Localism Bill
Debate between Baroness Whitaker and Lord Whitty
Baroness Whitaker
My Lords, in supporting Amendments 152ZA and 153ZA on the crucial aspect of the good design of the places that people live in, which has such wide support from professional and interest groups, I take comfort from the Minister’s undertaking in her letter to me of 20 June:
“We remain committed to promoting the highest standards of architecture and design”.
Indeed, this is what the Government did in also undertaking to honour the provisions relating to design in the previous housing and planning Acts. Those provisions, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, said, bound local authorities but not neighbourhoods because neighbourhoods did not come into being as the deciders of planning until the present Bill, so it is only consistent that the duty to have regard to good design should be extended to neighbourhoods, as Amendment 152ZA says.
Amendment 153ZA is consistent with the Government's undertaking and I need hardly repeat the evidence of the profound impact that design has on enjoyment, security, amenity, health and leisure. I am sure the Government would agree that communities should be enabled to make good design choices.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I have tabled three amendments in this group. I apologise that I missed my amendments in the earlier group, because the Committee is making such breakneck progress on this Bill, but I wish to speak now. However, I support both the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the cross-reference by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, to Schedule 12 and the need to clarify the position in relation to conservation areas and the setting and general appearance of buildings, which from Schedule 12 seems not to apply to neighbourhood plans. My amendments attempt to relate neighbourhood plans to the broader planning structure, which still exists. The Government have, of course, deleted any application of regional spatial plans but there are still national policies, national advice and the local plan.
This part of the Bill, paragraph 8 of the new schedule in Schedule 10, relates to the issues which the examiner should take into account when considering neighbourhood plans. It seems to me that under paragraph 8(2), there is a weak relationship between the requirements on the examiner and the reference to national policies. We all know that “having regard to” national policies and advice containing guidance means that you can take no notice of it. Indeed, that is often the case. I am suggesting a rather stronger form of words: that the examiner should consider whether the plan “is compatible with” the national policies and the advice issued by the Secretary of State and that, in relation to the local plan in paragraph 8(2)(d), rather than the order being,
“in general conformity with the strategic policies”
of the local authority’s plan it should be in,
“conformity with the objectives and policies”,
of that plan. It seems to me that general conformity is, again, fairly weak. If the examiner were to find that the plan is in general conformity or had taken into account the Secretary of State's advice but then totally ignored it, there would be problems.
We need to place some tighter requirements on the examiner in this regard. I am all for flexibility and localism but if we are maintaining a structure of planning, there needs to be interrelationship between its various layers. My three amendments in this section, starting with—I get lost in this alphabet soup—Amendment 153ZZA, therefore would attempt to tighten up the form of wording in this section. I commend them to the Minister.