Lord Greaves
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Lord Greaves
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, we move at last to Part 6 of the Bill, headed “Planning in England”. Some of us thought we might never get here—but here we are. First, I thank the government time managers for giving us some extra time at the end of this Committee stage, so that we can have a bash at dealing with Part 6 properly. I understand that a lot of the housing stuff that has gone before is extremely important. Nevertheless, we had feared that it would take over completely, and we would not be able to deal with planning in any sensible way. So I thank the Government for providing the time—even if that time will not, by and large, be conveniently arranged for a lot of us. Never mind.
As well as moving Amendment 85 I will speak to the other amendments in the group that are in my name. The planning clauses as a whole raise some important principles, and I am sure that we shall have some clashes of views on those principles as we go through Part 6. They also raise a series of the kind of issues that that House of Lords is, at least in part, here to look at—to try to understand what the legislation actually means, how it might work, and whether it will work. It is important that we look particularly at some of the clauses in Part 6 that were put into the Bill right at the end of its progress through the Commons, and have not been properly scrutinised at all. So I hope that we shall do that.
There are a lot of concerned people working in the planning system around the country who, on the basis both of my experience and of information provided by colleagues, do not understand how this is going to work either. The Government have been organising meetings, seminars and so on, but many people believe that the legislation needs looking at thoroughly before it leaves your Lordships’ House.
The amendments in the group are about neighbourhood planning. We are starting off in a fairly benign way on this subject, because there is probably more agreement on what is proposed in this part of Part 6 than there is on some other areas. The amendments relate to Clause 125, which is called “Designation of neighbourhood areas”, and Clause 126, which is called “Timetable in relation to neighbourhood development orders and plans”.
I have no doubt that all noble Lords in the Committee are fully up to speed on neighbourhood planning and what all this means, but it may be helpful to put on record at the beginning the fact that neighbourhood planning is one of the success stories from the Localism Act, which some of us here spent a lot of time working on five years ago. Neighbourhood plans are the main part of neighbourhood planning, and about 1,800 of them are at some stage from the initial inquiry through to adoption. That is a lot: the system is a success. We should be looking to build on that success, and where successful neighbourhood planning has taken place, to move it to other parts of England where so far it has not taken hold.
This is a complicated process. Five years ago some of us spent a lot of time trying to understand how it, and the legislation, were going to work. It is not easy to understand, because the legislation appears in a number of different planning Acts. Basically, the process has to start with a relevant body, which is either a parish council or, if there is no parish council, a neighbourhood forum. If there is no parish council, the neighbourhood forum has to be approved by the local planning authority—the main council. There must be a neighbourhood area, which the parish council or neighbourhood forum operates in, which is the basis for the local neighbourhood plan. In many cases, obviously, that is the parish, but if there is no parish, that is a source of discussion and delay.
Then, within that neighbourhood area, a neighbourhood plan is put together. This is the part of it that is very interesting, and sometimes quite exciting, involving residents and the local groups. The body that is responsible for the neighbourhood plan is the parish council or the neighbourhood forum. According to the rules, the plan must be submitted to the local planning authority for approval. Then there has to be a referendum involving everybody who lives in the neighbourhood area. That, again, is organised by the main local authority. Then, if the referendum vote is to approve—so far, in almost all cases it has been—the local authority has to adopt the neighbourhood plan as part of its overall local development plan.
If that sounds complicated, it is actually quite complicated, so there are within the system a number of points at which the local planning authority can, if it wishes—or just if it is not all that efficient—slow the whole process down. As I understand it, the purpose of these two clauses is to remove those impediments, or at least to speed up the process.
I drafted these amendments some time ago. I did it for two reasons. The first was a natural protest against the degree of prescription in the two clauses: effectively, they say that, in different ways and at different times, with all the usual specifications, the Secretary of State can do whatever he or she wants to do. That seems to me unnecessary. If the Government know what they want to do in changing the system, they should simply put that on the face of the Bill. Then, at least, it would be less complicated for people trying to understand it.
The second reason, of course, was to probe what the Government are intending to do—what time limits they propose, and so on. So I put some of that in the amendments. Since then I have seen a more recent document called Technical Consultation on Implementation of Planning Changes. It is an extremely interesting document, which has been circulated to local planning authorities and elsewhere, and it contains the proposed timetables for neighbourhood planning. I do not agree with everything in it—as the Committee will discover in due course over the next day or so—but the proposed timetables for neighbourhood planning are fine. Indeed, they are rather better than those I put in my probing amendments. The Government are doing better than me on this one, so good for them.
