so on. Some of us are struggling to understand why, after all the work that has gone in, there may be an intervention from the Government via the NDMPs to say that the planning process has to be intervened in or overturned. That is also of concern.

Another element was the consideration of whether this would be different depending on whether an up-to-date plan is in place or not. That is a key consideration and I accept the point from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that it may make a great difference as we go through the consideration of how these plans will work and what the review requirements are. We made the point in previous discussions, and I will make it again, that the big difference between the NPPF and the new NDMP is that the NPPF is guidance. As we have discussed previously, it can be flexible to local needs and often is, whereas the NDMP is going to be statutory. For example, how would it deal with applications made within the green belt? These are some of the practical issues with which some of us are wrestling, and I hope that a round-table discussion helps clear some of that up.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, gave a very clear exposition of how he sees the word “significant” making a difference. I appreciate that. Of course, lawyers will be lawyers—I know there are some in this Chamber, so I will not take this line too far—but they embrace any words that can be interpreted in different ways, as we know. Those of us who have been in legal battles around these things before have the scars to show for it. My concern about that amendment was simply that it would result in a great deal of litigation.

We were discussing the planning powers of constituent local authorities and, of course, the role of these new CCAs will be very different from the role of either district councils, when they are doing their local plan, or county planning authorities, when they do things such as mineral and waste plans. I think we need some careful consideration of how those much more strategic plans will relate to NDMPs.

I have commented on the point from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about up-to-date plans; I think, where we have one, they should take precedence. The Minister also talked about how, if the neighbourhood plan is more up to date than the local plan, the neighbourhood plan would take precedence. By logic then, if the local plan is more up to date than the NDMP and there is a conflict between them, the local plan should take precedence. I cannot see why one would apply and the other would not.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

196A: Clause 88, page 95, line 24, leave out “are” and insert “the Mayor considers to be”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is intended to remove ambiguity about whose opinion is relevant in relation to whether or not a matter is of strategic importance to more than one London borough.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendments 196A, 197 and 197A relate to implications from clauses in the Bill that impact specifically on London. The devolution proposals are, perhaps understandably, focused on areas outside London, with an emphasis on mayoral authorities, and do not always recognise the unique governance arrangements within London. London councils continue to make the case for further devolution to London and that boroughs should have a central role in this alongside the mayor.

Amendment 196A would clarify the ambiguity in the current wording of the Bill regarding the spatial development strategy for the development and use of land in Greater London. Policies that the mayor considers to be of strategic importance are included in that statement.

Amendment 197 would ensure that there are no unintended consequences of precluding policies that may apply to other urban areas or are not specific to Greater London uniquely.

Amendment 197A refers again to an issue that we discussed extensively last week. We were very clean to clarify it, but I am not sure we did to any great extent. It would remove the words that specifically preclude any clause from the NDMP being put into the spatial development strategy. In the case of London, as elsewhere, the Bill is saying that the strategy must neither be inconsistent with nor repeat anything in the NDMP. Surely all development plans will necessarily set out how they are using the NDMP and adapting it for their local context. In some cases, this may mean repeating what is in the NDMP.

My next amendment in this group, Amendment 199, would remove the restriction in Schedule 7 that a combined authority may not prepare a joint spatial development strategy. Combined authorities set up under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 may have established working arrangements that could well be used to work constructively towards developing joint spatial development strategies. I am interested to hear the Minister’s view about why they should be explicitly excluded from doing so in this clause.

I am interested to hear the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, in relation to her Amendments 198A and 198B, but to confer powers to develop spatial development strategies on county councils would be yet another major change to the current planning system. Combined authorities will already have authorities within them that have planning powers. County councils, as the system stands, have powers only over mineral and waste plans. Is it the noble Baroness’s intention that we should also have this major restructuring of the planning system in two-tier areas?

Amendment 200 from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, would include a permissive clause to enable the joint spatial strategy to include strategic employment sites. This goes over and above the more general provision in Schedule 7 for new Section 15AA(2)(c), which is a general power to promote or improve economic well-being in the area. This seems a very sensible inclusion for the Bill.

Similarly, my noble friend Lady Hayman’s Amendment 200A is a permissive amendment to Schedule 7 to allow the inclusion of specific sites for health and social care purposes—including, importantly, palliative care services—in joint spatial strategies.

The amendments by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, point to the need for those preparing joint spatial strategies to identify sites for vital infrastructure needed to support development at an early stage in strategic planning. This helps communities that are engaged in considering developments to be reassured that the infrastructure has been considered in detail and gives certainty, in the case of employment sites, to investors, and, in the case of health and social care sites, to both public and private providers, that their needs are being fully considered.

Amendments 202 to 204, my next three in this group, refer to the sub-paragraphs in Schedule 7 on consultation and engagement with all those who may have an interest in the plan. Amendment 202 is designed as a catch-all to ensure that all community groups are considered. The current provision refers to voluntary bodies; groups representing racial, ethnic or national groups or religious groups; and business organisations. Every area is different and has its own network of community organisations, so this would make sure that every relevant group is included.

Amendment 203 is very important. It removes the inexplicable sub-paragraph in the Bill that states:

“No person is to have a right to be heard at an examination in public.”


The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 contains specific provisions relating to when representations may be disregarded, but it seems a singularly swingeing provision for the Bill to suggest that no one has a right to be heard. I suspect that the intention is that the emphasis is on “right” rather than “no one”, but, at a time when we are trying to encourage more engagement of the public in planning and democracy generally, the wording here is particularly off-putting.

One of the huge issues that councils face is that the public often do not engage with the planning process at all until an application that immediately affects them is submitted. We should be encouraging more public engagement at a time when, for example, sites and land uses are being designated, so that the public feel that they have been able to contribute their local knowledge and views. I have another amendment in a later group on this. Will the Minister reflect on this wording?

People should absolutely have a right to be heard at an examination in public. For that reason, we have included Amendment 204, which adds an additional subsection to proposed new Clause 15AC, after proposed new subsection (7). At the moment, it states that only

“participating authorities, and … any person invited to do so by the person conducting the examination in public”

may attend. We believe that this should be amended so that people who have made representations to the inquiry in public and wish to attend should be able to. We appreciate that consideration may have to be given so that the examiner can decide not to hear representations, for example where they are not legitimate planning matters or are vexatious. In those cases, the individual should be informed of the reasons why they are not invited to appear.

Amendment 205, from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, sets out a new provision in the Bill to ensure that all relevant authorities in a travel to work area of a joint spatial development strategy are engaged in the preparation of the strategy. It has been a feature of planning in recent years that, increasingly, travel to work areas are a key consideration of the planning process. Indeed, as far back as 2014, in a letter addressed to the Planning Inspectorate, the then Minister for Housing and Planning, Brandon Lewis, urged that local plans take account of travel to work areas for their strategic housing market assessments. As borders between authorities become more fluid due to their economic profile, housing markets, transport and infrastructure; because the factors associated with climate change mitigation cannot operate within tight boundaries; and because of the strategic nature of joint spatial strategy preparation, it makes sense to us to incorporate this provision, which we would support.

In a similar vein, for the reasons that I have just explained, my Amendment 206 writes into the Bill a duty to co-operate where there is no joint spatial development strategy in place. In effect, most areas are already undertaking such joint planning exercises, and it would be unusual for a planning inspector or public inquiry not to look at this in some depth. It seems sensible to ensure that this is now enshrined in the Bill to give it the necessary foundation in law, and certainty to local authorities. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I will take the point back and consider it further, because some important issues have been brought up. I will make sure that, having given it some thought, we will discuss it further before Report.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Before we move on from this topic, I will add another observation: the county members are the ones that have the places on the combined authority. The districts do not have voting rights on those combined authorities. So I do not understand how it will work if the counties will not be included and cannot make decisions over planning when they are the constituent members with the powers to put the plan through. I think that this needs a little more thinking through.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I quite agree, and that is why I will take the point back and think further on it. As a county person myself, I have a lot of sympathy.

To make sure that our plan for a joint spatial development strategy happens, we are giving county councils the formal status of statutory consultee, as I said, so they can bring forward their expertise, particularly on matters relating to transport, highways, flood risk management, education, and minerals and waste, as noble Lords have said. Planning inspectors examining a joint spatial development strategy will want to see evidence that the work on these key issues has been done, and to make sure that any views expressed by the county council have been properly taken into consideration.

Amendment 199, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, would leave out new Section 15A(2)(b), which is inserted by Schedule 7. This would enable local planning authorities within a combined authority to be eligible to produce a joint spatial development strategy. In an area with elected mayors, we believe that it is vital that the mayor is formally involved in the production of a spatial development strategy to provide clear and accountable leadership for it. That is why the authorities within a combined authority should not be eligible to produce a joint spatial development strategy. In such cases, the mayor, with the support of the member authorities, can approach the Government to ask for the spatial development strategy powers to be conferred on them as part of their devolution deal. Obviously, we do not want to see competing spatial development strategies in any area.

Amendment 202 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, would extend the list of groups that local planning authorities must consult to include community groups. Although I understand the reasons for this, the list of bodies in new Section 15AB(3) that participating authorities should consider sending a draft joint spatial development strategy to is already comprehensive and can reasonably be assumed to include most community organisations. It is not, however, an exhaustive list, and authorities are free to send drafts to whichever organisations they feel necessary.

The noble Baroness’s Amendments 203 and 204 would give people a right to be heard at an examination in public in relation to a joint spatial development plan. The current procedure for the examination of a spatial development strategy is now well established and, although it is true that, unlike for local plans, there is no formal right to appear in person, we are confident that the current arrangements are fair, proportionate and effective. Experience shows that planning inspectors ensure that a broad range of relevant interests and views are heard at examinations for spatial development strategies.

The final amendment in this group in the name of the noble Baroness is Amendment 206. This would introduce a new clause mandating a duty to co-operate where no joint spatial development strategy exists. Unfortunately, the duty to co-operate is widely agreed to have been an ineffective mechanism for achieving co-operation. It has been criticised as an inflexible and burdensome bureaucratic exercise, causing significant delays to the production of local plans. We intend to replace the duty with a more flexible policy requirement within the revised National Planning Policy Framework, providing local planning authorities with greater flexibility.

Clause 93 introduces a new requirement to assist with plan making to ensure that the key stakeholders whose involvement is vital to production of plans, including the delivery and planning of infrastructure, are required to be involved. This places a requirement on specific bodies with public functions—an example would be Historic England—to assist in the plan-making process if requested by a plan-making authority. Taken together, these measures mean that there is no need to revert to the duty to co-operate in any circumstances.

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Finally, I turn to Amendment 205 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lansley. The aim of this amendment is to ensure that proper cross-boundary engagement is undertaken when preparing a joint spatial development strategy. This is laudable and something that I see as essential to making good planning. The Government have committed to including an alignment policy within the National Planning Policy Framework. The aim of such a policy is to ensure that the policies and proposals of plans are aligned, or if not aligned that there is a very good justification for different approaches. This policy approach is being taken because of the failings of the current duty to co-operate contained in Section 33A of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004—I spoke about this in relation to Amendment 206—which this Bill revokes. I assure my noble friend that, in line with the Government’s commitments, the detail of the alignment policy will be consulted upon as part of a wider package of changes to the NPPF to support this Bill. I hope my noble friend will not press his amendment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to noble Lords for a good debate on these topics relating to spatial planning. They are very important issues, and this is a key part of the Bill.

There are some key themes that have emerged as part of this discussion. The first is the integration of plans and timetables and how important that is going to be as we move forward with these proposals.

Secondly, we have had long discussions around the services that county councils deliver and their engagement in the process of the strategic development strategies. As well as transport, highways, minerals, waste and so on, we had an earlier discussion in the Committee about healthy homes. Our county councils look after a huge range of services that relate to social care provision and so on, and that is another reason why it is essential they get involved in strategic planning at this level. I should have referred to my interests in the register as a county councillor and a district councillor; I wear both hats in this respect.

The third overall point was around the inclusion of combined authorities. I know it is late but I want to relate the experience in Hertfordshire. Without having any of the processes of the Bill in place, the 10 Hertfordshire authorities and the county council have got together, separating Hertfordshire into two clusters, to work on employment, housing sites, climate change, transport—including a new mass rapid transit facility that we have been planning for—community wealth-building, town centre regeneration, digital infrastructure and a number of other things. In Hertfordshire, we are helped by having coterminous boundaries with both the local enterprise partnership and policing. We do not have coterminous borders with health, but I do not think anybody does—that is a little more complicated. We do not necessarily need legislation to do this. However, I am anxious that, as a part of the Bill, we do not stop people doing things which are ambitious and have vision for their areas.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I think that is an important point. That is what I was saying: the Bill will not stop that; it will give the opportunity to do something. Many authorities do great things informally, but sometimes, if there is a formal agreement to it, other doors are opened. That is part of what we are trying to do.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reassurance.

We had some discussions around borders—I will say more about that in a moment—but Herts has boundaries with London in the south of the county and with very rural areas in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire in the north of the county.

The other key point we mentioned was the urban-rural split, on which the noble Lord, Lord Deben, spoke very powerfully, and the value of counties understanding how this helps move the development agenda forward for rural areas as well as urban ones. I echo the point that people feel that this is largely related to urban areas. It is important for us to make sure that people in rural areas feel that their interests are taken into account in both levelling up and regeneration.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, spoke about opportunities for the planning processes to be co-ordinated. I have referred to the points on healthy homes that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, made earlier in the debate. We need to give some more thought to that before Report and to how we can make sure that we take the opportunities the Bill might offer to better co-ordinate planning processes. The point about timetables is very well made. We have lots of different plans that run on lots of different timetables in local government and in other parts of the public sector, and it would be helpful if we could think about how we might bring some of that together.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, spoke about the very important potential of the Bill to enable us to tackle climate change and the housing emergency in a more co-ordinated way. I do not want to miss those opportunities, which is why these points about planning are so important. She mentioned the ability of county councils to convene councils to work together. That has certainly been my experience, and I hope we can find a way to develop that.

I have mentioned the points that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made about making sure that we focus on rural as well as urban areas.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, spoke about the travel to work areas. The point is not that we do not want to make plans for boundaries, but you have to think beyond the boundaries and take them into account, particularly with employment sites—otherwise, for example, you will not be planning properly for your transport arrangements. We have to think about what we are doing in a wider sense than the boundaries of local authorities as they would appear on the Boundary Commission register.

To summarise briefly, we have to be careful. We could miss opportunities for combined authorities and for the ambition we all have for levelling up to reach right across the huge areas of our country that are covered by two-tier local government—or three tiers in some cases, as we know. I know the Minister wants to reassure us that rural areas will be included, but the picture in this planning realm can still be a bit confused, particularly with the way that there are different plans for different places, which do not seem to be particularly well co-ordinated. I hope we can give that some more thought.

I am very grateful to the Minister for her detailed answer to all our amendments. That said, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 196A.

Amendment 196A withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

198: After Clause 90, insert the following new Clause—
“Deliberative democracy: local planning(1) Before preparing any development or outline plan, a local planning authority must undertake a process of deliberative democracy involving the community to set—(a) the balance of economic, environmental, infrastructure and special plans,(b) the type of housing to be delivered,(c) the infrastructure that is required to be hosted,(d) the type of economic space, and(e) environmental considerations, including making sites sustainable.(2) A process of deliberative democracy under this section must—(a) invite all residents of the local authority area to apply to be a representative in the deliberative democracy process,(b) include measures to try to ensure that there will be a diverse representation of that community in the process, and(c) provide for a forum of representatives that—(i) will determine its terms of reference, number of meetings and agenda at its first meeting, and(ii) will produce a report from the deliberative democracy process.(3) A report under subsection (2)(c)(ii) may determine the scope of development on a site.”Member's explanatory statement
This new clause would introduce a deliberative democracy forum comprised of members of the public prior to the formation of a new development plan or outline plan.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sorry that we come to these amendments so late in the evening. Amendment 198 and the subsequent amendments are things I feel particularly strongly about. Amendment 198 would introduce the principle of deliberative democracy as part of the planning process. Recent years have seen a wave of interest in doing democracy in a more deliberative way, enabling citizens to participate in a reflective and informed discussion about key policy questions before any of us, who are decision-makers, reach those decisions.

The Constitution Unit at University College London has been at the forefront of applying such approaches in the UK. In two recent projects, it took part in running citizens’ assemblies to explore how such bodies could help resolve complex policy problems. In other projects, the unit has examined ways in which deliberative approaches to politics could be applied in the UK context. Rather than go into the realms of theory and testing everyone’s patience at this time of night, I shall briefly give the rationale and two quick examples of how this type of engagement with complex issues can help develop understanding and buy-in with complex policy decisions.

In terms of planning, as I said earlier, residents often do not engage with planning at the stage of the local plan and by the time they are faced with a planning application they object to, the land use, housing numbers, infrastructure requirements, environmental policies and so on are already set out and have been through the extensive local plan process. They have often been through the inspectorate and a public inquiry as well. This leads to a great deal of frustration for residents, who may feel that the process, in this case the local plan, has been done to them, rather than with them. Even where residents do engage with the local plan process, the formality of proceedings can be daunting and impenetrable.

The introduction of a deliberative democracy element into the planning process would give the opportunity for local people to get more involved in a meaningful way much earlier in the process. The format can be designed to encourage debate and contributions and careful facilitation can draw out the minority views as well as those with the loudest voices. All this can help inform the local authority or the combined authority as it goes into the formal stages of developing its plan. This approach also enables participants to be provided with information that is accurate, relevant, accessible and balanced. It helps to tackle misinformation and enables deliberations to be informed by accurate, fact-checked data; for example, that provided in the UK by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

In Stevenage, we have used this method to enable debates on our budget process. As the cuts to local government funding deepened, we wanted to hear our residents’ views on how we should tackle the subsequent budget exercise, so we asked an independent agency to pull together a group of around 50 people from a mixed demographic. Using independent facilitators, we took them through an exercise of information sharing on the challenges we faced and carried out exercises of budget prioritisation with them, to see what their preferences would be. The learning was considerable on both sides. Some participants told me at the end of the day that they were glad it was not them who had to make the decisions. The other impact was that a group of people was then out in our community with all the facts of decision-making to take into conversations at work and in social settings, et cetera.

The Oxford Citizens Assembly on Climate Change involved a randomly selected representative sample of 50 Oxford residents, who learned about climate change and explored different options to cut carbon emissions through a combination of presentations from experts and facilitated workshops. Oxford was the first city in the UK to deliver a citizens’ assembly on climate change. As the evidence around man-made climate change is clear and overwhelming, it was treated as a given, and the assembly was not asked to consider whether or not that was a reality, but participants considered measures to reduce Oxford’s carbon emissions to net zero and, as part of this, measures to reduce Oxford City Council’s carbon footprint to net zero by 2030. In that case, Ipsos MORI was appointed to undertake the recruitment of participants and provide overall facilitation for the Oxford Citizens Assembly on Climate Change. Following that approach, Oxford has been able to undertake an ambitious programme of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

We want the Bill to be ambitious in the way that it tackles levelling up in all its aspects. We believe that a move to deliberative democracy in the planning system will create a whole new dimension for community engagement and provide a channel for our residents to contribute to tackling the complex challenges of the modern planning process.

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With those explanations, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, to withdraw her amendment and other noble Lords not to move theirs.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, once again I thank noble Lords for a very interesting debate on very important aspects of the Bill. I am grateful to the Minister for her detailed response on all the amendments that have been discussed in the debate.

I will address the key themes coming out of the debate, starting with my first amendment in this group on deliberative democracy. I was very grateful for the comments on this from the noble Lord, Lord Young. Like him, I was a bit of a convert to this; I was a bit sceptical about it when I first heard about it. However, the intention of deliberative democracy is to complement and support the work of decision-makers, not to take it over, and it can provide a very useful technique. Now that we have all been through Covid and we all know how to use things such as Teams and Zoom, it can be greatly assisted and facilitated by digital engagement as well. So it is a good technique for developing a wider picture and for engaging our citizens in the important aspects of planning.

On the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on this subject, from my understanding of how deliberative democracy works, it does not matter what size your authority is, because you would engage a representative group and there are plenty of places where you can go to get help to draw together your representative group. There is nothing in deliberative democracy that excludes the contribution of parish councils; they have their own methods of communicating and engaging with the planning process. While I accept there are a variety of techniques to engage local citizens in the planning process, I think that it will be important for us all to consider how we will refresh and review not just the ability for people to get involved but the methods we use to engage them. We all know that there are flaws at the moment in the way we try to engage people, and anything that can help to improve that would be useful.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred to having a legislative structure which should underpin what is in the guidance, and we would certainly support that. All the way through our discussions on the Bill, we have seen that there are not always clear links. We are told that one aspect is in guidance and that another aspect will be in the Bill, but the links between the two are not always as clear as they should be. We should be using the process of the Bill in Committee to help to resolve some of those issues where it is not as clear as it should be. I think that a clear distinction between policies which are strategic and not strategic will be quite important for those people tasked with delivering the plans going forward, so I hope that some thought might be given to that.

We had some comments on the need for certainty and clarity on the local plan in response to my noble friend Lady Hayman’s amendment on the possibility of amending after local elections. There were some fair points made there, and we will go back and look again at aspects of the Bill that enable local authorities to review parts of their plan. Although we do not want to overturn the plan every time there is an election, it will be important that people can look at things. As the picture changes in a local area, it may be necessary to undertake reviews for that reason, not just because there has been an election. I think we need to have another look at that as the Bill goes forward.

It really rang a bell with me when the noble Lord, Lord Young, talked about the need to boost the supply of homes. We have further groups of amendments that cover that topic. He referred to not weakening or removing levers for housing. Those of us who have been trying to deliver more housing over the last few years feel as though sometimes we have had our hands tied behind our backs on housing delivery and that that has gone on for too long.

We must be ambitious and work on delivering the housing we need, but the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is quite right to say that growth must incorporatethe issues that we have discussed many times in your Lordships’ House on the environment, sustainable employment and sustainable housing growth. However, that makes planning more important, not less. Communities should be planned, not just the delivery of housing. After the Second World War, at a time when more than 100,000 homes a year were being built, there was still time set aside for master-planning and building for communities, not just delivering housing in dormitories. I suggest that deliberative democracy might play a part in that process.

The other aspect that was discussed extensively in this short debate was environmental outcome reports. I hear the Minister’s words of reassurance around how they might be incorporated in the planning process, but I think we would want to go through some of the other discussions around climate change to make sure we understand how that works. The Minister described the plans as an alphabet soup, which is probably a good description. We heard her talking about neighbourhood priority statements. This aspect of the Bill is another layer of planning that sits in this new hierarchy. It is difficult to understand from what is in the Bill exactly where it sits, so we look forward to the round table that will help clarify some of these issues. As for neighbourhood priority statements, it saysthat any of the authorities involved can make these neighbourhood priority statements, but it is not clear exactly how that works.

This has been a good debate on these very important planning issues. As I said, I am very grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions, and I am sure that some of the issues we raised will come up again in future debates. That said, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 198 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th April 2023 Lords Chamber

There are big challenges here for the Government if their stated aim is to be achieved. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s answers to those challenges.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, this group of amendments—and the subsequent group on social housing, which we will probably get to on Thursday—goes right to the heart of the role of housing in levelling up. I should, of course, draw attention to my interests here. I am a serving councillor on both a county council and a district council and, as a former council leader, I am a battle-scarred warrior of the broken planning system. That is not an interest, just a fact. It is a painful process.

We would certainly support the provisions set out in Amendments 207 and 219A from the noble Lord, Lord Best, and my noble friend Lord Bradley to incorporate the housing needs of older people, and the student population where applicable, in the plan-making process. My only caveat to that is the issue I mentioned in your Lordships’ House during a previous debate on the Bill, which is that supported housing is a much wider category than just older people, as it can also include housing for adults with disabilities and those with learning disabilities, which would also benefit from specific attention within the planning process.

Some local authorities will use small-site development to make up for deficiencies in all types of supported housing, but our view is that it would be preferable to consider this as a strategic requirement and build it into the consideration of housing at the plan-making stage. This will also allow due consideration to be given to the importance of the location of those sites, with appropriate infrastructure requirements such as health, transport, social facilities and access to green space.

It was a great honour to take part in a debate on 30 March, as did many other noble Lords here today, on supported housing, where the excellent work of Imogen Blood & Associates and the University of York for the National Housing Federation was widely quoted. During that debate, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, made very encouraging remarks:

“Our planning rules, which will be strengthened through the LUR Bill, mean that, in councils’ local plans, they must consider the needs of these people, which is perhaps an important change in attitude.”—[Official Report, 30/3/23; col. GC 105.]


In response to an earlier question from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, the Minister indicated that the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill is the place to make this change, so perhaps I can afford to be a bit more optimistic than the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, in hoping that these amendments may be accepted.

In his characteristically powerful and knowledgeable speech, the noble Lord, Lord Best, referred to the older people’s housing taskforce. We look forward to that, but I hope that to some extent we can pre-empt the obvious conclusion that local authorities must plan for older residents and those who need supported housing. I was grateful to the right reverend Prelate for his timely reminder of the Mayhew review and its powerful recommendations. I hope we will consider them as we go forward with this Bill.

On Amendment 210 from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, my noble friend Lord Kennedy has campaigned tirelessly for many years for the abolition of the feudal leasehold system. I am afraid that I disagree with the noble Earl, Lord Lytton; I think it is a feudal system, although I bow to his greater knowledge of the subject. It seems from recent comments by the Secretary of State that he too is now persuaded, so perhaps the Minister can persuade her Secretary of State to put the abolition of leasehold into this Bill rather than wait for another one.

On Amendment 219A from my noble friend Lord Bradley, his role with Manchester University gives him great expertise on this subject and he eloquently described the increasing challenges in student accommodation. Listening to his speech, I think we would all be concerned that they are connected with issues of student welfare that we have heard so much about in recent times. As with other areas of specialist housing, he gave examples of very good practice, and we heard many other examples of good practice in the debate on 30 March. However, good planning would not leave this to chance or deliberately allow disparities between areas with good practice and those without it. Areas with large numbers of students should absolutely plan for their accommodation in safe, affordable and sustainable housing.

Amendment 215, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Young, my noble friend Lady Hayman and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, requires a local plan to meet or exceed the housing need for a local authority’s area. I appreciate that housing numbers have proved notoriously controversial in many areas, which is partly why fewer than 50% of local authorities currently have a local plan in place. However, housing is key infrastructure, so it is vital that the Government work with local government to develop policy and practice to determine what housing numbers should be. We heard in the debate that the Government’s stated target is 300,000 homes a year—the National Housing Federation says that 340,000 a year are necessary—but we are nowhere near that number being either built or planned for. I agree that reference to meeting housing need for the area should be in the Bill. To avoid repetition, I will comment on this further on the next group, but I share the disappointment of the noble Lord, Lord Young, about the huge government U-turn on the subject at Christmas.

Noble Lords referred earlier today to the fact that achieving net zero must be a key priority of this Bill, which I agree with, but so should meeting the needs of the housing emergency. Some of us would have preferred a separate planning Bill so that due attention could have been given to the many issues, such as those in this group, that certainly merit a stand-alone Bill. However, we are where we are with a Christmas tree Bill such as this, so we must do our best with amendments to tackle the issues of net zero and housing and the many others that this Bill attempts to deal with.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I have two points on what the Minister said in his response. First, I am not sure that the Planning Inspectorate has entirely got the message about local choice in the planning system, particularly on housing numbers, otherwise it is hard to see why 50% of plans are still not confirmed by the Planning Inspectorate. That is still an issue, and we need to consider it further and whether anything can be done about it as we go through the Bill. It is right that local people should have a say in what happens, but that is not always upheld by the Planning Inspectorate when it comes in.

I think we have mentioned my second point already this afternoon, but it bears repeating. We are constantly told that the things which are not in this Bill will be in the National Planning Policy Framework, but as I understand it we are not going to see the framework before the Bill is completed. It is very difficult for those of us who are trying to make sure that, somewhere, these very important issues—such as supported housing, student accommodation, housing numbers and so on—are covered properly in one of those places or the other if we have not seen one of those documents. Can I urge again that the Minister and his colleagues on the Government Front Bench consider that and what we might do about it so that we have an idea of how these issues are going to be dealt with in the forthcoming National Planning Policy Framework?

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I want to clarify just one thing. I understand the balancing act between not wanting to impose on local communities and, as the Minister has indicated, the one-size-fits-all approach. However, what is confusing about the issue of targets versus localism is that the national housing targets were set by the Government, who then backed off in the other place. At one point, they thought it worth having national housing targets, so it cannot always have been some sort of communist plot to impose a national plan. The Government thought that this was a good idea and then backed off.

There is a second important point that people have made. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, used a quotation I had also wanted to use—he used it the other evening as well—from Theresa Villiers MP, when she boasted that the success of the amendments in the other place was leading to less housing being built locally. We have seen recent figures on the front page of the Times indicating that fewer homes are being built—that there is a hold-up. What do the Government suggest one does in a situation where local councils, for whatever reason, are not building the homes and there are no targets to hold them to account? These amendments at least try to rectify that situation.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

208: Schedule 7, page 290, line 7, at end insert—
“(j) whether the authority will provide small site opportunities in the local plan.”Member's explanatory statement
This is to probe the role of local SMEs in local plans.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to my Amendment 213 and Amendment 504GJA in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, and will also speak in support of Amendment 274A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. Amendment 208 simply tries to ensure that the important roles of SMEs in our communities are recognised; that we incorporate in Schedule 7 a provision for plan-making authorities to include specific provision for small-site opportunities for SMEs.

I have some great figures from the Federation of Small Businesses, which provides wonderful, up-to-date information on its website and which I worked with very closely as a council leader. It says that SMEs account for 99.9% of all businesses; 5.5 million businesses; three-fifths of all employment and half of the turnover in the United Kingdom. They employ 12.9 million people. Surely, we simply cannot overlook this sector in our local plan-making. I cannot see any reason why the Government would not want to incorporate an amendment like this to encourage the allocation of sites for SMEs.

Amendment 213 again refers to Schedule 7 and suggests, first, the incorporation of provision to meet the housing needs of the local authority’s area so as to secure the long-term health, well-being and safety of residents. We have had extensive discussions during the debate on the previous group and on previous days on the Bill on similar amendments, but this would be an opportunity to ensure due consideration of all the issues raised in previous groups and their incorporation into the planning process.

The second part of the amendment refers to the critical issue that planning authorities should be able to take proper account of the affordability of both house prices and rental costs in their planning process. Your Lordships have heard many figures cited on the affordability of housing in recent months, and I am most grateful to Shelter for its continued attention to this and its excellent briefings. It points out—without apology, I shall quote it:

“These days, the prospect of saving for a deposit for a home isn’t just a far-off dream; for many, it is nearly impossible. Not only are house prices prohibitive but soaring private rents can make it difficult to sustain a tenancy.”


That has added to the increasing homelessness numbers that we have seen.

Home ownership is declining. The English Housing Survey shows that 63.5% of households owned their homes in 2017-18; that is down from 68% a decade ago. The average home in England in 2018 cost eight times more to buy than the average annual pay packet. The average share of income that young families spend on housing has trebled over the past 50 years. The steep decline in social housing and a fall in home ownership have led to heavy reliance on the private rented sector. The number of people living in the private rented sector has doubled over the past 20 years. The cost of housing, which has risen much faster than incomes, has put immense financial pressure on people, adding to pressures on the health service, including mental health services, and other services.

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I hope noble Lords are reassured that the Government’s commitment to reforms to the private rented sector is unwavering and that there will be ample opportunity for scrutiny of the proposed legislation. On that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken on this group and to the Minister for, as ever, her thoughtful response to the discussions.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, who rightly focused on the balance between large developers and SMEs in constructing homes, something that we all need to put our minds to. She commented on sites that blight areas. It is absolutely correct that, very often, the small sites that are the subject of her amendment are the sites that we turn our eyes away from when we walk around our local neighbourhoods.

I have taken a great interest in developing such sites in my own area, including a brownfield site that was an old factory and is now a good housing development, with a mix of social and private housing. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, has the smallest area in Hertfordshire, while mine is the second smallest. We had a great focus on this in our roles on our councils, using small sites to expand our council housing stock, and a regenerated shopping centre and pubs which had closed. A doctor’s surgery had outgrown its site, so a land swap gave it a new surgery and us a good housing site, and a low-demand garage site provided bespoke accommodation for those who were street homeless. I totally support her points about using SME builders for this work; when you work regularly with a group of SME builders, they get to understand what your area needs, the things that you are looking for, and the standard and sustainability that you need.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for her comments on the vital role of small businesses in our community, particularly retail businesses. It will help us all enormously if we can eventually get that enshrined in law, so that we can do that. It would be a great help to our communities. Having those key businesses in communities makes them more sustainable. I love the idea of a repair shop—a repair club has just started in my borough, which I was delighted to hear about.

I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. It was lovely to hear about Polruan when we are sitting here in London—I am very fond of Cornwall—and his support for the rogue landlord database. That is a very important thing that we could introduce into the Bill, although I note the Minister’s comments on it.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, knows that I completely agree with his points about the definition of affordable housing. It also speaks to comments made by the Minister about affordable housing being delivered as an in-kind benefit of the infrastructure levy. Unfortunately, the definition of affordable housing can mean, for example, that in renting terms it is 80% of market rents. When I look at the average salary of people in my area, I see that 80% of market rent is way outside the pocket of many of the people who live there. We have to focus very much on this definition, between affordable housing which is—let us face it—not affordable to a lot of people, and social housing, which in many places is the only tenure of housing that many residents can afford. But I was pleased to hear the Minister’s comments, and look forward to discussing all those aspects further when we get to the infrastructure levy discussions.

I hear the Minister’s comments that if a local plan has strong evidence, it is for local leaders to stick to that. I hope that can be passed on to the Planning Inspectorate. We are charged democratically to make decisions on behalf of our communities, and too often they come up against this barrier of the inspectorate, and we are asked, at the best of times, to look at them again, and at the worst of times are told that they are not acceptable and we have to go back on them.

I was also pleased to note that there is a target of 10% of housing on small sites. I agree that the provision that local planning authorities can be encouraged to split larger sites is helpful, but I just come back again to this issue around the NPPF, which we do not have and will not have before the Bill has gone through its stages. I am sorry to go on about this, but to deal with any of the issues we have discussed this afternoon, we need to know where they are going to sit between the NPPF and the Bill. If they are not going to be in the NPPF, we certainly want them in the Bill. We need to think more about that.

On the amendment of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock on rogue landlords, I ask the Minister: when are we going to get the renters’ reform Bill? We have heard it mentioned many times in this House now, at Question Time and in other debates. Is it going to come in this Session, or can she confirm whether it will be in the forthcoming King’s Speech? We have heard very good assurances, both from the Secretary of State and from Ministers in your Lordships’ House, on this commitment to reform, but to have it moved sort of indefinitely into the future is very worrying. This sector is in crisis now; we have people now who are struggling, who have to pay thousands of pounds in finder’s fees and so on just to rent properties. This is urgent, and I hope we can have some clarity about when that Bill might come forward. That said, I will withdraw the amendment for the time being.

Amendment 208 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, is quite right to raise the issue of accessible and inclusive design. Everyone benefits where design is accessible and inclusive for everyone, so all planners and all local plan strategies should bear that in mind as a prior consideration. The noble Lord has our complete support.

We must say two things to the Government that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has said several times today. We need the content of both the National Planning Policy Framework and the national development management plan before we get to Report, otherwise we will have to include in the Bill content that may later appear in either of those two important plans. We cannot operate in this vacuum of lack of knowledge and information about the content of two absolutely fundamental building blocks of strategic planning. We need to keep raising that—I think it was also raised today by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage—and I hope the Minister has heard the pleas from across the Committee.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, not just for his amendment but for his continued work to ensure that we keep issues of inclusivity at the forefront when considering all aspects of the Bill, particularly planning. Levelling up must relate not just to tackling inequalities between the regions and places in the UK but to ensuring that no group is excluded from opportunities that are open to the rest of us. That is why the amendments in this group are so important.

We absolutely support the principle behind the noble Lord’s Amendment 217 and will definitely support the consideration of observations and advice relating to inclusive design as local authorities go through their plan-making process. But for the sake of practicality, if this amendment is accepted, there may be a need for further guidance about whether local authorities could be exempted on individual developments if they are able to demonstrate adequate reasons for that. I certainly do not suggest that they should be able to do so on many grounds—they would have to be very exceptional circumstances—but if that was not included, there may be examples, such as where heritage assets are involved in the development or something like that, where there would need to be some consideration of other factors. But it is a very good amendment, as is Amendment 302, which is an unequivocal statement, which we absolutely support, to ensure that inclusive design is enshrined in the Bill.

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A hugely important issue has been raised, because it is not just the area of the Fens that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, mentioned in terms of water shortage but the south-east and the east of England, where water supply is restricting housing development. He is absolutely right in those terms. All I would say on that score is that the north of England has a good supply of water, and we are willing to sell it, at a cost, to those areas of shortage—actually, that does not work either, because it is very difficult to move water around the country. I will listen carefully to what the Minister has to say—I always do—but this is a fundamental issue about strategic planning on a national scale, so it would be worth hearing what has been said.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords. It will be just a very brief intervention from me. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for raising what is a very important issue, having been involved with two very long-term major projects in my role as council leader and having seen how difficult it is to tie in the provision of major infrastructure, which is generally done at the national level because that is the way that the operators and the regulators work, with what is going on at the local level.

At the heart of this is the need to create a very smooth path for the provision of infrastructure, so that, when there are interruptions to the process along the way, the system can cope. If we do not do that, we end up with disconnection between the development itself and the provision of infrastructure, with one holding the other up. In our case, in the east of England, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, water is an issue, so we have to think about that. One of our major developments related to a greenfield site that had not been developed—it still has not; we have been working for 27 years on that one. When we started, we would not have thought about solar or wind energy, but now we have to think about those things, so there must be flexibility—and of course we also have new forms of infrastructure coming in, such as broadband.

This is a key amendment that points us towards looking at how we deal with the infrastructure of developments as we go through the planning process, linking the bodies that work at national level, national infrastructure funding and so on with local development. How will that work and fit in with this system? We have talked a lot about how the various bits of the planning system fit together, and a probing amendment on this issue is extremely helpful; I am very grateful to the noble Lord for tabling it. If the Minister does not accept it today, I hope she will give it some thought as we go through the rest of the Bill.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 240 in the names of my noble friends Lord Berkeley and Lord Hunt, the noble Lord, Lord Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. Before I turn to the specific amendments in this group, I will mention the very helpful discussion which took place in Grand Committee on Monday on the Built Environment Select Committee’s report on public transport in towns and cities. The committee’s recommendations were very helpful to our consideration of this Bill. I thank the chair of that committee, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and his predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, the members of that committee and all those who gave evidence.

The Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Vere—was part of that discussion so there is no need for me to go through all the points relevant to the Bill, which I am sure she will pass on to her colleagues in the Transport team and the DLUHC team. However, it was the overwhelming view of the committee and all noble Lords who took part on Monday that a formal link should be introduced between local plans and local transport plans. In view of the amendments in this group, it is important to record that strongly held view today.

Can I say how much I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about the importance of transport to the levelling-up agenda? Like the noble Lord, Lord Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, I too am very pleased to see the Minister responsible for transport here today to respond to the debate. As the fortunate resident of a town designed with 45 kilometres of cycleway built into it, it is unthinkable to me that planning for cycling and walking, and considering at local plan stage the infrastructure needed to support that, would not be in the Bill and intrinsic to the planning for our communities. If this amendment is accepted—I really hope it will be—then the subsequent NPPF or whatever is going to succeed that will need to take account of the anomalies that occur in these aspects of planning in two-tier authorities. My noble friend Lord Berkeley referred to that earlier.

Generally these can be resolved through good liaison between authorities, but consideration should be given, as responsibility for both transport and rights of way sit with county councils, as we have heard, whereas the local plan is the responsibility of the district council. It will also need to be clear in terms of rights of way improvement plans that the responsibilities for maintenance—should it be necessary—ransom strip land purchase and so on remain the responsibility of those authorities which currently hold them. To be clear, the fact that a planning authority includes them in its local plan does not necessarily incur any additional financial or legal responsibility for these matters than existed previously. Concerns about lack of co-ordination through the National Planning Policy Framework were referred to by my noble friend Lord Berkeley, and including this provision in the Bill might encourage authorities to work together where that is not the case already.

In relation to Amendment 468 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Randerson, I echo comments about the tireless work of the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Grey-Thompson. It is very important to clarify that this should apply to all railway stations, including retrospectively. I know that is a difficult issue and how it works together with other disability legislation, such as the Disability Discrimination Act, should be clearly identified. There are already some provisions in there but I do not think it goes as far as we would want it to and the proof of that is what we see in our local railway stations. We heard many of examples of that during the debate.

It is, of course, crucial that we do all we can to make our rail system accessible, safe and user-friendly for all passengers. Indeed, we will never make the quantum leap in switching from private car travel to public transport that we need to reach zero carbon without such measures. I come back to the Built Environment Select Committee’s inquiry into public transport, which has very clear recommendations on this subject. As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, progress has been painfully slow on this to date and we need a bit of a rocket under it to get it going again. The very helpful introduction of things such as senior railcards is of far less use if you need to navigate several flights of stairs to cross even from one platform to another.

Amendment 470 in the names of my noble friend Lord Berkeley, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, requires the Secretary of State to facilitate the accelerated rollout of EV charging points for domestic and commercial customers. I strongly support this very laudable aim but there are still unresolved issues. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, have both identified, we are already seeing inequalities develop in EV charging provision and we need to watch out for that very carefully, particularly in the context of the Bill.

Then there is the issue of technology and whether it is settled enough yet to encourage the considerable cost of a UK-wide rollout. Many of us in this Chamber will remember the issues around VHS and Betamax. That is the classic example of when, if you jump early to the wrong technology, it can be very expensive indeed. Many noble Lords referred to improvements in very fast charging facilities and the way that picture is developing so rapidly. It is difficult to know when that will settle. The noble Lord, Lord Young, referred to the difference between fast and slow chargers, and we need to make sure that we get the most up-to-date provision wherever it is possible.

Secondly, in terms of domestic provision, the complex issues referred to by noble Lords by this afternoon of on-street charging must be resolved. For those fortunate enough to have a drive or land at the side of their property where charging points can be installed, it is not such an issue, but if you live in a terraced street and in housing where that is not so easy to do, it is. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, rightly made the point that this should not interrupt easy walking access for residents. For properties with no adjacent parking, installation of EV charging points can prove expensive and very disruptive in terms of cable laying and so on. My noble friend Lord Berkeley raised this issue too; we have to be concerned about it. Lastly, I have a slight concern that giving this responsibility in legislation to the Secretary of State will simply result in it and potentially the resultant cost and headaches being transferred to local authorities. That is something we need to think carefully about.

I also agree with noble Lords who have said that National Grid really has to get its act together on this issue. Even in developments I have been engaged with in my own borough, it is very often National Grid that really holds things up on many of the measures that we want in levelling up and regeneration. We need to work on how National Grid can respond more quickly to these developments.

No doubt, all those issues could be considered and resolved and there is clearly an urgent need to accelerate the provision of EV charging. My noble friend Lord Berkeley mentioned 8,000 public charging points. This is woeful. The noble Lord, Lord Young, mentioned that this has been flagged up for over 30 years now. We can all remember talking about this many decades ago, so surely it is time now that we made urgent progress.

I turn now to Amendment 482 from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. At the moment, some local authorities do a very good job of making the case to residents in their communities for reducing speed limits, and I pay tribute to campaign organisations such as 20’s Plenty for Us that are producing fantastic support on that. In addition to the points that have been made about it, I also mention that the reduction in pollutants at lower speed is a key issue here as well as the other benefits in noise pollution, safety for other road users and so on.

We believe that this is an area where decisions are far better taken locally so that benefits can be explained fully as the change is implemented. I pay tribute to Hertfordshire County Council, which has worked very closely across the county with local councillors and their communities to develop an evidence base, introduce consultation with members and the communities that they represent and then put appropriate funding allocation in place, first on a pilot basis and then more widely across the county. That is a very good example, and it was lovely to hear another example of how the Welsh Labour Government are leading the way in this respect.

Amendment 486 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, refers to the need for the Government to update Parliament on progress against their EV infrastructure strategy, which was published in March 2022. Irrespective of the comments I made earlier about the complexities of introducing EV charging, at the very least the Government should be delivering against the strategy they have set for themselves. The disparity in provision from place to place is as important as the sheer number of charging points available, so we certainly support the amendment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to make my debut on the LURB. I am sorry that it has taken so long, but I may be back again in due course, should there be more transport amendments. Today, it is my job to address this group of amendments, which relate to transport; there are four, and I shall address each in turn.

I start with Amendment 240, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, which relates to cycling and walking and to the role of active travel in local development. I think that all noble Lords agree that the Government recognise the importance of walking and cycling and the role that the planning system plays in enabling development in sustainable locations, supported by active travel infrastructure. It is already the case that national planning policies must be considered by local authorities when preparing a local plan and are a material consideration in all planning decisions. The Bill does not alter this principle and will strengthen the importance of those national policies which relate to decision-making.

The existing National Planning Policy Framework is clear that transport issues, including opportunities to promote walking and cycling, should be considered from the earliest stages of plan-making and when considering development proposals. The NPPF also states that policies in local plans should provide for attractive and well-designed walking and cycling networks with supporting facilities, such as secure cycle parking, drawing on local cycling and walking infrastructure plans. The NPPF also places environmental objectives at the heart of the planning system, making it clear that planning should protect and enhance our natural environment, mitigate and adapt to climate change, and support the transition to a low-carbon future. The Government have recently concluded a consultation on changes to the NPPF to ensure that it contributes to climate change mitigation and adaptation as fully as possible.

I always react with some trepidation when my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham shares his thoughts with your Lordships’ House. He has an enormous amount of experience in this area—and, it would seem, in most areas of government. He challenged me to explain why we think the guidance will achieve our aims. I believe that it is more than just guidance; the NPPF and the new national development management policy set out the Government’s planning policies for England and how they should be applied. These are material considerations in planning decisions. The power in securing positive change for communities is substantial and should not be referred to as just “guidance”.

