Lord Lansley
Main Page: Lord Lansley (Conservative - Life peer)
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, I should like to ask the Minister some questions about the application of this innocuous amendment, as he has described it. It is not that innocuous because it is a power to take over the local plan process and to state that a local authority must adopt the plan that has been prepared for it.
To give the House a little background, in 2010 the information I was given as a Minister was that around 26% of local authorities had a local plan and 74% did not. That was a large proportion, bearing in mind that all authorities—
Lord Lansley (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I am trying to follow this amendment and the debate on it. I understood a local development scheme to be a description on the part of the local authority of how it is going to go about the process of creating its local development plan, not the local development plan itself. To that extent, the amendment, while not technical, in effect takes over, where a local authority has failed to say that it will undertake the process of local development plan preparation, to put a scheme in place for that to happen, but as a consequence of that it does not take over the plan-making process itself.
Lord Stunell
My Lords, it will be interesting to see whether the Minister takes that as being the basis of this proposal. It does not appear to be when one looks at the explanation of the Bill, nor at that of the impact assessment in relation to Clause 129 and its intention, nor does the amendment appear to adopt that methodology. However, if the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is correct, then some of my points are perhaps of lesser force. Nevertheless, I think there are still some important points to make clear to the House.
Faced with the reality that 74% of local planning authorities had not adopted plans in 2010, the Government put in place the National Planning Policy Framework with the very clear intention that, in the absence or in the default of a local plan, the NPPF would be the document that could and should be used by planners and developers when approaching applications in their area. There was considerable upset among local planning authorities when they saw this provision, and the final version of the NPPF allowed a period of grace. There was of course a risk to local authorities in not having plans, which was that they would be forced to accept applications that they believed were not in the best interests of their area and which had not been consulted on with local communities.
I am happy to report, and I think this is in the material provided by the Government in the impact assessment, that we are now in the position that rather than 74% of local authorities not having plans, only 18% do not, so there has been a huge upsurge in the number of local plans that have been brought forward and come to fruition. That has undoubtedly been driven by the introduction of the NPPF and local authorities’ fear that if they dragged their feet further, they would lose control of the process.
It is worth remembering that within the 18% that have not yet produced plans, there will be many areas where one or other of the 1,800 neighbourhood plans, which the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, referred to in the previous debate, will be brought forward, so there will be neighbourhood plans being prepared and maybe even approved in some of the areas where at present there is no approved plan.
Regarding Clause 129, the impact assessment says that one of the problems with the existing powers, which this provision replaces, is that although the Secretary of State already has a power to take over the process, if he does so, he has to take it over lock, stock and barrel, without exception, from A to Z. The impact assessment implies that the existing power is too big a stick and too disproportionate, so it has not been used. It argues—although these are not the words used—that rather than a great big stick, a smaller stick is needed, as that would be more useful to the Secretary of State in getting the required result. In fact, the proposed power is very wide ranging and far from being a smaller stick.
I draw to noble Lords’ attention the fact that the process set out here is an anti-localism process which will lead to local authorities losing control of the planning process which is at the heart of the localism agenda. It is also unnecessary because of the progress that has been made since the introduction of the NPPF and the threat that is hanging over local authorities that developers’ applications will be judged on the NPPF criteria if there is not a local plan. Local authorities have a very strong incentive to act at the moment. It clearly is working as a number of authorities have reacted and the shortfall has reduced from 74% to 18%. In any case, there is also the existing power which the impact assessment sets out, as well as a reserve power, so that a local planning authority that fails to fulfil its statutory requirement to start the local plan process can be challenged in court. This is therefore a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Will the Minister also address the issue of what will trigger this power? As it appears in the Marshalled List, the amendment is in the present tense:
“If a local planning authority have not prepared a local development scheme, the Secretary of State … may”.
What is the trigger? When is the “now” of the provision? Will it be when the Bill receives Royal Assent or at some other date? There is some uncertainty about the starting point for the provision.
The provision might be ineffective in any event. How long will it take the Secretary of State to draw up local plans? Where is the capacity to do it? What is the timescale? How will local consultation work? One wonders about the operation of a public inquiry process where the local planning authority is the lead objector to the plan because it opposes what the plan projects. I cannot see how that would achieve certainty or the development of more homes more quickly than would the current process and mechanisms.
There is more to be done to get more housing. Later, there will be a debate on the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord True, which would make sure that land held by government departments within local authority areas is held more transparently and brought back into use more quickly. That is direct action that the Minister could take without interfering with the existing planning process. The amendment proposed does not seem proportionate, wise or deliverable, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the serious objections to it.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their interventions in this very short debate. I hope that I will be able to address the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, in particular, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy.
