Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that several initiatives are already in place to make sure that new development is sustainable. A review is looking at what further measures we could take.

Neighbourhood plans are a key part of the Bill. Not all planning takes place at local authority level. Neighbourhood development plans, which were introduced in 2011, have proved to be extremely effective. Far from being a so-called nimby’s charter, some neighbourhood groups with plans in force have planned for housing numbers above the number set by the local authority for that area. Those communities have, on average, planned for 10% more homes. Neighbourhood planning gives residents and businesses greater certainty about developments in their area, ensuring that they have a choice on how best to meet local housing needs.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

The Bill contains some excellent provisions on neighbourhood planning, but neighbourhood plans are predicated on a local plan being in place. I represent two authorities: one has a local plan and the other does not. Will the Secretary of State, either through the Bill or otherwise, take strong action against those authorities that do not have a local plan in place?

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the lack of consistency in approach by neighbourhoods. So far some 2,000 community groups have got together, out of which some 240 neighbourhood plans have been adopted. We would like to see a lot more, and these measures will achieve just that. My hon. Friend will know that giving communities greater influence over the planning process can reduce the number of objections to planning applications so that more homes can be built more quickly.

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[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am grateful to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart). I will be brief, as the hour is late. I have one or two things, as a chartered surveyor and declaring my Member’s interests as a landowner, that I would like to say about the Bill, which I warmly welcome.

Neighbourhood planning is very important. The problem is that, in my constituency, it is not working. It is not working because I represent two local authorities, one of which has a local plan and the other of which—Cotswold—does not have a local plan, for reasons best known to itself. The result, I say to my hon. Friend the Minister, is that, in The Cotswolds, which is 80% in the area of natural beauty, we have one of the most complicated planning systems anywhere in the country. I represent over 100 towns and villages, and we do not have a single neighbourhood plan adopted, because we do not have a local plan in place. That cannot be acceptable, and I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s statement today that he will take powers in the Bill to force local authorities, that have been laggards, like mine, to get a local plan in place.

[Mr Bacon]

Does my hon. Friend agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), who said that it would be a good idea, where the planning authority does not have a local plan, for the neighbourhood plan to become, sui generis, the local plan for that parish?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend has taken the words out of my mouth—I would do exactly that. We need to simplify neighbourhood plans, as we have done in this Bill. We need to give them greater weight, as we have done in the Bill.

However, there are problems even where there is a local plan in place. Stroud District Council has a local plan in place. I have a village in the very south of my constituency, which is huge—65 miles long—that has an advanced-stage, very professional neighbourhood plan, and there is also a local plan in place. However, a developer took the district council to appeal over an area right next to the cricket pitch and the village hall. The village was desperate not to develop it, but the decision was overturned on appeal. I would just say to my hon. Friend the Minister that, where there is a local plan and a neighbourhood plan in place, it should be de rigueur that the Planning Inspectorate does not overturn those plans on appeal, except in wholly exceptional circumstances.

I warmly welcome the powers to look at pre-commencement orders. As a chartered surveyor, I have advised, on an unpaid basis, on a very big development in East Anglia. Although it was designated in the local plan from the beginning, the process took five years because of the over-zealousness of the local authority. Think of all the houses that could have been built by now if the over-zealous pre-commencement conditions were not in place.

Finally, I want quickly to move on to compulsory purchase because nobody has said much about that in this debate. I spent many months sitting on the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill Select Committee, and I have seen how HS2, as a major public acquiring authority, works. Some of the compulsory acquisitions, of which there were a very large number, were in my view over-zealous. We need to be careful about large acquiring authorities being over-zealous.

I am grateful for the provisions in the Bill on temporary acquisitions, but, equally, the requirement for such acquisitions should be tempered by what the acquiring authority needs to do on them. If it needs to demolish somebody’s house, proper compensation should be paid.

I am concerned about the provision to do away with the 10-year disturbance payment. Where there is an uplift in the value of the land, even subsequently, the person whose land has been acquired gets some benefit from that uplift. I heard what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said about the no scheme world. In theory, that is an ideal way of valuing a property—as a chartered surveyor, I know about these things—because it ignores the uplift, or indeed the fall, caused by the scheme itself. The danger is that the acquiring authority will acquire properties too cheaply, because there will be no allowance for any hope value for potential planning permission. Given that a lot of the big schemes are near centres of population, where the land will—if not immediately, at least in due course a few years down the line—get planning permission, it seems to me that the acquiring authority is getting an unnecessary advantage.

