Housing and Planning Bill

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, the housing crisis, our badly stretched planning capacity and the desperate plight of the small minority repeatedly deprived of legitimate housing show that the Government are right to look for a new approach. Planning is essential to achieve the necessary numbers of homes, built to a decent standard. This is what I shall mainly focus on. I declare an interest as an honorary fellow of the RIBA.

I cite the views of Levitt Bernstein, a highly regarded architectural practice on the ground. In evidence given to the Bill Committee in another place, it said,

“that the emphasis is entirely on quantity not quality”.

It is dismayed to learn that the Bill proposes bypassing the planning process so that standards for internal space, daylight, storage and outdoor space, for example—all things that make a home a decent place in which to live—can be dispensed with.

The Government want to ease the obstacles in the way of housing through permitted development rights. A new register of brownfield sites is welcome. However, as presently constituted, this runs a real risk of preventing planning authorities preserving, for instance, workplaces and their jobs, or cherished places of leisure which arguably contribute more to a local economy, heritage and sense of identity than piecemeal housing estates could. Homes must exist in a neighbourhood, and not be plonked in a developers’ vacuum.

The Government have also attempted to deal with the problem of the slow pace of building through their zoning proposals. These essentially do away with the discretion which has enabled planning authorities to safeguard the particular attributes of individual neighbourhoods, as agreed in local plans. There is no safeguard, as in some of the European zoning systems, of combining this with substantial public investment which would follow the local plan. There has been little public debate about this fundamental change to planning culture or its implications for inclusiveness.

The proposals to reform the system of compulsory purchase are a welcome first step, but they should go further. The system has become cumbersome, partly because of encrusted case law, and it is hidebound by market value rather than the primacy of what the local community requires.

Most regrettably, as has been said on all sides of the House, the Bill would also enable local authorities to avoid their responsibilities to Gypsies and Travellers. The difficulties for Travelling people—and this includes show people—are not new. The Labour Government enacted provisions obliging local authorities to include the specific needs of Gypsies and Travellers in their assessments of housing need. Although the authorities were sluggish, to say the least, in fulfilling that obligation, at least the statement of what society expected was clear. This Bill proposes removing that obligation.

Homelessness among Gypsies and Travellers is currently at 20%. If the relevant clause goes through, this will increase. If not enough sites are provided, how can this small minority who travel and who have no authorised sites live legally? How can their children get to school regularly if they are constantly moved on? What about their needs for running water, toilets and refuse collection? How can their health—which is markedly lower than that of the general population—be maintained? Why should they have to accept the trauma of violent upheaval and the friction of local enmity?

This proposal has had no consultation. It offends against the public sector equality duty and, arguably, our obligations under international law. It will cause measurable harm, not least to children and to old and infirm people. In my submission, we do not have the right to force people to abandon their Travelling and Gypsy way of life, an integral part of which is living in caravans. The treatment of Gypsies and Travellers by the state is a stain on our reputation as a civilised country.

What is not in the Bill is an informed approach to what constitutes a place for people to live which enables them to thrive and prosper—in short, design. Instead, there are many provisions which short-circuit the design systems and none that I could see encouraging good design. Perhaps the Minister can point me to some. The obstacles to speedy and efficient planning procedures are, with very few exceptions, not in the planning system itself but in the capacity of the planning authorities to process it, and in their access to capital.

One of the many critical omissions is improving our struggling planning capacity. We need to revive the prestige, professionalism and status of the profession. The challenges of the post-war period led to the rise of some visionary planners, and we have some now, but they are thinly spread and their culture does not prevail everywhere. Outsourcing the planning function— which was not debated in the other place because the Government inserted the provision too late—is likely to compound the omission rather than remedy it.

In short, the Bill is far too unambitious about place-making. Proactive planning is essential to create real, safe and secure neighbourhoods where schools and clinics can be easily reached and work and transport are taken account of, where the amenities and leisure space, so important to well-being, are not out of reach, and where the needs of old age—upon us in increasing numbers—are properly and decently managed. The Bill has nothing to offer in this direction. Indeed, the incentives in it for hasty volume building will make the task of place-making harder.

In this Bill, the Government show indifference to what makes thriving neighbourhoods and to the civilised treatment of minorities. We shall have work to do in Committee.