English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Debate between Lewis Atkinson and Vikki Slade

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lewis Atkinson]

I entirely agree. The title of this Bill includes the words “community empowerment” and “devolution”. I want my community in Sunderland to be empowered: to have the powers to ensure that our key cultural venues—such as Pop Recs, Independent and the Bunker—retain protections from further development around them.

I turn to the draft national planning policy framework, which the Minister referred to. I understand the Government’s difficulty in breaking what some might say is a precedent by not putting planning guidance into statute. I understand that there is a genuine judgment to be made, even if there is a shared policy intent. But the existing draft national planning policy framework states, in P4:

“Existing businesses, community facilities, public services and defence and security activities should not have unreasonable restrictions placed on their current or permitted operation”.

“Should not” gives far too much leeway. There is also no explicit reference in the draft national planning policy framework to specific actions about noise levels, sound insulation, licensing outcomes or operating hours, despite those being the most common and predictable mechanisms through which “agent for change” risks threaten our music venues. If it is the Government’s intention to try to get the policy solution through planning guidance rather than through statute, will the Minister commit on behalf of the Minister for Housing and Planning to reconsider some of the language in the draft NPPF to strengthen those points in particular? Will the Minister also write to local authorities on ensuring that local plans include grassroots music venues?

There has to be a review of the NPPF. Could the Minister say a little about how long she believes it is appropriate to monitor the implementation of the NPPF if this is where we end up at the end of ping-pong and there are no statutory powers engaged to protect our music venues? If inappropriate planning applications that threaten our music venues continue to come in, how long will she and the Government wait before reviewing the policy and looking to further strengthen it? Indeed, if there is any chance of a late concession in the event that the agent of change returns here from the other place, will she consider taking potential statutory powers not to be used except when needed to safeguard our grassroots music venues?

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I am really pleased to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) with my own story of an early venue. In 2007, I remember visiting the Stage Door in Southampton—a venue above a pub—for one of the very first, intimate gigs of Scouting for Girls. They are now internationally renowned and celebrating their 20th year, but there were so few of us at the gig that we actually helped them carry their kit there and back afterwards. Without those little gigs, they would not have had that success such that 20 years later we can go and enjoy them at summer festivals.

I rise specifically to speak to Lords amendment 37. During the Bill Committee, as the Minister will recall, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella) and I spoke frequently about the importance of town and parish councils and the need to strengthen them as unitary councils take decision making further away from local people and dilute the identity and priorities of clearly defined places. As local government is reorganised and councils cover ever larger geographies, it is critical that communities retain hyper-local democratic structures not as an add-on but as an essential part of effective devolution.

There was a lot of talk originally about what other structures might be in place as part of the Bill if not a town and parish council, but that does not seem to have made much progress. I am disappointed that without something really strong in that place, there is nothing recognising the critical place of our town and parish councils, whose strength forms part of our communities, as so passionately talked about by the hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) and my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George).

I spoke on Second Reading about how the forthcoming local government reorganisation—it does not affect my area—will see the end of authorities such as Winchester and Southampton city councils. It is inconceivable that historic places such as Winchester will not either immediately or within a couple of years re-establish a town council to protect their identity and ensure that their unique needs—beyond those covered by the fairly nebulous unitary authorities that will replace them—are met. Parish and town councils give residents not only that opportunity to create their sense of place, but a direct, accountable voice.

In Dorset, the plan for change created in 2016, which came before our local government reorganisation, talked about the expansion of town and parish councils and the creation of neighbourhood-level structures, but those decisions were deferred for future administrations to progress. On the Dorset side, the gaps were filled so the whole area became parished, but in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole they were never implemented after being blocked by the then Conservative-led councils. A decade on, we are having to retrofit them at local cost and with an administrative burden.

I welcome that Conservatives in the other place have recognised that encouraging the expansion of parish governance in currently unparished areas really does matter—it is ironic that their colleagues have chosen not even to stand for election in the new town councils in Broadstone and Poole.

As the remit of unitary authorities has expanded, funding has inevitably focused on statutory services and neighbourhoods with the highest levels of deprivation. I welcome that, but as a consequence many of the facilities that residents really value—the fabric of everyday community life—have quietly fallen away.