I hope that this afternoon the Minister will be able to put that timetable on the public record in the Committee. We understand that it is subject to the consultation process, so there might be changes, but it would be helpful to set it out so that at least it is there in Hansard and people can see what it is.
The reason why I raised the question of whether Clause 127 should stand part of the Bill was to protest against what seem to many of us to be two pages of unnecessary intervention powers for the Secretary of State. I know that there have been some problems over neighbourhood planning with some local planning authorities, but I do not think that the way to deal with them is to have two pages of detailed legislation setting out what will become umpteen pages of even more detailed legislation when the regulations provided for in almost every other line in these two pages are agreed. That is just a statement of opposition to doing it in that way. The important thing is: we need to get a better and clearer timetable for the neighbourhood plan-making process, set out and agreed in legislation, and then let us all get behind the whole neighbourhood planning process wherever any of us has any influence. I beg to move.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am grateful for the care and detail that the Minister has put into her reply. In most cases, when I read it in Hansard it will turn out to be satisfactory.
One issue that the Minister might respond to now, or perhaps afterwards, is that of designation. For which kinds of areas will there not be automatic designation? I understand that in most cases, particularly parishes—most cases are parishes at the moment—the application is for the whole parish, and that is very clear. What will the position be if the application is for only part of the parish, and not the rest of it? What will the position be if more than one parish applies together for designation as a neighbourhood area? What will the position be if—the obvious further complication—one whole parish is part of the neighbourhood area together with part of another parish? I should say that that is exactly the position in the area where I live. Anyway, that is a straightforward question and I will move on from it.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
The questions raised by the noble Lord are subject to the consultation and bring up a number of issues. I will certainly write to him with the detail, if that would be helpful.
Lord Greaves
“Promotion of neighbourhood planning in unparished areas
(1) A local planning authority which includes unparished areas which have not been designated as neighbourhood areas must, from time to time and by such means as it considers appropriate, take active steps to bring to the attention of persons living or working in those areas the opportunities for neighbourhood planning (a “neighbourhood planning promotion”).(2) A neighbourhood planning promotion must include appropriate means to promote and explain neighbourhood planning on a range of local media, including the authority’s website. (3) The authority must carry out a neighbourhood planning promotion if it has not done so within the previous three years.(4) In addition to the steps required by subsections (1) to (3), the authority must maintain at all times a section on its website explaining neighbourhood planning and in particular how to identify or set up a relevant body in order to make an application for the designation of a neighbourhood area.(5) In this section “unparished area” has the same meaning as in section 87(3) of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 (constitution of new parish).”
Lord Greaves
My Lords, this little group of amendments—in moving Amendment 87, I shall also speak to Amendments 88 and 88B—is about the promotion of neighbourhood planning in unparished areas and a general duty on local authorities and particularly the Government to promote neighbourhood planning.
Amendment 88 is a way of sneaking on to the agenda, with the assistance of the Public Bill Office, which was extremely helpful as usual when it rejected my first efforts, the question of setting up new parish councils in unparished areas. We are talking about urban areas more than any others. Most rural areas, villages and a lot of small towns now have parish councils or town councils, whatever they call them. However, huge swathes of urban England do not have any form of parish council. The amendments are based on the view that parish councils ought to be pushed and promoted more rigorously in those areas.
The link to neighbourhood plans is that, although neighbourhood plans can be put through by two different kinds of qualifying bodies—a parish council or a neighbourhood forum, which has been set up and approved by the local planning authority in an unparished area for the purpose—almost all the neighbourhood plans which have been adopted are in parished areas. I am not sure exactly how many are not, but I think they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Of the 1,800 which are under way, the great majority are in parished areas.
The reason for this is quite clear. Parish councils exist. They are a body of people with links, networks and systems of knowing what is happening in the world outside. They have understood that neighbourhood planning is possible and, as an existing body, they have taken it on board. If there is no such body in an area, or if there are only community groups or community associations which are not linked to these sorts of systems, it is going to take a lot longer. However, it is fairly clear that neighbourhood planning can be as beneficial in unparished areas as in parished areas. In many of them, where development is being proposed in urban areas, neighbourhood planning could be very valuable.
The amendments raise the issue of what the Government are doing, first, to promote neighbourhood planning in unparished areas and, secondly, to get parish councils going in unparished areas. Do the Government know how many of the 1,800 are in parished areas and how many in unparished areas? Is there a way of finding out? As I say, I think there is a handful of adopted plans in unparished areas.
Since tabling these amendments, I was asked to attend a meeting with many of the civil servants involved in this part of the Bill—who I think were a bit curious to find out what all these amendments put down by Lord Greaves were all about—and I was certainly curious to find out what they had to tell me. A great deal of it was extremely helpful and I thank them very much for that meeting.
