Lord Greaves
Main Page: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Localism Bill
Lord Greaves Excerpts
Lord True
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 148AZZF. We are approaching a critical new section of the Bill and I want to underline that I do not seek to challenge the concept of neighbourhood planning or public participation in it—both are absolutely essential. They have been agreed in Committee and so I could not support amendments which seek to remove reference to neighbourhood forums in any circumstances. However, I oppose a straitjacket being placed on local authorities in relation to how they should go about neighbourhood planning.
The Local Government Association has written to many noble Lords saying that the Bill adds unwanted levels of bureaucracy and Whitehall interference that threaten to squeeze the life out of a fluid, flexible and localist system that is currently in operation. I would not go as far as that but I believe that in its present form the Bill could delay effective neighbourhood planning in many places as much as it accelerates it.
Amendment 148ZZEA is clearly defective in its drafting. It was drafted in this way in order not to leap ahead of another amendment that was later withdrawn. However, I hope its purpose is clear and that the Committee will be able to support its principles. They are that there should be an expectation of every local authority to have satisfactory arrangements for neighbourhood planning and that those arrangements must be approved by the Secretary of State. If those arrangements do not exist—I repeat, do not exist—the ideas set out in Schedules 9 and 10 could have effect. In other words, it seeks to replace a one-size-fits-all approach regulated from the top towards neighbourhood planning with a more open public service framework that enables a range of different local approaches to neighbourhood planning which are suited to different local circumstances. Under a framework like this, a recalcitrant authority that is not involving its local people as it should can still be obliged to do so, albeit with the rather cumbersome machinery laid out in the Bill.
My view is that good local authorities can be trusted to, and encouraged to, trust and involve local people in planning their futures. It has been a frequent thread in this Committee that the Bill’s approach seems too often based on the view that local authorities cannot be trusted and must be made to operate centrally designed systems. We had that in the section on the community right to bid where a sensible backstop system to protect key community facilities became transformed in the writing of the Bill into a potential engine of bureaucracy.
I was moved to put down this amendment after entertaining dozens of dedicated local authority workers who had given up Saturday after Saturday and much other of their spare time to help our local communities in working up neighbourhood plans. One of those local authority officers—with a lot of justifiable pride in her case because she had done more than most—said to me, “It has been a great experience. People want to take part. They welcome it so much. It is so rewarding to be breaking new ground”. Of course, she was right, although our authority is far from alone. The Local Government Association brief gives us many other examples of innovative activity right across the country. People want more say in local planning and the Bill’s instincts are right. The Government’s interest in it is welcome but—this is a big but—why must it be presumed to be done only in the elaborate way in the schedules to this part of the Bill?
As I have said before, more than 15,000 people have taken part in our neighbourhood planning process. I think the assumption should be that every citizen and business in a village or neighbourhood should be involved in the process, which is why in my other amendment in this group, Amendment 148AZZF, I suggest that the default position should be that all people should be involved in deciding who forms a neighbourhood forum. That is also the effect of Amendment 148AZZFA and other amendments from my noble friends Lord Tope and Lord Greaves. Why should it not be the case for all local people, supported and facilitated by a good local authority, and not a selected few—as few as 21 people in this Bill—who may well claim to represent their area but could well be representative of only part of competing local opinions? Why those few and not others? Is not everyone’s voice equal in matters affecting their own area? Indeed, you could argue that good neighbourhood planning should reach beyond established local pressure groups and amenity bodies, which already have a voice, and not go through them.
I ask my noble friends to consider allowing different approaches, without the need for forums or potentially costly referendums in every case. I am not challenging the basic structure of the backstop in the Bill but I am asking for a more permissive approach. Some may say that we have to legislate for all local authorities in the same way. I profoundly disagree with that. As I said at Second Reading, good community engagement and good local planning should be spontaneous and flexible, even anarchic. One size fits all will choke those qualities and good local planning should enable variety from place to place. Surely, the whole idea of localism is that diversity should be encouraged.
While I freely acknowledge that the words of my amendment may not be right, I hope that between now and Report the Government will give active and serious consideration to the approach that I am suggesting: namely, to have an overriding expectation of local authorities to carry out neighbourhood planning but to do it in a way that liberates and supports existing innovation and fits their own area, and for the Government to have powers in reserve to require the same spirit of community engagement from those other authorities which are not as complying as local people might wish. That would be real localism.