There is another step forward—perhaps slightly towards where my noble friend would like us to be—with Active Travel England. Many noble Lords will know that Active Travel England was set up relatively recently, and its role will expand over time. It will become a statutory consultee on certain major planning applications from June this year. That means that local planning authorities will be required to consult ATE on planning applications, where developments meet one of the following minimum thresholds: where it has 150 residential units; where it is 7,500 square metres of commercial area; or where it is a site with an area of 5 hectares or more. Furthermore, ATE will also take an active role in supporting the preparation of local plans and design codes.

It is also worth reflecting that local plans must be put in place quickly, and so we must avoid imposing a plethora of additional statutory requirements which local authorities must have regard to, especially when clear expectations are already set through national policy. There is one other—

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My apologies for also interrupting the Minister. I know that she has not been part of previous discussions on the National Planning Policy Framework with regard to the Bill, or the sequence of events as to when we will see the finalised version of the NPPF, but noble Lords have expressed concern that we are being told that some things are going into one, while other things are going into the other. Because we will not see the finalised version of the National Planning Policy Framework before the end of Committee—unless the Bill goes on even longer than it already has—we have concerns that we will not understand what is going into one and what is going into the other. I repeat that point again, because it is very important to some of the previous points under discussion in earlier days in Committee about how the two fit together.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Indeed, I am aware that those conversations have been happening and, as a Transport Minister, perhaps I had better not add anything further. However, it is worth highlighting that the Government are taking forward other policies for cycling and walking, which I believe will be helpful to local authorities in thinking about how cycling, walking and active travel are taken into account when it comes to local development. The Manual for the Streets guidance is incredibly important and is being updated. We are also planning to refresh the guidance supporting the development of the local transport plan.

It is also worth noting the tens of millions of pounds that the Government have awarded to local transport authorities to upskill the capacity and capabilities of their staff to ensure that things happen. For example, the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned her council in Kirklees, where things all seem to be tickety-boo. Therefore, I would expect other local authorities to look at that council to try to emulate that because, essentially, we want local decisions to be taken locally—that is at the heart of this matter.

I turn now to the amendment on railway accessibility in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I appreciate the contributions made by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, providing details of specific areas where we need to make improvement. Improved access to the railway is a key priority for the Government. The Transport Secretary is committed to funding transport infrastructure improvements, including improvements to stations to make them more accessible for disabled passengers. The Department for Transport has already invested £383 million under the Access for All programme between 2019 and 2024, and there is more to come.

The Design Standards for Accessible Railway Stations, published in 2015, set out the standards that must be met when new railway infrastructure or facilities are installed, renewed or replaced. Noble Lords may question the date of 2015 and say that it is a little while ago, but I reassure them that the process is being set out at the moment as to how the standards will be refreshed.

Noble Lords will also be aware that the Government have now completed an audit of all stations across the network. That data will be shared with Great British Railways; it will be made public; and that will be very helpful for ensuring that as many people as possible who are less mobile can travel. I accept, however, that some stations remain less accessible. Can we fix them all at once? I am afraid we cannot, but I would like to reassure the Committee that all stations, regardless of size and location, are eligible for funding under the Access for All programme.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Baroness would probably decline to make a comment on that at this moment, as that would take us far away from the area of accessibility, which is under consideration today. However, the noble Baroness asked whether progress had been made. So far, step-free accessible routes have been delivered at 200 stations, and smaller-scale access improvements have been made at 1,500 stations. We have made progress; there is much more progress to come; and we are absolutely committed to making it.

Amendments 470 and 486 relate to the charging of electric vehicles, I share all noble Lords’ concerns about electric vehicle charge points and how important they are as we decarbonise our transport system. The first of the two amendments seeks to amend the Electricity Act 1989 to add an explicit reference to electric vehicle charge point provision in addition to the need to

“secure that all reasonable demands for electricity are met”.

The Electricity Act 1989 already requires the Secretary of State to give regard to securing that all reasonable demands for electricity are met. This requirement already includes the charging of electric vehicles. We therefore believe that the amendment is unnecessary, and indeed that it might be unhelpful to other equally critical areas of the decarbonisation effort such as, for example, heat pumps. In carrying out this duty under the Electricity Act, the Secretary of State works closely with Ofgem, as the independent energy regulator is responsible for regulating network companies to ensure that sufficient grid capacity is built and operated to meet consumer demand. Of course, we work very closely with Ofgem as price controls are developed, so that our work aligns to meet the needs of customers, including electric vehicle users.

We are investing £3.1 billion for network upgrades to support the uptake of electric vehicles and heat pumps. This is significant upfront funding and, combined with an agile price control system for net zero-related expenditure, it will enable the investment in the network infrastructure needed to facilitate heat and transport electrification.

There were a number of questions around the provision of charge points themselves. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked about new homes. We laid legislation that came into force in June last year requiring most new homes and those undergoing major renovation with associated parking in England to have a charge point or a cable route for charge points installed from the outset. We estimate that this will lead to the installation of up to 145,000 new charge points across England every year.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked about home and business charge points. The Government have supported the installation of about 400,000 of these charge points. Of course, there will be many, many more out there that have been installed without government support—and, to my mind, long may that continue.

I turn now to the second of the two amendments on charge points, which relates to reporting. I do not believe that this amendment is necessary, because I am pleased to confirm that the Government routinely publish monthly and quarterly EV public charging device statistics. These are broken down by device speed category, region and local authority area. The latest report outlined that, as of 1 April, there are more than 40,000 available public charging devices, of which more than 7,600 are rapid or above charging devices—a 33% increase. We also routinely publish the number of devices funded through government grant schemes. As I pointed out, many more will be installed that are not funded by the Government, and we would not necessarily be able to find out where they are. If there is further information that the noble Baroness would like about public charging points that we might reasonably be able to gather, I would be very happy to discuss this with her further. I have noted the other comments on EV charge points and will reflect on them further.

Finally, I turn to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, about a blanket reduction on restricted roads from 30 to 20 miles per hour. I noted some of the comments from the noble Baroness, and I agreed with some of them. None the less, I am not convinced that a blanket application of this lower speed limit is appropriate because, again, it would undermine local decision-makers’ ability to set the most appropriate speed for the roads in their area, based on local knowledge and the views of the local community. Actually, I am pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, agrees with me. Indeed, she seems to agree with me for England but not for Wales, where it is not something that a local authority can decide.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I believe there was widespread consultation from the Welsh Government with Welsh local government in terms of doing this. I have that in my notes, but my notes are a bit scribbly and I missed it out. May I just make the point that the Welsh Government, as they always do, have consulted very widely with Welsh local government on this?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

That is fantastic to hear, and I am sure that all local authorities 100% agreed with the Welsh Government in that regard.

The second element to this is that a blanket approach would be—

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

241A: After Clause 93, insert the following new Clause—
“Meaning of “affordable housing”: affordable rent(1) In Annex 2 of the National Planning Policy Framework (glossary), in paragraph (a) of the definition of “affordable housing” (affordable housing for rent) omit “or Affordable Rent, or is at least 20% below local market rents (including service charges where applicable)”.(2) As soon as reasonably practicable and within two months of this Act being passed, the Secretary of State must publish a revised version of the National Planning Policy Framework, replacing the Affordable Housing for Rent definition with one based on incomes not market rates.”

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 241A, I shall speak also to my Amendment 500 and comment on other amendments in this group.

I should declare from the outset that social housing is a topic very close to my heart. As a new-town child, when I was growing up, more than 30,000 of the 38,000 homes in my town were built and managed by the development corporation and later taken over by the council. Almost everyone I knew lived in a council home. They had been built in self-contained neighbourhoods with large amounts of green space, schools, health facilities, shops and so on all within a 10-minute walk. They were mostly two, three and four-bedroom family houses with gardens. Sadly, as land values have increased, that type of development is all too scarce.

As noble Lords will be aware, the introduction of right to buy not only took a scythe to housing stocks but, particularly in the new towns, disrupted the community cohesion brought about by shared housing tenure. Those 30,000 homes that I mentioned earlier have reduced to just over 8,000 now. The figure for the UK is that there are around 1.5 million fewer council homes now than in 1980. Councillors’ inboxes are full—permanently—of housing cases. Surely the generations who benefited from right to buy cannot just pull up the ladder behind them. From the experience of my councillor surgeries, they had not anticipated the impact on their children and grandchildren, never mind all the other young people for whom private renting, let along buying homes, is fast disappearing over their financial horizon.

Just yesterday, we had a shocking report from the National Housing Federation, setting out the impact of overcrowding, particularly on the life opportunities of young people. The findings of its report say that more than 300,000 children in England have to share beds with other family members. Some 2 million children live in cramped conditions with little or no personal space. Ethnic minority households are three times more likely to be overcrowded than white households. More than one-quarter of the parents living in overcrowded homes who were questioned by researchers said that they regularly had to sleep in a living room, bathroom, hallway or kitchen.

The family featured in the National Housing Federation press release, Joanna and her daughter Deni, were forced to seek council help when private rented accommodation became too expensive. Joanna had never been able to afford a two-bedroom property but, with rents soaring, now struggles to afford a one-bedroom flat. Deni, a talented musical student who is on the Royal Opera House programme for promising singers, has shared a bed with her mother for the whole of her 10 years and spends school holidays sitting on that bed while her mother works from home.

My own casework contains hundreds of housing cases a year, around 70% of which relate to homelessness, overcrowding or affordability. Shelter, which does such magnificent work in this area, held an independent commission which pointed out that we have lost 1.5 million social homes since 1980 and recommended that government rediscover publicly built housing as a key pillar of our national infrastructure by building 3.1 million new social homes over the next 20 years. That is a very ambitious target, especially when we note that only 6,463 more social homes were built last year, and 500 of those were by my local authority. After the Second World War, local authorities built more than 126,000 social homes a year. The biggest barriers are land and funding. Shelter, IPPR, CPRE, National Housing Federation, Onward and Create Streets all call for reform of the Land Compensation Act 1961, so that landowners are paid a fair price for their land without hope value. We will discuss this when we come to future amendments. Local government has also argued for many years that we should retain 100% of our right-to-buy receipts. We welcome recent developments on that front but, had it happened decades ago, we would not have seen the catastrophic impact on housing stock levels.

The Resolution Foundation’s Housing Outlook report for the first quarter of 2023 stated that, although mortgagors had been affected by rising interest rates,

“private and social renters are much more likely to report falling behind or struggling with their housing costs”.

It also said that,

“worryingly high numbers of … renters report signs of material deprivation and are resorting to sometimes unsustainable strategies to manage their housing costs”.

They include borrowing money, using savings or not heating their homes. The ONS deems rental properties affordable if a household does not spend more than 30% of its income on rent. In this country, only the east Midlands and the north-west had rent prices affordable to those in the lower quartile of household income.

There are also key financial drivers to the provision of social rented homes. First, the rent paid by social renters is recirculated to improve stock, build new homes, develop specialist housing and so on. This is sometimes the case with good private landlords, but not always. Secondly, it makes no sense to subsidise higher private rents through the benefits systems. A rapid increase in social housing stock would generate savings, as there are stark contrasts in rent levels. The figures for my area are indeed stark, with social rent for a two-bedroom property at £110 a week and private rent at £235. The local housing allowance is just £195. The amount that councils spend on temporary accommodation has increased by 71% in the past five years and now costs more than £1 billion a year.

I hope that I have set out clearly the issues and the impact that housing supply is having on the affordability of housing. My Amendment 241A is included to remove from the NPPF the spurious term “affordable housing” from rented properties that are 20% below market rent. In many areas, that would be far from affordable. For many families on low incomes, the only affordable housing is social rented housing.

Amendment 242, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and Amendment 242ZA, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, attempt a comprehensive redefinition of the term “affordable home” to ensure that there is a link between median incomes and the definition of affordable homes, with that definition then enshrined in regulations. We support this proposal in principle and would want to work with the sector to ensure that there is a much more meaningful definition included in legislation and in the National Planning Policy Framework.

Amendment 262 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, highlights the specific issues of affordable housing in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. The issues around these were clearly elucidated by my noble friend Lady Hayman yesterday—I am sorry, on Tuesday. The weeks go by with this Bill, I am afraid. She quoted the former chair of National Parks England, Carl Lis, who warned that young people and national park staff are being forced out of their communities, in part by the high prices driven by exclusive holiday homes. She also referred to a statement by the Secretary of State in the other place on 21 March in which he pledged planning changes to the Bill to ensure that restrictions would be put in place on conversions of homes to Airbnbs. Failure to act on this important issue will see the continued decimation of communities in our most precious landscapes, as increasing numbers of homes are bought for second homes and converted to Airbnb use. Local councils must be able to use the planning system in the best interests of their communities. I hope that this amendment and that submitted by my noble friend on Tuesday, or a version of them, will be accepted to achieve the Secretary of State’s aim.

Amendment 286 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, suggests bringing forward the requirements of the future homes standard to June 2023. In view of the protracted progress on the Bill through your Lordships’ House, this may prove a tad ambitious, although, of course, we hope that these can be implemented as quickly as possible. The second part of this amendment would grant powers to local authorities to determine for themselves what percentage of affordable homes is needed. We absolutely accept this in terms of devolution principles, but I just echo my noble friend Lady Hayman’s comments on Tuesday that, although we must be serious about meeting the affordable housing need, we also need to consider that communities need mixed tenures in housing.

We support Amendment 438 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Shipley. I remember the absolute horror with which the original announcement of this measure was greeted by my colleagues in local government in 2012. Some London boroughs rightly pointed out that every property in their housing stock would exceed the threshold. We welcome the fact that the Government have already committed that they will scrap this policy, so perhaps incorporating this amendment is a quick and easy way to do so.

Lastly, I turn to my Amendment 500. Mission 10 in the White Paper is the key mission relating to housing. While its ambition in terms of improving the quality of rented property is admirable, in other ways it looks at housing through the wrong end of the lens: it sees levelling up only through the point of view of property ownership. For millions of people on housing waiting lists, in temporary accommodation, sleeping on their friends’ sofas or, as in a case I dealt with yesterday, having to conduct access visits with their children in their car because they have nowhere to live, the prospect of a safe, sustainable home with a secure social housing tenancy would meet their immediate aspirations of levelling up. That is why we hope the Government will recognise the absolute importance and value of social housing and use the opportunity of the Bill to commit to building the numbers we need. I beg to move.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I shall speak in support of Amendment 242 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. I do so having consulted the Bishop of Chelmsford, who leads for the Church of England on housing but is unable to be here today. It is clear, I think, that we need to rethink what genuinely affordable housing is and how an adequate supply can be delivered. In London, the south-east and many other areas across the country, the current affordable housing for rent definition of 20% below market rates makes little difference to those on a median income, let alone those in most need. Without redefinition, we will continue to work under the illusion that homes classed as affordable are helping to solve the housing affordability crisis, when for the most part they are not.

Of course, we need a multifaceted approach to solve the lack of affordable homes. I was interested to learn from the Bishop of Chelmsford that Vicky Ford MP has been addressing this in relation to Chelmsford. During her 10-minute rule Bill debate on 22 February, she spoke to the shortage of affordable housing we face locally and nationally. Her Affordable Housing (Conversion of Commercial Property) Bill would apply affordable housing obligations to conversions of commercial property to residential occupancy. The Bill is due its Second Reading in the Commons on 26 May, and we certainly hope that it will make some progress.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I cannot give that assurance because we have not yet published them, but from everything I know of where the Bill is going with planning, we are encouraging local authorities to make those local decisions within the national framework, and I do not expect any further constraints on local authorities in that regard.

This is probably the right time to also bring up the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, raised about transparency and viability. We agree with many of the criticisms of the misuse of viability assessments. That is why we are introducing the infrastructure levy, which removes the need for viability assessments as part of the planning permission process. If we take it out of the process, I hope we will not have this argument in the beginning. I have had many arguments over viability in the past. If we take it out of the system, I hope that will stop in future.

Moving to Amendment 438, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, I understand why he has put forward his amendments. While I appreciate totally the sentiment behind them, we do not believe this would be the correct legislative vehicle for this policy. The Government have provided public assurances that they will not require local authorities to make a payment in respect of their vacant higher value council homes in the social housing Green Paper and stand by that commitment. The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill does not address the topic of social housing, and the Government do not wish further to complicate such a complex set of legislative measures. However, the Government remain committed to legislating on this issue at an appropriate time in the future. I can provide assurances at the Dispatch Box to the noble Lord that the provisions laid out in Chapter 2 of Part 4 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 have not been brought into effect and this Government have no intention of doing so. The provisions lack a regulatory framework to underpin the policy, and therefore there is no risk of local authorities being subject to them before we are able to legislate in the future. I hope this reassures the noble Lord that the Government remain committed to the decisions set out in the social housing Green Paper and that provisions will be made in future for this revocation to be issued. I hope the noble Lord will feel able not to move the amendment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to noble Lords for such an interesting debate on a crucial topic central to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. As a result of the discussions we have had, the National Housing Federation’s figure for people in need of social housing is now 3.8 million—that is 1.6 million households. That is around 500,000 more households than the 1.16 million that are on official waiting lists. We all know the reasons for that: not everybody who is in need of housing will necessarily want to spend the next 20 years on a housing waiting list. In so many areas it is impossible to see people ever being housed as a result of those housing lists.

I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds for his important comments, particularly about us needing to understand what genuinely affordable housing means. It certainly does not mean the definition that is used in planning at the moment. I agree with his comment that we are under an illusion that housing built under the “affordable homes” category will resolve the housing crisis—it will not. I totally support his comments about unfreezing local housing allowance levels, which would be an important step. Over many decades, we have seen sticking-plaster approaches to tackling the housing situation in this country, which consequently continues to deteriorate.

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, rightly said that all of the amendments in this group are aimed at the same destination. Neither in renting nor in homes for sale does “affordability” mean what it says on the tin. We are all trying to make sure that we do what we can in the Bill to change that to some extent.

It is misleading to say that the Help to Buy schemes, which the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, mentioned, will tackle the issue for those most in need of housing. Taking a little risk, I will mention a conversation I had with a former Conservative Minister, who said, “I don’t know why you keep banging on about social housing, Sharon. Everyone can afford to buy a house under our Help to Buy scheme”. That is clearly not the case. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, quoted his noble friend who said that, in Southwold, the affordability ratio is 17:1, and 13:1 after a 20% discount. That is the case in quite a lot of the country, although not everywhere.

More than 50% of social homes have been transferred into the private rented sector, which is a great grievance to those of us who deal with the impact of that. Where that rent is paid by universal credit or other benefits, instead of DWP paying—I shall use the figures I quoted earlier—£110 a week rent for those properties, the public purse now pays £235 a week for them. That does not make any sense at all, so we need to do all we can to address this situation.

As ever, I was pleased to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Best, about his amendment. I thank him for reminding us about the Affordable Housing Commission report, which is very good and we all need to take account of it. I am afraid I found the Minister’s comments on the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Best, a bit disappointing. None of us, including the Government, want this measure. The noble Lord, Lord Best, called it an “obnoxious” and “offensive” legislative provision, which it is. He pointed out that it has hung over local government since 2016. We could use this legislation to get rid of it. Why do we not do that? Under that legislation, local authorities were expected to raise the rent to market levels where tenants improved their financial situation. When that happened, it greatly concerned me that this would not benefit local communities or our housing stock but would tip into the bottomless bucket in the Treasury. It is time that that provision was scrapped. I absolutely support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Best, about local decisions being taken on right-to-buy discounts. That measure is way past time, and we should absolutely have it.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, spoke about unfreezing local housing allowance, which I agree with. He also mentioned discretionary housing payments. In many local authorities, the allocated amount of discretionary housing payment runs out in Quarter 1, and then various bodies, including government advisory bodies and Citizens Advice, often send tenants to their councils to request discretionary housing payment, when in fact it has run out in the first three months of the year. That is simply because of the cost of living crisis and the level of rents that are putting so much pressure on those discretionary housing payments.

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Criticisms were made of this clause at Second Reading but, given the scope of the Bill and the length of time allowed to Ministers for winding up, my noble friend was understandably unable to address them then. I know he will want to do so today. I think I have said enough to indicate that, in the words of Sir Humphrey, this is a brave initiative. I beg to move.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Young. I will speak to our Amendments 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256 and 257 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman. A number of those amendments echo the concerns of the noble Lord. It is important to place on record that the clause to which amendments in this group refer was not in the Bill when it was debated in the other place, so it has not had the kind of scrutiny you would expect for a proposal of this kind. Therefore, it is right that your Lordships’ House gives this clause and the amendments submitted very careful consideration.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Young, that the progress of this proposal straight into primary legislation is unusual to say the least—I would call it inexplicable. I have much sympathy with his comments that, were the street votes part of a consideration that the planning and development committees took into account, that might be a different issue. However, from the proposal in the Bill it seems that they are intended to sit outside that.

In recent decades, changes to the planning system have meant that local people and, on occasion, local councillors have felt that they have little say or control over what happens in their area due to a combination of permitted development, changes to use classes—meaning, for example, that there is little to stop your high street being dominated by betting shops and vape stores—the prevalence of conversions to houses of multiple occupation, which puts particular pressure on infrastructure and parking and can change the character of neighbourhoods, and the hollowing out of so many coastal and rural areas as family homes become holiday and Airbnb lets. We have heard powerful advocacy for the role of neighbourhood forums and town and parish councils in previous debates on the Bill. There is undoubtedly something of a community engagement vacuum in the delivery of new homes which the advocates of street votes believe they can help fill.

As a member of the Co-operative Party, a sister party to the Labour Party, and a former chair of the Co-operative Councils’ Innovation Network, I have spent more than 10 years promoting and supporting greater engagement of residents and communities in the decisions taken on their behalf, so we absolutely support the principle sitting behind the street votes proposition. I am very grateful to Samuel Hughes from Create Streets, who took a great deal of time to brief me and my noble friend Lady Hayman and kindly provided us with a background briefing on street votes.

The problem with the clause as drafted is that it is very thin on detail, not least any detailed definition of “gentle densification”, which we have heard so much about during the Bill. I am sure that the Minister will tell us that it will be in the regulations or the National Planning Policy Framework, but in this case it is particularly important to understand how the system of street votes will work. Even their most passionate advocates feel that there is room for more clarity in the Bill.

Our amendments in this group attempt to understand how this detail and some of the potential complications will be resolved. As an example, although greenbelt, areas of outstanding national beauty and historic buildings are expressly excluded, there is no mention of conservation areas.

In his article, which is generally very positive about street votes, the designer Alastair Parvin points out that, when you start thinking about the detail of how they might work, it is not hard to see how it could all go very wrong. Those of us who have been involved in planning will feel the same trepidation that what seems, on the face of it, like a move towards community engagement, development and an ultimate expression of street democracy, may also need to be particularly well thought through in advance to avoid the obvious potential pitfalls.

The system of local authority planning may seem bureaucratic, complex and too slow, but you could argue that it is developed that way to ensure, for example, that experts in planning, law and finance are involved, that there is transparency in the process, that decisions are properly debated and recorded, and that there are proper voting procedures, appeals processes and declarations of interest. As Alastair Parvin notes, to even think about the idea of every street in the UK emulating this way of working, appointing an urban designer, holding consultations, drawing up a valid design code, having it checked against local policies, revising it, holding committees, leafleting, then organising a referendum, is utterly exhausting and could be expensive in time and money. It could also add a significant potential burden on to local planning departments that are already feeling overstretched. He also points out that community politics can be, at best, dominated by those with the loudest voices and, at worst, pretty toxic, with the potential for style wars or tribalism to develop, or those who are fixated about parking to take over—in my experience, there are plenty of them. I loved his line,

“we’re talking about doing design-by-committee with Alan Partridge on the committee”.

How do we ensure that those participating are not being coerced or receiving financial inducements, particularly the elderly and the vulnerable? Street votes will also have to take into account that, while many places in the UK may have well-defined streets, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, pointed out, some do not. There have a variety of layouts, types and styles, with perhaps less well-defined groupings or boundaries. Some of you may be familiar with Radburn layouts that are common in first-generation new towns, where houses that appear to be on one street are actually in three different streets.

It is important that we note the comments of the Local Government Association, which were quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Young. It says that it wants to work with government to enhance opportunities for engagement and reach a wider audience within the process of developing local plans, and that is the key to the answer here. Amendment 248, in the names of noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, is welcome and very straightforward, and we would certainly support that amendment to bring clarity to the precedence of the local plan, should the outcome of a street vote conflict with that.

My noble friend Baroness Hayman’s first amendment ensures that residents who have a recent connection with the area are included in street votes. We are very grateful to Generation Rent for its proposals in this respect. It makes the valid point that street votes must work for renters as well as owner-occupiers. Part of the answer, which is included in the Bill, is to enfranchise residents, not owners, so that tenants have as much democratic say as owner-occupiers, and absentee landlords are not further empowered over tenants’ homes. However, we agree with Generation Rent that this is not enough in itself so, before any homeowner or landlord can redevelop with permissions issuing from a street vote, any tenant resident in the building over the past two years must have consented. The alternative could be that landlords could refund 12-months’ rent or give their tenants 12 months’ notice. The Bill is very light on issues affecting tenants in this way, which is why we hope that our amendment will redress that balance.

Amendment 250, in the name of my noble friend Baroness Hayman, relates to the important issue of voting thresholds. We believe that it is important that it is a very high proportion; we would suggest two-thirds of total residents should support the proposals, not just a majority of those who turn out to vote. This ensures that developers cannot try to game the process and proposals can pass only if they have the overwhelming support of local people.

Create Streets, working with London forums and the Community Planning Alliance, also suggests two further safeguards—first, requiring that a resident in at least half of eligible households vote in favour, and second, that at least half of those registered to vote at the addresses on the street for at least three years must vote in favour. We would like to see this detail in the Bill but, if not, perhaps it could be considered for any subsequent statutory instrument.

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[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, a range of questions have been asked on this group of amendments. It might be helpful if I begin with the question posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and set out why the Government are bringing forward this measure in the Bill.

Local people can, quite understandably, be resistant to new development in their area if they have little say over what gets built and it does not reflect their preferences. However, many of us know that residents are often more supportive when they can play a direct role in shaping that development, including what it looks like. The Government are looking to deliver more good quality homes in the right places. To help achieve that, we want to encourage some intensification of development in existing residential areas, particularly areas of low density in towns and cities where this has the support of residents.

Clause 99 introduces street vote development orders, which will provide residents with a new opportunity to take a proactive role in the planning process and bring forward the development that they want to see on their streets. This new route to planning permission will support wider local efforts in bringing forward developments of new or more spacious homes in places where they are needed most. Amendments 248, 251, 253A, 254 and 257 all deal with how street votes will fit with the wider planning system and related requirements, and I propose to address them as a group.

In moving Amendment 248, my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham emphasised the desirability of achieving maximum certainty in the planning system. The first thing for me to say is that we want to create a predictable system where residents have a high degree of certainty on what development is likely to be permissible before they prepare a street vote development order proposal and that we want to make the system accessible and easy to use. To achieve that, we propose to do things a bit differently with this new tool. We want to depart from existing practice, which relies heavily on the interpretation of local policies to determine whether a development is appropriate, and move to an approach where proposals are assessed against more precise requirements which will be prescribed in regulations. These prescribed regulations will include what type of development and what type of uses are allowed, as well as detailed design requirements such as floor limits, ceiling heights and the extent to which a plot can be used.

We want to test this through consultation ahead of drafting the secondary legislation. These requirements will provide residents with that certainty and ease of use and be designed to ensure that street votes development is high quality and that any local impacts are managed. While I understand the intentions behind my noble friend’s amendment, it would, if agreed, prevent us applying this new approach and therefore I am unable to support it. I emphasise that this is an issue that we intend to consult on as part of a wider consultation on the detail of the measure to ensure that a wide spectrum of views is considered and that the policy delivers for communities.

I turn next to Amendment 251 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, which was spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor. Where there is a street vote development order, we of course wish to see the resultant impacts of construction on residents and the local environment minimised. The powers we are seeking would allow the Secretary of State to prescribe in regulations the documents that must accompany a street vote proposal. They could potentially include a code of construction practice. We intend to consult on what these requirements should be as part of the wider consultation on the detail of the measure. Setting out the documentary requirements in the Bill would prevent us considering this, alongside other detailed matters, through consultation.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that as part of that consultation we should speak to the Local Government Association or other representatives of local government? The drawing up of such codes and so on would almost certainly involve professionals in the planning departments of local authorities. They are at breaking point already—they are greatly stretched—and these street votes can presumably pop up at any time. They will not necessarily be part of a planned workload for local authorities. One of our concerns is that if some of these codes and other things that might be needed to support street votes are not very clear in secondary legislation or the SI that brings it in, it will put an incredible burden on those hard-pressed local authority planning departments. That is probably why the LGA has spoken out so strongly against this proposal, or one of the reasons. If we are going to do some extensive consultation on this before we see secondary legislation on it—which begs the question of why it could not have come in secondary legislation in the first place—that issue needs to be considered.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

We want to engage in extensive consultation. I have every confidence that the Government will want to garner opinion from sources that have expertise of the kind that the noble Baroness mentions, and I see no reason why the LGA will not be included in that. If I can provide her with greater certainty, I will certainly do so by letter. I will be talking more about the broader consultation process in a minute or two.

The effect of Amendment 253A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, would be to exclude development in any area with a designated neighbourhood forum from the scope of street vote development orders. This would mean that, as he explained, street vote development orders could not be used in areas where, I suggest, they would be of most benefit, for example, where local people want more homes, or where greenfield land is under particular pressure from housing development. I reassure the noble Lord that neighbourhood planning will continue to play an important role in the planning system. Indeed, other measures in the Bill reinforce this. Where street vote development orders operate, communities will continue to be able to participate in neighbourhood planning. Indeed, our intended consultation will give neighbourhood planning forums and other interested parties an opportunity to shape the policy and ensure that it delivers for communities.

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My answer is similar regarding Amendment 250, which covers a concern voiced by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. The powers we are seeking allow the Secretary of State to prescribe in regulations the minimum number or proportion of qualifying individuals that are needed to form a group which is eligible to submit a proposal with a view to it being independently examined and ultimately put to referendum. We want to ensure proposals have sufficient local support before they progress, and we similarly intend to consult on this as part of a wider consultation on the detail of the measure.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Earl has mentioned, a couple of times now, independent examination of street voting. Does that mean the idea is that we will have a whole new round of public inquiry processes for every street vote that is introduced?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

No, it most certainly does not. Our intention is to appoint the Planning Inspectorate to examine proposals and make the street vote development orders on behalf of the Secretary of State.

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[Earl Howe (Con)]

Yes, and consultation.

Before I speak to the government amendments, I will turn to Amendments 255 and 256, also in the name of the noble Baroness, which deal broadly with issues of propriety. I recognise the valuable expertise that organisations like the Association of Electoral Administrators can bring, but I do not agree with the noble Baroness that it is necessary to place a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to engage with them. As part of our work to develop the detail of the street votes policy for regulations, we will seek a wide range of views, as I mentioned earlier, from organisations such as the Association of Electoral Administrators and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives to help us to get the secondary legislation right and to ensure that the policy operates effectively. However, it is right that the Secretary of State will be required to consult the Electoral Commission, given its important statutory role to ensure free and fair elections and polls.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I hear what the noble Earl is saying. In that respect, our amendment was more to seek the views of the Association of Electoral Administrators about the level of pressure that might be put on those groups—I made this point on planning teams earlier—if they were involved in a number of different referenda in their areas at the same time, for example. These can come out of the blue—we would not know when—so there are issues around how they are resourced to deal with that kind of uncertainty in their workloads.

Two big questions have come out what the noble Earl has said. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, said, it seems that we are going to have a whole new inspectorate. We had a light-hearted suggestion that it might be called “Ofstreet”, but that is for later determination. Who is going to pay for that inspectorate? Secondly, there is the issue of referendums. Referendums can be quite expensive—we have done them on parking issues in my borough. It costs quite a lot of money because you have to be very careful about how they are done to make sure they are fair. Who pays for those?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, if I may say so, that is a very helpful intervention from the noble Baroness. She raises a number of key points, some of which will no doubt be covered in the consultation, but if I can expand on that I will be happy to write to her.

On Amendment 256, I would like to make it clear that the Government take the potential for conflicts of interest seriously. I am however confident that local authorities and the Planning Inspectorate, both of which we envisage having an important role in the street vote process, have appropriate safeguards in place to minimise conflicts of interest. It is a matter for local authorities to determine their own conflict of interest policies. I have every confidence that all local authorities treat conflicts of interest seriously and have robust procedures in place for both their members and officers. It would not be proportionate to legislate that local authorities publish guidance on managing conflicts of interest specifically on street votes, although no local authority would be prohibited from doing so if they so wished.

Our intention is to appoint the Planning Inspectorate to examine proposals and make street vote development orders on behalf of the Secretary of State. As the independent examiner, the Planning Inspectorate has its own conflicts of interest policy to support the proper and efficient allocation of work. In addition, chartered town planners, who may support residents in preparing proposals, are bound by the Royal Town Planning Institute’s code of professional conduct. This includes provisions to declare and avoid conflicts of interest.

I turn briefly to the government amendments in this group. The Government are committed to ensuring that street vote development is subject to the same principles in relation to environmental impact assessment as development enabled by other routes to planning permission. This is consistent with the Government’s commitment on non-regression of environmental protections. Without amending the Bill, it would be unclear for qualifying groups and relevant bodies how the EIA requirements would apply to street vote development. Amendments 257A, 504H, 504I, 504J and 509A allow for the Secretary of State to make regulations modifying the existing process under the EIA regulations so they operate effectively for street vote development orders. Where development that is consented under a street vote development order is EIA development, it will continue to be prohibited unless an assessment has been carried out and the environmental impacts are considered when making the order. Amendments 248A, 256A and 258A make technical and consequential provision to the Town and Country Planning Act, the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 and the Elections Act 2022. These minor changes to these Acts—

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Berkeley for once again using his very detailed, particular knowledge and expertise of issues around the Isles of Scilly and Cornwall. As ever, we are grateful to him for speaking up for those communities. The question he asks is an important one: why should anybody be exempt from proposals in this Bill, never mind the Duchy of Cornwall?

I will start with Amendment 504GJI on leasehold. We have had long and protracted discussions around leasehold in the course of discussions on this Bill previously. My noble friend Lord Berkeley referred to the Law Commission report on leasehold and the recommendations that people should be able to buy out freehold. I cannot see any reason that Law Commission report has not been acted on, and I hope the Minister will be able to enlighten us about that.

Certainly, it does not seem to us that there should be exemptions that sit outside of that for any reason. If the Law Commission has looked closely at the rationale for the exemptions that were put forward by the Duchy and not found those to be reasonable, it seems that the Government should treat the Duchy of Cornwall in the same way as they treat everybody else. As we have heard the Secretary of State say number of times now, if the Government intend to end the feudal leasehold system, will the Duchy of Cornwall be exempt from that, too, or will the Duchy of Cornwall’s properties be included in that legislation? If the Minister cannot provide the answer today, I am happy to take an answer in writing to that question.

My noble friend Lord Berkeley was kind enough to provide information about the issue related to the Isles of Scilly steamship company to us in advance of today’s session, and the point that he makes is a very valid one. For the communities on the Isles of Scilly, this really is an issue of levelling up. He has given us information on the very steep fare increases on that steamship company, and I understand the fare is now some £89. People on the Isles of Scilly will need to use that service. Their choice is either to travel by air, which we do not want to encourage, or to use this steamship company. A strange situation has developed here; it is a situation that I wish I had had in my borough, where when you find you have to go into competition to deliver something if you use government funding, you suddenly find, after 10 years of asking for government money, that the money has appeared miraculously. That does seem a very strange situation. There needs to be close attention to the way these issues are treated. They are issues of levelling up, because communities on the Isles of Scilly want to know they are being treated in the same way as other communities in the United Kingdom. I support my noble friend Lord Berkeley’s amendment.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I will start by addressing Amendment 258 and then move on to Amendment 504GJI, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. Amendment 258 would remove land in the Duchy of Cornwall from the definition of “Crown land”, as part of planning law. The noble Lord asked what the definition of “Crown land” was, and I apologise for not answering him in the previous debate. It is set out in Section 293 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, as my noble friend Lord Lansley rightly indicated in the last debate. It is, broadly, land in which there is a Crown or a Duchy interest—I shall expand on that in a second. I appreciate that the noble Lord tabled a number of Private Member’s Bills concerning the treatment of the Crown and the Duchy of Cornwall, and I admire his tenacity in this regard.

For the benefit of the Committee, I will set out some factual and historical background. For a long time, the Crown was not subject to planning control, but, in 2006, provisions within the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 made it subject to planning permission, subject to special modifications. These recognise not only the unique nature of operational Crown land—prisons and military bases, for example—but the uniqueness and importance of the royal estates.

It is important first to understand the complex status of the Duchy of Cornwall. The title “Duke of Cornwall” and the inheritance of the Duchy were created in 1337 by a charter that carries the authority of an Act of Parliament. By virtue of that charter, the Duchy vests in the eldest son of the sovereign, also being heir apparent. Where there is no son and heir, the estate reverts to the Crown. Craies on Legislation notes:

“That is why … the Crown’s prerogative attaches to the lands of the Duchy of Cornwall, for the reason that they never entirely cease to be Crown lands”.


In short, there is always the possibility of the Duchy reverting to the sovereign, as his or her property. For this reason, the Duchy never entirely ceases to be Crown lands. For example, in recent times, King George VI had no son, so, on his accession, there was no Duke of Cornwall and the Duchy remained with King George VI.

Removing the Duchy of Cornwall from the definition of “Crown land” within Section 293 of the Town and Country Planning Act risks disrupting this well-established constitutional arrangement. This could open widespread implications for not just planning but how the Duchy is treated in law more widely. I have enormous respect for the noble Lord, but I am not sure that it is appropriate to open up this debate as part of the Bill. From his previous experience, he will appreciate that it would not be right for a single individual or party to seek to change the law on the way the Duchy of Cornwall is treated. If that is done at all, it has to be done with cross-party support. In addition, a Bill affecting the Duchy requires the King’s consent and sometimes also the Prince’s consent. For the reasons I set out, the Government have no intention to change the definitions of “Crown land” at this time, especially where this concerns changes that could affect His Majesty’s hereditary rights.

Amendment 504GJI addresses the impact that recommendations in the Law Commission’s 2020 report on enfranchisement would have on the Government’s levelling-up and regeneration objectives, including for leaseholders on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. The Government are committed to making it easier and cheaper for leaseholders to purchase their freeholds and extend their leases, and we are grateful to the Law Commission for its detailed report on enfranchisement reform. This report addressed a range of matters relating to the qualifying criteria for enfranchisement and lease extensions, including the applicability of these to leaseholders of the Crown, the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster. In January 2022, the Government consulted on Law Commission proposals that would improve access to enfranchisement and the right to manage. I am sure that the noble Lord will appreciate that this is a long-term and complex reform programme with many interdependencies, and it will take time to get the detail right. Once it is enacted, the effect will be felt for generations, so we are determined that this work consider all the implications with care.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

261: Clause 104, page 135, line 13, at end insert—
“(3A) But notwithstanding subsection (3) the completion notice deadline may be less than 12 months after the completion notice was served if the local planning authority are of the opinion that—(a) development has not taken place on the site for a prolonged period, (b) there is no reasonable prospect of development being completed within a reasonable period, and(c) it is in the public interest to issue an urgent completion notice.(3B) A completion notice may include requirements concerning the removal of any buildings or works authorised by the permission, or the discontinuance of any use of land so authorised, at the end of the completion period, and the carrying out of any works required for the reinstatement of land at the end of that period.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would enable the issuance of completion notices withdrawing planning permission with a deadline of less than 12 months when certain conditions are met, and enable completion notices to require that building works be removed from a site or a site be reinstated to its previous condition.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to move my Amendment 261 and I am very pleased that government Amendment 261A is complementary to my amendment, or at least I hope that is the intention.

Across the country, communities and councils have found themselves in the incredibly frustrating situation where permissions are sought but sites stay empty, and development does not progress; the LGA estimates that sites with planning permission for over a million homes have not been developed. As well as unbuilt housing we also see employment sites not progressed, communities and local businesses left in limbo and local areas facing an uncertain future and unable to make further plans.

In its comments on proposed reforms to the planning system, the LGA said:

“It is disappointing that no tangible powers were brought forward in the Bill to enable councils to encourage developers to build-out. We would urge the Government as a matter of urgency to empower councils to take decisive action on this issue.”


Too often it is local government that gets the blame for not approving plans quickly enough, but the LGA points out that since 2010-11 over 2.8 million homes have been granted permission but only 1.6 million have been built. In fact, nine out of 10 planning applications have been approved by councils and most adhere to the strict time guidelines for approvals.

The LGA has called for the Government to charge developers full council tax for every unbuilt development when the original planning permission expires, and for it to be easier for councils to use compulsory purchase powers to acquire stalled housing sites or where developers do not build to a timescale agreed with the local authority.

Since the pandemic, this situation has deteriorated because of labour shortages and the inflationary rise in the cost of materials so, as well as developers who are simply holding on to land to cash in on land values, there are also many genuine cases where the viability of schemes has been eroded. The LGA’s housing spokesperson has said that,

“by giving councils the right powers to incentivise developers to get building once planning permission has been granted, we can go further and faster ... to deliver the reform needed to enable councils to tackle the housing crisis”.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I believe it is in one local authority, but I will check that. I will let the noble Lord know and make sure that everybody else in the Committee is aware.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and to the Minister for yet another thorough and thoughtful answer in response to the amendments.

When I moved my amendment last week, I said that I was pleased to see that the government amendment seemed to be complementary to my amendment, and therefore it was good to hear that some new steps are coming forward as regards placing some more requirements on developers in this respect. The Minister outlined some of those, such as publishing data on developers and diversity, the proposal on slow delivery and how it results in turn-downs, and financial penalties that we would be able to impose from local government, and so on. However, it would be good to see the details of those and how they are going to be incorporated. I assume they may go into the National Planning Policy Framework, but again, to echo the point we made several times, so far we have not seen that.

I remind noble Lords that the Local Government Association has said that it did not believe that “tangible powers” had been brought forward in the Bill to enable councillors to encourage developers to build out. I hear what the Minister said about secondary applications from those builders, but local authorities need powers to deal with current applications, where the buildout is slow too, so I hope some more thought might be given to that. The noble Lord, Lord Best, referred to the fact that builders may operate across different areas, which is a good point. However, if we take action on developers in the first instance, perhaps they will be encouraged not to go and apply elsewhere if they think that there will be action and that financial penalties will be imposed where they are too slow to build out.

I reiterate our strong support for Amendment 269 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best. On the issue of diversification in larger developments, I take the Minister’s point that that might also apply to other developments in terms of making sure they include all types of accommodation. We have had long debates in your Lordships’ House around supported accommodation, but it can also apply to student accommodation—I have a particular passion for social housing. That is important. I also wanted to make the point that those types of accommodation being requirements, whether it is through the local planning authority or as part of the National Planning Policy Framework, would also help encourage the development of specialist builders and help us to get a wider picture across the country with specialist builders who have great experience in developing for those particular areas.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, spoke about the viability issue, which I am sure has and will be the subject of discussions. On the Islington example she gave, those questions have arisen across the country. It is important we continue to debate that as part of the Bill, because I believe it is an opportunity to try to crack some of these issues around viability that we have been trying to wrestle with.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, gave examples of the huge failure to build out, which means that 2.8 million permissions have been granted since 2011 but only 1.6 million homes have been built. We desperately need those homes, so we need to do whatever we can to push that forward and end the delays in the system—from land banking but also from other issues.

I come back to the issue of diversification of property. If we are not going to have a proper diversification strategy built in, we need a proper definition of affordable housing, because the current definition just does not work; that has been a theme throughout discussion of the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, said, the affordable housing definition does not work for lots of people in our communities, as we have discussed many times in this House. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 261 withdrawn.

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[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in giving general support to the thrust of the amendments, not only on the grounds advanced by other noble Lords but because they would mitigate something I regard as a positive evil. It has become possible in recent years for major developers proposing major projects to offer to local planning authorities to fund the salary of a planning officer to help deal with their case. When I had responsibility in a London borough for planning policy, I resisted accepting that sort of offer, but perhaps we could afford to do so.

This strikes to some extent at the heart of public confidence in the planning system, which is always a little fragile. Noble Lords who have been involved in it will know that there are always people who suspect that there has been a fix and that something corrupt is going on, but that is not the case in my experience. However, to allow a developer to fund a planning officer only exaggerates that perception and damages public confidence in the planning system. The way out of this, not least in the context of devolution, must be to allow the charges to cover the costs. It also seems appropriate if we want to empower elected officials in local authorities. It is open to the possibility of abuse, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said, and a local authority could seek to deter applications by setting punitively high fees, but my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham’s amendment broadly addresses that possibility. It might need a little refinement, but the principle is none the less clear and acceptable. I encourage support for this amendment because we are not taking sufficient notice of the evil I mentioned, which harms the planning system.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 267 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, was music to my ears; Amendment 287 from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is very similar. I have never understood why the public purse—the hard-pressed local government public purse at that—has to subsidise the development industry even for the very largest and most profitable developments. We have long spoken about a “polluter pays” principle in discussions on the environment; perhaps it is time we had a “profiter pays” principle in planning.

This issue has long been debated in local government. It is the subject of general incredulity that, at this time of financial crisis for local government, it is still allowed to continue. The Local Government Association has lobbied consistently on this point, stating in its recent response:

“We welcome the proposal to increase planning application fees, as it has for a long time been our position that there is a need for a well-resourced planning system. However, the Government should go further by allowing councils to set planning fees locally.”