However, I warmly welcome the provisions for compulsory purchase whereby interest can be paid and payments in advance can be made. As we saw on the HS2 Bill, all these things are desperately necessary. With those few words, I warmly welcome this Bill.

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[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, and to welcome the Minister to his place. I will be comparatively brief because I endorse everything said by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) about neighbourhood plans. One of the great enjoyments of my earlier career was to work with him in developing the policy at an early stage. He is right that we did not pick up on some bits of it at the time, but the Minister and his colleagues now have a chance to finish the job.

I have two thoughts about neighbourhood plans. It is important that we push forward with them. I have been disappointed by the slow take-up in areas of outer London, for example, compared with many other parts of the country. That is why it is right to take the measures we are taking. If I may be blunt, I also have a concern that, in some cases, some of our colleagues on local government planning authorities do not always encourage the development of neighbourhood plans because, frankly, they do not want to give up the power that comes from sitting on the borough or district planning committee. That goes wholly against the spirit of what we, as a party, are trying to do. I therefore welcome such steps.

I have another practical suggestion. Currently, the Government leave a gap of eight weeks between the referendum and the making of the plan. I understand why that is done. According to the statute, it is essentially to enable the consideration of any conflict with European and human rights law. Will the Minister consider whether that gap is necessary? Eminent lawyers have suggested that it is almost inconceivable that a plan would advance to the referendum stage without those issues being considered. If we revisited that, we could probably shave another two months off the bringing of a plan into force. Perhaps we may discuss that as the Bill progresses.

The proposal on planning conditions is right. I have seen the abuse of planning conditions. To give just one example, a religious body based in my constituency wanted planning permission for a place of worship in a neighbouring authority, I am glad to say. It was hit with 24 conditions, 14 of them pre-commencement. A number of them in effect duplicated building regulation requirements, including one that undermined the exemption that the faith group has under part L of the building regulations on fuel conservation. That cannot be right and is an abuse.

There is a concern that if one appeals against a planning condition, potentially the whole permission is up for consideration by the inspector. Would it not be sensible to amend the regulations such that it is purely the condition that is appealed against that is subject to the appeal and any consideration of papers or, although unlikely, an inquiry? That would save uncertainty for the whole scheme and encourage people to move swiftly.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

It would speed it up.

[Robert Neill]

It would certainly speed things along markedly.

The planning register is a sensible and useful device. May I float another suggestion with the Minister? The Welsh Assembly Government have put the historic environmental record on a statutory footing. It might be useful to do that here so that local heritage information is available. That would avoid the risk of something being thrown up that delays the process after a good deal of investment has taken place.

Finally, I endorse all the comments made by my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), about compulsory purchase. He referred to the rates of interest. It is important that we deal swiftly with those matters. As I said to the Secretary of State, perhaps he would be prepared to meet some of us to yet again revisit the vexed issue of the inability of local planning authorities to impose planning conditions on their own land—land that they own as a landowner—that they would enforce as a local authority. Their inability to do that is bizarre. My London Borough of Bromley has ambitious schemes to drive business and business rates growth, but it is bizarre that it cannot, as an authority, put an obligation on its own land that it wishes to comply with in order to drive the rest of a scheme.

I hope that those are constructive suggestions that will make a good Bill even more useful.

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[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I thank all Members—they were mostly Government Members—who have contributed to this debate. They did an excellent job speaking up for their constituencies and the various planning issues that affect them, and extolling the virtues of neighbourhood planning. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) also did an excellent job in explaining how important neighbourhood planning was to his constituency and the need for local plans to refer to it. I was also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) who, as always, pointed out exactly what was wrong with the Bill, what needs to be improved and how we need to support planning more effectively.

I am rather surprised to be speaking again on planning legislation so soon after our proceedings on the Housing and Planning Act 2016. After all, the ink is barely dry on the paper. However, as there have been six pieces of planning legislation in the past six years, I perhaps should not be that surprised.

The Minister said that he wants to have shovels put in the ground, but I am not sure that this is the Bill to do it. Indeed, the Bill is much more interesting for what is not in it than for what is. I am not sure whether it represents—in the words of the Secretary of State earlier— “action on many fronts”. In fact, his own colleagues came up with quite a substantial list of things that should have been in this Bill. They thought that there should be something about infrastructure and how it could be funded effectively to underpin developments and something about carbon-neutral housing. They felt that local plans should have a strong relationship with neighbourhood plans, or that neighbourhood plans should trump local plans, and that there should be a green-belt review. There was some suggestion that there should be a statutory footing for local plans and deadlines for their delivery. There were other suggestions that the Bill should cover broadband in developments, the use of vacant public sector land, how to protect hedgehogs, how to pluck geese, how to repeal applications, how to use fees more effectively, land banking and permission banking, the failure to address Brexit, and a call-in procedure for neighbourhood plans. Those were just some of the issues that were raised, so there is a lot to be addressed by the new Minister, whom I welcome to his post. I look forward to working with him in Committee on improving the Bill.

