Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Mann Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) has spoken passionately about this issue before. I listened to him then and I have just listened to him again, and I will of course reflect on what he has said. I am sure he will understand that it would not be appropriate for me to talk about a specific planning application, but I will reflect on what he has just shared with the House.

The Housing and Planning Act reforms to speed up and simplify the process came into force just a few days ago, and the Bill will strengthen the process still further. It will make it easier to update a neighbourhood plan as local circumstances change. It will give communities confidence that advanced neighbourhood plans will be given proper consideration in planning decisions, and it will give neighbourhood plans full legal effect at an earlier stage.

Of course, there is no point giving control to communities if they do not know that they have it or lack the skills to use it. So the Bill will also require planning authorities to publish their policies for giving advice or assistance to neighbourhood planning groups. It will also allow the Secretary of State to require planning authorities to keep those policies up to date. These provisions will make the neighbourhood planning process fit for the future. They will make it more accessible for everyone, and they will ensure that neighbourhood plans are fully respected by decision makers.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Should the Bill become an Act, will there be any circumstances in which a local authority can overrule a neighbourhood development plan that has been duly endorsed by said authority?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman may be aware that for a neighbourhood plan to become effective it needs to be adopted. It will be looked at by the inspector and a local referendum will be held. As I mentioned earlier, some 240 plans have gone through that process and, when that happens, they need to be given due weight in the consideration of planning decisions.

[John Mann]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way again. He will know that Bassetlaw has more local plans in process and agreed than anywhere else, so we do know a little bit about them. If he is saying that a local council or the Secretary of State can decide to overrule a local community that has been through a huge, state-funded consultation, had a referendum and decided where the housing will go, what is the point?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman will know that once a neighbourhood plan is adopted, it becomes statutory and is taken into account when planning decisions are made. It is not a question of a local authority overruling a neighbourhood plan; once it is adopted, it is part of the local plan, so they are part of the same package, when it comes to making those decisions. Local authorities do not have the right to overrule a plan once it has been adopted.

Local and neighbourhood plans are vital tools for delivering new planning permissions. If we are to tackle the housing deficit, it is crucial that shovels hit the ground as soon as possible once permission has been granted for a development. There are a number of reasons why that does not always happen. One is because too many planning authorities impose too many pre-commencement conditions that unreasonably hold up the start of construction.

Of course, conditions can play a vital role. They ensure that important issues such as flood mitigation and archaeological investigation are undertaken at the right time. That is not going to change, but pre-commencement conditions should not be allowed to become unreasonable barriers to building. Not only do they delay the delivery of much-needed houses, but they create cash-flow issues for builders—something that is particularly problematic for smaller builders and new entrants to the market. To tackle this, the Bill reflects best practice by stopping pre-commencement conditions being imposed without the written agreement of the applicant. It will also create a power to restrict the use of certain other types of planning conditions that do not meet the well-established policy tests in the national planning policy framework. We are currently seeking views on both measures in a consultation paper published by my Department last month.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Before I express my agreement with the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) on one important point, let me congratulate the Secretary of State on his brilliant campaign 18 months ago to stop the development of more than 2,000 houses, which was well advertised in his local newspaper. He is truly the king of the nimbys—or, as some would say, he is backing his constituents and his local communities. That contrasts slightly with the message that I understand him to have conveyed somewhere last week when he was attacking the nimbys, because over the past two or three years, following his successful campaign, he has been the greatest of all the nimbys in the House.

I should like to see precisely what the right hon. Member for West Dorset proposed. If a neighbourhood goes through the pain and democracy of agreeing on where more houses should be built in its community, which is part of the requirement of a neighbourhood development plan, and if that is agreed by referendum and endorsed by the local council, it should not be possible to overrule such a level of democracy; but it is.

For example, at the most recent planning committee meeting in the Sturton ward in Bassetlaw, which I know extremely well, the neighbourhood development plan was overruled because the planning officers pointed to the Government’s five-year housing land supply, as identified by the developer. They said, “You can’t have that; you’ve got to have this.” In other words, they said, “You have a plan. You have specified where the housing should be, and what type of housing it should be. A huge number of members of the community participated in the consultation, there was a massive turnout for the ballot, and the plan was unanimously adopted by the district council, but you cannot do it, because Big Brother”—the king of the nimbys—“says that you have to have this, because you have not got enough housing.” However, they had just agreed that they would have more housing. The people who had agreed to have more housing were overruled, which is a total nonsense. The Government could do something about it today, but if they feel that they do not have the necessary power they could stick it in the Bill and then some of us would be happy, because that would be local democracy.

It is not true that the Government are not responsible for the delays in local development plans. On 1 March 2013, 95% of councils in England had to start their development plans again because of a change in the rules that was announced out of the blue, whereby everyone had to consult every adjoining authority. That is why there has been a delay in my area, which, proportionally, has more neighbourhood development plans either agreed or under way than anywhere else in the country. We have adopted this philosophy. I have argued the case in communities throughout my constituency. However, the whole process has to start again because we have not consulted Sheffield, Mansfield and other places that are nowhere near the 500 square miles of Bassetlaw.

That is a nonsense, and the Government could do something about it instantly. Our plan would be speeded up overnight if that happened. The public would be consulted, and would agree where housing should go. The Government would get their numbers, and we would get our housing everywhere. Even Bromsgrove would get the housing that it needs.

Let me give a couple of examples of the beauty of neighbourhood development plans. The Sturton ward provides one of the prime examples in the country of how a development plan should be written: an environmentally green development plan that specifies the kind of energy that we want in the community, the implication being that priority in new housing will go to developers who use green technologies. That is a community which is looking to the future and encouraging the right kind of housing. Such planning will enhance green technologies in this country, unlike the arbitrary wind farms and so forth which communities, strangely, do not like. Let communities have control through their development plans. The Government could announce that today—and that is my second request to the Minister.

When mayors are coming to city regions like the new Sheffield city region of which Bassetlaw will doubtless become a part, we should let those new mayors have the appeals. Let us localise the process more, so that there is more accountability, which will mean more housing rather than less. Let us take the process away from the Minister and the Minister’s officials. Surely that appeals to Tory Back Benchers and their sense of community.

Another big plan of which we in Bassetlaw are pioneers is the urban neighbourhood development plan. Virtually everywhere in the country has villages and parishes with parish precepts. They have a bit of money, and they have a democratic structure—rightly so—and that includes parts of my area. But how can such plans be created in an urban area where there is no such structure? It is necessary to think imaginatively. We had the great historic priory church and the Chesterfield canal, and we said to the community, “This is why the church is here, and this is how houses have developed. The church, as an institution and as a building, formed the centre of the community.” Neighbourhood planning of that kind would transform urban environments through lateral thinking. As for funding, hopefully the Canal & River Trust might lend us a plan or put in a bit of money, because the development of the canal would obviously be in its interests.

We have recreated the old, traditional church community. Imagine how planning in this country would have developed if the same had been done in the case of great cathedrals such as St Paul’s 30 years ago! Perhaps people who would visit the other place rather than here would be happy about what might have happened at St Paul’s.

The ability to define community by what has historically been there—waterways, forests and churches—is fundamental to the possibility of transforming urban planning through neighbourhood development planning. The key barrier will be money. That little impoverished community in my area around the great priory church, which was once the biggest church in the country—the end of the road through the forest, historically—has no funding itself, and has no structures for funding. We could have 30 or 40 urban neighbourhood development plans in my communities, but that would impose a huge burden on a small district council. The Government need to think about how to provide incentives, and get the models going. In Retford, for instance, the church is keen to be not just “church as building” but “church as the heart of the community”. Retford can lead the way in developing the built community around the church. Not just churches, but the many communities that have been built around those churches historically, need that kind of original thinking. That could be allowed, but the Government need to give a bit of flexibility. The powers that are local must be kept local. The Government must not overrule them.

[Mark Pawsey]

The hon. Gentleman is speaking with great eloquence about local powers. Would he care to tell us what happened to local powers between 1997 and 2010?

[John Mann]

The hon. Gentleman ought to know that neighbourhood planning had its origins in the 2003 legislation. That is how Bassetlaw got in first, and I have been around since then promoting it. The concept has been part of the planning arrangements since 2003.

I have endorsed the moves by the Government, except for the absurd one introduced on 1 March 2013 to stop all the development plans and frameworks that were in progress and delay them for three years. That was a chronic error on the part of past Ministers. I hope to hear from the Minister that the Secretary of State and the Government will not overrule neighbourhood development plans on appeal. They must send out the message that if a community takes responsibility for where its new housing and the rest of its developments should be, it will not be overruled by the Government. That could be done today; it would be a huge boost to communities across the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The problem is that we do not know why the local authority required that particular condition. It could have been worried that no plan might ever be produced.

[John Mann]

I recall that when I was knocking down and rebuilding a wall, for which I required planning permission, I was expected to provide a sample of brick in advance, from the wall that I had not yet taken down because I did not have planning permission. Is there not the potential for some compromise between the two sides on this?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Certainly not is the answer to that question—absolutely not.

In conclusion, we think that it is a real pity that the Bill does not contain more about infrastructure and how to deliver garden cities and new towns, but we look forward to having those discussions with the Minister in Committee. We do not intend to divide the House tonight, but we will see what happens in Committee.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (First sitting)

Lord Mann Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I am sorry to interrupt, Mr Colvile, but I am very conscious that we have limited time and three people want to ask questions. I will bring in John Mann, because I know he will be brief.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Q How many of these 500,000 unmet house planning consents are in neighbourhood development plan areas? Does anyone know?

Councillor Newman: I do not, but we will write to you rapidly with that information.

[John Mann]

Q What is the average number of new house proposals that come from existing neighbourhood development plans?

Councillor Newman: Again, the LGA will write to you.

[John Mann]

Q Nobody knows. What is the increase from what the position was in the same areas covered by neighbourhood plans, in terms of proposed new housing units in areas covered by neighbourhood development plans?

Angus Walker: I do not know the answer to that, but I think the Secretary of State said on Second Reading of the Bill that, of those who had an increase, the average increase was 10%. That does not give how many there were overall.

[John Mann]

Q You said that the five-year land supply for housing was critical for housing development. How do you know that?

Hugh Ellis: It is an element of it. To be clear, the problem with the delivery of housing in this country is not primarily the planning system; it is development, but five-year supply is important.

[John Mann]

Q Correct. Am I right in saying that every neighbourhood development plan, in order to be in any way legal, has to incorporate new housing development?

Hugh Ellis: The position is that it has to be in conformity with the development plan, if there is one, and the NPPF, which means that it has to recognise local housing need and the five-year land supply to go with it.

[John Mann]

No, is it not the case that a neighbourhood development plan has to have an increase in housing supply?

[Hon. Members]

No.

Hugh Ellis: The general view, when neighbourhood plans were being developed, was that they could not plan for less housing—which is sometimes how people tried to use them—than the local development plan had allocated, so there is a kind of floor. They certainly can plan, and have planned, for more housing than the local development plan has allocated.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Mann]

Q Is there a reason why English Heritage has not tried to initiate neighbourhood development plans using major historic buildings, such as cathedrals, as the core basis for defining urban communities?

Duncan Wilson: As I said before, we do engage with neighbourhood development plans, but normally on request, rather than proactive consultation on every neighbourhood development plan. When we do engage, we certainly encourage proper consideration of the historical character of the area and how development can sit alongside that. Cathedral cities are a really important subset of that group.

[John Mann]

Q My final question: is not the strength of neighbourhood development plans also their weakness? The strength is that at the moment a plan lends itself perfectly to villages with parish councils, which can easily, and very ably and effectively, localise the planning process—in my area virtually every parish council has or is developing a neighbourhood development plan, all of them increasing the housing supply significantly, and they will be delivering on that housing supply significantly over the next five years—whereas the weaknesses are in urban areas, where defining what the community is actually requires a bit of original thinking; otherwise everything simply becomes one urban mass. Is that not the opportunity, be it for the English Heritages, the good planners or enlightened councils, to get urbanised neighbourhood planning to involve communities in exactly the way that villages have hugely successfully involved vast numbers of people in the development of the existing neighbourhood plans that have been agreed, or are currently rolling forward?

Councillor Newman: I think you could have more urban neighbourhood plans, but I would want to see them still sitting with the overarching plan in an urban area—such as the one I am very familiar with, Croydon—to be the local plan. As we have learned from mistakes in the past—although I know this is not what you are suggesting—we should not just focus on increasing housing numbers without looking at the sustainability of the community in terms of health provision, school provision, transport links and everything else. Much as we need new homes, it should not just be a numbers game that leaves us in the same place we were in the ’70s.

