Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Graham Jones]

Absolutely. The new clause asks the Government to provide clarity. It is not a prescriptive. It does not say that the number should be x, y or z. It asks the Government to produce clear guidance for local authorities.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for speaking quite a bit of sense. I do not often disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), but he is wrong on a few occasions. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the key issue is the proliferation of fixed odds betting terminals and not betting shops per se? It is quite in order for local planning authorities to bring forward supplementary planning documents to address specific issues such as antisocial behaviour; it is normal in planning law.

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[Nick Herbert]

I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend. The actions and behaviour of developers in mid-Sussex have also caused a delay of the plan, which has delayed the building of essential new housing as well as undermining neighbourhood plans.

There is a problem with the measure of the five-year land supply, which should be assessed in an accurate and honest way and not in a way that is capable of being gamed by the developers.

The second way in which neighbourhood plans can be overridden is when local authorities do not have a plan. Clearly, that is not a satisfactory situation, and the Government are seeking to address it. The problem is that this allows for a free-for-all in the area. Apparently that free-for-all can include neighbourhood plans, in the sense that when the local authority is drawing up its plan, it can override the neighbourhood plans not just with the allocation of strategic levels of housing, as was always envisaged, but with the requirement that neighbourhood plans wholesale are rewritten, as has been suggested to some communities in my area. Neighbourhood plans can also be overridden because the needs of a local plan, which often now have to provide far more housing than was originally intended, are said to come first. Those are problems for the principle of responsible neighbourhood plan making and local democracy.

[Mr Jackson]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that in its call for evidence in October 2015, the Local Government Association invited the Government to look again at the methodology for five-year land supply in local planning authorities? Does he not think that it might be considered potentially quite draconian to put a de facto moratorium into this Bill?

[Nick Herbert]

I am not proposing a moratorium, because I think it is essential that we build houses in this country and, as I have said, neighbourhood planning has produced more housing than was expected.

There is a real danger that if we undermine public support for neighbourhood planning we will undermine the principles of localism and will not get people to participate in neighbourhood planning in future. As I have seen in my constituency, neighbourhood planning, about which people were slightly cynical in the first place but became enthusiastic, is now being described in a very detrimental way, and some communities are saying that they will not go ahead with neighbourhood plans.

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It must have been a very good lunch indeed because those claims are wholly fallacious. Saying one thing in the House of Commons and saying another at a lunch with developers is precisely the sort of thing that brings politicians and Ministers into disrepute. The fact that people behave in that way is why we have seen the election of President-elect Trump in America, the growth of Nigel Farage in this country, and the growth of the people versus the establishment.

[Mr Jackson]

I am fully supportive of, and sympathetic to, my right hon. Friend’s concerns about the 2016 Birmingham local plan. Nevertheless, as of March 2016, 216,000 homes have already been allocated in emerging and existing approved local plans.

[Mr Mitchell]

I am coming directly to that point, but let me go back to parsing, for the benefit of the House, what the Secretary of State said at the developers’ lunch. First, he said that this was a local decision. It is not a local decision; it is made by Birmingham City Council, which is one of the largest authorities in Europe, and the views of my constituents—100,000 residents of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield—have been completely blocked out. Our 2015 manifesto stated that we would

“ensure local people have more control over planning and protect the Green Belt”.

The action that the Secretary of State has allowed flies absolutely and categorically in the face of that. Entirely ignored are the 100,000 citizens of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, virtually all of whom are totally opposed to the development. They have marched in their hundreds and protested in their thousands, and 11 out of 12 Conservative councillors have opposed the process.

We have the largest town council in the country. It is totally and unanimously opposed to the development, but it has not even been consulted. Will the junior Minister commit to going back to Birmingham City Council and suggesting—I do not think he has the power to force the council to do this—that common decency expects it to go back to the 24 elected members of the largest town council in the country, formally consult them and listen to what they have to say?