I do not think it is a surprise to any noble Lords that local authority planning departments are at full stretch already. The noble Lord, Lord Young, referred to how they will respond to the 47 clauses in this Bill, never mind the issue of street votes—they will have plenty of work to do, that is for sure. It is an area of specialism where there are considerable shortages of professionals. In spite of a great deal of work being done to encourage young people to consider planning as a career and increase the number of routes into the profession, there remain difficulties in recruitment and retention. This is even worse in areas surrounding London, where it is almost impossible for local authorities to compete with the packages offered to planning officers in London.

This is exacerbated by the pressure of work; I know that many noble Lords in the Chamber will have sat through contentious planning application hearings, and I do not think any of us would be surprised to learn that our officers subject themselves to considerable stress. Therefore, it is only right that the industry makes a fair contribution to the cost of processing applications where it will reap substantial developer profit. This will enable local authorities to ensure that their planning teams are resourced adequately.

We also strongly support Amendment 283 in the name of my noble friend Lady Young, and so ably moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. She is absolutely right that statutory consultees, often hard-pressed themselves, should be able to recover the costs from applicants. I understand that of the £50 million bill for this, cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, 60% was incurred by Natural England and the Environment Agency as the two statutory consultees dealing with the greatest number of planning consultations. It was as far back as 2018 that the top five statutory consultees came together to form a working group to identify potential alternative funding mechanisms to address the increasingly critical and unsustainable position. They made recommendations to DLUHC in March 2019. This work highlighted the need for a change in primary legislation to provide a broad enabling power under which statutory planning consultees could pass on the costs incurred in providing statutory advice to applicants, either as part of the existing planning fees or as an additional separate charge.

We welcome the inclusion of a power in the LURB to enable statutory consultees to recover costs incurred in providing advice on nationally significant infrastructure projects. That alone, though, makes only a modest contribution to addressing the challenge of establishing the sustainable funding model. I believe for Natural England, approximately 70% of the statutory consultation work will continue to be reliant on grant in aid. Will the Government introduce a power that will help us? If not, the Government are, in effect, committing to rely on the Exchequer as the primary means of funding the essential role that statutory consultees play in support of the operation of the planning system.

There is also the danger that we will create an inconsistent funding model between NSIP cases and non-NSIP cases that are of a comparable size or impact, such as large-scale housing developments. That could result in the need to prioritise resources for NSIP work over non-NSIP work, create inconsistency in service levels and potentially disadvantage large housing developments, which would be the exact opposite direction to the way we want to go. I hope that the strength of my noble friend Lady Young’s amendment will be taken into account.

Consideration should also be given to other statutory agencies. We have seen similar pressures on colleagues in the National Health Service, for example, where they have to comment on planning applications. There is also pressure on the resources of county councils to respond to matters relating to highways, flood risk, education and adult and children’s care provision—to name just a few—which is required on almost every major application and some smaller applications. It is simply not right that those costs should fall on public agencies whose funding is limited. If they were adequately recompensed, their ability to respond to applications in a timely manner might be improved.

Government Amendment 285C is similar to that proposed by my noble friend Lady Young—I hope we can at least agree on that—but, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, pointed out, this may not refer to charging for local authorities. We would want to see both local authorities and statutory consultees able to charge something like the recovery of the costs they incur in relation to the planning system.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 267 and 287 have been tabled by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, respectively. I assure your Lordships that the Government understand the concerns about stretched resources in local planning authorities. However, we do not believe that enabling local planning authorities to vary fees and charges is the way to answer resourcing issues, and it does not provide any incentive to tackle inefficiencies. Local authorities having different fees creates uncertainty and unfairness for applicants and, if set too high, could risk unintended consequences by discouraging development.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

275: Clause 107, page 142, line 8, after “completed,” insert “or 4 years if there is a significant impact on the local environment,”
Member's explanatory statement
This means that the extended time limits for enforcement of planning controls does not apply when there is a significant impact on the local environment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 277, 280 to 281B and 282 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman and in mine. I shall also make some comments in relation to Amendments 276, 278 and 279, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and Amendment 281C in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead.

The increasingly acrimonious circumstances in which planning is often discussed, debated and granted has significantly increased the burden of enforcement. This is combined with a contraction of local authority planning teams due to reductions in local authority funding, which is putting increasing burdens on the planning process, as we have already debated today in Committee. Our amendments are in recognition of that and to ensure that timescales, fines and practices are developed in a way that is proportionate to the current circumstances.

As one brief example, most local councillors will be familiar with their weekly planning list having a number of certificate of lawfulness applications—they are a particular bugbear of mine. These mean that the applicant has not applied for the appropriate permissions in advance and, having now built out their development, is only now seeking the approval of the planning authority. There is little if any appropriate sanction for this behaviour, which seems grossly unfair to all those who take the necessary steps to submit their applications properly in advance of building.

It is fair to say that such developers face the risk of the planning authority turning down their retrospective application, and there have been notable examples of authorities requiring buildings and/or alterations to be taken down. However, with the powers of enforcement diminished, both in this respect and for straightforward breaches of planning, simply by the lack of resources to deal with enforcement, the danger is that we continue to see from the worst offenders a cavalier approach taken to the planning process.

Amendments 275 and 277 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock are designed to draw attention to the fact that it may be necessary to foreshorten the extended time limits for the enforcement of planning controls where there is a significant impact on the environment. We appreciate that the 10-year window is necessary for raising issues relating to planning enforcement, but it will be important that all involved in development understand that, if enforcement relates to an issue where substantial harm is being caused to the environment, planning officers will expect these to be dealt with more quickly. We hope this amendment will give them the power to do so. The amendment aims to prevent a delayed response from developers, not to limit the amount of time planning controls can be exercised over environmental matters. This should be 10 years, as for all other matters.

We have discussed previously in Committee the need for rapid digitisation of the planning process, where that has not already been done. Amendment 280 is a probing amendment to ensure that this is the case for the enforcement aspects of planning as well.

As in other parts of the Bill, we believe that new burdens may be imposed on local authorities in relation to enforcement. Amendment 281 in my name is to flag up again that there will be a need for an overall assessment of all parts of the Bill to understand the likely financial impact on local authorities. We have received previous assurances from the Minister on new burdens funding. It would be good to know that relevant professional and representative bodies will be consulted on this important issue as quickly as possible after the Bill passes into law, so that no undue financial burdens are placed on already hard-pressed local authorities.

As we have discussed in previous clauses, the financial burden of planning does not fall proportionately on the developer, which is true of enforcement too. Amendment 281A in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock is included to ensure that we do not inadvertently create an enforcement fine regime where it is more cost effective for the developer to breach planning rules and guidelines because the cost of non-compliance is less than the profit they are likely to make from any breach.

My Amendment 281B seeks to introduce a very important provision that would prevent developers applying for an exemption to the provisions in a planning application to deliver affordable housing in a development. We are all very familiar with the long wrangles that planning authorities are having over viability. Our concern is that, if this exemption from enforcement clause were to apply to the delivery of agreed affordable housing, it would simply be another get-out clause in the armoury for developers, with their significant legal firepower, to avoid providing much-needed affordable housing.

Clause 116 is concerned with ensuring that the planning process works as efficiently as possible and makes best use of digital technology. My Amendment 282 seeks to set the purpose of this in the Bill, so there can be no doubt that it is the intention to avoid delays wherever possible.

Amendment 276 is in the names of the noble Earls, Lord Lytton and Lord Devon. Just as our amendments recognise the importance of a shorter enforcement period for environmental issues, it recognises the importance of changes of use to a dwelling house. We agree that, where enforcement relates to somebody’s home, a shorter time period than 10 years would be preferable.

Amendment 278, in the names of the noble Earls, Lord Lytton and Lord Devon, recommends consultation with affected parties on extending the time limits for planning enforcement from four years to 10 years. We would always support such steps, as professional bodies and local government representative bodies can be essential consultees in ensuring that all consequences are understood from the outset and that any unintended consequences can be predicted and mitigated.

On Amendment 279, in the names of the noble Earls, Lord Lytton and Lord Devon, we will be interested to hear the Minister’s response on whether it is the intention for the provisions of the Bill to be retrospectively applied to developments which, under current legislation, have reached the time limit for enforcement. Is the legislation to apply only to enforcement for developments started after the commencement of the Act? Will there be a transition period, or will it automatically apply to all developments that have reached the current four-year limit?

Amendment 281C in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, seeks to insert in the Bill the explanation of the purpose of Clause 113, as is contained in the Explanatory Notes. We have had a number of examples during our examination of this Bill where the absence of these explanatory clauses could potentially cause ambiguity in their interpretation. Therefore, we support this sensible move to insert the explanatory clause in the Bill. I beg to move my amendment.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, probing Amendment 276, and Amendments 278 in 279, are in my name and that of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, who is regrettably unable to be with us today. Apart from declaring an interest as a property owner, I must also explain that I have in the past been threatened with enforcement proceedings—so guilty as charged, or perhaps not guilty as charged. I am very grateful to a number of planning practitioners who explained some of the finer points of all this to me.

These amendments relate to Clause 107 and refer to what is known as the four-year rule. The current position is that, if works to a property have been undertaken more than four years previously, the owner is immune from enforcement action by the local authority. The equivalent period for changes of use, which of course may be harder to spot, is 10 years. A minimum of 10 years unchallenged enjoyment of both works and change of use is required before a lawful use certificate can be claimed. If you like, the entitlement at that stage becomes absolute.

I should add that, for works or changes of use to a listed building or, I think, for one in a conservation area, time does not run against the enforcing authority, and so protection of heritage is not an issue. Furthermore, works of development that are done secretively or by concealment are, I believe, also not protected by the four-year rule. So the building of a house within the confines of an agricultural barn, as happened in one rather infamous case, would not escape.

The system has operated for many years, quite successfully as far as I know. In the most recent review of the arrangements, the four-year cut off remained unamended. My own sense is that, if works have not been spotted after four years, it is quite unlikely that they will be spotted more readily in years five to 10. Indeed, one might conclude that, if it is that unobtrusive, it should scarcely be a planning concern anyway. It is more likely that it will crop up to ensnare an unwary owner who makes a subsequent application and some historic non-compliance is spotted at that stage.

The four-year rule also recognises that planning is complex, with many pitfalls for the unwary, and that it is not necessary or desirable to micromanage planning uses of land and buildings. For instance, erection of deer fencing, construction of ponds and the placing of certain structures on land may in some cases require consent but in others they do not. A movable item nearly always does not trigger a planning issue but leaving it in the same place for too long does.

Many households think that a permitted development right absolves them of the need for any consent at all. I believe it is government policy to reduce burdens on householders. Furthermore, where a local planning authority has issued what is known as an Article 4 direction, removing permitted development rights for certain types of development, owners may not be aware of this or be made aware, even in a purchase situation. As in one instance which occurred in my professional career, a shopkeeper might find that they are subject to enforcement procedures for displaying an internally illuminated sign fixed to the interior of their shop window glass, but not if it is a foot or two further back. The rules are opaque, convoluted and may be interpreted differentially per authority. As I see it, the four-year rule served to prevent this becoming a more serious issue.

But Clause 107 would remove this protection. I know of no justification for doing this, nor any public consultation that underpins that decision to include it in the Bill. I think that most householders, and possibly quite a few lenders, would view this with concern. But the removal would have, in my opinion, a somewhat more sinister side-effect. I know of instances whereby an annoyed builder has set out to shop a property owner who did not award him a contract of works, or shopped the successful contractor—or a neighbour averring to the authorities that works in non-compliance are taking place, either because of neighbourly detestation or, as in one case known to me, because the neighbour took umbrage about the builders’ vehicle parking and plant-unloading arrangements in the street outside their home. So to leave the door open for an additional six years to this sort of risk of a snooper’s charter is socially, economically and administratively undesirable.

--- Later in debate ---

My department is already working with local authorities to tackle the very issue this amendment raises. We are working collaboratively with local authorities through the Open Digital Planning project, which aims to increase efficiencies in the development management process through creating modern development management software. The local authorities that are using the modern development management software we are trialling have seen an estimated 35% time saving in the pre-validation process, when an application is first submitted, and, post validation, in the process the reach a decision. Before enacting these powers, we will fully engage with local planning authorities and the sector as a whole. Given that one of the core aims of this power is to streamline the process, we will, of course, consider the impact on speed of decision-making. So, while I support the intention of this amendment, I hope the noble Baroness will be content not to move it when it is reached.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in this debate. I am also grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his response. I am afraid that enforcement is an element of planning that is little understood by the public; they often think that our powers and resources are much greater than they are to deal with some of the issues that arise. I pay tribute to planning officers who field all of this on a daily basis. Even in our short discussion here, it has been clear that it is not always very straightforward. We are all striving to improve confidence in the process as we go through the amendments to the Bill.

Some confusion has arisen around the proposed amendments to the time periods, but, having had the explanation from the noble Earl, that is a bit clearer. It was about whether the four-year time limit was there to begin enforcement action and that was now being moved to 10 years, which gives a longer wind. I accept all the comments that have been made—particularly by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton—asking whether, if nobody has noticed it in four years, they will notice it in 10 years, and whether it really matters if they do. However, these issues can be very serious, as we have heard in previous debates in this Committee. I think a longer time period for enforcement to be able to be taken does not make sense, particularly where, as explained, there are two timescales at play in the Town and Country Planning Act.

Our concern is that this might give reasons for delay to the enforcement action itself, particularly for issues around environmental action. We need to make absolutely sure that we are not going to give any opportunity for delay in responding to enforcement action. If there is going to be a delay in the reporting of it, that is one thing. If there is going to be a delay in responding to it, that is a whole other issue. In terms of the points made by the noble Earl on engagement with key stakeholders, I was reassured to hear him say that the delay to the time period had come directly from the key stakeholders involved.

We have had plenty of discussions in previous Committee sessions on the Bill about digitisation. I think that local government has gone quite a lot further than some of the people in DLUHC might think. I will leave that there, but of course we can always do better on digitisation.

The issue of local authority resources is very important to all of us, as we are constantly debating. There are quite a lot of acutely aware people in the public who might see the introduction of enforcement notices, potentially creating an expectation that we are going to have further action on them. We always have to be careful that we look at the resources that are going to be required to deal with new measures, and the same applies to this part of the Bill. I was extremely pleased to hear about the increase in fines for retrospective applications, which have been a long-standing bugbear of mine, as I said earlier.

The noble Earl mentioned that it is not the intention to give relief from affordable housing provisions. I understand what he said: that that provision is directed at emergency provision for construction sites. Those of us who were in local government at the time had plenty of contact from both the construction sector and from members of the public about changes to that—there was a need for emergency procedures then. We will take a closer look at that, as we believe there could be unintended consequences—particularly on the provisions for affordable housing—from that issue.

I will now turn to some of the comments made by other noble Lords. I have already mentioned the comment by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who asked whether, if something had not been spotted in four years, it was really an issue at all. It is often surveyors who pick up these issues at the exchange of property: a surveyor might go in and realise that something is not quite right with the property. I was quite surprised to hear the noble Earl say that there should be a line drawn under this after four years. Owners may not be aware of the Article 4 directions; I do think there is a very widespread lack of understanding around Article 4 directions and what they can mean. The rules are certainly a bit opaque, but I do not think it is repressive and intrusive local councils that are causing the problem here.

We do have the issue around HMOs and permitted development—which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, referred to very powerfully—where you end up with these beds in sheds developments. The permitted development and HMO regimes exacerbate that and may need just as much attention as the enforcement mechanisms. I would agree that a better outcome would be trying to get compliance, rather than going into litigation. I really chimed with her point about people chopping down trees with TPOs—they would do that and then worry about the TPO afterwards.

I am grateful for all the responses to the points that have been made. I do remain concerned that the Bill is not terribly clear about whether it is enforcement or reporting of enforcement breaches that are extended to 10 years. That could do with some clarification. We will take a further look at that. With that, I withdraw my amendment for the time being.

Amendment 275 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these three amendments, which enable planning appeals to be heard virtually, where the choice is being made by an appointed inspector. I wholly support the opportunity for virtual hearings. Currently, as the Minister explained, there are two options for appeal hearings: one is by written procedure and the other is by a full public hearing. It is usually the choice of the appellant which procedure they use. So someone appealing against, say, a planning refusal can ask for it to be heard in a public setting. I would like reassurance that that will still be the case.

Some members of the public find it easier to join virtually, and that is a really positive move. I accept the argument the Minister has made that it opens it up for more people to take part. Equally, though, there are always some who find that difficult, especially if they live in more remote areas where access to good-quality broadband is not possible. I am thinking of colleagues I have who live in North Yorkshire; when I have Zoom calls with them, it is hit and miss. I would just like reassurance that those people would be able to engage if they wanted to.

Now I have a question about the future. Some planning appeals are so important that, in my view, they are better heard in a public session. If there is a wide interest in the locality, a public hearing in person gives more reassurance to a local community than one that is held virtually or by the written procedure. The reason I argue this is that if you are in a room full of people, you feel the mood and sense what is going on much better than you do in a similar virtual hearing.

I support what has been said, with those provisos. Lastly, local plans have, obviously, planning inspector involvement. Is it anticipated that these too could be heard virtually, or will that still be largely in person?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I know it is not the practice in your Lordships’ House to have long discussions on government amendments. I do not intend to do that, but I want to make some comments on these amendments, because I think they are interesting.

On Amendment 285A, I make the point that varying proceedings should always be the subject of very effective communication, not only because we have professionals engaged in these processes but because the public are involved and need to understand exactly what is happening. Where there are changes, even more effort should be made to communicate why they have been made. I raise again the issue of resourcing of PINS. A lot of clauses in the Bill are putting another heavy burden on the Planning Inspectorate, and those issues need to be taken into account.

Secondly, as we have heard, Amendment 285B indicates that the Government wish the planning process to allow people to participate remotely in planning proceedings at the grant of the Planning Inspectorate. If the Government can see the value of this—I am very pleased that they can—I ask the Minister why what is good for planning proceedings is so inappropriate for the rest of local government? We have had debates on this previously in the Bill.

The Minister made the point that participating virtually increases diversity of participation, which I completely agree with. It also saves unnecessary travel; we have had those discussions on previous clauses. We are all trying to get down to net zero, and people do not have to travel if they can participate virtually. In addition, it helps those who live in bigger geographical areas. My borough is very small geographically, so it is not really a great hardship for anyone to have to come to the town hall for a discussion on a planning application or anything else. However, if you live in some of the parts of the country where that is not such an easy journey, particularly at certain times of the year, it can be much more difficult. So, I am confused about why we seem to think that this is a really helpful process for one part of local government activity but not for the rest of it. I also probe why the amendment says, “require or permit”. I am concerned about “require” and whether the planning inspector is going to be able to insist that this happens virtually, and how that is going to work.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, referred to feeling the mood in planning meetings. That is a variable experience, from my experience in local government. Sometimes it can be useful to do that, and sometimes you would not want to be anywhere near feeling the mood in a planning meeting—but that is another matter. I echo the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, about whether the intention is that this should apply to local planning inquiries. That is a whole other issue that needs further consideration.

By the way, I know that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, responded quite extensively on the ability to have local government proceedings virtually, and that is on the record. I would just appreciate a response from the Minister on why this is right for planning but so wrong for everything else in local government.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Let me respond to a couple of those points. On the difference between a case officer and a planning inspector and how you bring in the appellant, at the moment the case officer handles the administration of a planning appeal case, which includes the appointment of a planning inspector, but they also determine the mode of the procedure after seeking input from the parties and the inspector. Therefore, at the moment it is the case officer who talks to the parties and the inspector, and who then makes a decision taking all of that into account. We are suggesting that the planning inspector, who is the decision-maker or recommendation maker for called-in and recovered cases, will assess the details of the case and representations received from all parties in just the same way, so they would be seeking input from all parties before they made that decision.

On local plans, the major party in that will be the local planning authority or the local authority, and I cannot see those discussions being taken online. I suppose a local authority could ask for that, but those are usually quite long and arduous meetings that sometimes go on for weeks, so I am pretty sure they would be public.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests in farming and land ownership as set out in the register. I agree with every word that the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, has said; I would perhaps go a little further in some areas.

My understanding of Clause 123—and, therefore, my reason to seek its removal—is that, through its inclusion in the Bill, it seeks to give authority to any Government to amend primary legislation that underpins planning and compulsory purchase legislation through the means of secondary legislation. Such changes might have a profound impact on the way planning is delivered. It is not appropriate that this legislation gives such a wide remit to the Government to change primary legislation for an objective that is yet to be determined without the full scrutiny of Parliament through debates in both Houses.

In other words, Clause 123, which gives the Government the ability to consolidate and amend compulsory purchase legislation, should be deleted from the Bill as it gives the Government too wide a remit to encroach on property rights without a clear objective. It could lead to changes in compulsory purchase legislation that tip the balance further towards the developer and away from protecting the home owner’s and landowner’s rights. The ability to amend more than 25 key pieces of primary legislation, described as “relevant enactments” in Clause 123(2), in any way that any Government see fit—potentially with limited consultation or scrutiny—must raise very serious concerns.

Additionally, it is premature to propose amending compulsory purchase legislation before, as I understand it, the Government have received the outcome of the Law Commission’s review into compulsory purchase reform. There is also the matter of the lack of a government response to the consultation on compulsory purchase compensation, which is still awaited despite the Government including some of these controversial measures in this Bill. The department is clearly in breach of the consultation principles, which state that it should:

“Publish responses within 12 weeks of the consultation or provide an explanation why this is not possible. Where consultation concerns a statutory instrument publish responses before or at the same time as the instrument is laid, except in very exceptional circumstances (and even then publish responses as soon as possible). Allow appropriate time between closing the consultation and implementing policy or legislation”;


that last point is relevant in this particular case. Planning legislation is the foundation of so much, particularly in the rural economy. There is a real risk that growth of the rural economy and housing delivery could be held back by amendments that have gone through without proper scrutiny.

I look forward to hearing the Government’s response and reasons.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, regarding Clause 123, we believe that this provision was added to the Bill subsequent to consideration in the other place, so it has perhaps not had the same scrutiny as other parts of the Bill.

Amendment 285AA, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, seeks to have the status of combined mayoral authority with planning powers added to the list of exemptions. A distinction was drawn previously in your Lordships’ House between the devolution powers conferred on mayors and the legislative powers devolved to Administrations, but what meetings and discussions have been held with devolved Administrations in this respect?

I express our concern, alongside that of the noble Lords, Lord Stunell and Lord Carrington, about the implications of this clause in any case. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, argues that the clause should not be part of the Bill at all. I can understand this view as in this part of the Bill, as in others, there are very significant powers being taken by the Secretary of State to amend these long lists of 25 pieces of primary legislation, with limited scrutiny or consultation and without reversion to either House. That would give us great cause for concern. I hope that the Minister can respond to this, but we support the clause stand part notice.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to the concerns expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Stunell and Lord Carrington, and hope and believe that I can fully reassure them both. I will respond to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, in a second, but will begin by addressing Amendment 285AA, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell.

This amendment would restrict the nature of amendments that can be made under the power contained in Clause 123 so that the Secretary of State could not use it in relation to matters within a devolved competence or where a mayor has planning powers. Noble Lords will be aware that under Clause 123(6) any changes made by regulations under this section do not come into effect except where Parliament enacts a relevant consolidation Act and that Act comes into effect. In practice, these regulations will smooth the transition of the law from its current unconsolidated state to its future consolidated state. To do this, they have legal effect for only a moment, immediately before the relevant consolidation Act comes into effect.

Noble Lords will know that consolidation is a highly technical exercise restricted to the clarification and restatement of the existing law. This power is likewise restricted. It cannot be used to change the terms of devolution, nor to interfere in policy matters which are devolved. The power to make incidental provision in relation to a devolved competence is included here to reflect that much of planning and compulsory purchase law pre-dates devolution. Without this power allowing the Secretary of State to disentangle the law in England, we would be unable to ensure that in substance the legal position within devolved competence would be unchanged when the law applying in England was disentangled. In relation to the second—

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl for giving way. The provision in Clause 123(4) says:

“For the purposes of this section, ‘amend’ includes repeal and revoke”.


That sounds like a sledgehammer being used to crack a nut if it is a matter of consolidation.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

Consolidation in this area of the law is immensely complex. Frankly, we do not know the full extent of the relevant planning provisions that must be considered in any common consolidation exercise because the exercise has not been commenced.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I am sorry to hear that. The point I was seeking to make is that the general public need to trust the law and know what the law is, as does anyone dealing with the planning system. That is why the Government’s ambition is to put in train a consolidation exercise, which may take a considerable time. I have been quite frank with the Committee that there are not only 50 Acts that we know about which deal with planning and compulsory purchase, but—as my notes say—innumerable other Acts which cross-reference those 50 Acts. It will require a major legal exercise to bring all the threads together.

I cannot commit to a timescale for consolidation from the Dispatch Box today. There is a large amount of work to do before we can get to that stage and that will naturally have to be balanced against the wider legislative programme. It is for that reason that we are asking for this power to prepare the way—I think that is the best way of putting it—to make the ultimate consolidation a more achievable exercise.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am sorry to keep pursuing this point but it is really very important indeed. Any of us who has worked on this Bill knows the difficulty of how many crossovers there are with other Bills. On the previous group of amendments, from my perspective and I am sure from those of colleagues on these Benches, we ended up referencing back through various Bills to get to the point that the amendments referred to. That does not make life easy, and I am sure it makes it very opaque for professionals and the public trying to deal with the system. That simply underlines yet again, as we have done many times through this process, that a planning Bill might have been a better option to get to the rationalisation of the planning system, but we are where we are with that.

We remain concerned about just how this exercise will be done. Will a whole series of statutory instruments come through? Will it just be for the Secretary of State to make the decisions and then change the legislation—I am not entirely sure how that works in process terms—or will we have a whole other Bill that will be the “consolidation of planning Bill 2025” or something? I am interested as to what the process will be for this, because we have 25 Acts here at least—there are probably more than that, in truth—that need amending.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

As I said, the exercise is an enormous one. It requires legal brains to get their heads around the statutes before we can even think about putting a consolidation Bill together. I am afraid I cannot be precise in answer to the noble Baroness but I will see whether I can clarify and distil what I have tried to say—obviously not very adequately—by writing to her. I will of course copy my letter to the noble Lords, Lord Stunell and Lord Carrington. In doing so, I hope I can provide complete reassurance about the intent behind these regulation-making powers.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

No doubt if the principle of these amendments—widening and clarifying the purposes of the green belt —is supported in the Committee, we could come back at Report with a middle way between these amendments; or if they were persuaded that this is a fine thing to do, the Government might come forward and table their own amendment at Report. I hope that the Minister will be able today to commit to the real need for widening the objectives of the green belt to meet the broader objectives for our land which the Government are already committed to. Perhaps the Minister could give us some indication, if bringing this into statute is not supported by the Government, of how and when they intend to review and expand the objectives of the green belt. I beg to move.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendment submitted in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, who does not yet have London-style transport in Cumbria and so unfortunately this evening has had to leave to get her last train. I hope she will get there eventually.

Green-belt land makes up nearly 13% of England’s land, as my noble friend Lady Young has said, yet there is no statutory basis or even guidance for the role of green belts in contributing to net zero and environmental targets. This is a major problem, and almost certainly contributes to public confusion about what is green belt, what is a green-field site and what is green space.

Contrary to public perception, the green belt is not protected for the environment. There is no green-belt policy with weight directing or requiring that green-belt land be green or valued for its environmental quality. The laudable fundamental aims and purposes of the green belt designation within the National Planning Policy Framework are focused on protection and separation to keep land open, preventing urban sprawl and regenerating cities, not on the quality of the land itself. With no standard of environmental quality expected, there are many parts of the green belt which are left to deteriorate and become threatened due to “scrappy bits of land” being targeted by developers.

This point was summarised squarely in the report of the House of Lords Land Use in England Committee, which noted that

“policies to improve its beneficial and multifunctional use are lacking. Central to this is the disconnect between planning policy which is responsible for green belt, and the range of emerging policies which seek to improve the benefits we get from nature”.

As my noble friend Lady Young said, there is disconnect between planning policy and all the environmental policies that we are thinking about.

Our green-belt land must work harder. We know that green belts, which make up 13% of our land, are potentially a spatially protected reservoir of natural capital assets and ecosystem services. The green belt’s multifunctional uses and benefits could be enhanced to increase the connectivity of woodlands and hedgerows; to restore wetlands and grasslands; to create new habitats and enhance biodiversity; to clean our air and water; to improve soil quality; to increase sustainable food production; to provide cooling to counter the urban heat island effect; to provide physical and mental health benefits for citizens; to protect our communities from floods and storm surges; to store excess water; to recharge our aquifers; and, crucially, to sequester carbon. In short, there is now a strong case for a more proactive and socially productive role for our green belts.

The existing aims and purposes of the green belt are as crucial as ever but, unless they are widened to include environmental quality—including biodiversity and climate change adaptation and mitigation—and recreational access for public health, green-belt land will have no anchor purpose to give material weight for greening. Nor will it provide an explicit link to the emerging nature policies such as local nature recovery strategies, biodiversity net gain delivery sites, local nature recovery networks and proposed wild-belt designations, which we discussed in our debate on a previous group of amendments.

The Government clearly recognise the importance of greening green-belt land, as referenced in the levelling up White Paper, the Bill before us, the Environment Act 2021, the 25-year environment plan and the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023. This was reinforced in, among other things, the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendations for mitigation and adaptation, the Dasgupta review and the post-2020 global biodiversity framework at COP 15. Public Health England has also identified the role that green spaces, including green belts, play in raising levels of health and well-being, reducing health inequalities and improving social cohesion.

In effect, almost 13% of England’s land could contribute to an integrated and holistic solution to the challenges posed by climate change, urbanisation, human health and biodiversity loss, while also strengthening urban and ecological resilience. Our amendment seeks to establish this. It sets out how, in order for green-belt land to play an integral role in meeting national environmental and health objectives and targets, there needs to be a clear, weighted policy with statutory backing and a new purpose that includes, but is not limited to, environmental quality and access to nature. The “not limited” part ensures that this is in addition to the existing fundamental aims and five purposes, and would not replace them.

The amendment would ensure the consideration and identification of further legislation and policy steps in relation to the green belt. It addresses the key barrier to the Government’s objective to green the green belt, and does so through direct consideration of widening its fundamental aims and purposes with regard to its role in contributing to the national environmental agenda.

To support the implementation of this Bill, my amendment asks a Minister of the Crown to publish a report on the possibility of further legislation to widen the purpose of green-belt land in relation to its environmental quality and access, in addition to strengthening related existing and proposed policy provisions. This can be achieved through secondary legislation. This amendment also seeks to ensure that green-belt land policy aligns with and contributes to the Government’s legislative agenda on net zero and biodiversity. In short, the policy needs teeth through recognition in legislation, national policy and the national development management policies. Ultimately, this will direct local authorities to consider green-belt land as an available and critical resource to use in response to climate change, biodiversity loss and demand for access to nature for recreational and health objectives, beyond the benefits of keeping land open.

This report is important as there are a number of parallel consultations and changes across legislation and policy that all relate to or impact green-belt land. The report would consider the recommendations holistically and avoid some of the contradictory outcomes that we have seen in the past. The Bill’s policy paper recognises the imperative

“to make the Green Belt even greener”.

A first step is recognising that statutory purposes for nature recovery, climate change and access to recreation need to be delivered through legislation, which will be considered and proposed through this report.

The amendment represents an opportunity to provide clarity on what this legislation should look like, such that it can align with and contribute to the Government’s environmental policies, targets and delivery mechanisms to address the climate and biodiversity emergencies. As such, we urge the Minister either to consider accepting it or to look at bringing forward a similar amendment on Report.

Amendment 295, moved by my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone, would provide the statutory basis needed. As she said, it would transpose the existing purposes of green-belt land from guidance in the NPPF into statute, and would add new purposes with regard to climate change, biodiversity, natural capital and public access. This addition to the current fundamental aims and purposes of the green belt would update it to realise the Government’s agenda for greening green-belt land and enhancing its multifunctional uses and benefits to contribute to the Government meeting their targets and pledges, such as 30 by 30 and the 25-year environment plan. We strongly support my noble friend’s amendment.

[Baroness Willis of Summertown (CB)]

My Lords, I speak in total support of Amendment 295, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and Amendment 312E in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. I want to add a few brief points to theirs, focusing specifically on why these amendments giving protection to the green belt are so important for our nature in England and the UK and for meeting the targets that we have signed up to both nationally and internationally; those were alluded to in the previous two speeches.

Even though green belts were originally designated as a way to keep clear spaces between cities and stop urban sprawl, they have taken on another role. We cannot ignore that fact. They have become incredibly important refuges and corridors for England’s biodiversity and wildlife.

We have heard about the multiple other ecosystem services and natural capital services that green belts provide, so I will not repeat them, but there is one point that I want to make: we are often told that most people have no access to the green belt, so they do not get the physical and mental well-being benefits of it—but they do, because they can see it. Being able to see green and see nature has been shown in some cases to be as physiologically and psychologically important as being in nature. Therefore, being able to have a view of nature from the city is as important as having access. Access is also fantastic, but it is not a reason to do away with the green belt. So while green belts started as one thing, they have changed to provide something else. They have become much broader in this. They have become green spaces that are critical for nature and ecosystem services.

So what is the problem? Why are we all standing here speaking about green space and the green belt? As has been alluded to, green belts are under huge pressure right now. I tried to dig down to understand why they are being put forward for housebuilding; surely the protection we have in place already is enough. Well, it is not, because in the National Planning Policy Framework you are allowed to change the use of green-belt land under exceptional circumstances. Our housing crisis and local authorities’ need to meet housing targets are being used by many counties up and down the country as an exceptional circumstance. That is why there is now so much pressure on the green belt: it is the use of that phrase, “exceptional circumstances”. This is certainly the case in my own city, Oxford, where around 8% of the green belt on the edge of the city is in the local plan but most of our housing development will be on other counties’ green-belt land. We have sort of shifted the problem out from the city boundary.

In a recent report, the countryside charity CPRE beautifully illustrates the trend of increased pressure for housing on the green belt. Between 2015 and 2020, the number of housing units completed on greenfield land within the green belt was around 17,700, but there are currently 260,000 homes proposed in advanced local plans. So, in a matter of three years, we have this massive increase of people looking to the green belt to solve their housing problems.

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[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

We have reached what the Times once described as the “End of the peer show” show. I rise to speak to Amendments 296, 297, 298, 299 and 301, which are tabled in my name. I am grateful for the support of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, who have co-signed the amendments. The amendments are all to do with tree protection orders, which are one of the few legal tools to protect important woods and trees, particularly with a stress on individual trees. Local planning authorities can use TPOs to protect what are known as amenity trees where they believe that it is expedient to do so. The provision was established 70 years ago, but it has some weaknesses and I think that it is true to say that the vast majority of our ancient and veteran trees have no real legal protection at the moment.

Trees outside woods provide valuable ecosystem services for people and habitats for wildlife. A single oak can support more than 2,300 species, some of them found only on oak trees. Many important trees—ancient and veteran trees—are in urban or semi-urban areas and three-quarters of them are outside legally protected wildlife sites. The system is not working because over the past 150 years 50% of large trees have been lost from, for example, eastern England due to urbanisation, agricultural intensification and, increasingly, tree disease.

Local communities often care very much about trees that are local to them. They may not be special trees in the scheme of things—they may not be ancient, veteran, rare or hugely important—but they are important to local people in local terms. The problem is that, in the absence of real protection through TPO processes, all that local people can do is mount public campaigns and literally stand in the way of the felling of some of these trees. Noble Lords will have seen in the newspapers the causes célèbres—Sheffield and Plymouth—where valuable mature street trees have bitten the dust. That shows that if local people can only campaign in the face of inappropriate felling, they do not often win.

A recent case in Wellingborough illustrates what often happens. In March, more than 50 lime trees were approved to be cut down for a dual carriageway, despite being protected by tree protection orders, and 20 of them were chopped before local people even knew about the proposals. They then took action, the felling was paused and there will now be a period of consultation, which should have happened first. It should not be like this, so we need to do something about the TPO legislation.

Amendment 296 is about penalties for non-compliance with TPOs and supports their enforcement. It would create a single offence for the breach of a TPO to bring fines into line with the potential profits of contravention, so that it is no longer simply regarded as a legitimate business expense to flout a TPO, which in many cases is how folk who cut down trees inappropriately regard it. It would align the penalties with those in similar situations, such as in the protection of ancient buildings. It also addresses a key issue in the present legislation, which is that is it not always possible to prove at the time of a prosecution that an action is likely to destroy the tree, which is one of the criteria for a successful prosecution. If you are not facing dead trees felled on the ground but are trying to stop inappropriate felling, it is not always possible to show that the planned action is likely to destroy the tree.

Amendment 297 is on the definition of “amenity”, which is the basis on which TPOs can be proposed. The Court of Appeal has defined this very narrowly as the pleasantness or attractiveness of a place, but after 70 years the definition of amenity needs to change to encompass a wider range of benefits, much as the definition of green belt needs to change to encompass a wider range of benefits. There are distressingly frequent occasions where planning authorities or, indeed, planning inspectors define visual amenity as the only justification for the observance of a TPO, yet other planning authorities are much more innovative and use a range of factors beyond visual amenity in deciding to protect trees through TPOs. Amendment 297 aims to standardise this and make it more common for local authorities across the board to ensure that issues other than simply the pleasantness and attractiveness of a place come into play. The appearance, age or rarity of the tree, its importance for biodiversity and its history, the science behind it all and its recreation and social value should be included in the amenity definition.

I am sure that the Minister will tell me that Amendment 298 is unnecessary because this is already possible, but it would underline for local authorities that the power to create TPOs can be exercised more generally in the public interest. Although some local planning authorities are proactive about protecting trees that are important for communities, too often trees are protected only when they are threatened by development rather than in a strategic way that takes account of how those trees contribute to the community setting. Amendment 298 would empower and, I hope, encourage local authorities to apply TPOs more proactively to ensure that important trees are protected.

My local authority, which I rarely compliment, has a proactive approach to TPO creation. Our tiny village of 35 houses has, I think, the biggest density of TPOs in the universe, because we are a distinctive, remote, tree-covered village in the north Bedfordshire Wolds, a wold being a rolling tree-covered hill, and there are not many hills or tree-covers in Bedfordshire. In the 1980s, the local authority had the vision to go around slapping TPOs on practically everything, including some very ordinary and scruffy trees, if I may say so, but it has meant that our village has preserved its important historic and visual resource of the trees that make that landscape and the community what they are. I hope that Amendment 298 would encourage more local authorities to think in that strategic and innovative fashion.

Amendment 299 would remove the exemption that prevents dead and dying trees and dead branches from being eligible for protection by TPOs. Dead wood is one of the most important biodiversity habitats provided by ancient and veteran trees. The retention of a range of deadwood habitats is vital to support the good management of these trees. I saw a wonderful example in Greenwich Park—I am sure noble Lords want to hear about Greenwich Park at this time of night. An ancient yew tree was so on its last legs that it fell apart in the middle and lay there. Greenwich Park had the foresight not to remove bits of it but just left it. The dead branches formed great wildlife habitats but, even more, a habitat within which a new yew tree grew from the centre. That is what we should be seeing from our dead wood. At the moment, the minute a bit dies, it is exempted from the TPO and can be chopped off and taken away, so we want to see Amendment 299 change that. Obviously we have to be careful about circumstances where dead and dying trees are likely to be a danger to the public, but I am sure that that can be done through guidance.

Lastly, Amendment 301 would introduce a duty to consult publicly prior to the revocation of a TPO. At the moment a local authority is required to consult before it designates a TPO, but it can take that designation away the following day without so much as a cheep to the public. It does not have to give a reason and there does not have to be any transparent process for revoking a TPO. You can understand the public’s concern if the first they know about a withdrawal of protection is the chainsaws moving in. The amendment asks for there to be a similar, publicly transparent consultation process for the revocation of a TPO.

I hope that the Minister might look kindly on TPO designation being tightened up. TPOs are really important for local people, for trees, for biodiversity, for our heritage and culture, and for communities, and they could just be that little bit better with these minor tweaks. I hope the Minister can support them.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone. Anyone who has been a councillor will know only too well the passion and emotion in both directions that arise from trees. I still bear the scars from a public meeting where there was a discussion between the council tree surgeon—he has long since retired so I can talk about him—and a resident of my ward. The resident was insistent that the council had the wrong types of trees in the streets and that that was causing all sorts of problems. He went on and on about street trees and how we should not have put forest trees in streets. The tree surgeon listened to him for quite a long time as he got very irate, and eventually turned round and said, “Well, when you think about it, Len, all trees are forest trees initially”, which took a bit of the sting out of it.

I often feel that the world is divided into those who love trees and want them everywhere and those who will campaign equally tirelessly to have a tree chopped down when they feel it is getting in the way of their light or it drops leaves on their nice tidy garden. However, we seem to have reached an attitude that says, “Chop it down and then face the consequences”. That just cannot be right. Conversely, the beleaguered local authorities that have to deal with diseased trees often find themselves subject to the most enormous outpouring of vitriol when dealing with trees that would infect other trees if they did not. It is important that these issues are managed and communicated well. We think the amendments suggest ways of making the process more consultative and effective.

The figure that my noble friend Lady Young gave of 50% of large trees being lost—I know there have been some serious tree disease issues and they have caused some of that, but not all of it—is staggering. TPOs are made and managed by our local authorities, and they protect individual trees and groups of trees or woods that are of particular value to local communities. TPOs prohibit the felling of and damage to trees without the written consent of the local planning authority. They are no longer valid if removing the tree is part as Iof an approved planning application.

Trees can be vital to the general character of an area and can be at the heart of particular historical or architectural interest at a site. When I was a young girl growing up in a new town, there were woods at the end of almost every road—and bluebell woods are particularly lovely at the moment. Those woods are important to local people.

The fact that a development proposal will require changes to trees can be a material consideration in whether to give permission for those works. Individual trees or groups of trees within or outside a conservation area can be offered protection by a tree preservation order issued by a local planning authority where it is expedient to do so in the interests of amenity. We believe that trees needs more protection, as afforded by the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Young.

The single offence for a breach of TPOs seeks to ensure that

“all fines are commensurate with the potential profits of contravention”,

but it is not just about profit. Sometimes there is an attitude of, “Well, if I chop it down, it’s gone. They can’t do anything about it. I might get a fine for it but I’ll still be able to do whatever it is I wanted to do with that land”. I do not think we can tolerate that; there has to be some kind of commensurate punishment for that.

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[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, the previous group of amendments has set the scene for this vital amendment, which we support. Development close to ancient woodlands can have a devastating effect. In 2021, Defra made three commitments to improving the protection of ancient woodlands and veteran trees, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, said. One of those commitments was to amend the Town and Country Planning (Consultation) (England) Direction 2021

“to require local planning authorities to consult the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities if they are minded to grant permission for developments that might affect ancient woodland”.—[Official Report, 26/10/21; col. 706.]

The Woodland Trust has seen a welcome reduction in major developments that are within ancient woodland and result in direct loss. However, there are indirect impacts, including the spread of invasive species, as well as the impact of pollution on wildlife and the ecological condition of ancient woodland—all of which are still prevalent. Natural England’s advice on providing buffers—space between development and ancient woodland boundaries—is all too often not upheld.

Ancient woodland has taken centuries to reach maturity and can be destroyed in days. The Woodland Trust has provided a very pertinent case study of an indirect impact on an ancient woodland: the building of 100 houses, including development of footpaths, within the ancient woodland of Poundhouse copse, including a drainage scheme right next to it, despite standing advice that drainage should not be within a buffer zone. This has led to a mix of direct loss of woodland and indirect impacts such as hydrological impacts. It is necessary to think and act very carefully when planning and implementing developments near ancient woodlands, in order to protect them for future generations. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to those of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, to my noble friend Lady Young for her tireless commitment to the environment, very well demonstrated in these three groups of amendments that she has put before the Committee today.

According to the Woodland Trust, ancient woodland covers just 2.5% of the UK and is protected because it is an irreplaceable habitat. Such woodlands are rich in wildlife and a vital component of the British landscape. My noble friend outlined with great clarity the provisions she had been assured in October 2021 would be incorporated in forthcoming planning law. The Government’s own planning guidance on ancient woodland says:

“Ancient woodland takes hundreds of years to establish and is defined as an irreplaceable habitat. It is a valuable natural asset, important for … wildlife (which include rare and threatened species)—there is also standing advice for protected species … soils … carbon capture and storage … contributing to the seed bank and genetic diversity … recreation, health and wellbeing … cultural, historical and landscape value. It’s any area that’s been wooded continuously since at least 1600 AD. It includes … ancient semi-natural woodland mainly made up of trees and shrubs native to the site, usually arising from natural regeneration … plantations on ancient woodland sites—replanted with conifer or broadleaved trees that retain ancient woodland features, such as undisturbed soil, ground flora and fungi. They have equal protection in the National Planning Policy Framework. Other distinct forms of ancient woodland are … wood pastures identified as ancient … historic parkland, which is protected as a heritage asset in the NPPF”.


If all that is genuinely the Government’s position, why would they not want to support my noble friend Lady Young’s amendment? It is a very important issue, and we urge the Minister to accept the amendment.

[Baroness Willis of Summertown (CB)]

My Lords, I too fully support Amendment 300 proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. A number of the points that I wanted to make have already been made, so I shall be brief.

One key thing we keep losing sight of in the discussion about ancient woodland is the many additional services that ancient woodland provides to our landscapes and to nature. The first one, which we did hear about, is carbon sequestration. I looked up the figures for carbon sequestration, and although ancient woodlands will not sequester as much carbon as something like Sitka spruce, for example, they are able to store huge amounts of carbon, both above and below ground. In particular, the fungal communities below ground can store up to 40% more carbon as a result of having these mycorrhizal assemblages. That is really important, because 36% of all woodland carbon is currently stored in these ancient woodlands.

