Housing Benefit and Supported Housing

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Brandon Lewis

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that the financial mess in which the previous Labour Government left this country means that we have to make difficult decisions and move quickly to ensure that hard-working taxpayers are properly protected. I am proud to be working with a Chancellor who sees that as one of our first and foremost duties.

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

Can I be the first on the Government side of the House to warmly welcome the announcement that my hon. Friend has just made? It makes eminent sense to postpone this decision for one year on the basis of proper evidence and facts. His supported housing review will report at the end of March. After the review has concluded, will he come to conclusions on the matter rapidly? I was lobbied about this on Saturday by Bromford housing association in my constituency. There is a lot of uncertainty in the sector, so I urge him to come to conclusions rapidly after the review has concluded.

[Brandon Lewis]

As my hon. Friend rightly says, as the findings of the review come in we will look to work urgently with those in the sector to provide certainty for them.

National Planning Policy Framework

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Brandon Lewis

Thursday 5th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Brandon Lewis]

I want to finish this point. I find it slightly ironic when I hear the hon. Lady talking about how we must link neighbourhood and local planning. In essence that is correct, and I believe in it. However, it comes from a party that was responsible for the top-down system I mentioned, in which there was little local involvement. It is a party whose shadow Secretary of State wrote to district council leaders last summer to outline some of the things he wanted to do; those who read on to the second page will have realised that he was talking about taking power away from district councils, in particular, and moving back to a more regionally based system. If they did not like it, they would just lose their planning power, effectively.

Of course, the leader of the Labour party has made clear his ideas about what will happen when there is an urban area that wants to build, but it neighbours a rural area without the capacity to take on that development. The duty to co-operate does not mean that it can take on that capacity; the development will be forced on the rural area. I struggle to see how any area will accept that as true localism. It simply is not. It is going back to a top-down system of control, under which Labour failed to deliver homes year after year for 13 years.

I have sympathy with what the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) said about ancient woodland. I talked to the Woodland Trust last week about the importance of environmental development. When I talk about good-quality development, I want it to be clear that we want trees and nature to be part of the environment. I was pleased to hear recently that Barratt Homes has worked out a deal for a secondment from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, to work with Barratt and make sure that it develops a good environment along with its homes. It is important to move away from the practice of many years of building big housing estates—nice as some are, with lovely homes in them—where there is one area of green in the middle, which, after six months, has a sign saying “No ball games, no children, no looking, no touching.” I say that tongue in cheek, but the reality on some estates is kind of like that. People never get to know their neighbours, because there is no community interaction. An important way to encourage such things is the development of communities where retail space is mixed with residential and commercial space, and with good, usable community space. I am keen for that to happen, as I said earlier this week, in the Ebbsfleet garden city, in Northstowe and in Bicester, which I visited last week to see the development. It is a great way to move forward, and neighbourhood planning can play a part in that.

Hon. Members will appreciate that as a Minister I have a quasi-judicial role in the planning system, so I cannot comment on specific proposals—a couple have been mentioned today—or individual plans. However, I will cover the issues touched on today in more general terms. We all agree, across the parties, on the importance of getting plans in place. They set the framework in which local decisions should and must be made. The Government have returned power in plan making to the local level wherever possible. As I have said and my hon. Friends have mentioned, we revoked the last Administration’s unpopular and undemocratic regional strategies. We have enabled communities to bring forward neighbourhood plans, the most important and exciting development in planning that has happened in this country in decades.

We have reformed local plan making so that inspectors may propose modifications to a plan only if invited to do so by the council. I must be clear about that, given some of the comments that have been made today. Furthermore, the NPPF strongly incentivises plan making, encouraging all councils to engage their communities and put plans in place as soon as possible, and to ensure that those plans are kept up to date. Some of my hon. Friends have given examples of frustrations that they have encountered in putting plans in place. It has been a pleasure to hear my hon. Friends talk about some of the issues in their areas. Cheshire East was mentioned, which I visited in a previous capacity, to attend a public meeting on planning. It was a wonderful experience, as it always is when I visit the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) with her. However, I have to say that Cheshire East is an example of somewhere local people are quite right to be frustrated and irritated at the behaviour of their council and its failure to deliver a local plan.

My hon. Friend touched on the fact that Cheshire East council had the support of a retired inspector whom we sent in to work with it. I wish that the council had listened to the advice so that the plan was in a better place. I understand the frustration of residents, bearing in mind that they can look only next door to another local authority that, in the same time frame, has delivered its plan sound and finished. There is no excuse for Cheshire East’s failure thus far.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am delighted to hear what the Minister is saying about neighbourhood plans. In Cheshire, as in the Cotswolds, a number of communities would love to produce neighbourhood plans, but they are deterred from doing so by the thought that when the local plan is complete their wishes could be overruled, and all that energy and expense that they went to in producing a neighbourhood plan will be wasted. Will he give any encouragement to such communities? I have been encouraging all of them to produce plans, because an adopted neighbourhood plan is a material consideration and can be overruled only for very good reasons.