I have views about many aspects of neighbourhood planning that are covered in this group but, in the interests of making progress, I will leave it there for now, as other noble Lords have amendments. However, I cannot sit down without at least welcoming the intent behind Amendment 148AA, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hanham, and others in the group which accept points made at Second Reading that an unelected neighbourhood forum, once set up, should not be untouchable for five years, as it is in the Bill. I am a little disappointed in the briefing being circulated that says the removal of a forum’s designation should be a rare occurrence. I do not see why a fixed set of people should remain in place for five years, unelected, when an elected council can be removed after four years. However, the acceptance that a forum may be disbanded, replenished or renewed is welcome. It represents an excellent first step away from some of the rigidities built into this part of the Bill. I thank my noble friend for that and I only hope that we can tempt my noble friends further. I beg to move.
Lord Greaves
I start by agreeing with pretty much everything that the noble Lord, Lord True, has just said. I have more than a few amendments in this group—I will speak generally and raise the questions they bring up rather than go through them individually.
Liberal Democrats are supportive of and excited by the concept of neighbourhood planning but we have two practical criteria to apply to this Bill. First, we want it to work; and secondly, we want it to work in the interest of local communities. We are not sure that the Bill as it stands does that. We are into a new world—a new architecture—of a new neighbourhood planning system based on neighbourhood areas and on authorised and qualifying bodies to carry out planning functions in these areas, which may be parish councils; or, in unparished areas, neighbourhood forums. These bodies can make neighbourhood development orders and neighbourhood plans. This is quite revolutionary stuff.
I will indicate my recent experience of neighbourhood planning at this stage. In recent years I have been involved, as a local councillor, in several master-planning exercises under the housing market renewal programme in east Lancashire, involving consultation with and participation by local residents and businesses in areas of Victorian terraced housing and local industry. I was also a member of the Whitefield Regeneration Partnership in a similar, but mainly Asian heritage, area in Nelson with special conservation status that started with an inquiry-by-design process run by the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment. I was a member of the partnership board which was chaired by my noble friend Lord Shutt of Greetland.
Issues and questions raised by our amendments include the designation of neighbourhood forums. We question the concept in the new Section 61F(5)(a)(ii) of the Town and Country Planning Act of a neighbourhood forum set up solely for,
“promoting the carrying on of trades, professions or other businesses”.
There is a government amendment to this effect. The question is whether this will mean businesses giving themselves planning permission via a neighbourhood development order. What is the role of residents—both those living in the area, however few they may be, or residents living just outside the area, who may be many—who may be affected by nuisances caused and decisions made?
My noble friend Lord True has already referred to the membership of neighbourhood forums. We are concerned that their membership must be inclusive and their internal processes democratic, so that everyone who lives in the area and all councillors representing the area can take part in neighbourhood planning, and to make sure that the forums are representative of all social and geographical parts of the local community. Similar amendments deal with this issue. This is a central issue for us in this part of the Bill. It is absolutely crucial that we do not end up with neighbourhood forums that are run by a local clique for their own particular purposes. In what ways does the Bill guarantee this? What extra prescribed conditions for possible designation of an organisation or body as a neighbourhood forum are intended in new Section 61F(6)? In particular will narrow profit-making bodies be allowed to set up as neighbourhood forums? These are crucial matters, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
On parish councils as neighbourhood areas, new Section 61G(3) says in the case of a parish council the specified area,
“must be one that consists of or includes the whole or any part of the area of the council”.
So a neighbourhood area, for neighbourhood planning purposes, can be the area of a parish council or a part of the area of a parish council. Can two or more parish councils combine to form one neighbourhood area? This is an obvious question in relation to small parish councils that are simply not big enough to do the job on their own. And what happens in areas that only have parish meetings?
Neighbourhood development orders effectively give planning permission outside the normal system. We will be talking about these orders quite lot in the coming hours. What can be done to create democratic legitimacy in areas without parish councils? Is there not a serious democratic deficit if self-appointed neighbourhood forums are able to make neighbourhood development orders and indeed neighbourhood plans? This is a critical issue for us—the democratic deficit at the neighbourhood level in areas that are unparished. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Whitaker
My Lords, my Amendment 148AZZC relates to what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has been saying, which I generally support, but is much narrower. It reflects concerns shared by the Royal Town Planning Institute and relates entirely to the purpose of setting up a neighbourhood forum, and hence making a neighbourhood plan.
At Report in another place, the Government amended subsection (5)(a) of new Section 61F so that an organisation can be designated as a neighbourhood forum if,
“it is established expressly for either or both of the following purposes—
(i) furthering the social, economic and environmental well-being of individuals”—
I abbreviate a bit—and,
“(ii) promoting the carrying on of trades, professions or other businesses”.
There was very little discussion of the government amendment in the other place.