We strongly welcome the measures to strengthen neighbourhood planning. We all agree that communities should be at the heart of development and that development should start with our neighbourhoods. Any measure that will strengthen neighbourhood planning should be welcomed. Too many people think that planning is done to them, and we need to return to a much happier place in which communities feel that they and their representatives have some control over planning.

There are a few issues about neighbourhood planning that I hope to address in Committee. We need to look at whether it is being properly resourced, and whether the links to local plans are strong enough. We welcome the opportunity of a planning register that will allow for better scrutiny of permitted development and, in particular, the scale of use of permitted development. The Government Front-Bench team will know that we have a long-standing objection to permitted development being used for the delivery of housing in this country. Indeed, we would not need a register if we did not use permitted development in the way that it is used, as all homes would have to go through the planning process properly, and there would be some control of the infrastructure that supports them and the quality and standards of the properties being built. However, as the Government are using permitted development, it seems sensible for a register to be in place.

One of our main bugbears with the Bill is that it does not sufficiently recognise the difficulties that local planning departments are facing as a result of the lack of resources to carry out their responsibilities. Ministers would be living in a cupboard if they did not know that right across the housing and planning sector, developers large and small, a large number of agencies and planning departments are saying that the lack of resource for planning departments is the major spanner in the works for delivery. Since 2010 spending on planning by local authorities has almost halved, from £2.2 billion in 2010 to £1.2 billion last year. The Royal Town Planning Institute, the Local Government Association, the Town and Country Planning Association and the British Property Federation have all pointed to the fact that greater expectations must mean greater support for planning, yet the opposite is happening. Planning fees are vital to plug the gap.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Would the hon. Lady support greater flexibility for each local authority to be able to set its own planning fees to meet its own circumstances, and possibly to allow higher fees to give accelerated results?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Indeed. That was one of the amendments that I tabled to the Housing and Planning Bill when it was going through the House. Alas, it was rejected by the then Housing Minister. It was interesting to hear the same point being made earlier in our discussion. I am pleased if Conservative Members are coming round to our view that planning departments should be able to set fees at full recovery level.

On a more positive note, we welcome the measures to streamline compulsory purchase orders. The new Ministers must have been studying their copy of the Lyons review. We argued strongly there that CPOs were not fit for purpose and needed to be streamlined. I am pleased to see those measures in the Bill but, again, they could be improved.

I want to spend a minute or two on pre-commencement planning conditions, which is the area of the Bill on which we will probably have most discussion in Committee. I am pleased that the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) is in his place. He criticised pre-commencement planning conditions at length, yet I have a list from a development taking place in my constituency and I cannot see what is wrong with any of these conditions. The developers have to provide samples of materials. The development is in a conservation area, so that is important. They have to provide full details about bats. Well, we must protect bats. There must be noise mitigation and notice of demolition.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

New clause 3 calls for a comprehensive review of the entire compulsory purchase order process. There was clear consensus among the witnesses at the Public Bill Committee evidence sessions that the current CPO system is not fit for purpose. It is convoluted and puts people off using it, which in turn has a negative impact on the delivery of development. Colin Cottage of the Compulsory Purchase Association commented:

“The existing system is not helpful for reaching quick solutions. In fact, in many ways it encourages people to be fighting with each other from the outset.”––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 64, Q114.]

He said that ultimately that causes uncertainty and additional cost. Richard Asher of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said:

“I believe, and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has always believed, that codification of the whole of the CPO rules, which go back to 1845 and are highly complex, would be a sensible way forward”.––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 64, Q113.]

He said that he wanted a review of the system as it stands. Labour strongly believes that the legislation should be updated to enable the greater use of CPOs as a tool to drive effective regeneration and development strategies and to work in partnership with developers to ensure that we get the new homes and development that we need.

More than 100 years of conflicting statute and case law makes up the current CPO legislation, so small changes will not have a significant effect. Indeed, in Committee the Minister reflected on the fact that the changes, welcome though they are, would not be a game changer. I therefore ask him why the Government continue to make small changes to the CPO system bit by bit, rather than bringing forward legislation to allow us to review it and make it fit for purpose.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I wish to speak to new clause 12 and amendments 26 and 27, which are in my name.