Duncan Wilson: In relation to our historic towns, yes, I agree that neighbourhood plans would be and sometimes are a good way of crystallising that discussion, but it is really important that the areas around towns are brought into consideration too. Otherwise, you have a plan for an historic town and all the housing gets pushed out to the periphery, without a proper strategic consideration of how that relates to the historic town in terms of transport links, public spaces, infrastructure or design.

Hugh Ellis: In a way, the critical flaw in neighbourhood planning is the neighbourhood forum model. There has to be an issue around making that accountable. The differences in neighbourhood planning between an accountable parish or town council and an unaccountable forum were always pretty stark. It was always unclear where that ended up. There would probably be more enthusiasm for urban neighbourhood planning if that problem could be resolved.

[Rebecca Pow]

Q Will the changes proposed to the pre-commencement conditions leave enough flexibility to deal with things that local communities are really concerned about? In my area of Taunton, the big issues are all about what Mr Ellis referred to: design quality, the look of the houses, vernacular character, flood resilience. Can we get all that cleared through the changes proposed, or are we relying utterly on neighbourhood plans to do that? Are there enough teeth for that to be taken into account when the planning consents are given?

Hugh Ellis: Although there is conflicting evidence in planning, one thing we can be absolutely certain of is that the design quality of domestic housing in this country is one of the great lost opportunities.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Second sitting)

Lord Mann Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Q May I have your views on the availability and level of resources to support communities that want to undertake neighbourhood planning? What more could be done to enable and encourage neighbourhood planning in more deprived communities and in areas of high housing need, for example, where there are voices that might not be heard in the planning process, but that might stand to benefit from the neighbourhood planning process?

Ruth Reed: I personally believe that there should be a proactive role for local authorities to instigate and identify neighbourhoods, and put in train a process. There should also be an opportunity to financially enable not only the technical aspects of planning, but—on behalf of the Royal Institute of British Architects—to provide design capacity to enable them to input well-worded design policies, and even design codes so that individual neighbourhoods can give expression to the kind of development that they would like to see, and to make it real to them. We believe that there may now be financial provision for this. One of the problems in planning is that it is a paper, two-dimensional base exercise. Sometimes you need people like architects to make it real and three-dimensional and to be able to explain what it would look like, using models or digital models.

Jonathan Owen: The pump-priming funding provided by the Government to support neighbourhood plan development has been an element that has encouraged parish councils to get involved, and it has driven neighbourhood planning of the 2,000 plans that have been produced. Parishes have led 90% of them, so they are embracing that opportunity, and I would like that to continue. The element in the Bill requiring planning authorities to identify the kind of advice that they would provide to groups and draw up neighbourhood plans is helpful. Where it falls a bit short is where it does not set out what is required or expected by the local planning authority.

We would like to see something more formal by way of either a statutory memorandum of understanding or a code of practice relating to what might be expected of the local planning authority in terms of helping with community involvement, helping them to access the principal authority website to do consultation work on it and that kind of thing, rather than just a basic entitlement. So it would be a mix of hard cash and softer things that could be provided by the planning authority. I know that would cost them money, and there was a good debate this morning about planning authority resources.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Q Prince Charles’s Foundation for Building Community did the groundwork in my area to self-define an urban area around a historic church as a community. It is a coherent community, and it is a community that has not been defined as such for 300 to 400 years. In your position, would you say that there was far more scope for this? Imagine if it had been done for the St Paul’s neighbourhood plan 40 years ago. Things might be rather different. Do you see great scope in this, and do you see scope for your organisation in prompting this kind of thinking?

Ruth Reed: I think we have locally active members who have been engaged in the first phase of neighbourhood plans. It is not core to architects to bring forward planning initiatives. There is no reason why certain individuals should not get involved, but it is not something that the RIBA would do, since the RIBA exists to promote architecture rather than enable communities to deliver local plans. There are groups aligned to the RIBA, including the Design Council, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and the Architecture Centre Network to put design capacity into local authorities. The RIBA would be involved in initiatives in this kind of area to provide resources to local groups.

[John Mann]

Q Some would say great architecture defines communities and I hope you will give further thought as to how you might inspire people, particularly in urban areas and around our great cathedrals and other great buildings. Most of your member organisations were busy consulting vast amounts of local people over local plans, and then the Government changed the goalposts in March 2013. How many local plans have had to be redone because of the requirement to consult neighbouring authorities?

Jonathan Owen: I don’t have the answer to that. Two thousand neighbourhood plans have been prepared by our parish and town councils—

[John Mann]

No, not neighbourhood plans; local plans.

Jonathan Owen: I am not able to answer about local plans.

[John Mann]

There must be a significant number, because councils like mine that had had all the consultation were informed that they had to start again entirely from scratch, which seems to me to be quite a way of delaying house building—albeit inadvertently—by the coalition Government.

Ruth Reed: I think stability in the planning system is to be welcomed, because it gives confidence to developers and other people bringing forth developments that they will get planning. That is why it is important that local plans are in place, and it is very important that they have adequate provision for housing land in particular. The stability we have had since 2012 has been quite welcome.

[John Mann]

Q The stability we have had? There has been no stability in all those councils that had to abandon their local plans—there is no plan there, so in fact there has been instability. Dr Owen, have there not been cases where small district councils, with the risk of adverse costs should they lose at appeal, have felt obliged to pass things that they do not want and their local communities vociferously do not want for fear of risking a quarter of a million pounds in costs from their budget? Does that sound familiar?

Jonathan Owen: I am sure there are examples of that, but from a parish perspective I guess that also introduces uncertainty into those neighbourhood plans themselves. We have had plenty of examples of where those neighbourhood plans have had to be redone, revised or tossed aside. In the pack of papers we sent in by way of submission, we quoted Haddenham parish council, which gave evidence to an all-party parliamentary group last week mapping out the enthusiasm of the people who drew up that neighbourhood plan. They got experts involved from within the community and produced a really great plan, but within six months it got set aside through a judicial review.

The representative from that parish came here and was deeply disappointed that all that hard work and effort had come to naught. He could not see how he would be able to engage his local residents or his community in shaping such a plan again. That is why we need some certainty, clarity and credibility around the whole system. Hopefully the Bill will help address that.

[John Mann]

Q Indeed. My own parish council had exactly the same experience. Vast numbers participated. A community plan was drawn up with huge engagement. It was environmentally sound and very forward-thinking on green technologies. Architecture was built into it, with what the new housing should look like to fit in with the feel and history of previous architecture, but that was overturned because of the five-year housing supply. Someone wants to build something that does not fit in at all, and that was not agreed by anyone, because someone in Whitehall says, “You’ve got to have this number of houses.” Will that inspire more neighbourhoods to have plans, or will that mean there will be even more cynicism about the planning system?

Jonathan Owen: Well, I think you are right—cynicism is a very real risk. That is why we need to ensure that we build a system where the role of neighbourhood plans is clearly spelled out and we are not raising expectations unreasonably, so that, together with local plans, they provide a really robust framework to support communities to have control over their areas and get the right kind of development.

[John Mann]

Q The evidence, overwhelmingly, is that where there is a neighbourhood plan that increases the potential housing supply through land allocation, that housing will be built and will be built quickly. However, there is a bit of a time lag in proving that in huge numbers. Do you intend to keep providing that information on how successful neighbourhood plans have been in bringing forward new housing? Would that not therefore strengthen the argument that where there is a neighbourhood plan that has been formally adopted by one of your members in district council, after a referendum and a council vote, that should be the plan stuck to by everybody?

Jonathan Owen: We will certainly showcase those examples. Government research shows that something like 10% additional housing is provided by neighbourhood plans. I am particularly pleased that Newport Pagnell, one of our larger town councils, won an award from Planning magazine for the quality of its neighbourhood plan, which, among other things, provided for 30% more housing than was set out in the local plan.

We believe—you would expect us to say this—that parishes can really drive forward neighbourhood planning, and can set aside the outdated nimby view of parishes and build communities that have housing for local residents and others, provided in a way that has infrastructure and community support. The key thing is to make sure that people’s enthusiasm for that is not set aside because the plans are set aside or overturned on appeal or whatever.

[John Mann]

Q Indeed. With more than 20 local plans either agreed or proceeding in my constituency, every single one brings forward new housing—more than any plan previously. Every single community is willing to have housing, but wants to have a great say on what kind of housing—what shape, what design—and where it should be. Seing as so many of them are in beautiful parishes such as the village where I live, is there not a danger that one part of society is going to benefit from this whereas in more deprived communities, in urban areas, there is the same desire for local control over neighbourhoods, but it requires a bit more imagination to create communities sufficiently robustly small to carry out this kind of planning? Should we not be giving far more incentive, encouragement and expert advice to those communities, on the basis that all politics is local as long as you are prepared to trust local people?

[The Chair]

In 10 seconds, please.

Ruth Reed: I think we have already said that we would support the proactive work by local authorities in identifying communities and bringing forward neighbourhood plans in more deprived areas.

Jonathan Owen: And parish councils, of course, are increasingly being set up in urban areas these days. Sutton Coldfield, Swindon and many other places are setting them up, so hopefully, with a bit of luck, we will see more parish councils in those urban areas helping those deprived communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

Q If this was made very clear, perhaps with the guidance of the Bill, would that encourage communities to be keener to have development?

Matt Thomson: There is already evidence that demonstrates that as soon as communities start considering about their development needs, even when they start off from a very nimby perspective, they think, “We are really worried about development that is going to come and destroy our village,” or whatever, and then they all sit down together and start talking about it. They then realise that there is a development need: the neighbour’s children need somewhere to live, there is a school that is threatened with closure or a shop that is closing down and so on, and people start to recognise the needs that they have. But again, because they are the local people and they know their area, they are best positioned to resolve the potential conflict between growth and conservation.

Carole Reilly: There is a wide interpretation of environmental issues. We talk about coding on houses and new developments having to reach certain codes, but neighbourhood planners are the best people to understand their area and to build into it those things that make places permeable—things that make you able to walk to your shop, and not have a development that faces out in which you get in your car and drive to the mini-supermarket.

We do see lots of neighbourhood plans that are coming up with environmental policies, and they are very interesting. They have policies around walkability and building cycle paths. I think that is core to building communities; I do not think they are separated.

[John Mann]

Q On that point, before you spoke, Ms Reilly, I wrote down safe walk routes, including school routes, and road design and layout. Are there sufficient powers in neighbourhood planning in relation to those issues, or is that merely illusory? Separately, Mr Thomson, in relation to neighbourhood plans that specify explicit preference for forms of energy that should be used within the neighbourhood and state that preference should be given only to housing that uses those forms of energy—in other words, plans that define what the energy requirements should be and how they should and perhaps should not be delivered—is there more scope for that? Are the powers there?

Carole Reilly: I think there is more scope for it. One of the things we see time and again in neighbourhood planning is protecting green spaces. There is a balance between what is a land use planning policy and what is something that has actually drawn people to the table in the first place but is not a land use planning policy, and is then appendicised in a neighbourhood plan and therefore does not form part of a statutory document. These things always have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, but there are loads of examples of neighbourhood plans that have protected green space and encouraged cycle paths, and there are other things that are more tangential that have not.

On the issue that was Matt’s answer about environmental energy use, the key question will be about viability. One of our technical support packages is around viability. We see neighbourhood planning groups being increasingly interested in site allocations, understanding the strategic environmental assessment and, on top of that, looking at the viability of a site. Neighbourhood planning groups will look at those sites that are not interesting to the volume house builders—they will look at a site that might have four plots on it. We run a programme for community-led housing in locality and we see these inspirational community organisations that think, “Actually, we need something for old people and we want to build it here,” in stuff that would be completely overlooked. I think it is not just about energy; it is about understanding those areas that would be distressed areas forever and understanding them within their viability in terms of using different sources of energy.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Q Carole Reilly, I think you said that the five-year life spans of neighbourhood plans do not encourage long-term thinking, if I understood you correctly.

Carole Reilly: For neighbourhood forums. A neighbourhood plan is the length you determine it to be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q Those were very interesting responses, but they did not actually address my question, which was, are the provisions in the Bill likely to bring more land forward for development and speed up the delivery of more homes, or are they too much at the margins to make any real difference? In which case, should we have a much bigger review of CPO to see whether we can get a better system?

Richard Asher: I believe, and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has always believed, that codification of the whole of the CPO rules, which go back to 1845 and are highly complex, would be a sensible way forward. I think the simplification of the rules for CPO would be a major step forward.