The purport of “either or both” is that the neighbourhood forum and any consequent neighbourhood plan could be set up purely with the sole purpose of carrying on trades, professions or other businesses. There is no reason for that not to be one of the purposes, but government guidance and most ideas of planning take account of economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainable development. A neighbourhood plan should surely not address one activity alone.
The Government may want to think again and adopt something along the lines of my amendment, which makes it clear that the purpose of the neighbourhood forum is to further the social, economic and environmental well-being of the residents, including carrying on businesses if need be, but would not allow this at the expense of the other factors.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, perhaps I may pick up on what my noble friend has been saying. I am puzzled as to how business gets involved when a parish is the foundation for neighbourhood planning. A particular example would be this. What happens to the strawberry and cherry growers of Kent? Noble Lords may have a view of strawberry fields and cherry orchards in Kent as they remember them from their youth, but if they went there now they would see polytunnels full of Poles, which tend not to be popular. Well, the Poles are popular locally, but the polytunnels are not. It would be very difficult, under a neighbourhood planning regime, to get permission for a new strawberry field and the polytunnels involved if there was no business influence at all in a neighbourhood planning environment run by a parish council.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I have a few brief points. I agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in the debate. Other parts of this Bill and other legislation are probably going to lead to an impetus in some areas for the creation of new parish councils. But it is true to say that over three-quarters of the population of England do not live in a parished area, so there is a serious problem of the democratic deficit here.
I am extremely grateful to my noble friend the Minister for her detailed answers to questions I and other Members put to her, but this issue is so complex that I shall have to take her responses away and read them. We will do that, and perhaps we will have the whole summer for it. However, I am not sure that the Government have yet really got a grip on the question of the democratic credibility and legitimacy of neighbourhood forums. The amendments I put down to take away the limit of 21 were not because I want to go back to three, but because I think that 21 is far too small.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt my noble friend because I know that he has great experience of these matters. However, we are trying to make progress. I know that there are things that he might wish to pursue later, but the Minister has just given an extremely lengthy response which all colleagues will want to read. Perhaps I may suggest that we move on at this point and that these matters can be considered at a later stage. My noble friend may have further questions for the Minister on another occasion. I know that we are in Committee and not on Report, but I know also that the mood of the House is to move on.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Perhaps I may say that the mood of the House on this side is not to delay the Bill but to make sure that we do have proper scrutiny of what is a very long and complex Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, will answer for himself, but I think he has been done an injustice.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, as the noble Lord knows well, his remarks are shared by myself and my Liberal Democrat colleagues. We wish him well in his efforts to reduce a great deal of the prescription and the size of the Bill. My Amendment 148ADEA also seeks to remove unnecessary prescription and regulations and to reduce the size of the Bill. I was not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, wanted to remove the whole of Clause 101 to Room 101 but, in practice, it is the unnecessary prescriptive parts that we would all like to see go to Room 101.
I have one general question under the clause stand part debate about the funding of local planning authorities. It is clear that, as set out in the Bill, neighbourhood planning will result in extra burdens, extra costs and a need for extra resources for local planning authorities. The Government have given a guarantee to local authorities recently that any extra burdens will be funded. What guarantees are there that the extra costs on planning authorities due to neighbourhood planning will be funded, and in what way will this be done?
The amendments in relation to neighbourhood areas are probing amendments and are not to be taken literally; they are merely to probe the issues. They probe why it is desirable to designate the whole of a parish council area as a neighbourhood area and in what circumstances it may be appropriate not to do so. I think that the Minister has substantially answered that already. I particularly welcome her statement that two or more small parishes could join together, where sensible, to form one neighbourhood area, otherwise the process would become rather ridiculous. That is most welcome. They also probe why it is desirable to maintain the existing boundaries of a neighbourhood area if they are no longer appropriate and in what circumstances it may be appropriate not to do so. Perhaps more substantially, they suggest that,
“where an existing designation includes the whole or part of the area of a parish council any such modification may only be made with the consent of that council.”
In her very welcome statement that parishes could combine in a neighbourhood area where that is sensible, the Minister said that that would take place only with the consent of the parishes concerned. Surely, if the boundaries of neighbourhood areas that include the parish or part of the parish are to be changed, it is only sensible to do it with the consent of the appropriate parish council or councils. It would be helpful if we could have that assurance.
The amendments also suggest an additional consideration when a local planning authority is considering whether to designate an area as a neighbourhood area, which really gets to the core of the matter of whether the area is suitable for the purposes of neighbourhood planning. I was surprised that this consideration was not in the Bill. It seems to me to be the first and most important thing that should be considered. Again, I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I shall speak specifically to Amendment 148ADBA because it is another aspect of the problem that we have identified about parish councils and the area in which they can sit in relation to a neighbourhood plan. This amendment would remove the restriction on a parish council being part of a neighbourhood area where the rest of that neighbourhood area is unparished.
