Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Bellingham and Lord Teverson

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 504 in this group, standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook. Nothing is more exasperating and debilitating for residents than to suffer prolonged disturbance, noise, vibration, lorry movements, dust, aerial pollution, and traffic jams et cetera from developments in their neighbourhood. As I know from my time as a constituency MP, life can be made an absolute misery for residents.

Some local authorities set extremely high standards, and impose planning condition requirements on developers to mitigate all those nuisances that I mentioned. For example, most of the councils in Norfolk and East Anglia will have in place the practice of imposing these high standards and making sure that the planning conditions are imposed.

It came as a surprise to me when I researched this that some councils do not adopt the same practice, and that includes, for example, many London councils, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea being one. Councils that do not adopt this practice rely on what I would describe as a hopeless and outdated system whereby developers are encouraged to submit applications for prior consent under Section 61 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, which was enacted a long time ago. Failing this, councils can issue a Section 61 notice, and consents then create legal obligations on developers, and councils can take action. However, they can do so only if they have been notified, and often the system is completely useless if consents and notices are not published on their websites. How, therefore, do local residents find out? The answer is that, unless a local board member tells them or unless they hear from other sources, most residents very often do not find out what is going on, so they cannot take action.

My and my noble friend Lord Northbrook’s solution is very simple: under our amendment, local planning authorities “must”—at the moment under the legislation, they “can”—publish such consents and notices on their websites and not then remove them. Back in the days of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, the internet did not exist and councils did not have websites. My noble friend and I are simply updating the law to make life a lot easier for residents who suffer this appalling nuisance. I really do not see why the Government could have any objection to this amendment. It would be an improvement for many local residents and residents’ associations up and down the country and make their lives a great deal easier, at no cost whatever to the local planning authorities. I commend it to the Committee.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham. He says that he cannot see any reason why the Government should not agree to his amendment. I say the same thing in every speech and it has never worked yet, but let us see if we can get a change today. I hope that proves his case.

I rise to speak to Amendment 309, but first I want to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on including biodiversity in his work. I very much hope that, on Report, he will support the local nature recovery strategy amendment of my noble friend Lady Parminter; indeed, I am sure he will. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, regarding adaptation. As the Environment and Climate Change Committee—I still want to call it a sub-committee, but it is no longer that—has said so often, we are way behind on adaptation. As the National Infrastructure Commission has said in respect of flooding, we need to invest in adaptation and take it into consideration in the planning procedures.

I turn to the contribution of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. London is an issue in terms of fires, as we saw so graphically on the television, but I still come back to the peatlands that he mentioned. While we in the south-west try to revive our peatlands, we still have those fires every summer, as I am sure is true in Scotland as well. They degrade our carbon stock in this country.

This group of amendments—given that I speak particularly on climate change, I would say this, wouldn’t I?—is one of the most important. Why? Because, as the Committee knows, climate change is one of the fundamental challenges that not just this country but the whole planet faces, along with the threat to biodiversity. That is why, when the IPCC report on updating climate change came out at the beginning of this year, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said that we need to do everything everywhere, all the time, right now. Clearly, the planning regime has to be a core part of that, which is why all the amendments in this group are particularly important.

I understand entirely that, as the Minister I am sure will say, we have had a planning duty in legislation since 2008 and that this Bill rolls it forward. It does not ignore it or try to take it away; it is still there. Since 2012, climate change and net zero have effectively been in the National Planning Policy Framework as well. However, the point is that they have had hardly any effect, and this is why these amendments are so important. That is the problem.

I looked up how many local authorities now have climate emergency resolutions. Not all these local authorities will be planning authorities, so I do not have an exact number, but 75% of local authorities now have climate emergency resolutions within their council—that is 308 of them. Some of those may be greenwashing, I do not know, but I know that certainly in the south-west they are for real. There are councillors of every stripe and party, and independents, and ratepayers who want to move ahead on this agenda but find it very difficult.

We have had the example in West Oxfordshire, in Lancaster City Council, where the Planning Inspectorate has pushed back against local authorities trying to take control and move forward on some of these policies. Because of the cost of going through planning inspectors and appeals, the effect is that local authorities, cash-strapped as they always are, tend to be very cautious about the policies that they then try to implement. That is why I think there is a golden opportunity in this Bill to up the ability to deliver at a local level—not just at the top level of UK Government and beyond but at the grass roots of our communities—and to move ahead and implement real policies that produce a major contribution towards net zero.

As members will be well aware, a number of recent reports have looked at this. We had the excellent Mission Zero report, and I congratulate the Government on getting Chris Skidmore to produce this report. He said:

“The planning system should be an essential tool in delivering the changes needed for net zero”.


He went on to say that

“the planning system is undermining net zero and the economic opportunities that come with it”

and that there should be

“a test for all developments to be net zero compliant”.

I will come back to the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about decision-making as opposed to policy.

The Climate Change Committee in its 2022 report to Parliament—including, obviously, this House—said that the Government should:

“Make clear the importance of ensuring that all developments consider how best to minimise lifetime emissions and adapt to climate change as part of the planning process”.


This is absolutely in line with government policy on net zero and the various other routes to decarbonisation that the Government are committed to.

Amendment 209, put forward from these Benches, builds on the duty in legislation at the moment. It stresses both mitigation and adaptation, as the noble Baroness made clear. It makes the climate and net-zero obligations real and certain, so that local authorities and planning authorities can, with confidence, move forward on their decisions in this area.

I do not believe the amendment would get in the way of development. In fact, planning and taking into account net zero, as the Chris Skidmore report said, actually helps development. It helps economic growth and is something we should aspire to; it does not get in the way. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is right that this amendment affects not just policy-making but planning decisions. That makes it a hard amendment, but that is what this is about. We are talking about a real crisis; we need action and we need to make sure it takes place. I believe this amendment would not get in the way of development.

I particularly thank the Better Planning Coalition and the We Are Here campaign for working with me to put this amendment together. This planning Bill can be a cornerstone of this Government’s and this Parliament’s policy and route map towards net zero, which is why this amendment, and all these groups, are important. I hope that the House can come together on Report to find a way forward, with the Government’s consent.