A CPO, at the end of the day, is a draconian measure. It is taking people’s land without their consent in the public interest. That means there has to be a balanced approach. I think the complexity often deters people—particularly local authorities, in my experience—from using CPO powers. It also results in a number of CPOs being refused or rejected by the courts because of the complexity of the rules that surround them. There were two Law Commission reports in the early 2000s that went some way to making recommendations that, had they been implemented, would have speeded up the process.

There are also too many routes and different procedures. One of the most recent—the development consent order—is in its infancy, but it seems to be a way of delivering compulsory purchase quickly. That is to be commended. I think there should be a rationalisation of the process.

Richard Blyth: I think it is a very difficult balancing act. I commend the fact that the Government have taken on CPO as an issue to include in the Bill and the previous Act earlier this year. It is a tricky job and a long journey. One of the difficulties with this area is that if you were to propose some kind of utopian world, it might be that the perfect is the enemy of making improvements. We support the fact that the Government have made steps on a journey. Although it may not be completed now, they are very commendable steps for the time being.

Colin Cottage: My short answer to your question is no, possibly they will not. There are more underlying problems with the system. It is lengthy. It is uncertain for all parties—both for acquiring authorities and for the people affected by it. Acquiring authorities do not know how much it is going to cost them, because the process is uncertain in that regard, and people affected by compulsory acquisition do not know how much compensation they are going to get. That then causes conflict, and it does so from the outset.

The existing system is not helpful for reaching quick solutions. In fact, in many ways it encourages people to be fighting with each other from the outset. Ultimately, that increases the uncertainty, conflict and cost. That is really the issue that we have to look to address in order to give ourselves a more streamlined system. We need to try to bring dispute resolution to the forefront of the process, rather than it being very much at the back end, where it current is.

Once conflict has set in and disputes have got hard-grounded, there is the possibility of resolution through the tribunal. In itself that is an immensely costly process. Even a relatively cheap case will set a claimant client, who may be just a private individual, back a couple of hundred thousand pounds. There is an access-to-justice problem that needs to be overcome. Those costs are also a risk for acquiring authorities as they go through the process. Those are the kind of things we need to deal with to make the process more user friendly, both for acquiring authorities that are trying to bring forward housing development and for those whose land is acquired.

Tim Smith: The provisions are sensible so far as they go, but none of them tackle any single major obstacle to the delivery of land, so there is not going to be in the Bill a silver bullet for compulsory purchase to allow housing development to come forward. There is nothing in there that is hugely significant. What is on its face the most significant proposal—the statutory enactment of the no-scheme rule—is effectively what happens anyway. That is the position that has been established by case law. It is fine so far as it goes, but it does not go very far.

[John Mann]

Q Should there be additional powers to encourage house building that allow planning authorities to more easily compulsorily purchase land from within the public sector?

Richard Asher: I do not think more powers are required; we need a more streamlined process that allows the authorities to have more certainty. As Colin was saying, it is the uncertainty that is preventing a lot of authorities from using compulsory powers where they might otherwise decide to use them.

There have recently been several high-profile cases in which compulsory purchase orders have been rejected by either the Secretary of State or the courts. That is because there is not the clarity about the process that there needs to be. As Colin said, the uncertainty applies to the property owners as well. The longer the process goes on—CPO is a very lengthy process—the more uncertainty it creates for the landowners as well.

There is no silver bullet, but if we had a more streamlined system with clear milestones, that would go some way to encouraging local authorities in particular, because it is quite often local authorities that do not have the experience or capacity to deal with compulsory purchase orders. For large-scale projects such as High Speed 2, there is clearly the ability and understanding to deliver that. For smaller-scale housing projects for local authorities, there is still a fear of using compulsory purchase powers.

Richard Blyth: I commend Birmingham City Council, which has developed high-level expertise in this area and puts it to good use, and it is available to other authorities to use. The contracting out and sharing of excellence across the local authority sector makes sense, rather than a very small authority having to build up its own expertise on a specific matter, which it may not use very often.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q That is interesting in terms of good practice. Are there any other countries that do CPO better than we do and that we could look at?

Colin Cottage: The American system has some merits. At the CPA, we are looking at that at the moment. It is not perfect in all regards—no system is—but in the States, for example, projects are funded up front in a way that they are not in this country. That means that there are no public inquiries; the scheme just goes ahead, so people know they will be affected by it. Then there is an independent assessment of value in advance. Value is independently assessed, and that then forms the basis of an offer to the landowner. The landowner can challenge that, but there are cost implications if they do.

We had a chap by the name of Douglas Hummel, who came over from the International Right of Way Association, the American body that oversees compulsory purchase best practice. The results there are that in the order of 81% of land value compensation assessments are agreed immediately, and another 4% settle after a short period of time. Only the remaining 15% are then contested for any lengthy period of time. That is a much higher strike rate than we have in this country.

I am not necessarily saying that the American system is exactly the way to go, but there are examples of early dispute resolution. That is what it is in form: an independent valuation. In the UK system, the claimant puts forward his claim, and that is then contested by an acquiring authority, and you have a creation of conflict. An independent third-party valuation up front should really be considered quite carefully, and could lead to a reduction in conflict.

Richard Blyth: We are not necessarily going to look for places that do CPO better, because I think everyone would agree that it is better never to have any, but Germany has a land reorganisation system, where all the private landowners party to an urban extension of a town are put into a readjustment system, and the local authority then provides the infrastructure out of the increase in land value. It is then reapportioned.

That is quite useful. From my experience when I was in practice, it is very difficult if you are the landowner who gets the bit of land that will be the public open space, or the balancing pond or something, in a wider scheme. It can seem very unfair, but this kind of approach not only makes sure that all the infrastructure gets put in, it evens out the benefits across a clutch of landowners more fairly, so the first one does not get all the benefit. That is certainly impressive, in terms of how to ensure that infrastructure is provided in advance, so house builders can just get on and build the houses within the plots that are then made available, and are often of very different sizes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

Q A point was also raised about how the profession is perceived and whether it is really attracting talent and new people who want to come through. The suggestion was made that we should work with local universities to try to bring that through. Have the Government got any plans to raise the status of that? When it works well, it is developers that want to build a great product and planners that want to build great communities, and together they find a way of making it work, and everyone benefits from that.

Gavin Barwell: I am very interested in talking to the profession about that. You are obviously aware that we are publishing a White Paper later in the year. We are thinking about an overall strategy for how we get this country building the homes that the Prime Minister wants to see us building, and a key ingredient of that is ensuring we have enough people with the right skills, both within local councils’ planning departments, more generally in the planning world and in the construction industry—making sure that we have got enough people out there to actually build these homes. The skills agenda—ensuring we have got the right people in the right places with the right skills—is absolutely a cornerstone of the strategy that we need to build.

[John Mann]

Q I have two questions. The first one is on neighbourhood plans. In my area, we have more than 20 under way. The vast majority of land proposed in them or agreed in them to be allocated for housing would be classified under the previous aborted local plan—the rules were changed by the coalition—as windfall sites. My estimate is that there will be approaching 1,000 units of windfall sites just in Bassetlaw, just from those neighbourhood plans. That is a huge number. Every single one of the urban neighbourhood plans that I would like to promote, for which there is a clear community interest and a definable community that, according to my subjective judgment, would be keen and easily engaged—and there are a lot of them—would also classify entirely as windfall sites, despite the fact that Bassetlaw is required to find around 5,000 housing plots in its local plan. That is a huge number in addition.

Bearing that in mind, first, what additional resource is going to be made available to allow the creation of new neighbourhoods and the required planning work where no existing infrastructure—such as parish councils —is in place? Secondly, you rather strangely suggested that you would have county councils taking over where district councils were failing to deliver. I am not exactly sure what the core competence in planning in county councils would be for that, but will that power also apply to city regions?

Gavin Barwell: I will deal with your second question first; I would like a little clarity on your first question before I answer it.

In terms of city regions, the answer is “definitely”. Some of the devolution deals have already included an appetite to produce a strategic plan for the area. For example, in Greater Manchester—the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton is nodding—rather than the 11 districts in the Greater Manchester area all producing their own local plans, they have made the decision to use the devolution deal to produce a strategic plan for Greater Manchester as a whole. From a Government point of view, that is extremely welcome, because it allows us to cover off all those areas with one plan.

It is not necessarily something that we would want to impose, but if, as part of the devolution process, areas have an appetite for looking at strategic planning across an area like that, there is a lot to commend it. I am looking forward to going to Greater Manchester soon to co-chair the Greater Manchester Land Commission and look at how that plan is progressing. It is potentially a very attractive idea.

[John Mann]

Q That is not quite the same as intervening powers.

Gavin Barwell: No. We are not taking it as an intervention power. It would be something we would look to negotiate on a case-by-case basis for each devolution deal. I stress that the county council power is not something I would anticipate using regularly, but if you look at the parts of the country in which there has been a struggle to produce local plans, it is often because you have two or three districts where land use is heavily constrained, because large amounts of the land are green belt or protected in some other shape or form. As the hon. Member for City of Durham was saying, the duty to co-operate is therefore not working and the housing need is not being reallocated around the area. Hypothetically, there may be cases in which having a county council look across the county and ask, “Where in the county could the housing need go?” might be a way to deal with it.

I say to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw: I see my job as the Minister very clearly. I do not want to be the person writing plans for local communities. As the Minister, my job is to say to local councils, “It’s your job to produce the vision and aspiration for the area.” I have one role in the process, which is to say, “I’m not going to let you duck the tough choices.” We have, as a country, to meet the need for housing in our country. As the Minister, it is my job to say, “You have to find a way to do it in your local area.” Whether that is several districts working together, county or individual local plans, or an agreement on a devo deal in Greater Manchester, I am open to different ways in which it can be done. I hope we all agree that we have not been building enough housing in this country for a long time, and that we have to find a way to make sure that we have that coverage throughout the country.

On your first question, were you asking about how we make sure we resource the groups that might produce the plans in urban areas of your constituency?

[John Mann]

Yes.

Gavin Barwell: Okay; understood. A £22.5 million support programme is available and has so far made more than 1,500 payments. All groups can apply for a grant of up to £9,000, but, as I represent an urban constituency, I absolutely recognise that it is more difficult to do this kind of work in more deprived areas—sometimes in more transient parts of the country as well—so additional funding and technical support is available to people in such priority areas. There is a national network of 132 neighbourhood planning champions who provide advocacy and peer-to-peer support. We recently launched an advertising campaign to promote the take-up of neighbourhood planning. That targeted a number of urban areas. I know that both you and Helen Hayes have spoken about this before, and are keen to push it. I am keen to listen to you and to think about whatever else we can do to help. I do not want the policy just to work in rural parishes, although the contribution it makes in those areas is important. It should be something for the whole country.

Steve Evison: May I just add a further point? For instances where the individual local authority has not written its plan, the 2016 Act enabled us to invite a Mayor or the combined authority to write the plan in place of the individual local authority. At the moment, that power is not available to county councils. Through the change, we are ensuring that we have the same options in two-tier areas as we do in areas with Mayors and combined authorities.

[Chris Philp]

Q I am pleased by the comments you made earlier about the plans to consult on increasing planning fees to get resources into local authorities. Could you lay out, for the Committee’s benefit, the proposed timetable for replying to the consultation? How will you go about enacting that when you have considered the results?

Gavin Barwell: That is a fairly simple one. The consultation has happened and we are waiting to respond to it. The realistic likelihood is that the response will come in the White Paper.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Third sitting)

Lord Mann Excerpts

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 20th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. It drives home the point we are making. We have tried to be incredibly helpful in tabling the amendment. The point has not been raised only by Opposition Members. As I pointed out earlier, it was raised by people who gave evidence to the Committee. It is important as a matter of public record that we are clear about how the plans will be examined and about the qualifications of the examiners. As my hon. Friend said, the RTPI has given a gift to the Minister by saying there is already a code of conduct and already professional guidance in place, so why does not the Minister simply adopt it and then we will all have better reassurances about the qualifications—[Interruption.] I am sure the hon. Member for North West Hampshire can intervene on me if he wishes to do so, and I will seek to answer his question.

If I may, I will move on to new clause 1. Although we have tabled it as a new clause, it is really just a further probing amendment to find out whether the Minister thinks there should be a threshold for the number of electors who will turn up to vote for a neighbourhood plan. Again, I am not trying to make the process of having a neighbourhood plan more difficult, because we are terribly supportive of neighbourhood plans and want as many of them in place as possible.