First, as regards statistics—my noble friend Lord Lansley raised this issue—the majority of authorities already have a plan in place or are working on their plan. Some 70% of local authorities—the figure I have—have adopted a local plan and 84% have published a plan. The point is that where an authority is not making sufficient progress on its plan, we have been clear that we will step in—but in consultation with local people. The whole aim is to accelerate getting a plan in place. Parliament has already given the Secretary of State the power to intervene in local plan-making, so to this extent we are not doing anything new.
The Bill allows targeted intervention in plans and keeps decision-making local wherever possible while still ensuring that plans are in place. This amendment ensures that where an authority has failed to set out publicly its intention and timetable for producing a local plan, we can take action to make this information available to communities. I should also try to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that we are talking about quite a long time that local authorities have had to put a plan in place. They have had more than a decade to get their plans in place, so I regard this as being very much a last-resort issue. It is meant to be light-touch rather than bringing in a sledgehammer to crack a nut—and I hope that may help.
To go a little further, the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, raised the issue of the timing as to where and when the Secretary of State might intervene. We have consulted—
Lord Lansley
For the purposes of clarification, can my noble friend be very clear about this? The amendment we are debating is about a power for the Secretary of State or the mayor, where appropriate, to take over and direct that their local authority should have a local development scheme. It is not taking over the plan-making process itself, and that is a very important distinction. I am afraid that the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, was predicated on it being the taking over of the plan-making process.
Baroness Andrews
My Lords, my noble friend has done the House a service in identifying what is at the very least something of a confusion and by quoting various paragraphs from reports and policy statements. There may even be a contradiction in the policy. As my noble friend and the noble Lord have said, the whole justification for the policy was that we faced a housing crisis of such proportions that a new fast-track approach to commandeering brownfield sites needed to be introduced through permission in principle. In my view, that breaks most of the rules for decent planning and healthy communities, but it was justified because of the scale of the housing developments that are so urgently needed.
Our contention has been that this is reflected in later amendments on sustainability, for example, and that yesterday’s mistakes in terms of the awful housing estates that were built without any thought being given to what communities needed to thrive should not be repeated. Therefore, proper attention, full information and provision should be made to ensure that housing developments, as planned, are served properly by infrastructure and green space. That has been much of our concern at previous stages of the Bill. There was no indication that these could be anything other than housing-led, so the possibility that has been raised by paragraph 36 of the Select Committee report, which has been quoted, is extremely significant. What was in the Minister’s mind, or that of the department, when this was put forward? Was it zones of massive DIY retail stores? What is meant by that paragraph?
This goes against the grain of good planning in many respects, as I have said. It is zoning, and it is zoning in its worst form. It is not the zoning that was recommended by the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he referred to it. The model he had in mind, I think, was as in parts of Europe, where zonal plans are extremely detailed, they are contested, they are democratic and they are effective. But these plans will not be like that because PIP does not provide for that. These plans do not allow for the high-level speculative, off-plan development that is currently seen in England; for example, through appeals. I believe that permission in principle will work properly only if we consider the full range of planning considerations before the key in-principle decision is made. That seems merely logical, and we have argued that consistently on this side of the House. To introduce confusion such as this at this stage of the debate is very serious. I hope the Minister will be able to clarify her intention.
Lord Lansley
My Lords, I did not intend to contribute to this debate but, having seen the amendments and heard how the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, introduced them, I will say a word or two. I draw noble Lords’ attention to my interests in the register, as I have done on previous occasions when speaking to the Bill: I am chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum.
We shall go on to discuss permission in principle, of which I am very much in favour. However, Amendment 102D would insert the word “brownfield”, and so restrict permission in principle to brownfield land. That is not what the Government intended and, as the Government have made quite clear in their amendment that says what the qualifying documents are, it clearly extends beyond brownfield land. Nor did I think from previous debates in Committee that it was the intention of the party opposite simply to restrict it to brownfield land. However, as the Members opposite are proposing to amend Clause 136, perhaps they do not support permission in principle at all.
Amendment 102E, which would change the wording to “land for housing”, seems to contradict the idea of housing-led development. If you can grant permission in principle only for housing-led development for “land for housing”, you have created a contradiction in the first subsection of the clause, such that it is only for housing, even though it may be “housing-led”. Amendment 102E seems defective.
I am against Amendment 102C, not because the Government do not want it to be housing-led development, but because if in the primary legislation we put “housing-led development”, we would have to define it there. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, made it clear that it could be defined in all sorts of ways: the definition could apply to a very small number of houses in a large mixed-use development or to a large number of houses with very modest additional development. How it is defined matters. If one puts into primary legislation at the top of the clause, “housing-led”, but does not define it anywhere, it will be defined only in the Government’s subsequent guidance. However, because it is in the primary legislation, the interpretation in that guidance would be subject to judicial review as to whether it satisfies the argument that it is housing-led. That is a recipe for delay: each application would be subject to judicial review as to whether it satisfies the primary legislation.