[Brandon Lewis]

In short, yes. I will come on to that, but I can very much give my hon. Friend that assurance. Even decisions made in recent months back up the importance of neighbourhood plans and the weight that they carry in the planning system and in law, even if they are moving ahead of a local plan. I will come on to that in some detail.

My hon. Friends the Members for Congleton and for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) made points that highlighted the fact that councillors need to remember that they are there to make decisions; officers are in place to advise and to implement. Councillors need to ensure that they are fully aware of what is being said. I have met a number of councillors and leaders involved in planning over the past year or so who have talked about their local plan or a decision, but when I have met them with their officers it has been clear that they have not read the legislation, the regulations or the report from the inspector. They have simply taken the word of their officers, who have interpreted things in their own way. I stress to councillors who are looking at the transcript of the debate, or listening to us today, that they should take the time to ensure that they understand what is going on and that they give direction to their officers. Councillors are the ones who are elected to make decisions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. A key consideration is that it should not be up to us in Westminster to decide what is important to the local area; it is up to the local council. We have put the protections in place—we have made it clear that development on green belt should be exceptional and the last resort, and even then should be carried out only with great care and consideration. If local authorities make a green belt area a developable piece of land, they should do so only as part of a full review and a local plan process. Indeed, there are examples of inspectors turning down such work if there is not a strong evidence base to show why the local authority wants it. So green belt should be redesignated only in exceptional circumstances and as a last resort. Furthermore, the NPPF notes green belt as one of the environmental constraints on development in the framework and local planning process.

A core principle of the framework is that planning authorities should recognise the intrinsic character and beauty of their countryside. The characteristics of different landscape and the importance of ensuring that development is suitable for the local context should be recognised. As my hon. Friends have mentioned this afternoon, much countryside is loved and cherished by local communities. I acknowledge such concerns, and I will write to the Planning Inspectorate setting out publicly how the existing policy should operate, to ensure that it is fully understood not only by the inspectorate, but—to go back to my earlier point—by councils and councillors as well.

I want to be clear that weight can be applied to emerging plans, particularly when they are at an advanced stage. However, it would be wrong to give draft or emerging plans the same status and weight as finished plans that have been examined. Otherwise, what will be the incentive to finish the local plan and get it examined before the community? Decisions based on untested draft plans could have lasting and potentially damaging impacts on communities and the environment.

Our policy strikes a careful balance between affording draft plans some weight and ensuring that local authorities continue to move forward and bring plans to examination and completion. However, given the concerns expressed today, I will write to the Planning Inspectorate to ensure that that position and the different weighting given to plans as they develop are fully understood.

I fully agree that planning departments should have the resources they need to plan effectively, a point made by Members including the hon. Member for City of Durham. Councils must give planning the priority it needs, as effective planning is vital for supporting sustainable growth in the right locations. A local authority should see its planning department as its economic regeneration department. Local authorities are now benefiting from the fact that we increased planning application fees by 15% in November 2012, which has provided an additional £32 million per annum for planning services—we often forget that. That comes on top of the fact that under this Government, local authorities have increased their reserves to some £21 billion, a record level.

Good councils and councillors will realise that planning is the heartbeat of economic regeneration on two levels. First, if they want to see growth in jobs, business and homes, they will need a good local plan that looks not just at residential planning but at commercial and retail planning—neighbourhood plans can also look at those types of planning—and works as part of a process that is well planned and well thought through. That is good for communities, as it means a growth in the number of homes, and also provides facilities for job growth. It is also good for the finances of local authorities, because of the new retained business rates scheme and the new homes bonus scheme, both of which reward councils financially. Planning should be at the heart of a local authority, and there is an onus on authorities to think more about how they ensure that they have those resources. Where possible, they should work together to share resources and specialists—that is particularly important for the small district councils we see in some parts of the country—as they have done on the shared management of other types of services.

I will now touch on neighbourhood planning in a little detail; it has been mentioned a few times today, and I said that I would do so in answer to the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds. Neighbourhood planning is one of the most exciting innovations of this Government’s localism agenda. It was established to devolve power from central Government not just to local councils but directly to communities and the individuals living in them—a real devolution of power. For the first time, community groups can produce development plans that carry real weight in the planning system. That allows them to play a much more powerful role in shaping the future of the areas in which they live and work.