In fact, because the Minister is extremely good at reading the Lyons report, he will know that we had a whole section in that report about local plan-making and how we might marry up neighbourhood plans with the local plan-making system. That was not to take powers away from local neighbourhoods, but to have these as an initial building block for local plans so that local plans are not something that is seen to be imposed on a local community, but are something that develops organically from looking at a whole range of neighbourhood plans. He knows that the Lyons report also talked about how we could fund that, because if we are going to adopt a system where neighbourhood plans are the building blocks of local plans, resource will clearly need to be put into neighbourhood plans.

If I may again use the example of my constituency, we are now back at the beginning, more or less, of our local plan-making process. I think I am right in saying that process started in 2007; if I was being really generous to the local authority I might say 2008, but really we had preliminary discussions in 2007. Here we are in 2016, I think 11 rounds of consultation later, and we still have no local plan in place. In fact, we would be lucky to get a local plan in place in the next couple of years.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does she agree with my research that shows that 95% of local plans had to be stopped and recreated after the absurdity of the coalition Government’s decision of March 2013, when they required them all to have to consult adjoining authorities? Ninety-five per cent. have had to be recreated, creating a huge delay and uncertainty in house building and the provision of other amenities.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

As always, my hon. Friend makes a very interesting point. We did have a brief exchange with the Minister on Tuesday about the fact that the duty to co-operate has not worked in practice, and the real need for a different set of provisions. I know the Minister is seeking to address that at a later stage in the Bill’s passage, so we look forward to seeing the provisions that will address that aspect of local plan-making and how the duty to co-operate can be made to work more effectively in practice. My hon. Friend has raised a very valid point.

I think we are on our 11th round of consultation, and there will be further rounds before we actually get a local plan in place. Huge resource is then put into the consultation, which has gone on for many years. The huge amount of documentation that goes with each of those public consultations has a resource attached to it. I should have thought that it was possible to have a system of local plan-making that was very streamlined and did not require the huge amount of documentation that it currently does; that would free up resources. One of the things we argued in Lyons was that those resources could then be used to effectively support neighbourhoods and local authorities to use neighbourhood plans as the building block for their local plans.

I am coming to my argument about new clause 1. If these plans are to have considerable weight attached to them, and if they are going to be, as they currently are, part of the local plan once they go through a referendum and a material consideration, should there be a minimum level of buy-in from the local community, in terms of turning out to vote? I am sure the Minister will say that the votes for these neighbourhood plans are extraordinary, that 89% or 90% of the people who turn out regularly vote for the neighbourhood plan, that they understand why it is important to their community and that a lot of them will have turned up to consultation events.

It is heartening that so many of the plans get that percentage of people supporting them. It is actually quite rare for them to be turned down or to have fairly low percentages. At the moment we are at about a 32.4% turnout from the local community. I am sure all of us here think that is actually not bad when compared with the turnout for some local council elections, but if we are talking about a plan that will have a very strong influence on what happens in the neighbourhood area for perhaps 10 or 15 years or even longer, I suggest there might need to be a 40% threshold, but that could be lower or higher.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The Minister makes an interesting point. It is something I will mull over and think about. Does the Minister think it is important to have a particular threshold? Again, that point is not being put forward only by the Opposition. It was also put forward by the BPF, which said:

“As neighbourhood plans affect large sectors of the community, a minimum turnout would ensure that what is to become a development plan document as part of the Local Development Framework is agreed and accepted by a sufficient majority—and would also help ensure the implementation of neighbourhood plans.”

That is an important point.

[John Mann]

I am glad this is a probing new clause. The British Property Federation would say they, wouldn’t they? Is there not a danger that a threshold will shift power to middle-class communities and away from working-class communities, where people work shifts and where there is a more transient population because of private rented accommodation? Turnouts have traditionally and historically been low in all elections in those communities through no fault of the local people. They have a desire to vote, as we saw in the EU referendum, but people are having to work ridiculously long hours to make a living. Indeed, turnover in property is hugely large. Are those not the dangers of having a threshold? Any system must not discriminate against working-class communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

This may be a philosophical difference between us. I am naturally inclined to deregulation, whereas this is obviously an attempt to impose regulation on the neighbourhood planning process. In my experience, regulation generally gets in the way of speed and efficiency, and frankly of people even bothering to get involved.

In my neighbourhood there has been huge enthusiasm, wide acceptance and a recognition that there are two issues—first, more assistance from the local authority and secondly, more regard from the planning system as it is. It would be a mistake for us to try in the Bill to reproduce the same level of planning regulation that exists at local authority level for what is, frankly, often a group of volunteers who are trying to put together an imaginative plan for their neighbourhood. They should be left with as little restriction as possible to do that as far as they can, and when they realise their plan needs to be in conformity with the local plan and it has to go to democratic approval, to modify it accordingly. If we are to have acceptance, we must do it that way. Once we start putting rules and regulations and hurdles in their way, I am afraid the enthusiasm will drop away.

I would not support a 40% threshold. As the hon. Member for Bassetlaw said, there lots of reasons why not, but we do not apply that for any other election in this country, including referendums and elections for police and crime commissioners. There is no other election or exercise of the democratic process in this country where we do that and I do not think we should start now.

[John Mann]

It is always a pleasure—actually it is the first time, but it always will be a pleasure—to be given the opportunity by the Whips to serve under your chairing, Mr McCabe. I thank the Whips, although I am not sure that those on the Labour Front Bench will necessarily thank them, for putting me on this Bill Committee.

I will first deal with the question of thresholds. It is a good idea but I would suggest that the wrong threshold has been suggested, so I am glad that the new clause is a probing one. When I was first elected as a councillor, I got 86% of the vote on a 40% turnout. That means that I got a higher share of the electorate than the majority of MPs elected in the last general election. Given that, who would be the more statistically valid representative?

The interesting question is whether a threshold should be based on the vote. Should someone on a low turnout get through on 50% to 49%? That would suggest that there is quite a split in the community. There would be a coherent case for suggesting that the neighbourhood development plan needs to have a threshold of a majority for it to be seen to be coherent across a community. I am not aware of anywhere, certainly not in my area, where there is that sort of division, but such situations could exist.

The Secretary of State said that too many people

“object to houses being built next to us”

and that we are going to have to change that attitude. He was, rightly, very outspoken in Bentley in Redditch in 2015 against the proposals for 2,800 houses there, as he was in Hagley in 2012. He, like me, has supported the local people against the planning system and the way it works, but that does not coincide with his commentary at his party’s conference.

In Croydon, one local Member of Parliament talked of the overwhelming opposition to housing in Shirley, with the Save Shirley campaign. He said that the proposals to build there were “a pile of nonsense.” Clearly, there were divisions in Croydon between people who wanted to build in one place and those who wanted to build in another. Some people did not want the development in one place; others did not want it in another.

The Opposition have proposed a threshold but, in the Croydon example, a threshold of how many people vote for a neighbourhood development plan or, indeed, for a local plan would be a good idea. Otherwise, those supporting the residents of Shirley might lose out. They might be very angry at losing out and vent their anger against their local MP.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

If the hon. Gentleman is casting aspersions on my constituency neighbour for his Save Shirley campaign, may I point out his outstanding record of supporting building in the town centre?

What the hon. Member for Bassetlaw proposes by way of a threshold effectively gives weight to the opinions of people who do not bother to vote. Does he not agree that giving weight to the opinions of those who cannot even be bothered to vote in any election, including the one we are discussing, would not be appropriate?

[John Mann]

I am merely throwing into the mix for consideration the suggestion that the Government may wish to come back with an amendment, in the spirit proposed by Her Majesty’s Opposition, involving a threshold determined not by the percentage of the electorate, but by a percentage threshold of the majority in the vote. That would help to avoid a conflict situation and lead to more local negotiation in places such as Shirley.

There are lots of places like Shirley. Ministers do intervene. They are intervening in Bradford, for example. The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) was delighted, when the Minister was intervening there, to object to house building. There will always be people who object to house building next to them, and there is nothing wrong with that. If there is a bad planning application, I can fill a public hall at any time. I get hundreds and hundreds of people there very regularly. Indeed, I have a meeting tomorrow.

[The Chair]

Mr Mann, may I gently suggest that you come a bit closer to the subject under discussion?

[John Mann]

I am suitably admonished, Mr McCabe, but this is a way of getting directly into the amendments. Having spoken to new clause 1 very precisely, I am now speaking to amendments 4 and 5 very precisely, because these amendments explicitly probe the issue of conflict between the local plan and the neighbourhood plan. In other words, one set of people want to do one thing, but another set may want to do something else.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case in support of neighbourhood planning. Does he agree that the success of neighbourhood planning, which Labour Members welcome and applaud, is precisely what makes it such a good building block for local plans?

[John Mann]

It is absolutely a building block. We will come at a later stage to how we deal with less affluent communities, which is important, but when it comes to all neighbourhood plans, there is a great opportunity here for the Minister. He will need to come back with a bit more, otherwise the certainty is not there. One likes certainty in life. We know where we stand with a local plan. We would know where we stand with a neighbourhood plan. So a neighbourhood plan voted through where there is house building built in ought to be the certainty for the foreseeable future, which, in planning terms, seems to be 15 years. Such certainty seems reasonable enough to me. If the Minister could deliver on that, when I go back to my local communities he will find that there is even more enthusiasm. I will be able to get the urban communities saying, “This is a great idea, and by the way we will have more housing. We will change this and we will change that. We will create more open spaces. We will want space for our community facilities.”

Large numbers will participate in the planning debate and decision making, given the chance. The Minister has the proof already. Let us unleash more of this local empowerment. He will then be a very popular Minister.

[Jim McMahon]

This has been a fascinating debate. We are all localists. We all come from our communities—that is why we are here in the first place—and the spirit of the Bill embraces that. We are fine-tuning the Bill to ensure it works in practice. We do not want to set people up to be disappointed. We do not want them to be given this power, to be told that after years of having things done to them they are suddenly empowered, and then to go through the process of having an application submitted only for it to be completely against what they want. That is really important. In the local context of Greater Manchester, we have got the spatial framework. Within that process there is a call for sites, so developers and landowners put sites forward as part of the mix.

A member of the public has the local plan that has been agreed, but now they also have in consultation a strategic plan with sites that have been put forward by developers and landowners, and not necessarily with the agreement of the local authority. However, that causes a lot of tension because some of the sites are controversial. Landowners do not always take into account local opinion before they submit sites to get the development value that could be achieved afterwards. In an odd way, that could be the thing that inspires the local community to come together. Instead of having something done to us, let us get together and design what we want our community to be. We could think further about design quality, open space provision and how a community works more generally.

I will certainly be a champion for this type of planning in my local community. Let us be honest: in deprived, working-class communities, people have for decades and generations been told, “This is what you are getting, whether you like it or not.” I see this legislation as a route for empowering people to have far more control over their lives and communities, so it is welcome. However, let us not lose an opportunity to make sure that this is a really decent piece of legislation and a really decent process that people can feel empowered by. When a planning application goes through the system and is tested—when it is submitted and goes for approval—it is important that it has enough weight to ensure that the professional planners, and those sitting on the planning committee if it goes for determination, treat it with the respect it deserves. That is in the spirit of today’s amendment and the amendments we will discuss at a later date.

I want to return to the point I made earlier about the consultation process. If we say that we want to put the community at the heart of the process and have a community voice to make people feel more empowered, it seems odd that the public consultation on this issue does not close until 2 November, because here we are determining the legislation that will by and large have been debated before that date. Can the Minister tell us why that has not been sequenced in the right way? How can we ensure that the responses to the consultation are fed in? If significant issues come up in that process, what mechanism does Parliament have to make sure that those are picked up at the appropriate time?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I am slightly conscious of the time. It might be helpful to the Committee if we finished consideration of these amendments before 1 o’clock.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw made an important point about the effect of a threshold on more deprived communities, where turnout tends to be lower. I think there was a consensus in the oral evidence sessions that neighbourhood planning has been too concentrated in certain parts of the country. We must be wary of that because we want to ensure that everyone is benefiting.

It is also important to note that for local plans, which arguably have a much bigger impact on communities, there is no requirement to hold a referendum. I think the people of Croydon would be delighted if they had a chance to have a referendum on the Croydon local plan. In questioning the exact wording of the new clause, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw said that we should look at having a threshold for how many people vote in favour—the proportion of the electorate that had voted yes. I am wary of that for the reasons mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire, but it might reassure the hon. Gentleman a little to hear that the average yes vote in the 240-odd referendums that have taken place so far is 89%. That shows what is happening where people are proposing referendums. Nevertheless, he is quite right to say that there could be, theoretically, a situation in which that is not the case.

[John Mann]

This is an important point. So far, the referendums have been for clearly defined communities. In urban areas, where communities are less defined, there is more opportunity for the creation of communities that might not totally work and that might not be fully accepted. The issues we are discussing could become more significant in an urban area where, by definition, the community is not defined. One could see how that might work out, particularly for those trying to protect areas against development. I am sure that there are already lots of examples in London.

