John Howell
Main Page: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
I want to take us back to the Planning Act 2008. There was a sense that it had an element of a fast-track system in it, but it is instructive to learn that business leaders believe that it has had no effect. We moved on and introduced the Localism Act 2011 and the national planning policy framework to lay the foundation for an improved planning system. These aim to deliver a simpler, faster, less bureaucratic system that is also infinitely fairer. It cannot be right that only those in the know knew what it was they should know. It is right that the system broadened that out so that we can all have a share in the planning system.
The first phase is complete. The Localism Act 2011 is through, and the nation is now busy planning. The national planning policy framework is through, too, and it has laid the foundations for a simpler and quicker system. However, as the Secretary of State has said, there is still much more to do. What is going to happen to the remaining 6,000 pages of guidance, which the committee chaired by the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), is tackling, and how are we going to speed up the system? We must also encourage councils to deliver.
The planning system has failed to deliver the infrastructure that the UK requires. I am not alone in saying that: some 97% of business leaders questioned in a CBI and PricewaterhouseCoopers survey said that the planning system had failed to deliver, and 76% regarded the planning regime as a significant barrier to infrastructure development.
Tristram Hunt
The hon. Gentleman is setting out an interesting narrative. Is he seriously suggesting this Bill was planned before the summer recess?
John Howell
Yes, I am suggesting that parts of this Bill were planned before the recess. Its proposed changes are a natural result of the changes we introduced through the Localism Act and the national planning policy framework, and if the hon. Gentleman looks more carefully, he will see the links between the bits that came before and the bits that are coming now.
The Local Government Association stance that planning is not the problem is fundamentally misleading. It is based on an analysis—I use that term loosely—of 400,000 planning permissions that have been granted, but we are not told whether they are viable or even where they are. We are asked to believe that 400,000 houses have been given planning permissions and are ready to go today as if nothing stood in the way.
Grahame M. Morris
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the two points he has raised are not material planning considerations?
John Howell
I accept that they may not be planning considerations, but they are certainly considerations in whether to move a development forward. The issue is that the planning permissions have been given but the houses have not been developed.
The problem lies not in the planning permissions that have been given, but in those that have not been given. The cost of producing rural planning applications is higher than the cost of those in other areas, and the Country Land and Business Association states that in many cases local planning authority staff clearly hope that the applicant, if faced with enough demands for expensive reports and surveys, will withdraw the application. In practice, that frequently does lead to withdrawal, especially in respect of minor developments: for instance, a proposal costing £5,000 to implement is unlikely to justify information costing £5,000 to produce. Indeed, prospective applicants often simply do not submit a proposal in the first place, which means that desirable rural economic development does not go ahead. This tends to bring the planning system into disrepute. It is therefore right for the planning system to be accused of holding up development.
The Bill is also accused of being centralising, rather than localist. This ignores the fact that the changes are meant to be part of a double devolution. The first was a devolution down to district and borough councils’ local planning authorities. The second was a devolution down to local people, so that they could put together their own neighbourhood plans. Devolution to local people is working better than devolution to councils. At the recent neighbourhood planning seminar in Thame in my constituency, which is one of the neighbourhood planning frontrunners, I was as surprised as anyone when a little old lady said, “Isn’t planning such fun?” I hope that that feeling is occurring all around the country, as people begin to get their hands dirty in doing the planning necessary to make these neighbourhood plans successful.
John Howell
No, I will not.
Devolution to councils is being held up, either because they are incapable of dealing with it or because they are not performing well—neither is acceptable and I would expect this to be dealt with as it has been in the Bill. It is time for our councils to deliver. This approach is all part of encouraging councils, but there can be no doubt that our historical under-supply of homes, over some 20 years at least, is the result of a planning system that is not fit for purpose. That was the conclusion of the Barker review of housing supply in 2004. The Killian Pretty review in 2008 found that only five out of 64 planning applications went ahead without difficulties, with the rest often having substantial problems that either delayed them or changed the nature of the development. According to the National Audit Office, planning laws create the highest regulatory costs of any type of regulation. The Opposition have thus totally missed the point of localism, which was the double devolution down to local communities which are engaging in the production of their own local plans; they are empowered to do so and they are seizing those opportunities fully with both hands to make the best of them.
Clause 4 deals with the information requirements. There is a sense that the clause is unnecessary because other more general powers are available to ask for the right amount of information when looking at an application, but that is utter nonsense. Information requirements are now pretty wide. We have all sat through planning committees where the information requested has been wide of the mark and, in particular, has borne no relation to what might be a material consideration. I am grateful that the Bill has included information that will be a “material consideration” in the terms of the information that will be collected.
Mr Slaughter
I am slightly confused as to whether the hon. Gentleman is the same MP for Henley who said in support of a third-party right of appeal:
“We will make the system symmetrical by allowing appeals against local planning decisions from local residents, as well as from developers”.
Does he see any contrast between that view and what is in the Bill?
John Howell
I am not sure I see the relevance of the quote, but it was overtaken by time, by the way in which the Localism Act was put together and by the way in which that would have been an absurdity in how neighbourhood planning was put together. It is no use the hon. Gentleman looking up old quotes from four years ago and expecting them to somehow blow me off course, because he has not taken account of history on the way.
Let me turn now to the subject of village greens, as we have all seen how that status has been abused. In Oxfordshire, although not in my constituency, village green status has been pursued for an area that largely consists of an old gravel pit that is now a lake. It is absurd to continue in this way, particularly when legislation has given communities the ability to designate green open spaces that mean something to them. We do not require them to be the most beautiful grounds in the parish or to have special environmental significance; their significance lies in their importance to the local community. That element of the Localism Act 2011 and the national planning policy framework is sufficient.
John Howell
I will not, because I do not have much time.
The clauses that deal with section 106 agreements do not, as David Orr suggested, abolish section 106. They offer an opportunity to renegotiate section 106 agreements undertaken at the height of the boom when things were going well, and it is quite right that they should do so. It is important to recognise that when development cannot go ahead no affordable housing will be built, so renegotiating section 106 to ensure economic viability will mean that more such homes can be built. In other words, if we do not do this, we will get no section 106 affordable homes as opposed to some.
For those reasons, I think that the Bill attacks the issues correctly and in a balanced manner. It continues many of the reforms we introduced in the Localism Act and national planning policy framework and it does so in a way that I am happy to support.