Neighbourhood Planning (Referendums) (Amendment) Regulations 2016

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, the proposals that the Government embody in these regulations are of course accepted. I declare my relevant local authority interests, which are referred to in the register.

There are a number of questions I would like to put to the Minister. He told us that 190 communities have started the process, that being the figure contained in the background documents which are available in the Printed Paper Office, and that 200 communities have proceeded to implement—or at least to agree—a plan under this procedure. However, that is 200 out of 1,900 in three years. Can the Minister say how many of those communities abandoned their projects or had them rejected in that time? What is the average time for concluding the process? The Minister referred to a reduction of some 17 weeks which will flow from this provision: 17 weeks compared to what as the average time so far? Moreover, the documents reveal that 89% of those who voted—presumably of these 200—voted in favour of the plan as drawn. The question is: 89% of what? What was the actual turnout relative to the potential turnout in these votes? There might well have been 89% voting in favour, but that could have been 89 people out of 100 who took the trouble to vote in a community of some thousands. It is simply not clear. I would be grateful if the noble Lord enlightened us. I do not suppose that he has the information immediately to hand, so I would be grateful if he wrote to me and placed the answers in the Library subsequently.

One of the problems for local authorities is that the planning service is under huge strain. Often, local authorities are reducing the number of planning officers because of the financial constraints on them. The Government, in paragraph 39 of their response to the consultation, indicated that they would enter into,

“updated arrangements for funding local planning authorities”.

Perhaps the noble Lord can enlighten us as to what progress has been made in that respect. As I understand from the documents, the Government do not accept that this process was a new burden, although any local authority would surely have thought it was, in the sense that it is a new responsibility which has been created, however welcome it may be. What funding is to be made available and what estimate has the department made of its impact on the number of officers who would be enabled to carry out this work, which would be in addition to the current work of planning departments, which are already considerably overstrained?

If we are looking at timescales, what are the Government doing about the hundreds of thousands of planning permissions granted for development upon which no action has been taken? We have here a measure which prescribes a very limited timescale, understandably in many ways, because in the most part we are not talking about large projects. However, what is sauce for the local government goose does not appear to be on the menu for the developer gander because long-standing planning permissions are simply lying on the table. At a time when everybody acknowledges the need for hundreds of thousands of new houses to be built, it seems extraordinary that the Government are prepared to impose a pretty rigid—I concede it is not entirely rigid—timescale for the processing of these plans, but no timescale at all on the implementation of planning permissions granted, in many cases, some years ago. Will the Government look again at the question of imposing a timescale for planning permission for significant developments to be implemented, rather than simply leaving it to the developer—who is presumably hanging on to the land in the hope that ultimately prices will rise and greater profits will accrue—when there are many, many people looking for new homes to buy or rent? The principle here, which is a fair one, is to make progress on community plans, but can we also see some progress on the carrying out of development in accordance with permissions already granted?

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, although it was very difficult to gauge from his remarks to your Lordships’ House whether or not he supports neighbourhood planning. I make it very clear that I am a huge supporter of neighbourhood planning and neighbourhood plans, which arose from the Localism Act 2011. I was delighted that the Minister made very clear his support for them. I entirely support his and the Government’s desire to speed up and simplify the process so that still more communities can benefit from the opportunities that neighbourhood planning will bring to them.

I share of course the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, that the Government are often very keen to impose tight time limits on other bodies whereas they themselves do not necessarily have to live up to similarly tight timescales. But in the area of neighbourhood planning and enthusiasm for it, while I entirely support these measures, I ask the Minister to look carefully at the departmental website and the way in which it increasingly does not show the same initial enthusiasm for neighbourhood planning that perhaps once existed. For example, the departmental website has had a series of notes on neighbourhood planning. It currently goes up to addition 17—at least, that is what is available on the department’s website. In 2015, additions 14, 15, 16 and 17 were spread over roughly three-monthly periods. Yet, as far as I am aware, there has been no further note on neighbourhood planning from the department. Will the Minister identify whether they exist and, if so, whether they can be given more publicity because they contain—at least up until December—some very interesting and helpful information for local communities that want to go down the neighbourhood planning route.

While on the issue of the departmental website, will the Minister agree to take on a small exercise when he eventually gets home tonight? Will he see whether he can find on the departmental website the results of the consultation to which he referred? No fewer than five people have worked with me on trying to find it. It was only with the help of the very efficient staff in the Library that we were eventually able to find it. But I note that the details provided on the website are somewhat different from the information provided in the Explanatory Memorandum. For example, the website says that there were 362 responses to the consultation but the Explanatory Memorandum says that there were only 321.

The point is that the report, which can eventually be found if noble Lords take the time to get to it, does not provide any helpful information whatever. Clearly, any noble Lord who wishes to participate in this debate would want to know what the objections were from those councils that were not happy with the proposal. The report merely says that the vast majority were in favour and that a few came up with some suggestions for changes. I hope that the Minister will agree to publish a fuller document on the responses to question 5.6 of the consultation.

Having been somewhat niggly, for which I apologise to the Minister, I will say that I entirely share his enthusiasm for neighbourhood planning. In my brief time as a Minister in the department, I had an opportunity, along with Mr Nick Boles, to see many community groups working on them and know the real benefit that they can bring to communities.

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)]

I hope that my noble friend will clarify a few points for me as I found the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, extremely interesting. What role has the main local authority planning officer in this procedure? Can he at any time override or question—possibly for good reasons—conclusions that have been reached? Have any estimates been made of the cost of carrying out these new procedures, and who will pay for them? Finally, will ordinary planning proposals that the local authority planning people are looking at be delayed because they will have to pay close attention to this procedure?