A neighbourhood plan can include policies on where new homes should go, what they should look like, what green spaces to protect and how high streets should be saved. Just today, I visited Milton Keynes, where there is a business neighbourhood plan. It is an exciting, adventurous and ambitious proposal that will go to a referendum on 7 May. I am not saying that will be the biggest ballot that people will be voting in that day in Milton Keynes, but I think it will probably have the biggest turnout of any referendum on a neighbourhood plan. Neighbourhood plans have been so well received that we are seeing turnouts in the referendums of about 33%. That is quite an achievement—many local councils would like that kind of turnout in elections—and highlights how people have really taken to neighbourhood planning. More than 6 million people are now covered by a neighbourhood planning process.

My hon. Friend commented that in his constituency, neither Cotswold district council nor Stroud district council has an adopted local plan. I recognise that it may be more challenging to produce a neighbourhood plan where there is no up-to-date local plan in place. Other Members have made that point. I will be clear: in those circumstances, a made neighbourhood plan can provide some certainty in areas where there is otherwise an absence of up-to-date policy. We have witnessed that in Arun, Chichester and Mid Sussex, where neighbourhood plans have come into force where there is no up-to-date local plan and the new local plan is still emerging.

Local authorities should be working with all communities that are developing neighbourhood plans to ensure that there is effective linking up between local and neighbourhood plans. Good councils are doing exactly that, with help from Government funding. Where a neighbourhood plan has been made, the local planning authority should take it into account when preparing the local plan strategy and policies, to avoid duplicating non-strategic policies set out in the neighbourhood plan.

More than 1,400 communities in England have already grasped the new power and begun preparing their own neighbourhood plan, including eight in my hon. Friend’s constituency. As I said, that means that the plans are covering 6.1 million people across the country, which is 11% of the population. I want to get to the other 89%, so that plans are rolled out and we share best practice. That is why I was delighted that this week I was able to host the first of our neighbourhood planning summits, to bring together people who have delivered a neighbourhood plan and seen its benefits, how rewarding it is and the power it gives. It is not just that the neighbourhood can then benefit from 25% of the community infrastructure levy to spend locally; neighbourhood planning gives communities power over planning in a way that we have never seen localised before.

Neighbourhood planning referendums have been successful partly because people are beginning to understand just how rewarding the plans can be and how powerful they are for developing their local area. As a result, the referendums are getting not only a 33% average turnout—although as I have said, the referendum at Milton Keynes on the day of the general election may see that figure go up a little bit—but an amazing average yes vote of 88%. I know that many Members would like that kind of recognition at the ballot box. Six referendums are taking place today.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The longer my hon. Friend’s speech goes on, the better I like it. In addition to his writing to the Planning Inspectorate, may I urge him to write to the leaders of all planning authorities about the importance of neighbourhood plans? I have a suspicion that some, including some fairly close to home, are not overly supportive of the plans. I would like to see my local authorities fully supporting neighbourhood plans.

[Brandon Lewis]

I am happy to do that. As ever, my hon. Friend makes a good point, and, if Members will indulge me for a moment, I will give a good example why. It concerns making sure that we spread best practice—something that we in this country could sometimes do better, particularly in local government. Sometimes we are too shy of talking about what we do and how well it is working. Some areas are doing some really ambitious and adventurous things with neighbourhood planning.

Neighbourhood planning is proving that we are not a country of nimbys, because it is delivering housing. The system of trusting local people to make good local decisions has just delivered an almost record level of housing planning application approvals. Some 240,000 applications were approved over the last 12-month period. That is testament to local people making good, well thought-out and well reasoned decisions for their local area.

When I spoke at the inaugural neighbourhood planning summit on Monday, celebrating the success of neighbourhood planning, I outlined and explained the following case. Last summer, I spoke to some parish councillors about the importance of neighbourhood planning and how to do it. Those parish councillors got very irate; they explained to me that as I was a Westminster politician, I did not understand that they had done all that locally and that, actually, neighbourhood planning had no weight in law. Someone, somewhere had told them that—in one case, it was a council officer. I had to explain to those people that what they had was a village plan. In one case, it was a nice 21-page document with half a page on housing, half of which was a photograph of a nice house in the village. That is not a neighbourhood plan. I also had to explain that neighbourhood plans have weight in law.

Neighbourhood planning is not the easiest thing a community will ever do, but it is rewarding. There has to be a robust process because it has weight in law. Communities that are making neighbourhood plans are seeing benefits—not only the 25% of the community infrastructure levy that they get, or the fact that they have power and involvement in decision making about planning. It is bringing people together and getting them involved in their communities in a way that, in many areas, they have never been involved before. All of us, including councillors across the country, know that a planning issue brings a community together in one way or another more quickly than anything else. We cannot put a price on the social value of getting people to come together in their community. It is one of the most powerful things to have come from neighbourhood planning.

