Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Greg Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th July 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Tim Farron]

This is an important amendment, as is the one in the name of the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet. I will not go into a great amount of detail on this matter as we talked in earlier debates about the motivation for devolution. Who is it for? I am hoping to be persuaded otherwise, but my suspicion is that the legislation is mostly about trying to make local government a more efficient agency. What we really ought to be talking about is developing and delivering greater levels of power and control to local communities. Who is the Bill for? Who are development plans for? Is this even devolution, or is it just a form of delegation—tidying up the process to help Whitehall?

Plans have to mean something. One of the reasons I suspect some authorities do not have the plans that they should have, or that their plans are not as up to date as they ought to be, is that there is a lack of confidence in them. As we said earlier, there is a belief among communities that: “We may set out our priorities, but they will be overridden because they are in conflict with national policy, or the Government simply will not stand with us as a local community if we seek to enforce zero-carbon homes, to maximise the number of affordable homes being built or to ensure that infrastructure is provided for developments before they are made.”

There will be some who say, “If you give local communities the ultimate power over development plans, things won’t happen at all.” I think that is baloney. The evidence is that that is not true. If we give communities the ability to specify and enforce their priorities—for example, for the huge majority of homes being built to be affordable and zero-carbon, and to have the infrastructure provided for them in advance—we will find that those communities are much more likely to be willing to play ball in the first place. It is the opposite of nimbyism. I can name sites in Coniston, Hawkshead and Grasmere where people have fought to get hold of sites to provide affordable homes, because they were given agency. They were in the national park, where there was more power as a consequence.

That is why this question is important. Do we want to see the Bill as being about empowering local government, and therefore national Government having to step back and genuinely trust communities? Or are the Government going to simply see the Bill as an opportunity to exert more control, just in a slightly more efficient way? If the Government refuse amendments at least of this sort, then we will know that the Bill is not about devolution, but delegation, and that it is not for the communities or for levelling up, but for the convenience of Whitehall.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

I will not take up much of the Committee’s time on this issue, because we have already explored many of the key points that go to the nub of why these two amendments—57, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet, which I have been happy to sign and support; and 86, in the name of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich—are so essential.

I spoke on Second Reading to say that the Bill was fundamentally good, but that it needed some considerable polishing. This section of the Bill is one of those elements that, in my opinion, just has to change. None of the points I am going to make will come as any surprise to the Minister, given that, up to four days ago, he was my Whip—he has heard it all before. I do not doubt the cartwheels of delight across Nuneaton when the Minister, having been relieved of whipping me, found himself on the Bill Committee, where there are indeed a number of amendments that I have supported or tabled myself.

This group of amendments goes to the heart of whether we are serious about localism and the principles of subsidiary, or whether the default position is still “Whitehall knows best.” There are countless examples of developments across my constituency—this is before I even get on to High Speed 2—where the local council has said no, parish councils and town councils have said no, and the case against them has stacked up with the local plan, be it in the former Wycombe district or the former Aylesbury Vale district. They have even contravened the NPPF.

However, by the time those developments have got to the inspector, the rubber stamp has come down in the opposite direction. As the shadow Minister said, it is already a problem, and I fear that the clause will seek only to bake and lock into the legislation the ability—no matter the cause or the reason and no matter how strongly a community, neighbourhood, parish, town, borough or metropolitan authority feels—of Whitehall to come down and impose a different will on those neighbourhoods and communities.

I give the example of the village of Ickford in my constituency, which is to the very west of Buckinghamshire on the border with Oxfordshire. Every single person in that village knew that that land currently under development floods—not once in a blue moon, but four or five times every autumn and winter. The people who back on to that land know that it floods, because it floods their back gardens, too. The people who drive through that village know that it floods, because the roads flood when that field floods. Locally, that development from Deanfield Homes was turned down because, among other reasons, the land floods. By the time the inspector got his hands on it, it was approved with a peculiar statement that the development had a chance of flooding once every 100 years. Within days of that judgment being passed—guess what? The land had indeed flooded. I know, because I stood in it, and the water lapped up to the top of my Wellington boots.