Since then, I have had a letter from, I think, the head of neighbourhood planning at the Department for Communities and Local Government. The letter has some very interesting and extremely helpful information which I did not previously know, particularly about neighbourhood planning in deprived areas and the efforts which the department and the Government are making to promote this. I will not read it all out, as it would take too long—and perhaps the Minister is going to tell me some of it anyway—but it refers to,
“Building capacity and take up in deprived urban areas by training community organisations to be able to lead neighbourhood planning in their neighbourhoods … Working with Community Organisers to use neighbourhood planning to tackle issues faced by communities in deprived urban areas”,
and so on. This all looks very good. I have not had time to look into it any further since receiving the letter this morning, but I shall be doing so.
The letter also talks about having,
“More powers for neighbourhood forums to become parish councils”.
It also sets out the legislative changes which have already been made—which are, in my view, not sufficient but are welcome—and talks about, in particular, speeding up the process by shortening the amount of time a local authority can take to complete a governance review. A local governance review happens when the authority receives a petition from the necessary number of electors and has to conduct a review as to whether to set up a parish council, more parish councils or whatever it may be.
The letter then goes on to the encouraging part:
“The next phase of work on making it easier to set up new parish councils will be to publish the updated DCLG Local Government and Boundary Commission … Guidance on Community Governance Reviews. This will set out the new legislation and establish the working principles to ensure the guidance becomes a living document reflecting the evolving devolution landscape”.
That sounds good, but does the Minister know when that guidance will be issued? This is taking us a little bit away from the heart of the Bill, so I will not say anything more about it, but I thank the department for this information.
Some of us will be urging the Government on in the hope that they will proceed with all due speed on this. Local democracy is extremely important and local neighbourhood planning is a way of developing genuine grass-roots local democracy and they will have our support in everything they do and we will continue urging them to do more. I beg to move.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, this is my first chance to speak on the planning aspects of the Bill today, so I declare again my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association.
Like, I think, noble Lords across all parts of the House, we are strongly supportive of the concept of neighbourhood planning. We had many discussions around it as part of the Localism Bill, and I have been deeply impressed by the commitment of so many communities to get involved in the process. This has been a success story from the last Government.
My noble friend Lord Greaves said earlier that there have been some 1,800 neighbourhood plans at some stage of development. Of course, many fewer have actually held referendums, and it is quite a task to move from initial expressions of interest through to actually having a neighbourhood plan in place. We want to encourage the process, and this group of amendments is about how we can do that.
Amendments 87 and 88 do just that, and Amendment 88B asks the Government to do a little bit more by looking at ways in which they might provide an additional contribution to the work of communities in developing their neighbourhood plans, because not having the necessary resources is clearly an impediment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
I am a councillor in Lewisham and Crofton Park. At the moment we are in the process of setting up our own neighbourhood plan, which is very good and I welcome it. Equally, though, it has not answered all the problems. We have some challenges in our area, such as ensuring that there is proper retail provision. We have sites of multiple occupation with no building taking place, and so on. So the plan is all very good and I am supportive of it, but my noble friend has raised some genuine points.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am trying to think what on earth has ever existed or exists now that is the answer to all the problems. There are people in the world who think they have an answer to all the problems but they are usually—I am trying to think of a word I can use in your Lordships’ House—on the extremist fringe of ideas.
I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate, which has been extremely interesting. I particularly thank my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath for all the work he did in getting some oomph behind neighbourhood planning when he was a Minister in the DCLG. I also thank my noble friend Lord Stunell, who is in his place but has not spoken today, who was closely involved in the promotion of the Localism Act in the first place. I am not saying that it was all their work and no one else’s, but from these Benches it is quite stimulating and daunting in different ways to have them sitting behind me, ready to shoot me down when I say things that are not quite right.
I was fascinated by what became at one stage a mini-debate about the future of local governance in the former urban district of Gosforth in the north of what is now the city of Newcastle. I have to say that the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, reminded me of debates in my own authority in Pendle perhaps 30 years ago, when we were looking hard at what had been five former urban districts and at whether they should have parish councils. They now have town councils. The arguments that the noble Lord is putting forward are very similar to those put forward by members of this party in Pendle 30 years ago. We set up the town councils in the former urban districts, with the support and assistance of referendums and local people, and they have been an astonishing success. I have to say that they are now one of the reasons why we are able to preserve some of our local services, which the borough council can no longer afford to run. So I say, “Good on you, Gosforth—get on with it”.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said that there would always be tensions. Local decision-making, however democratic or political it is and whoever is making the decisions, is always full of all kinds of local tensions. That is what it is all about. No one believes that neighbourhood planning is some miracle cure and that it is a perfect system that will take away all the differences of opinion among residents and other people in different parts of an area. Clearly it is not, but it is a means of involving a lot more people in the debates, the arguments and the issues. We will not necessarily get any more agreement at the end, although this process does tend to achieve more agreement than exists if it is not carried out.