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly legitimate point. In relation to the first three amendments, I hope I have given clear reassurances that the necessary protection is there. In relation to new clause 1, the arguments about thresholds for elections will go on for all kinds of different elections. On balance, I do not see any reason to apply a test that is different from elsewhere in relation to the particular referendums we are discussing. In practice, thus far, the issue has not arisen, but we can certainly keep matters under review.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Fourth sitting)

Lord Mann Excerpts

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 20th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

We are not saying that boundaries have be set in stone and cannot be changed. That would be ridiculous. However, we want an assurance that any boundary changes will be made with the agreement of the community and, critically, that they make sense to the community and all the things that bind them together. We do not want communities to find one day that, having thought they were living in one neighbourhood plan area, the boundary has been changed.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Mr McCabe, I trust it is in order to make comments appropriate to clause stand part, as well as to the amendment.

[The Chair]

indicated assent.

[John Mann]

Thank you, Mr McCabe. That is helpful, because the amendment probes the critical issue—this is not a criticism of the Government—of the real potential for inventiveness for neighbourhood planning in urban areas and occasionally in rural areas. I will give some illustrations. So far, the model has been community orientated and based on existing structures. In my area, we have 22 plans under way. Only two parishes do not have one and I am going to those parishes to encourage them to move down this path quickly.

Parish councils and villages have been beneficiaries from successive Governments. They get more lottery money for village halls and village sports facilities because they are defined areas and it is much easier to make an argument. There is a danger that neighbourhood planning and neighbourhood development plans will reinforce that further. One could argue that the inventive parish councils will, for example, build in areas for future recreational development that might not already exist. That would be a smart move. In other words, the parish council might say, “This piece of land will be for a future playground for children we don’t yet have.”

Without doubt, having got that through, bids for money would be more successful, as one would be part-way through the planning process, even for larger structures that might require detailed planning consent—of course, it could also apply to change of use of land—such as village halls and that kind of facility. We have precisely that situation in Ranskill, a parish in my area, where the community is expanding. It is quite a big village—I am meeting people from there in the next 48 hours—but it does not have a village hall. The people of Ranskill are more than happy to have more housing, if it is in the right place, and to use planning gain to fund what they have long wanted and not managed to achieve. They would see this as rather assisting them, if it goes the right way. Other issues, which we dealt with previously, are clouding that, with developers jumping the gun.

[Oliver Colvile]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Mann]

I will, but it might be more helpful if I make a little progress first—the hon. Gentleman could make an even more succinct point later. I will come back to him, but I will first expand on what I am saying about opportunities with two examples.

I will start with a rural example—not an abstract example, but the example of a mountain: Blencathra in the lake district. Plenty of effort is being made to save Blencathra mountain for the nation. There are many byways, roads and properties around Blencathra. In my view, it would make perfect sense, should local people wish it, to designate the mountain and its surrounds as the neighbourhood.

Given the size and nature of mountains, that neighbourhood would probably cross constituency, council and parish boundaries—parishes do not go around mountains, but take segments of them. However, for housing, the amenity, facilities, walking routes and highways, the key determining factor is their relationship to the mountain. That would be the case for many other examples in the lake district. Neighbourhood planning on Blencathra would do something fairly revolutionary, because it would take the whole of the amenity under the democratic control of the people living there, because they are the ones defining things. That would be very powerful indeed.

Secondly, at the priory church in Worksop, working with the Prince’s Foundation for Building Community, I have proposed that the area defined historically by the priory church as its immediate parish—not the current parish boundaries, which are all over the place, because churches like to increase their congregations, but the original boundary—should be the boundary of the neighbourhood plan. That is how we are proceeding. Even better, part of that boundary has been created in more modern times—300 years ago—by the canal, so it is a natural boundary. We have a grand, huge church, once the largest in the world, which defined the buildings around the community, and we now have the ability to reset the church building for the community, the surrounding housing and future housing development. We are also taking the worst bit of the Chesterfield canal and reopening it.

What should be done is fairly obvious. The Prince’s Foundation has done the masterplan, which has been created, and the community is engaged—what the community is interested in are things such as antisocial behaviour, but from a planning point of view that means where pubs are, their opening hours, or where people walk, drive and park. They are very happy for housing to go on brownfield sites—blighted spaces—of which there are two. They would be very happy to have a car park on one of those, which is a former gasworks site, where housing probably could not go. These are all great opportunities.

There is no controversy about that with the population; they are after other things. That is a community of 200 or 300 houses. It is tiny, but its impact on the centre of Worksop and the amenity for tens of thousands of people is huge, because the other part of the community is bounded by what one would describe as the park, although that is not the term we use in Worksop. I would like to turn it into a park and give it more space; indeed, one of the conclusions of the neighbourhood planning might be that we define a proper park boundary.

This is hugely exciting stuff for the residents, who are both tenants and home occupiers. If they are occupiers, their property values will go up, so they will be quite happy. Antisocial behaviour undoubtedly will go down because their quality of life will go up. New housing will be at a premium, because it will be near a canal and a park in a beautiful, well-designed area. Everybody is a winner. It is a classic case of where neighbourhood planning would open up an area in which the local authority has never once proposed housing, because of land ownership and because there has been no minor master planning.

[Oliver Colvile]

I am a rather unique Conservative Member, in that I represent a totally inner-city seat outside London, as the hon. Gentleman may know. I only have the Ponderosa pony sanctuary—a rather muddy meadow—in my constituency. Does he not think there is an argument for urban conurbations such as mine to also have their own parish councils? It should not just be left to rural communities.

[John Mann]

There is such an argument, but in a small community with 200 or 300 houses, a parish council may be too grandiose. In that example, I would like to see the church managing and leading the development and consultation process, because that is the fixed community entity. I could give other examples in my area where the church building can be redefined as the church at the core of the community, precisely because the building was built as a community venue. Of the great cathedrals, Lincoln would be a great example, but the best of all is St Paul’s. If this was available 30 or 40 years ago, one could imagine that the buildings around the great St Paul’s cathedral would be more in tune with it, as opposed to what has been built haphazardly and chaotically around it. That is where smaller areas could be very empowered. I will give another example [Interruption.] The Whips are always keen to put Members on Committees and then try to restrict important debate.

This is fundamental to the Minister’s thinking and to his civil servants’ thinking. Planning is being seen in terms of housing and structures, with an additional side of highways, which have a major and fundamental role. The Prince’s Foundation work was done by Ben Bolgar, the top person there, and Fred Taggart, who are two brilliant planners—real planners, not just planners for real. They looked at where people historically moved and walked, which is what defines a community.

The walkways and jitties that are a problem could be closed off. That could be specified in a very localised plan: “We don’t want a walkway here. Close that off and get rid of it, because there’s antisocial behaviour. We want people to walk this way, drive that way and park here rather than there.” One gets into real localism, which never in a local plan would be possible. One could not in a local plan specify, “This little jitty will be closed down and we’ll create a walkway here. This bit should be grassed to allow more access to the canal.” That is far too much minutiae.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

Let me start by saying the hon. Gentleman knows how to push his agenda effectively with officials and with the Minister. I thank the hon. Member for City of Durham for tabling these probing amendments to clause 4. Before I address the amendments I will make some general remarks about clause 4, which aims to ensure that neighbourhood planning is suitably flexible to respond to changes in community aspirations.

Currently, there is complete agreement that it is not possible to modify a neighbourhood area if that would result in a neighbourhood plan or an order covering more than one neighbourhood area or more than one plan in one area. The practical effect of that is that, once a neighbourhood plan is in place, it may not be possible to make a new neighbourhood plan for an amended area without first entirely revoking the existing plan. That would leave that community without the plan it had worked so hard to produce until the new one came into force. Clause 4 amends sections 61F, 61G and 61J of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and sections 38A, 38B and 38C of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to change the procedure for modifying the boundary of a neighbourhood area.

Clause 4 will, for example, allow parish councils that had previously worked together to produce a multi-parish neighbourhood plan to apply for the neighbourhood area to be amended so that they can prepare a plan just for their individual parishes in the future. Equally, it would allow neighbouring forums that had previously prepared their own plans to apply for the area to be amended, so that they could come together to write a plan for both of those areas.

I reassure the hon. Member for City of Durham that I fully understand her concern in relation to both amendments. The Government have considered whether a designated neighbourhood area should follow ward boundaries. We sought views and consulted on that question as part of a technical consultation on our planning reforms in July 2014. The answer to that consultation was, almost unanimously, no, they should not. We, and nearly everybody who responded, believe that it is necessary, first that there is flexibility for communities to ensure that the area plan reflects the aspirations of that community, and secondly that the local planning authority has a positive and constructive dialogue, in order to arrive at a final decision for the area.

I represent a constituency within a London borough. Mr McCabe, you are probably the best example of this: you represent a constituency in the City of Birmingham. I think I am right in saying that your authority has the largest wards of any local authority in England, and some of those wards will cover more than one community. I can certainly think of examples from my own constituency. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw earlier mentioned the Shirley ward. Most of that ward includes an area in which most people would think of themselves as living in Spring Park, but there is also a separate development that used to be a large children’s home run by Lambeth Council—where, sadly, some shocking abuse took place—called Shirley Oaks. That is a separate and distinct community. If the people of Shirley Oaks wanted to produce a neighbourhood plan for their area, we should not be legislating to say that they cannot do that.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw made his case powerfully from his own experience. So far in this Committee, I find myself agreeing with him on a number of points. If his objective was to stop being appointed to future Bill Committees, he is probably doing very well, but we can tell from the passion with which he speaks that he really believes in what he says. It is great to hear about the number of neighbourhood plans in his area. He has put it on the record that he is on his way to the two remaining parishes that do not have one, and nothing could do more to drive progress than the prospect of his imminent arrival to push the case. He raises a powerful point.

[John Mann]

Just a flippant point: the way that we got residents to come to the priory church initial meeting was with a letter from the MP, using parliamentary envelopes and headed paper. That got far more people than a letter from a council would have done.

[Gavin Barwell]

I was gently teasing the hon. Gentleman. I wish more Members of this House had done what he has. He has clearly put in a huge amount of work in his constituency to encourage people to take up the reform from the Localism Act 2011. It is fantastic that he has done so and it is great to have him on the Committee as such a powerful champion of the process.

There is a really gritty issue here, which is that when asked, “Where do you live? What community are you part of?” people do not necessarily say what the local council might expect them to. In some cases—for example, if people are part of a village with a distinct identity—the village will be the right unit of identity. However, in urban areas—the hon. Member for Bassetlaw has given some interesting examples of rural areas—there may be other creative ways of thinking and bringing people together.

I very much share the hon. Gentleman’s view, which is that we should not prescribe in legislation the maximum or minimum size of the unit. We should let a thousand flowers bloom and see what people think of the appropriate units. Earlier, I asked the hon. Member for City of Durham for examples of neighbourhood areas that cover too small an area, and I do not think there is any evidence that things are happening at such a micro level as to cause a problem. She is quite rightly probing and asking the questions, but it is clear that the view of the Committee is that we should allow for the current flexibility.

On amendment 8, which is on the consultation arrangements required when a neighbourhood area is changed, I am sure we can all agree that consultation with the wider community is crucial. I assure hon. Members that there is already provision for that to happen where a designated neighbourhood area is amended and a neighbourhood plan is already in force. It is currently the case that where all or part of a neighbourhood area has already been designated, the local planning authority must publish and consult on any modifications to that area for at least six weeks. If the hon. Member for City of Durham would like to add to her reading list, that is in regulation 6(c) of the Neighbourhood Planning (General) Regulations 2012. That should keep her busy this evening. Exactly the same regulations will apply to the new provisions.

The clause will ensure that, as neighbourhood planning continues to mature, the system is suitably flexible to respond to changes in people’s aspirations when it comes to the nature of the geographic area covered by the plan. It will also ensure—the hon. Member for City of Durham was quite right to raise the point—that any proposed changes are properly consulted on, and that the public have the chance to feed into the process. I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment, and I hope that clause 4 stands part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

New clause 2 is intended to make some suggestions, if the Minister will allow me, of how he might move some money to neighbourhood planning forums or parish councils: he could give them a share of the new homes bonus or a higher share of the community infrastructure levy. I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

[John Mann]

It is not just middle-class areas that have created such plans. The biggest one in my area is for Harworth, which until fairly recently was one of the last working collieries in the country. It has a huge working-class community. Its neighbourhood plan has been adopted by referendum and agreed by the district council, and it involves 1,500 new allocated housing spaces and vast amounts of new land allocated for employment. The community, knowing and demanding what it wants, has got on with it. So it is feasible to do that, and to do it quickly and in all communities.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, the reason why Harworth has been able to create a plan is that it has a part-time town clerk, so it had a bureaucratic system in place. In other areas in my constituency and in neighbouring constituencies, lots of places do not need to be creating bureaucratic structures. The last thing that most of my communities want is more paid public servants who do not live in the area , but would be going in and telling them what to do. All they want is power, so how will we stop bureaucracies building up on the back of neighbourhood planning?

