Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Eighth sitting)

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 27th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

Lastly, given that there are a number of legal challenges, what process is in place to ensure the formal adoption of the plan? In the end, is the plan then adopted by the district council or the county council on behalf of it? With that set of questions, I will leave it there and hear what the Minister has to say about new clause 5 and amendment (a) on consultation.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I want to say a few brief words on new clause 5 and to get a thorough understanding from the Minister about a particular situation that I, and I am sure others, might have in my constituency. This is about a local authority’s ability to use new clause 5 or possibly new clause 4 to avoid its responsibility in terms of required housing in its area, and how the Minister or Secretary of State will determine why one local authority is determined not to take its fair share of required housing.

I have a number of local authorities in my constituency, some of which are very keen to deliver houses and are doing so. One or two are not. How do we deal with a situation in which one errant local authority does not appear to want to produce a local plan that meets its objectively assessed housing need, and so uses new clause 4 or new clause 5 through the back door? I have not dreamed that situation. It is not that production of the local plan is being prevented, but there might simply be a political reluctance in the local authority to put housing in its area or there might be an ongoing battle to deliver a proper local plan.

That authority could argue, “We haven’t got the land in our local authority area, so we think all these houses should go in the adjoining local authority area”—which has a sound local plan and is delivering on its housing numbers. It might say, “Houses shouldn’t go in my local authority area. They should go in this adjoining one because they’ve got lots of space and lovely green fields to put the houses in.” The errant local authority might argue that houses should go into another local authority. We then come along and use new clause 4 or new clause 5 to say, “This has to be a joint plan, and these houses will have to go into the other local authority area that’s doing its job properly.” How will the Minister or the Secretary of State determine situations in which a local authority is not carrying out its duty to assess need and deliver those houses? Will the Minister look into that situation?

[Gavin Barwell]

It has been a useful debate, and I hope I can provide some clarification. Perhaps a mistress of understatement, the hon. Lady said that district councils were not terribly happy and county councils were reasonably happy. My message to district councils listening to this debate is that it is completely in their own power to ensure that this new clause is never used. All they need to do is produce local plans that address housing need in their area, and there will never be any reason at all for the Secretary of State to make use of this power. The only circumstances in which the power could ever be used would be if a district council somewhere in the country were failing to produce a local plan that met need in its area. To county councils, I would say, “Don’t get too excited,” because I do not think the intention is to make regular use of this power.

I will make one observation. When you become a Minister, you get given a mountain of brief to read into your subject. Something that stood out from one brief was the powers that the Government have taken to intervene on local planning authorities that are not deciding a high enough percentage of major applications within the specified timescale. That was quite contentious when the powers went through Parliament. What is interesting about it is that it has, I think, been used only three times. The existence of a power that says that the Planning Inspectorate is now going to determine planning applications rather than the relevant local authority determining them, has acted as a real spur to people to raise their game. It has not been necessary to use the power very often at all, and I suspect that this power might serve the same purpose. If it has provoked a strong reaction among district councils that do not ever want to see this happen, and that leads to more of them adopting their plans on a timely basis, I will be very happy never to have to use the power.

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

I draw the Committee’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which I should have done earlier.

Is the hon. Gentleman implying that every single development that is commercial to residential is not done well? In my life prior to entering politics, I dealt with many schemes that developers brought forward because of permitted development rights. They resulted in excellent developments that met market demand, which is key. I do not deny that there will be problems on some occasions, but is he trying to argue that every single development is an inappropriate home not built to the right standards?

[Jim McMahon]

I suppose the hon. Gentleman could listen to me, or he could listen to the architect who said of the Housing and Planning Bill:

“This new Bill only addresses speed of delivery: short-sighted political gain at the cost of long-term quality.”

The professionals are saying that quality is an issue. I can point to conversions in Greater Manchester, which I know well. Some have used the extended permitted development rights to produce a quality development. That will almost certainly be true, but we can all point to one and try to hold it up as an example of many, when of course that is rarely the case. However, as we are seeing, the Government just do not know. It is okay to shine a light on the evidence provided by professionals, but the Government do not know the answer. If a more regulated planning system were brought back in, council planning departments would definitely be able to get a grip on quality and see it through.

That is all we are asking for. It is not about passing judgment on whether premises should or should not be converted from commercial to residential; it is about ensuring quality, affordability and long-term sustainability and starting to plan communities and neighbourhoods, instead of letting developers get away without paying their fair share. I cannot see why anybody would argue against that. It would highlight the best developers who contribute to community and society. Fair play—they make a profit doing so, and there is nothing wrong with that, but there are some people who do not play the game fairly and who extract as much cash from it as possible, with absolutely no interest in quality or community. Bringing measures back in to take firmer control of that has got to be in the long-term interests of this country and of our towns and cities.