I have recently been involved in huge planning applications—at least, huge by our standards; one of them involves 500 houses—over which there have been enormous disputes. A system of neighbourhood planning in that part of the borough, which is now being set up as a consequence of the decisions that have been made, would have helped to achieve sensible, even if still quite angry, engagement between people, instead of people just standing a long way apart and shouting at each other.
The system is not perfect—but nothing is perfect, and it is better than what happens if it is not there. On these Benches we are absolutely certain that that is the case. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is right to say that the people who most strongly oppose a new housing development are always those who are in the previous housing development. But that is just life, and part of life’s tensions. We have to bring people in and get them to talk about it. I am grateful for the Minister’s comments and the helpful information that she has provided, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Best (CB)
I support the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, on Amendment 88A, which would give parish councils and neighbourhood forums rights of appeal if permission was given for a development that failed to accord with a neighbourhood plan that had been prepared but was not yet finalised. I note that this proposal was debated in the other place, where Nick Herbert MP commended neighbourhood planning. I echo his views and agree with noble Lords who have congratulated the Government and the coalition Government on the neighbourhood planning initiative, which has now reached this number of 1,800 neighbourhoods—I think that well over 200 have now been concluded, but we will probably hear about that from the Minister.
During the passage of the Localism Bill through this House, I supported the idea of neighbourhood plans, but I opposed the idea that after the plan had been approved by the parish council, the district council, the county council, and by an independent examiner, it would then need to be approved through a referendum. I was worried that all the people who had not participated in any of the public meetings, consultation sessions and the rest after years of hard work by the local volunteers, who had nobly got together to prepare their neighbourhood plan, would come out of the woodwork and vote against the plan on principle because they opposed anything happening in their area. I was wrong. The referenda have all so far been in favour of the local plans, and this has not been a negative barrier to getting the plans through.
Returning to the debate in the other place, I note that Mr Nick Herbert went on to say that,
“support is undermined when speculative developers try to get in applications ahead of the completion of neighbourhood plans or even after they have been completed. They bang in their applications, and either they are upheld by the local authority, which is fearful of losing an appeal, or the developer makes an appeal that is upheld by the planning inspector. The development is then allowed to go ahead, which leads people, including groups of volunteers, to ask, ‘Why have we spent literally years working on this neighbourhood plan for where developments should go—a power that was given to us, the community—only for it to be overturned by a developer?’”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/1/16; col. 222.]
Nick Herbert’s views were echoed by Sir Oliver Heald MP, who thought it was wrong that a neighbourhood plan,
“can then be trashed by an application by a speculative developer.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/1/16; col. 222.]
Andrew Bingham MP said this was happening in Chapel-en-le-Frith, a village in his constituency. These sentiments from Conservative MPs were echoed by those of Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods MP for the Opposition.
I have followed the progress of the production of an excellent neighbourhood plan for the Cerne Valley in Dorset, covering the village whose name, Godmanstone, is in my title—I declare an interest in this as an owner of land within the area covered by the plan. In the case of the Cerne Valley, local volunteers formed a neighbourhood forum in the summer of 2011. Consultative meetings were held with fierce debates, and after huge efforts the group—a vanguard for neighbourhood forums, brilliantly led by a local farmer, Fred Horsington, who is now a neighbourhood planning champion—obtained the approval of the relevant parish councils for their plan. In December 2013, it was submitted to the council. It was then subject to independent examination and the examiner’s report came out in August 2014. Then, in December 2014, a referendum was held. To the considerable credit of all the volunteer workers, the plan was approved by a huge majority. Finally, on 8 January 2015, three and a half years from the beginning, the plan was approved by the local authority.
During this lengthy period, all the hard work of those engaged in this exercise was at risk from a developer putting in an application which did not accord with the emerging plan. Had this happened, the parish council and the neighbourhood forum would have had no way of appealing, and the council would have had to be hesitant about using the submitted plan in determining the planning application. Until the referendum was done and dusted, it was a nerve-wracking time. This amendment would overcome the problem and ensure that, even where a neighbourhood plan had not reached its final stage, it would make its mark as it should. I support the amendment.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I tabled an amendment in this group which covers similar ground but is not about neighbourhood planning. I tabled it at the behest of a different set of interest groups from those that my noble friend Lady Parminter has worked with, but it seems sensible for it to be in this group because the principle is the same.
