Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Robert Neill

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

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Robert Neill

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

[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.