There is a second role I want to flag up. Something that often gets forgotten about is the role of those woodlands in providing really important pollination services. So often, when we look at ancient woodland, it is a patch of trees surrounded by a sea of agricultural land. Some 80% of our crops in this country need pollination services, and pollinators need habitats and foraging places—that is what those ancient woodland patches provide. Without them, you then have to bring in lorries with pollinators in them. We do not want to go down that route. There is very good evidence—not from the UK but from other places in Europe—that if you remove a patch of ancient woodland the yield from the crops is significantly reduced. We need to bear that in mind

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[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 312 obliges the Secretary of State to amend the general permitted development order to make a change of use from business premises to a café or restaurant subject to planning control. Regulations made in 2020 amended the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 by introducing, in Part A of Schedule 2, a new class E—“Commercial, Business and Service”—covering, inter alia, shops, offices, cafés and restaurants. Change of use from any part of this class E to any other part of class E is permitted development so, for example, a shop or an office may now change its use to a café or restaurant without requiring planning permission.

This will have a number of undesirable consequences in quiet residential areas. For example, planning permission may have been granted for a change of use of a building, or part of it, from residential to office without any objection, and the office may now change its use to a café or restaurant without planning control. On the face of it, there would be nothing to stop, say, an estate agent turning into a McDonald’s, open throughout the night, providing it did not sell alcohol. LPAs would no longer be able to use planning policies to regulate or prevent such activities.

If a café or restaurant wishes to sell alcohol, it needs a licence to do so under the Licensing Act 2003. I take comfort from the ability of local authorities to refuse permission by virtue of the specified licensing objective of the prevention of public nuisance. However, noise nuisance and disturbance from customer parking, loading and unloading, waste disposal and odours can be as disquieting from unlicensed as from licensed premises, and they are now impossible to control by planning policy.

My suggested solution is to amend Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the GPDO, entitled “Changes of use”, by inserting a new class BB—commercial, business and service to restaurant or café—with the text as follows:

“Development is not permitted by Class BB from a use within Class E (a) or (c)-(g) (commercial, business and service) of Schedule 2 to the Use Classes Order, to Class E (b) (the sale of food and drink principally to visiting members of the public where consumption of that food and drink is mostly undertaken on the premises)”.


The Minister responded in a letter to Richard Drax on 31 August 2022:

“We have created a new ‘Commercial, business and service’ use class (Class E). This encompasses offices, shops, restaurants and other uses which are suitable in a town centre. Changes of use within the class does not require planning permission. The new class also allows for a mix of uses to reflect changing retail and business models, allowing businesses the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and respond to the needs of their local communities more easily and quickly. However, it remains the case that planning permission is required to change use to or from a pub. This ensures that local consideration can be given to any such proposals, in consultation with the local community”.


I believe that local communities should have a say in the establishment of new cafés and restaurants, not just pubs. I beg to move.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, this group of amendments is another indication of why we believe it would have been better to bring forward a dedicated planning Bill rather than trying to amend some of the interconnecting pieces of legislation that have overcomplicated the planning scene in the last decade and have certainly had some undesirable effects because unintended consequences have not properly been taken into account. The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, has eloquently described some of the impacts of widening the use classes so that local people and local authorities no longer have much control over what takes place in their own high streets. We get a proliferation of betting shops and things that people do not really want to see so much of in their high street.

I will give just two examples of permitted development. In Hertfordshire, over 750,000 square feet of economic and commercial space has been lost to permitted development. These developments are delivered with none of the community engagement and consultation that go on with standard planning applications, and they then often result in the infrastructure needs of the development being ignored. This has had the longer-term impact of alienating communities from development altogether, as they see housing developed in unsuitable locations and with no consideration of the proximity of any local facilities. One of the worst examples of this is in Harlow new town. Harlow, like Stevenage, has a commercial and industrial zone deliberately segregated from its residential areas. This was part of the master-planning for first-generation new towns. A permitted development saw a housing development conversion in the middle of this commercial/industrial area, leaving its residents feeling isolated from community facilities and other neighbourhoods.

The other example has been in relation to the creation of houses of multiple occupation from family homes in residential streets, putting unreasonable extra pressure on local resources and creating often far more transient populations, which has disrupted previously settled neighbourhoods.

There seems to be something very perverse in pursuing this permitted development regime at the same time as withdrawing the requirement to set housing targets. The former allows often substandard housing to be developed without the benefit of infrastructure funding, funding for social and affordable housing, or adequate consideration of the needs of the local area. It can put unnecessary pressure on public services in that area and create further pressures on housing as local people are priced out of reasonable developments or forced into poor conversions that are totally unsuitable for family living.

My Amendment 312F calls for a review of this permitted development regime to properly gather data on what it has delivered in terms of: achieving housing targets; importantly, the quality of housing delivered; the impact on heritage and conservation areas; the overall carbon impact since permitted development expanded to demolition; the relative costs to local authorities of dealing with processing permitted development compared with full planning consents; and how it is intended that permitted development sits within the role of the national development management policies.

We are also interested to learn from the review how the Government assess that a permitted development has contributed to levelling up. The feeling of the local government community is that permitted development has done the exact opposite of levelling up and driven a coach and horses through the rigour of the planning regime. That is why the Local Government Association’s comment on this issue was that

“if the Government is serious about strengthening the role of Local Plans, they should also urgently revoke permitted development rights”.

Amendment 312J refers to the totally inconsistent way in which Article 4 directions have been applied across the country. Such directions restrict the scope of permitted development in relation either to a particular area or site or to a particular type of development anywhere in an authority’s area. They can be used to control works that could threaten the character of an area of acknowledged importance, such as a conservation area. Article 4 directions are not needed for listed buildings, which are protected under different legislation, but noble Lords will remember the Harlow example that I gave earlier. Stevenage, which also has a segregated area for commercial and industrial uses, successfully argued that an Article 4 direction should apply to that area so that we were not faced with permitted development housing there, isolated from all our community facilities.

However, the Government have threatened to remove the provision of Article 4 directions altogether and have applied them inconsistently in different locations. Our Amendment 312J asks that a statement be laid before both Houses, setting out how the Government intend to achieve consistency in the application of Article 4 directions.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to support my noble friend Lord Northbrook and to reflect on the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, from the Opposition Front Bench.

First, I want to say something about the high street because, during my time as a constituency MP in the other place, I campaigned tirelessly to put more life into the high streets of two local towns in my former constituency. One of the things that we looked at was trying to make sure that the flats and areas above shops were converted into units, modernised and taken on by the local housing association to make use of those potential dwellings. The local housing association had great success in doing this. It moved people into the high street so that, at all times of the day, there are people around and it is much more vibrant than it was in the past, when it went completely dead at about 5 pm.

Trying to put more life into the high street is incredibly important; supporting the enterprise and wealth creation agendas is equally important. That is why the Government made these changes to permitted development, as my noble friend Lord Northbrook outlined. I can see why they were keen to have more flexibility between the different classes—offices, cafés, restaurants and other businesses—so that, without having to go to the local planning authority to get planning permission, you could just use permitted development to change an office or a charity shop, for example, into a café, a restaurant or whatever.

However, as my noble friend pointed out, the problem is that that works perfectly well in a high street context—I do not think anyone would object to that—but it is different when you have a corner shop, an estate agent or a charity shop in a residential area. This occurs quite regularly; I can think of examples of it in East Anglia. When a small estate agency, for example, in a mainstream residential area closes down, it could easily become a café under these permitted developments. I do not think that anyone would object to a café but, if it was a restaurant such as a McDonald’s, you could have a great deal of extra traffic and disturbance. The whole ambience of that residential area could fundamentally change very quickly.

What the Government have done here has the right intentions but we are looking at unintended consequences for some residents in some parts of the country. This is why I think it was not good enough when the Minister in the other place said that everything was okay because if it was a restaurant selling alcohol, or a pub, the licensing laws would kick in in those specific areas that my noble friend outlined. If it is something like a McDonald’s or a Costa—not that I have anything against McDonald’s or Costa; in the right place, they are excellent retail outlets that bring a great deal of pleasure to different communities—we have to be on the side of the residents.

As the noble Baroness pointed out, making sure that we have the trust and engagement of local communities is incredibly important. We are all for—certainly this side of the House is passionate about—enterprise and the wealth creation agenda. At the same time, if we lose the support of communities and, through unintended consequences, make their lives miserable, it would be a step backwards.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Amendment 312, in the name of my noble friend Lord Northbrook, seeks to prevent the movement of premises being used as shops, banks, gyms, offices et cetera within (a) and (c) to (g) of class E to be used instead as cafés or restaurants in (b).

I take this opportunity to make clear to noble Lords that vibrant and diverse high streets and town centres are vital to communities, as places where local people shop, use services and spend their leisure time.

The Government introduced the commercial business and service use class in 2020 to support our high streets and town centres, enabling them to respond quickly to changes in consumer demands. This use class includes a wide range of uses commonly found on our high streets, such as shops, banks and offices, as well as services such as creches and health centres. Movement between uses within the class does not constitute development and therefore does not require planning permission. Thus, this class provides flexibility to move between such uses and allows for a mix of such uses to reflect changing retail and business models, and to avoid premises being left empty.

We believe that restaurants and cafés are an important part of our high streets and town centres. Such uses support high street vitality, attracting people to the high street to shop and spend their leisure time, and we would not want to limit them. My noble friend’s amendment seeks to restrict the flexibility of premises within the commercial, business and service use class to be used as cafés or restaurants. However, a permitted development right cannot be used in this way to limit movement within this use class. The legislative approach of this amendment is therefore flawed and we are unable to support it.

I turn next to Amendment 312F in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, which seeks to require the Secretary of State to publish a review, within 12 months of the Bill achieving Royal Assent, of all permitted development rights. Permitted development rights are a national grant of planning permission that allow certain developments, including building works and changes of use, to be carried out without an application for planning permission having to be made. Permitted development rights have been a well-established part of the planning system for many years, supporting homeowners and businesses. In recent years, new permitted development rights have been used to support housing delivery. The rights are helping deliver much-needed additional new homes, including more than 94,000 homes in the seven years to March 2022.

In response to comments about the quality of some of the homes delivered, we commissioned research into the operation of the rights, published in July 2020. We subsequently legislated to ensure that all new homes delivered under permitted development must, as a minimum, meet the nationally described space standards and have access to adequate natural light in all habitable rooms. In addition, the current consultation on the infrastructure levy seeks views on the circumstances in which it may be appropriate to apply the infrastructure levy to permitted development.

We continue to keep permitted development rights under review, so this amendment is not necessary. It would also be impractical, as it would require a disproportionate review of 155 separate permitted development rights, all within the 12 months proposed. On these grounds, we will not be able to give this amendment our support.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful for the response, but it seemed a bit equivocal around permitted development rights and the infrastructure levy. Can the Minister give us some more clarity? Is it under consultation still? One of the important problems with permitted development is that is has not attracted any infrastructure support whatever or any percentage of affordable housing. For example, if an office building is converted into luxury flats, there is no infrastructure provided and no requirement to provide affordable housing that sits alongside it. This is a very important message for the infrastructure levy that it should incorporate permitted development.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

It is in the current consultation. I assure the noble Baroness that we will be taking account of the consultation responses on this.

I turn next to Amendment 312J, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, which seeks to require the Secretary of State, within 60 days of the Bill achieving Royal Assent, to make a statement on the use of Article 4 directions by local authorities, and to explain the reasoning behind occasions when they may be modified by the Secretary of State and their resulting consistency.

It may be helpful if I briefly explain Article 4 directions. Permitted development rights are a national grant of planning permission. These allow certain building works and changes of use to be carried out without having to make an application for planning permission. Where it can be clearly evidenced that a permitted development right will cause unacceptable harm to a particular area, local authorities can make an Article 4 direction. This stops development proceeding under the permitted development right and requires that a planning application is submitted.

While Article 4 directions are consulted on and made locally, the Secretary of State has the power to modify or cancel an Article 4 direction. He will intervene where he considers that there are clear reasons for doing so, most particularly where he considers that they do not comply with national policy, as set out in paragraph 53 of the National Planning Policy Framework. This policy requires that all Article 4 directions should cover the smallest geographic area possible. Where they relate to a change from non-residential to residential use, they should be made only to avoid wholly unacceptable adverse impacts. All other Article 4 directions should be necessary to protect local amenity or the well-being of an area. Local authorities must notify the Secretary of State when they make an Article 4 direction.

When it is considered that an Article 4 direction as made by a local authority does not comply with national policy, officials have worked with the local authority to agree a revised Article 4 direction. Between 1 July 2021, when there was a change in national policy, and 3 May 2023, modifications have been made to Article 4 directions from 10 local authorities to ensure that they comply with national policy. I hope that noble Lords will be reassured that there is consistency in Article 4 directions that is ensured by the statutory process, policy and guidance. The Secretary of State exercises his power to intervene where there are clear reasons to do so, and in a consistent and measured way. With these reassurances, I hope that noble Lords will agree that Amendment 312J is not necessary.

To conclude, I hope that I have said enough to enable my noble friend Lord Northbrook to withdraw his Amendment 312 and for the other amendments in this group not to be moved when reached.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

313: Clause 124, page 157, line 22, leave out “a” and insert “an optional”
Member’s explanatory statement
This is to probe whether the infrastructure levy could be optional.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am almost sorry to come to a very complex group of amendments at this stage of the evening, but this is an important part of the Bill. We have had lots of discussions about housing, and this is about how the infrastructure levy fits into that picture. The key issues to which this group responds were powerfully set out by my noble friend Lady Warwick earlier today, and they have been discussed extensively in earlier groupings.

The significant number of amendments in this group reflect our discussions about the ability of the levelling-up Bill in general, and the infrastructure levy in particular, to deliver the levels of affordable housing needed. I apologise for the repetition, but this is not helped by the Government’s abandonment of national housing targets, under pressure from Back-Benchers in the other place. There remain a number of unresolved issues in relation to the provision of affordable housing with the infrastructure levy, and a great deal more clarity is needed about just how IL, Section 106 and CIL fit together to deliver affordable housing for the future. It is vital that we all understand this so that we can begin to make an impact on the housing crisis.

Is it the case that the first call on levy proceeds is to be affordable housing, because the costs of affordable provision are to be netted off from the levy payment, with what is left over being used for all the other infrastructure required? This residual may not be sufficient to pay for all that is needed. Just in today’s debates, we have heard about so many different aspects of funding that will be needed from the infrastructure levy. In practice, local planning authorities may find themselves juggling affordable homes and infrastructure to decide what the levy can fund, as they do now with Section 106 and CIL.

Is it the case that, where infrastructure is delivered in kind, it is subject to the levy backstop amount to ensure that any shortfall in the value of the infrastructure delivered in kind is made whole to the full infrastructure levy liability with cash? Homes for the North, in its very helpful briefing, cited Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities figures that developer contributions funded 47.3% of all affordable housing provision between 2021 and 2022. DLUHC figures also show that in the year before the pandemic, nearly 80% of Section 106 developer contributions were generated to support affordable housing provision. Therefore, we must have clarity going forward about how this will be funded for the future.

With construction costs subject to the significant inflation we have heard about, and with the financial burden on housing authorities for retrofitting energy-efficiency measures to social homes, the ability to fund new social and affordable housing through developer contributions becomes ever more challenging. Homes for the North believes that, even if the infrastructure levy is prioritised for affordable housing, its research demonstrates that basing the IL on historical levels of provision through developer contributions will not deliver levelling up but will replicate spatial inequalities.

Our Amendment 313 is a probing amendment to determine the extent to which the infrastructure levy is optional for local authorities. Leaving the other two regimes of CIL and Section 106 in place as the infrastructure levy is introduced has the potential to increase the complexity of the landscape with the associated legal process and valuation challenges. There is also a danger that the new system will take time to introduce and bed in, and therefore the potential reduces for achieving affordable homes to the scale and in the timescale we need through this route as the transition occurs.

I understand that the Government wish to adopt a test and learn approach to the introduction of the infrastructure levy—we heard from the Minister about that this afternoon—but would it not have been preferable to have tested that before putting it into law, instead of afterwards? With all three systems remaining in place, is there likely to be further uncertainty for developers that will capitalise on the difference in implementation from place to place? Noble Lords across the Committee will be concerned, as we are, about any delays this may introduce to the essential delivery of housing to mitigate the housing crisis.

My Amendment 317 refers to the introduction of pilot schemes for the infrastructure levy—although this is probably shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted—as we feel that it is essential to see whether there are unintended consequences of the introduction of the IL, and to ensure its impact is evaluated and assessed before it is rolled out across the country.

Amendment 321 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman attempts to resolve the confusion about whether it is intended that the infrastructure levy delivers the infrastructure discussed under a previous group of amendments—the first group—and then Section 106 continues to deliver the affordable housing required from the development. This is not clear from what is in the Bill about the infrastructure levy.

We absolutely agree with my noble friend Lady Armstrong that there must be a distinction between the Government’s term “affordable housing” and social rented homes. Her Amendment 322, and Amendment 323 in the names of my noble friend Lady Hayman and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, refer to that point. As we have discussed previously, local authorities know their own housing need best and must be able to specify that they need social rented housing where that is appropriate.

There has been much debate in local government and planning communities about the difference between levy-funded infrastructure and integral infrastructure, and in what circumstances developers can be required to deliver on-site affordable housing and/or in-kind funding for off-site housing. Amendment 326 in the names of my noble friend Lady Warwick, the noble Baronesses, Lady Watkins and Lady Thornhill, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford would place in the Bill the right for local authorities to determine the delivery of on-site housing through an in-kind levy payment. We support the proposition of exemption for developments containing 100% affordable housing to have special treatment under the infrastructure levy regime—Amendment 327 and our Amendment 328 refer to this.

The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, are proposing a similar exemption from the infrastructure levy liability where this relates to farm buildings that support food security. We agree with this where such buildings would be likely to accrue an infrastructure levy, as it is essential for food security that farms are able to diversify.

Amendment 332 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, and the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, would make strategic housing and market assessments compulsory and link them to the setting of the infrastructure levy. I confess that I am a big fan of strategic housing and market assessments. We understand the principle behind this amendment, as it would put rigour into the process of determining what housing is needed and the role that the infrastructure levy plays in delivering that. It will not be solely the responsibility of the infrastructure levy to deliver affordable housing though, so we look forward to hearing from noble Lords about the benefits of making this compulsory. We are generally very supportive of SHMAs, but they can be complex in local authority areas where land availability is limited, and planning for affordable homes has to take into account travel-to-work areas across more than one local authority boundary.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th May 2023 Lords Chamber

Debate on Amendment 313 resumed.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Madam Deputy Chairman, we spoke to our amendments in the previous session, so we move on to the debate on the other amendments.

[Lord Thurlow (CB)]

In the absence of my noble and learned friend Lord Etherton, I will begin this debate with specific reference to Amendments 332, 333 and 341.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who took part in this debate—over two days, because we had a previous day on this group. When I introduced our amendments, I said that a number of issues remain in relation to the provision of affordable housing with the infrastructure levy, and that a great deal more clarity was needed about how the infrastructure levy, Section 106 and CIL will fit together to deliver the affordable housing we all know we will need. I am not sure we have that clarity yet.

I am grateful to the Minister for, once again, giving a detailed response to this group, but it is clear that we have not yet got to the point where we understand the relationship exactly. The Minister referred to consultation, but some of us find it difficult to understand why that is taking place while the Bill is going through the House. Had we known the outcome, it would have provided the evidence base needed to back up what is in the Bill. So we will wait to see what the consultation says.

The redefinition of “affordable housing”, which was referred to time and again in this and other groups—the noble Lord, Lord Best, referred to it—is an important point and I hope we will come back to it. The Minister mentioned the juggling or balancing act that local authorities will have to perform with housing and other infrastructure. It has always been incredibly difficult, but with the housing crisis being where it is, I suspect it will get ever trickier. So there is still a lot for local authorities to do.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, made a key point about implementation of the infrastructure levy over a long period, so I hope we can get some clarity before Report on what that means. How long will it take and what will the relationship be between Section 106, CIL and the infrastructure levy? Will they taper off or will they be switched off on a certain date?

In the earlier debate on these amendments, my noble friend Lady Warwick made a powerful speech about the housing element. She pointed out that 4.2 million people are in need of social housing, and gave the startling fact that

“nine in 10 local authorities failed to build a single council house last year”.—[Official Report, 3/5/23; col. 1656.]

This threw into sharp relief the challenges associated with the infrastructure levy.

My noble friend also spoke about the delivery mechanism for Section 106 and the “right to require” commitment from the Government. The Minister has given us a bit more detail about that today, which is helpful, but we will want to carry on looking for that. Since my noble friend had raised it, I was very grateful to hear from the Minister about the exemption where sites have 100% affordable housing.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for initiating this clause stand part debate, because in the way we do business in your Lordships’ House, amending existing Bills, it is always worth taking a step back and asking whether we need to do this at all. He has generated a very interesting debate, and in the other groups on the infrastructure levy, it has always been worth holding in our minds whether this is the right way to do it, or whether we should go back to what we have already. That is always worth doing.

The local government community would welcome some clarity on the whole issue of developer contributions. The LGA has been quite supportive of the infrastructure levy, with some qualifications, but wants clarity on what quantum we are expecting to get from it, as well as what is expected to be achieved by it, because we are in danger of making it into the motherhood and apple pie of local government funding, and it certainly will not achieve that.

This is even further complicated in two-tier areas—I have the scars on my back to prove it—where the district council is the housing authority and is looking for substantial contributions to housing, but the upper-tier authority has a duty to press for funding for education, highways, flooding and all the other things that upper-tier authorities look after. It is important we understand the weighting of those various voices in the infrastructure levy process, because otherwise all the pressure on infrastructure will raise viability questions once again. The noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, who is not in his place today, previously raised issues about emergency services and whether they warrant consideration for infrastructure levy. These are questions we are rightly looking at as we go through the Bill.

Our provision in the first group was for pilots, and we would have preferred that they were carried out before the Bill came to the House, which would have enabled some testing of the efficacy of the infrastructure levy before we went down this route, but that is shutting the stable door. I should be interested to hear the Minister’s responses on how long the transition period will be and what will be done to test this out as we go through the process.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, asked why, if what the Government are trying to achieve is a minimum contribution levy, they do not just do that. I should be interested to hear the Minister’s answer to that question. It is a really good point that, if we must assess this at planning, post-commencement and at final adjustment, what happens if there is significant inflationary pressure, a market crash or whatever between those stages? If it works one way and the final adjustment ended up being a further contribution in cash from developers to make up the difference, that is one thing; if it goes the other way, however, and the viability at the planning stage is greater than what is achieved at the final adjustment, what happens then to the difference? There is quite a lot still to be thought through on this.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for raising the question, but the local government community is quite keen now to have the issue of developer contributions resolved. If the infrastructure levy is going to do that, that would be a good thing, but there are many more questions to answer before that happens.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lansley for tabling these amendments.

As we have discussed, infrastructure delivery strategies will help local authorities to plan for the vital infrastructure that is needed to support sustainable development in their area. The infrastructure levy is designed to be a more effective and streamlined system than CIL and planning obligations. Unlike CIL, the new levy will be a mandatory charge which all relevant authorities will be required to adopt. This is an important step in reducing the complexities of the existing system and ensuring uniformity. Also, it ensures that all local authorities benefit from the levy receipts for their local area over time. The levy will be designed to be responsive to market conditions, meaning that local authorities get a fairer share of the uplift in land value that often occurs between the grant of planning permission and site completion to fund local infrastructure.

My noble friend Lord Lansley asked what happened if there was a 10% reduction in GDV which resulted in a 40% reduction in developer profit. As the final liability is based on the gross development value, if the sales value falls, the levy liability will also reduce—that happens similarly at the moment anyway.

The infrastructure levy will be able to fund the provision of affordable housing, largely replacing the operation of the Section 106 agreement. At the moment, the Section 106 agreement is what delivers most of the affordable housing and is often hard fought by local authorities. This will be a much more stable way of delivering affordable housing. The new right to require will mean that local authorities can stipulate the affordable housing that they require to be delivered in kind as part of that levy liability.

My noble friend Lord Lansley also asked about regional inequalities. We can only capture the land value uplift that is there. We expect to capture more in high-value greenfield areas, obviously, and this is what happens in the existing system—you cannot do that any other way.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, also brought in the point about the infrastructure delivery strategy and existing local plans, which is an important issue. We must accept that we are making a big change here. An assessment of infrastructure need will be undertaken alongside the local plan. In the long term, we expect these two parts of the delivery strategy will be brought together, but during transition they may have to be undertaken separately. We are talking about long-term here, and we expect those two plans to be together eventually and as soon as possible.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The issue about regional inequalities is really important. This is supposed to be a levelling-up Bill. If there will be more inequalities in the infrastructure levy in different parts of the country, then it is hard to see how it will help the Bill to do its job in terms of levelling up. It will exacerbate inequalities, not help to level them up.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I am not sure that is right. To take affordable housing, in an area with lower housing-cost needs and where housing is of lower value, you cannot expect the same infrastructure levy for houses and land of £150,000 to £350,000, so you must get that balance right. However, with levelling up, we would expect the values to come up and level as we go through the levelling-up procedure.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

364B: Clause 127, page 158, line 34, after “the” insert “sustainable”
Member's explanatory statement
This means that the objective of CLA is to support ‘sustainable’ development.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, we move on to Part 5, “Community land auction pilots”. This was not in the Bill when it went through Committee in the other place so it has not really had any proper scrutiny.

We are asking: why legislate for pilot schemes? Once again, as I mentioned under the part of the Bill concerned with the infrastructure levy, surely it makes more sense to run pilot schemes before legislation is brought forward, not to put them in the legislation. For example, although we on these Benches were very unhappy with the introduction of voter ID, as the noble Earl the Minister knows, at least the Government spent a couple of years running pilot schemes on it before bringing the legislation forward. Can the noble Earl explain the thinking about the process that is being followed, in this case, of putting pilots in the legislation instead of running them before the legislation comes before us?

As we all know, currently, when planning permission is given for new homes, the land in question can increase in value by over 80 times. The vast majority of this goes to the landowner and other players, with very little being captured by the local authority. Community land auctions would give councils the tools to capture much more of the value uplift, which they can then spend on local priorities such as improved infrastructure and better public services. In theory, this sounds like a really good idea but, as always, the devil is in the detail. We need to understand properly how this would work in practice. What will the impact be on developers and how will they react? What consultation took place between the Government, local authorities and developers before this proposal was put in the Bill?

Under Amendment 362, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, the objective of community land auctions would be to support sustainable development. I am not going to go into all the reasons for that again now. We have had lots of discussions about why it is important that the Bill focus all the time on the sustainability of the development that will take place as a result of some of its provisions, so I do not need to highlight that any further.

Under Amendment 365, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, any relevant combined authority would be given the report to scrutinise. It is very important that we enshrine liaison with local authorities as part of the Bill, and I hope we will be able to do that.

There is also a stand part debate on Clause 127. I will be interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, discuss the purposes and mechanisms of community land auctions. It would be useful to hear about the relationship between community land auctions and the plan-making process, and how they will fit in as the process takes place. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to the proposition in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Lansley that Clause 127 should not stand part of the Bill. My noble friend and I are job-sharing for much of this section of the Bill.

This clause deals with pilots for community land auctions, which aim to give local authorities the ability to benefit far more greatly from new development than they do under the current system, even as proposed in the Bill. Basically, it takes the principle behind Section 106, the new homes bonus, CIL and the infrastructure levy a stage further, but in doing so it risks compromising the integrity of the planning system by moving more towards the sale of planning consents.

The Explanatory Notes to the Bill are normally quite helpful, but the 10 lines on the background to CLAs, on page 126, do not explain what is going to happen. As I understand the proposal, a landowner can name the price at which he is willing to sell his land to the council—it would probably be agricultural land, but it could be industrial land—which then has an option to purchase the land at that price. The price will be somewhere between the current value and the hope value with planning consent. The local authority then develops its plan, and if that land is deemed suitable for housing development, it buys it at the option price and resells it to the developer, pocketing the difference. I assume the Government hope that many landowners will take advantage of the scheme so that the local authority has a choice and the ability to choose best value. I think it clear from that scenario that the local authority has a financial incentive to designate land for development over which it has an option, in preference to land over which it has no option but which may be more appropriate for development. I will return to that in a moment.

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[Earl Howe (Con)]

The extent to which those financial benefits can be taken into account will be set out, as I mentioned, in regulations. My noble friend makes a fair point, but parameters will be set around this. On the issue of prior consultation, which the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, also raised, one can take two views: one is to go through the process that my noble friend advocated, and the other is to say that the integrity and workability of the scheme is such that we can afford to come to this House and the other place first before launching a pilot. Our view is that it will be perfectly satisfactory to take that course.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting discussion. This is probably one of the cases where there is less clarity at the end of the debate than there was at the beginning. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young, for once again giving a very forensic and detailed analysis of the subject and for raising all the key issues that sit within it. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, it was a very clear description of community land auctions.

On the issue of consultation, I remind the Committee that the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, in answer to an Oral Question earlier today, said that we are in danger of doing too much consultation. In this case, it would have been helpful if councils had been consulted before this proposal was put forward in primary legislation, because some of the issues raised in the debate would have come up immediately—they are quite obvious to those of us engaged in local government.

I have great sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Young, said. There is a queue of things that many of us feel should be in this Bill, including renters reform, leasehold reform, repealing the Vagrancy Act and so on. They did not get across the line and put into this primary legislation; yet here we have a fairly unformed idea, which has not been tested, which is in the legislation. That process is a bit mysterious to some of us.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

403: Clause 156, page 193, line 11, at end insert—
“(c) the Secretary of State has published a strategy for ensuring the development corporation is accountable to local residents”Member's explanatory statement
This is to probe the accountability of development corporations.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, although it is not a matter for the register of interests, I declare a particular interest in this group of amendments in that I grew up in an area developed and managed for many years by a development corporation. At their best, they provide focus, finance and pace for new development. If we are serious about tackling the severe housing crisis, which we have discussed so many times in your Lordships’ House, and ensuring that we create the conditions and environment for the new forms of employment we need—I am reminded of recent discussions in Question Time about the need to develop new battery capacity at speed—we should welcome the move to enable this way of tackling new developments at scale.

However, we must ensure that, as we do so, we learn the lessons of the past, including the not-so-distant past: with all the safeguards we need to ensure development at pace does not ride roughshod over proper and appropriate process and accountability. We also need to ensure that there is appropriate membership of, and links with, those who are democratically elected at local level, so that the public can be reassured they have a recourse via the democratic route.

May I ask the noble Earl the Minister a few questions before I begin consideration of our amendments about the way that development corporations are framed in the Bill? First, the Bill refers to one or more local authorities having what is called “oversight” of the development corporation. Of course, as advocates of localism we welcome this, but can the Minister be more specific about whether that means that the local authority will be the accountable body, which is a different term? This important distinction would help us to understand whether it is the Government’s intention that development corporations are autonomous in terms of finance or whether financial decision-making and probity will still require a council process. If it is the former, I am not convinced that there is sufficient detail in the Bill about how probity will be achieved. Bearing in mind the very considerable sums of public money that will potentially flow through development corporations, it is absolutely crucial that we are all clear on this issue.

Also in relation to finance, the Bill creates substantial new powers of borrowing for development corporations. Will they be subject to the same prudential borrowing regime as local authorities? If it were not so late, I could talk more about public accounts committees and local public accounts committees and how that might be a solution, but I will save that for another day.

Secondly, regarding how development corporations are to operate in terms of planning powers, will they be responsible only for the planning of new development within the designated area? To explain further: should the designated area contain existing development, does the council remain responsible for day-to-day matters of planning, such as infill development, extensions, tree preservation orders and so on, or is the whole gamut of planning within the application area the responsibility of the development corporation once the designation has been made? Can the Minister also clarify whether, in two-tier areas, the district council takes on the planning powers of both tiers—for example, the minerals, waste and flooding powers of the county as well as district planning powers? Would the county council keep the minerals and flooding powers without housing powers, or would all those powers transfer to the development corporation?

Lastly, in terms of membership and chairmanship of a development corporation, it is not clear to me whether this is left entirely to local discretion or whether it will require government departmental sign-off. Will it be a requirement that each local authority that comes within the designated area of the development corporation will be entitled to representation on that development corporation? Can the Minister give any further clarity on that? I am happy to have a response in writing at a later date.

Amendment 403 attempts to establish a principle that the development corporation should be accountable to local residents. When councils undertake development, whatever the scale, the public have all the protections that have been built into the planning system through the route of democratic accountability. Our amendment probes how that will be replicated in relation to development corporations. I note that the new Amendment 403A, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, makes a similar point in relation to ensuring that the public get value for money.

In view of discussions in your Lordships’ House just yesterday relating to the very significant development taking place under the mayoral development corporation in Teesside, I think it is particularly important that the accountability route for the public in relation to both the development itself and the public funds invested is much clearer than it is at present. We strongly believe that development undertaken by a development corporation should have to be in accordance with local plans, subject to master planning, where it is implementing development at scale, and subject to the same reassurance of independent examination as is required of councils.

Our Amendment 404 would give the public the opportunity to make representation at an independent inquiry.

Our continuing concern about this Government’s failure to deliver any scale of housebuilding that would help to tackle our housing emergency has prompted our Amendment 406, which probes the Government’s intentions in relation to a programme for new towns. We have had many discussions in Committee about the role of members of local councils in the development of their areas. Too often in the past, these vital community bodies—parish, town and other community councils—are left out of the loop. Their role at the heart of their communities is key to ensuring that there is a voice for local people as developments move forward.

Our Amendments 407 and 408 will introduce a requirement for local councils to be represented on locally led urban development corporations. In my questions to the Minister, I outlined our concerns over how the finances of a development corporation are to be publicly accountable. Our Amendment 409 reflects that concern and asks that the Secretary of State is much clearer than the Bill currently is about how the finances of development corporations are to be transparent, how they will be monitored and how they are to be accountable to the public. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this short group is actually very important. Clause 156 in Part 8 is an introduction by the Government of a new type of development corporation: locally led. Development corporations have been around in various guises for a long time—new towns, Canary Wharf and the Olympic Park are examples—with very variable degrees of success in achieving their stated aims. Development corporations are the vehicle for public-private partnerships, often to develop former industrial sites. In that sense, the principle is supported by these Benches. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, is quite right to challenge some aspects of the planned changes. We support her Amendments 404 and 405, which would ensure that the public have a right for their voice to be heard. This is, after all, the levelling-up Bill, where public engagement, involvement and participation are emphasised.

It is absolutely right—fundamental, in my view—that locally elected representatives are at the heart of development corporations, for the very reason that they are the route by which members of the public can take their concerns, raise complaints, get answers, challenge decisions that are being made and hold the board to account for the public money that is being spent. Unfortunately, that is not the case with some existing development corporations. Wherever public funding is involved, as it is in development corporations, there has to be public and transparent decision-making and then public accountability for those decisions. Hence Amendment 403A in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Shipley.

Unfortunately, one development corporation, the Teesside Development Corporation mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, is making headlines of the wrong sort, in both the Yorkshire Post and the Financial Times, for the apparent failure of transparency and accountability. Teesside is a mayoral development corporation—I asked this question yesterday in the Chamber, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, responded—where it seems that the mayor has the sole right to appoint the board membership of the development corporation. I think that was the response I got, but maybe that is not the case, in which case I hope that is put right. This practice is totally contrary to good governance, where openness and inclusivity have to be the hallmark. The extension of development corporations to include locally led ones is an opportunity for the Government to review best practice in governance, transparency and accountability and make the appropriate changes so that all development corporations meet the highest standards of open and transparent governance.

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I hope that those comments reassure the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, and that they are content not to move their Amendment 403A. Equally, I hope that my remarks have been helpful to the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and that she feels able to withdraw Amendment 403.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for giving us a detailed and thorough response, in spite of the late hour. It is much appreciated. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, this is an important clause in the Bill and we want to support it, because I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that the way that development corporations work has generally been very effective. It has not worked everywhere, but in most places it has been very effective and has delivered at scale. It has created not just dormitory areas but real, proper communities, with all the infrastructure, which is exactly the model that we want to see for at-scale housebuilding going forward. We really want this to work; it is very important.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised the issue about Teesside, as I did. This is very important. It has made us all quite nervous to see the lack of transparency that there appears to have been in some of the decision-making there. That is making us concerned about this, so I hope that our amendments and the questions we have asked help us to clarify our thinking.

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, raised the issue, as did I, of parish and town councils. That needs some thought: as the noble Lord rightly said, if we have specific mention of county councils and district councils in the consultation and it is not just assumed that they will take part, that should surely apply to parish and town councils as well. I do not see any reason why not. The Minister indicated that that might come through in a later statutory instrument, but we will be more reassured if the other types of council are included in the Bill.

On my question regarding the accountable body, perhaps the Minister could respond in writing. I have recently set up a town development board that is working on a billion-pound town centre regeneration project; that is not quite the same as a development corporation, but similar. The council has had to be the accountable body: the town development board has a mixture of elected and appointed people, and the decision-making on the finance has to go back to the council every time. I wanted to be sure about the role of this oversight authority. The Minister said that that might be subject to further information, to come at a later stage. Given the vast sums of public money that is likely to go through these bodies, it is important that we understand who will be accountable for that money and how, and who will monitor it and how.

The point the Minister made about these being locally led development corporations is really important. Those of us who experienced them in the 1950s will remember that the approach was very top-down. I know that that is not in anybody’s mind these days, as doing it that way does not work any more. We do not want to go back: it is very important that they are locally led and there is local input all the way through the development of the proposals. It was reassuring and helpful to hear that planning proposals by development corporations will go through the planning system in the same way, so there will be public inquiries, presumably, and publicly held meetings about the plans and proposals.

I heard the Minister say that the Local Government, Planning and Land Act requires financial reporting from development corporations to the Secretary of State, and a report to then be laid before Parliament. I look forward to reading the annual report for Teesside’s mayoral development corporation when it is made public; it will be very interesting to see what it says.

The Minister mentioned the garden communities. I will not step on any corns regarding East Herts District Council, which has just completed a garden village proposal—and where the Conservatives lost 17 seats a couple of weeks ago. In general, the garden communities are a very good thing; they are well-planned communities with the infrastructure needed to support them.

The Minister referred to the Secretary of State approving the governance and deliverability plans before designating a development corporation. Finance should be included as well. I do not know whether that is what he intended, but it is very important.

There are some issues still to be clarified, but we are all generally supportive of locally led development corporations. We may come back to these issues on Report, when we have further information, but for now I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 403 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

448: Clause 211, page 243, line 20, at end insert—
“(2) Schedule 18 may not come in to force until an assessment has been made of its impact on accessibility.”Member's explanatory statement
This means that schedule 18 does not come in to force until an assessment has been made of the impact on accessibility.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, during the Covid pandemic, the catering industry suffered huge disruption, and, with the support of local councils, some innovative solutions were found to create outdoor eating, drinking and dining spaces, which helped to provide some opportunity to relieve the pressure on businesses, but also to give some much-needed social space which met the constraints of Covid regulations.

In many communities, this brought a new dimension to high streets, with outdoor seating and catering creating more of a continental feel, which was, for the most part, welcomed by communities. The regulations relating to pavement trading were relaxed, and there was the opportunity to test the impact of these less formal spaces on supporting the regeneration of our high streets. So we welcome the overall aim, which is to encourage a more relaxed approach to pavement trading.

The Nationwide Caterers’ Association website states:

“The past two years have been incredibly difficult for the hospitality industry, and the hope is that refurbished outdoor spaces will help to attract customers with new offerings and a ‘continental culture that will hopefully bring Britain’s high streets to life’”.


However, as ever, the implementation of these street trading spaces during Covid highlighted some of the issues that arise, and the amendments in this group address many of them with sensible additions to the Bill that do not seek to reimpose an overbureaucratic regime.

Our Amendment 448 refers to the critical issue of accessibility. One of the main causes of complaint relating to pavement trading during the Covid crisis was that there was occasionally an inconsiderate approach to the needs of all highway users. Those with disabilities, for example, found that not enough space was left for wheelchairs or mobility scooters to get through and, for those with sight impairment, the unexpected obstacles on the highway presented major challenges. Although we support the overall drive for a more relaxed regime, it is essential that it does not create a street scene which excludes, or impairs access for, some of our community. Amendment 448 would ensure that accessibility is considered, by assessing the overall street scene and then ensuring that any pavement trading offer was compliant with keeping access routes clear.

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[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a full debate on the numerous issues bearing on pavement licences. I shall begin by addressing Amendments 449 and 450 in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, to whom I listened with great care and respect. These two amendments relate to the definition of “relevant highway”. The Government support making it as easy as possible for businesses and local authorities to facilitate outdoor eating and drinking through the use of the streamlined pavement licence process. We believe that local authorities should maintain the flexibility to control pavement licences on highways which are both publicly and privately maintainable. The Business and Planning Act 2020 does not currently distinguish between those two types of highway, and as such any enforcement powers available to local authorities would apply equally, ensuring that local authorities can take appropriate action where there are issues with licences.

There are already a number of ways a local authority can consider the pedestrianisation of a street, including to facilitate the placement of furniture on the highway for alfresco dining. They include consideration of important issues such as whether vehicular access is required. Pavement licences can then be granted to highways that have been considered under those processes. We have seen the success of this in practice across the country, including in Soho in London and in the Northern Quarter in Manchester.

Turning to Amendments 451 and 452, which relate to fees and are also in the name of my noble friend, I can say to him that in developing proposals to make the streamlined pavement licensing process permanent, we have worked closely with local authorities, businesses and leaders from the hospitality sector and communities, and many of the points made in this debate have been raised during that process, including the issue of fees. We are increasing the fee cap from £100 to £500 for first-time applications and to £350 for renewals, having undertaken a detailed analysis of actual costs, to create a sustainable process which will cover the costs to local authorities in processing, monitoring and enforcing the process, while remaining affordable and consistent for businesses around the country, which were seeing inflated fees reaching thousands of pounds per application under the previous process. Local authorities maintain flexibility to set fees at any level under the fee cap to respond to local circumstances. For example, we have seen some areas making licences free to support their local high streets. At a time of rising costs, we are not seeking to impose additional charges on businesses, particularly given that the hospitality industry was one of the hardest hit by the pandemic.

My noble friend asked specifically whether we could include maintenance and schemes for profit-sharing in the licence. The fee cap, on which we have consulted extensively as I have mentioned, is set at a level which will cover the costs to local authorities for the administrative burden that they undertake in issuing licences. As I have emphasised, we are not looking to impose additional costs at this time.

On Amendments 453, 454, 456 and 457, also in the name of my noble friend, the pavement licence process that we are seeking to make permanent has been successful in the past few years because it provides a simpler, more streamlined process to gain a licence. Amendment 453 would introduce an unnecessary new administrative process for local authorities in requiring that receipts are sent to all applicants. It also has the potential to create a delay in the process, meaning that licences could take longer to be determined should receipts not be processed in reasonable timescales. However, we are seeking to double the consultation and determination periods compared to the temporary process to ensure that communities have sufficient opportunity to comment on applications. The total period allowed for consultation and determination will change to 28 days.

We have worked closely with stakeholders, including groups representing disabled people, local community groups, businesses and local authorities, in considering the consultation period when making the streamlined pavement licence process permanent. In working with these groups, we have sought to achieve a balance between a quick and streamlined process and ensuring that the process is sustainable for the long term and gives communities an opportunity to comment on applications. That is why we are setting the consultation and determination periods at 14 days each—double that of the temporary process. Amendments 454 and 456 would create a slower process than that which it would replace.

Regarding Amendment 457, the deemed consent provision would encourage local authorities to make determinations within the 28-day window from submission. In the rare circumstances where local authorities do not make a determination and the application is deemed to be granted, this will be subject to all national and locally published conditions, including the “no obstruction” condition, which seeks to ensure that the pavement remains accessible for all. Where this condition is not met, local authorities can revoke licences.

I turn to Amendments 455, 458 and 460, also in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes. Free flow of pedestrians and other users of the highway is important, which is why the Business and Planning Act 2020 already requires that local authorities take this into consideration when determining applications through Section 3(5) and (6)(a), and prevents licences from being granted where they would prevent pedestrians or other non-vehicular traffic from entering or passing along the highway, or having normal access to premises adjoining the highway.

With respect to Amendment 458, we are aware anecdotally of conditions which would, for example, require that licensed furniture be removed when not in use, and conditions which go further than our national smoke-free condition. We consider that local authorities have local knowledge and appropriate powers to impose such conditions should they consider it necessary. We do not think it is necessary or appropriate to create national conditions for these issues, as there are circumstances where it may not be necessary or appropriate.

With regard to Amendment 460, I thank my noble friend Lord Holmes for raising the very important issue of accessibility and impact of pavement licensing on disabled users of the highway. I listened carefully to the powerful speeches of my noble friend Lord Blencathra and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, among others. The existing legislative framework requires local authorities to take these matters into account and they cannot grant a licence if pedestrians are prevented from using the highway as they usually would.

We have taken this issue very seriously in the light of experience since the pandemic. The Business and Planning Act 2020 sets out that all licences are subject to the “no obstruction” condition, which protects pavement users to ensure that they are not prevented from using the highway. In particular, it states that local authorities must have particular regard for disabled people when considering applications, and must have regard to the guidance published by the Secretary of State. This guidance, developed in close collaboration with Guide Dogs and the RNIB, sets out considerations that local authorities should take into account, including whether they should require barriers separating furniture from the rest of the highway—such as colour contrast and tap rails—or more rigid physical barriers. I hope that, taken together, these comments are helpful to my noble friend Lord Holmes and, indeed, to the Committee.

I turn next to Amendment 459 tabled by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. The streamlined pavement licence provisions under debate may be granted, as he will know, subject to any condition that the local authority considers reasonable, as set out in Section 5(1) of the Business and Planning Act 2020. As he rightly mentioned, we are aware that a number of councils across the country, including Manchester and Newcastle, have put in place local conditions that ban smoking in pavement licence areas. We believe it is important to allow local areas to make the decisions that are right for them, using local knowledge and the powers that they already have to impose conditions.