When I moved to Broadstone at the turn of the century, Christmas lights, street furniture repairs, tree planting and small community grants were considered standard and funded, or at least supported, by the local authority. Today, they are routinely deemed out of scope for huge councils doing their best to protect the most vulnerable through statutory services. However, those things still matter deeply to the residents they serve; without them, communities begin to feel overlooked and to look unloved.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Debate between Lewis Atkinson and Vikki Slade

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 21st April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I am pleased that the Government support the principle of banning pavement parking and giving local authorities new powers, assuming that they come with new burdens funding. However, Lords amendment 40, which will give powers without a national framework, risks confusion, with inconsistent enforcement, frustrated residents and unfair pressure on frontline staff.

We need a ban across the country, with embedded changes to the highway code and a public information campaign. Shifting the responsibility to councils that decide to go ahead of the curve means that drivers could be caught out, particularly in areas of high tourism like mine in Dorset, where many drivers come from elsewhere. We need the law to be clear about exemptions for postal workers, emergency vehicles and where roads are too narrow for parking. Where such issues exist, we need the time to put down yellow lines and parking restrictions to prevent one problem from being replaced by another.

I recognise that as Lords amendment 40 is a Government amendment, there will be no vote on it, but I urge the Government to consider the potential pitfalls of the amendment and whether it answers the question that people have been asking for so many years. I think the answer is that it does not, and I urge the Government to bring forward a proper road safety Bill in the King’s Speech to properly ban pavement parking.

Let me turn to community asset transfer. I recently worked with Corfe Mullen town council to prepare an application for a transfer but it was no longer needed, thanks to the community raising nearly £600,000. I am now working with Holt football club to help it to protect its club from sale; the club was started 60 years ago by Terry Bradford with a lawnmower and a hosepipe for a shower, I am told. Since then, local residents and businesses from Gaunt’s Common and Holt have invested for all those decades to build a fabulous clubhouse and develop talent that has represented their country.

However, these projects fail because communities cannot compete with private buyers looking to make a profit and sellers knowing that they can squeeze every penny from local people by setting a price beyond their ability to fundraise. I welcome the Government’s commitment in the Bill to extend both the time that communities have to delay a sale and the independent valuation, but I seek clarity on whether the change will take effect on Royal Assent and be retrospective for applications already in train. I also strongly support the Lords amendments to extend the time on the register so that Holt football club, which has previously been threatened with eviction, can protect itself into the next generation.

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I will speak to Lords amendment 41, regarding putting the agent of change principle on a statutory basis, particularly ensuring that new developments have a noise impact assessment when they are near grassroots music venues. I support the Government’s plans to increase house building, and I recognise that genuine care has to be taken to not increase red tape to the detriment of that goal. However, at the moment, the agent of change regime is preventing elements of house building and residential use in my constituency, as I will come on to. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Withington (Jeff Smith), I am slightly disappointed that that a Government amendment in lieu to Lords amendment 41 has not been tabled.

Sunderland is a music city, and venues such as Pop Recs, Independent and The Bunker are core to our identity. If we are about empowering our community, we need to empower it to protect those venues culturally important to us, which of course are also crucially economically important. As has been said, many grassroots music venues have closed over recent years, with the number declining from 1,150 venues nationally to 800 today. Those closures are due to not just economic factors, but planning issues.

The Minister referenced that there will be guidance around the agent of change principle, but the reality is that there have been forms of guidance since 2014 or 2015, and the Music Venue Trust reports that there has been no let-up in inappropriate planning applications near music venues. For those reasons, the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport’s 2024 report recommended that

“the agent of change principles are put on a statutory footing at the earliest opportunity.”

This Bill is an opportunity to do so—if not through Lords amendment 41, then potentially through alternative means, which I hope the Minister will say something about. I repeat the question asked by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin), about whether the guidance will be statutory or general.

In my constituency, the Music Venue Trust had to intervene in a planning application to convert a unit of flats near Independent on Holmeside because the plans did not contain sufficient noise protection. That process took too long, incurred cost and risk to the venue, and ultimately meant that the flats were not built, so we actually have housing that is not being built due to a lack of clarity on the agent of change principle. That shows why that principle needs to be strengthened; currently, given that the guidance is not statutory, developers are incentivised to try to get away with proposals.

Will the Minister meet me, other members of the APPG on music, and the Music Venue Trust to discuss strengthening the guidance? Will she also make sure that the statutory guidance in the NPPF that she refers to specifically refers to noise abatement in relation to grassroots music venues?