Business and Planning Bill

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal)]

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, has withdrawn from this group. I call the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady McIntosh. Appropriate regulation to ensure proper provision for the blind, the partially sighted and the disabled in the allocation of pavement licences is absolutely right. In a civilised society, such measures should be a given. I therefore welcome the moves proposed by the Government in the amendments which the noble Earl, Lord Howe, is bringing forward.

It is important that we encourage economic activity. As my noble friend Lady McIntosh said, that must be done speedily if it is to make sense in this context. We should bear that in mind. The provisions brought forward by the Government in this group on access and protecting individuals are appropriate and to be welcomed. We should embrace the wider Bill, which seeks to promote the necessary economic activity I referred to. I will not delay the House further, as there is a long list of Peers who wish to speak. I give this part of the Bill my total support.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I stand here as a rather inadequate substitute for my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester to support the thrust of the amendments spoken to very ably by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, and a triumvirate of government Back-Benchers. This took me back a few years to when we had to cover access on virtually everything, as every single Bill required it. One wonders why when we have the Equality Act, but apparently we need to put something into this piece of legislation.

The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, has said that he is satisfied with the Government’s amendments, so I feel that we probably should be too. However, there is one other issue—enforcement. Who will undertake enforcement? Access officers have been cut. Who will make sure that the arrangements embodied here are enforced? Clearness of guidance is vital, and, as we hear from the Government all the time, this is emergency legislation. If we have to wait to book someone to come in and have a look, that will take time. Will the police have some enaction? Will someone else do something? How clear will that guidance be?

It is not just those who are disabled or in wheelchairs who will benefit from this, but the entire flow of pedestrian traffic. Anyone pushing a buggy with a child in it or luggage on wheels will be positively affected by these changes. How will we make sure that they are enforced? The Government must answer this question; if they do not, this will become an empty series of words with no action to back it up.