Labour has been trying to build around and emasculate the royal town of Sutton Coldfield for 30 years—it refers to us as “North Birmingham”—and, thanks to the Secretary of State, it now might well succeed. My 100,000 constituents have been totally and completely disfranchised. That is the very definition of the tyranny of the majority over the minority, and the Department and the Secretary of State have now made themselves complicit in this.

On the second point that the Secretary of State raised, neither the council nor the Department, and certainly not the inspector, has looked at the patently obvious alternatives. There could be a much more comprehensive regional approach, which the excellent Conservative mayoral candidate for the west midlands, Andy Street, has spoken up for. There are superb plans to build a Wolverhampton garden city, almost all of which would be on brownfield land, to provide 45,000 houses. There are small brownfield sites in Birmingham that have specifically not been included for consideration. We in Sutton Coldfield came up with the very reasonable proposal that there should be an eight-year moratorium on building 6,000 homes on the green belt while the other 45,000-plus were built on brownfield sites. That approach would enable the Government and the council to review the extent to which building on the green belt might be needed or acceptable. However, the proposal was rejected, without even any consideration by the inspector.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England made an excellent submission in February, which I sent to the Minister on 16 August. It made many excellent points that have not been addressed. I point out that when Birmingham was controlled by a coalition of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, Tory councillors had plans to build the same number of houses as are now proposed by Labour-controlled Birmingham City Council, but without needing to encroach on the green belt. By definition, there are not even exceptional circumstances for building on the green belt, let alone “very exceptional circumstances”, which were the words used by the Secretary of State.

I accept of course that these are Labour plans, but Sutton Coldfield has been grievously let down. I believe that we were and are entitled to expect the protection of the Government, based on their manifesto commitment, and I am deeply disappointed that we have not been able to rely on that. The transport problems on our side of the Birmingham conurbation that will be caused by the development will be acute and horrific. There is no guarantee that the Labour council will spend the necessary money on infrastructure for these new builds. There was no proper consultation with the relevant health services and authorities, although the council was obliged to carry that out.

The Government have got themselves into a mess on the green belt by trying to face both ways at the same time. With this decision, they have massively shot themselves in the foot. My right hon. and hon. Friends will not trust the Department on issues involving the green belt, about which many of them are extremely sensitive, because of the ludicrous nature of this decision. Building more homes, which we all want, will therefore be much more difficult for the Department.

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[Rob Marris]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We need to learn from our mistakes, just as I hope any Labour Members who were on the Front Bench in 2005 when they were pushing fixed odds betting terminals have now done their mea culpas and recognised that they made a mistake then, because it is still rebounding on many urban constituencies around the country, including mine. We need to row back from that, but part of the mechanism, which is being reviewed, for doing so is not, and cannot be, the subject of this Bill. We can address another part of it, however: the over-concentration and the guidance which this Government ought responsibly to be issuing. They ought to have the statutory authority to do so within primary legislation, which is the very reasonable measure put forward by my hon. Friend in new clause 1. I hope that the Minister can support the spirit of it, if not the exact wording.

[Mr Jackson]

I begin by declaring an interest: for six years I have been honorary vice-president of the Local Government Association. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin). I hope his amendment finds success in the other place. I also want to mention the doughty champion, the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones), who, together with my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), has been very much at the sharp end of this important debate, as indeed I was at one time with my “stop the FOBTs” campaign in Peterborough city centre.

I ask the House to look at the wider context of the practical implications of new clauses 7 and 8, and also amendment 28 tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). We were all elected on a manifesto commitment to increase the supply of housing, and we all, I think, agree with the national consensus that we are in the middle of a housing crisis at present. We also need to look at this Bill within the wider context of generational fairness and social equity between those who own capital and those who wish to acquire capital. That is an important issue. I strongly welcome the likely publication in January of the housing White Paper and I hope that this important debate and Bill feed into that.