This is an interesting issue, which has been around for quite a while. One of the interesting political aspects is that political parties tend to be in favour of some form of community right of appeal against the granting of planning permission when they are in opposition, but when they are in government they find all sorts of reasons why it is not practical. I think this has happened with all three parties, although I think my noble friend is complaining that we continued to be in favour of it during the coalition but were stopped by our big-brother partner—at least I think that is what she is saying; she may have been closer to it than I was.
I have no doubt whatsoever that, for major applications which are against policy, there is a very good argument in favour of the right of appeal. It is also true that nobody has come up with workable legislation. I am not claiming that my amendment, which covers the principle generally rather than just neighbourhood planning, is the answer. But we have to accept that the right of appeal has to be restricted to a considerable degree: it cannot be for any old planning application that comes along, even if it is against policy. If, for example, an extension to next-door’s kitchen is against council policy but the council has passed it, then—rightly or wrongly—it is not a matter for appeal. That right has to be reserved for a major planning application defined in some way or another. I have suggested,
“a major planning application or an application for permission in principle”—
no doubt we will be calling it a “PIP” before we have finished with this part of the Bill.
The legislation will have to clearly define who can object and carry out an appeal—whether this be a body, person or group of people—and will have to strictly limit the right to appeals which are clearly against policy. I believe that workable legislation can be drawn up to cater for those cases, but it has to be tightly drawn and not something that is going to generate loads of appeals, because that would totally undermine the planning system and would certainly undermine the Government’s wish to build many more houses.
I am in favour of this with the restrictions I have outlined. I would ask the Government to look at it seriously and ask an expert to come up with a scheme which we can then decide whether to go ahead with or not; otherwise, we will simply continue as we are. If the Conservatives lose the next election and someone else takes over, at the election after that the Conservatives will be doing what they did on platforms with me in 2010—saying what a good idea this is and promising to bring it in if they get into government. I am not blaming them, because everyone does that and everyone changes their mind.
Lord True
My Lords, the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is very wide, albeit that it is limited to major applications, however they are defined. Of course it goes to the heart of an important point of principle in planning legislation, which is where the right of appeal does and does not lie. We all know that that is a giant question and I do not think that it can particularly be addressed in this group of amendments. However, there is no doubt that we all have electors, groups and campaigners who ask the question: how is it that we are rendered powerless after a decision? But it would mean making such a radical change in planning law that I do not think that we can address it properly at this point. However, I take it fully that the noble Lord has raised a vital issue.
On the more limited Amendment 88A, I understand the kind of case being put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and indeed the good intentions behind the amendment. The trouble is that we are writing law here, and you could look at it the other way round if it was put into statute. Let us say that this became law and someone wished to frustrate a development by a city council like Norwich, with which the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, is associated. If Norwich wanted to do something and had granted a planning application, we would have this provision on the statute book which potentially provides an opportunity for it to be subjected to an appeal to the Secretary of State—I guess that that means the inspector. It could be a mechanism not for promoting a community interest but for campaigning against a difficult decision which a planning authority had taken. That would be my concern with the proposed new clause as drafted because local authorities have to take difficult decisions.
There is theoretically a defence in proposed new subsection (1)(c), which states that the neighbourhood plan should contain,
“proposals for the provision of housing development”—
that is, the objectors could not be complete nimbys, but they might have a proposal for two or perhaps 10 houses whereas the local authority plan had just given consent for the construction of 150 affordable houses. In the hands of the wrong sort of people—I am sure not those of the party opposite—it could be a mechanism through which campaigners could operate to challenge embedded and accepted local authority proposals. I see also that proposed new subsection (2) states that the objectors could cover only,
“part of the area of land to which the application relates”.
So there could be a situation where a site brief had been drawn up for an inner-city plot, perhaps with community participation, running across two wards. Let us say that it had been agreed to construct housing, a school and so on, but then up pops a group in part of the site area—these things take a long time to process—which then says, “Oh no, we object to that and we will go to the Secretary of State”. You will end up with the whole of the worked-out site brief being potentially frustrated. I am sure that that is not what is intended by noble Lords opposite.
There is a further defence, in that the emerging plan —however it emerges—has to have reached a certain point, such as public consultation, though that can be pushed along relatively quickly. In the wrong hands, this power, which is intended to be benign, could be used to frustrate, challenge and delay difficult decisions taken in the broader interest by the principal authority. Indeed, it is an interesting reversal—
Lord Greaves
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 89AZC and shall speak to the rest of the amendments in this group.
This is about the Secretary of State’s default powers as part of the plan-making process. The Bill introduces a new Section 27 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. New subsection (1) explains that this section applies if the Secretary of State,
“thinks that a local authority are failing or omitting to do anything it is necessary for them to do in connection with the preparation, revision or adoption of a development plan document”.