On new clause 12, both the Housing and Planning Act 2016 and the Bill contain welcome measures to make it clear that an acquiring authority should make payments of compensation in advance—that is the important bit—of taking possession of land. They also provide a mechanism for improving the rates of interest on late compensation payments, which is important because it will hopefully encourage acquiring authorities to pay in advance, and to pay a reasonable interest rate, rather than delaying payment.

Those measures require further regulations to bring them into force. As soon as the Bill becomes law, those regulations should be brought forward without delay to ensure that landowners and business owners benefit from the Government’s previous commitment to improve interest rates on late payments.

On amendment 26, I welcome the Bill’s provisions to allow acquiring authorities to take land on a temporary basis. That will provide much-needed flexibility within the compulsory purchase system and stop acquiring authorities having to take land on a permanent basis that is required only temporarily. However, they should not be allowed to take land on both those bases. If, having taken land on a temporary basis, an acquiring authority finds that it needs to take it on a permanent basis, that should be subject to a second notice to treat and a compulsory purchase procedure.

Finally, amendment 27 is the most important, in my view. It would remove clause 28, which repeals part 4 of the Land Compensation Act 1961. That repeal will prevent landowners who have had land compulsorily purchased for a particular purpose from seeking additional compensation should the land end up being used for a different, more lucrative development. I will briefly try to explain that to the House.

The general principle of compulsory purchase is that if someone’s land is being compulsorily acquired, they should be paid the same price as if that land were being acquired on a voluntary, willing-seller willing-buyer basis in the private commercial sector. Abolishing part 4 of the 1961 Act will mean that if the land subsequently has a different use—for example, if the planning zoning changes so that it suddenly becomes extremely valuable because it could be developed for housing or commercial purposes—the person having his land acquired will not get the benefit of that uplift. As a chartered surveyor—I declare that in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—if I were ever selling land that I felt was likely to have such an uplift, I would always insist on an overage clause being placed on the sale, not for 10 years but for 20 or 25 years. During that time the vendor would get 50% of the value of the uplift.

I say to my hon. Friend the Minister, loud and clear, that in clause 28 he is enabling acquiring authorities to acquire land on the cheap at the expense of private landowners, and I think that is unfair.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I apologise for missing the beginning of the debate—I was chairing a Select Committee.

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[Robert Neill]

We are putting the ball in the Government’s court in that regard. We have the commencement date for the relevant provisions. It seems to my hon. Friend and I that the regulation to implement them ought to follow at the time of commencement, or as close as practically possible thereto. That is what we are seeking to achieve, so that there is a smooth transition.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend rightly points out that the Government have agreed to the provisions, and therefore that Treasury approval has presumably been given because the measure will cost a certain amount of money. It would therefore be logical that, as soon as the Bill comes into force, the provisions should come into force. That is the strength of our joint proposals.

[Robert Neill]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I could not put it better and need not say more on that aspect.

The key point on amendment 26 is that the word “certainty” is fashionable in the current political climate. Businesses want certainty about a number of things, and the proposal is another example. They may well have to make contingency arrangements to relocate all or part of their operations. It is obviously much better for them to know at the earliest stage what is to be acquired on a permanent basis and what is to be acquired on a temporary basis. If it is temporary, they can plan accordingly. Nothing stops the acquiring authority from coming back for a second bite of the cherry, but businesses—it need not be a large business, and could be a small or medium-sized enterprise or a family firm—would not be left in limbo about their long-term future.

My final point is on amendment 27, and the situation is as my hon. Friend rightly says. I respect his professional expertise as a surveyor, and my experience as a lawyer leads me to the same conclusion. My experience in the local government world leads me to expect that of any local authority. My local authority is active and has a good investment fund in property in Bromley. If we acquire by private treaty, we expect to enter into overage payments. It would be the norm. We are seeking to address an equality-of-arms argument.

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Finally, on the rates of interest for temporary possession, the commencement strategy for the new temporary possession regime is still in its infancy. I can say, however, that there should be no difficulty in bringing the interest rate regulations into force at the same time as the commencement of the substantive provision. I hope that that has reassured my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

indicated assent.

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend is nodding, and I hope he will therefore withdraw new clause 12.

My hon. Friend went on to raise one of the more difficult points in the new temporary possession regime. As he said, amendment 26 would permit either temporary possession or permanent acquisition of a particular parcel of land, but not both at the same time. A balance has to be struck between certainty for the landowner—he made that point very powerfully—and flexibility for acquiring authorities who are tasked with providing what is often vital national infrastructure.

