Localism Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I hope that you will forgive me for intervening as I did not speak on Second Reading. Under this heading, I wonder whether the Minister can clarify whether there is an exemption on petitioning and on moving to have a referendum on car-parking charges. I discovered that my area in London recently increased car-parking fines to £130—a phenomenal increase. I gather that many of these increases are taking place in different locations on similar scales around the country. I wonder whether this will provide the opportunity for the citizen to petition against those, or indeed move for a referendum.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to the amendments, and say that we are with the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Lucas, on this. It is an opportunity for the Government to set out quite broadly their view on the exclusion, not only for particular planning applications but for the broader role of planning briefs and everything that goes with the planning process. Like the noble Lord, Lord Best, I think that we should congratulate the Government on their earlier concessions. That has helped our deliberations to move on a lot.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that of course it must be right that people have the opportunity to engage and influence their neighbourhood and place. That is just what the neighbourhood planning provisions in the Bill are designed to do, with a referendum attached to that. We have some amendments coming now suggesting that there should be earlier consultation in the process of those engaged in developing plans, so we are with you on that. That is within the structure of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Best, made an important point about LDFs. We need to get on with that as so many of them are not yet completed. We have a lacuna, with regional spatial strategies going before many of these plans were in place, and the data associated with all of those are in danger of disappearing. We propose to deal with that by transition arrangements but that is a debate for another day, if not another week at the rate we are going. I hope that the Government will take the opportunity to clarify, as far as they are able, the scope of the exemption around planning as that is hugely important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Again my noble friend makes a valuable contribution and points out how complex this is going to be in terms of definition. I would like to thank him for his contribution and my noble friend Lord Lucas for tabling the original amendment which has given rise to this debate. I hope I can persuade him to withdraw it, but I think the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, wants to come back.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for helping me to differentiate between charges and fines. I was indeed referring to fines and, as somebody asked me which was the borough, I say that it was Wandsworth. It has the lowest council tax in the country, but some of the highest fines and charges. Was he saying to me that, in his view, an attempt to have a referendum in that area would probably be ruled out?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I can say to the noble Lord that the first indication I had about the correct response had a simple two-letter word: no—that it would not be possible. However, I sought further elaboration and gained a slightly more elaborate response, though the short answer is probably correct—that this would not be a subject on which a local referendum could be held.