But that is not all. Any licences granted under temporary pavement licence provisions will be subject to a smoke-free condition whereby the premises will need to make reasonable provision for seating outdoors where smoking is not permitted. This condition ensures that customers have greater choice so that smokers and non-smokers are able to sit outside. As I have indicated, local authorities are also able to consider setting their own local conditions where appropriate and where local decision-makers believe that it is reasonable to do so.

I turn next to Amendments 462 and 463 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage. The Government recognise the importance of having a system that can be properly enforced to both deter and tackle the unauthorised placement of furniture. Powers introduced in the Bill enable local authorities to serve notice requiring that businesses remove furniture that has been placed on the pavement without a licence. If this notice is contravened, local authorities can remove the furniture themselves or instruct to have the furniture removed, and can then recover the costs of this and sell the furniture and retain the profits.

It is the Government’s position that the introduction of the powers proposed will lead to appropriate protection of our communities by giving local authorities powers that both work as a deterrent and directly tackle where notices are ignored, ensuring that the licensing system operates appropriately. Highways authorities already have powers in the Highways Act 1980 to tackle obstructions on the highway, including Section 148, which creates an offence of depositing, without lawful authority or excuse, things on the highway that cause interruption to users of the highway.

I turn finally to Amendment 448, 464 and 465 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage. These amendments seek to introduce requirements for assessments of impacts relating to various aspects to be taken by local authorities, by businesses or by government in advance of the measures being made permanent through the Bill. The Government agree that accessibility is incredibly important, and that our towns and city centres should continue to be accessible for all residents. As I set out earlier, we have made it a requirement—set out in Section 3(5) of the Business and Planning Act 2020—that the local authority must consider the impact of the proposed licence on accessibility of the highway to non-vehicular traffic before granting a pavement licence. As I also mentioned a second ago, we worked closely with the RNIB and Guide Dogs on the guidance that supports this.

We also recognise the importance that these measures will have on the vitality and vibrancy of high streets across the country, and encourage businesses and local authorities to embrace the opportunities that this regime offers while considering the impact of new licences on the community. We do not think it necessary or appropriate to require, through legislation, local authorities to consider to what extent a licence will increase high street footfall for the purpose of regeneration, because this would introduce additional burdens on both businesses—in the form of likely needing to undertake analysis and provide evidence of this—and local authorities in assessing this.

Finally, on Amendment 465, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising these important issues, which reflect previously tabled amendments that we have discussed on consultation periods, the introduction of tactile markings and the removal of deemed consent. We do not think it appropriate to require a report to be published on these matters as they have already been actively considered, as I have made clear. I hope these comments are helpful to her as regards the amendments in her name and that, specifically, she will feel able to withdraw her Amendment 448.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for, as ever, a thorough response to the issues that have been raised during this interesting debate. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated.

I appreciate the frustrations of Government Whips, but the purpose of your Lordships’ House is to give proper scrutiny to legislation that comes before us. This is a long and complex Bill with diverse issues, many of which go right to the heart of our communities’ concerns, and it is only right and proper that we raise the issues that we know they would want us to probe and explore in this House.

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The simple purpose of this amendment, apart from making the case for change, is to ask my noble friend whether she can say when the Government are going to initiate discussions and conversations, and indeed a consultation, on this proposal so that we can all find out better if it has the merits that it appears to have on the face of it. I beg to move.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for setting out the case for his amendment. However, I am afraid it still looks to me as if he is trying to fix something that is not broken and in doing so is going in the opposite direction of travel to a Bill for devolution.

Taxi licensing in two-tier areas is operated efficiently and effectively and enables local authorities to meet local needs. It also enables local taxi businesses to call into their local authority and have direct contact with it. The enforcement is also done very effectively. The proposal in the levelling up White Paper to transfer taxi licensing powers might be relevant to mayoral combined authorities, but I cannot see the case to justify it for shire counties. Current arrangements for licensing in shire counties work well and do not need to be disturbed. There are more important issues that would benefit shire counties than taking up time on such a consultation; for example, allowing councils to set licensing and planning fees or reforming funding for regeneration so that bidding is not necessary. I could go on, but it is late so I will not.

Even in London, it is not possible to buy an integrated ticket covering tubes, trains, buses and taxis. There will never be an integration of ticketing for obvious reasons of affordability; the cost of taxis and private hire vehicles make them the most expensive form of transport per mile. The White Paper presents no evidence that decisions on licensing prevent the integration of those transport modes into local transport plans. County councils as highways authorities are competent at providing taxi ranks at transport hubs and other appropriate locations in town centres; they do not need taxi licensing powers to achieve that integration.

District councils are not likely to ban taxis from operating half an hour either side of a train arrival, to try to stop private hire vehicles from picking up at or near bus stops, or to say that taxis cannot run at 2 am on Saturday or Sunday mornings to pick up people leaving nightclubs. So could we have more clarity on why Whitehall thinks that there is an integration problem?

A government Minister in the other place has talked of the inconsistency between licensing authorities because there are so many of them. Reducing the number of licensing authorities to 80, as that Minister mentioned, shows the fallacy of the suggestion. One could argue that inconsistencies are local authorities meeting the needs of their communities in relation to taxi operation. However, even if there are problems of inconsistency in policy or practice, the way to address them is by legislating for consistency.

In shire counties, it is likely that the review would be unwelcome and unnecessary. It would remove local decision-making that is sensitive to local requirements and policies and based on local knowledge. It is the opposite of devolution; it would not be an improvement to see decisions on licensing being taken remotely, with no guarantee that they will be people elected by the districts concerned or that they would have any knowledge of the district.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Moylan would require the Secretary of State to consult on the proposal in the levelling up White Paper

“to explore transferring control of taxi and private hire vehicle licensing to both combined authorities and upper-tier authorities”.

I reassure my noble friend that the Department for Transport plans to engage stakeholders on the proposal set out in the levelling up White Paper to explore transferring the responsibility for licensing taxis and private hire vehicles to upper-tier and combined authorities. The aim is to do so during the course of this year. Clearly, as my noble friend will understand, it is essential that the proposal is considered in detail before any decisions are taken about whether to proceed with the change. I am sure that the issues highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, can be picked up in that engagement process. My colleagues at the Department for Transport reassure me that they are currently working on this, so I hope that that, in turn, reassures my noble friend Lord Moylan sufficiently to enable him to withdraw his amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

476: After Clause 214, insert the following new Clause—
“Letterbox height: England(1) In this section “local authority” means—(a) a district council in England;(b) a county council in England for an area for which there is no district council;(c) a London borough council;(d) the Common Council of the City of London.(2) A local authority within subsection (1)(a) or (b) may, by order, direct that dwellings may not include a letterbox which is less than 70cm from the ground.”Member’s explanatory statement
This would allow local authorities in England to direct that dwellings may not include a letterbox which is less than 70cm from the ground.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I apologise; it is late. Turning to our Amendment 476, I appreciate that many Members of your Lordships’ House will not have encountered the vagaries of the British letterbox—

[Noble Lords]

Oh yes we have.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

There we go; noble Lords are on my side already. For those of us who get involved in the sharp end of politics, this is a cry from the heart. When you are facing a delivery round of several hundred doors, there are a number of hazards you will encounter: the spring-loaded letterbox designed to slam down on your fingers; the infamous brushes that make it impossible to push through anything other than the most robust card; and the vertical letterbox that is not at all compatible with efficient delivery. Worst of all, always at the end of your round, when your back is aching and your hands are battered by the aforementioned finger bashers, is the dreaded ground-level letterbox.

In a shameless attempt to try to curry favour not just with political activists of all parties but with our beloved posties who have to put up with this every day, we would dearly love to give local authorities a power to specify for new properties that there is an optimum height for letterboxes.

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The benefits to the Government doing this are clear: if the Minister accepts my amendment, the Government will have in the Bill a mechanism that will both begin to drive real change on high streets in the near term, and make the levelling-up agenda real on our high streets for all those who use them and the many more who will do so in future if we can make progress on this issue.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall finish speaking to our amendments in this group, if that is okay; apologies for the confusion.

Our amendments in this group reflect what we see as a series of missed opportunities in what should be a Bill that will facilitate the regeneration that is needed across the country, both to re-energise our economy and high streets and to harness the opportunities of science and technology, a new green economy and a wave of sustainable housebuilding. We also want to ensure that the regeneration element of this Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill is front and centre, not just for the major cities of the UK but for the towns, new towns, coastal communities, rural communities and market towns that feel left behind by a combination of the austerity measures imposed by government and the intense focus on a few of our major cities.

I was pleased to see in an article in Saturday’s Financial Times that the approach taken in my hometown, Stevenage, is being flagged up in an industry report, More than Stores, which says that town centres looking to reinvent themselves must blend their retail spaces with mixed residential housing, flexible office space, leisure and entertainment options, healthcare and historical heritage, which can turn high streets into lived-in spaces. The need to diversify, with more inventive uses for town centres, comes from a growing shift to online shopping. The Centre for Retail Research says that 17,000 shops closed in the UK in 2022, so our town centres must become community, visitor and business hubs, or they will not succeed.

Our Amendment 487 seeks to understand how areas are expected to have access to equal levels of infrastructure by setting a minimal level of infrastructure provision across the country. It is difficult to see how any genuine levelling up can take place when there is such different provision of medical, education, training, public transport and leisure infrastructure, and green space. Understanding the infrastructure deficit that an area is experiencing could also help us focus on what is needed from the infrastructure levy as that develops.

We do not believe that signage for local areas should be subject to national control. Therefore, our Amendment 489 would enable local authorities to provide the kind of signage that meets their local needs. Markets provide a much-needed boost to local economies. At their best, they enable new businesses to start up with relatively low costs, encouraging diversity in trading, improving footfall for town centres and high streets, and giving a much-needed outlet for growers and makers to market and sell their products. Amendment 490, tabled by my noble friend Lady Hayman, probes what support is available for town markets and whether the Government see these important contributors to our local economies as part of the wider regeneration picture.

The Bill seems to be silent on some of the key aspects of regeneration. The elements of the most successful regeneration projects must be captured and shared. Our Amendment 491 probes whether the Government will review how the introduction of homes in town centres and high streets and the regeneration of empty spaces to provide flexible working space can form key aspects of regeneration, and then bring forward further legislation to enable that.

Amendments 493, 494 and 495, respectively on market towns, coastal communities and new towns, ask Ministers to act quickly, within one year of the Bill being enacted, to gather information and best practice and to publish strategies for their regeneration. The issues faced by these differing communities are well documented. For example, because the infrastructure of first-generation new towns was built within a relatively short timescale, it is all deteriorating at the same time rather than incrementally, as would be the case for a town that has developed in a more iterative way. Our coastal communities have suffered a loss of their key industries, in some cases exacerbated by Brexit. As their infrastructure deteriorates, they find themselves in a spiral of decline. We believe there is a role for government in supporting regeneration for these left-behind communities.

Amendment 496, tabled by my noble friend Lady Hayman, reflects the concerns expressed about air quality in many of the previous discussions in Committee. In view of the well-documented health implications of poor air quality, surely it is time we had a national ambition in this respect. We could then begin to implement the planning changes that may be needed to achieve the targets.

I referred earlier to the aspiration we must have to ensure that the economy is geared to decarbonising our economy, and, as we do so, to create the jobs and skills needed for these new energies and to generate the sustainable energy we need for this country’s future. Amendment 497, tabled by my noble friend Lady Hayman, requires the Government to produce a green prosperity plan in order to be clear about how a new green economy can contribute to levelling up and regeneration.

Amendment 501 again reflects many previous discussions in Committee about the importance of the link between nature and levelling up. We are asking the Government to assess the extent to which they will improve access to nature for deprived communities, give duties to local authorities in respect of the recovery of nature and require them to set nature restoration targets. The Institute for Government has been critical of the process of awarding levelling up funds, saying:

“Those areas winning bids will no doubt welcome the money, and the projects funded will improve some local areas. But as a UK-wide policy the Levelling Up Fund lacks the scale or focus to move the dial on the substantial and persistent gaps in regional economic performance that the government has pledged to address through its levelling up agenda. Nor is the model of awarding money to local projects based on central government competitions an effective one”.


The local government community has also been very concerned about the operation and cost of the levelling up fund and its effectiveness in driving the aims of the White Paper. Amendment 502 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman would require the Government to carry out a review of this fund and what it has achieved so far in terms of levelling up. Our Amendment 504GE would require an equalities analysis of the spending that has been undertaken in relation to the levelling up fund so far, to determine how equalities analysis and evidence has informed spending decisions.

We have seen some welcome relocation of government departments around the regions and nations of the UK, but we question whether this is going fast enough or far enough. The lessons learned regarding flexible and virtual working from the Covid pandemic surely mean that now is the time for a radical redistribution of civil service jobs, still largely concentrated in central London, to different locations. Our Amendment 503 asks for a thoroughgoing review to be conducted by Ministers to maximise the impact of civil service jobs in areas where this would contribute to levelling up.

High quality, reliable and affordable child care is a key factor in ensuring that parents can take their full role in the economy and in supporting their family. Our Amendment 504A probes whether removing the clauses in the Childcare Act 2006 that preclude councils from running their own childcare provision would help to make sure that they can contribute to providing adequate childcare in their area.

We are concerned about reports that the Treasury has withdrawn co-operation on capital projects with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and that this will result in potentially catastrophic consequences for the implementation of the levelling up provisions in the Bill. Our Amendment 504GD probes whether this matter is under active management by the Government and whether the Secretary of State has powers to instigate capital projects that will be essential for levelling up.

We believe a real boost could be provided to town centre regeneration by the introduction of town centre investment zones, so my noble friend Lady Hayman is pleased to be a signatory to Amendment 504GG in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Ravensdale and Lord Mawson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Verma. The conditions set out in subsection (3) of this amendment are the proven elements of a successful regeneration and we believe they should be a precondition for the designation of a TCIZ: a clear long-term vision for the investment zone; a strategy for bringing together local initiatives and council services; existing or historic town centre features within the designated area; a clear collaboration between local residents and businesses to undertake planning for the TCIZ; and the presence of a master plan, business neighbourhood plan or town centre area action plan. For those areas achieving designation as a TCIZ, there should be powers to discount business rates in the area designated. This amendment also includes an important clause to require the Secretary of State to ensure that local authorities will not suffer any net financial loss as a result of such regulations.

Amendment 504GJH in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, requires government to set up a register of schools and hospitals in serious disrepair. We have already seen terrible examples, such as an A&E department held up by steel support bars as medical staff have to carry out their life-saving work weaving in and out between them. The promises, unfulfilled so far, of 40 new hospitals must ring very hollow to the staff working in those conditions. Too many of our schools operate using temporary buildings that are inefficient and expensive in energy terms, and far from ideal in the learning environment they offer. Thinking back to the days of the innovative and forward-thinking Building Schools for the Future programme, one of its drivers was to ensure that the buildings in which young people learned also helped to improve their self-esteem and aspirations for the future.

I am sorry to have taken some time over that, but it is important that the regeneration aspects of the Bill take equal prominence with all its other aspects.

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With these reassurances, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her full reply. I do not intend to go through all the aspects again; I spoke for long enough earlier on, and it is very late.

I thank noble Lords for their support on letterboxes. I think this is the first time while I have been working on the Bill that the Government have accepted a proposal that we have put forward, for which I will be eternally grateful. I am sure that many of our colleagues across the party-political spectrum, not to mention all those lovely people who deliver our post every day, will be delighted with that response from the Government.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for his thoughtful amendment, which we also put our name to, and his key points about how we should manage the regeneration of our town centres. That should be much more front and centre of the Bill than it is. I hope the Government will think about that, and about how we ensure that we put in place the right environment, and the right steps, to encourage that vital regeneration.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Warwick for mentioning the key role that affordable housing needs to play in relation to regeneration. We have had many debates in Committee on affordable housing and what it can do, but we simply will not have levelling up unless people have decent places to live. The current definition of affordable housing is unlikely to deliver that. Again, I hope that we will make some progress on that as part of the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, talked about public services being at the heart of levelling up. The buildings in which those public services are delivered are really key. If a child is going into a temporary building for their education, that does nothing for their aspirations or feelings of self-esteem, so that amendment is absolutely key.

I am grateful to the Minister for recognising our amendments on market towns, coastal communities and new towns. Yes, there has been some funding through the levelling up fund but of course those communities have been set in competition with one another for that fund, so some of them get funding and some do not. All those communities need some support.

On the Minister’s comments on the green prosperity plan amendment, I fear that the net-zero nirvana which she talked about is not quite as close as she indicated it might be. In the levelling up fund, there are some conditions around net zero but a lot of that is to do with walking and cycling. The really key issues around skills, training and energy generation have not been reached, so far, in the way that we would want to see levelling up affecting them. There is a way to go with that yet. That said, in view of the late hour, I will withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 476 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

477: After Clause 214, insert the following new Clause—
“Devolution Bill(1) Within 120 days of the passing of this Act, a Minister of the Crown must publish draft legislation titled the Devolution Bill.(2) The Bill must include provisions for CCAs to request further powers for the purposes of supporting local economic growth, rebalancing the economy and equalising living standards across the United Kingdom. (3) The powers may relate to, but are not limited to—(a) housing;(b) energy;(c) childcare;(d) buses;(e) trains;(f) skills, training and employment.(4) The Bill must also include provisions for a new framework of cooperation between CCAs and the Government based on mutual respect.”Member's explanatory statement
This would ensure a Minister publishes draft legislation for a Devolution Bill.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the hope for this Bill was that it would be a genuine step towards devolution—the kind of radical power shift that is needed to empower local communities to re-energise our economy, right across the UK, and reshape our public services so that they work equally effectively wherever you live because they are flexible enough to meet local needs. Instead, in too many aspects the Bill is centralising, with government having to give a sign-off to new structures, the introduction of centralised NDMPs and the mysterious office for place, and the imposition of an infrastructure levy, with its inherent risk that the Treasury may see it as a funding pot from which to fund national infrastructure.

The Bill also contains a presumption that areas and regions of the UK will get the funding they need to move forward only if they meet the Government’s model of what is needed. This may very well exacerbate the inequalities that the Bill attempts to address. Surely those operating at local level are more likely to know what is needed for their area. Instead of addressing the power imbalance between the nations and regions of the UK, the Bill attempts to face in too many directions at once. It includes a planning Bill, a local government structures Bill, an environment Bill and so many other projects and programmes, some with fairly tenuous links to levelling up and regeneration, as we have heard today. It has so much hanging from it that it has become a bit of a Christmas tree Bill.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, seeks to place an obligation on a Minister of the Crown to publish draft legislation for a devolution Bill within 120 days of this Bill receiving Royal Assent. We support the principle behind this amendment—that combined county authorities can request further powers which would enable activity to help drive economic growth and support levelling up.

In fact, we have already gone further than this in the devolution offer set out in the levelling up White Paper. This sets out a clear menu of options for places in England that wish to unlock the benefits of devolution, whether that is moving towards a London-style transport system to connect people to opportunity, improving local skills provision or being able to act more flexibly and innovatively to respond to local need. Any area, including those considering a combined county authority, is welcome to come forward and ask government to confer local authority and public authority functions as part of devolution deal negotiations. The levelling up White Paper has confirmed that the devolution framework is not a minimum offer. These asks are typically made as part of devolution deal negotiations.

We recognise that our existing mayors are already playing a powerful role in driving local economic growth and levelling up. That is why the Government plan to deepen the devolution settlements of the most mature institutions. The White Paper committed to trailblaze deeper devolution deals with the Greater Manchester and West Midlands combined authorities. These agreements were announced on 15 March 2023 and include many areas which will support these regions to drive growth and prosperity, including on skills, transport, housing and net zero, alongside single funding settlements and stronger accountability focused on outcomes.

These deals will act a blueprint for other areas with mature institutions to follow. This will include combined county authorities, once established. Ultimately, our aim is to achieve the local leadership levelling-up mission: that, by 2030, all parts of England that want one will have a devolution deal with powers at or approaching the highest level of devolution and a simplified, long-term funding settlement.

I say to my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham that, actually, devolution is what we want to deliver the local leadership that is required to level up this country. Devolution is part of the levelling up in the Bill, along with many other things to enable the levelling up of the United Kingdom. As such, I hope the noble Baroness agrees that this amendment is unnecessary and feels she can withdraw it.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for participating in the debate and to the Minister for her response. The noble Lord, Lord Young, was absolutely spot-on to point to the tension between devolution and levelling up. All the way through our discussions on the Bill, we have felt that tension; we kept coming back to it, because there is an essential tension there. He mentioned the number of funding streams—planning fees, bidding fees, pothole action funds, the towns fund—which are all funds that local areas have to bid for, and they are not a buoyant source of local revenue. They are not renewable: if you want more, you have to go back to government and ask for more. What we actually need are those local revenue-generating sources that would enable that economic regeneration in our own areas. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, suggested that this might need some sort of a commission to run to in order to demonstrate what you need to do to shift this.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th May 2023 Grand Committee

The amendment seems a straightforward approach that we could adopt. I gently say to the Minister that we already have a vehicle whereby we might be able to achieve this, because the Localism Act 2011, championed by my noble friend Lord Stunell, who preceded me as a Minister in DCLG, provides a model that we could use, particularly with the sections of that Act about assets of community value, especially land of community value, with the accompanying rights to bid, and even asset transfers from local authorities to local community groups. There is a way of doing this. It is a brilliantly good idea that is simple and straightforward. I hope that it will get the Government’s support.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, we appreciate all the reasons powerfully set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, in her proposal in Amendment 481 to instigate a nationwide assessment of land contamination and put in place steps to mitigate that contamination. The push to use brownfield sites for development, which the noble Baroness referred to, is another key reason why this is becoming even more of an issue. As the noble Lord, Lord Foster, said, there are some practicalities around the resources that would be needed for such a survey, while mitigation might be even more challenging.

As the noble Baroness said, at present land contamination is usually determined at, although sometimes before, the planning stage. The developer is then charged, albeit voluntarily, with ensuring that contamination is cleared before the development can go ahead—except, of course, in Teesside, where the public seem to pick up the tab.

There is a case to be made for employing a polluter pays principle, which might be successful where contamination of the land is relatively recent, but that will not always be the case, so some further thought needs to be given to this. If we are going to carry on using more brownfield sites, we will have more occasions when we need to work out how this will be done. Further consideration is certainly needed for that amendment.

The amendment in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Scott, my noble friend Lady Young and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, builds on a truly uplifting initiative that we have seen in many areas recently, where councils designate areas of public land that can be used for community cultivation. I was pleased to hear the fantastic examples from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott.

In my area, we have some beautiful community orchards, funded through local council budgets, but very much at the instigation of the public and with their support for the ongoing maintenance and cultivation. It was just wonderful to hear a conversation in the orchard in my ward between two gentlemen who had harvested the quince tree—we do not have a lot of quinces in Stevenage but we have a quince tree in my orchard. They had found recipes for quince jelly and were standing there comparing notes about the variable qualities of their quince jelly, which was wonderful to hear. It has also been a real pleasure to see local groups taking on the cultivation and management of small parcels of land to improve the street scene in their own area. In some cases, these are designated as pocket parks; in others, they are operated under the licence to cultivate regulations.

The provisions set out in this amendment are proportionate and sensible in requiring a determination by the local authority of what is meant by community cultivation, how it is to be designated and nominated, the setting of clear parameters around the timescales for which land may be made available—I like the idea of a meanwhile lease on these areas—and the publication of lists of such land. We believe that a provision for community cultivation in this way would build on the initiatives already developing in our communities, provide a welcome but very different element to the ever-popular allotment movement—most areas have long waiting lists, as we have heard—and give residents a real stake in managing and cultivating their local area. In some cases, it would provide a way of growing much-needed fresh fruit and vegetables for the community. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, referred to the quality of food. These projects of course have a double benefit, which was outlined by the noble Earl in reference to his grandson, because people learn about food as they grow it and then also have fresh food to eat.

With all the objectives of this amendment—healthy food, the environment, well-being, community engagement and meanwhile leases of land not currently being used —I cannot see any reason why it could not be accepted by the Government. I hope that it will be.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, in response to Amendment 481 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, of course this Government support lessening the risks from contaminated land. Indeed, I well remember our debates on Zane’s law throughout the passage of the Environment Bill and the noble Baroness’s passion for this subject.

Under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, local authorities already have a duty to inspect their areas “from time to time” to identify and require the remediation of any land prior to any housebuilding. Current statutory guidance states that a local authority’s approach to inspection should “reflect local circumstances”. This enables a flexible approach to providing value for money and to protecting the environment and human health. There is also a duty for the Environment Agency to report on the state of contaminated land “from time to time’, or

“if the Secretary of State at any time so requests”.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord Foster, expressed concerns about resources. The 2012 contaminated land statutory guidance outlines the polluter pays principle, enabling, where possible, costs of remediating pollution to be borne by the polluter. Under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the Environment Agency may inspect on behalf of a local authority if a local authority identifies contaminated land that it considers will meet one or more criteria for special site designation, as set out in the Contaminated Land (England) Regulations 2006. If the land is determined as a special site, the Environment Agency will become the enforcing authority and responsible for requiring appropriate remediation to the site.

If no polluter can be found and the site is not designated as a special site, the local authority must investigate and require appropriate remediation of the site. The Government recognise that the costs of remediation, including landfill tax, can be a financial barrier for local authorities seeking the remediation of contaminated land. Defra is currently developing a grant scheme to help local authorities to cover the cost of landfill tax in land remediation projects. In 2023, Defra will publish a revised Construction Code of Practice for the Sustainable Use of Soils on Construction Sites, which will empower and inform industry to protect its sites’ soil health, prevent contamination and mitigate soil being deposited in landfill. I hope that that provides a modicum of reassurance.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

492: After Clause 214, insert the following new Clause—
“No fault evictionsWithin one year of this Act being passed, a Minister of the Crown must publish a review of whether legislating to prohibit no fault evictions would support the implementation of this Act.”

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I apologise that I have to leave before the end of the session today. The late setting of the time for this session means that I have another engagement at the same time.

The LURB has become a bit of club, albeit niche, over these 15 days of Committee. There will be time to thank other people working on the Bill in due course, but, as she steps down from her Front-Bench role, I thank very much indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, for her courtesy, diligence and good humour during the days spent on this Bill.

Our Amendment 492 refers to the topic of no-fault evictions—much discussed in your Lordships’ House—and suggests putting provision in the Bill to cease this practice. At present, landlords can evict tenants without giving a reason and by issuing a Section 21 notice. This gives tenants just two months before their landlord can apply for an eviction order. Last year, research by Shelter said that nearly 230,000 private renters had been served with no-fault eviction notices since April 2019.

The utter misery and fear this creates for people in rented property is untold. I deal with so many cases of this as a local councillor. There is disruption when people have to move schools, particularly for families that have children with special educational needs and have to be moved away from one school but may not have the provision they need in another school. It disrupts work, childcare and people’s social lives and contacts. We have to think about how we address this issue.

We appreciate that there have been recent announcements from the Government about the Renters (Reform) Bill that may address this practice. However, surely the quickest and most effective way to end this practice, which has caused so much distress to renters—including the disruption to family life that I mentioned—and, importantly, adds to the homelessness burden on local authorities, is to put this measure into the levelling-up Bill.

We understand that, under the proposed reforms, landlords will be able to evict tenants only in certain circumstances, including when they wish to sell the property or when they or a close family member want to move in, and only after a six-month notice period. However, we believe that after three months they will be free to put the property back on the rental market. We also point out that, under the current proposals, renters who receive a possession notice will no longer have the right to immediate help from their council to avoid homelessness. Shelter is calling for these time periods to increase and for the notice period for evictions to increase from two to four months. In areas of high housing demand where supply is limited, it can take months for a family to find a new property suitable for their needs. These short time periods for evictions cause untold stress and harm to the families affected.

Our Amendment 504GJF in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman and the noble Lords, Lord Young, Lord Wasserman and Lord Best, refers to the long-standing issue of the Vagrancy Act 1824. It asks Ministers what impact they think the continuing provisions of this ancient Act will have on levelling up and regeneration. As recently as 17 May, my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley raised this issue in your Lordships’ House, pointing out that

“the delay in commencing the repeal of the Vagrancy Act has left this matter unresolved for more than a year. In that time, more than 1,000 vulnerable people have been arrested under its provisions”.

In response to the Minister’s Answer that

“we will repeal the Vagrancy Act when suitable replacement legislation is brought forward”,

my noble friend pointed out the concern that the Government are seeking

“to recriminalise homelessness through new anti-social behaviour legislation … contrary to the principles established in the Government’s rough sleeping initiative. That is, in effect, the Vagrancy Act by the back door.”—[Official Report, 17/5/23; col. 240.]

We believe the Government could now move past criminalisation as a response to homelessness and offer genuine, workable support. It is simply not acceptable as we move rapidly forward towards the second century of this punitive Act being in place that we are waiting to repeal it until we can find a similarly punitive alternative. The levelling-up Bill could and should be the place to address the issues of those who are street homeless.

Look at projects such as the Finnish Housing First, where packages of support for people with complex needs are delivered alongside housing. We have delivered some of this in my borough, using modern methods of construction homes. They make a real difference; four out of five of the people supported in this way end their homelessness for good and get themselves on a different path in life. The levelling-up Bill would really be doing its job properly if it addressed issues such as that. Our amendment would start the process of making sure that we consider street homelessness a levelling-up challenge. I beg to move.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 504GJF from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, also supported by the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Wasserman. However, this is not the amendment I would have liked to see. That would read: “The Vagrancy Act 1824 is hereby repealed”. That amendment was ruled to be outside the scope of this Bill. This amendment is a tentative step in the right direction and the very least we should be taking forward at this stage.

Your Lordships’ House played a crucial part in getting the repeal of this antiquated Act into the House of Commons’ version of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. This House passed the repeal amendment on a cold February night, at 25 minutes past midnight, earning the thanks of the coalition of homeless charities, led by Crisis, that had campaigned for this change over many years. In the Commons, Nickie Aiken MP and the right honourable Robert Jenrick MP helped secure this repeal, and all that remained was for the commencement date to be set. But the Government postponed the repeal for well over a year, pending the results of consultation on whether losing the 1824 legislation would deprive police forces of powers they need to address “aggressive begging”.

Those of us involved in the efforts to get rid of this archaic Act have emphasised two points. First, the criminalisation of people sleeping rough not only sends out all the wrong messages in a civilised society but directly undermines efforts to help people off the streets and provide them with the support—for example, to tackle alcohol and substance misuse and mental health problems—that they desperately need. Many homeless people, knowing that homelessness is itself illegal, will not come forward, even if they are abused and harassed by obnoxious bullies. The police have a role not in arresting the homeless but in supporting them to receive the help they need. Indeed, it would seem a step forward if the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017—which requires certain public bodies, including prisons, to notify local authorities when they know of people at risk of homelessness—could be extended to embrace the police as well.

Secondly, there is the objection that powers need to be retained from the old Act—invented or included in a new Act—to protect the public from anti-social begging. We considered this point when discussing the repeal of the Vagrancy Act with Ministers. We were not convinced that there are gaps in existing legislation that need new laws. The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 provided a range of powers to deal with nuisance of this kind. Other legislation, including the Modern Slavery Act 2015, addresses cases where criminal gangs are involved. Drawing upon the expert legal advice of the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, we concluded that it was entirely unnecessary to create new legislation to supplement all of the existing police powers. Indeed, only a very small minority of police forces currently make use of the Vagrancy Act, strongly suggesting that, since the others are operating without recourse to the penal measures in the old Act, a new Bill is quite unnecessary.

I recently asked the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, for news of positive action by the Government to end street homelessness, which they aspire to do by the end of 2024. It was good to hear the positive measures being taken to fund local initiatives and support multiagency working. There is much more to do, and I encourage the Government to step up the important positive work to ease the miseries of those sleeping rough on our streets. In the meantime, let us have all the evidence that government has collected on the Vagrancy Act, including its damaging impact. Let us move forward as quickly as possible towards the repeal of this dreadful relic of the Napoleonic Wars, before its 200th anniversary.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to address the important issue of no-fault evictions in response to Amendment 492 from the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage. The Government strongly feel that the threat of eviction means that renters cannot feel secure in their homes and that many do not have the confidence to challenge their landlords on poor standards.

For this reason, the Government have introduced the Renters (Reform) Bill, which will abolish Section 21 no-fault evictions. This was introduced in the other place on Wednesday 17 May. To answer the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, that Bill has only just started and it has not begun substantive debate in the other place. Subject to that—and we anticipate that the Bill will proceed at the normal pace—it will be before your Lordships’ House in the next Session after the King’s Speech.

The Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee recently published a report on the private rented sector. The Government are grateful for this and look forward to responding shortly. In the light of our upcoming response and legislation, we do not think that the review proposed in the amendment would add any further detail to the debate. I reassure noble Lords that the Government’s commitment to abolish no-fault evictions is unwavering and that there will be ample opportunity for scrutiny of this legislation.

In response to Amendment 504GJF, which the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, spoke to, I assure her that the Government are clear that no one should be criminalised simply for having nowhere to live. We have committed to repealing the Vagrancy Act, which is outdated and not fit for purpose. However, we have been clear that we will repeal the Act once suitable replacement legislation has been brought forward. This is so we can ensure that the police, local authorities and other agencies have the tools they need to respond effectively to begging and rough sleeping, so that they can keep their communities safe, restore pride in place and direct vulnerable individuals to the support they need.

Last year, we consulted on options for replacement legislation. We have considered these responses alongside other feedback from stakeholders and continue to give these complex issues careful consideration. Provisions relating to the Vagrancy Act have therefore been removed from this Bill and replacement powers will be the matter of separate legislation.

In the meantime, the Government have made the unprecedented commitment to end rough sleeping within this Parliament. We remain steadfastly committed to that goal. In September, we published a bold, new rough sleeping strategy, backed by £2 billion, which sets out how we will end rough sleeping for good. The Government’s Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan, published on 27 March, reconfirms this commitment. It also sets out our intention to bring forward new powers to tackle begging and rough sleeping, with the detail to be brought forward in future legislation, which will be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny.

I hope this provides reassurance for the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, and that she will withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not going to say that I am grateful for the reply on this occasion because it was really disappointing. We have here a mechanism that we can use to do two things that there is broad consensus about in your Lordships’ House, one of which has already been passed through legislation, which is to repeal the Vagrancy Act, and the other of which is subject to new government legislation but could be done much more quickly by using this Bill. On the Vagrancy Act, as the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and I mentioned, 1,000 people were arrested under it during the course of last year, and on no-fault evictions, families are living in misery now. Anyone who has been a councillor—I know the Minister has been—will have heard the terribly distressing stories from families when they get evicted and end up finding it very difficult to find somewhere else to live.

When we went through the Covid crisis, I was very pleased to see the Government taking immediate action with their “Everyone In” programme, getting people sleeping rough into accommodation as quickly as possible. We have the opportunity to build on that, but rough sleeping is already starting to go up again. Why not take the opportunity of this Bill to do something about it now? Can the Minister tell us how many people are sleeping rough tonight, or any night in the coming week? If you can do something about this, why would you not?

The noble Lord, Lord Best, rightly mentioned that a number of powers have been introduced in recent Acts, particularly the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, that already allow the police to address anti-social begging, and there are powers for councils to set aside areas where they do not allow people to hang around. There are lots of powers already. We do not need any more powers; we need the Government to get on and scrap this 200 year-old Act that criminalises those who are sleeping rough. The postponement of this repeal for over a year is already far too long. I shall withdraw my amendment for today, but I am sure that we will come back to this on Report.

Amendment 492 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Lords Chamber

If nothing else, if those two issues are laid out in the Bill, we in this House will have achieved at least something to improve the Bill—to ensure that the Government focus on two big issues that are fundamental to levelling up our society. I look forward to the Minister’s response. If those amendments are pushed to a vote, we will certainly support them.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests, as I am still a serving councillor in both Stevenage and Hertfordshire.

It is always a huge privilege to follow Members of your Lordships’ House with such great expertise and passion for their subjects as my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady D’Souza and Lady Benjamin, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. I shall speak to their amendments in a moment.

First, I have tabled Amendment 5 to highlight a number of missed opportunities in the Bill. Some of the many issues we have raised relate to the deficiency of the Bill in clearly setting out a definition of what levelling up actually means to the Government and, as importantly, how it will reach every area—we have a later set of amendments on regional disparities—how it will be funded, how it will measure outcomes rather than outputs, and how in key areas it will start to turn the agenda from acute interventions, which are expensive and complex, to preventive work, which will be more effective and save costs in the long run. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hayman for setting out so clearly our concerns around funding; I will not comment any further on that subject.

It seems to us that the levelling-up missions are nowhere near ambitious enough to take this country forward in the wake of Brexit, the pandemic and climate change, and with economic changes that need a clear strategic approach to ensure that the United Kingdom keeps pace with scientific development, tackles productivity challenges and is a place where everyone has the opportunity and encouragement to play their part in growing the economy.

What we see in the levelling-up Bill is, too often, the sticking-plaster politics of the last few years, which will do little to tackle the long-term challenges. Our missions indicate our ambition and determination that our country will face those long-term challenges that really matter to citizens and society; keep focused on them in spite of day-to-day pressures; ensure that everyone—business and trade unions, private and public sector, and government departments—works together; and, key to the consideration of this Bill, make sure that local and national government work together in partnership to ensure that action happens at the right level and combines national strategy with local knowledge and expertise. Strong missions must be focused on tackling the long-term and complex problems that need long-term thinking and recognise that there is no silver bullet to solve them, only key partnerships worked at and sustained over time.

We must be more ambitious, like our mission to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7, which is aimed at tackling the consistent underperformance in our economy that sees Britain still trailing behind our partners rather than powering ahead. ONS statistics show that the UK’s GDP growth between the final quarters of 2019 and 2022 was the lowest in the G7, which means that the UK is the only G7 country in which the economy remains smaller than it was before the pandemic. Being as ambitious for our economy as the people in our country are for their families must surely be the launch pad of levelling up.

There can be no levelling up while people and communities still feel unsafe in the places they live, work or spend their leisure time. There can be no levelling up while we treat the challenge of producing clean energy with a lack of ambition. We need a mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower, creating jobs, cutting bills and dealing with the crisis in energy security.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, clearly set out the reasons why tackling health inequalities, which have beleaguered the UK for generations, must be part of the mission to level up our country in order to break the cycle. My local area is home to some of the most exciting cell and gene therapy developments in the world, so it is ironic that if you live in parts of my borough, you will live 10 years less than if you live in St Albans, 12 miles away.

In the United Kingdom we have 7 million people languishing on NHS waiting lists, waiting for surgery or procedures that could be life changing, never mind life saving. We must include in the missions for this country a stated aim to harness the life sciences to reduce preventable illness, speed up access to treatments and cut health inequalities. For that reason, if the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, chooses to test the opinion of the House on this subject, she will have our support.

Lastly, I come to the powerful words of my noble friend Lady Lister, who has been such a strong advocate for children, particularly disadvantaged children, in your Lordships’ House. It is a shameful indictment of this Government that the situation relating to child poverty has gone backwards since 2010. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham said, it should be central to levelling up. The Child Poverty Action Group figure of 4.2 million children living in poverty, which has been widely cited in the debate, is a shameful indictment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said, the situation is far worse for black and ethnic-minority children, and working is not the answer for everyone, with 71% of children in poverty living in a home where at least one person works. The figure cited that between 1998 and 2003 the number of children living in poverty fell by 600,000 shows that it can be done, but the figures are now climbing rapidly again.

The combination of low pay, poor housing and steep rises in the costs of food and energy is taking a terrible toll on the life chances of too many children and young people across our country. We heard recently from the National Housing Federation that too many children are in poor accommodation where they still have to share beds with their parents well into their teenage years. The generational change needed here requires breaking down the barriers to opportunity at every stage, for every child. That needs reform of the childcare and education systems to raise standards and prepare young people for work and life.

None of this can happen unless we all—across the political spectrum and society—make it our ambition to drive out the child poverty that blights lives, drains self-confidence, squashes opportunity and ambition, and continues the cycle that sees so many of our young people unable to make their full contribution to our country. It is unthinkable that we will see any long-term levelling up in our country without tackling child poverty. Indeed, the in-depth study on child poverty carried out by the University of Newcastle put at the top of its list of priority actions

“putting tackling child poverty at the heart of future devolution deals”.

That is a clear example of why it is entirely appropriate to have a statement of intent at national level—a mission—to drive bespoke action at local level. If my noble friend Lady Lister decides to test the opinion of the House on whether this must be included as a mission, she will have our strong support.

We would, of course, like to see Labour’s missions at the heart of the Bill, but even an optimist like me realises that this might be a little premature. However, the amendments on health inequalities and child poverty deal with aims that surely we all share and issues without close attention to which levelling up just cannot happen or be successful. I reiterate our support for them and urge all noble Lords to support those amendments.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, would require the Government to set out a levelling-up mission to reduce child poverty. Amendment 5 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, would compel the Government to relate their missions to the Labour Party’s five priorities. What I am interested in is why child poverty is not in her amendment. Amendment 7 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, would require the Government to set out a mission on health disparities and healthy life expectancy. Amendment 8 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, would require the Government to include the missions and headline metrics from the levelling up White Paper in their first statement of levelling-up missions.

I have made our approach to levelling-up missions extremely clear in this House. They are subject to debate in Parliament, but the specifics of the missions are not written into law. Missions may need to evolve over time—including to make them more stretching as goals are met and to adapt to policy relevant to the day. We will not put any missions in the Bill. Missions are intended to anchor government policy and decision-making necessary to level up the United Kingdom. Missions should not, however, be set in stone. As the economy adapts, so will the missions reflect the changing environment and lessons learned from past interventions.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

19: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Regional disparities: cost of livingThe Secretary of State has a duty to monitor regional disparities in the cost of living.” Member’s explanatory statement
This establishes a new duty on the Secretary of State to monitor regional disparities in the cost of living.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, this group of amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hayman goes to the heart of the Bill and its levelling-up missions by attempting to strengthen a range of provisions that refer to regional disparities.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I am really pleased to address the important issue of the cost of living, dealt with in Amendments 19 and 274, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. The Government absolutely understand that people are worried about the cost of living challenges ahead. That is why decisive action was taken at the Spring Budget this year to go further to protect struggling families. Taken together, support to households to help with higher bills is worth £94 billion, or £3,300 per household on average across 2022-23 and 2023-24. This is one of the largest packages in Europe.

His Majesty’s Government allocate cost of living support on the basis of the needs of cohorts, rather than location. We are committed to helping those who need it most, wherever they are. There are existing mechanisms in place to monitor and evaluate regional, economic and social disparities, and these mechanisms are effective and ongoing, making the amendment, I suggest, redundant.

The UK2070 Commission leads an independent inquiry into city and regional inequalities in the United Kingdom, while the Office for National Statistics routinely produces a range of datasets with a regional and local breakdown, including on inflation. This, alongside the Government’s spatial data unit, which is transforming the way the UK Government gather, store and manipulate subnational data, means that these amendments, we believe, are not necessary.

Amendments 20 and 285, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, seek to establish an independent board to assess geographical disparities in England, and would allow for its parameters to be specified by regulations. I have already been very clear that we are committed to enabling scrutiny of our progress on levelling up. Through my department’s spatial data unit, we are embracing and seeking to build on this engagement, including through work to improve the ways in which the Government collate and report on spending and outcomes and consider geographical disparities in our policy-making. As noble Lords will know from my responses to earlier groups in this debate, we have also established the independent Levelling Up Advisory Council, chaired by Andy Haldane, so we do not believe we need any further, unnecessary proliferation of public bodies in this space.

Amendment 22, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, considers the appropriate granularity of data. We agree with her that for certain missions and policy areas, this is extremely important. The spatial data unit in my department is already working closely with the Office for National Statistics to improve the granularity of place-specific data and strengthen published local statistics. For example, it published local neighbourhood area estimates of gross value added earlier this year, enabling comparisons of economic output to be made between very small geographical areas.

I hope I have convinced and reassured the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, and that she will not press her amendment and others will not press theirs.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for her answers. Once again, she gave the figures for the support the Government are offering. I am sure that people who are struggling with the cost of living crisis were grateful for that, but of course, they have had another massive hit recently with the rapidly increasing mortgage rate. As people come to the end of their fixed-term mortgages, they are suddenly getting the awful shock of seeing their mortgages go up. Along with a drop in the support the Government are giving on such things as energy costs, that will be an awful combination to really hit people’s budgets once again.

I welcome the Government’s assurance that there will be a great deal of scrutiny of the levelling up data; that is welcome and we look forward to seeing how it works out over time. I particularly welcome the focus on granularity of data. There is a tendency to focus always on what is sometimes described as the north/south divide, but of course, it is never as straightforward as that. There are areas right across this country with serious poverty and deprivation, and we need to make sure that we look at those and provide appropriate support. I am very pleased to hear about the local area neighbourhood analysis now coming forward from the unit, and I am therefore happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 19 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

24: Clause 6, page 6, after line 22 insert—
“(2) The government must define levelling-up by regulations within 30 days of this Act receiving Royal Assent.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment means that the government must define levelling-up.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 24 in my name asks the Government to define by regulation exactly what they mean by levelling up. We have the 300-page tome of the levelling up White Paper—I see a number of them around the Chamber—but, for all its detailed analysis of some of the associated problems and complexities of regional disparities in the UK, nowhere does it produce a succinct definition of what success will look like.

The challenge is to turn “levelling up” from just another political slogan—no doubt with a political project behind it, like “Take back control” or “Stop the boats”—into a genuine economic and social project that will make a real difference to real lives. This is becoming increasingly important as the cost of living crisis has turned the dial again. Research shows that the so-called red wall seats are now worse off in terms of life expectancy, income ratios and other factors than they were before the concept of levelling up was introduced by the Conservative Government, and that the north/south divide has been widening because of the cost of living crisis.

The Institute for Government has expressed concerns that the levelling-up plans will fail. Commentary on the 12 missions describes five as lacking ambition, three as too ambitious to be realistic, four as failing to define what success looks like, two as having too narrow a focus, and the one on R&D spending as failing to line up with the overall policy objective. The very people expected to deliver levelling up—local government and its partners—remain confused about what it means and the people they represent do not see any improvement because disparities are getting worse.