For linear transport schemes, it is not always possible to determine the precise line of a route at the time of taking compulsory powers. The final details might not be confirmed until a late stage. The acquiring authority must always work within the lines of the limits of deviation, but it will often be necessary to occupy much of the land temporarily in order to construct the scheme, but only take permanent possession of the land that is actually built on. Where this is required, clause 15(3) currently provides flexibility for an authorising instrument to authorise temporary possession of land needed for carrying out construction works, as well as compulsory acquisition of the land needed permanently for the actual scheme, although clause 15(3) does not of course enable temporary possession or compulsory acquisition of the same land at the same time.

On the other hand, I would not wish, for the reasons my hon. Friend so eloquently set out, to give carte blanche to lazy acquiring authorities who cannot make up their minds early enough about what land they need on a permanent basis and what land they need temporarily just to carry out the scheme. I hope it will satisfy him if I say that I propose to issue guidance on what an acquiring authority would have to demonstrate before the confirming authority, which would be the relevant Secretary of State, confirmed an order that attempted to authorise both temporary and permanent acquisition of the same land. With that reassurance, I hope my hon. Friend will withdraw his amendment.

Finally, amendment 27 seeks to ensure that part IV of the Land Compensation Act 1961 would remain in force. The majority of those who responded to the Government consultation on further reform of the compulsory purchase order system in March 2016 were in favour of repeal of part IV, as was the Law Commission. I reassure my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), that compensation under the ordinary rules already reflects the full market value of the land at the valuation date with all its present and future potential, including any hope value for future development—a point he made very forcefully.

The balance has moved more in favour of repeal since the reform of the planning assumptions for compensation in the Localism Act 2011, as these specifically take the conditions as known to the market at the time into account. I accept however that the arguments for and against repeal are finely balanced. In favour of repealing part IV is the argument that it introduces an element of uncertainty and unknown risk about liability for compensation for the acquiring authority, which leads to increased cost for the public sector, for example often through insurance premiums. The Government believe that repeal of part IV will reduce the risk and uncertainty, while maintaining the principle of fair compensation.

My hon. Friends the Members for The Cotswolds and for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) have argued passionately that the repeal of part IV would create uncertainty for claimants. Under part IV, a claimant is treated as though they have retained their investment and interest in the acquired land so that they can benefit from any increase in value generated by a subsequent planning permission. My hon. Friends argued that that reflects commercial practice in that overage clauses are routinely included in land transactions.

The perceived clash between commercial practice and the compensation rules might be reconciled if after the repeal of part IV, landowners pressed for overage clauses when negotiating with acquiring authorities over the sale of their land. That might enable deals by agreement to be struck without recourse to compulsory purchase. That is what all of us should aspire to: that acquiring authorities agree deals voluntarily with those who own land.

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[Graham Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the licensing aspect and the planning aspect. The answer is both. What we want is licensing. The Government are reviewing that and the number of fixed odds betting terminals in a bookmakers. I do not want to prejudice the outcome of that review or the Government’s decision. What we are talking about is the failure of the planning system, because we are dealing with planning in the Bill. The straight answer to the hon. Gentleman, with whom I am familiar, is that it is both. It is not one or the other. It is licensing and planning.

Too often, it seems that neither central Government nor local government have the capacity or the will to take responsibility in planning law for the proliferation and concentration of betting offices and payday loan shops on the high street. I want to stress here that new clause 1 is also about payday lenders. The current planning legislation is very weak at best. Any Member knows from looking down their high street and speaking to their councillors that planning law is weak on this issue, so local councillors on planning committees often err on the side of caution and grant permission to bookmakers, because their budgets are under pressure and they do not want to lose appeals. Therefore, there is a secondary reason why clarity is really important—why the law must be tightened up.

Despite the protestations of the Government and the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), article 4, which is often used by the Government as a reason in law to assist local authorities in dealing with this matter, is totally fallacious and unhelpful. Local authorities do not use it. It is not the tool that the Government say that it is. It is completely counterproductive, because it just adds to the confusion of local authority members on planning committees. They are unsure about the law and whether they can act, which is why they often grant planning permission for bookmakers.