The rest of it sets out what the Secretary of State can do, basically by taking over the process and doing it himself or herself. This amendment is about new subsection (5), which says that when this development plan document has been produced and published, either by the Secretary of State or the local planning authority, the Secretary of State has the choice of doing three things: first, to approve the document, or approve it with modifications; secondly, to,
“direct the authority to consider adopting the document by resolution of the authority as a local development document”,
which is the normal process that would take place if the authority was producing the document; or, thirdly, to reject it.
The purpose of the amendment is to put the decision as to what to do with the document—adopt it, adopt it with modifications as allowed or reject it—firmly in the hands of elected local councillors. The purpose of this clause is to say what happens when the authority, as a corporate body, is not doing what it should through its staff and so on. Surely the decision on whether to adopt ought to revert in the end to elected local councillors, even if the Secretary of State has taken the process of producing the document out of the authority’s hands because it has not been doing it right. It is as simple as that: a matter of local democracy.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, superficially sounds extremely attractive but I have done this job and I say to him that it really does not work like that. The truth is that the Secretary of State will use these powers only when they are utterly necessary. The last thing that he or she will want to do is to get into the mixture of arguments and local issues which this amendment is bound to cause. But there has been such a history of difference in the willingness, or indeed the ability, of local authorities to get on with the business that it is necessary to have this intervention power. After doing all the work and getting it sorted out the idea that you could then hand it back to the local authority, which you have intervened on only because of its incompetence, uselessness or sheer downright intention not to act, seems a bit loopy, to be honest. It would mean going back to the very same people and telling them that they had the opportunity to decide whether the Secretary of State had done the right thing. The answer is that you would use this power only in very extreme cases, and in those cases the last lot of people who you would want to come back to are in that sort of local authority.
Lord Greaves
Perhaps I can answer that before the Minister replies; I know that he may agree with the noble Lord, Lord Deben. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, seems not to understand that there is often a considerable difference between, on the one hand, the bureaucratic competence—I use that word in all its uses as there may be a lack of resources, a lack of professional ability or whatever—and, on the other, the ability of elected councillors to make a decision on the basis of a report and the evidence put in front of them. They are two quite separate things.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for his comments. While I do not wish to repeat my earlier comments or those made by my noble friend Lady Evans on this important issue of planning, whether neighbourhood or local, to reassure the noble Lord I reiterate that we are committed to a plan-led system with local plans at its heart.
Throughout the progression of the Bill we have heard again and again, from various organisations, of the importance of local plans that set the vision for an area and provide the framework for how housing and other essential development needs will be met. However, not every local authority has made the same progress towards getting its local plan in place. We have made clear our expectation that all local planning authorities should have a local plan in place and that the policies in those plans should be kept up to date.
I shall focus on Amendments 89AZC and 89AZD, as tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, which collectively seek to limit the Secretary of State’s power to take decisions on whether a local plan should be adopted where the Secretary of State intervenes under Section 27 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. I hope that my response can, in a moment, provide reassurance to the noble Lord that the Government are committed to working with local planning authorities to get the plans in place. At the same time, I will explain why we cannot support amendments that would in effect remove from the Secretary of State powers that he currently holds or powers that we consider necessary should the Secretary of State not be satisfied with a plan produced by a local planning authority following his direction. The Secretary of State can currently intervene under Section 27 if he thinks that a local planning authority is failing or omitting to do anything necessary to progress a development plan document—that is, the documents which comprise the local plan.
Clause 132 substitutes a new Section 27 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. This is to enable more targeted intervention in plan-making by the Secretary of State. These measures lie at the heart of our ambition to work pragmatically with local authorities to get plans in place that help to deliver the homes and jobs we need.
The amendments we propose are intended to enable the Secretary of State to return appropriate decision-making on a development plan document to a local planning authority. The noble Lord’s amendments go further in such a way that they would remove the ability of the Secretary of State to approve a local plan or to reject the document. In other words, his only action would be to direct an authority to consider adopting the document. Although I am aware of the experience that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has in local matters and local planning, I also very much take account of the comments made by my noble friend Lord Deben and the experience he has had in senior office on these matters.
I reiterate that it remains a balance and we believe that the balance is right. We want to work with authorities to get plans in place. Our proposals give the Secretary of State new options for doing this, without being too prescriptive. However, I remind the noble Lord that the Government may arrange for another body to prepare a local plan only where the local planning authority has failed to do so, despite being given every opportunity. It is a last resort.