Parish councils in urban areas have existed since local government reorganisation in the early 1970s, and they can lie within wards of a local authority but may not cover the whole of that ward. As it stands, the Bill prevents such a parished area working with the unparished area when it wants to, to produce a single neighbourhood plan. This amendment simply solves that problem. However, there is a better solution, which is to turn the unparished areas with neighbourhood forums into parish councils. That would give a democratic legitimacy to neighbourhood planning which is then based on the ballot box.
The solution to this problem lies in the public services White Paper published last week. Within that, there are a set of proposals in relation to the creation of neighbourhood councils in urban areas. I noted what my noble friend the Minister said about unparished neighbourhood forums being a pragmatic solution. The difficulty is that I do not think that pragmatism goes far enough. There has to be a democratic legitimacy to neighbourhood planning, which is based on “one person, one vote” and the right to express that view.
A referendum will not be sufficient to do that because the people helping to make decisions should have a democratic base. The solution to that problem lies within the public services White Paper. It would be enormously helpful if in the next few months the aims of the Government in relation to that White Paper and neighbourhood councils could be brought together with this Bill to produce an outcome which enables unparished urban areas to have a parish council structure.
Lord Greaves
Lord Greaves
My Lords, this is a small group. In moving Amendment 148ZZEA, I wish to speak also to Amendments 148ZL and 150ZZA, with which it is grouped. All three refer to national parks. Amendment 148ZL states:
“A neighbourhood development order may not be made in a national park”.
Amendment 150ZZA states that a neighbourhood development plan can be done only,
“with the consent of the National Park Authority”.
That is in a national park, obviously. These amendments seek to ask the Government whether they have thought about the role of neighbourhood planning in national parks. Is the same model appropriate? If it is appropriate, should there be extra safeguards to prevent decisions of local residents, and/or businesses, overriding the national interest? Planning in national parks is different. National parks are different. The reason they are national parks is because they comprise very special areas. Because of this, planning is done differently and is the responsibility of national park authorities, which are a partnership between local interests—representatives of local authorities and parish councils in the area—and national interests comprising independent members appointed by the Secretary of State. National park governance is being looked at by the Government and there may be some changes. However, I do not think that that basic principle will change.
The system of neighbourhood planning set out in the Bill does not seem to cater adequately for the national interest in national parks. Neighbourhood development orders and neighbourhood development plans will have to conform to the local plan—the national park plan. I assume that that is the case, and I hope that the Minister will confirm that. However, further safeguards are still needed. For instance, a referendum of local residents on a neighbourhood development order does not allow for the national interest to be involved in the referendum decision—and clearly it cannot.
We see a conflict over planning applications in national parks. Very often the recommendations of district and parish councils are not invariably followed by the national park authority. There are good reasons for that—there has to be a balance between local and national interests because they are national parks. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, but this is an issue that the Government have perhaps not yet properly thought through. I beg to move.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I think that the short answer to my noble friend’s question is that I understand that the powers in relation to national parks are extremely different from what we have been talking about. Neighbourhood development orders would be allowed in national park areas, but they would still have to be in general conformity with the strategic policies of the local plan. I also understand and appreciate that national parks may cover more than one local authority, and it would therefore depend on which area they were in with regard to the local plan. NDOs would have to be appropriate and have regard to national policy. The national policy framework would govern that, but there is an area within that that we can discuss. The situation is covered, and the fact that NDOs would have to conform with the local plans and the national policy frameworks would be enough to suggest that development orders could be formed in that area.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am not sure that that is a satisfactory answer. I thank my noble friend for it but there needs to be further discussion about this matter and exactly how these new types of local plan will impact on the very special areas that are national parks. There is time for further discussion and, on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 150E, 152ZD, 152AA and 152BA. As we have discussed, involving communities in planning for neighbourhoods is significant. It provides the opportunity for local communities to engage in shaping their local environments now and in the future. However, I reiterate the concern that others have raised about the complex provisions that have to be grappled with at a time of growing scarcity of resources to local authorities and neighbourhoods. We should also be worried about the potential lack of accountability in the preparation of neighbourhood plans.
Noble Lords may be aware that the Royal Town Planning Institute has set out other options that would not require this additional cumbersome legislation. However, we are where we are. There remains, however, a real risk that the overly complex nature of the proposed system may mean that neighbourhood planning will not be as visionary, widespread or effective as intended. However, we acknowledge that improvements have been made on Report in another place.