In theory, a direction under article 4 can require bookmakers to seek planning permission, but in practice, a direction must be justified according to the strict criteria, can be overturned by the Government and is likely to be legally challenged. Its cost and complexity mean that councils are unwilling to utilise such measures. Not many local authorities use article 4. I have not made a freedom of information request recently, but when I speak to Local Government Association members and local authorities, no one tells me that they find this aspect of the law suitable for the purpose for which it was designed.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am sure that the House will be aware that the reason local authorities very rarely use article 4 is that they can be involved in paying substantial sums in compensation for using that power.

[Graham Jones]

Absolutely. That returns to the point that I have just made, which is that we need clarity. The new clause is an opportunity to bring clarity. It is not about the Opposition trying to be prescriptive. If Members read new clause 1, they will see that it asks the Government to come forward with what they think is reasonable. It just clarifies the law and takes up the point that we do not have clarity now. It will bring clarity, so the consequences on planning committees in making decisions and compensation claims are there for all to see. That is why the LGA, the all-party group on fixed odds betting terminals and local authorities have all demanded a clearer framework for granting planning permission to these types of development, so avoiding the problem of clustering. The new clause does exactly that, and I intend to press it to a vote.

By setting out guidelines that lay down parameters for quantity, density and the impact of those businesses on the high street, central Government will assist local authorities in their efforts to ensure that proposals for new developments are approved on public interest grounds. Accordingly, this cross-party proposal seeks to address these concerns by injecting greater accountability and responsibility into planning considerations.

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[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) is absolutely right that it is a gross dereliction of duty. My local authority is in that category, and the net result is that we do not have a single neighbourhood plan, despite the fact that I have written to every single clerk and every single town and parish councillor in my constituency. We need to put powers in the Bill to make sure that every local authority has a local plan, so that the good people in our constituencies can go forward with their local plans in the confidence that they will not be derailed by speculative developers.

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that if the Government are willing to listen to this argument, as I believe they are, and come forward with proposals to deal with the situation—should the measures I have tabled not be the right way to do so—we will rebuild confidence in neighbourhood planning and it will proceed.

The measures I have tabled work as follows. New clause 7 addresses the first problem I set out. It would require planning authorities to consult neighbourhood planning bodies on decisions to grant planning permission. Where a planning authority wanted to approve a major development against the wishes of a neighbourhood planning body, the planning authority would be required to consult the Secretary of State before granting permission.

The five-year land supply is dealt with by new clause 8, which would empower the Secretary of State to issue a development order to: clarify the means by which housing land supply is assessed; define the minimum amount of time before a local planning authority’s failure to meet its housing targets would result in its local plan being out of date; and specify that neighbourhood plans should be taken into account, notwithstanding the lack of a five-year supply of housing land.

I very much hope that the Minister will respond to the new clauses in the spirit in which I have tabled them. There is a genuine problem here, but it is capable of being addressed without undermining the need to build more houses in this country. We must respect local communities that do the right thing and embark on the plans, because there is a real danger of undermining localism and communities if we do not act to ensure both that the principles of neighbourhood plans are upheld and that made neighbourhood plans that have been approved by the local population in a democratic vote cannot be overturned by speculative developers.

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[Mr Mitchell]

I am coming directly to that point, but let me go back to parsing, for the benefit of the House, what the Secretary of State said at the developers’ lunch. First, he said that this was a local decision. It is not a local decision; it is made by Birmingham City Council, which is one of the largest authorities in Europe, and the views of my constituents—100,000 residents of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield—have been completely blocked out. Our 2015 manifesto stated that we would

“ensure local people have more control over planning and protect the Green Belt”.

The action that the Secretary of State has allowed flies absolutely and categorically in the face of that. Entirely ignored are the 100,000 citizens of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, virtually all of whom are totally opposed to the development. They have marched in their hundreds and protested in their thousands, and 11 out of 12 Conservative councillors have opposed the process.

We have the largest town council in the country. It is totally and unanimously opposed to the development, but it has not even been consulted. Will the junior Minister commit to going back to Birmingham City Council and suggesting—I do not think he has the power to force the council to do this—that common decency expects it to go back to the 24 elected members of the largest town council in the country, formally consult them and listen to what they have to say?

Labour has been trying to build around and emasculate the royal town of Sutton Coldfield for 30 years—it refers to us as “North Birmingham”—and, thanks to the Secretary of State, it now might well succeed. My 100,000 constituents have been totally and completely disfranchised. That is the very definition of the tyranny of the majority over the minority, and the Department and the Secretary of State have now made themselves complicit in this.

