Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Debate between Hilary Benn and Anne Main
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
I welcome the Government’s decision to accept all but one of the amendments that were passed in the other place, in particular the sunset clause on section 106, the Secretary of State’s announcement today on the assessment of viability, the fact that at least some criteria will now be published for identifying so-called failing planning authorities, and the right hon. Gentleman’s agreement that when it comes to broadband development, the Secretary of State should have regard to the environment and the conservation of the natural beauty of our countryside.
That leaves the House with the one amendment on permitted development rights, and the very large attendance here today demonstrates the extent of concern. I listened extremely carefully to what the Secretary of State said. There have been many references to eggs in the course of the debate so far. One Member said that the Secretary of State was a good egg, but this particular egg is completely empty when it comes to the detailed proposal that he has in mind. What he said was not persuasive, not just to those on the Opposition Benches but I suspect to those on the Government Back Benches.
This is, in essence, a debate about how decisions should be taken on extensions to residential properties. It is a debate about, first, the process, and secondly, who should take those decisions. At the heart of the debate is a simple question: is it sensible for the Government to impose the change in permitted development rights on every single local planning authority in England? That is what we are debating. The Secretary of State tries to suggest that the proposal is about empowering people, but what he is trying to do is to take away the rights of neighbours to object to developments that they think will affect their rights and their amenity. That is why there is so much concern.
I think it is a centralist proposal that the right hon. Gentleman has advanced. I do not think that it will give the boost to the economy that is being claimed, because I do not think the back gardens of England should be made the victims of the failure of the Government’s economic policy.
Hilary Benn
The hon. Lady makes an extremely important point. I was going to raise it in a moment, but I shall raise it now. The Planning Minister told the Select Committee that the development would be limited to 50% of the garden, but the consultation document does not say that. It says 50% of the curtilage of the house. As the Royal Town Planning Institute has pointed out, the two are self-evidently not the same. I would happily give way at this moment to the Secretary of State if he could clarify a simple question. Is it 50% of the garden or 50% of the curtilage?
Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Debate between Hilary Benn and Anne Main(12 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Hilary Benn
Perhaps my hon. Friend will just bear with me for a second, as I am very interested further in the Secretary of State’s answer because he has not defined the worst. I have here before me a list of the slowest decision makers on all applications and the slowest decision makers on major applications. The top three—or the bottom three, depending on our interpretation, in those two categories are Stratford-upon-Avon, Stafford and Warwick for all applications, and for major applications Torbay, Kensington and Chelsea, and North Norfolk.
Government Members really ought to see where their authorities are in the league table that the Secretary of State is in the process of making up as he goes along. They may well find that, unless we remove clause 1, planning decisions will be taken not by locally elected councillors—that is my definition of localism—but by the Planning Inspectorate. The truth is that if he knows the criteria he should make them clear now. Clause 1 will in effect give the Secretary of State the ability to nationalise planning decisions in respect of as many authorities as he likes. It will completely change the basis on which planning applications have been traditionally considered by local communities. That is the very opposite of the localism that he used to speak about, because decisions will be taken not by councillors but by the Planning Inspectorate on behalf of the Secretary of State. There will be a strong reaction when the first local authorities discover that the power to decide has been taken away from them by the Secretary of State under the Bill.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman needs to go back a little in history and look at the imposed housing targets that local authorities were expected to deliver. This scaremongering—that the Secretary of State, in a micro-managing sort of way, will look at every planning authority and decide the plans himself—is frankly ridiculous. I sincerely hope that the right hon. Gentleman gets back to the real nub of the argument, which is that the coalition Government are trying to get away from imposing things on local people and are letting them choose how they want their areas to develop.
Hilary Benn
I say to the hon. Lady that it is not ridiculous; it is what clause 1 says. If she has not read the clause, I suggest that she does so carefully. On housing targets, the truth is that under the new arrangements the figures that local authorities will have to come up with for housing numbers in their area will not be very different from the figures produced by the regional spatial strategy, because there is still the same housing need. That is certainly the case for the authority in Leeds, because I have spoken to the chief planning officer about that.
The truth is that if hon. Members read the Bill, they will see that the Secretary of State will decide which authorities will lose the right to decide applications for themselves, he will decide what kinds of applications will come to him for decision, and he alone will take the decision in the place of local councillors. Of course, there will be no right of appeal—something the Bill also states.
I want to turn, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) invited me to a moment ago, to the grounds on which the Secretary of State may designate authorities. Clearly, he has made up his mind; he is just not telling us how he has done it. The clause gives him the power to do that anywhere, on any basis, for as many authorities as he likes, and there will be no check or balance from anybody else.
As for the criteria, when the Minister with responsibility for planning appeared before the Select Committee he said that speed and poor quality measured by decisions overturned by the Planning Inspectorate would be the factors that Ministers would take into account. On speed, I am genuinely puzzled. First, councils currently decide 82% of applications within eight weeks and 93% within 13 weeks. Those are the facts. The percentage of applications approved reached a 10-year high in 2011-12. Secondly, developers can already appeal to the Planning Inspectorate on grounds of non-determination in the required time under section 78(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. What does the Bill add to that power? Thirdly, there is a practical problem, as the planning Minister had to admit. He said that there was a wrinkle in the statistics. The data on timeliness do not take account of planning performance agreements. As hon. Members will know, that is where developers and councils jointly reach agreement to say, “Hey, this development could take a bit more time to approve. Can we agree, in effect, to set aside the time limits?” Instead of there being a simple measure, the Secretary of State will have to decide whether he thinks the reason given by an authority, when decisions are apparently slow, is good enough to justify his not taking the power away from them.