Our Amendment 148ZZF defines a neighbourhood development order as an order that implements an NDP or a DPD policy. This is part of the proposition to reduce the complexity of the neighbourhood planning system whereby NDOs are considered within a wider neighbourhood context.
It is suggested that this is necessary with regard to neighbourhood planning to ensure that developments consented to through NDOs and community right to build orders are based on a comprehensive understanding of issues. The RTPI understands that that may be the intention behind the provisions in the Bill, but does not believe that it is clear from the relevant clauses as drafted. The amendment is supplemented by Amendments 152ZD and 152AA, the latter requiring proposals for NDOs to be accompanied by the NDP or DPD policies they are intended to implement.
Amendment 150E again addresses an issue raised by the RTPI, which recommends that neighbourhood plans and the associated referendum should be used to express the community's priorities for investment in the area—for example, the community's priorities for any CIL or the new homes bonus. That would help to ensure that neighbourhood planning is clearly linked with sources of investment in neighbourhoods, such as proposals for the new homes bonus and community budgeting and thinking about community assets, and would make neighbourhood plans more positive and meaningful.
I will comment on the plethora of other amendments in the group in due course, but, in the mean time, I beg to move.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I have more than a few amendments in this group. Again, I shall not refer specifically to them because that would take too long; I will just try to cover the issues in most cases.
One of the most important amendments is about neighbourhood development orders. It seems to us that neighbourhood plans can fit into the existing planning system reasonably well, especially if they have to comply with the broad aspects of the local and national planning guidance. Neighbourhood development orders seem to be more difficult, and could have a fairly disruptive effect on proper planning if we are not careful.
The lead amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has covered the crucial question of the relationship between neighbourhood and development orders and the existing development plan and its components. I think he referred to the national policy planning framework and other national guidance. If neighbourhood development orders have to comply in a general or strategic way with existing plans, is it the same as if they were ordinary planning applications or is it in some way different? Is the degree to which they have to comply less or the same? My second question is whether neighbourhood development orders and plans can be made and adopted if the local plan has not yet been adopted. I recently received a Written Answer suggesting that just over 100 local planning authorities have now adopted a core strategy. That leaves several hundred who have not, and it is not clear how long it will take them—although quite a few more are in the pipeline and have been submitted for examination. That is an important issue, because there will be a hiatus in many places.
New Section 61E(2) in the Town and Country Planning Act to be inserted by the Bill states:
“A ‘neighbourhood development order’ is an order which grants planning permission …
(a) for development specified in the order, or
(b) for development of any class specified in the order”.
One of my amendments, Amendment 148ZZJ, probes what that means. What is the relationship of that word to the usually understood types of planning permission? People talk about full planning permission and outline planning permission. If it is an outline application, it requires a further application for the details. Even if it is a full application, there may well still be reserved matters that require a further application or, perhaps more likely, the written consent of the local planning authority. How will this work with neighbourhood development orders, which are effectively for outline permission? Does it mean that outline permission can be given for, say, housing, perhaps with details of access and nothing more? In that case, how will the detailed application be determined? Will it need another neighbourhood development order and, if not, will the parish council or even the neighbourhood forum deal with it and give consent for the details, or will it then have to be passed to the local planning authority? I cannot work out from the Bill the answers to these questions. Indeed, can the developers just get on with it, with no further permissions required? If so, that would drive a coach and horses through proper planning.
So far as concerns the area covered by a neighbourhood development order, new Section 61E(2) states:
“A ‘neighbourhood development order’ is an order which grants planning permission in relation to a particular neighbourhood area”.
Can that mean just part of a neighbourhood area? Once the neighbourhood area has been defined as a parish or an urban area with a neighbourhood forum, can a neighbourhood development order relate to part of that area rather than the whole area? Again, the position is not clear to me.
New Section 61I(5) states:
“A neighbourhood development order may not relate to more than one neighbourhood area”,
but the boundaries of neighbourhood areas may not relate to a reasonable proposal on the ground. This concerns the flexibility issue that has been talked about. Why cannot two parish councils or two neighbourhood forums co-operate to make one neighbourhood development order for an area which straddles a boundary —for example, an area of disused land, perhaps with former industrial use, old railways sidings and so on—between two clearly defined neighbourhoods where the development site forms a natural marginal border area? Would that not be possible under this system and would there therefore be a need to go for a normal planning application?
New Section 61I(4) states:
“A neighbourhood development order may not grant planning permission for any development in any particular case where planning permission is already granted for that development in that case”.