Secondly, and complementary to the first question, instead of simply doling out money, which would suggest employment and other contracts, requiring institutions to deal with that, what are the prospects for the secondment of expertise? I have suggested that the Canal and River Trust could second a planner to assist the process in my area. The ability to second people in with the technical expertise to assist communities, with no pretence that those people are living or staying in the community, would empower neighbourhoods and have a dramatic positive impact, allowing other former mining communities in my area to repeat what Harworth has done.

[Oliver Colvile]

May I make one small point to the hon. Gentleman? I have a university in my constituency that has a planning school. Perhaps something to encourage is co-opting some of those students to help people seeking to develop neighbourhood plans.

[John Mann]

We would be more than happy to have students and professors from Plymouth, although I suspect Sheffield might be a more realistic scenario, but on exactly the same logic—the hon. Gentleman makes a good point.

I put it to the Minister that secondment rather than cash could rapidly lead to positive results. Those communities are far more likely to say, “We want employment land. We want more housing. We want the petrol stations and supermarkets we do not have.” In my experience, working-class communities are far less nimby than middle-class communities. They want what middle-class communities have taken for granted—albeit they prefer to drive a little distance to get to them—and they will demand them on their doorstep. This is great untapped potential for the country and empowerment is the issue. Does the Minister agree, and how will he help?

[Gavin Barwell]

I thank hon. Members for tabling the amendments, which provide an opportunity to discuss the important matters of the advice, assistance and resources available to communities and local planning authorities in supporting their take-up of neighbourhood planning. Before I respond to individual amendments and if you agree, Mr McCabe, I will say a few words about why we are introducing the measures in clause 5.

We believe that the clause will ensure that when communities consider whether to prepare a neighbourhood plan or order, they can make the decision with a full range of advice and assistance available to them. We believe that will assist in building the positive and constructive relationship between a local planning authority and the relevant local authority that is necessary to make neighbourhood planning work.

Amendment 1 simply facilitates amendment 2, which I will consider shortly. I will start with amendment 9, as the hon. Member for City of Durham did. I appreciate the desire to ensure that adequate resources are available to the relevant local council. We believe the amendment is unnecessary because local planning authorities can already claim funding for their duties in relation to neighbourhood planning. We will obviously continue to review the costs incurred by councils in delivering neighbourhood plans and these will change as the take-up of neighbourhood planning increases and local authorities, local communities and others become more familiar with the process.

It is probably worth putting on the record what the current arrangements are. Local authorities receive £5,000 for each of the first five neighbourhood areas they designate and £5,000 for each of the first five neighbourhood forums they designate. They then receive £20,000 for every single neighbourhood plan when a referendum date has been set. The idea is that there is some initial pump-priming for the first five to 10 times they deal with the process, but also a set amount of money because of the costs involved in examination and then in holding a referendum.

The hon. Lady made a wider point about resourcing planning departments and was keen that I reiterate what I said in the evidence session. I am happy to do that. I recognise absolutely that there is an issue. Reflecting back on the evidence that was given to us, I respectfully suggest to her that I did not hear a lot of evidence that the Government were not properly funding the specific burden of organising neighbourhood planning. I heard a lot of evidence that in more general terms planning departments are underfunded and the Government need to look at the level of planning fees being charged.

[Gavin Barwell]

I respectfully argue that the sums of money that local councils are having to spend on neighbourhood planning constitute a very small share of their overall planning departments. The fundamental issue, which I absolutely take on board, is the level of fees that planning departments are able to charge to cover their costs. I said during the evidence session—I am happy to repeat it now—that it has struck me during the three months I have been doing this job that whereas on many issues conflicting opinions are expressed to me by different people in the housing and planning world, on this issue there is unanimity. Developers and council planning departments alike say that there is an issue.

[John Mann]

There is not unanimity everywhere because land prices and build prices are dramatically different in different parts of the country. We see that even more starkly with prefabricated housing. The proportionate cost for someone who sells a house for £600,000 in London, which would be a tiny one, or £600,000 in an area like mine, which would be rather a large house, is very different. There is a danger that if the planning fees for cheap, affordable housing are too high, that will discourage self-build and small developers.

[Gavin Barwell]

We can always rely on the hon. Gentleman to shatter unanimity when it is in danger of breaking out. He makes a fair point. The cost of building, say, five new homes in his constituency will be lower than the cost of building five new homes in the City of Westminster. He is quite right to sound the alarm that we should not allow fees to go too high, but I suspect that if I spoke even to developers and the planning department in his own patch, they would say there is still an issue in terms of financing.

The hon. Gentleman did not say this, but the point is relevant. We tend to hear from developers, and we have to bear in mind that these fees are also paid by householders when they make applications to extend their properties or something like that. The voices we tend to hear are those of the large developers, but these fees are paid by others. None the less, the hon. Lady asked me to reiterate that I accept there is a problem, and I absolutely do. The Government have consulted on this issue, and the White Paper will contain our response. I think I have given a pretty good steer as to where I want to go.

I want to make a slightly partisan but important point. While I entirely accept the pressures that planning departments and, indeed, councils in general are under, it is important to note that despite the difficult period they have been through, they have had huge successes in driving up performance. I will give the Committee some figures. When the coalition Government came to power, 17% of councils had a local plan. As of this September, the figure was 72%. In the second quarter of this year, in the most recent figures available, 83% of major planning applications were decided within the time limit, which is the highest ever performance on record. In the year up to 30 June, our planning system gave planning permission for 277,000 homes. That is the highest ever figure on record.

I pay tribute to local authority planning departments. Despite the financial restrictions they have been under, they have raised their game significantly. I gently tease the Labour leader of my local council about this, because he flip-flops between press releases saying that the Government have financially crippled him and ones that boast about how well the council is performing. While I do not in any way underestimate the difficulties local councils have had, when this period is looked back on, it will be seen as one where public services have raised their game, despite the restrictions on resources.

[John Mann]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

I have goaded the hon. Gentleman, so I have to allow him to intervene.

[John Mann]

The Minister cannot get away with that, because we all know that technology and the Planning Portal have totally transformed the speed of planning, very effectively. It is technology and the portal that have done this, not the Government. We do not care, but they should not take credit for things that they have not done.

[Gavin Barwell]

It is a range of things. Technology certainly plays a part. I also observe that the designation regime introduced by the coalition Government has played a part. I do not want to go on too long, because this is not directly relevant to the point we are considering. However, I genuinely believe that when we look back on this period—this is not all down to the Government, if that makes it easier for the hon. Gentleman to accept—we will say that despite the financial restrictions public services were under, public servants have done an amazing job of improving the services they provide. That is the point I wanted to make.

I welcome the intent of amendment 2, but I cannot agree that it is necessary. I hope I can reassure Committee members that even in these times of tight public finances, we are supporting neighbourhood planning groups. We have made £22.5 million available to do that. More than 1,500 payments have been made to date. Since 1 April this year, all groups can apply for a grant of up to £9,000. We are providing additional support to priority areas, which include more deprived areas and those with the highest housing growth. Communities that fall within those priority groups can apply for up to £15,000 and can also access technical planning support.

I agree with the hon. Member for Bassetlaw—this is becoming a worrying trend for both of us—that this is not just about money. It is also about having good advice and assistance. We have a national network at the moment of 132 neighbourhood planning champions, who are there to provide exactly that kind of advice and assistance. While I understand what the amendment is trying to do, which is quite rightly to say that thus far neighbourhood planning has been adopted mainly in more rural parts of the country and that we need to ensure that it is also well used in urban and more deprived and more transient communities—there is no argument there—I am not sure whether saying 50% of the money has to go to such areas is right, because by definition it is a demand-led budget.

I want to encourage people from all around the country to set up groups and ensure that funding is there to support them. If it helps the hon. Member for City of Durham, I assure her that if we ever get to a point where the budget is running out because there are so many applications, I will be the first person knocking on the Treasury’s door to ensure that there is extra support. However, I think if we passed a law to say that 50% must go to these places and 50% to those, we could run the risk that some people would run out of money when the other pot had not been used. That does not seem to be a logical way to deal with the issue.

I completely understand the aspiration behind amendment 10. We agree that in order to provide clarity to neighbourhood planning groups about the context within which they prepare their plans all areas should have a local plan. In the evidence session and on numerous other occasions I have spoken strongly about the importance I attach to having local plans in place. If the Committee will permit me for a minute, let me reiterate the main point. The planning applications that tend to come across my desk are nearly all speculative applications where essentially the local planning authority has not had a local plan in place with a five-year land supply. Developers have then come in and picked the sites that they want to build on—those are not the aspirations of the local community but where the developers want to see development go—and things escalate and end up on my desk. I want to remove all that unnecessary conflict from our planning system and the way to do that is to ensure that we have complete coverage in place.

I appreciate that again this is a probing amendment so I will not be too critical, but, rather than accepting an amendment that asserts that something should happen by this timescale, we have tabled a series of amendments that seek to advance that agenda. I also want to make plan making much quicker and make it much easier for planning authorities to update their plans.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw has previously spoken about—he mentioned it today—his frustration at the delay when the coalition Government changed the national planning framework. Actually, I think we were quite right to do that because we needed to ensure that when one council does not meet its housing need, those houses do not disappear from the system but are spread out in surrounding authorities. He is, however, quite right to say that because the process is so slow at the moment, that imposes a big delay when that happens. Therefore it is important both to make sure that we have plans in place and try to make the process quicker so that when they need updating—because either Government policy changes or the facts on the ground change—that can be done much more quickly.

I do not want to labour the point, because I know the amendment is a probing one, but its wording mentions just having a plan in place. We would all probably agree that we actually need an up-to-date plan that takes account of the latest household projections and an accurate assessment of housing needs. A lot of authorities currently have a plan, but not a plan that is based in any way on the latest information about what the area requires. I hope that I have reassured the hon. Member for City of Durham on the underlying issue, even if we disagree on the amendment.

Finally, I turn to the interesting issue in new clause 2, which I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising. We are looking at the matter in general terms at the moment. We have always been clear that we would like to see the new homes bonus benefiting communities that support development, such as those that produce neighbourhood plans, and we strongly encourage local authorities to allocate funding from the new homes bonus in that way. Indeed, it is already possible for councils and areas where a neighbourhood plan is in place to reach agreement in exactly the way she suggests in her new clause.

With regard to the second part of the new clause and the community infrastructure levy, communities where a neighbourhood plan or order is in force receive 25% of the CIL arising from development in their area, whereas the figure for communities without a neighbourhood plan is only 15%, so there is already a key incentive. Three questions are posed by the new clause. First, should we actually legislate to require something similar in relation to the new homes bonus? Secondly, should we raise those percentages in relation to CIL? Thirdly, should we force everybody to have a CIL? I will take those in turn.

On the first question, that is an interesting idea. I hope that the hon. Lady will allow me to reflect on that some more in the White Paper. The Prime Minister is very interested in ensuring that communities that go for growth are properly rewarded, so that people feel that if their community accepts more housing, their quality of life improves, rather than them finding it harder to get a GP appointment or to get a child into the local school, or finding their train more overcrowded. I am not sure that we should legislate in the way she suggests, but I am very interested in the underlying grain of the idea.

On CIL percentages, there is a balance that we need to be wary of. We can take Bassetlaw as an example of a particular area with a local plan and think about what we want to do with the money that the state captures out of land uplift. We certainly want to do things in that local community, but we might also need to make sure that major bits of infrastructure across the district happen. If we put too much into one local area, we will lose the money that might pay for the new junction on the dual carriageway, or a spur off the main roundabout, or whatever the right project is. There is a tension that we need to recognise.

We probably also need to recognise that it is not necessarily in the interests of every single local authority to have a community infrastructure levy. One could at least think of circumstances in which land values were sufficiently low and development therefore marginal in terms of viability. Introducing a CIL might then push crucial regeneration projects, which would otherwise have been viable, and make them non-viable. I am not sure that forcing every local council to introduce a CIL, if they judge that to do so would not be in the best interests of their area, is the right thing to do.