On Monday, I was pleased to outline the Government’s ongoing commitment to supporting, simplifying and improving neighbourhood planning, which includes a new £22.5 million support programme. Neighbourhood planning is here to stay. Under a Conservative Government, it will not go away but will continue to develop. We will continue to build on it, and I want to make it as simple and robust as possible. I want to encourage local communities across the country to get involved. It is easy for them to find out more about it. Plenty of areas that have done it are keen to share their good experience.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister is aware of this, but I want to refer to something that my neighbour, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), mentioned. The very good Gloucestershire rural community council will give excellent advice to any parish or town council about how to formulate a neighbourhood plan. That sort of collective working in a county as big as Gloucestershire is a thoroughly good thing.

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The Government have been working to roll out a series of workshops around the country to enable people to come together to hear about the benefit and value of neighbourhood planning from people who have done it. There was one not long ago in Norwich, in my county of Norfolk. Broadland district council has done some fantastic work in supporting the local community. I see examples of it everywhere. At the summit on Monday, Broadland district council offered to talk to other areas—even those outside Broadland—about the benefits of neighbourhood planning, and about how to do it and how to move it forward in a straightforward way.

The issue of speculative development has been raised a couple of times today. Members touched on the community right of appeal, which we went into in some detail in our debate a few weeks ago, so I would encourage Members to look at that transcript. Where local authorities do not have an up-to-date local plan or policies, the presumption in favour of sustainable development applies. However, that does not mean development at any cost. Speculative development is not acceptable if it is not sustainable development. Decision makers are required to consider all aspects of sustainable development, including the economic, social and environmental aspects, and inspectors do that.

I will give some examples of recent appeals that demonstrate that inspectors sometimes find that development is unacceptable even in the absence of an up-to-date local plan. That relates to my point about making councillors more aware of the decisions that are actually being made. It is important to remember that the proportion of decisions that are made on appeal by a planning inspector against a council’s decision has not changed in a long time—it is still about 1%—which shows that, in that sense, the system works.

We will not necessarily prevent developers from doing what they do, which is to try to get something developed, if they think it is profitable for them. However, if there is an up-to-date local plan in place, and especially if there is an up-to-date neighbourhood plan in place, and a developer wants to do something outside those plans, unless it has the support and agreement of the community that should be the hardest thing they ever try to do. It should be pretty much impossible to achieve.

For example, in Aylesbury Vale, appeals against applications for several thousand homes were recommended for refusal only last month, and the recommendations were upheld by the Secretary of State. Despite the lack of a five-year housing land supply, an inspector considered that the proposals would have had an adverse impact on the character and appearance of the landscape, and were not supported adequately by sustainable transport provision. In Chichester, an inspector concluded that a proposed development of 110 homes would be “mediocre” and “unimaginative”, and therefore contrary to the requirements of the framework. Those are just a couple of examples.

I will ensure that we do more to publicise recent cases more widely to reassure councils that unsustainable development can be resisted. I will also ask the Planning Advisory Service to work with local authorities to ensure that our message is clearly understood. The framework does not stand for development at any cost. It promotes positive planning and sustainable, good-quality development.

I am also aware of the many concerns of local authorities that consider that they have to waste considerable time and resources in defending challenges to their housing supply. We will therefore issue new guidance to clarify the operation of the five-year housing land supply, which will give local authorities greater confidence in resisting challenges to their evidence, if they have prepared it appropriately.

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friends that the provision of timely and robust infrastructure is vital to delivering sustainable development. National policy and guidance already set out clear expectations for securing infrastructure provision in the planning process. Local authorities already have a range of legislative tools to deliver that in a timely and transparent manner. Furthermore, the cumulative impact of development and the need for infrastructure to support development are material considerations in deciding whether individual applications should be approved. I hope councillors will make themselves aware of that.

My hon. Friends the Members for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) and for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) raised issues about the section 106 changes, permitted development rights and the Government’s recent consultation, to which we will respond shortly. The vacant building credit applies to non-residential buildings, and the relief is intended to reflect the often high costs of conversion and refurbishment that are associated with bringing existing buildings back into use. One of the points that I would have made to Westminster council, if it had contacted us directly—I have said this elsewhere—is that the buildings were vacant, so the authority’s argument that it is losing money does not stack up. The buildings are not currently in use and are not proposed to be used for anything. Therefore, they are new, fresh opportunities for residential use. However, I will write to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster with full details about how the process works, and I am happy to meet him and/or the local authority to go thorough the issues. On the issue of permitted development rights, he is right that there have been exemptions for parts of London.

On the comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park about section 106, I will say two things. First, I have a great deal of sympathy with the arguments. We looked at that issue as part of the consultation, and I will deal with it when we respond. I am sympathetic to why the exemptions were put in place, and I understand their importance for the strategic commercial work spaces that we have in London. That is why those protections were introduced. I appreciate that there is a strong argument that nothing has changed.