I give that as an example of why local control and decision making must have primacy in planning, because local people, local councils, local parishes and towns—or whatever tier of local government—actually know what happens in their own back yard. They understand it. They see and feel and breathe and touch the problems that any proposed developments could come across. Therefore, as we look to the summer recess and to coming back in September to finish the Bill’s passage through Committee before it gets to Report, I really urge my hon. Friend the Minister to consider the real implications of baking into the Bill the position that national planning policy can overrule local people’s decision making.

If we are serious about making the Bill truly about localism, we need to seriously amend clause 83. As the great Ronald Reagan once said:

“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

I really do not mind which amendment is chosen, because fundamentally they do the same thing, but I urge the Minister please to reflect on this serious, fundamental point that underpins the Bill and to see if we can find a better way of ensuring that it is local decisions that are made, and not with national overriding.

[Rachael Maskell]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Buckingham, and I agree wholeheartedly with his comments. Ultimately the clause comes with an air of arrogance from the Government. I am not looking at the Minister on that as I appreciate he is new in post, but it says to a community, “We, as Government, know best.” I think back to a few years ago, when many of us were involved in the debate about fracking, which was being imposed on our communities. We fought back on those measures. Fracking would clearly have impacted on the environmental and climate situation we are facing. That was a fight from within communities to protect themselves. The communities knew best about the impact that would have.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Does the Member who tabled amendment 57 wish to move it formally?

[Greg Smith]

I have heard the assurances that the Minister has given but agree with some of the reticence of the shadow Minister, so I urge my hon. Friend to consider these points very carefully over the summer. I will not press amendment 57 to a vote right now, but I underline the importance of getting this right for the whole Bill and its meaning.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 98, in clause 83, page 91, line 30, at end insert—

“, subject to subsection (5D).

(5D) But any conflict must be resolved in favour of the development plan in an area if—

(a) if, in relation to it, regulations under section 16 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 have been made to provide for the town and country planning function and the highways function and any functions exercisable under the Environment Act 2021 of a county council or a district council that is exercisable in relation to an area which is within a county combined authority area to be exercisable by the CCA in relation to the CCA’s area,

(b) if, in relation to it, regulations under section 17 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 have been made to provide for at least one function of another public body that is exercisable in relation to an area which is within a county combined authority area to be exercisable by the CCA in relation to the CCA’s area,

(c) it has a joint spatial development strategy, or

(d) it is in Greater London.”

This amendment would place limits on the primacy of national development management policies over the development plan where a Combined County Authority had been handed planning, highways, environmental powers and at least one function of another public body under a devolution deal, in areas covered by a joint spatial development strategy and in Greater London.

This is a probing amendment. Given that the Government have just declined to accept amendments 83 and 57, and reconfirmed their intention to have national development management policies override local development plans in the event of any conflict between them at the point of determination, amendment 98 is designed simply to try to elicit from the Government whether they will consider allowing any specific exemptions to that general principle.

The amendment would do so by specifying that any conflict between an NDMP and a local development plan at the point of determination must be resolved in favour of the latter in an area where a combined county authority has had key powers transferred to it under a devolution deal, where a joint spatial development strategy has been agreed, or in Greater London. The idea is that an exemption from the primacy of national policy in the form of NDMPs would be the reward, so to speak, for agreeing a devolution deal with the full panoply of powers available or for engaging in strategic planning by putting a spatial development strategy in place—or, it should be said, for taking part in a new joint spatial development strategy across authority boundaries.

Let me explain my reasoning further by using the example of an area where an SDS or a joint SDS might be taken forward. As the Minister will know, once a spatial development strategy is in place, it provides for a strategic framework for the development plan or plans, which should in theory supersede or take primacy over NDMPs that the Government might happen to bring forward.

While we remain of the view that no local development plan should be made subordinate to national planning policies in the form of NDMPs, if the Government are determined to ensure that they are—it sounded that way from the Minister’s comments in the previous debate—we believe that they should at least consider exempting from that centralising approach areas that have proactively taken on greater powers, including powers to plan strategically, so that they can use them to the full to reflect local priorities and innovate, having regard to national policy but not being unduly constrained by it.

On that basis, I hope that the Minister will give our amendment due consideration.