The measures we propose provide the necessary assurance to communities and others that where an authority has not put a plan in place or ensured that a plan remains effective, we are able to take the necessary action. Not to do so would risk delaying or even preventing the growth and jobs which are so urgently needed. This action must include taking decisions on whether that plan should or should not form part of the development plan and the starting point for determining planning applications. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the noble Viscount. For a moment, I thought that he was going to mention regulation again.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am grateful to everybody who has taken part in this short debate. One of the differences in the system in new Section 27 of the 2004 Act compared with the earlier legislation is that it will allow the Secretary of State to intervene on particular documents or in specific ways, rather than on the plan as a whole. As the Minister said, it might be more targeted.
I have not been able to get my mind around whether that will make the position more or less alarming—better or worse. However, the experience of some of us of the planning system is that actions taken by the Secretary of State or on behalf of the Secretary of State are not necessarily quicker or more efficient than actions taken by local planning authorities. We only have to look at the whole system of appeals, which, in the case of major appeals on the evidence that I have, is threatening to be snarled up. That is an indication that the Secretary of State may not have a huge resource available to him to step in and do things. I will just leave that.
I am aware that the whole plan-making system, of which this is just a part, needs review and I have tabled an amendment relating to that, which we will come to later in Committee. I was sent a document this morning that was issued yesterday by the Local Plans Expert Group, Report to the Communities Secretary and to the Minister of Housing and Planning. I look forward to having time to have a good look at it, because I believe that what we are talking about now is a detail and the sooner the Government can look at the local planning system as a whole and at ways of making it more streamlined, more effective and more efficient, the better. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Greaves
Lord Greaves
My Lords, Clause 133 allows the Mayor of London to step in and carry out default actions on plan-making when local authorities in London—London boroughs, presumably—are failing in some aspect of it. It also includes combined authorities, which is a new proposal that requires a little thought. I can understand that in combined authorities that have mayors the mayor may be thinking of becoming a sort of regional version of the Mayor of London, but in practice the position will be quite different, even when the mayors are elected. In combined authorities where there is not going to be a mayor, the position will be even more different.
The Greater London Authority is set up clearly by Act of Parliament as a freestanding authority and that is how it operates. Combined authorities were initially formed from the bottom up through a number of local authorities coming together and asking permission of the Secretary of State to set up the combined authority and to take on particular powers that they had negotiated between them. The situation is a little different now following the most recent legislation, the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act, which gives the Secretary of State more powers over the formation of combined authorities and their functions. It extends their possible functions beyond those that they originally could have had under the 2008 Act. However, despite that, the whole ethos and idea of combined authorities is expressed by the words “combined authorities”—they come together voluntarily to do things that they can do better together than separately. This proposal seems to suggest that, because they exist, the Secretary of State in future can use them as a convenient place to put in extra powers at will.
My question is as follows. There may well be an authority that is part of a combined authority and which is not carrying out its plan-making functions very well, and the Secretary of State wants to intervene. The implications of using that combined authority to carry out those plan-making functions—in relation to a development plan document or whatever—against the wish of the authority concerned need careful thought.
Combined authorities in most parts of England are not going to work unless they work on a voluntary basis in relation to the members of those combined authorities. I speak as a member of an authority that, in about an hour’s time, will be voting to join a combined authority or to join an application for a combined authority, so we have been looking at this carefully. The whole principle has to be of authorities coming together voluntarily, pooling powers in particular areas and doing so in a way that has consensus and agreement around the combined authority. If it allows some bureaucracy or some other council in the combined authority or a majority vote on the combined authority—whatever it is—to overrule a particular authority on something like this, I am not saying that it is going to destroy the combined authority, but it is going to make life much more difficult and change the whole culture and idea of coming together voluntarily as a combined authority.
That is the point that I am making. I do not know whether the Minister is going to be able to give me a coherent answer to that this evening because it is a slightly obscure and complicated issue, but I ask the Ministers to go away and ask their civil servants to think about it and come back with an answer to these genuine problems. I am not trying to be awkward at all on this; I understand the need to find ways of doing things in default in a sensible way if it is necessary. I beg to move.
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, I rise briefly to support the words of my noble friend Lord Greaves on these amendments. I reside in one of the combined authorities. In fact, it is perhaps the flagship combined authority: Greater Manchester. It consists of 10 planning authorities: 10 local authorities, all of which are planning authorities. I had regarded the introduction of this power of the Secretary of State to intervene as very much an attempt to make sure that the missing 30% of planning authorities caught up. I thought that it was more of a time-limited provision; that once all 100% of local planning authorities had got their plans properly approved, this particular provision would lapse, because they would, after all, from then onwards, be able to keep up.