Research undertaken for the Centre for Cities, which the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned earlier, showed that only around 43% of people thought they understood what levelling up means and that people living in former red wall seats are more likely to lack confidence in the Government’s ability to level up their area. Almost half—49%—said that they were not confident that their area will be levelled up, with just under 4% saying they were very confident in the Government’s plans. There is also an urban/rural divide on confidence in the levelling-up agenda, with a significantly higher proportion of people in rural areas lacking confidence that their area will be levelled up. We reflected some of that discussion earlier today.

Even the metrics in the White Paper are not clearly defined. The LSE says that they are neither exhaustive nor definitive and:

“Addressing key omissions and shortcomings and embedding a more granular approach to metrics and building up … data infrastructure will be essential”.


The trouble is that you cannot measure what you cannot define, so a clear definition is essential.

We are absolutely not asking the Government for a definition that takes us in the direction of each place being the same, because they are not. The power of devolution is that areas succeed on their own terms and in being able to capitalise on their unique economies, features, places and people in a way that is right for them. A significant example that is close at hand is Germany, where political will and investment have achieved the remarkable reunification of the east and west through a partnership of the local and the national, with common cause. We fear that, without a similar clear ambition and mission here, the drive of the Prime Minister and Chancellor for a new period of austerity will stop levelling up in its tracks. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, increasingly I think that we need a clear definition of levelling up, partly because what I have in mind is certainly not shared by many others around the Chamber.

When I read the tome—the levelling up White Paper—it struck me, with all the maps and graphics in there, that the aim the Government had in mind was to have a clear, strategic focus on areas of multiple deprivation, as defined in the tome, and others, including poor health, lower skills, poor housing, lack of economic opportunity and poor transport, as the White Paper lists. I read it to mean that because some places had several of those factors, they were the places that the Government were going to focus their attention on as a strategy over a number of years.

I have cited previously what the White Paper says about the fact that long and deep-seated change is needed. I support that, if I have it right. What I do not think it means is that every small pocket of poverty can be addressed through levelling up, because even in the wealthiest places there are pockets of poverty. If we tried to do that, it would dissipate the clearer strategy. I am beginning to think that I am the only person who thinks that.

That was the sort of strategy that was labelled City Challenge, Single Regeneration Budget 1, Single Regeneration Budget 2 and the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund. That was the strategy: pick out those places that were suffering multiple deprivation, put a plan together and make a big investment to see whether that would make a difference. Sometimes it did, but sometimes those places did not really improve—perhaps because the strategy was more about places and not about people. People need to be at the heart of any levelling up. Levelling up includes hard stuff, such as skills, employment opportunities, decent housing, health, and child poverty. It is difficult and long-term, and you do not see immediate results. That is what I think levelling up is, and I am not sure —having sat through long hours of debate on the subject—whether I am the only person who thinks that.

A couple of years ago, the Centre for Cities described what it thinks levelling up means. First, it suggested that it should include increasing standards of living across the country:

“There is no inherent reason why one part of the country should have poorer skills or lower life expectancy than another”—


I can go with that. Secondly, it spoke about helping

“every place reach its ‘productivity potential’”;

that is, the gap between its level of economic achievement and what it should be. For example, in parts of Yorkshire, there is quite a big gap, and that will be the same elsewhere.

We need to hear what the Government think levelling up is and where it is aimed. Is it what is in the White Paper, or is it, “Oh dear, we have to try to deal with pockets of poverty and deprivation everywhere”? That is a different strategy, in my head. Unless there is clarity about what the purpose of levelling up is, I think the strategy will become so broad and wide that lots of areas and lots of our communities will miss out. I certainly would not like that.

I guess the noble Earl has the short straw with this group; I really look forward to hearing what he has to say.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 24, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, asks the Government to define levelling up. I can simply say that it is already very clearly defined. When launching the levelling up White Paper, the Government clearly defined levelling up as

“a moral, social and economic programme for the whole of government”

to

“spread opportunity more equally across the”

country.

As stated expressly in the very first pages of the White Paper and thereafter, levelling up is about, first, boosting pay and productivity, especially in places where they are lacking; secondly, spreading opportunities and improving public services, especially where they are weakest; thirdly, restoring local pride; and, fourthly, empowering local leaders. Those are the principal four headings—not so different from those articulated by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, actually—and in the very first clause of the Bill, levelling-up missions are defined as

“objectives which His Majesty’s Government intends to pursue to reduce geographical disparities in the United Kingdom”.

Furthermore, the Bill will already place a statutory duty on the Government to confirm their missions through laying and publishing a statement of levelling-up missions. There is no need, therefore, to have regulations on top of that.

The Government are putting the framework for the missions into statute, and that arrangement is designed to ensure that what we mean by levelling up and how well we are doing to make progress are transparent and the Government can be held properly to account. As the Government have consistently set out, the first levelling-up statement will be based on the White Paper, but missions, as we have said a number of times, need to evolve over time. The Bill requires the Government to notify Parliament formally of any proposed changes to the missions or metrics set out in the statement of levelling-up missions, and we fully expect that Parliament, expert stakeholders and, indeed, the wider public will use these provisions to hold the Government to account—which, I take it, is in fact the main point behind the amendment.

I hope that my explaining this on the record will have reassured the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and that, in the light of what I have said, she will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, once again, I am grateful to the noble Earl for his response, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for agreeing that we need this definition, but I am still puzzled why, unlike with most Bills that we consider in your Lordships House, there is no clear definition in the Bill of what is intended for it overall. If we go back to the missions and metrics, the content of the missions is not in the Bill, either. Levelling-up missions may be defined in the Bill, but only in a conceptual way, not saying what those missions are; whereas, for example, if we take one of the introductory chapters of the Bill about the setting up of combined authorities, there is a clear definition of a combined authority. It says:

“‘combined authority’ means a combined authority established under Section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009”.

There is a definition of what an economic prosperity board and an integrated transport authority is, yet we do not have that kind of definition of what levelling up means in the Bill. For example, there would be nothing to stop the Government, having set out the missions, to consider them separately as well.

That is part of the problem: there may be a definition which the Secretary of State is working to, but, because it is not in the Bill, it is not being communicated to the people charged with delivering the vast majority of what is in it. We feel it would have been much more helpful to have this definition of what levelling up actually is right there in the Bill. However, I am prepared to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 24 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 13th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendments 28 and 29 in this group and will make some brief comments on the other amendments. We completely understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in Amendment 26 that the current way that combined authorities are brought together means that they could very well not be subject to any political balance mechanisms and the power structures could be centralised, as the noble Lord outlined.

The Local Government and Housing Act 1989 provisions are designed to deal with, for example, political proportionality on council committees. Of course, the political balance of combined authorities will vary across the country depending on the make-up of the constituent members, who will have been selected by dint of local elections. Although it is not impossible to put a balancing mechanism in place, it is difficult to see how that could be addressed without introducing a considerable level of complexity. It may result in some areas being represented by members who were not leaders in their own council, for example, which might bring its own difficulties. We need to think about how we get a sense of political proportionality in these combined authorities.

My Amendments 28 and 29 and Amendment 30, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, seek similar objectives. In Committee, as far back as March, we had long discussions about the composition of combined authorities and the role of the respective councils on them in two-tier areas. I will not repeat all the points I made then but will focus on the key issues. First, the presumption in the Bill that only county councils deal with strategic issues is based on an outdated idea of district councils and is entirely wrong. As a brief example, the workstreams on the Hertfordshire growth board planning for the future of the whole county consist of town centre development, growing our economy, housing growth, tackling climate change, et cetera, and are all led by district leaders. It is hard to see how willing they would be to do that if they did not then play a full part in the work of the full growth board and were not allowed voting rights at its meetings.

In response to the point I made on this in Committee on 15 March, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, responded that district councils

“cannot be a constituent member of a co-operative local government grouping whose membership is determined by reference to strategic functions and powers which are the primary province of upper-tier and unitary authorities. That is the logic”. —[Official Report, 15/3/23; col. 1342.]

I do not see the logic of excluding the strategic leaders of 183 councils that not only run services but are responsible for the planning, housing and economic development of 68% of the land in the UK from taking part in strategic functions and powers.

My noble friend Lord Hunt has set out his concerns about the proposals relating to boundaries. He rightly points to the dangers of these being used for gerrymandering. It is simply not acceptable to use primary legislation for that purpose; it is the very opposite of devolution. My noble friend used the example of Wiltshire the other day and Shropshire today. I think also of Hertfordshire, right on the borders of London, and the idea of it being scooped into a huge authority without leaders in those areas having a say is unthinkable.

The Government’s proposal in the Bill that combined authorities may give their associate members a vote but do not have to give that same ability to district council members or leaders leaves combined authorities in the unprecedented and very unwelcome situation of having democratically elected representatives on their body who cannot vote and appointed members who can. That is surely not tenable. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, recognises this issue and would restrict associate members from voting. We urge the Government to consider that, if other amendments in this group are not successful. If the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is minded to test the opinion of the House then he will certainly have our support on that.

My Amendment 28 would automatically confer voting rights on non-constituent members, but we would prefer that that was in the hands of the combined authorities themselves. Amendment 29 would establish a process for the Minister to introduce a mechanism that could allow combined authorities to give non-constituent members full member status. We feel strongly that this decision should absolutely rest with the combined authorities themselves. It is the opposite of devolution for the Government to determine which locally elected representatives should be permitted to take part in local decision-making and which should not. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has outlined clearly that weighted voting systems are perfectly possible. Therefore, unless we hear from the Minister that there has been a change to the Government’s view on this issue, we would like to test the opinion of the House.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 26, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, would prevent the executive of a combined county authority being able to represent the political make-up of its members. As I made clear in Committee, that is not something that the Government can agree to. A CCA will be made up of members from each constituent council on a basis agreed by those councils through their consent to the establishing regulations, which will provide for the make-up of the CCA’s executive. It is essential that the CCA’s executive properly reflects the local political membership of that CCA, which this amendment would prohibit. It would also place the CCA’s executive in a different position from those of a local and combined authority, which do not require political balance under existing legislation. I do not believe I can say any more but I hope the noble Lord will see why I cannot accept his amendment and that, on reflection, he will agree to withdraw it.

Amendments 28 and 29 from the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, seek to allow a combined county authority’s non-constituent members to be able to be made full constituent members and to give non-constituent members the same voting rights as full constituent members. Conversely, Amendment 30 from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, would prevent associate members being given any voting rights, and his Amendment 31 would make planning authorities constituent members.

A key underlying factor of the CCA model is that only upper-tier local authorities can be constituent members and have the associated responsibilities. That is the key difference between it and the existing combined authority model, which, I remind the House, remains available to areas. A non-constituent member of a CCA is a representative of a local organisation; it will not necessarily represent a local authority. I make that point because, since a CCA is a local government institution, it would be inappropriate for any organisation other than an upper-tier local authority to be a constituent member. Constituent members are those who collectively take the decisions of the CCA and are responsible for funding it.

It would also be inappropriate for the same voting rights to be conferred on all non-constituent members, given the range of potential bodies. The CCA should have flexibility to vary voting rights to reflect its membership. We want there to be genuine localism in this area, as in others. Depending on the decision of the combined county authority, its non-constituent members can be given voting rights on the majority of matters.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

29: Clause 9, page 9, line 30, at end insert—
“(7) A Minister of the Crown may by regulations establish a process for non-constituent members to become full members.” Member’s explanatory statement
This intended to establish a mechanism for non-constituent members to become full members.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I remain unconvinced by the arguments that have been put us, so I would like to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that the Minister will be able to explain why the Electoral Commission is not going to be allowed to have a say on these elections, and why the Government want to bypass it and appear to want to undermine its independence. This is serious stuff, and I look forward to what she has to say.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, most of these amendments are technical and non-controversial, so I would love to have repeated the famous 10-word speech given by my noble friend Lady Hayman on Tuesday and simply agreed with them. However, we share with others on these Benches some concerns with government Amendment 34. The Bill currently allows the Secretary of State to make regulations for the conduct of mayoral elections, such as regulations relating to the registration of electors and election expenses. While we do not oppose this power and see it as an inevitable part of the process for mayoral elections, the Government should absolutely involve the Electoral Commission as part of this.

We therefore welcome that sub-paragraphs (4) and (5) state that before making these regulations

“the Secretary of State must consult the Electoral Commission”.

It was widely assumed that such consultations would take place following Royal Assent, but Amendment 34 means that the consultation can begin prior to commencement. Can the Minister explain why this is necessary and confirm that it will not reduce the Electoral Commission’s vital role in this process, as rightly set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock?

It would also be helpful if the Minister could make clear exactly how the Secretary of State intends to exercise these powers. I hope she will understand the concerns that the expedited process is being introduced to facilitate a certain mayoral election—I am not referring to the east Midlands. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses for their input on these government amendments. These amendments, particularly Amendments 34 and 306, will ensure that those tasks we are planning for in running the May 2024 election for the east Midlands combined county authority mayor have real early clarity as to the rules for the conduct of the election.

The Government are absolutely clear about the role of the Electoral Commission. It has an important role in scrutinising all draft electoral legislation. It is therefore essential that it has sufficient time to undertake this role without causing unnecessary delay to the legislation itself. I will make it very clear: consultation with the Electoral Commission will still take place in full, and will still bind the regulation making. This amendment is just changing the timings for that.

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[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to move this amendment, to which I have added my name, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market, who cannot be in the House today. It gives me great pleasure to speak to this important amendment, given the support it received in Committee. Because it was debated well then and we do not intend to test the opinion of the House, I will be brief-ish.

This is another amendment that echoes what was said in the previous amendment, because it seeks to address a fundamental inequality: in short, town and parish councils do not currently have the power to award a carer’s allowance to their councillors, even if they want to and can afford to, yet every other councillor at every other level of local government can. This amendment asks simply for the decision to rest with the councils themselves—these are their councillors, their choice and their budget.

In my time in local government it was apparent, and still is, that all the parties struggle to get high-calibre people standing for council and, more importantly, to encourage them to stand again. The drop-off rates are quite alarming. There are lots of credible statistics on this; I will not drag things out by citing them, but they are there.

We all know that the LGA, the Fawcett Society, the Electoral Commission and others have worked to improve the diversity of elected representatives, so we know how important it is that councillors reflect the community in which they live. That is very pertinent to town and parish councillors, who really are at the sharp end: they are the closest to those whom they represent and meet them in the pub or the park or at the school gates. I believe that the laws governing the current situation reflect the attitudes of decades ago—the village do-gooder stepping up and speaking for the humble folk, as a community service and a bit of volunteer work—so town and parish councils do not have the power to give their councillors a carer’s allowance. Surely we do not see the role that way now. Times have changed, and roles and responsibilities have changed.

I argue that those closest to people can best say what the impacts of big decisions are on the lives of those whom they represent. We should be removing barriers and obstacles that prevent people stepping up and serving their communities, and encouraging all councils to embrace the diversity within their communities.

Personally, I would not be standing here today if I had not been able to pay a babysitter when I became a councillor. I just could not have afforded it, and there will be other women in that position. It is, sadly, still true today that the majority of carers are still women.

I know that in Committee, Ministers said that they were concerned about the cost burden this would place on local council budgets. Yet, when asked what the costs would be, they did not know. We do know that since the dependent carer’s allowance was introduced in Wales, there has been no impact on the budgets of community and town councils. We know from the information gathered by the National Association of Local Councils that many councils would meet these modest additional costs out of existing budgets. Surely it should be a local matter if councils want to increase their tiny precepts to invest in attracting, retaining and supporting councillors? That is local democracy in action.

Finally, in 2019, Weymouth Town Council made a proposal to the Government under the Sustainable Communities Act to extend the carer’s allowance to parish councillors. It is still waiting for a decision, despite the rules stating that it should have received one from the Secretary of State within six months. Could the Minister agree at least to chase this up, please?

Parish and town councils are out of step with the rest of local government. This important amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market presents the perfect opportunity to right this wrong, to help level up local democracy and to give those councillors with caring responsibilities just a little much-needed help to perform their important civic role. The Bill is in part about handing powers down from the Government to the many and various forms of local government—real devolution. It is right to do so, and proud to do so. Why not devolve further down to parish councils and give them this right? I hope the Minister will give this real consideration. I beg to move.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, our network of over 10,000 community, neighbourhood, parish and town councils provides that invaluable first tier of services that people care about, notice and see every day. This is because they impact so very close to their front doors. During discussions on the Bill, it has been a feature to hear Members across your Lordships’ House championing these councils, which illustrates their vibrant contribution to our democracy. Amendments in this group are no exception.

We welcome Amendment 59 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott and Lady Thornhill, which would make provision for parish councils to be able to meet carers’ expenses. I welcome the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, about taking down barriers and increasing diversity at all levels of council activity. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, if I had not been able to have carer’s allowance for babysitting fees for my daughter, who was just eight when I first joined the council, I would not be here today. These are very important steps that we can take.

I also know one councillor in Stevenage whose husband is profoundly disabled following a stroke. She benefits from carer’s allowance. Another councillor has a severely learning-disabled son. The fees for looking after him are over £80 an hour; a contribution to that from the council means that she can participate in council activity. The input these women provide on issues of disability, as well as many other issues—and their long experience—is incredibly helpful to our council. That should be extended to parish councils too.

It is vital that we do all we can to encourage a wide range of people to engage in the democratic process at all levels of government. It is often the responsibility of caring that deters people. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response, and I hope that the Government will keep this under close consideration.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I wish, of course, to support my noble friends Lady Thornhill and Lady Scott of Needham Market on Amendment 59. But I wish to address my remarks to government Amendment 60, which I do not support and urge others to do the same. Along with other consequential amendments, this seeks to disapply Part I of the Local Government Act 1894 from affecting any parish council powers conferred by other enactments. Section 8(1)(i) of the 1894 Act prevents parish councils funding works relating to the church or held for an ecclesiastical charity. This would enable such funding under the Local Government Act 1972. In simple language, as I read it, it enables parish councils to pay money for the upkeep of churches.

I want to be clear about what I am objecting to. I am not opposed to churches—quite the opposite, actually. I want to uphold freedom of religion or belief for all. I also do not want to see church buildings become run down. I do not deny or undermine the good work of churches and other faith and belief groups around the country. Instead, I want to make sure that, where public money is being spent, it is done in a considered and appropriate manner that does not discriminate against groups that do not have churches. Funding buildings owned and operated by churches would, in my view, be an inappropriate use of taxpayers’ money, given the extreme wealth of most churches, especially the Church of England. The Church of England is the largest private landowner in the UK and has a £10.1 billion investment fund. Its assets were valued in 2016 at £23 billion, since when the fund has grown by £3.4 billion. I would be grateful if the Minister could say whether she knows why these dilapidated buildings cannot be restored by the church itself.

We know that part of the problem is declining congregations. The British Social Attitudes survey shows not only that the majority of the population is non-religious but that less than 1% of those aged between 18 and 24 say they are Anglican. But that is not the full story—not by a long chalk. My own local parish church recently embarked on a project to put the church back at the heart of the community by opening a shop and café in the church premises itself. It is closed to the public for only one hour a week for Sunday worship. Villagers got together to raise the money and make the whole thing work. My husband, himself a dedicated humanist, chipped in financially and helped with the construction, and I have aspirations in the Recess to learn how to become a barista.

Where church buildings are in decline, an alternative approach, adopted by some countries such as the Netherlands, is that where a religious group declines in number to the point that it can no longer maintain a building, the state then agrees to maintain the building on the proviso that it takes ownership. That enables such buildings to become community spaces equally open to all, rather than controlled by some.

Many would oppose the idea of giving taxpayers’ money to an organisation that discriminates against people of no faith. About a third of schools in England and Wales are faith schools and people of other faiths—and, worse, of no faith—might see their children or grandchildren denied a school place because of preferential admission policies. There is also discrimination against gay people who want to marry in a church, yet the Church of England continues to deny them. These discriminatory practices continue, quite legally—for the moment—so as a taxpayer, until churches become more inclusive, I for one do not think that they should receive public money to restore their buildings. They knew a thing or two in 1894. Please keep things as they are.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 13th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab) (Valedictory Speech)]

My Lords, for the last two years a very nasty, cruel war has been waged only two or three thousand kilometres to the east of here by the Russians who attacked Ukraine quite gratuitously under the orders of Mr Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation. He is a man who, I think everybody knows, identifies with the most imperialistic Russian traditions of former tsars such as Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.

We could have flinched from our responsibilities when this invasion took place but we did not, and I congratulate the Government on the strong line that they have taken in support of Ukraine and the good example they have set, which has been followed by many other members of NATO, in supplying vital arms to the Ukrainian forces. It is very important to respond to aggression because, if one does not, one will quite clearly have more of it.

My reason for speaking today is that there has been a very important meeting in Vilnius over the past few days in which the leaders of NATO have set out the kind of policy we should adopt in relation to Ukraine over the coming months and possibly longer. I am glad to say there has been a large measure of consensus and some important developments—very important is the fact that Sweden has now joined NATO. Sweden is an influential country, much respected throughout the world, and a great asset to us in this difficult situation.

The other countries—most recently France and Germany, in the last few days—have also agreed to supply new weapons, which is very important. The West generally has shown that it will not be ignored in a matter of this kind, which threatens the fundamental sovereignty of the peoples of Europe and the peace of our continent. We must always remember—we learned it in the 1930s, of course—that aggressors invariably come back for more, and what one must never do is give in to them. What is very important is that we do not conduct ourselves in such a way as to send a signal to Mr Putin that he can get away with invasion with impunity and that he can alter the frontiers of Europe quite deliberately at his own behest. That must never happen.

There is something personal that I should mention. If I am alive today, it is thanks in large part to the remarkable work of the medical profession. I pay tribute to all those who work in it, most particularly in the NHS. My father was a GP all his working life and was devoted to the founding principles of the NHS. My eldest son has volunteered for years with St John Ambulance, and he gives me graphic and often disturbing accounts of what life is like on the medical front line. The emergency intensive care and trauma teams at Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre defied the odds when they saved my life after my near-fatal car crash three years ago. I am eternally grateful to them, together with the wonderful rehabilitation team in London, who got me back on my feet.

I am gravely concerned at reports of insufficient numbers of staff and hospital beds, plummeting staff morale, crumbling buildings and other problems which beset the NHS. The Government owe it to the country to do whatever is necessary for the health of the nation, and the time for taking urgent action on this matter is now.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great honour and privilege to follow a characteristically eloquent speech from my noble friend Lord Davies of Stamford. After so many years’ service in both Houses since 1987, we owe him a great debt of thanks for the work he has done for the people of this country and for our country. It is my great sadness that I have known him for only such a short time. I was appointed as his Whip just a few months ago. It is a great regret that we have not been able to get to know each other better during that time but, as my noble friend sets off on what I hope will be a long and peaceful retirement, I hope we can keep in touch. I thank him greatly for all the things he has done during his time serving the people of the country.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I listened with much regret and enormous respect to the valedictory speech of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford. He served as Member of Parliament for Grantham and Stamford for 23 years—for the vast bulk of that time on behalf of the Conservative Party. It did not take long for him to make his mark in the other place, as was evidenced by the Guardian naming him parliamentarian of the year in 1996. The BBC named him Back-Bencher of the year in the same year.

The noble Lord served in the shadow Cabinet in the early years of the last Labour Government and demonstrated there his very considerable political and personal abilities. I remember how shocked and saddened his Conservative colleagues were at his decision to leave our ranks, but then how proud we were on his behalf and that of his family that his manifest abilities were recognised by his appointment in the Labour Government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Equipment, a position he held for two years and one which I know he greatly enjoyed.

In your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord has been a doughty and persuasive debater, an assiduous support to his party and a most congenial parliamentary colleague. We wish him well in his retirement.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for those words. I say to my noble friend Lord Davies that there is of course a special place in our hearts for those who see the light, and we are very pleased that the other side’s loss was definitely our gain. We too wish him a long and happy retirement.

Back to the levelling-up Bill—and I thank the Minister for clearing up the long-standing anomaly relating to the Common Council of the City of London—my Amendment 62 would require the Government to publish a draft devolution Bill setting out their plans for comprehensive devolution across the United Kingdom to empower all local authorities in a wide range of areas where we know they do not currently have the powers to act for their communities in the way that we know that many councils are keen to do. These powers could include a whole range of areas that would enable councils to support local economic growth and help to rebalance and equalise living standards, potential and opportunity across the UK to ensure that every area gives its residents the best chance of contributing to the post-pandemic, post-Brexit economy, and would bring some much-needed hope back to every corner of the UK.

The PACAC report governing England from last October set that out very clearly. The key question this raises is whether decisions are being made in the right place to provide effective government to the people of England. We found that the dominant reason for continued overcentralisation is a prevalent culture in Whitehall that is unwilling to let go of its existing levers of power. The trouble with the way that the levelling-up Bill deals with devolution is that it imposes the long arm of Westminster in selecting the chosen few who will benefit from additional powers. In many ways, that has the potential to add to the complexity instead of making the lines of responsibility and accountability clearer. Surely the devolution agenda has now demonstrated that decisions are best taken in the local interest—for local people, by their local elected representatives. That view was backed up in the Institute for Government’s recent report, How Can Devolution Deliver Regional Growth in England?, which argued that councils should have greater responsibility for transport, skills and planning to enable them to better support their areas.

The draft Bill would set out plans to ensure that the Westminster apron strings were untied for good and a new relationship of mutual respect and trust—of course, with the appropriate mechanisms for local accountability—could exist between government and local authorities. That would see an end to the expensive and wasteful bidding bingo to which local authorities are currently subjected just because they have ambitions to make things better for the areas they represent and their local people.

Additional powers could relate to, but not be limited to, housing; energy; childcare; transport, including buses and trains—we have an amendment on bus transport in a later group; and skills, training and employment. Many of those areas will require intense and effective partnership working, but councils are no stranger to that; the financial constraints that councils have been under in recent years have meant that almost nothing can be achieved without working across the public and private sectors and between all local agencies. This would require a new relationship of mutual respect and trust between local and central government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, for the two amendments in his name, which relate to a specific issue that he also raised in Committee. On the face of it, Amendment 64 is a general plea to make business improvement districts more responsive to the views of the residents that they affect.

The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, has used as an example an area of London of which I know little, so I will not be able to respond or comment in any way on the specifics of that. However, on the generalities of business improvement districts and the amendment in the noble Lord’s name, business improvement districts play a significant role in economic development. They are a tool that local authorities can use to stimulate business enhancement in parts of the local authority district, so that is important.

Business improvement districts vary considerably across the country. Some, as my noble friend Lady Thornhill has told me, work very well, such as in her area of Watford. However, in some areas of the country they have been perhaps more disruptive and less effective. The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, made a very important point about always taking local residents with you. That is important in a democracy: if you upset the local residents, I can tell you that they now have many tools by which to make their views known. I am really pleased that the noble Lord has brought the generality of business improvement districts and their relationship with residents that are impacted by them to the attention of the House in this Bill, along with the importance of always listening to local people and responding effectively to what they have to say.

I appreciate that in Committee the Minister was—how do I put this?—lukewarm in her response. I wonder whether today she could be tepid or warm in her response, because that would help resolve the issue that the noble Lord has identified. I am sure it will have to be replicated in other parts of the country, but not everywhere, because some BIDs work very well.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, for bringing both these amendments forward. It enabled a lot of thoughtful discussion in Committee and again now on Report.

It is disappointing that there has not been adequate consultation on the particular BID and the programme that the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, spoke about. I did some work in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea after the Grenfell disaster. The Grenfell disaster was literally the worst example of a council not listening to its residents. It had been told for many years of the concerns that residents had and had not listened to them. Of course, that has changed the way that many councils now listen to their residents—for example, through resident programmes. I had hoped that was the case there, but perhaps it is just this example where it is not. Let us be hopeful and optimistic that that is the case.

On these Benches we absolutely support the principle that residents should be engaged in key changes to their local areas, including business improvement districts. It is just as important that residents in an area are engaged as it is for the businesses participating in the zone concerned. We are in the process of a £1 billion town centre redevelopment in my area. Every step of the way, we have taken the trouble to consult extensively with residents. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on how there may be some more specific consultation for BIDs and how the Government might further consider that.

In relation to the other amendment the noble Lord spoke to, in principle we fully support the full engagement of residents in decision-making, although we have some concerns about the financial implications of the proposals to compel the use of outside agencies. I think the noble Lord used the term third parties—that might be a different independent third party, and sometimes could be interpreted as outside agencies and consultants, which are notoriously expensive when they do this work on behalf of councils.

I draw attention to the report pulled together by the RSA and the Inclusive Growth Network called Transitions to Participatory Democracy: How to Grow Public Participation in Local Governance. It makes a number of recommendations on growing the engagement of local people so that you have a more sustained participation journey, rather than these out-of-the-blue consultations on planning and other things happening at decision-making points, in which people come to the table with a negative view right from the start. It is much better if people feel that they have more permanent engagement with their local authority.

The report recommends that these routes should be developed over time, strongly based on meeting people and local organisations where they are and not expecting them to engage on council territory. We need consultation to take place earlier in the process—so that people are engaged in the design of schemes or projects and they are not produced like a rabbit out of the hat for people to comment on—and never when decisions have already been taken. If you have already taken the decision, do not tell people that you are consulting on it because they will see through that straight away. That is really important.

This has been a very useful prompt to think these issues through. We look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments.

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

My Lords, Amendment 64 in the name of my noble friend Lord Northbrook concerns a review of business improvement districts. I have listened very carefully to this debate and the debate in Committee. We want BIDs to work with and alongside residents and members of the local community. It is important that the projects and activities that a BID delivers benefit the local area and encourage more people to visit, live and work there. Residents and members of the community are not prohibited in legislation, as I said in Committee, from being consulted on a new BID proposal. I know many BIDs that include many stakeholders, including the communities they serve. There is nothing to stop a local authority doing that.

It is clear that we need to explore how BIDs can work better with residents and communities, but I do not believe that legislating for a review in this Bill is the right approach. I therefore ask my noble friend to withdraw this amendment, but with my reassurance that I will take this away and consider the proposition of a government review of the BID arrangements. I would welcome further conversations with interested noble Lords to take this forward.

On Amendment 65, there is a statutory framework, and clear rules for consultation already exist in some areas, such as planning. There is also a statutory publicity code which is clear that all local authority communications must be objective and even-handed. There is support and guidance for local authorities on how they should do this. As I said, councils also carry out non-statutory consultations to allow residents to shape local decisions and plans.

I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, that this should not be a one-off; it works much better when local authorities have a good ongoing relationship and conversation with their communities. It is then much easier to deal with issues such as those my noble friend Lord Northbrook raised in Kensington and Chelsea, because it is a continuation of an ongoing conversation. I encourage all local authorities to look at how they can do that better. Greater involvement for local people can be only a good thing. We do not think it is for the Government to tell councils how to do it. Most councils know how to do it; they know what works best in their area and get on with it.

I agree with the noble Baronesses opposite that the concern over the requirement for all consultations to be carried out by third parties is that it would impose additional costs on local authorities and may encourage less consultation and engagement rather than more because they just cannot afford it. I therefore hope my noble friend will agree not to press his amendment.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

67: After Clause 78, insert the following new Clause—
“Bus companies: powers of authorities in EnglandIn the Bus Services Act 2017 omit Section 22 (Bus companies: limitation of powers of authorities in England) and insert—“22 Bus companies: empowerment of authorities in England(1) A relevant authority may form a company for the purpose of providing a local service.(2) Subsection (1) applies whether the relevant authority is acting alone or with any other person.(3) A relevant authority may request further powers in relation to local bus services, including but not limited to the franchising of local bus services and the power to consult local residents over fares, routes and funding.(4) If the Secretary of State receives a request under subsection (3), they must introduce regulations subject to affirmative procedure to transfer the powers requested.(5) The Bus Directorate in the Department for Transport has a duty to provide advice to authorities in relation to this section.(6) In this section—“company” has the same meaning as in the Companies Acts (see sections 1(1) and 2(1) of the Companies Act 2006);“form a company” is to be construed in accordance with section 7 of the Companies Act 2006;“local service” has the same meaning as in the Transport Act 1985 (see section 2 of that Act);“Passenger Transport Executive” , in relation to an integrated transport area in England or a combined authority area, means the body which is the Executive in relation to that area for the purposes of Part 2 of the Transport Act 1968;“relevant authority” means—(a) a county council in England;(b) a district council in England; (c) a combined authority established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009;(d) an Integrated Transport Authority for an integrated transport area in England;(e) a Passenger Transport Executive for—(i) an integrated transport area in England, or(ii) a combined authority area.””Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would remove the current ban on establishing new municipal bus companies and would expand the powers required to franchise bus services, which are currently only available to Combined Authorities, to all local transport authorities.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interests as declared in the register, which are that I am a serving councillor at both district and county level and a vice-president of the District Councils’ Network.

My Amendment 67 would permit local authorities which wished to do so to establish bus companies and would expand the powers that local authorities currently have to franchise bus services, which are currently available only to combined authorities. We have tabled this amendment to highlight the recommendations drawn out of the Select Committee report Public Transport in Towns and Cities and subsequent discussions of that report in your Lordships’ House in April. Fundamental to the recommendations of the report was that a firm link be established between local plans and transport plans. Our amendment would give local authorities the powers that they need to enable that link.

Last week I attended a select committee meeting in my local authority on bus provision. It was a long session in which members were keen to point out the considerable difficulties caused to our constituents by the combination of unreliable, infrequent or non-existent bus services. The Conservative county councillor who holds the cabinet responsibility for transport was open in saying that the privatisation of bus services that happened in the 1980s had not helped local authorities to ensure that there were efficient and effective bus services provided for their areas. I have no doubt that such scrutiny of bus services happens across the UK, because bus users are utterly fed up with the level of service they receive.

Your Lordships’ House recently published a very detailed report on Public Transport in Towns and Cities. During the debate on that report, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, described the Government’s performance, measured against their pledge to bring public transport up to standards in London. The Government had done:

“The brief answer is, not terribly well”.—[Official Report, 17/4/23; col. GC 147.]


He set out some mitigating factors as to why that would be the case, but surely we must all ask ourselves whether in the current circumstances, and with bus services failing passengers in so many places across the country, we can carry on with the vague expectation that eventually—they have already had four decades to do it—the private sector will start to deliver the level of service we know is needed to persuade far more people to leave their cars at home.

As Manchester has been able to go further with this than other local authorities, it was interesting to read Andy Burnham’s evidence to the Select Committee. In advocating franchising, he pointed out that his case was strengthened

“because large subsidies are being paid at the moment to various operators in the deregulated model, which in my view delivers very limited returns for the public”.

He also asked whether public operators would be allowed to take part in the franchising schemes as well. We agree that they should be able to do so.

During the debate on the report, it was pointed out, as it has been many times in this Chamber, that buses provide two-thirds of public transport trips in this country. The evidence shows that passenger numbers grow where services are of sufficient frequency and reliability to mean that passengers can just “turn up and go” without consulting a timetable. This is common practice in London but very unusual outside the capital, where sometimes the very fact a half-hourly bus has turned up at all can be subject to comments on social media. Councillors often take the brunt of these failures when services are late or cancelled at short notice or routes are taken out with no notice or consultation.

I also have to say a word about rural bus services, which are rapidly falling into extinction. Telling people who may have only one bus a day—or in some cases one bus a week—that the aim is to provide London-style bus services will most likely be greeted with derision. Some good work is being done to pilot on-demand bus services for rural areas, but these may prove too expensive for many users. Most rural users like those in towns just want to know that there will be a bus service and that buses will turn up on time.

There is such a simple solution to this, and that is to extend the powers currently granted to combined authorities, which can both establish bus companies and franchise services to meet customers’ needs, to all transport authorities. If we do not hear from the Minister that some movement has been made from the Government, I would like to test the opinion of the House on this. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, having attached my name to Amendment 67 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, I will speak briefly while noting my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, has overwhelmingly made the case for this, but I want to reflect on a number of things. She referred to the importance of reliability, and I can share her reflections on how rare that is. I was in Gloucester on Friday with Learn with the Lords and I waited for a bus—and it turned up at the time it was supposed to. I was quite shocked. It is such a rare occurrence, particularly when you are in a town that you do not know and you hope to rely on the timetable but you have no idea whether it is going to work. We cannot continue to have that situation.

Of course, that is an issue for visitors and for tourism but, overwhelmingly, it is an issue for local people. It is about reliability. I know of many people who have not been able to take jobs. We are greatly concerned at the moment about the shortage of labour supply in some areas, but you cannot take a job if you are not sure whether there is a bus or that the bus is not going to turn up reliably. You tell your employer, day after day, “Well yes, I was at the bus stop at the right time, but the bus did not turn up”. That is simply not a sustainable position.

On the idea of having local control, buses are a public service. They are essential to the operation of our communities. They should be controlled and run by local hands for the public good, not for private profit. There is no doubt. I do not believe that anyone can get up and say that the situation we have now, with buses being run for private profit, has been anything but a disaster. It is time to give back and—dare I borrow a phrase?—allow local communities to take back control of their bus services.

I can certainly assure the House that the Greens are firmly behind this amendment. I urge the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, to push it through if we do not get a strong response from the Minister because I think that, were we to hold a referendum—dare I use that word?—across the country, we would get an overwhelming win for this amendment to the levelling up Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, but I think several factors have impacted on the use of buses and the ability of local authorities to run satisfactory services. I shall certainly ensure that the point he has made is registered in the Department for Transport, and I am grateful to him.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for co-signing the amendment. She referred to the link between bus services and people’s economic activity, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred to the link with education and skills training; both are very important points. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for her support in this. She also said that the Bill gives us the opportunity to reverse the decline in bus services, and I genuinely believe that this is the quickest way to go forward with that.

It requires a deal of trust between the Government and local authorities, and on many occasions in the debates on the Bill we have had evidence to suggest that we need to demonstrate the new relationship needed between the Government and local government before we can go forward and make real progress on devolution. To me, good public transport is axiomatic with levelling up. We have to have it to make levelling up work at all.

I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his usual thorough reply, but there is clearly a disconnect between what powers the Government think they have given to local government and what local government is experiencing. The councillor I referred to was the transport portfolio holder for Hertfordshire County Council. He clearly does not think it has the powers to deal with transport in the way that he would want to. Something is clearly not right somewhere with all this. I understand the points about BSIPs and statutory enhanced partnerships, but it seems that the powers are conditional on approval from the Government, and we would like a relationship of trust in which these powers are given to any council transport authority that wishes to have them.

The noble Lord mentioned the important issue of fares. Funding comes into this, of course. The cuts to rural services bus grants, for example, make the provision of bus services in those areas very difficult.

For all those reasons, I am not convinced that we have a clear link to local authorities setting up their own bus companies or franchising services themselves, so I would like to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I hoped we were hearing the voice of future generations up in the Gallery when the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, was speaking. Perhaps they were reminding us to think about affordable housing. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said that affordable housing was at the heart of some of this debate, and that is certainly the view of our Benches.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, set out the issues relating to the infrastructure levy that are causing such great concern across the sector. As she mentioned, this has resulted in an unprecedented step in my time in local government, with over 30 key organisations writing jointly to the Secretary of State to set out their concerns. They are united in saying that the introduction of the infrastructure levy could

“make it harder, not easier, for local leaders and communities to secure the benefits of new development”.

They point to the developer contributions that are being generated by the community infrastructure levy and Section 106 systems, which generated £7 billion in 2018-19 to support housing, infrastructure and services. I share their concerns that this new levy has the potential to reduce this amount.

I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the discussions that we have already had in Committee, but these views have been expressed by powerful bodies in our sector. His points about the design of the system are well made, but that should have been considered before the Bill came to the House. Points from the noble Lord, Lord Young, about trying to operate this discussion on a key part of the Bill in a vacuum are also well made.

The main concern of the organisations that wrote to the Secretary of State is the potential for this reform to

“leave communities with fewer new social and affordable homes, mixed and balanced developments and less of the infrastructure they need”.

They fear that the “upheaval” of introducing a new system would build delays and uncertainty into the planning system at a time when there is an urgent need to deliver affordable housing quickly, and that CIL and Section 106 would

“not be improved by these reforms”

and would need to be managed alongside the new levy. They welcome the principle of allowing authorities to borrow against developer contributions, but point out that the financial risk of doing so, when the final assessed amounts are “uncertain”, would probably be too great for local government finance officers.

In addition to the risks flagged by these key representatives of the sector, it is not yet clear what impact the infrastructure levy will have on permitted development. At present, developers engaging in permitted development make little, if any, contribution to infra- structure, in particular to affordable housing. This anomaly also needs to be resolved in any new infrastructure levy system.

I am grateful to many of the organisations that signed that letter which have also been kind enough to send us briefing material, and to the office of the Mayor of London, which has provided us with very strong evidence about the potential detrimental impact this would have on building more affordable housing in London. Its figures suggest that, had the levy been in place over the last five years, it would have resulted in between 4,500 and 10,000 fewer affordable homes, and could have made up to 30,000 homes of all tenures unviable.

We completely understand the need to ensure that developments provide the infrastructure to support them, but this proposed new levy adds layers of complexity, because it is being grafted on to an already complex system. The money that developers will have to pay to support transport, schools, health centres, open and play space, and, critically, affordable housing will be calculated once a project is complete instead of at the planning stage, as it is currently. This has resulted in concerns that the funding will be delayed or, potentially, lost altogether. The charging system will be complex and labour-intensive, putting further pressures on the local authority planning departments that we know are already at breaking point.

The reply to the organisations that wrote to the Secretary of State from the Minister responsible, Rachel Maclean, said that she would be looking at the issues they raised in detail and would be organising a round table very shortly. I believe that round table may have taken place in very recent days. However, as the sector has been raising these concerns since the infrastructure levy was first mooted, it is a shame the round table did not take place many months ago.

We accept that the Government have made some concessions on the infrastructure levy clauses, but they do not meet the basic challenge of explaining to the sector just how this new proposal will deliver more resources more effectively than the current system. For that reason, if the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, wishes to test the opinion of the House on her amendment, she will have our support. We understand that Amendment 90 is consequential to Amendment 68.

Turning to other amendments in this group, we hope the Government recognise the importance of the infrastructure levy supporting the delivery of the levelling- up missions. Our concern all through the passage of the Bill has been what mechanisms there are to link the missions to planning, funding and the infrastructure levy. My Amendment 69 to Schedule 12 is intended to address this, as well as ensuring that there is a commitment to the infrastructure levy being shared between tiers of local government in non-unitary areas.

My Amendment 70A wound enshrine in the Bill that the application of the infrastructure levy is optional. I am very grateful, as others have said, to the Minister for the many discussions we have had in relation to the Bill, in particular this part of it. I believe, and hope she will confirm, that it is the Government’s intention that infrastructure levies should be optional, and that government Amendment 82 enshrines this in the Bill.

Amendment 71, in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Young, and my Amendment 71A have similar intentions of ensuring that the level of affordable housing funded by developers in the local authority area will meet the needs of that area as set out in the local development plan. I referred to the critical links that need to be built between planning and the infrastructure levy earlier on. When it comes to affordable housing, this is absolutely essential. We recognise the very significant concessions the Government have made on affordable housing, so, rather than pushing Amendment 71A to a vote, perhaps we can have further discussions before the planning and housing sections of the Bill to build that link between the provision of affordable housing through the infrastructure levy and the local plan.

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, gave clear evidence of the principle behind the current definition of affordable housing. We agree that the current definition is wholly deficient, as much of the housing included in it is absolutely not affordable to many of those in desperate need of housing. We feel that the Government should take an inclusive approach to developing a new definition by working with the sector and housing charities to reach an agreed, appropriate definition of affordable housing. We would support the proposal in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that a link with the median income in the relevant local planning area would be a good starting point for this definition.

As mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Best, we are very grateful to the Minister for tightening up the wording she introduces in Amendments 72, 73 and 75 to ensure that developers must now “seek to ensure” the affordable housing funding level is maintained. We are also grateful for her clarification in Amendment 74 that funding of affordable housing is to be provided in the charging authority’s area and, in Amendment 79, that charging authorities can require on-site provision of affordable housing through the infrastructure levy. We believe this change will encourage the development of mixed housing and hopefully mixed tenure communities, which have proved over time to be far more sustainable and successful.

We are also pleased to see government Amendment 80, which requires a report to be laid before Parliament on the impact that the infrastructure levy is having on the provision of affordable housing. It perhaps does not go as far as our Amendment 81, which would have made provision for a new levy to be introduced where IL was shown not to be successful, but we recognise that the Minister has listened to our concerns and we hope that placing a report before Parliament on the success, or otherwise, of IL will encourage further thinking if it is shown not to be delivering.

We have some concerns, which we have shared with the Minister, in relation to Amendment 76 on the thorny issue of viability. Our concern is that this clause, which allows the infrastructure levy to be disapplied where the charging authority considers the application of the levy, including its provision for affordable housing, would make the development unviable. The process of negotiation on infrastructure contributions between local planning authorities and developers can be very long and complex, especially when major developments are involved. We would not want to see any further pressure being put on local authorities in that negotiation process by having this clause dangled in front of them as an incentive for developers to proceed. It has been hard enough in the existing system to resist the weight of financial and legal expertise that the developers have put into these discussions, as mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Young. We do not want to give them another weapon in their armoury—we do not think that is necessary.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young, for setting out the potentially devastating impact the viability get-out clause can have on affordable housing. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred to the inclusion of contingencies in that viability calculation. When you start to pick apart that contingency—I have done it—it is very interesting to see what sits underneath it, which is often some very wild assumptions in my experience. I am sure that that is not always the case, but it can be.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is right to flag up in his Amendment 77 the question of the relationship between Section 106 contributions, which have been most effective in securing affordable housing through planning contributions, and the infrastructure levy. Lastly, we welcome the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, which would require a response to the technical consultation on the infrastructure levy before it comes into force.