On the second point that the Secretary of State raised, neither the council nor the Department, and certainly not the inspector, has looked at the patently obvious alternatives. There could be a much more comprehensive regional approach, which the excellent Conservative mayoral candidate for the west midlands, Andy Street, has spoken up for. There are superb plans to build a Wolverhampton garden city, almost all of which would be on brownfield land, to provide 45,000 houses. There are small brownfield sites in Birmingham that have specifically not been included for consideration. We in Sutton Coldfield came up with the very reasonable proposal that there should be an eight-year moratorium on building 6,000 homes on the green belt while the other 45,000-plus were built on brownfield sites. That approach would enable the Government and the council to review the extent to which building on the green belt might be needed or acceptable. However, the proposal was rejected, without even any consideration by the inspector.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England made an excellent submission in February, which I sent to the Minister on 16 August. It made many excellent points that have not been addressed. I point out that when Birmingham was controlled by a coalition of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, Tory councillors had plans to build the same number of houses as are now proposed by Labour-controlled Birmingham City Council, but without needing to encroach on the green belt. By definition, there are not even exceptional circumstances for building on the green belt, let alone “very exceptional circumstances”, which were the words used by the Secretary of State.

I accept of course that these are Labour plans, but Sutton Coldfield has been grievously let down. I believe that we were and are entitled to expect the protection of the Government, based on their manifesto commitment, and I am deeply disappointed that we have not been able to rely on that. The transport problems on our side of the Birmingham conurbation that will be caused by the development will be acute and horrific. There is no guarantee that the Labour council will spend the necessary money on infrastructure for these new builds. There was no proper consultation with the relevant health services and authorities, although the council was obliged to carry that out.

The Government have got themselves into a mess on the green belt by trying to face both ways at the same time. With this decision, they have massively shot themselves in the foot. My right hon. and hon. Friends will not trust the Department on issues involving the green belt, about which many of them are extremely sensitive, because of the ludicrous nature of this decision. Building more homes, which we all want, will therefore be much more difficult for the Department.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on making a very cogent case. Does he accept that the reason the green belt has a high designation is that such areas are very special—they are green lungs in and around our great cities? Once they are built over, they are very difficult to recreate.

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend puts the argument eloquently. That is exactly what my constituents feel. The west midlands has less green-belt land than many parts of the country, which is another reason why there should have been a much more holistic and imaginative approach, rather than this appalling scheme.

Amendments 28 and 29 offer the Government a chance to show good faith with regard to our 2015 election manifesto. I do not propose to trouble the House by pressing them to a Division, but I warn the Government that if they do not accept the principle behind what I am saying, if not the amendments, not only will they have great difficulty on house building, because they will not be trusted on the green belt, but I have no doubt that the other place, which has a strong history of looking at these matters, will oblige this House to think again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Antoinette Sandbach]

That is the very reason that I tabled new clause 2. I wanted to give the Secretary of State an additional power in relation to costs when developers try to drive a coach and horses through neighbourhood plans. That is also why I support new clauses 7 and 8 tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I agree with much of what my hon. Friend says. When she drew up her new clause, did she think about encouraging the planning inspector to award costs to the local authority where the developer was turned down at appeal and the conditions in her new clause were met? I have one case in my constituency where the council had to pay the developer’s costs, even though the council had won.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. That seems a very strange case indeed. I am aware that councils often do not apply for costs and, when they do, they get only a proportion of their costs back, not their full costs. By tabling the new clause, I hope to give additional powers to rectify that position and to discourage developers from such behaviour.

The Minister will be aware that I have campaigned long on this issue because of the actions of developers in my constituency. I know that there are issues affecting the Cheshire East half of my constituency, which does not have a local plan. Where communities have worked hard and put in place their neighbourhood plans, it is deeply frustrating for them to be put at risk because the methodology for calculating the five-year housing land supply was not correct. It seems ironic that Cheshire East used exactly the same methodology as Cheshire West and Chester, whose five-year land supply was accepted, yet that of Cheshire East was not. I can only assume that that is because there was no build-out of the housing that was described in earlier contributions.

I support new clause 8 because where a defect in the five-year supply is caused by the failure of developers to build out that causes the problem. The council has granted planning permission, but the developments are not being started. For those reasons, I support these new clauses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Burrowes]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and to speak briefly to new clause 1 and amendments 24 and 25, which are both moderate amendments.

We have had a debate about betting shops and FOBTs, but Mr Deputy Speaker is giving great latitude to the discussion on new clause 1, because FOBTs and betting are the responsibility of another Department. This is essentially about the tools in relation to licensing and the welcome review. We have heard the warm-up act from my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). His speech can be rehearsed again when we come to the outcome, which hopefully will show evidence of the significant harm that is being done, particularly to the most vulnerable people.