Therefore, it is worth looking at the starting point. I do not know, without research that I have not done, whether any of the 10 local authorities in Greater Manchester has failed to register its plans. It is a small number of local authorities working in very close concert, notwithstanding the considerable political divisions between the leadership of the different councils. I do not simply mean party divisions: long-standing rivalries, even in local authorities run by the same party, have been overcome to a remarkable extent in setting up the combined authority. As I said at the start, it is very much a flagship combination that has come together.
I very much support what my noble friend Lord Greaves said about the disruptive effect of basically giving them statutory powers to discipline each other for being naughty boys and girls. I ask the Minister to take that point away and consider whether this is the right vehicle. It might be perfectly in order for the Mayor of London to discipline one or other of the 33 boroughs in London—I am not aware of what their situation is—but I am sure that the Minister can imagine the noise that would be created if the current mayor were to step in on a borough of a different political persuasion. And after the mayoral election, the inverse situation might easily arise. So this is not without trouble ahead, when what the Minister actually wants to achieve is valid local plans as quickly as possible. That is an aim which I support, but he might have a mechanism that is more self-destructive than he realises.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Stunell, for their comments on this group of amendments. I note that the content of this group is not too dissimilar to the previous group. However, I do not believe that Amendments 89AA to 89KJ are necessary. Given the similarity of the amendments, I hope noble Lords will not mind if I respond to them collectively.
I hope noble Lords will bear with me just for a moment if I begin by explaining the purpose of Clauses 132 and 133 and Schedule 11, which provide the context for these amendments. Where the Secretary of State thinks that a local planning authority is failing or omitting to do anything necessary for them to do in connection with preparing, revising or adopting a development plan document—that is, the documents which comprise the local plan—the Secretary of State has existing powers under Section 27 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to intervene to prepare the document. However, where he does this, he is unable to hand back decision-making powers to the local authority if he wishes.
Clauses 132 and 133 and Schedule 11 are intended to address this by allowing for intervention by the Secretary of State in this scenario to be more targeted and proportionate. These measures give him options that enable more decisions to be made locally whenever possible—which I hope will be of some reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. Clause 133 and Schedule 11 would enable the Secretary of State to invite the Mayor of London or a combined authority, where applicable, to prepare, revise or approve a local plan as an alternative to the Secretary of State doing so. The mayor or combined authority could not do this unilaterally but only when invited to by the Secretary of State, and only where he considers that the local planning authority has not taken action despite having every opportunity to do so. The mayor and combined authorities provide strong and directly accountable city-region governance. This makes them an appropriate body to ensure that plans are in place across their areas.
The noble Lord’s amendments remove provisions set out in Clause 133 and Schedule 11 for a combined authority to prepare, revise and approve a development plan document where they are invited to do so by the Secretary of State. We have made it clear that we want authorities to take action themselves to get their plans in place. Authorities have had over a decade since the introduction in 2004 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act to produce a local plan, and the majority have done so.
However, I reiterate the points I made earlier—we need to take action where there is clear evidence that an authority is not producing a plan in a timely manner or keeping that plan up to date. We cannot stand by and allow failure to happen, especially given the importance of planning for supporting growth. We have made it clear that a combined authority will only prepare or revise a plan where an authority has failed or omitted to progress a plan and where the Secretary of State invites them to do so. Therefore, in those instances where a local plan needs to be put in place and the authority is failing to do so, it is right that a combined authority can be invited both to prepare a plan and to bring that plan into force.
I therefore hope that my responses provide reassurance to the noble Lords that the Government want to see authorities take action themselves to get local plans in place in the first instance. However, where authorities are failing to do this, it is right that we take action to get plans in place. I am aware that that summary and conclusion is very similar to that for the previous group of amendments.
Lord Greaves
Yes, my Lords—I am very clear about that as well. Having heard the Minister reply to the previous group of amendments and to the Clause 132 stuff on the changes to Section 27 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, I am prepared to come to the view that the new Section 27 will be better than the old one, for the reasons the Minister set out previously. I understand those arguments; I am really saying that I would rather that it was not there at all. However, given that it is replacing the previous one, I can understand that having a more targeted approach may be better. I am concerned that it may result in more interventions, because being more specific they will be easier to make, but we will find that out in due course.
As far as this group of amendments is concerned, I do not think that the Minister addressed my concerns. If the Secretary of State is going to intervene and take over the production of whatever it is—the local plan as a whole or particular parts of it—then he has to find a way of doing so. One can imagine a number of different ways that he might find. He will have to find some people to do it. I do not believe that the Secretary of State has the personal resources or the ministerial resources to do it himself. He could use the Planning Inspectorate to do it. I do not believe that it has any spare capacity. Using another local authority might be an answer.