Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Lansley and Lord Stunell
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.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Lansley and Lord Stunell
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I shall contribute briefly to this short debate. I spoke in Committee to support the Government’s Clause 115, and I shall not repeat all of that, but it remains true—I am convinced of this by reference to local circumstances that I know well—that local authorities will continue to undertake an objective assessment of need for their Gypsy and Traveller communities and do so on the basis of that need and provision for that need and a five-year supply in a way that will genuinely respond to that need while giving greater reassurance to all the community that all their housing needs will be assessed on a similar objective basis. However, what we are looking at now is an amendment to require local authorities to look at very specific characteristics of sites that have to be accommodated. Obviously, that relates to caravans and houseboats, but it seems to me that there is an issue relating particularly to travelling show people, whom I know well and whom we accommodated close to where I live, in one of their more important sites. It is a difficulty with finding sites that can accommodate a community of people who have to have both residential accommodation and the capacity to store substantial equipment. That is particularly important for travelling show people.
Could my noble friend Lord Younger, in responding to the debate, say between now and Third Reading, if he cannot accept this amendment—and I can see why he might not—whether he will at least think about whether there is are specific characteristics that could be specified in the same way in the legislation, as they are for any member of the community who requires a site for caravans or houseboats on inland waterways?
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, I support the amendment and support the words of my noble friend Lady Bakewell and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. For two years, I was a Minister in the department with the responsibility for Gypsy policy. At that time, I paid a visit to South Somerset to look at some of the provision there, and I very much endorse what my noble friend Lady Bakewell said about how that council has addressed the issue. It is worth recalling, as I said in Committee, that a large majority of Gypsy and Traveller families are given—or have got, since given is perhaps not the right word—suitable accommodation on sites and in locations acceptable to communities. As the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said, in many cases local authorities around the country have accepted the need to do that and have done it willingly and effectively. But we also heard evidence in Committee—and I certainly saw evidence as a Minister—that many local communities and some local councils will do whatever they need to do to avoid facing up to their responsibilities in this respect. As a recent incident on the rugby field has shown, there is still natural, casual racism in speaking about and to Gypsies and Travellers. That certainly has an impact at the community level on the way in which policy is applied.
It is a serious backward step to have this clause in the Bill at all, but I hope that the Government can support these amendments or something of a like nature. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, described the clause as a sop to those who might wish to have discriminatory policy for the public provision of housing sites. I think that it is worse than a sop—I think that it is a gift to those who want to pursue a discriminatory housing policy. It was a very powerful lever that the national policy framework required Gypsy and Traveller provision to be part of the five-year strategic housing plan that local authorities bring forward. Gently to correct my noble friend Lady Bakewell, the Welsh Assembly has indeed got hold of this issue and insisted on a five-year supply being built in, but it is already the law in England that housing authorities should do that, and Clause 115 actually takes that provision out. So I would very much like your Lordships to give consent to anything that we can do to rescue that, and I very much hope that the Government respond.
I finish by saying that there is trouble with Gypsies; it is overwhelmingly caused, when it arises, by Gypsies who have inadequate housing and cannot find a place to stay. Therefore, they do what they can informally, often in a very disruptive way for local communities. The solution is not to chase them around the country but to provide them with the sites that they need in places that are appropriate so that they can live in harmony with the fixed or settled community, so we can have what we all want—a harmonious relationship between all the groups in England.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Lansley and Lord Stunell
Lord Lansley
I understand the noble Lord’s point, and he is quite right that we have to tease this out. My noble friend will tell me if I am wrong, but, as I understand it, a qualifying document must be based on a suitable process for establishing how the particulars have been arrived at. For example, where a site is allocated under a local plan for housing development, as part of the process, the local planning authority will go through what I hope will be a rigorous process—I think we all know it will be—with time to examine, for example, whether it is in a flood plain and, if so, what the mitigation would be. It might also examine whether the development is environmentally sustainable and whether, from the point of view of the local highways authority, issues arise from development on a large scale.
We have to be clear whether the local plan process enables a suitable site for housing development to be included in a local plan and thereby gives rise to the potential for permission in principle being granted. This does not mean that a subsequent environmental impact assessment will have to be done on the site at that point. It means that when either that assessment or the highway authority’s response to a plan’s technical details takes place, the question will not be whether the site is right in principle but whether the assessments necessitate mitigation measures. I hope that the Government make it so that there are three processes instead of two and that the qualifying documents in the first process giving rise to permission in principle are sufficiently robust.
I have an additional question about the relationship between permission in principle and current local plan processes. A significant number of local and neighbourhood plans were made and adopted following the publication of the National Planning Policy Framework and many local authorities will adopt those plans in the months following Royal Assent. Will they automatically be eligible for permission in principle through a development order? If so, how can we be confident that the necessary and rigorous processes that should be the basis for the granting of such permission have been gone through, such that local authorities are not required to go through the outline planning application processes? That relationship is very important. I hope that we can make local plans rigorous so that permission in principle can, through development orders, be applied to suitable sites.
Why do I say that? In my experience as a Member of Parliament for an area with a great deal of planning activity, I found that local communities often did not give the attention they should to, or were not engaged to the extent that they ought to be in, understanding the importance of the local plan or local development framework. We need that to happen. Permission in principle has the ancillary benefit that it will cause it to happen much more.
How often have those of us involved in these matters found that when a planning proposal with the potential for an outline planning application was brought forward, people affected began to organise on the basis that that was their moment to be heard? But in a plan-led process, that is not the moment. Instead, it is when the local plan is being put together—but that is a big process and people find it difficult to intervene. We need to ensure that people are clear about the overriding importance of local plans. If they know that a site for housing development may be granted permission in principle as a consequence of its incorporation into a neighbourhood or local plan, they are far more likely to get involved in making that happen.
Lord Stunell
I absolutely accept the points that the noble Lord is making about the difficulty of engaging local communities and the fact that they arrive at this process far too late. Could he say a little more about how PIP will accelerate that? The concern on these Benches is that it will leapfrog the normal process, however inadequate it is.
Lord Lansley
It is probably more for my noble friend the Minister to explain how the processes work. My point is simple: it is said that permission in principle is inimical to a local planning authority’s processes or democratic input, but that is not the case. It should prompt a much greater involvement on the part of local people. It should also focus the local planning authority on engaging with the people they represent, not only to ensure that there is a plan-led system, but so that it is understood that the local plan will in many instances give rise to permission in principle. That will cause people to engage with a local plan more than they have previously. For that and other reasons, I support Clause 136 and permission in principle.