In that context, I draw the attention of the House to a useful paper published today by Daniel Bentley for the Civitas think-tank, “Housing supply and household growth, national and local”. It examines housing supply projections and puts a nominal figure on the real impact of the housing crisis. My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) put his case in his usual erudite and well thought-through way, but my challenge to him and others is this: will their new clauses and amendments improve the position? The projected housing supply for the county of Sussex in 2015-16 did not even meet 50% of the figure for projected annual household formations from 2014 to 2039. Few local authorities are meeting those targets. Even the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has used the conservative figure of 220,000 new homes being needed to keep pace with population change over the period to 2039. Some estimates, including those in the paper, suggest that the figure may be as high 330,000. I will not proceed down the path of discussing immigration, but, according to the Local Government Association, 49% of household formation over that period will come from net migration, so it is a big issue.

In 2015-16, we physically built only 163,940 new homes, although more were created through 5,000 conversions and 35,000 changes of use. In the 30 fastest-growing non-London local authorities only five managed to outstrip the difference between housing supply and housing growth by percentage increase: Dartford; Uttlesford; Aylesbury Vale; Slough; and Ashford. Of the 30 non-London local authorities with the highest population growth, in nominal terms only eight built enough houses to meet long-term need. While not perfect, the national planning policy framework has helped in some respects. Oxford, for example, has produced only 66% of its need based on population growth, but thanks to its duty to co-operate with other local authorities, such as South Oxfordshire District Council or Vale of White Horse District Council, it is meeting its targets on a sub-regional strategic housing level, which is good.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs and I have crossed swords before on the NPPF way back in 2012, but we must not put in the Bill a potentially wide-ranging and draconian measure that would effectively stymie the building and development of appropriate homes. We all have horror stories about the Planning Inspectorate. For example, the village of Eye near Peterborough was grossly overprovisioned with residential accommodation, with the inspectorate completely ignoring the hundreds of petition signatures, public meetings and so on, but we are where we are with the current system. Nevertheless, the NPPF already sets out the appropriate weight to be given to relevant policies between neighbourhood plans and the adoption and development of local plans, structure plans and site allocation plans.

New clause 7 would discriminate against local planning authorities that produce timely, robust local plans and that have adhered to the correct procedure for consultation, public inquiries and the Planning Inspectorate. We must bear it in mind that there might be an inadvertent consequence.

[Nick Herbert]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend, and I do not want him to traduce the intention of the new clause, which is not to prevent house building, but to ensure that neighbourhood plans are protected. I repeat my earlier point: neighbourhood plans have produced more housing than was anticipated. As he took such an interest in Sussex, I should point out that many district councils in West Sussex, including in my constituency, are producing housing far in excess of the south-east plan to meet local demand.

[Mr Jackson]

I pay tribute to the neighbourhood plans being produced by volunteers in my right hon. Friend’s constituency and throughout our country. They do an excellent job and I support the policy four-square. My point is about opportunity cost: is this approach going to have a detrimental effect on the Government’s strategic housing objective, which is to deliver large-scale housing for people who need it? When we look at the age of people buying their first house and at the availability or otherwise of affordable housing across the country, we see that this proposal has the potential to undermine the authority of the local planning authority to meet wider, long-term strategic housing and planning objectives. These things are already in place via the emerging or adopted local plan. The proposal will inevitably give rise to conflict between the local planning authority and the neighbourhood planning bodies, with the possible perverse consequence that we will see the establishment of neighbourhood planning bodies merely in order to thwart development.

Let me move on to deal quickly with new clause 8. I used the correct word “moratorium” in respect of the use by the Minister of development orders. On the specific issue of five-year land supply, again, this proposal seeks to put a draconian policy in the Bill, rather than, as I suggested in my intervention—my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs was generous in accepting interventions—waiting for a response from Government, by means other than primary legislation, to do as the LGA has suggested, which is to review the policy and look for a more consistent and better understood methodology for both developers and local authorities in respect of the policy under the current auspices of the national planning policy framework.