In summary, the hon. Lady is quite right to raise all those questions. They are at the heart of the debate about what we need to do to ensure that communities are incentivised to go for growth, but I hope that I have pointed out some of the points of detail as to why we do not want to accept the amendment.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Mann Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell]

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I think he will get exactly the clarification that he is looking for—but the simple answer is yes. I shall come on to it again later in my speech. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. The Government’s intent is very much to honour the principle behind the Lords amendment, but we believe we have a better solution that will provide pubs with more flexibility and do a better job of ensuring their viability in the long term.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Minister on his flexible approach to the Bill. Given that he has previously agreed to visit my Bassetlaw constituency, will he offer a date very soon, so that I can consider whether to include a pub in his itinerary?

[Gavin Barwell]

That has got to be one of the kindest invitations that I have received so far in my ministerial career. I have already given an undertaking and I very much look forward to visiting the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I am trying to combine it with an event in the Sheffield city region, looking at housing. The hon. Gentleman served on the Public Bill Committee and he is a passionate advocate of neighbourhood planning. I know that he has worked hard in own constituency to encourage neighbourhood planning. I am very much looking forward to meeting some of the community groups with him. Members of my private office are in the Box and will have heard that commitment. I hope that we can get the hon. Gentleman a date as soon as possible—with or without the benefit of a visit to a local pub.

At the same time as making these changes, we also want to protect local planning authorities from any compensation liability arising from the removal of national permitted development rights. We will do this by amending the compensation regulations to limit to 12 months the period of any potential liability on local planning authorities when the rights are removed.

Let me now take the opportunity to update hon. Members on the outcome of the debate in the other place in respect of the permitted development right for the change of use from office to residential. This was an issue debated at some length in Committee, and I know that there are differences of opinion in the House. Hon. Members will know that the permitted development right is making an important contribution to housing delivery, with over 12,800 homes delivered—thanks to this right—in the year ending March 2016. The Government have always recognised that in certain areas there have been concerns about the local impact of this right, so we have outlined an approach that provides flexibility for those areas that are meeting their housing requirements to have a greater say over where the permitted development right for the change of use from office to residential should apply.

For those areas that are delivering 100% or more of their housing requirement—the figure identified in their local plan—that can continue to do so after removal of the right, and that are able to demonstrate that it is necessary to remove the right to protect the amenity and wellbeing of their area, the Secretary of State will not seek to limit article 4 directions applying to that area. We intend to publish the first housing delivery test data in November. For those who are not familiar with it, this was one of the key reforms set out in the housing White Paper. We will now hold local authorities to account not just for producing a glossy plan, but for delivering the houses set out in the plan on an annual basis. This will indicate to local authorities in November whether this additional article 4 flexibility would apply to directions brought forward after that date. For those interested in further information about this change, it can be found in House of Lords Library in a letter from my ministerial colleague Lord Bourne, dated 18 March. We shall provide detailed guidance before November.

We are making a further change by bringing forward regulation to enable local planning authorities to charge planning application fees when permitted development rights have been removed by an article 4 direction. This recognises the resource commitments in those areas that have removed the permitted development right for sound policy reasons. The Government’s position remains that although the permitted development right makes an important contribution to delivering the homes that we desperately need, we have with these two small changes demonstrated a degree of flexibility to allow those local authorities that are delivering the homes that are needed in their area to apply an article 4 direction if they wish, and then to be able to charge planning application fees in the relevant areas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Mulholland]

I thank the hon. Lady for her support and echo her comments. The Minister has genuinely listened and was interested in looking for solutions when the hon. Lady and I met him on 30 January. He offered that meeting and we were delighted to have it. He actually went to the trouble of inviting me into his office last Thursday to hand me a copy of the amendment and to say exactly what the Government were going to do. That is an example of how Ministers can work with MPs from across the House to achieve things, and I warmly thank him for that.

Following my tabling of a similar amendment on 7 December, I thank Lord Kennedy of Southwark for taking up the baton excellently, ably and enthusiastically, and for showing his support by taking it through the House of Lords, which presented us with this great opportunity. I thank Protect Pubs, which is now the pre-eminent organisation campaigning for better protection for this country’s pubs. It is a member of the British Pub Confederation, which I also congratulate. I must declare an interest as I am the chair of the British Pub Confederation, and I am delighted to continue to work with all publicans and pub representative organisations within the confederation. I also thank the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), because he introduced a private Member’s Bill with the same aim back in 2010. That is sometimes forgotten, but I told him that I would mention him and thank him in the Chamber today.

Although I tabled a similar amendment back in December, it was also tabled during the passage of the Localism Act 2011. My point then was that localism is phony if we continue to allow valued pubs to be demolished or turned into supermarkets or offices without the community having any say. That is all that we are changing today—no more, no less. We are not getting into pub protection in great detail. The amendment simply gives communities the right to have a say through a planning process, just as with anything else. It should have happened a long time ago—it is common sense—but I am delighted that it is happening now.

Echoing the comments of another pubs campaigner—the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey)—I thank the brave pro-pub councils that have brought forward article 4 directions and other pub-protection policies. They have shown that they can do certain things, but we needed this change from the Government. I also thank the Otley Pub Club from my constituency. Again, I have to declare an interest in that I am the club’s honorary president. When Ministers wrongly rejected this change back in 2015 by not accepting the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bristol North West, the club took Ministers at their word when they said, “If you value your local pubs and if you want protection against predatory purchasing by supermarkets, list them as assets of community value,” and listed all 19 pubs in the centre of Otley to show that that was the only way communities could protect them. Communities no longer have to list all their pubs simply to remove permitted development rights. If Otley Pub Club had not had the courage to go ahead and do that, and prove that Ministers were wrong in rejecting that amendment, we may not have been here discussing this today. Asset of community value status remains important, but it no longer needs to be used in all cases for all pubs simply to end permitted development rights.

I thank the wonderful CAMRA branches and members that have engaged in the campaign over many years. It was disappointing that CAMRA headquarters did not support the amendment in December. The reasons for doing so were rather strange—perhaps there had been a particularly good Christmas party—but we are delighted that the change has finally come through after many years of campaigning. It was slightly bizarre that CAMRA was still sending messages yesterday to its members, myself included, urging us to contact our MP about a vote when there was no vote. Several MPs have said to me, “Don’t worry. We’re going to vote with you,” but I have had to tell them not to. I even had one MP say that they were going to vote against me because of the email from CAMRA, so luckily there will be no vote. However, it is rather odd that CAMRA carried on lobbying after the event. I have mentioned the Co-op issue, but CAMRA really needs to look at the failed agreement with the Co-op, which has been an appalling predatory purchaser and destroyer of pubs up and down the country. CAMRA needs to disassociate itself from the Co-op in the interests of its members and of pubs.

I must put on the record and draw attention to a significant and brave decision by the Minister. When my amendment was considered in December, a false briefing was circulated by the representatives of the large pub companies. The reason they were lobbying so hard to stop communities having the simple right to have a say was that they wanted their large pubco members to continue to be able to sell pubs to supermarkets, who can demolish them without the community having a say. People have been losing viable pubs as a result. I raised that matter on the Floor of the House and wrote to the Minister, and that was when I realised the kind of Minister he was. Rather than the usual response from civil servants, he wrote back to me, and I want to quote from the letter because it was so nice and refreshing to have an acknowledgment from a Minister. It said:

“I recognise that in doing so I referenced briefing that was made available more generally by the British Beer and Pub Association in relation to existing permitted development rights for pubs. You are right to point out that their briefing contained inaccuracies, and therefore I am pleased to confirm for the record that it is the case that the removal of permitted development rights for the change of use or demolition of pubs, as a result of the nomination or listing as an Asset of Community Value, has no effect on a pub’s ability to make internal changes.”

It was great to have that confirmation, but it is a serious matter that a clearly interested party was sending false information to hon. Members, misleading them about something that was extremely simple.

The Government have clearly decided not to accept my original amendment of 7 December, nor Lord Kennedy’s of 28 February, but I understand their reasons for doing so and have made it clear to the Minister that he has my full support for the new amendment and that I am delighted with the outcome.

The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) raised the concern that the Government decided to include the mixed use category of A3/A4 because they did not want to stop publicans serving food. In actual fact, there is no need for the category because we know that food is served in many pubs in category A4 but not in others, and sometimes that changes from week to week. There is no need for the change, but the first concern that has been raised is whether the same permitted development rights will be in place for the mixed category. The Minister has made it clear that that will be the case, which is fairly clear in the Bill.

However, I flag up the genuine and very serious concern about article 4 directions because, to use the Minister’s words, there is an unintended consequence whereby many councils have decided to introduce important and impressive article 4 directions to bring in strong protections for pubs—stronger than will be offered by the amendment, as he knows—including stopping the predatory developers that the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) mentioned, but those protections apply only to A4. There is a real danger that it could create a loophole whereby unscrupulous owners or developers can seek a mixed use designation to get out of the strong pub protection that exists in some areas.

Now that is on the public record, and now it is understood in a way that perhaps it has not been by some organisations, I urge the Minister to consider introducing a statutory instrument, in addition to this amendment, to ensure that the new mixed use A4/A3 category, which is for pub restaurants that should clearly have the same protection, does not fall foul of another loophole by no longer being covered by existing pub protection policies. That should be easy to address with a statutory instrument, and then everyone will be happy with the amendment as a whole. In a sense, he has done something remarkable because, despite their opposition and misleading briefings, both the British Beer and Pub Association and one of its large pubco members, Punch Taverns, have said that they are perfectly happy with the amendment. He has done something significant but, now that it has been spotted, he needs to plug the potential loophole with a statutory instrument to ensure that it does not become a problem.

Finally, I thank the Minister and all hon. and right hon. Members who have taken part in this campaign over many years. I raised the issue as far back as 2008, and it was one of the key aims when we set up the all-party Save the Pub group. It has taken longer than expected and hoped for, but we have got there now, with the caveat of closing the loophole that has been identified.

[John Mann]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that organising such an open, accessible and cross-party campaign that has allowed all of us to be involved, with him taking the lead throughout, is a good model for securing change in this place?

[Greg Mulholland]

The hon. Gentleman is kind, and it is nice of him to say so. It has been a pleasure working with him, and with Members on both sides of the House, because that is how, as parliamentarians with an interest and a zeal for campaigning, we can change things. We can all do it in different ways, and I look forward to doing so in the future. The changes we have had, including on pub companies, show that we can succeed and that all-party groups and campaigning in this place, when done well, can be successful. I have been nearly 20,000 feet up a mountain with the hon. Gentleman, but I have never been to a pub in Bassetlaw with him, which we might have to put right. If he would like to do that, I would be delighted to join him.

There is a real threat from unscrupulous developers, owners, pub companies and supermarkets that seek to offload pubs, demolish them and get supermarkets in place before planning permission is needed, and I remind the House of the utter absurdity that communities currently have no right to object to the imposition of a supermarket and the loss of a viable pub, but have the right in the planning process to complain about the supermarket’s signage. The amendment is finally reversing that nonsense, but it will continue to happen until the amendment is enacted. Now that the Government have made clear their intent, which has the full support of both Houses—that is very unusual—and of all major parties, the Minister should seriously consider a moratorium on any demolitions or conversions. A moratorium would be extremely useful in stopping the continued loss of pubs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

The Government and the Whips Office in particular always welcome a sinner who repenteth. My hon. Friend makes two very good points. The White Paper proposes moving to a standard methodology for the assessment of need, and we will incentivise all local authorities to use it. None the less, it remains the case that that methodology will provide a number of the total amount of housing need, but local authorities will still need to think about the mix of housing and of tenures relevant to their local community, and the demographic profile of the need for housing in their area. He makes a very important point and we will certainly ensure that the guidance covers those issues.

[John Mann]

If a local authority is making progress with its local development plan but waiting for the Secretary of State’s approval, and if a new city region or combined authority that it joins during that period decides to take a different overall strategic approach to housing, what effect would all that work and decision making have on that scenario? Will that be part of the guidance, to ensure that communities that have been fully consulted and that have made decisions are not sent back to the drawing board, which would delay rather than promote future housing, because of that possible crossover?

[Gavin Barwell]

That is not an easy question to answer in the abstract. Generally speaking—I am not an expert on this; I am sure the hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong—in most of the devolution agreements that have set up a requirement to produce a spatial strategy, each of the individual constituent authorities in the combined authority has a veto. That is certainly the case in Greater Manchester, and I believe it is the case everywhere other than in relation to the London plan, the key difference being that that plan cannot allocate specific sites in the same way as the Greater Manchester spatial strategy. In that situation, I believe that the hon. Gentleman’s own local authority would have a veto over any wider strategic plan.