In summary, we feel that an opportunity has been missed by introducing IL to be grafted on to an already complex system instead of using this Bill for a new, simplified and comprehensive approach to the provision of infrastructure developed with and for the sector, and with an implementation plan to smooth the transition so that it would not disrupt local authorities from the urgent work of solving the housing crisis. However, I once again thank the Minister for the amount of her time she has given to meet noble Lords on this subject and for the amendments that have subsequently come forward. It is the best of this House that the expertise we have here is used to improve legislation, and I am sure today’s debates are a good example of that.

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

My Lords, Amendments 68 and 90, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, seek to remove the provisions in the Bill which provide the imposition of the new infrastructure levy in England. I regret that these amendments have been proposed, but I recognise the need for serious and open debate on this subject.

We covered the shortcomings of the existing system of developer contributions at length in Committee. There is a clear case for reform. Since 2010, average new-build house prices have risen by more than £250,000, and land prices have also risen substantially. This increase in value must be captured within the levy system, allowing for more local benefit, but we recognise the need to get these significant reforms right. That is why I can commit to the House today that the Government will undertake a further consultation on fundamental design choices before developing infrastructure levy regulations. Through further consultation and engagement, and the test-and-learn approach, which we discussed in detail in Committee, we will seek to ensure that the levy achieves its aims and that it is implemented carefully. I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, will feel able to withdraw Amendment 68 and will not press Amendment 90.

My noble friend Lord Lansley has tabled Amendments 311 and 312, which seek to prevent the introduction of the infrastructure levy until the Government have published proposals for its implementation. I know that my noble friend has formally responded to the recently concluded technical consultation, which we are carefully reviewing. I can confirm that we will not commence the levy provisions in Part 4 until we have responded to that further round of consultation. The regulations themselves will be consulted on in future as well. I hope my noble friend Lord Lansley is therefore content not to press his Amendments 311 and 312. I assure him that he is correct: there is scope in the Bill for us to vary the approach set out in the technical consultation, and I reiterate that, if we do that, we will be consulting further.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, we find that we form some unusual alliances in your Lordships’ House, especially in relation to protecting our environment. On this topic, I was very happy to put my name to Amendment 102 in the names of the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. The reason I did that was that I am lucky enough to have spent my life living in the wonderful county of Hertfordshire. For those of you who are not aware, Hertfordshire contains over 20% of the world’s unique and special, natural and precious chalk streams. The noble Viscount has already explained that this country is the custodian of the vast majority of this precious natural resource—more than 85%. To have 20% of that in my county is a real reason for doing all that I can to ensure that they are protected.

From the Rivers Chess and Colne in the west of Hertfordshire and the River Beane, which runs alongside my town, to the Rivers Lea, Stort and Ash in the south and east of the county, along with many others, we are blessed with what should be vital water resources, providing habitats for a huge diversity of species, from damselfly to salmon. Sadly, as we have heard, they are under increasing pressure from overextraction and pollution and, while progress is being made through the catchment-based approach mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, they are still struggling and under pressure. We need to improve their health and focus on that through the chalk stream strategy. There is still much more to be done.

I am most grateful to the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, which does so much work in this area and has been incredibly helpful in providing information for me. Our precious monuments and ancient buildings have huge protection in the planning system through the mechanism of listing, but we do not seem to take these precious natural resources as seriously in this regard. I support the aims of the amendment in attempting to do that by ensuring that any development in the area of chalk streams explicitly considers the impact on them and sets out what mitigations will be needed. If our chalk streams were buildings, they would be UNESCO heritage sites. Let us protect them as though they were.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

One of the problems that I raised during our debate on 18 May in Committee was the problem of surface water run-off from farms and roads, which was causing problems for our rivers. I am extremely grateful to and would like to thank my noble friend the Minister for the letter that he sent me on 23 June, in which he commented a bit more on the points that I raised. The interesting thing about that letter was his comment on the surface run-off from roads. He said that Defra was

“working with the Department for Transport to reduce the impact of the strategic road network and roads managed by local highways authorities on water bodies”.

It just shows what an important cross-government issue this is.

The difficulty that my noble friend has is that he has to work at one remove from the local authorities. The reason I stress the local authorities is that the next day, on 19 May, I was on the River Piddle, a lovely chalk stream, and at 3.30 pm the river was gin clear—it was what a chalk stream should be. We had quite a good thunderstorm and within an hour that river was chocolate brown; it was full of silt and run-off, and the roads were under water. There was run-off from the farmland adjacent to the river—the whole aquatic environment of the river was affected by that thunder- storm; it was a short-term disaster for the river, created by human behaviour. Something similar happened to us humans when we had the smog in the early 1950s. We tackled that problem; it was a manmade problem and we tackled it with the Clean Air Act. It is equally important that we now tackle the problems facing our rivers. It will take a major effort by the Government and across government to do that.

All our rivers are important, but why are the chalk streams just that bit more important? It is worth reiterating that 85% of the world’s chalk streams are in England; they are our equivalent of the rainforests. We have a special responsibility to those rivers, and if we do not give a lead to the rest of the world on such an important issue, we will not be doing nature justice.

There are three key indicators of the ecological health of rivers: water quality, water quantity and the physical habitat. The key to getting all of those right is management. The Government will need every single tool in the toolbox and every policy to be able to take the necessary action to fight off the vested challenges from all quarters that they will need to do to establish chalk streams to the standard that we expect and fulfil the one big wish, so rightly mentioned by my noble friend Lord Trenchard.

The Bill is about regenerative action and levelling up, and it is intended to give places a sense of identity. As my noble friend Lord Trenchard said, many of the rivers flow through towns as well as the countryside. The restoration of the rivers could bring huge opportunities and benefits to those towns and to the countryside for both nature and humans. If we do not take this opportunity, we will be letting nature and ourselves down.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, my intervention on this subject will be brief. I did not speak on development corporations in Committee, but I have been following the subject very carefully. In response to this very short debate, or perhaps more appropriately in a subsequent letter, might my noble friend explain to us a little more about how the various forms of development corporations are intended to be deployed?

As far as I can see, in addition to the mayoral development corporations—which are not much affected by this Bill—we will continue to have scope for urban development corporations initiated by the Secretary of State, we will continue to have scope for new town development corporations initiated by the Secretary and we will have locally led urban development corporations and locally led new town development corporations that may be established at the initiative of local authorities under this Bill. By my count, we have five different forms of development corporations.

There is a certain amount of speculation about under what circumstances, in what areas and for what purposes these development corporations may be deployed, and about the Government’s intentions. It would be reassuring to many to hear from the Government about that, and in particular about their presumption that they would proceed, particularly for new towns and new development corporations, by reference to those that are locally led and arise from local authority proposals, as distinct from continuing to use the powers for the Secretary of State to designate an area and introduce a development corporation at his or her own initiative. It would be jolly helpful to have more flesh on the bones of what these various development corporations look like and how they will be deployed by government.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, those who have heard me speak in this Chamber will know that I am a great fan of development corporations, having grown up in a town that, apart from our historic old town, was created and, for the most part, built by Stevenage Development Corporation. At that time, the innovation of development corporations took a great deal of debate in Parliament to initiate, and we have hopefully moved on a bit towards devolution since the middle of the last century.

If there is to be parliamentary scrutiny of the establishment of development corporations, it is absolutely right that it should be done by the affirmative procedure, so we welcome the movement on that in Amendments 146 and 147, to ensure that the establishment of locally led urban and new town development corporations is drawn to the attention of both Houses, in the same way as those that are not locally led.

We hope that it will be the intention of government to scrutinise only the technical aspects of governance, for example, as it would be entirely against the principles of devolution that the Bill sets out to promote for any Government to effectively have a veto on whether proposals for a development corporation go ahead. During the passage of the Bill, we have talked about a new relationship of mutual trust between local and central government, and we hope that such parliamentary scrutiny will not be used to undermine that.

I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the importance of determining the nature of parliamentary involvement in different types of development corporation. Of course, we would have concern about Parliament intending to have a veto on the locally led ones. The other amendments in this group are consequential on the Minister’s previous amendment on page 195. We look forward to her comments about the points raised.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that, yes, locally led development corporations will come from local authorities—they will put them forward.

My noble friend Lord Lansley brought up the different forms of development corporations. Rather than standing here and taking time, I would prefer to write to him and copy everybody in. I suggest that we might have a small group meeting about this when we come back in September so that any questions can be asked. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, for her support for these amendments.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for this group of amendments, which largely—not entirely—relate to the rights and responsibilities of Senedd Cymru. Throughout the Bill the Government have had to bring back, as amendments, changes to it to reflect the devolution rights and responsibilities of both the Scottish Government and the Senedd Cymru.

It strikes me as unfortunate that, even 10 years or more after devolution has become fully developed, the Government are still unable to understand that different nations of the UK have particular rights and responsibilities. They are unable to appreciate that or to understand the extent of those rights and responsibilities. It would be good to know that the lesson has reached the distant parts of the Government and that we will have no more of these hasty amendments to put right government legislation impinging on the rights of the devolved nations. Would it not be great if the Minister could give us that assurance?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, this group brings up to date the provisions in the Bill so that they are appropriately applied to Wales. It also updates the list of types of compulsory purchase that can be made, subject to common data standards—we accept that this is important. We have had much discussion about the issues of hope value during the passage of the Bill, and it is therefore absolutely right that the Minister responded to Senedd Cymru’s request to make that apply in Wales as well.

I associate this side of the House with the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. It would be helpful if these types of provisions could be consulted on with the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish Administrations before they come before this House. But I am grateful to the Minister for listening to the Welsh Senedd’s request, and we are pleased to see these amendments coming forward today.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I thank the noble Baronesses for their input. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that we understand the devolved authorities’ rights and responsibilities, but, as always, there is negotiation on any legislation that we put through which may affect them. The Government and the Welsh Government did not reach a settled position on the CPO powers until after the Lords Committee stage had concluded. As these things are complex, our devolved authorities also need time to discuss and make decisions. I can assure the noble Baroness that we are working closely with them all the time.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

163: After Clause 202, insert the following new Clause—
“Support for pubsWithin 120 days of the day on which this Act is passed, a Minister of the Crown must publish a strategy to support the pub industry and reduce the number of pubs closing.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is intended to help support the pub industry.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I might take a little longer over this set of amendments. Our Amendment 163 addresses the severe impact that the cost of living crisis has had on the pub industry in the UK and asks that Ministers address it with a strategy to support this trade, which has such a unique and special place in the culture of our country.

The number of pubs in England and Wales continues to fall, hitting its lowest level on record. According to new research by the Altus Group, there were 39,970 pubs in June, down by more than 7,000 since 2012. After struggling through Covid, when it received welcome support from the Government, the industry is now facing soaring prices and higher energy costs. Over the past decade, thousands of pubs have closed as younger people tend to drink less—they do not all drink less; they tend to—supermarkets sell cheaper alcohol and the industry complains of being too heavily taxed. According to Altus, 400 pubs in England and Wales closed in 2021 and some 200 shut in the first half of 2022 as inflation started to eat into their profits. That brought the total number of pubs down to its lowest since its records began in 2005.

My noble friend Lady Hayman, who, sadly, cannot be in her place today, drew to the attention of the Minister during debates on the Non-Domestic Rating Bill concerns from the British Beer & Pub Association about the proposals for improvement relief. That is because pubs that are not directly owned and managed by the ratepayer—namely, those in tied or leased arrangements, which are apparently around 30% of UK pubs—become a much less attractive proposition for investment, as improvement relief can be guaranteed only on directly managed pubs. We urge Ministers to take this seriously and consider working with the pub industry to develop a strategy to support it in the medium and long term.

All the amendments in this group draw attention to some of the serious issues facing our high streets and, importantly, to the negative contribution that the current business rates system makes to those problems. I am very aware of proposals in the Non-Domestic Rating Bill currently making its way through the Lordships’ House, but while we welcome many of them, they do not go far enough. We see that Bill as merely tinkering at the edges of an outmoded and outdated system. During my many years on the Local Government Association’s resources board, successive attempts have been made to encourage government to get to grips with both a fair funding review and a comprehensive review of the non-domestic rating system. Unfortunately, the Non-Domestic Rating Bill does not do that, and even the measures it does contain bring concerns about the capacity of the VOA to enact them. It is a huge missed opportunity.

I was very grateful to the Minister for providing me and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, with an extensive briefing on the Non-Domestic Rating Bill. During it, she pointed out that consultation had not resulted in a call for major reform of the business rates system. I looked at the detail of the consultation and it was, as government consultations often are, a technical consultation framed around government’s questions relating to the existing system, on matters such as transparency of the VOA, penalties for non-compliance, transition to online services, changes of circumstance, improvement reliefs, valuations, the multiplier, local discretionary relief, et cetera. What it absolutely did not do was encourage wider comment on whether the business rates system was fit for purpose in the first place.

The Local Government Association published its response to government proposals. It welcomed some of them, but it said:

“The LGA will continue to argue for a sustainable local government finance system which conforms to the principles we submitted in our submission to the Business Rates Review; sufficiency, buoyancy, fairness, efficiency of collection, predictability, transparency and incentive. We published commissioned work examining alternatives for reform in January 2022. Only with adequate long-term resources, certainty and freedoms, can councils deliver world-class local services for our communities, tackle the climate emergency, and level up all parts of the country”.


We firmly believe that there is a case for further reform of the business rates system. Our Amendment 273A and that in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, Amendment 282D, ask that the Secretary of State consider again the issue of non-domestic rates and the contribution they can make to levelling up and regeneration.

The major example I would give is that the Non-Domestic Rating Bill does nothing to address the very unfair advantage currently enjoyed by online businesses as compared to our high street businesses. The Centre for Retail Research found that 17,000 shops closed last year—that is 47 shops a day, the highest annual total in five years. More than 5% of retail staff lost their jobs last year and hospitality suffered a similar fate. Not all those failures are because of business rates, of course, but I am sure they are a contributing factor.

High streets have been hit hard and are increasingly run down, with hard-working business owners having to accept defeat in the face of impossible financial difficulties. While crisis relief was made available during the pandemic, there does not seem to be a long-term strategy to address the issues that businesses are facing, which will be critical to ensuring that every town or neighbourhood centre in the UK has the opportunities it needs to regenerate and level up.

Labour has a clear plan to scrap business rates and bring in wide-reaching reforms to even out the playing field, but we are still not clear about what the Government’s long-term plan for business taxation will be. The threshold for rates relief for small businesses is still too low, and online giants are still not paying their fair share of taxes, with a digital service tax not high on the agenda—as far as we can see, it still sits in the “too difficult” box. How can we say to our communities that high street shops such as Marks & Spencer—known, valued local businesses—are paying more in tax than online giants such as Amazon? That is not levelling the playing field. Each loss of a much-loved store, pub, bank, post office or leisure facility is felt by our communities like a kick in the teeth, and worse than that is the feeling of helplessness that the Government are standing by and watching this happen.

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I reassure noble Lords that the amendment is entirely unnecessary. A review has only recently concluded, and the Government remain committed to delivering on the conclusions of that review. We have already taken the first steps towards that and are delivering on our further commitments through the Non-Domestic Rating Bill. I understand why noble Lords have raised their amendments, but I hope that I have provided assurance that the concerns underpinning the two amendments are already being addressed through the changes the Government are delivering to the business rates system, through both legislation and the generous and wide-ranging support that we have made available to ratepayers. I therefore ask the noble Baronesses not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the very detailed and thorough response from the Minister, as ever. I thank her for her comments on the Hospitality Sector Council. I have a question for her, to which I am happy to receive a response in writing: were the views of the Hospitality Sector Council on the non-domestic rates taken into account in the drafting of both this Bill and the Non-Domestic Rating Bill before your Lordships’ House?

I turn to the issue of regional mutual banks. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, is not in his place, because he has been a very good champion of this sector. It would be a big step forward for levelling up and regeneration to have those banks, which would work with local government and local communities on the economy of local areas.

I point out that, through the work I have been doing with both the Co-operative Party and the Co-operative Councils’ Innovation Network, I know that regional mutual banks are already being delivered in Wales with the support of the Welsh Government, but in England there are still considerable barriers and hurdles to overcome. My colleagues in Preston have been engaging with this process, but it is highly complex.

We appreciate that financial security is paramount in the development of a regional banking sector, and we are very pleased to hear that that sector has the Government’s support, but we need to work as quickly as we can to overcome the barriers to that. We genuinely believe that, without a switch from the centralised banking system that we have in this country to a much more regional sector, we will not be able to reach the full potential of local areas.

On the issues with the business rates review, I have pointed out the technical nature of that consultation process and the concerns we still have about the resources needed to enact the provisions of the Non-Domestic Rating Bill, particularly in relation to the Valuation Office Agency. There are still concerns around the appeals process, which takes far too long and can leave both businesses and local councils hanging on for years, in some cases, while appeals are settled.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, was right to raise the issues of tariffs and top-ups, which are not very efficient at making sure that the funding from non-domestic rates gets to where it needs to go. They are not structured enough to ensure that, where you have poorer parts of better-off areas, the funding gets to where it needs to go.

We note that many concessions on business rates are coming forward in the Non-Domestic Rating Bill, which we welcome, but changes to the multiplier are giving cause for concern; it is no good giving businesses concessions with one hand and then taking them away with the other. Our fear is that if there is not a radical and different approach to both fair funding and the business rates system, it will be more difficult to achieve levelling up or regeneration. That said, I am happy to withdraw my amendment at this stage.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has raised a very important point about the effectiveness of a plan-led system if local plans are not up to date. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, has enhanced that argument by saying that people need to know where they are. If this is only in guidance, but we require there to be local plans—as we do in a plan-led system—why is it not incorporated in statute? I hope the Minister will answer this question.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has raised a fundamental issue. Local plans are at the very heart of a plan-led system. As well as setting out local planning policies, the local plan allocates land for new housing developments; it allocates land for business development, thereby allocating land for jobs; and it allocates land to be protected, such as the green-belt land allocation.

If local authorities are not preparing, or do not have, an up-to-date local plan, then land is not being allocated for development. We will later have debates about housing targets, but one of my concerns about housing targets is that, if local authorities do not have an up to date local plan, land is not being allocated or set aside for housing development. If land is not being set aside for housing development, it is very likely that new houses are not going to be built.

The government website helpfully has an alphabetical list of authorities and the status of their local plans—although it is unhelpful in being able to look at them more carefully. The vast majority do not have an up-to-date local plan. In fact, one or two on the list do not appear to have updated their local plan for several years. What that tells me is that, currently, the expectation is that local authorities will develop a local plan and have it agreed, with a full review after five years. Helpfully, my own authority is not one of those that does not have an up-to-date plan, and it is currently beginning a review a year ahead of expectation.

If land is not allocated for housing, how on earth do we expect housebuilding to take place? I hope the Minister will be able to help me with this, because some time ago in a previous debate on this, I thought I recalled the Minister stating that a five-year supply of land will no longer be a requirement and will be waived by the Government. As I understand it, at the moment that is the only stick to encourage—or force, even—local authorities to allocate land for housing in a local plan. Currently, although it may be waived—and I am waiting for the Minister to respond to that—as I understand it, if a local authority does not have a sufficient supply of land for a five-year allocation according to government housing targets, then developers can choose where to develop. It is open season for housebuilding. If that one stick is being waived—and I hope I have remembered that correctly—then I would like to hear from the Minister on how they will encourage local authorities to have up-to-date plans, because without them, I do not see how we will meet housebuilding targets.

The issues that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, raised, are fundamental. When he replies, will he say whether he wishes to test the opinion of the House on this? Without an up-to-date plan, all the Government’s housing targets approach—which my party does not necessarily agree with—comes to nothing. Only the authorities that do the right thing, having difficult discussions with communities about allocating land for housing and other development, will supply the houses that need to be built. Everyone across parties accepts the importance of building more houses; how we get there is the issue. However, I would love to hear from the Minister how that will be enforced without an up-to-date local plan. If the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, in responding wishes to push this further, we will support him.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, it is good to be back in your Lordships’ House. I remind the House of my interests as a serving councillor on both a district and a county council, and as a vice-president of the District Councils’ Network. I say for the record that, in spite of the considerable difficulties in doing so, not least the local MP calling our local plan in and it sitting on the Secretary of State’s desk for 451 days, my local authority has an up-to-date local plan.

During my several recent visits to Mid Bedfordshire—for reasons of which many Members of this House will be aware—it has become clear that the public are becoming increasingly aware of the key role that the planning system plays in determining the future of their area. This is very healthy, and I hope it will continue. That makes it even more important that local plans are up to date and meeting the current challenges of local areas and their communities. The importance and precedence of local plans within the new planning system envisaged in the Bill will be even more diminished where local authorities do not take responsibility for updating their local plans seriously. The figures we heard in Committee, that only 39% of local authorities have an up-to-date plan in place, and that there are around 60 local planning authorities whose plans are paused or stalled, already expose those areas to developers who want to take advantage of the absence of clear local direction. They are destined under the new regime in the Bill to see the views of local people overridden by NDMPs and other government direction. Our fear is that this will just reduce the incentive for local government to keep its plans up to date.

We have also seen that, in order to keep pace with rapid changes to local economies, it is vital that local authorities work with their business community to ensure that their local development plan is up to date and fit for purpose for that reason, as well as due to all the issues around land use.

The CPRE’s review of the impact of local plans led to its conclusion that

“the government needs to give councils more support and consider how to redefine the test for plans being ‘up-to-date’ in order to reinvigorate democratically accountable locally-led planning”.

For fear of misinterpretation, this does not mean the kind of centralisation of plans we see via proposed NDMPs or removing the powers to higher tiers, which we see in a government amendment that will be debated later today. Those options simply remove the connection between the local plan and engagement in its development by local people and communities.

I agree with and support all the comments that were made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the weight that is given to out-of-date and emerging plans. They need to have that statutory weight, and that needs to apply to all plans that are considered. On recent issues, the development industry, for example—the noble Lord, Lord Deben, mentioned this—has been very keen to stress the importance of it having more certainty in the planning system. Therefore, without clarifying even this element of plan making, about what is out of date and what is not, we leave the “how long is a piece of string” theory in place, which will hold sway in planning. Placing all these matters into guidance, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said, does not give Parliament any role in this; on many occasions recently we have seen what happens when that occurs.

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, mentioned that the uncertainty about the weight placed on an out-of-date or emerging plan, how out of date it has to be before it is actually out of date, and what a judge is going to say is and is not out of date, damages confidence in and the coherence of our planning system. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, referred to the huge need for people to know where they are, and I could not agree more. If we think we are going to do it anyway, what is the harm putting it in the Bill so that we can all refer back to it? I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for talking about effectiveness of a plan-led system and the impact that out-of-date plans can have on the delivery of housing targets and the amount of housing needed in local areas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, way back in March, when we had our lengthy discussions on the planning section of the Bill, we explained that although our amendments necessarily covered the detail of the various clauses, there was huge concern in local government about some of the fundamental principles that underlie the proposed changes in the Bill.

We must ensure that local plans, with the input of local people and democratically elected representatives, retain their primacy over anything that is drawn up centrally in Whitehall. Now that we are on Report, I feel that the amendments in this group reflect that these concerns remain and that the issues we raised in Committee have still not been resolved.

The amendment tabled by the Minister, in relation to determining matters under planning law in accordance with the development plan and any national development management policies, taken together, do nothing to reassure those of us whose concern was about how conflict between national and local policy will be resolved. Therefore, we have tabled Amendment 186 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, which asks for consideration of which policy has been most recently adopted, approved and published, what liaison has taken place with local authorities, the importance of adequate housing supply and the protection of the natural environment. In all those areas, it is vital that the latest information and data should take precedence over policies which may be years out of date. I reiterate the ongoing concerns of the Local Government Association in this regard that

“in reality, local plans will be constrained in the event that they conflict with National Development Management Policies, in which case the latter will take precedence. We have previously sought an amendment to reverse this proposal so that local plans will take precedence in the event of conflict. This is critical to ensure that that one of the key principles of the planning reforms—‘a genuinely plan-led system’—is enshrined in the Bill”.

Amendment 188 in my name reflects our continued concern that the relative weight of various key planning documents and guidance, when taken into consideration with the centrally determined NDMPs, is still not clear enough. When we discussed this in Committee, the NPPF was still out for consultation, but that does not alter the fact that the whole sector must have some clarity before the Bill completes its progress.

In the Minister’s explanation in March, in which she gave the rationale to introduce NDMPs, she stated:

“It will help local authorities produce swifter, slimmer plans by removing the need to set out generic issues of national importance”.


She just repeated that statement in the last group. In Committee, she continued:

“It will make those plans more locally relevant and easier for communities and other users to digest and to get involved in developing, through consultation and communications with local communities”.—[Official Report, 22/3/23; col. 1839.]


However, if local authorities do not have the clarity they need about what lies in the hands of their locally elected members working in consultation with the public and what is determined nationally, the whole system could quickly be mired in conflict and litigation.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly, having attached my name to Amendment 192 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. The case has comprehensively been made by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, so I shall be extremely brief. I note that representations from the County Councils Network over the recess led me to attach my name to this amendment, because I thought that it too comprehensively made the case. At this point, I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and the NALC.

I wanted to make a link to some of our earlier debates before the dinner break. In the last group, we were focusing on the need to tackle the problems of unhealthy communities and making communities healthier, and the mood all around your Lordships’ House was very clear, including from Government Benches and even the Front Bench. Of course, health is a county council responsibility. We talked about part of that being walking and cycling networks, for example, and about things being joined up. We also talked very much, in an earlier group, about the need for planning to consider the climate emergency and nature crisis. Local nature recovery networks are very much a growing area that needs to be absolutely joined up.

It is worth saying that this is not a political amendment; it is an attempt to make things work, to make this Bill hang together and to make sure that it works for local communities. I join others in very much hoping that we will get a positive message from the Minister.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, remember the days of the regional spatial strategies, and long debates in EELGA over housing numbers particularly. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, I did not celebrate when they got the kibosh, because I thought that there was a lot of good in them—particularly in meeting the housing needs in the east of England but also on the economic development side, which was as important. A great deal of very good work was done in pulling together data and information for the whole region, in order to look at where and how best to develop particular clusters and where they would work well. So there was a lot of merit in that very strategic-level thinking.

It has moved on a bit since the days of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, in Hertfordshire, with the Hertfordshire Growth Board looking at issues outside the remit of the straightforward local planning authority. For example, there is the mass rapid transit system that south and south-west Hertfordshire was looking at, which covers a number of different local authorities. Then, there is working with the local enterprise partnerships, as we did on the Hertfordshire Growth Board. There was a clear drive towards the consideration of travel-to-work areas, which was why I spoke so strongly in favour when we discussed this issue before.

I am convinced that we need to work jointly, with joint authorities, involving them in particular in the early stages, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said. It is no good waiting until a draft strategy has been produced and, if there is a major game-changer in there, expecting local authorities to pick it apart and change it. It is much better for them to be engaged and involved from the very start.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, mentioned government Amendment 201B, which we will debate on Wednesday, which will allow combined authorities to take on planning powers. I am not going to start the whole discussion now, but we were very concerned about this. We will have a debate about it, but it seems like a very slippery slope indeed. It is far better to include local authorities and all the component parts that make up the combined authority and their neighbours in the discussion from the early days of the joint spatial development strategy.

I absolutely support the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, on the inclusion of districts and councils in a very real way in the decision-making on JSDSs. I think it emphasises the points we made in earlier debates, in Committee and on Report, about the importance of the full membership of combined authorities—for both tiers in two-tier areas. Those organisations are then involved right from the start, and they have a democratic mandate to be so involved.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, made the important point that there are elements that will be included in joint spatial development strategies that do not stop at boundaries, and so it is very important that we work across those boundaries on such things as climate change, healthy homes, sustainable transport and biodiversity. All those things do not come to an end when you get to the end of your local plan area, so we all need to work together on how we tackle those key issues.

We are very supportive of the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. I am interested to hear the Minister’s answer as to whether the part of the schedule that covers this would stretch to make sure that this very important early-stage consultation could be included as a requirement within the Bill.

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

My Lords, let me first say that the aim of Amendment 192 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lansley is sensible and I understand its intention. Other authorities, such as county councils, will be essential for a successful plan, given that they are responsible for delivering a range of critical services such as highways and transport, flood risk management and waste management. Of course, county councils will also have the role of a statutory consultee for the joint spatial development strategies.

We expect engagement with other authorities to be typical good practice for any group of local planning authorities preparing a joint spatial development strategy—an SDS. Indeed, it would appear unlikely that any joint SDS that did not engage appropriately with other local government bodies could be found sound at examination. Let me make it clear that county councils are going to play an important role in the plan-making process. We envisage them not just as consultees but as being closely involved with the day-to-day production of any joint SDS. The Government have set out our intention to introduce an alignment policy via the National Planning Policy Framework to address cross-boundary and strategic issues such as travel to work areas, and this policy will be consulted on in due course.

Both my noble friend Lord Lansley and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, brought up the government amendments in the next group. Just to make it clear, Schedule 4 amendments will mean that combined county authorities will be in the same position that the Mayor of London and county councils and combined authorities are in currently in relation to the ability of the Secretary of State to invite those bodies to take over plan-making, but where a constituent planning authority is failing in its plan-making activities. It is not that they can just walk in and take over, but if the local plan is not being delivered by the planning authority then they have the right to ask the Secretary of State if they can take it over. I just wanted to make that clear, but I am sure we will have the discussion again on Wednesday.

My noble friend brought up the Secretary of State’s powers in relation to the role of county councils. I do not know that, legally. I will make sure that I find out tomorrow and I will write to my noble friend and send a copy to those in the Chamber tonight.

I am not convinced that this amendment is needed to make local planning authorities work with other authorities, notably county councils, on joint SDSs. I hope that my noble friend Lord Lansley feels he is able to withdraw his amendment at this stage.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has done a tremendously good forensic job of disclosing the fact that there is an omission—possibly accidental—connecting the whole planning process as far as non-domestic strategic direction is concerned. I look forward to the Minister’s explanation for that and perhaps to her coming back with a correction at a later stage.

The Liberal Democrats will certainly support the noble Lord, Lord Best, if he puts his proposition to the House. There is no doubt at all that it is absolutely necessary to tackle the severe problem of the lack of affordability in the rented sector. It is understood clearly by all that developing the social rented sector is the way to go—this surely must be taken into account in all plan-making. The noble Lord made a valid point about those who are homeless. This is a rising number of people and there is a reluctance among many local authorities to undertake the formidable task of dealing with the circumstances that they face.

Certainly, the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and my noble friends Lady Randerson and Lady Pinnock about active travel are important. I await the Minister agreeing that the connection on this between policy and the NPPF, and between policy and plan-making, needs to be corrected in the direction that this amendment sets out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Young and the noble Lord, Lord Best —he is also my noble friend in this context—for introducing Amendment 195 so very well.

I want to add my threepennyworth in relation to not only Amendment 195 but Amendment 196; one might think of them as a package. They would require local planning authorities to meet or exceed the Government’s housing target—in so far as the Government have a housing target; we have debated the figure of 300,000, which is what the Government tell us their target is, but it could of course be different if they chose a different target because of their assessment of the demographic and other requirements—and to do this by reference to the standard method. I emphasise that this means whatever standard method is applicable at the time. Personally, I do not regard our current standard method as fit for purpose. There will need to be change. I have said before—let me repeat it briefly—that the relationship between the standard method process and the prospective increases in employment in an area should assume a greater weight in relation to the objectively assessed housing need.

These amendments are a package. Remember, in addition to Amendment 195, which we are debating first, Amendment 196 would require local planning authorities to have regard to the housing target or a standard method respectively. Of course, if Amendment 195 were to go to the Commons, Amendment 196 would go with it as a consequential amendment. The House of Commons would then have an opportunity to consider the questions of whether local planning authorities should have regard to the Government’s target and standard method—that is a bit of a no-brainer; of course they should—and of whether, in addition, they should be required to meet or exceed the resulting figure of objectively assessed housing need for an area. This is the debate that the House of Commons needs to have.

There are two groups of people who should vote for Amendments 195 and 196. There are those who just agree with the policy; I am among them. My noble friends have well set out the policy objective, which fundamentally comes down to this: if a Government have a target, they need to have a mechanism for delivering it. I have had these conversations, for which I am grateful, with the Housing Minister, my noble friend and the Secretary of State. Unfortunately, the Secretary of State in particular—I love him dearly—is trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. He is trying to give local planning authorities, in the minds of a minority of Conservative Members in the other place—I emphasise that it is not a majority but a minority—the freedom to have a different method and to think, “It’s a starting point but we can go south from this instead of north”. It is an opportunity for them to say, “We’ve got green belt, areas of natural beauty, sites of special scientific interest and sensitive areas. We don’t have to have the houses; they can all be somewhere else”.

In some cases, that will be true. Let me pick a place at random. If you were in Mid Bedfordshire and you knew that Milton Keynes, Bedford and Luton wanted development—and, indeed, Tempsford, which is on the new east-west rail link and faces the possibility of taking on a large new settlement of 20,000 homes—you might well conclude that, in Mid Bedfordshire, taking account of the development in all the neighbouring areas, you do not need much development. That would be perfectly reasonable. Actually, the standard method and the way in which the guidance is constructed would allow that to happen because that is precisely what joint spatial development strategies should deliver in an area such as Bedfordshire.

As I say, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State wants those who feel that they have relaxed all these requirements to feel comfortable with that, yet he wants to maintain his target. When challenged, he says, “Well, there’s still an objectively assessed housing need and, if people do not meet it and do not show that they are going to meet that housing requirement, their plans will not be sound”. I have to say, this is not the way in which to conduct the planning system, whereby local planning authorities produce plans and inspectors throw them out. That way lies madness. What we need is for local planning authorities to have the kind of guidance that enables them to produce in the first instance sound plans that are the basis on which local people can rely. That is what we are aiming for: a plan-led system. However, what the Government are moving towards is not a locally plan-led system. In my view, we need to change this.

That is the first set of people who should vote for this amendment, in this case because it is the right the policy. There is a second group of people for whom there is another, different argument. It goes, “How is this supposed to work?” This Bill was in the other place last year. It completed its Third Reading on 13 December. As far as I can tell, there was effectively no substantive debate on the provisions in this Bill relating to the housing target and standard method. Nine days after the Bill completed its passage through the other place, the Government published their consultation draft of the National Planning Policy Framework. In it, they relaxed the housing delivery test; they made the housing targets and standard method an advisory starting point, in effect; and they allowed local planning authorities to have an alternative approach.

As my noble friend Lord Young demonstrated so clearly, all of that added up to local planning authorities thinking that they had been let off. However, none of that was in the Bill. It was not debated by the House. It was not voted on by the House of Commons in any fashion. Today, if we do not send Amendments 195 and 196 to the other place, no such debate will take place in the House of Commons. The issue will go through by default. I agree with my noble friend: the world has moved on and sentiment has changed. He used to be a Chief Whip; I used to run national election campaigns. I used to look carefully at the salience of issues. The salience of housing as an issue has risen and continues to rise. I must advise my Front Bench that the salience of housing as an issue is rising not because we are building too many houses but because we are building too few. The Government may argue, “Well, they’re just in the wrong place”. There are ways of dealing with that but we do need more, which is what the standard method is intended to help us achieve.

We are having this debate today because these amendments are here on Report. If we do not send them down to the other place, the debate will not take place in the Commons. I know that there are colleagues on our Benches in another place who want to have this debate. They think that the Bill needs to show what Parliament thinks about housing targets—the standard method—and how an objectively assessed housing need should be established, and by whom. We need to give them that opportunity. I encourage noble Lords, in looking at these amendments, to realise that this is about not just the policy but the question of whether the Commons should have a chance to look at this matter. I do not mean making them think again, which is our conventional constitutional job; in this case, I mean them looking at this issue for the first time. If we do not send these amendments back, they will not even look at it a first time. We need to give them that opportunity.

I hope that noble Lords will support Amendment 195 on that basis.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken so eloquently on this subject already. Amendment 200, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman, recognises the need to reinstate the provision for housing targets through the NPPF and associated guidance, and through the housing delivery test, which, I agree with noble Lords who have spoken already, is incredibly important. Similarly, Amendment 195, in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Lansley, Lord Young and Lord Best, and my noble friend Lady Hayman, and Amendment 196, in the names of noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Young, see the essential part that local plans have to play in the delivery of housing need. It is, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, said—rightly, in my view—one of the most important amendments to the Bill that we have discussed on Report.

The much-respected organisation Shelter reports that there are 1.4 million fewer households in social housing than there were in 1980. Combined with excessive house prices making homes unaffordable, demand has been shunted into the private rental sector, where supply has been too slow to meet needs. That means above-inflation increases in rents.

On the affordable homes programme, the National Audit Office reports that there is a 32,000 shortfall in the Government’s original targets for building affordable homes. It goes on to say that there is a high risk of failing to meet targets on supported homes and homes in rural areas. Progress will be further confounded by double-digit inflation, soaring costs of materials and supply disruption, yet the Government seem to have no clue how to mitigate those factors, and in those circumstances the decision to scrap housing targets last December seems even more bizarre.

The National Audit Office is not the only one with concerns about the delivery of the programme. In December last year, the Public Accounts Committee outlined that DLUHC

“does not seem to have a grasp on the considerable risks to achieving even this lower number of homes, including construction costs inflation running at 15-30% in and around London”,

although that is not far off what it is in the rest of the country.

We had extensive debates about the housing crisis during Committee on this Bill, but there was nothing in the Minister's responses to reassure us that the vague promises to deliver 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s would feed through into the planning process—points made very clearly by noble Lords who have already spoken. I do not need to point out to your Lordships’ House that we are just 18 months away from that deadline and the target has never been met. It is being missed by almost 100,000 homes a year, and more in some years. If they are not in the planning process, what chance is there of them being delivered? According to one estimate commissioned by the National Housing Federation and Crisis from Heriot-Watt University, the actual number needed is around 340,000 new homes in England each year, of which 145,000 should be affordable.

Let us consider the latest figures from the National House Building Council. The number of new homes registered in quarter 2 in 2023 was 42% down on 2022. The number of new homes registered in the private sector in quarter 2 in 2023 was 51% down on 2022. The number of new homes registered in the rental and affordable sector was down 14% in quarter 2 2023—declines across most regions compared to the same quarter last year, with the north-west experiencing the sharpest decline of 67%, followed by the east of England at 56% and the West Midlands at 54%. Only London and Wales bucked this trend.

The consequences of not delivering the right number of homes of the right tenures that people actually need are devastating. Those of us who are councillors or have been councillors all know that our inboxes, surgeries and voicemails are full of families with horrible experiences of overcrowding, temporary and emergency housing, private rented homes that are too expensive for family budgets and insecure resulting in constant moves, more young people having to live with their parents for longer, impaired labour mobility, which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, mentioned and which makes it harder for businesses to recruit staff, and increased levels of homelessness. All this is stacking up devastating future consequences for the families concerned, and no doubt a dramatic impact on public funding as the health, education, social and employment results of this work down the generations.

There is increased focus on addressing affordability as distinct from supply—subjects that we discussed in the earlier group. In the foreword to a 2017 Institute for Public Policy Research report, Sir Michael Lyons said:

“We would stress that it is not just the number built but also the balance of tenures and affordability which need to be thought through for an effective housing strategy”.


With local authorities charged with the responsibility for ensuring that their local plans drive economic development in their areas, we simply cannot afford to overlook the place that housing development plays in local economies.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, in the interests of balance, and despite the eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Young, I am rising briefly to support street votes and commend the Government on staying with it. As we have heard, it is a Marmite proposal, and I agree with the noble Lord that there are many questions to be answered. It feels very strange that I will oppose Amendments 212 and 214 to 216 from the noble Lord, Lord Young, as my respect for his housing wisdom usually sees me eagerly doing a nodding dog impression in agreement. On this occasion it was my noble friend Lady Pinnock who was doing so, but I suspect we are definitely coming at this from very different angles. I wish to be clear that we on these Benches have very mixed views about street votes and that there are legitimate concerns that they are not compatible with the hierarchy of plans that the Bill proposes, that they just do not fit, or that it is a daft idea that will never take off. There are also legitimate concerns about how it will work in practice.

Like many here, I have sat in too many meetings being screamed and shouted at for daring to allow homes to be built that apparently nobody wants and will bring chaos to the neighbourhood—noble Lords can imagine the scene. This is in a town where the self-same people complain that house prices have driven their children out of the town and that they just cannot afford to live here; that was my fault too, apparently. They then complain about the number of flats being built that apparently no one wants to live in. I have come home from such meetings in despair, and we have to work with the population at large to change that narrative. In that development all the flats are now lived in, and very nice they are too, with mixed tenure from market sales through to social rent. What was it really all about?

There is an old adage: if you do what you always do, you get what you always get. I believe that street votes are an attempt to break that negative cycle. Can it really do any significant harm to let this one fly and just see what happens? Pilots are certainly a very good way of doing that. If nothing comes of it, we have lost nothing, and if anything starts to happen it is learning for the future. It is progress—positive public engagement in development, which has to be welcome. I do not believe that any more harm can be done—probably far less than that already done by permitted development rights, for example.

I have long been a supporter of the key principles behind street votes, an attempt to deliver more homes and better places in sustainable ways that are supported by local communities, which is the key aspiration. As an encouraging signal, we have seen what success neighbourhood planning has been in some areas, probably even a few, delivering popular new homes that meet the needs of the community. I believe that street votes might possibly continue this tradition, enabling popular and high-quality homes where they are most needed and helping to ease the housing crisis in a small but significant way by positively engaging residents.

However, I welcome the Government’s concession in their amendments. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report was right to point out that Henry VIII powers are not appropriate for this case. For example, it is plain that a Minister should not be able to exempt development from biodiversity rules without the consent of Parliament, and I am glad that the Government have listened. In the current anti- development climate, where the nimbies appear to have gone bananas and build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody, anything that might just get some people to become “yimbies” has to be worth a try.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the discussions and continuing concerns in relation to the proposals in the Bill on street votes once again make the strong case for pre-legislation scrutiny. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, outlined, these proposals seem to have been fast-tracked straight into the Bill without any consultation with the sector that might have avoided some of the many concerns we now have. We note that the government amendments are already starting to recognise some of the complexities inherent in the proposals for street votes, which were explored in great detail in Committee. Considerable questions remain to be answered about the process, finances and other resources, and the relationship with other elements of the planning system.

First, let me be clear that we understand and support the idea behind the proposal of greater public engagement in planning matters, on which I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. Our concerns are about the detail. Why could that engagement not be advisory to planning, rather than a formal planning process in its own right? There does not appear to have been any assessment of the cost and resource implications of street votes, which could be considerable—for example, additional cost to the local planning authority under new Section 61QD relating to support for the process of street votes. New Section 61QE is the provision for organising the prescribed referenda, and we all know how expensive it is to hold a referendum. New Section 61QK allocates financial assistance for street votes and could, for example, result in hefty consultancy fees, particularly bearing in mind that it is likely that many street vote processes will rely on external consultancy support if they are to prepare papers to a standard that will meet the test of an inquiry in public. The provision for loans, guarantees and indemnities in relation to street votes projects is in the Bill; how and by whom will the due diligence be done on these? That in itself could present a major burden to local authorities.

Lastly, Clause 101 of the Bill makes provision for developments that come forward from the street vote process to be subject to community infrastructure levy. As it has taken local authorities some years since the implementation of CIL to become proficient in negotiating these agreements, and they could take considerable time and expertise, just who is going to undertake that work? Secondly, there is the potential for this to place even further burdens on the Planning Inspectorate, where there does not seem to be, at the current time, enough capacity to deal with current workloads.

We were very grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his letter addressing the concerns we expressed in Committee—concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, on the relationship with neighbourhood plans, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on the definition of a street. I think the noble Lord, Lord Young, clearly outlined how that may get complicated, and I have my own concerns about the finance. In relation to the considerable concerns on the financial and resource aspects, we feel it would have been far more helpful for those who have been promoting street votes to have carefully assessed the impact before the proposals came forward. The letter of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, stated:

“The Government is aware street votes will require local planning authorities and the Planning Inspectorate to perform functions in the process, and that these will result in new burdens and associated costs. The extent of these costs will be clearer as we develop the detail of new regulations. New burdens on local planning authorities will be assessed and addressed in accordance with well-established convention, and costs incurred by the Inspectorate will be taken into account as we determine future budget allocations”.


We have to ask: is the considerable additional funding that may be needed to meet these costs really a priority in a time of such considerable budget and funding pressures, both for the Government and for local government? I note that the Local Government Association continues to oppose these proposals.

I add my thanks to those on the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, who have looked at this in great detail and at least undertaken some of the scrutiny that might have been useful before the proposals went into the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Young, outlined that there are many questions still remaining on this. He ably set out a very clear example of how the flaws in the thinking behind the proposal might impact on local people. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, spoke about the relationship between these orders and other neighbourhood and local plans which will be made.

I note that the noble Lord, Lord Young, wishes to strike the clauses out of the Bill. He made a very cogent case for doing so. I think his term was “heroically unready for legislation”, which I will not comment on, but it was a good term. If the Minister does not take the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Young—and that may be so, as I understand that the Secretary of State has been convinced of the merits of street votes—can I make a strong plea that there is some engagement with the sector about the detail of how street votes will work before we go any further with this?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I am naturally sorry that I have not been able to persuade my noble friend to give his support to the clauses in the Bill that would allow for the introduction of street vote development orders. We firmly believe that this policy has the potential to boost housing supply by helping to overcome resistance in communities to new housebuilding, which can be a major barrier preventing us from building the homes we need. I was most grateful for the support expressed for the policy by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. She was quite right in her remarks. Local people often feel that development is imposed on them and that they have little say on what gets built and how it is designed. That can lead to local opposition to new housebuilding and can discourage people from bringing development forward. Street vote development orders will help to address that issue.

As a country, we build very few new homes in our existing suburbs. Research by the Centre for Cities in 2020 found that over one-fifth of neighbourhoods outside city centres have built no new houses since 2011, while half of these suburban neighbourhoods have built less than one home each year. There is, therefore, a huge opportunity to make better use of our existing urban land to develop the homes we need, particularly in low density suburban areas. We can more effectively take advantage of this opportunity if we incentivise residents to support additional development in these areas. This is where street votes can really help.