The point is that the Government, quite rightly, since it will be a matter of detail, make clear in new Section 59A(8) to be inserted into the Town and Country Planning Act that guidance will be issued. Clearly, given the nature of the fine distinctions that need to be made about what housing-led development looks like, it will be for the Government in that guidance to set that out. These amendments should therefore be resisted.
Lord Lansley
My Lords, I contribute briefly in respect of Amendment 107ZZA simply to say that I did not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, on her criticism of permission in principle. I think it will enable certainty to be given and the process to be speeded up. Certainty about how the system works is needed not only for the developer but for the community. I am sure many noble Lords will be familiar—as I have been—with the process, whereby communities often find it intensely difficult to understand that, at the same moment that they have to debate the principle of development, and maximise their subsequent effectiveness, they also have to think about what the subsequent conditions might be and the mitigation of effects. In their minds, they often want the two things to be separate. They feel, understandably, that—through the extent to which they offer recommendations to local planning authorities about modifications to an application, compromises that can be reached, mitigation that can be entered into and conditions to be imposed—they are opening the door to the principle.
I think that here we could have something that, to local communities, is much more rational. In the local plan process, they should devote themselves to the question of whether development in principle should happen in a particular site, knowing that subsequently, through the technical details consent, in so far as there is necessary mitigation—for example, something like the environmental assessment should establish whether development in principle is right on a site—a detailed impact assessment should be able to identify what is required by way of mitigation. For a local community, these are two completely rational, separate processes. They have to be sure—this comes to the point of the noble Baroness’s amendment—that they will get adequate notification and an opportunity to express their view about what that mitigation should look like in the technical details consent. I know my noble friend is very much aware of this and I hope she will be able to give the reassurance that the noble Baroness is looking for.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I voice my thanks, again, for the time taken by noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, in trying to get right this aspect of the legislation and ensuring that permission in principle is as effective as possible. In Committee, I outlined the rigorous process of consideration and engagement that would be followed before granting permission in principle. In that context, I highlighted that I thought a situation where no scheme could be delivered in line with the permission in principle agreed on site, owing to unforeseen circumstances discovered at the technical details consent stage, would be highly unlikely. The noble Baroness presses me to give examples and I cannot get this example from my mind: it is another king in a car park, but where the whole car park is made unsuitable for development and not just a part of it, which can be allowed for in certain circumstances.
I informed noble Lords in Committee that the Bill already makes provision for permission in principle granted on application to be revoked or modified by a local authority if it considers it expedient to do so in extremely rare circumstances. I also recognised that, in the case of PIP granted through a locally prepared plan or register, the Bill does not currently provide for revocation or modification in such instances and that I would reflect on the need to make such a provision. I therefore wholly welcome the amendments that the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, has tabled and strongly support their inclusion in the Bill. I also thank her for the way in which she has worked with me and officials in coming towards this stage. Amendments 107ZA, 107ZB, 107ZC and 107ZD will indeed enable local planning authorities to revoke or to modify the permission in principle granted by local plans or registers, where they consider it expedient to do so. Amendment 107ZD will also enable us to set out sensible compensation arrangements in these circumstances in secondary legislation. The amendments will extend the existing provisions that local authorities have to revoke or modify planning permissions to the permission in principle system. They will ensure overall consistency and provide an important final safeguard to address the rare and exceptional circumstances discussed in Committee, where this may be needed.
Amendment 107ZZA tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, will oblige every applicant to engage with the community on their proposals before they submit an application for technical details consent. I certainly applaud the intention to involve the community in the development of a detailed planning application. Indeed, the NPPF and our planning guidance stress the importance of applicant-led, pre-application engagement. However, the power in Section 61W of the Town and Country Planning Act, inserted by the Localism Act 2011, is currently being used only to ensure compulsory pre-application consultation for onshore wind development above an appropriate threshold. This is a targeted requirement to help ameliorate local community concerns about and perceptions of such projects. I understand that the noble Baroness has laid this amendment because she is keen to ensure effective consultation; I do not believe, however, that applying this requirement to all technical details consent applications is the right approach.
We have just finished consulting on an approach that would give local authorities the discretion to consult further at technical details stage, where they consider it appropriate. We consider this a more locally led and efficient approach to consultation that will minimise unnecessary duplication between the permission in principle and technical details consent stages. The noble Baroness asked me about the expert responses to the consultation. I understand that we have received 150 responses. The noble Baroness asked if we would place them in the Library; I am very willing to do that.