At the moment, we still have a robust system that tests the efficacy of five-year land supply through planning appeals and local plans. We should encourage greater incentives from local planning authorities. It is as well to make the point that, in some parts of the country, they lack the appropriate resources to carry out the proper work in that respect.

My final point is about amendment 28, which was tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield. I can understand the anger, passion and resentment that he articulated in his usual powerful way, but this is probably the most inappropriate amendment, because preventing payment of the new homes bonus when we already have strong protections in place for the green belt and other designated areas to prevent inappropriate development will have consequences.

[Mr Mitchell]

This may be my lack of understanding of planning matters, but can my hon. Friend explain how a Government who say they are committed to protecting the green belt then pay people a subsidy to build on the green belt, rather than paying them a bigger subsidy to build on brownfield sites, while protecting the green belt? Perhaps he can explain that conundrum.

[Mr Jackson]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point, but I am saying that we have less than benign financial circumstances and, were his policy to be followed, the city of Birmingham might lose £54 million in income through the new homes bonus. There are other ways in which we can toughen protections for the green belt, while allowing discretion for some exceptional sites. I made the point in my intervention that 216,000 homes had already been placed in emerging and completed local plans in the green belt by March. I accept that there is a problem, but I am not convinced that this amendment will sort the issue out.

In reducing the income stream and funding to local planning authorities, the perverse ramification may well be that those hard-pressed authorities cannot therefore put in the effort to properly manage well-funded speculative developers with their land grabs. There might also be an impact on rural housing schemes, which are very important and necessary for many of my hon. Friends.

For those reasons, I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends—I think they have already acceded to my request—not to push these matters to a vote. Ministers will have heard the points that have been raised on both sides of the House and will correctly identify methods to ameliorate the problems that have been raised.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

I rise to speak to new clause 2 tabled in my name and to support new clauses 7 and 8 tabled in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert).

The aim of new clause 2 is to permit the Secretary of State to impose what would in effect be penalty costs on appeal. My constituency of Eddisbury has a wealth of picturesque villages, located in the most beautiful settings and with excellent schools. These villages are now finding that they are the target of a large number of planning applications, which are often totally against the emerging or adopted neighbourhood plan.

In Cheshire West and Chester, which has a five-year land supply, the council has rightly turned down those applications as being against the neighbourhood plan, yet developers persist in appealing. Local councils and the Planning Inspectorate have to spend valuable resources dealing with appeals that fall squarely against the ambitions and the principles of the neighbourhood plan.

My local parish councils, just like those in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs, have embraced neighbourhood planning. They have committed months of work—sometimes even years of work—to this and have relished the fact that they can bring forward a mix of housing that includes, for example, first-time starter homes as well as executive homes. They want to see starter homes, so that people can get on to the housing ladder and live in the community in which they have grown up, and they want to see smaller homes—bungalow-style homes—for the older people in my constituency who want to downsize. Given the part of Cheshire in which we live, developers invariably build five-bedroom executive homes. My local parish councils have relished the fact that they can plan for a mix of homes that allows for a varied community and enables people to remain in the community in which they have lived and grown up.

Like Arundel and South Downs, we have seen an increased offer and an increased acceptance of housing coming forward. None the less, we still see attempts by developers to drive a coach and horses through those neighbourhood plans. The aim of the new clause is to ensure that there is a financial disincentive in respect of appeals. It raises the prospect of a serious financial penalty for those developers seeking to have a go, as it was described in earlier contributions.

Constituents feel that their rural villages are under siege and that, at every point, their wishes as expressed and adopted in neighbourhood plan are being ignored. The new clause seeks to allow the full recovery of costs, with an additional punitive element, where it is clear that the refusal has been on the basis of the application being against the local neighbourhood plan. These speculative appeals impact on local council resources, and developers constantly feel that they can effectively try to push and break the plan, and it is deeply frustrating.