Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Mawson Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mawson (CB)]

My Lords, I have just come out of a meeting this afternoon. I chair the regeneration and communities committee on the Olympic Park. I have been involved with the Olympic Park from the very beginning; I think this is year 18. We have been on a very long journey. Along with a colleague I wrote the document for Hazel Blears that eventually led to the setting up of the Olympic Park Legacy Company, which of course now is a corporation. So one has watched and been involved in all the detail of what is now happening in Stratford in east London, which is a very exciting cluster development. This afternoon we have seen a new school at Here East, businesses and housing all coming together.

There are one or two cautionary lessons. First, local authorities can be very good if you have the right leadership in place to drive them, but if you do not then very different things can go on. It is all about the people, not structures. I know from experience that local authorities, if they are not so good, can be warring factors and can play lots of politics around these things that do not deliver the best quality but sometimes undermine that.

Secondly, we have learned that it is important to have the right serious business partners on the board of the corporation who, together with public sector leaders and leaders in the social enterprise sector, buy into a narrative over a long period of time; and that getting the top, middle and bottom of these institutions to buy and act out that narrative is important as well.

Ultimately, it is all about people and relationships. Our experience suggests that giving local control is very important, but I suggest that it is not just about local authorities—it is about the relationships between people in business, the public sector and, particularly, the community sector. Sometimes local authorities can talk as though they represent and understand the local community, but I have found over the years that that might not actually be true. It is about the right relationships, the right people and the right experience around the table.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate on Amendment 2. I thank particularly the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, for moving it, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Best. I thank them both and indeed other noble Lords for their time and commitment on this issue and for the opportunity to discuss this matter. We have discussed it both in Committee and on Report, and I have been heartened to hear the support for the measure from across the Chamber.

This amendment seeks to support the creation of locally led garden towns and villages by enabling 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 or village. On the point made by my noble friend Lord Porter, I think the definition is broad enough to include unitary authorities; that is certainly the intention. On a different point about combined authorities that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, of course we can create mayoral development corporations in relation to the new combined authorities—we did so with Teesside a couple of weeks ago—so that could well be part of the deal with the new authority. However, along with other noble Lords, I would want to think carefully in conjunction with the combined authorities as to whether they wanted to take that power on. I think I am right in saying, although I may be wrong, that the designated garden towns and villages do not come within the purview of what at the moment is projected as a combined authority, but it is a point well made. Therefore, I would like to go away to ponder this and give a fuller response to the noble Lord, if I may, copying it to noble Lords who participated in the debate and putting a copy in the Library.

The aim of the amendment is entirely consistent with those of the Bill. The Government certainly support it and I thank in particular the noble Lord, Lord Best, for his pre-emptive congratulations on the Government’s support. The amendment is very consistent with the approach of the Government, the department and the recently published White Paper in relation to the importance of localism.

I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, about the importance of ensuring that all local authorities have the right attitude to these things. We hope that is accomplished through elections but the broad principle of it being done locally must be right. That has been echoed throughout the contributions on this legislation as it has gone through the House: local is better. We know that a number of local authorities—for example, those in north Essex—are interested in taking advantage of the new opportunity that the amendment would provide to support a new generation of locally led garden towns and villages, the 21st-century heirs to Letchworth and Welwyn.

I also welcome the support of the Local Government Association and the kind words of my noble friend Lord Porter for the principle behind the amendment. I am very pleased that it commands wide support throughout the House. This is a simple principle; making it work in practice will require detailed modifications to the New Towns Act, which my department will develop. We will want to keep in close contact with the noble Lords, Lord Taylor and Lord Best, both of whom I thank very much for the impetus and enthusiasm they have given this and the expertise they bring to the table. I pause at this stage to pay tribute to their work as effective champions of this issue throughout discussions on the Bill.

In conclusion, I am very pleased to support the noble Lord’s amendment, which will help to fulfil an important White Paper commitment.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor]

My Lords, I shall respond very briefly. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for all his support and encouragement, not only on this Bill but previously. I should also thank my noble friend Lady Parminter, who was in the Chamber but has had to go, for moving an amendment for me on Report that enabled this matter to be brought forward.

We have had a promise from the Minister to come back on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I should make it clear that the intention is absolutely that more than one local authority can be involved. We need to explore the mechanism for that and hear what the Minister has to say, but the ability for more than one authority to come together is here. I therefore imagine that in practice nothing would stand in the way of the point that was raised.

On the point of the noble Lord, Lord Porter, about unitary authorities, the intention is that they should be covered. Indeed, having worked very hard to support the creation of a unitary authority in Cornwall, I would be horrified if I had managed in any way to get the drafting wrong on that point, but I believe it is covered.

I absolutely take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, and thank him for his support. In my comments, I talked about the fact that although the mechanism is here for local authorities to take a leadership role, the expectation is absolutely for a partnership approach. I thought quite hard about how one might look at the structures of a corporation. It is very important that this is not a 1950s or 1960s view, whereby a local authority chief executive is appointed and gets on with the job. The world has moved on since then. My view has always been that you need, as we see in Europe and in the States, a master developer and a master planner; you need expertise and business experience.

I chair a joint strategic board for the Carclaze garden village, which has been many years in gestation. The key thing has been to bring together the local authority, the private sector-led development body and the landowner in a partnership. That partnership has been incredibly successful. It took the development through the recession after 2008. The developer is Egyptian-owned, so the partnership took it through the storms of the Arab spring in terms of its financing. It is now in front of planning, and I think will be delivered. That has been possible only because we have built a really strong partnership between all parties, including the private sector, so there is a very deep experience of people creating fantastic places for business reasons, as well as the very important experience of the council representing people and understanding the processes of local government. There has been a great partnership with the HCA as well.

I could not agree more with the noble Lord’s comments. That is why, although this provision uses the powers of the New Towns Act, it is very much in a 21st century setting—and that is not just about localism; it is about partnership between all the stakeholders. I also make the point that it is about holding people to promises, because too often people see wonderful designs at the stage when something is proposed, but the moment when it is allocated or an outline is commissioned, it is traded and traded and, somehow, it gets watered down and not delivered. That experience is important for business, too.

[Lord Mawson]

I welcome that, and I absolutely agree with the noble Lord. The Civil Service finds it very hard to understand—and I think that the noble Lord is saying the same thing—that what really matters is having people around the table from different sectors who care about the place and are going to stay on this journey a very long time. It takes a long time to deliver these things and it is very difficult, but it is all about having the right people—people who care.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor]

In every case when I have advised on new settlements coming forward, I have advised local authorities, councillors and communities but also those promoting the project to establish the basis of the joint venture and partnership for delivery of the original objectives and to hold people to it. It is only by getting everyone around the table jointly to discuss that—again, that is the case at Carclaze—at every key stage, whether in looking at the master plan and working out how to deliver affordable housing and quality, wherever the ultimate power may lie to take the decision, that we have all been jointly involved in coming to the right conclusion. That is what these bodies achieve; they are, ultimately, about keeping it honest, but they are also about getting it delivered. The noble Lord clearly has that experience in the Olympic context, and we need that experience in each of these initiatives.

The last thing that we want is to create bland housing estates in the countryside, not great communities. If we do the former, the project will die very quickly, and public enthusiasm will disappear; if we get it right, people will clamour for what are actually the intentions of the 1947 planning Act, when people talked about stopping suburban sprawl, rejuvenating cities and towns and building new communities to meet the needs of those who could not be housed. This is about returning to those objectives and putting back under control the suburban sprawl that we see once again too often around our historic towns and cities. It is a new option and a better one.

I thank the Minister very much for his supportive comments. We have worked very closely on getting this right.