I am not so concerned about the Derek Webbs of this world or the motivations of hon. Members or hon. Friends; I am concerned about the vulnerable people who are certainly being preyed upon, particularly in deprived communities, and especially as a result of the clustering of betting shops. There is good evidence from the Local Government Association that in areas of clustering there is increased problem gambling. We cannot avoid that evidence. New clause 1 seeks to deal with clustering.

It is just one tool. The number of betting shops, the number of those betting, and indeed those going to payday loan companies, are thankfully being reduced because of other regulatory measures. The 2015 regulatory interventions on payday loans were very welcome, and have had an impact. The additional taxation of gaming machines has also had an impact on the number of betting shops.

These are all tools at the Government’s disposal, but we are discussing planning tools and whether they are fit for purpose. In London there are local plans in Enfield and elsewhere—the borough plans that take account of impact on amenity, concentration of similar uses, security, locality and proximity to sensitive uses. That is all welcome. The previous Mayor of London also focused in his plan on the over-concentration of betting shops and prepared and issued the 2014 supplementary planning guidance. It recognised the urgent need to enable local planning authorities to control the proliferation of betting shops and to address implications of retaining the viability and vitality of town centres while protecting amenity and safety.

Governments, local councils and neighbourhood plans are all on this journey, but all of us in this place may not be on the same journey. There has been good cross-party support for the concerns about clustering, but is that adequate? Control, not least of clustering, is insufficient across the board and across the country, and we must consider the available opportunities. That is what new clause 1 is about. It provides for an assessment when an increase in the number of betting shops or payday lenders is proposed to ensure that deleterious impacts of clustering are prevented.

In many ways, the new clause pulls together the elements of the journey that the Government are on, and I look forward to hearing the Minister welcome the principles behind it. If he is unwilling to support it this time around, taking account of the concerns of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) about blocking, I hope he recognises that there are good intentions across the House. When the review of fixed odds betting terminals is published, if there is evidence of significant harm, I hope the Government will do what is already within their power and issue appropriate guidance. It matters that betting shops are sadly disproportionately affecting vulnerable people. There is something in the fact that the poorest 55 boroughs have more than twice as many betting shops as the most affluent 115 boroughs. There needs to be an appropriate local dimension so that those poorer boroughs have the Government behind them, backing them up with local plans. I am supportive of new clause 1, but I will not join the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) in the Lobby tonight. I want the Government to be true to their word and take appropriate action and issue guidance at the appropriate time, such as when we hear back from the licensing review.

I support amendments 24 and 25—two welcome and moderate amendments from my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen). She is somewhat radical on occasions, but they are moderate and simply state what we all no doubt want to ensure. When we consider new building and the current and future projections in our areas, we must take account of the entire population, older and disabled people in particular. The amendments make sense and fit with the Government’s agenda of integrating social care and with the Green Paper about integration across Departments. It is projected that over-65 households will represent almost half of all household growth up to 2026, so getting housing right for older people will have immense benefits for society and the economy. When we ask our local authorities about new higher accessibility standards, the number of retirement housing developments, easy access to public transport and other local services and facilities, home adaptations, disabled facilities grants, and proper and appropriate housing support services in sheltered housing, these amendments will give that real teeth and ensure that what we all want does happen. I look forward to the Minister’s positive response.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful for catching your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker. So troublesome am I that three Whips, including one who is sitting next to me, have encouraged me to be brief, so I will do just that.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

It is in your hands.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

It is in my hands. The Whips will see whether their spell has worked.

I start by welcoming my hon. Friend the Planning Minister. He has been incredibly generous in listening to Back-Bench concerns about planning. Having practised in it as a chartered surveyor, I know that it is an incredibly difficult area. The Bill is important, because neighbourhood plans were introduced by the Localism Act 2011—the clue is in the name—and if we can devolve planning down as far as possible, many people will feel that they have ownership of the planning system and be much happier about what is being done to them. In contrast to some Members who have spoken in this debate, I warmly welcome such plans, and the Bill is a good step forward. New clauses 7 and 8 and amendments 19 and 28, which are in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), all represent improvements to the Bill.

We must ensure that neighbourhood plans work, and we need three things to do that. I represent two local authorities, Stroud District Council, which has a local district plan, and Cotswold District Council, which does not, and I have been pretty strong in my words about the latter. The net result in the Cotswold District Council area is that we do not have a single neighbourhood plan in operation.