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.