I do not understand what that means. How exact and specific do the two cases have to be? Is it referring to exactly the same area, exactly the same kind of development or exactly the same planning permission in detail, or do the cases have to be similar, and how similar? The Bill seems to be fairly vague. What happens if there is an existing planning permission and a neighbourhood development order grants permission for a different kind of development—for example, a housing scheme in a place where there is already permission for a retail development? Do the two then stand side by side, with one planning permission and one neighbourhood development order that could be taken up, or does the neighbourhood development order eliminate the existing planning permission?
What is the role of local planning authorities in examinations of neighbourhood development plans and neighbourhood development orders? The Bill says that they have a right to appear if there is a hearing but what if there is no hearing? Does the local planning authority have an automatic right to comment on the plan, engage with the inspector or examiner, and make representations and recommendations?
Setting standards for neighbourhood development orders is an area where clear rules are plainly needed. Our amendment says that the Secretary of State “must”, not “may”, make regulations here. This is one area where regulations are clearly needed, otherwise the standards will not exist. If the proposed standards for the preparation of the neighbourhood development order and other documents cover what is in any documents, as well as, under the Bill, the,
“collection, sources, verification, processing and presentation of information”,
it is crucial that this process takes place in a professional, efficient way, and it also costs money.
New Section 61I(6) states:
“A neighbourhood development order may make different provision for different cases or circumstances”.
I do not understand how that will work. Does it mean that a neighbourhood development order can cover a range of different planning permissions for the same site? It seems to mean that. Normally, you get planning permission for a particular project on a particular site in an area, so how will that work?
Finally, there is an intriguing provision in new Section 61K(4) which says that the Secretary of State may issue regulations to make provision for,
“treating parish councils as local planning authorities (instead of, or in addition to, the authorities) for the purposes of the determination of applications for approvals”.
Is this really a practical proposition? What assessment has been made of the availability of professional planning staff to support parish councils as planning authorities? Would it be a general provision or would just a few large town councils apply? What criteria would be applied? Would it make the system more efficient? I can imagine that a town council might demand that every application goes to the council rather than through the system of delegation which is typically used about 90 per cent of the time now in local planning authorities.
I also have a series of amendments calling for less detailed prescription in all sorts of ways, but that matter has been debated and argued very extensively so I shall not pursue it further.
Baroness Hanham
I ask noble Lords to withdraw the amendments that they have put forward on the basis of my responses.
Lord Greaves
I asked two questions. If a neighbourhood development order gives outline planning permission, which body is then responsible for dealing with the detailed planning permission which presumably has to follow? That was the first question, and the most important one.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I would like to add another question. I listened very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, as he moved a number of amendments. There is probably not time for the Minister to answer them now, but perhaps she will be able to write to us with a detailed answer to the questions relating to how a small parish council will have the resources to grant planning permission, if it is going to.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I do not know if the scheme we are running can do that. I will check and I will write to the noble Lord, but my gut feeling would be that if they were in the same neighbourhood area it would probably be two if they were separately rated because it is one per listed non-domestic ratepayer. If that is not correct, I will write to the noble Lord.
I will just say to my noble friend Lord Lucas that I thought I had addressed his concern about financial inducements by saying that there could only be an exchange of money around planning on the basis of agreed local development plans and any negotiations that have been done on those to reduce CIL or Section 106. Having said that, I also agree that anything that is done needs to be transparent, and we will make sure that that is the case.
Lord Greaves
On this question of voting, if there is a small business, a corner shop, for example, where the shopkeeper also lives, does that shopkeeper then have two votes?
Baroness Valentine
I support the government amendments but would like to make one suggestion about simplification. There should be two votes in all cases, a business and a residential vote, except where either businesses or residents are a negligible presence in the neighbourhood area. The benefit of that would be that the local authority can test the mood of both residents and business. Where they agree, the vote would be binding, but where they disagree the solution is likely to be a mediated solution rather than a yes/no vote. That is likely to represent a more sustainable solution where the residents and businesses vote differently. My plea would be for there to be a business and residential vote in most situations, with the local authority taking the casting vote. From a civic society point of view, the businesses would never override the residential vote and the default would be for the local authority to take the view.
Lord Greaves
Lord Greaves
My Lords, in moving Amendment 148ZE, I will also speak to Amendments 148ABA, 150C and 152C in the same group. These amendments are basically about equality.