I think that the hon. Gentleman was also driving at the issue of transitional arrangements. In other words, if an authority is nearing completion of its own plan and work is about to get under way on a wider strategic plan, would that authority still be able to complete its work on its own plan? I am happy to reflect on that, but my instinct is that it should be able to do that, because there are clear advantages in getting a plan in place, in terms of protection from speculative development.

[John Mann]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

If I allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene, that will give me more time to think, so I will happily take another intervention.

[John Mann]

The Minister’s instinct is very good, in my judgment. I hope that he will think through, perhaps not at this very moment, a scenario whereby a district council that is on the verge of getting its development plan agreed and endorsed in law is not put in the position of having to use its veto against a wider authority that it has joined, because that veto might undo the work that has already been done. In other words, is there potential for hybrids that allow housing developments to proceed, rather than an absurd structure that, in essence, allows different processes to collide? It strikes me that that may be a possibility somewhat near to my home in future.

[Gavin Barwell]

I will find out from my officials when I leave the Chamber whether my instincts about that were good. I will happily discuss the matter further with the hon. Gentleman, perhaps when I have the opportunity to visit his constituency.

We have been thinking about the question of transition in relation to the new standard methodology, and we will consult on that shortly. I have no doubt that, when it comes into place, a number of authorities at various stages of their plan making will ask whether the Government are suggesting that they should stop and start again using the new methodology, or whether they should complete the plan they have nearly finished and do a fairly quick review. We have given thought to that question. The hon. Gentleman has just asked a related question about the situation in which a strategic plan is in the early stages of preparation and a local plan is nearly complete. I will reflect on that, and perhaps we can have a discussion about it outside the Chamber when I have had a chance to talk to my officials, but I have given him a steer on my instincts.

We have digressed a bit—with your forbearance, Madam Deputy Speaker—but we were discussing Lords amendments 7, 8 and 9, which, as I said, are about giving the Secretary of State the power to produce regulations about the matters that local authorities should cover in their statements of community involvement. Hon. Members will recall that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell)—I do not believe he is in his place today—highlighted this matter on Report. I am pleased that, as I promised, we have been able to table an amendment that reflects the intention behind his amendments.

I turn to Lords amendment 23. The White Paper highlighted the Government’s commitment to legislating to enable the creation of locally accountable new town development corporations. The existing institutions report to the Secretary of State, but there is a strong desire for locally accountable institutions. Lords amendment 23, which was tabled by Lord Taylor of Goss Moor and Lord Best, was entirely consistent with the White Paper and the Bill’s aim of further empowering local areas, and I am pleased that the Government were able to accept it. Several pieces of planning legislation have been introduced in recent years, and the White Paper left open the possibility for further legislation to follow. It is good that, by accepting Lord Taylor’s amendment to the Bill, we have been able to get into statute one of the measures that we set out in the White Paper.

In summary, the amendment would support the creation of locally led garden towns and villages by allowing the responsibility for any development corporation created under the New Towns Act 1981 to be transferred to a local authority or authorities covering all or part of the area designated for the new town. My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs has tabled amendments on the issue, and I think it might be best if I allow him to speak to his amendments before I tell him how the Government intend to respond to them, to give him the opportunity to persuade me of his case.

I turn to compulsory purchase. In the other place, the Government tabled a number of primarily technical amendments based on further engagement with expert practitioners to ensure that the compulsory purchase provisions will make the process clearer, faster and fairer. Lords amendments 24 to 62, together with amendments 76 and 78, deal with temporary possession to refine the new system so that it will work as intended.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind words, and I have tried to approach the entire Bill in the same spirit. It is fair to say that the Housing and Planning Act 2016 had a rather difficult passage through Parliament, and with this Bill we wanted to build the broadest possible coalition behind the changes that the Government are making to try to drive up the amount of housing that we build. It has been pleasing to see, both in the other place and here today, the fairly widespread support for the way in which the Government are trying to take forward this agenda.

I will briefly describe, for those who do not have my hon. Friend’s expertise in such matters, Lords amendments 63 to 68. They deal with the no-scheme principle; that is the key principle that defines the world in which compensation is assessed when compulsory purchase powers are used. The amendments basically refine the provisions so that they will work as intended.

Lords amendments 69 to 73 extend the ability of the Greater London Authority and Transport for London to make a joint compulsory purchase order for a combined housing or regeneration and transport project. I think I am right in saying that both the GLA and TfL have these powers at the moment, but they are not allowed to use them together on a combined project, which is what we are seeking to allow. In particular, Lords amendment 72 would allow TfL to work with a mayoral development corporation as an alternative to the Greater London Authority.

I thank the experts at the Compulsory Purchase Association and Transport for London for their advice, and Members of this House and of the other place for their constructive contributions to the debate on a very technical area of law. As I said on the first group of amendments, when not so many Members were in the House, I thank one of my most distinguished predecessors as Housing Minister, Lord Young of Cookham, who ably steered these provisions through the other place.

Responding to concerns raised in the other place, the Government tabled Lords amendments 74, 75, 77, 79, 80 and 83, which replace the power within the consequential clause of the Bill so that the Secretary of State’s power to make consequential changes—in essence, when something is spotted after the legislation has gone through that has a knock-on effect on other legislation—is limited to part 2, or in other words only to the CPO provisions. We made those changes because of concerns in the other place about the broad scope of the consequential provisions. The possibility of things being spotted really arises in relation only to the CPO provisions, which is why we have limited this power to part 2.

Lords amendment 81 commences the regulation-making power in Lords amendment 4, and Lords amendment 82 commences the regulation-making power in Lords amendment 9. Lords amendment 84 will apply the same changes proposed by Lords amendment 5 to examinations that take place under the new streamlined procedure to modify a neighbourhood plan that is in force, as introduced by clause 3 and schedule 1.

I commend the Lords amendments in this group, and I will come back in later when I have had a chance to listen to the arguments of my right hon. Friend—and my very good friend—the Member for Arundel and South Downs.

[John Mann]

I will comment on three aspects of the amendments in this group and what the Minister has said on them. The first, briefly, is about changes to housing for the elderly. It is a question of whether a local community or a local council can actually designate specific pieces of land explicitly for accommodation for the elderly, which would open up the potential for planning gain, particularly on service sites. For example, saying that a specific piece of land within a larger development should be allocated for a few bungalows would precisely address rental need and possibly purchase need.

The other added key value that arises from the Minister’s comments about having an effective approach to accommodation for the elderly is equity release. There would be a boost to the local economy from large numbers of people wanting to downsize—both those who want to purchase smaller accommodation and those who want to move to social renting but are in essence excluded from doing so at the moment—by releasing the modest equity in the house they have spent their lifetime purchasing. They want to do so to be able to live in more comfort and more cheaply, but also to be able to assist their grandchildren to get on to the housing ladder. Spending that equity would be a huge boost to the economy in a community such as mine. Is the possibility of creating zones that could be serviced or, through planning gain, developed, a greater option as a result of the amendments?

--- Later in debate ---

[John Mann]

Under the code of conduct on standards in public life, someone who has declared an interest—certainly in this House—is prohibited from moving an amendment in which that person has a pecuniary interest in relation to any organisation, as has been the case ever since the Nolan Committee reported in 1996. Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that the House should reflect on that?

[Nick Herbert]

I should emphasise that Lord Taylor made his interest clear when he moved the amendment. As for the rules in the other place, I am not aware of them, but it is the case that Lord Taylor has had in the past, if not currently, a commercial interest with one of the developers that would stand to gain from the transfer of powers that may be effected by the permissive legislation that the Government wish the House to accept.

I believe that this raises a question of principle, namely whether the powers of, specifically, compulsory purchase should ever be delegated to local authorities. I suggest to Members on both sides of the House that we should not allow that. While it might be appropriate to delegate other powers to make it easier for new towns to be established by local consent, I think it would be a grave mistake to delegate powers of compulsory purchase in a way that would cause Ministers to lose control altogether of the process whereby land may be compulsorily purchased. It would have the effects I have described in this area all across the country. The amendment would forbid such a transfer of power in this specific instance in relation to powers of compulsory purchase, and I seek reassurance from my hon. Friend the Minister that the Government have no intention of allowing such a transfer of powers of compulsory purchase. He will know that this is also of huge concern to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), who is unable to be here today but shares my concern about the impact of the Mayfields new town, which crosses both our constituencies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

Let me briefly respond to the points made by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert).

The hon. Gentleman asked whether a council can designate particular sites for housing for the elderly, and the simple answer is yes, it can. They have powers to do that already, and in the guidance we issue we might want to look at the extent to which we allow that to be a matter for local decision making, or whether it is something we wish to promote.

The hon. Gentleman made two vital points in relation to neighbourhood planning. First, neighbourhood planning is not just for affluent rural communities. This is an opportunity for communities right across the country to have more of a say about how they develop in the future and how we make the tough and difficult choices that must be made in order to provide the housing we so desperately need and the land for employment and other community uses. The Government are very much committed to ensuring that neighbourhood planning is not just for affluent communities and that we see it adopted right across the country. I have said before that I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the role he personally has played as an advocate of this policy. He will know that we make additional financial support available to groups in deprived areas, recognising that they need capacity support to produce the plans, and we recently confirmed that that support will be going forward over the next few years. He made a crucial point, however.

The hon. Gentleman’s second point was picked up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs, but it is worth reiterating from the Dispatch Box. Although at the moment the sample size is relatively small, there is clear evidence that neighbourhood plans that allocate sites for housing have actually provided for more housing than their relevant local authority was going to propose. I do not wish to make a party political point, because I am trying to encourage consensus, but I believe in passing power down to people, and it is a very powerful argument for doing so when we trust people to make decisions about their area and they respond in exactly the way we would want.

[John Mann]

That is a good socialist principle.

[Gavin Barwell]

Both sides of the House can lay claim to that good localist principle. The evidence is clear, and that is why the Government are keen to see neighbourhood planning turbocharged around the country. I will say a little more about that shortly, but first I want to respond to the points my right hon. Friend made, because the overall argument is relevant to both aspects.

I will deal with my right hon. Friend’s two amendments first, and then come on to the particular planning application he refers to. On amendment (a) to Lords amendment 4, the Government absolutely agree with him about the importance of neighbourhood forums and parish councils having sufficient time to consider planning applications when notified by local planning authorities, and, crucially, about the importance of their views being taken into account when local planning authorities make decisions. I can assure him and the House as a whole that we intend to update the secondary legislation to provide requirements for where forums and parish councils are automatically notified of planning applications under the new provisions.

The provisions will be consistent with the existing provisions in the development management procedure order relating to consultation on planning applications. They will include providing that a local planning authority must not determine any planning application where a parish council or designated neighbourhood forum has been notified and wishes to make representations before a minimum of 21 days has elapsed. It is already the case that a local planning authority must consider the representations received and whether considerations are raised that may be material to the application, but detailed requirements relating to the operation of the planning application process best sit in secondary rather than primary legislation, to ensure that we have the flexibility to keep procedures up to date. It would not surprise me if my right hon. Friend wanted to come back with further suggestions, and it is much easier to make suggestions if the matters are in secondary legislation. Having provided him with all the reassurances he wanted, I respectfully request that he does not press his amendment.

It is not necessarily for me to defend amendment (a) to Lords amendment 23, but let me say what I think Lord Taylor was driving at and then reassure my right hon. Friend on his particular points. At the moment, when somebody owns a piece of land that is not designated as suitable for housing or any other use and then, through a local plan process, the council changes that designation, the landowner sees a significant uplift in value. If a company or individual then acquires rights over that land and secures planning permission, there is a further uplift, and that planning permission may be traded several times. At the end of the process, several organisations or individuals have made a great deal of money and there is not a great deal of value in the land for providing the infrastructure that all our constituents tell us is vital to go along with housing. I think Lord Taylor is considering the extent to which, when changing the designation of land, the public sector can try to secure that land early in the process, avoiding the long chain I described and ensuring that more value is available to provide the required infrastructure.

Having said that, it is important that I provide my right hon. Friend with clarification about the regulations that will be made. I reassure him that the functions that could be transferred would not include functions that are the prerogative of the Secretary of State. Under the New Towns Act 1981, any compulsory purchase order sought by a new town development corporation must be submitted to and confirmed by the Secretary of State. That is the case for compulsory purchase orders sought by all bodies, and there will be no change to that position. That will be clear from the regulations, which will, subject to the enactment of this Bill, come to this House for approval. On that basis, I hope that my right hon. Friend will withdraw amendment (a) to Lords amendment 23.