Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Earl Howe Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 25th October 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Earl Howe]

That this House do not insist on its Amendment 22B, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 22C.

22C: Because local authorities should continue to meet in person to ensure good governance.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, in moving Motion A I shall also speak to Motion B. Your Lordships will remember that, during our consideration of Commons amendments on Monday this week, two amendments were carried by the House for further consideration by the other place. The first, tabled by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, was on virtual attendance at local authority meetings, and the second, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, related to consideration of climate change within the planning system. I will take each of these in turn.

Amendment 22B, tabled by my noble friend, has been decisively rejected by the other place. I well appreciate that this issue has elicited a range of differing views among your Lordships. However, I have to tell my noble friend, whom I greatly respect, that the Government’s position on the matter has not changed. Throughout the passage of the Bill, the Government have not wavered from their clear, strong and principled view that preserving in-person debate is important for maintaining the integrity of local democracy. My noble friend’s amendment is quite clearly at odds with that position, as it provides the power to any future Government to potentially make regulations that go so far as allowing all local authorities to always meet remotely, without any limitations.

Local authorities need councillors to be physically present, to actively take part in democratic decision-making affecting the citizens they represent, and to interact with their fellow councillors at every opportunity to develop a sound understanding of local needs and priorities. That understanding is clearly vital for ensuring the strong local leadership that councils depend on to deliver for the electorate. Perhaps most importantly, councillors need to be physically present to interact with citizens in a way that builds meaningful relationships with their community and ensures that they are, in the fullest sense, accountable to their electorate.

The Government stand by their opposition to this amendment. The other place has agreed with that position. Therefore, again with great respect to my noble friend, I suggest that we have reached a point where it is right for us to draw a line under this issue. I hope that, on reflection, my noble friend will agree.

I now turn to the other outstanding issue, which is the way in which climate change is considered within the planning system. The Government continue to be committed to ensuring that the planning system supports our efforts in meeting our legal net-zero commitments by 2050 and tackling the risks of climate change. As I said earlier this week, we believe that there are already strong provisions within the Bill and other legislation that set the framework for this to happen. We have also committed to developing national policy in a way that is consistent with this.

But we have heard the strength of feeling that this commitment should be further enshrined in law. Therefore, the Government have gone a step further in tabling an amendment to require that, in preparing any national development management policies:

“The Secretary of State must have regard to the need to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change”.


As I have already made clear, we are fully supportive of the intentions of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, but we remain concerned that the amendment, as drafted, would give rise to significant challenge to how local councils fulfil their obligations to consider climate change within their planning functions. Notably, the combined effect of local authorities having to prove that their plans and decisions have “special regard” to climate change, while also proving that they are consistent with strategic national targets on carbon reduction, will at the very least create significant debate and deliberation on how to demonstrate this, but will very likely also give rise to litigation over the justifications presented.

The additional legislative provisions we have bought forward put climate change considerations at the centre of the development of new national development management policies, and in turn enable those considerations to influence all local planning decisions. I believe that this new provision takes us a lot closer to the position the noble Lord sought to arrive at with his amendment. I hope that both he and the House will be content to approve it. I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for coming to the Dispatch Box in his charming and inimitable way to consider my humble little amendment once again. It is almost 20 years to the day since I joined a shadow team of which he was an eminent member; I hope that our co-operation will continue long into the future.

I think that any primary school pupil who has been watching our proceedings will be confused by our exhausting not just every letter of the alphabet except the letter O but additional letters of the alphabet. I am inclined to agree to disagree with the House of Commons’s disagreement with Amendment 22B, and will rehearse a couple of reasons why. The revised Amendment 22B was very modest in its remit. I accept my noble friend’s premise that local councils should primarily meet physically, but we went on to state that limited circumstances specified in regulations passed by the Government would permit a normally wholly physical meeting to be attended virtually. I am a little baffled and bewildered by the Government’s unwillingness to move a little more along these lines.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, significant changes have been made to improve the Bill while we have worked on it over the past 10 months—although I have to say that it is beginning to feel like a lifetime.

However, we are mainly looking at the two amendments in front of us—first, on whether local authorities should be allowed to meet virtually with hybrid technology. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, on her assiduous work in pressing this issue and continuing to bring it to the attention of your Lordships’ House. We find the Government’s response deeply disappointing. In many ways, I would like better to understand why they have dug their heels in on this issue, because I genuinely do not understand why there could not be a little flexibility. Local councillors can see that, in your Lordships’ House, we are able to take advantage of hybrid technology, so why is this refused to councillors? It could have been put in legislation with fairly strict reasons for its use, so that is disappointing. I genuinely do not understand why no progress whatever was made on this.

Moving on to progress, we welcome the amendment in lieu of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, on climate change and planning. I congratulate him on his work on this and on getting the Government to recognise that this is an important issue that needed an amendment to the Bill. We endorse the noble Lord’s proposals on how we can continue to take this forward.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, it is disappointing that, in a levelling-up Bill, neither child poverty nor health inequalities were included, because they are central to levelling up. On that, it is disappointing that the Prime Minister has chosen to remove the cap on bankers’ bonuses.

I thank everyone who took part and the noble Earl for his generosity in meeting to discuss these issues. We may be saying goodbye to the levelling-up Bill, but there is still much to do if we are to achieve levelling up in this country.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Hayman of Ullock, for their respective remarks.

As I said earlier, I appreciate that my noble friend and other noble Lords beg to differ from the Government’s position on remote meetings of local authorities. However, the Government’s position rests on an issue of principle that has served local government well for over 50 years. The Local Government Act 1972 is clear that “attending” a council meeting means attending physically in order to be “present” at such a meeting. I appreciate that the Covid regulations saw us through some difficult and exceptional circumstances, but the democratic principle of face-to-face attendance of meetings at all tiers of government is important. There is a long tradition of local authorities meeting in person and, since the expiration of the temporary arrangements put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic, they have continued to do so without issue. Having said that, I am grateful to my noble friend for giving us fair warning that she expects to bring us back to these issues at a suitable point in the future.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for welcoming the government amendment. I suggest to noble Lords that we should not underplay the effect of the Government’s amendment in lieu, which will mean that all national development management policies will give consideration to their impacts on climate change mitigation and adaptation while they are being developed and designated. I will take back for consideration the noble Lord’s suggestion about including targets in the Explanatory Notes.

Finally, in response to my noble friend the Duke of Montrose, I can tell the House that the Scottish Parliament granted legislative consent for relevant parts of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill yesterday, following the agreement with the Scottish Government that was mentioned in the House previously.

Motion A agreed.

Moved by

[Earl Howe]

That this House do not insist on its Amendment 45 and do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 45C in lieu.

45C: Clause 87, page 95, line 11, at end insert—
“(2A) The Secretary of State must have regard to the need to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change—
(a) in preparing a policy which is to be designated as a national development management policy, or
(b) in modifying a national development management policy.”