New Section 61E(8), which was inserted into the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, says that the local planning authority can refuse to make a neighbourhood development order in the event of non-compliance with “any EU obligation” or with the Human Rights Act 1998. Amendment 148ZE would add compliance with the Equality Act 2010 to these obligations. Amendment 150C makes the same stipulation about a local development plan. Amendment 148ABA states that a neighbourhood forum exercises,
“a function of a public nature when exercising functions under”,
the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act. Amendment 152C would require an equalities impact assessment on neighbourhood development orders.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for his amendments and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for his comments. Our position is that the safeguards are in place in the neighbourhood planning provisions. Neighbourhood forums do not exercise a public function, so the public sector equalities duty does not apply. The Bill requires forums to have an open approach to their membership and to have sought secure membership from across the neighbourhood area, so there is more than an expectation that everyone will be represented in the area, particularly if there are ethnic minority groups living together, because there often are. Neighbourhood planning proposals cannot be approved unless they are compatible with human rights obligations, and will be subject to consultation, publicity requirements, independent examination and a community referendum.
We particularly want neighbourhood planning to be an open and inclusive process, and we want the whole community to be at its heart. I want noble Lords to know that we will set out regulations and requirements for consultation with and participation by the public to ensure that this is the case. I hope that with the assurance I have given that the amendment is not totally necessary—we do have in mind the areas that have been discussed—the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am grateful for that response, but the answer was not exactly what I was expecting. I thought that the Minister was going to say that neighbourhood forums were exercising a function of a public nature and therefore would be covered by existing legislation. However, she said that they would not be exercising a function of a public nature and so ought not to be covered by the legislation. The purpose of the amendment is to try to make sure that they are covered.
If what the Minister has said is correct, we will have a situation in which neighbourhood plans and development orders are treated differently in parishes from neighbourhood forums in unparished areas. Parish councils are covered by the duties in the Equality Act, and they could not possibly argue that in the production of neighbourhood plans and development orders, they were not exercising a function of a public nature. Everything they do is a function of a public nature. One group will be covered, but in the unparished areas of our large cities and towns, where on balance it is perhaps more important that the legislation should apply because many of the local people may be classed as disadvantaged, hard to reach and so on, it will not apply.
It is difficult to argue that promoting a neighbourhood development order, and particularly promoting and putting together a local plan, is not a function of a public nature. Putting together a plan at any level, whether it be for a district or a neighbourhood, has to be a function of a public nature. I have not been given the answer I expected and I think the response I got initially makes me even more concerned that this ought to be in the Bill to make sure that the Equality Act applies.
For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I give notice that we shall certainly want to have further discussions with the Government about this before the Report stage, and I may wish to bring the matter back then.
Lord Lucas
Amendment 152ZC looks at how you take the structures of this Bill and produce something of interest to local neighbourhoods. Straightforward planning and dealing with planning permissions, and their outcomes, is not really what a city neighbourhood is about. It is about its environment much more generally. When it comes to the streetscape, it is a question of whether a particular street should be pedestrianised, narrowed or given a 20 miles an hour limit. It is a question of how traffic regulations are enforced. This is a particular plague in some bits of London where councils seem to have forgotten that businesses need trade and that local people sometimes need to park in order to visit shops or neighbours. Neighbourhoods have a lot of interest in the way in which traffic regulations are set out and enforced. If one had that as part of the scope of this Bill—I understand that it may be and I look forward to what my noble friend the Minister has to say—it would produce a package which gives this Bill a much greater chance of succeeding and producing the same sort of vibrant communities within cities as I am sure it will produce in the countryside and towns.
My final amendment is Amendment 152A, which picks up on a point that has been made several times; namely, that we should find ways within the procedures set out in this part of the Bill for our neighbourhoods to become parishes. They have to go through an enormous number of hoops and great effort to produce a neighbourhood plan under this Bill, which is much more than is required by the legislation for the creation of parishes, particularly given that, having created a plan and a direction for the neighbourhood, the animal created under this Bill then dies. It is a great shame that all that effort comes to nothing. The Bill should be directed at creating a parish where the people involved want some form of continuity but it should be made easy and obvious how a parish can appear out of a neighbourhood plan in an area which is not parished. I beg to move.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I was discussing this matter when, some time ago, the Chief Whip suggested that I should sit down and that we should move on. I thought that that was a bit unfair but I will briefly make two points. The important point made by my noble friend Lord Lucas is that of linking neighbourhood planning with the formation of new parishes. Earlier, my noble friend Lord Shipley, who is not in his place, said that a mechanism to do that would be extremely valuable. At the moment, the problem with creating new parishes is that it requires a local governance review by the principal council, the district or unitary council, which can take quite a long time.