This policy will provide the means for residents to work together and decide what development is acceptable to them, and to shape that development so that it fits with the character of their street. After a street vote development order has been made, it will mean that home owners can develop their properties with much greater confidence that their neighbours will be supportive of what they are doing, providing the development complies with the terms of the order. The value of property may increase as a result of a street vote development order, so there is a strong incentive for home owners to work with their neighbours to prepare one. There may also be benefits for those who do not own their property, including environmental improvements in their street and a greater choice of accommodation in the area. Prescribed requirements, including on what type of development is allowed, as well as detailed design requirements such as floor limits, ceiling heights and plot use limits, will help to ensure that we have the right level of safeguards in place and that impacts on the wider community are managed appropriately.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage 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.

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

My Lords, Amendment 217, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley, would allow regulations to permit variations to an existing permission, without rendering that permission void. We recognise that there is concern in the sector about the impact of recent case law, particularly for large-scale phased development. This is an issue which we have looked at very carefully.

Clause 104 already introduces a new, more flexible route to vary permissions: Section 73B, where the substantial difference test can cover notable material changes. To assist the understanding of the new provision, we propose to amend the headings in the clause to make this clearer and avoid misapprehension. Existing powers in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 would allow us to deal with this issue through secondary legislation, so we do not consider that a further power would be required. Instead, we propose to engage and consult the sector as part of the implementation of Section 73B and, if further action were needed, we would consider the use of our existing powers if warranted. I hope my noble friend is sufficiently reassured not to press his amendment on this.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 235, which I proposed in Committee and to which the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has just spoken. Since Committee, the need for it has become more urgent, as reflected in the report of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee in July, which concluded:

“The Government’s reforms to national planning policy will fail if local authorities lack sufficient resources to implement them. The package of support which the Government has outlined does not go far enough to address the significant resourcing challenges which local authorities currently face”.


I support the amendment for two reasons. First, I do not believe that the Government should be controlling the fees charged by planning departments, as a matter of principle. They do not control other local authority fees—building regulations, parking fees, library charges, school meals, swimming pool charges—so why planning? A national cap does not reflect the different circumstances of local authorities.

The case for relinquishing control is made stronger by the aspirations in the levelling up White Paper, with its commitment to

“usher in a revolution in local democracy”.

The revolution is stopped in its tracks by the notion that local authorities should not be free to recover the costs of their planning departments.

In reply to my amendment in Committee, my noble friend the Minister said that

“having different fees creates inconsistency, more complexity and unfairness for applicants, who could be required to pay different fee levels for the same type of development. Planning fees provide clarity and consistency for local authorities, developers and home owners”.—[Official Report, 24/4/23; col. 1003.]

Let me briefly dissect that. As far as local authorities are concerned, they are the ones who sponsored my original amendment. They have since confirmed their continuing support with this statement:

“We support this amendment. Planning fees do not cover the true cost of processing planning applications. In 2020/21, 305 out of 343 local authority planning departments operated in a deficit, which totalled £245.4 million”.


As far as developers are concerned, they already have to cope with myriad different local plans and can well manage different fees. What the developers want are well-resourced planning departments that can effectively process their applications quickly. One of the reasons for the disappointing housebuilding performance is planning delays. The amendment addresses that. As for home owners, I do not think that they know that planning fees are set centrally and they are used to local authorities having different charges for libraries, parking, allotments and the rest. I do not think that they would mind if fees were set locally, as long as they got a good service.

Secondly, I do not think it right that council tax payers should have to subsidise the planning system—the hidden subsidy referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. There are more important calls on those resources, underlined by the financial problems facing Birmingham City Council. The Minister told us that the Government were consulting on increasing the fees, but in the words of the Local Government Association:

“We welcome the Government’s commitment to increase planning application fees. However, our modelling has shown that even if all application fees were uplifted by 35 per cent, the overall national shortfall for 2020/21 would have remained above £80 million”.


In his opening speech, my noble friend referred on several occasions to full-cost recovery for provision of services. That is exactly what this amendment does.

I conclude by quoting the Times, which recently, on 7 July, summed up the position:

“Britain’s planning system is grinding to a halt, with four out of five big applications now being delayed by up to two years.


Official figures show that more than half a million new developments have been delayed during the past five years as threadbare planning departments struggle to cope with even routine cases.


Industry experts said the delays were exacerbating the housing crisis, with developments now taking up to three years to get started. Councils are supposed to give developers a decision on big projects within 13 weeks, but the latest official data shows that only 19% of applications were processed in this time over the past year, down from 57% 10 years ago … Developers say that performance is damaging efforts to tackle the housing crisis and other government priorities such as installing wind and solar farms. They warn that unless the government insists on proper funding for planning departments, the housing crisis will worsen as councils will always choose refuse collections over planning when allocating scarce resources.”


The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has made a powerful case and I hope that the Government will reflect in their reply on the further measures that are now needed.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, before I talk about the amendments, I take this opportunity, on Back British Farming Day, to pay tribute to and celebrate our wonderful farmers across the country—a big thank you to them.

I draw noble Lords’ attention to my interests in the register: I am now vice-president of the LGA, vice-president of the District Councils’ Network and a serving councillor in both Stevenage and Hertfordshire.

As the Minister mentioned, the government amendments in this group are technical and consequential and I do not intend to comment on them other than to link some of his comments to the other amendments.

My noble friend Lady Young’s Amendment 227A is a sensible proposal that those organisations charged with providing supporting advice to planning applications should be able to recover fees for that advice directly from applicants. For too long, the weight of providing specialist advice has fallen on the public purse or on the budgets of hard-pressed third sector organisations, as my noble friend outlined so clearly. Anyone looking at this from the outside would consider that to be unreasonable. I hope that the Government will consider my noble friend’s amendment and take it seriously. Indeed, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said that there should be full cost recovery for NSIPs. We need to think about that amendment and the one that I will talk about in a moment and how we create a level playing field in this respect.

Amendment 235 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Young, seems to me the no-brainer of the Bill. For many years, the LGA has been campaigning for local authorities to be able to charge full cost recovery in relation to the actual cost of processing applications. A government report proposed this in 2010, following a consultation by Arup that demonstrated the extent to which councils are undercharging for planning under the current fixed-fee system. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, quoted the figure, which was from 2021; I expect that it is a lot more now and probably way over £250 million a year.

Of all the problems in the planning system, this seems the simplest to resolve. Over time, it would enable authorities to recruit the number of planners that they need and it would shift the cost burden of planning from the local taxpayer to the developer, who, after all, will receive the benefit of the application. I can only quote from my experience of a major town centre regeneration scheme. There were two years of planning discussions on the scheme and then literally a vanload of papers for the application when it came in, and we have just three planners in my local authority. That shows the kind of pressure on the system. Local authority budgets are more hard-pressed than they ever were, so it is hard to imagine why the Government would not accept that full cost recovery should be a basic principle of planning and that it is up to local authorities to charge their own costs.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

228: After Clause 124, insert the following new Clause—
“Infrastructure Levy and Permitted Development LegislationWithin 120 days of this Act being passed, a Minister of the Crown must publish a review of the interaction between the Infrastructure Levy and Permitted Development Legislation.”Member's explanatory statement
This means a Minister of the Crown must publish a review of the interaction between the infrastructure levy and permitted development legislation.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I beg to move the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman. During Committee, we expressed in detail our concerns about the impact that the permitted development regime had on our town centres, on the availability of commercial property, and on the provision of often poor quality and unsustainable homes in unsuitable locations, and, most importantly for the purpose of discussion of this amendment, about the fact that permitted development does not require the usual contribution from developers to local infrastructure or provision of affordable housing. This is an excellent deal for developers but an appalling one for the community. Not only have those in such communities been unable to have their say on whether or not the development takes place, or on how the impact of the development on the area can be mitigated—and neither have their democratically elected representatives—but they have also to absorb the impact of the new development with no infrastructure to support it.

Our amendment would require a Minister to consider this urgently and to publish a review within 120 days of the Bill being passed. We hope this would ensure that Ministers keep in mind that development without any contribution to the local area or mitigation of the impact is unfair on everyone—except the developers, of course. I was very grateful to the Minister for taking time during recess to meet me to discuss the issue of permitted development, among other key planning issues. She explained to me that there is likely to be a consultation taking place on infrastructure levy on permitted development, with a view to some changes, particularly in the permitted development of office to residential accommodation, so that there would be some infrastructure levy contributions considered. I look forward to hearing her response today on how this has developed.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 243 in the name of my noble friend Lord Northbrook, who cannot be in his place today and has asked me to do my inadequate best to represent his views.

This amendment would remove the permitted development right to convert business premises outside a designated town centre into a café or restaurant. Surely if a developer in a quiet residential area wants to turn, for example, an estate agent’s office into a McDonald’s that will be open throughout the night, it should need planning permission to do so. Is that not a wholly reasonable proposition?

We were told in Committee that my noble friend Lady Scott said

“it remains the case that planning permission is required to change use to or from a pub. This ensures that local consideration can be given to any such proposals, in consultation with the local community”.

Surely local communities should have a say in the establishment of new cafés or restaurants in residential areas, not just pubs.

Several speakers in Committee mentioned the importance of breathing new life into our high streets. I emphasise from the start that the intention of my noble friend Lord Northbrook has always been to limit the permitted development right in residential areas, so the amendment has been recast from Committee to take account of this point, so that it applies only outside a designated town centre.

In Committee, my noble friend Lady Scott objected that the legislative approach of the amendment was flawed, so the amendment before your Lordships now has been recast to transfer responsibility for drafting the relevant wording to the Government. I hope that is a small task that my noble friend would be prepared to accept.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, for moving the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. The Government also appreciate the importance of the interaction between the infrastructure levy and development which is granted planning permission by so-called permitted development. This means, of course, development of a class for which planning permission is granted under the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015—SI 2015/596.

As noble Lords are aware, most permitted development rights do not fall within the scope of the existing system of developer contributions. The infrastructure levy aims to capture more value than the existing system, and the Bill has been designed to help achieve this aim. This includes having the ability to capture land value uplift associated with permitted development, subject to provision that is made in the infrastructure levy regulations.

Our recent technical consultation sought views on how the levy could be charged on permitted development to expand the scope of developments for which levy contributions may be sought and allow local authorities to capture more value for infrastructure and affordable housing where currently little or no contributions are collected. It will take time to analyse the technical consultation responses, to undertake further review and consultation, and to develop policy as a result of that, before drafting regulations. However, I accept that this is a matter of considerable importance to the House.

We do not propose to accept the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, which would require a review to be published within 120 days of the Bill being passed. We can instead commit that the Government will publish a report on how the levy will work in relation to permitted development at an appropriate point when the policy is developed. This will set out the interrelationship between the levy and permitted development. The Government will commit to doing this on or prior to the day that the infrastructure levy regulations are laid, so that the interaction between the levy and permitted development can be clearly understood. I hope that, with these clear reassurances, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, will be content to withdraw her amendment.

Before I move on, the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, seemed pretty concerned about permitted development rights. He ought to be aware that nationally permitted development rights make an important contribution to national housing delivery. In the seven years to March 2022, they delivered more than 94,000 houses, which represents 6% of the overall housing supply in that delivery period.

We want to make sure that the existing conditions and limitations that apply to permitted development rights and allow for the change of use to residential property are fit for purpose. So far, we have done this and we continue to. As I said, there is an ongoing consultation, which closes on 25 September. Any changes subject to its outcome will be brought forward via secondary legislation.

I move on to Amendment 243. I thank my noble friend Lord Lexden for putting this forward on behalf of my noble friend Lord Northbrook. The amendment seeks to restrict the flexibility of premises within Class E—the commercial, business and service use class—to be used as cafés or restaurants. As a Government, we believe that restaurants and cafés are important parts of our high streets, town centres and other parts of our country, such as towns and villages, and we do not want them to be limited. In addition, the general permitted development order cannot be used to place limits on the operation of a use class. Therefore, once again, we cannot support this amendment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her assurances and therefore beg leave to withdraw Amendment 228.

Amendment 228 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thurlow (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a former chartered surveyor. The current CPO guidance attempts to deal fairly with owners who are caught up in the process of having land acquired under compulsory purchase, but it remains a blunt instrument. This amendment requires the Government to provide a duty of care, which is an excellent proposal. It is also appropriate, as we heard from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, that compensation under CPO is paid on transfer, as it is when any citizen in this country buys or sells any of their private property. I see no reason at all why it should not also be the case under compulsory purchase. I support the amendment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the powers introduced by this section amend and clarify powers and procedures for using compulsory purchase and have been extensively consulted on—unlike some other parts of the Bill. The LGA’s view is that the introduction of measures that would genuinely make the CPO process more efficient for councils is an encouraging step, as it has previously lobbied on the need to reduce the time taken to use the CPO, and it also believes that these changes will make the valuation of change in this context closer to a normal market transaction.

In fact, the LGA view is that the Bill could have gone further. It would also like to see the ability to tackle sites which have had planning permission for a long time but which have not been built out through stronger compulsory purchase powers, and the removal of the requirement for permission from the Secretary of State to proceed with a CPO, which would expedite the process for local authorities. Of course, the Secretary of State could always retain the right to call in in circumstances where it would be necessary to do so.

I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and I am sympathetic to the specific issues they raised, particularly the issue about prompt payment for purchases of land. Perhaps I have had an unusual experience of the CPO process but the conditions are already stringent, both in setting out the process for a site qualifying for a CPO and in the requirement for valuation of that site. Therefore, while I appreciate the thinking behind the amendment, it seems that there is already guidance in place—indeed, the amendment refers to it. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 246, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, would place a requirement on the Government to publish by regulations a new duty of care for all acquiring authorities undertaking compulsory purchase. The proposed duty of care would involve obligations on acquiring authorities to acquire only land necessary for their schemes and to mitigate the impacts of their schemes, as well as to pay compensation to landowners at the date of entry or date of vesting and ensure that all communication with claimants is conducted in accordance with government guidance. I reassure noble Lords that the Government understand the concerns behind this amendment. However, the Government consider the proposed duty of care to be unnecessary for the following reasons.

First, whatever the underlying scheme, a guiding principle of compulsory purchase is that acquiring authorities should include within the boundary of a CPO only land which is required to facilitate the scheme. It is for acquiring authorities to demonstrate that there is justification and a compelling case to support the inclusion of land within a CPO boundary. Where they cannot, a CPO is likely to fail.

Secondly, another principle is that the use of a CPO is lawful only providing that acquiring authorities compensate landowners for the loss of their interests, whether the land is acquired following notice to treat or is vested in the acquiring authority. Where an acquiring authority takes possession of land before compensation has been agreed, it is obliged to make an advance payment of compensation to the landowner if requested.

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[Lord Shipley (LD)]

In moving Amendment 247YYE, I will speak also to Amendment 288B; both are in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath and relate to second homes. They would give a power to the Secretary of State by regulation to permit local authorities, through a licensing scheme, to set a limit on the proportion of dwellings which, at the point of sale, become second homes for council tax purposes.

We have heard about deal on Report on the Bill about the housing crisis, not least a crisis in the availability of truly affordable homes. Government data shows that 7,644 social homes were built in England in 2021-22, while 24,932 were sold under right to buy and 2,757 were demolished. The crisis is particularly bad in rural and coastal areas.

In 2019, the Rural Economy Select Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath, noted that, in rural areas, house prices—and so, in turn, rents—are higher than in urban areas, while incomes are lower. That disparity is widening. In Cumbria, for example, average house prices are 12 times average household incomes. As a result, it is ever harder for people of working age to live and work in rural and coastal areas, with an inevitable impact on their local economies.

There are three principal causes: too few genuinely affordable homes being built; second homes taking over full-time residential homes; and, the most rapidly increasing problem, short-term lets taking over the long-term private rented sector. In Cumbria, for example, there are currently 232 long-term rental properties available, compared with 8,384 short-term lets.

My noble friend Lord Foster of Bath, who is unable to be here today, lives in Suffolk, close to the popular seaside town of Southwold. With the recent growth in second home ownership and the rapid rise in short-term lets, of the 1,400 properties in Southwold, only 500 have full-time residents, while 500 are second homes and 400 are short-term lets. Two-thirds, therefore, are not permanently lived in.

House prices and long-term rents have risen steeply. Local families are being forced out and those working in the local tourism industry cannot find or afford local accommodation. As a result, many of the bars, restaurants and hotels now have staff vacancies. As a local councillor said recently, soon people will not

“want to visit the soulless toy town where no one lives any more”.

In Committee, my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath and I proposed amendments to address the issues of short-term lets and second homes. In particular, we proposed separate use categories for both. Other noble Lords also addressed these issues, with a range of similar proposals. In response, the Government promised to take action. Indeed, as a result, consultation has been taking place on proposals to introduce a short-term let registration scheme, which would allow councils to apply health and safety regulations across the guest sector.

Consultation has also been taking place on establishing a separate use class, C5, for short-term lets. I welcome these proposals and the intention of using permitted development rights so that areas of the country where short-term lets are not an issue are not impacted. Where they are, a planning application will be required for change of use to a short-term let and councils can decide whether, given local circumstances, it should be approved.

Clause 218 of this Bill provides for the implementation of the registration element of these proposals. These Benches welcome the proposals and hope they will be implemented quickly. However, this completely ignores those second homes not being used as short-term lets. They should be known as “second homes for council tax purposes”. On the latest figures, there are some 257,000 such properties in England; although not as rapidly as short-term lets, the numbers are growing year on year.

I expect that the Minister will point to the way in which neighbourhood plans can be used to address this issue and the new power for councils to further increase council tax on second homes. While undoubtedly welcome, these measures do not give affected local councils sufficient powers to address the problem. Can the Minister explain why the Government, having belatedly agreed to address the short-term lets problem, are failing to do the same for the second home problem?

The two amendments in this group in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath propose a solution. We could have adopted a similar approach to the one the Government have proposed for short-term lets and if, in response, the Minister suggests the Government plan to explore that route, we will be happy to support it. However, following a substantial discussion with local councils and councillors, we propose a new approach: a licensing approach available for those councils which choose to adopt it.

It is a simple approach. By restricting its application to the point of sale, it does not impact existing homes. We recognise that it would require a person seeking to buy a property to be used as a second home—not intended to be a short-term let—to conduct inquiries into the likelihood of a council agreeing to a licence. That is no more onerous than many other pre-purchase searches and no different to that required for a use class order change to short-term let. But it would give much-needed powers to councils which face problems caused by second homes. I hope the Minister is in listening mode on this matter.

Finally, on second homes and council tax, can the Minister explain what steps the Government will take to resolve their failed attempt to close the tax loophole? For some years many of us have been drawing attention to the situation whereby second home owners avoided paying either council tax or business rates. They did this by claiming their property was available for rent—and so eligible for business rates—but then ensured that little rental took place and so the business income fell below the threshold, so no tax was paid.

Last January, so-called tough new measures were introduced for eligibility requirements: making the property available for rent for 140 days a year and proving it had been for at least 70 days. However, as the Daily Telegraph reported earlier this month:

“Holiday let council tax crackdown backfires—costing local authorities millions”.


The tough measures have not prevented more and more second home owners registering as a business and then claiming 100% business rate relief. Two years ago, 73,000 such properties were on the business rates list in England; the figure now stands at over 85,000. Can the Minister tell the House what further steps will be taken to address this problem? I beg to move.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the percentage of second homes in so many parts of the country has had such a devastating impact on communities. We heard about that in great detail in Committee and had many examples from all sides of the House. We noted that it particularly impacts on rural and coastal communities. I am also concerned about the tax loophole and that so many second home owners avoid paying either council tax or business rates. This is clearly an anomaly and needs to be resolved.

The amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Foster and Lord Shipley, would be an important next step in tackling this. We too welcome the licensing steps already taken but, if we are going to tackle this, we need to go one step further. We look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the amendments proposed.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 247YYE and 288B, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, bring us to the often sensitive issue of second homes. We recognise that large volumes of second homes or short-term lets can become an issue when they are concentrated in particular areas. That is why the Government have taken decisive action. We committed to introduce a registration scheme for short-term lets in England through this Bill and consulted on the design of the scheme earlier this year. At the same time, we also consulted on proposals for a new short-term let use class with associated permitted development rights. Further announcements on both consultations will be provided in due course.

We introduced higher rates of stamp duty for second properties in 2016 and a new stamp duty surcharge for non-UK residents in 2021, and new measures to strengthen the criteria for holiday lets to be eligible for business rates came into effect in April. Furthermore, this Bill will give councils the discretionary power to apply a council tax premium of up to 100% on second homes.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked why we are not making further changes in respect of second homes. Through the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and other measures, the approach we are taking is to boost housing delivery more broadly to make more homes available, including in those areas where there are high concentrations of second homes. Second homes that are additionally let out may fall within the short-term let use class that I mentioned where they meet the definition.

It might be helpful if I say a little more about the Government’s approach to first-time buyers in particular. We recognise the hardship people face when they cannot find a home of their own. Our £11.5 billion affordable homes programme will deliver thousands of affordable homes to rent and buy right across the country. The Government are committed to helping first-time buyers to get on to the housing ladder. We operate a range of other government schemes, including shared ownership and the lifetime ISA and we continually keep options to support first-time buyers under consideration. We are also committed to ensuring that enough homes are built in the places where people and communities need them and our first homes scheme is providing new discounted homes prioritised for local first-time buyers.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, referred to the common perception that some second homeowners may pretend to let out their property in order to benefit from small business rate relief. That is why the Government introduced, from April this year, new criteria for holiday lets to show that they have been let for at least 70 days and have been available for at least 140 days in the previous year. If they are entitled to receive small business rate relief as a holiday let operator, that is perfectly appropriate. If a property cannot demonstrate those criteria, it will be liable for council tax.

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[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.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 18th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, building safety remediation comes back again. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for sharing their expert knowledge and understanding of the plight of leaseholders as a consequence of the building safety debacle exposed by the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

The noble Earl has put a huge amount of time, energy and expertise into seeking an all-encompassing solution to the building safety scandal so tragically exposed by the Grenfell Tower fire six years ago. As has been said, hundreds of thousands of leaseholders have been financially penalised as a result, because the construction sector, developers, materials manufacturers and the Government have failed to take full responsibility for their failings. It is clear that leaseholders and tenants are the innocent victims. They must not be expected to pay. Yet despite the progress made by the Building Safety Act, that is what is happening to many leaseholders. They are paying eye-watering, vastly increased insurance bills, have waking watch requirements and are unable to sell and move. All that is on hold because of the omissions in the Building Safety Act.

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, who reminded us that, right at the start of this, the Secretary of State promised that there would be full protection for leaseholders. Unfortunately, that has not happened. We have before us, from both noble Lords, alternate ways of fulfilling that commitment made by the Government. The first is to go back to square one, which is basically the proposal from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and fulfil the polluter pays objective that no leaseholder or tenant, regardless of where they are or their circumstances—enfranchised tenant, tenant or leaseholder—should pay. That is morally right. There is debate on various aspects of the building safety scandal but that is what I have said from the start: innocent leaseholders and tenants should not be subject to payment for the failings of others. The second argument, from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham—and I have added my name to his amendments—is that making step-by-step improvements to the Building Safety Act may be more acceptable to the Government.

In the end, the decision is not ours. The decision is the Government’s, and if we can persuade them to take another step forward to protect another group of leaseholders, that seems to me to be the practical way forward—as much as I admire what the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has done.

I move to Amendment 282NF in my name. There is a large group of leaseholders who were specifically excluded: those who live in blocks of under 11 metres. One of the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, seeks to include leaseholders in blocks of under 11 metres. However, I wanted it to be specifically drawn to the attention of the House, because it was wrong to exclude them on the grounds that the risk is less. Fire services across the country, not just the London fire service, say that the risk is unacceptable. These flats are covered with flammable cladding that was put there knowingly by materials manufacturers that knew it was flammable and that a fire in those flats would become enormous, as was the case at Grenfell, where it was minutes before the fire reached the top of the high block of flats. I want to draw attention to the plight of this particular group.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, who unfortunately is not well, for the meetings that I have had with her to discuss the plight of leaseholders who live in these blocks of under 11 metres. I thank the civil servants who accepted that there is a problem here. The trouble is that nothing has happened, and we need action to help these leaseholders.

Insurance agents for the blocks under 11 metres still say that there is a risk, and insurance bills are therefore unacceptably high and unaffordable. We still hear from estate agents that the blocks will be more difficult to sell because of the risks of fire due to the cladding material. So my amendment asks for those blocks to be covered by the responsible actors scheme.

Here we are again debating the building safety scandal. I ask that the Government accept Amendment 282C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, as one more step towards dealing with the issues blighting the lives of many thousands of leaseholders. They cannot afford the bills that they are presented with and are unable to pay for the remediation—which is not theirs to pay. They do not even own the right to the bricks and mortar, yet they are being expected to pay for it—that in itself is wrong, but it will have to be covered by another Bill that we await from this Government. This is about whether we make another step in the right direction or go back to square one and try a big, all-encompassing solution to this situation.

What we must do is give hope that all leaseholders who have been adversely affected by the building safety scandal will have their issues addressed by the Government, as the Secretary of State promised at the very outset of our debates on this problem. That is necessary, and the amendments today seek, in different ways, to deal with that. I want to hear from the Minister that the Government intend to deal with every leaseholder’s issues. It is not the leaseholders’ responsibility, and it was not of their doing; they have done everything right and nothing wrong, and should not be expected to pay.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interests in the register as a serving councillor on Stevenage Borough Council and Hertfordshire County Council, a vice-president of the LGA and a vice-chair of the District Councils’ Network. I ask the Minister to convey our wishes too to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook; we wish her well for a speedy recovery. Her patience and willingness to collaborate on the Bill have been outstanding.

With this Bill, we have an opportunity to put right some of the very difficult issues that have emerged from the awful tragedy of the Grenfell fire. In the six years since Grenfell, we have seen people left in the most dreadful limbo on this issue. The stress, fear and harm they have lived with on a daily basis are incalculable. They are not able to sleep for fear that their buildings are not safe; they are living in fear of the exorbitant costs of mediation measures; and they are unable to sell their properties or move away. For some, that has impacted their physical and mental health. In the most serious cases, leaseholders have faced bankruptcy. Their dreams of owning their own homes have transformed into the stuff of nightmares.

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, mentioned the case of Vista Tower in Stevenage, which I know well. That demonstrates so many of the issues arising from the remediation we are talking about. I remind your Lordships’ House that nearly two-thirds of high-rise flats and a third of mid-rise flats still require an external wall safety form before any mortgages are even considered, so the issue is certainly far from being fixed.

We welcome the comprehensive and detailed Amendment 260A from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, particularly his strong focus on “polluter pays”—a principle that has had much attention during the passage of the Bill. As ever, he has a very thorough and conscientious approach in setting out a complete building safety remediation scheme. We acknowledge that his knowledge and expertise on and experience of such issues are recognised throughout your Lordships’ House, and I hope that, as we go through the following processes of remediation, the Government will continue to work with him and the cladding groups to advise on improving the remediation scheme that will comprehensively cover the remediation that people need.

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[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendments 267 and 268 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. I think perhaps I should also have added it to Amendment 265A which he so ably introduced. There is very little that I can add to what he has said, so I will be brief.

As the noble Lord said, this is do with reputation, the disruption of potential reorganisation, a loss of momentum—which I might call continuity—and, finally, whether this lays open the opportunity for diluting the process which we agreed in the Building Safety Act and which one believes is still important today.

There are two things that I would like to point to. Part of the justification for what the Government seek to do seems to be a need to keep their options open, if I can put it that way, in relation to the awaited second Grenfell inquiry. Of course, we do not know when that will come in, but the fear seems to be that it will make recommendations that the Government will need to move resolutely to deal with. However, to try to foretell, forestall and provide for that by the process of taking the Building Safety Regulator function out of HSE and putting it in a place as yet unknown or undefined seems entirely premature. I am with the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, in the sense that does not aid the cohesion of the Building Safety Regulator function going forward.

The second thing that concerns me is that we already have two standards for dealing with what might be described as a defect. One is specified in the Building Safety Act and the other, which is not worded the same, is the standard of remediation under the pledge that constructors will sign up to. There are concerns, in particular because, under remediation schemes to which a lot of firms have signed up, they will still be using their own approved inspectors to sign off that work. We know what has happened since approved inspectors were brought in under the Building Act 1984. It amounts to marking their own homework. While I am sure that in many instances that is being done diligently, we would not be where we are now had that been done effectively, conscientiously and objectively. There are concerns that the Government’s proposals here leave too much wiggle room. I am with the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, on all three of his amendments, which I think afford valuable safeguards that we should take real notice of.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, before commenting on the specific amendments in this group, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, for responding so thoroughly to questions that were raised on this issue following our previous debate on this subject and the debate in July on the statutory instrument on the Building Safety Act.

Amendment 264 clarifies that the functions of the new regulator are those of the Health and Safety Executive. This was one of the points on which we requested clarification. I hope the Minister can clarify in response to the points made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, what the new regulator will look like.

My noble friend Lord Rooker’s amendments would introduce a requirement on the new regulator to report on electrical safety for tower blocks awaiting remediation. That seems a very reasonable step in the light of previous discussions, and we hope the Minister will confirm that this falls into the remit of the regulator.

My noble friend also suggested, in his further amendment to Clause 223, that a new electrical safe register be introduced and, in particular, that electrical installations and testing be subject to the same level of rigour as gas installations. I cannot think of any reason why that should not be the case. I hope that, should she not clarify it today, the Minister will take that back to her department to be discussed with the new regulator.

Concerns expressed in Amendments 265A, 267 and 268 are that provisions made under the Bill could be revoked by regulation. Amendments 265 and 266 perhaps deal partially with that, but they may not be strong enough to deal with the concerns about provisions in the Building Safety Act. We note Amendment 265A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, relating particularly to the potential for government to use regulations to amend the provisions of the Building Safety Act. We would be seriously concerned about that, so, if the noble Lord chooses to test the opinion of the House on that topic, he will have our support.

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

My Lords, I thank your Lordships for the points raised during the debate. I shall first address the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, in relation to Clauses 223 and 224.

I want to make a clear and unequivocal commitment: this Government have no intention of using the powers in the Bill to amend the statutory committees set up under Sections 9 to 11 of the Building Safety Act 2022. The Building Safety Act already provides full and appropriate powers for the Secretary of State to make changes to those statutory committees, if needed, on the basis of a recommendation from the building safety regulator. It would be unnecessary for this Government or a future Government to attempt to use the powers under this Bill to alter or repeal the regulator’s statutory committees when good and appropriate powers exist for just that purpose. Any Minister not using these powers correctly could rightly expect to be asked to justify their use.

I turn to Amendments 264A and 264B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, which raise the important matter of electrical safety. The Government take the issue of electrical safety very seriously, and we have already legislated to mandate electrical safety checks to protect residents in the private rented sector. The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations came into force in 2020. They require private landlords to have their electrical installations inspected and tested by a qualified and competent person at least every five years. As noted, we have already consulted on extending these requirements to the social housing sector, and have asked for evidence and views on whether owner-occupied leasehold properties within social housing blocks would also benefit from mandatory electrical installation checks.

I am advised that the level of risk involved between gas and electrical work is not the same. With the benefit of circuit breakers and protective devices, an electrical system can be designed to shut down in milliseconds. An automated interruption of supply can disconnect an electric current and protect users from the risk of electric shock or fire.

With regard to Section 21 of the Building Safety Act 2022, which the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, raised, I shall make some further comments. Specifically on Amendment 264A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, I ask the noble Lord to note that, under Section 21 of the Act, the regulator has a statutory duty to

“carry out a cost-benefit analysis of making regular inspections of, and testing and reporting on, the condition of electrical installations in relevant buildings”.

Our focus so far has been on the competence and supervision of the person carrying out electrical work as the appropriate way forward. I note the extensive technical analysis raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, relating to electrical safety. We will write to him once we have had an opportunity to consider this.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

277: After Clause 226, insert the following new Clause—
“Levelling-up and the Vagrancy Act 1824Within 90 days of this Act receiving Royal Assent, a Minister of the Crown must publish an assessment of the impact of the enforcement of sections 3 (persons committing certain offences how to be punished) and 4 (persons committing certain offences to be deemed rogues and vagabonds) of the Vagrancy Act 1824 on levelling-up and regeneration.”Member's explanatory statement
This means that a Minister must publish an assessment of the impact of the enforcement of sections of the Vagrancy Act 1824 on levelling-up and regeneration.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the Vagrancy Act 1824 was initially intended to deal with injured ex-servicemen who had become homeless after the Napoleonic Wars. What was their crime after serving their country? I will quote from the Act. It was

“endeavouring by the Exposure of Wounds or Deformities to obtain or gather Alms … or … procure charitable Contributions of any Nature of Kind, under any false or fraudulent Pretence”.

This essentially means that ex-soldiers were begging, and the Act was brought in to stop it.

The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, committed to repealing the Vagrancy Act 1824 within 18 months in March 2022. In the debate on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in 2022, he said:

“The Government agree that the Act is antiquated and no longer fit for purpose. That is why we have brought forward amendments in lieu to consign this outdated Hanoverian statute to history”—[Official Report, 22/3/22; col. 764.]


“Hear, hear”, we all thought.

My noble friend, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, noted in May this year that this Act, which refers to the homeless as

“an idle and disorderly Person … deemed a Rogue and Vagabond”

to be committed to the “House of Correction”, is still being used to criminalise “more than 1,000” homeless people a year. We are told that the 200 year-old Act cannot be repealed because there is nothing to take its place and that it is a slow and complex process to bring an alternative forward. I quote the Minister again from 2022. He said that

“we must balance our role in providing essential support for the vulnerable with making sure that we do not weaken the ability of the police to protect communities who play an important role in local partnership approaches to reducing rough sleeping. We must ensure that the police have the tools that they need to effectively respond to behaviour that impacts negatively on communities and to protect all individuals”.—[Official Report, 22/3/22; col. 764.]

I had a quick check on the College of Policing website. It shows more than 15 pieces of legislation which give police and councils the powers they need to tackle anti-social behaviour and aggressive begging. This includes the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, community protection notices, public space protection orders, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, rapid intervention for PSPOs and dispersal powers. In relation to begging, there is the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 1986. So, frankly, it is incredibly disappointing that, in spite of amendments put before the House to this Bill, the Government have refused to use the levelling-up Bill to confine the Vagrancy Act to history, where it belongs, before its 200th birthday.

Fundamentally, this is a levelling-up Bill, and the treatment of vagrancy in our communities is a levelling-up issue. It is an issue that should not be the subject of legislation made nearly 200 years ago when the world, its values and our country were very different places. Incidentally, that was the year when New York’s Fifth Avenue opened for business and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony had its premiere in Vienna. Why do we still have on our statute book an Act that seeks to penalise the homeless against the measure of an Act forged in what was another world?

Our Amendment 277 and its consequential Amendment 304A require a Minister to publish an impact assessment of the enforcements permitted in the Vagrancy Act against the Bill’s stated ambitions for levelling up. We hope that this will concentrate the Government’s mind on ensuring that street homeless people in Great Britain in 2023 will be treated with compassion and given the help they need to tackle the underlying issues that have led to their homelessness, and not confined to the punishment regime of an Act which has no place in modern Britain.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank both noble Baronesses for their comments. I am pretty sure that that will be the only time I am mentioned in the same speech with Beethoven.

In response to Amendment 277 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, I am still clear, as are the Government, that the Vagrancy Act is antiquated and not fit for purpose. I am happy to reassure the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Taylor, that we will repeal the Vagrancy Act at the earliest opportunity, once suitable replacement legislation has been brought forward. Given that we remain committed to repealing the Vagrancy Act, there is little value in carrying out an assessment of the kind described in the amendment. The House will have ample opportunity to debate the matter when further details on any new legislation are set out.

Amendment 304A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, is on the timing of the statement of levelling-up missions. We have committed within the Bill to publish this within one month of Part 1 of the Act coming into force, which will be two months after Royal Assent. This is already an appropriate and prompt timescale, which includes time to collate materials and data across government departments before the publication and laying of the report. Reducing that time would be unnecessary and may undermine the purpose of the missions: to ensure focus on long-term policy goals. I hope that provides reassurance for the noble Baronesses and that Amendment 277 can be withdrawn, and the other amendment not moved.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for his response, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for her comments. The Minister repeated the assertion that the Vagrancy Act will be repealed at the earliest opportunity. I do not know quite what “earliest” means in the Government’s mind, but it is certainly longer than the amount of time it has taken since the original commitment to repeal the Act.

The fact is that this Act is still being used to penalise homeless people every day in this country. I am not convinced that this is going to move quickly enough without some further steps being taken, so I would like to test the opinion of the House.

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[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, if nobody is getting up, I will just let the Minister and my Front Bench know that I agree with the content of all three speeches I have just listened to. My message to the Front Bench is that things have to be done differently. The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, did not just invent this system; it has virtually been his life’s work and it has been a success. It is not like the good old days and the bad old days; we have to learn lessons and do things differently. The present arrangements have not worked.

In the last Labour Government we made mistakes, but we are in a different world now, by and large. There is going to be a general election, when there may or may not be a change of Government, but there ought to be a change in policy about the way that these issues are dealt with. They cannot all be one size fits all, which is the apparent view of the present Government, whether of the public or the private sector. Partnership, good leadership and a willingness to share responsibilities is the only way to success.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, and his fellow signatories to the amendments in this group. As we have heard, they refer to very important issues relating to how such a complex and far-reaching Bill should be implemented.

There was much discussion earlier about the wasteful and partial way in which the levelling-up fund was implemented so that, instead of making a real contribution to levelling up, it became a beauty contest of who could spend the most on consultants to put their bids together. There is no better example of the rationale for close and careful consideration of how the Bill will work in practice. I hope the Government will pay close attention to the wording of these carefully considered amendments, to how they will ensure cross-departmental working—which is not a feature of this Government nor of past Governments—and to the committed devolution of powers and funding, which will be necessary to deliver any meaningful levelling up. But I fear that this might have to wait for the Labour Party’s “take back control” Bill.

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 282A and 282B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, raise the important matter of ensuring that the right approach is taken in giving effect to the changes that would be made by the Bill. I understand that he was unable to move his amendments in Committee, as he had intended, and my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook is grateful for the engagement that she had with him on them.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 13B in lieu—

13B: Clause 9, page 9, line 30, at end insert—
“(7) A Minister of the Crown may by regulations establish a process for non-constituent members who are local authorities to become full members.””

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interests as listed in the register as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and of the District Councils’ Network. Before I speak briefly to the amendments in this group, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for all his time and careful consideration of the outstanding issues we feel remain in this Bill following its consideration in the other place. We also add our best wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, for a speedy recovery.

Amendment 13B relates to the ability of combined county authorities to agree, as a part of their devolution deal and, if they wish, by local consensus, that district council members be full voting members of the CCA. We have discussed this at length both in Committee and on Report, but there has been no movement on the Government’s part. In a debate in the other place, many Members spoke of the important role districts play in exercising their powers relating to planning, housing and economic development to further the economic growth of their areas. To take these key decision-makers out of the frame would be tantamount to shooting devolution in the foot before it has even got off the ground, not least because in unitary areas where councils have all the powers that districts have and the powers of county councils, they are represented on CCAs.

In the debate in the other place, MP after MP from two-tier areas spoke of the value they place on the work done in relation to development by their district councils. Sir Julian Lewis quoted the Conservative chairman of Conservative New Forest District Council, who supported our original amendment:

“District Councils hold levers which are indispensable in creating jobs, improving economic opportunity, addressing skills shortages, tackling inequalities and reviving local pride—precisely the outcomes at the heart of the levelling up … Bill … It simply makes no sense that districts should be excluded from these new devolution deals”.


Sir Julian appealed directly to the Minister, saying that his local district council will not be

“sidelined or excluded by the Government’s refusal to accept Lords amendment 13”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/10/23; col. 228.]

Yet the vote went through to disagree with the Lords amendment.

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[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, we have been over this issue almost ad infinitum in Committee. We are not in Committee anymore; we are at Lords consideration of Commons amendments. I hope the noble Lord would agree that we are past the stage of arguing the niceties in the way he invites me to do.

Finally, in his Motion ZE1, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, seeks to insist on his original amendment. I can only reiterate the points in my opening that PCC powers would transfer to an elected mayor only after that individual has become democratically accountable at a local level. The example he sought to cite as a fait accompli is nothing of the kind, for the simple reason that there needs to be an election before the Mayor of the West Midlands could hope to become a PCC. If the transfer is to happen in the West Midlands, the mayor could exercise the PCC functions only if elected to do so at the next election, so there is no compromise of the democratic mandate of the elected mayor to exercise the functions. The choice of who would exercise the PCC functions in the West Midlands would remain in the hands of the people of the West Midlands if the transfer were to happen.

Commencement at Royal Assent enables the Government to adhere as closely as they can to the Gould principle of electoral management, whereby any changes to elections should aim to be made with at least six months’ notice. As the noble Lord knows, the Government wish these provisions to have legal effect in time for the local elections in May next year. His amendment would frustrate that policy intention. I hope he will forgive my pointing it out, but doubtless he will have noticed that the Government’s majority on this issue in the other place was very substantial: 153. I hope that on reflection he will be content to accept the assurances I have given and will not move his amendment in lieu.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Lansley, highlighted the confusion at the heart of the Government’s position relating to district councils on combined county authorities. The Minister’s contention is that there is local discretion to give districts a vote, while his statement was that only upper-tier authorities should be full members. I am not satisfied that the Government continuing to repeat this assertion that CCAs should be made up of upper-tier authorities only when their core business is not housing, planning or economic development but social care, children’s services and highways makes it right or advisable, and neither does it meet the key principles of democracy or devolution. Therefore, I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Motions K, S, T, U, Y, ZG and ZJ. In light of the growing need for collaboration across the United Kingdom on pressing matters such as climate change and energy security, and to ensure that the UK remains an attractive place to invest and deliver major infrastructure projects, there are substantial benefits to maintaining an effective framework of powers across the UK.

I am pleased to inform the House that, following positive discussions with the Scottish Government, the Government tabled amendments on 28 September to Part 6 of the Bill and related provisions in Part 3. Subsequently, the Scottish Government recommended that the Scottish Parliament provides legislative consent for Part 6 on 11 October. This is a significant milestone on the road to a new, more effective framework for environmental assessment, and it is testament to the strength of the partnership between the UK and Scottish Governments.

In respect of Part 6 and related provisions in Part 3, the Government tabled Motion T to disagree with Lords government Amendments 102 and 103—made on Report in the Lords prior to the agreement having been reached with the Scottish Government—and proposed amendments in lieu, in the House of Commons. Via Motions K and T, these amendments give effect to the position that has been agreed with the Scottish Government and give Scottish Ministers concurrent powers to make environmental outcome reports regulations and associated guidance where they have competence to do so. These amendments also provide assurance that the consent of Scottish Minsters would be required for environmental outcome reports regulations that fall within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament or fall within the regulation-making powers of the Scottish Government.

The Welsh Government had already indicated their support, and the Senedd subsequently passed a legislative consent Motion on 17 October. Through Motions S and ZG, the Commons disagreed with Lords Amendments 90 and 285, putting forward Amendments 90A and 285A in lieu, to support the position with the Welsh Government.

These amendments include a change requested by the Welsh Government, which will bring Clause 222, which makes exceptions for environmental outcome reports provisions to general restrictions on the legislative competence of Senedd Cymru contained in the Government of Wales Act 2006, into force two months after Royal Assent and inclusion of reference to the Environment (Wales) Act 2016.

There are also a small number of technical amendments, bringing various parts of legislation into the scope of the Bill, which are necessary to maximise interoperability across the devolved Governments. These are reflected in government Motions U, Y and ZJ.

I hope that noble Lords will agree with the positive positions that our amendments, and those made to strengthen amendments proposed by the Lords, allow the Government to take, reflecting on the constructive intergovernmental work that has taken place to agree them. I beg to move.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, these are technical amendments to align Scotland, Wales and England, so we have nothing further to add.

Motion K agreed.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the very fact that these two issues remain for this Bill demonstrates that the Building Safety Act is, sadly, unfinished business. Although the matters will not be concluded today, I can be sure that they will be raised in future legislation in this House, because they need to be resolved. Having said that, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, said about non-qualifying leaseholders. It is a large group which deserves not to be neglected, and I support my noble friend’s valiant efforts in getting the regulation appropriate to the need.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the building safety parts of this Bill, which have been complex, but it was all done in the interests of the leaseholders who are at the end of this process. The noble Lords, Lord Stunell and Lord Young, have outlined the reasons for their amendments. I hope that the Minister will carefully consider these outstanding matters. We are all mindful in your Lordships’ House that behind all the technicalities and complexities of the Building Safety Act and attempts to right its deficiencies in this Bill is a group of leaseholders, many of whom were or are first-time buyers, who have had the start of their home-owning journey blighted by the worry and concern of remediation and uncertainty over service charges. They have been let down by errors in the original Bill, which meant that the status of their leasehold determined what charges they would have to pay.

The Minister reassures us that further review of these matters will be undertaken. I hope that will be the case, and that further thought will be given by the Government, if there is to be no compensation to those who have already had significant costs, to how that might be dealt with in future.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I am grateful to noble Lords for their comments on this group. I thank my noble friend Lord Young for his kind words on government Amendments 288A, 288B, 288C and 288D. He asked about his Motion in relation to leaseholders who have paid remediation costs since losing the protections. Like my noble friend, the Government are concerned about leaseholders who have paid a significant service charge where they have lost the protections upon extending their leases. Those who have paid out remediation costs while outside the protections may be able to bring a claim for unjust enrichment.

I should point out to your Lordships that we are not aware of this issue being raised with us by any affected leaseholders, so it may well be theoretical in nature—my noble friend may contradict me on that. That said, if we do come across any cases where remediation charges have been paid and are not returned, the Building Safety Act contains a power to make secondary legislation that we believe enables us to provide a bespoke remedy to this issue. If cases do come to light, we will consider carefully whether that is the right thing to do.