These principal councils are not always terribly enthusiastic about creating new parishes. If someone comes along with a petition or whatever, they will be forced to have a local governance review but they may not take it very seriously. There are a number of instances where there has been a clear demand for a new parish council on the ground and the principal council responsible has simply blocked it and said “No, you can’t have it”. If this new Bill is to be a stimulus for the creation of lots of new parishes, of which I am certainly in favour, there needs to be a way in which the Government can link that to this legislation, whether in primary legislation or in some other way, and perhaps change the advice that is given to councils about local governance reviews, thus making it much easier to carry out the review and to create the parishes. I say that as someone who lives in a borough which is now totally parished. The fact that it is totally parished is not entirely unconnected with my activities in the past 30 years.
Lord True
My Lords, I support the spirit of my noble friend’s amendments, particularly Amendments 150 and 167, although I slightly fell out of love with Amendment 167 when I read the last few words, which refer to,
“any guidance issued by the Secretary of State as to the definition of ‘community views’”.
That might be determined more locally. Otherwise, the light-touch approach was much to be welcomed. I also strongly agree with my noble friend’s point about traffic controls, parking and so on. In my contention, ultimately, we should move towards a position where high street shops and shop owners have a decisive role in deciding how those matters should be policed locally.
Lord Greaves
“( ) In preparing a neighbourhood development plan the qualifying body must—
(a) have regard to the policies set out in the development plan, approved development plan documents and other local planning policies,(b) set out in the neighbourhood development plan the ways in which the policies in the plan differ from those referred to in paragraph (a),(c) comply with the provisions of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, and(d) comply with the provisions of chapter 1 of Part VIII of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (Trees).”
Lord Greaves
My Lords, In moving Amendment 150F, I shall speak to the other three in the group in my name; they are a mixed bag. We are still on neighbourhood development plans and orders. Amendment 150F covers various issues, some of which I think we have dealt with satisfactorily, some of which we have half dealt with and some we have not dealt with yet. It covers the preparation of the neighbourhood development plan and says that it must have regard to the existing local planning documents and explain ways in which it differs from them. I think that we have adequately dealt with that matter and do not have to discuss it any further. The amendment goes on to say—and this links back to the issue that was raised recently by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville—that the neighbourhood plan must comply with the existing legislation on listed buildings and conservation areas in the 1990 Act on those matters, and comply with the sections of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 that deal with trees.
I listened with interest to the discussion about conservation areas and listed buildings and it is worth probing on that a little further. Amendment 153AKD refers to paragraphs 23 and 25 in Schedule 12, which are supposed to be consequential amendments that remove the protection normally given to conservation areas and listed buildings in the case of the neighbourhood development orders. I have only just discovered that bit of the Bill, and I could not find what they were consequential on. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has pointed me in the right direction, because I had not spotted that bit at all.
My noble friend the Minister said, or appeared to say, that it was okay to take all these provisions out of the primary legislation. Schedule 12 does that; it specifically says that in the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990:
“In section 66 (general duty as respects listed buildings in exercise of planning functions), at the end insert—
‘(4) Nothing in this section applies in relation to neighbourhood development orders’”.
Into Section 72 is added a similar provision in relation to conservation areas, which says:
“Nothing in this section applies in relation to neighbourhood development orders”.
I will not read out what the 1990 Act about listed buildings and conservation says, but clearly it gives the protection that we all understand in relation to planning applications and planning in general.
The Minister seems to say that it is okay to take out those specific provisions in the existing primary legislation because it will be somewhere else in relation to neighbourhood development orders. She read out a duty in relation to neighbourhood development orders to pay due regard—I forget the exact words. I was not clear where that wording came from. I cannot find it in this Bill but, there again, I do not claim to have absorbed every line of the Bill. It would be interesting to know where that is. There is a discussion of the national planning policy framework that is only guidance, so the worry is that the protection for listed buildings and conservation areas in neighbourhood development orders will be in the form of guidance rather than primary legislation. That seems to be a possibility and it is what I am probing further.
I have two further questions about neighbourhood development orders. Can they propose new conservation areas within their boundaries or extensions of existing conservation areas? Can they propose the abolition of existing conservation areas or changes in the boundaries of existing conservation areas?
Lord Greaves
My Lords, it seems a long time since I introduced this group of amendments and it has been a very interesting discussion. I am very grateful to the Minister for dealing valiantly with questions flying at her from all corners of the Committee. I am not sure that she has satisfactorily answered all mine yet but I shall not pursue them any further tonight. I shall read Hansard carefully and take up matters afterwards.
I am not going to get involved in the design argument, other than to say cynically that good design is what I like and bad design is what I do not like. However, that is a cynical view. In many cases you can more easily recognise bad design than good design and get consensus on that, but the important point is that design and style are very different things. You can have good design in almost every style of building and architecture, and that is the crucial point that people often miss.
I said that I was not going to get involved in design and then started talking about it. I shall now shut up and beg leave to withdraw Amendment 150F.