Lord McKenzie of Luton
Main Page: Lord McKenzie of Luton (Labour - Life peer)Localism Bill
Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts
Lord Lucas
I will get around to addressing my amendments in a moment. First, I want to say how much I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and my noble friend Lord Greaves that there seems to be some need in this section for an ability to knock heads together. My brother first got involved in local politics when, in the local village, there was an ancient wall with a fast-growing young sycamore next to it. At the same moment, the owner of the wall was served with a notice to repair the wall where the tree was knocking it down and a tree preservation order on the tree. I will leave it to noble Lords to guess which party was in control of the district council at the time. It is hard enough to get a council to co-operate with itself, let alone two councils, particularly in the example that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, gave of Stevenage, where what is being asked of one council it really does not want to give and the residents do not want it to give. In those circumstances, some higher ability to make the process happen is important.
I have two questions to ask my noble friend on the Front Bench. First, I do not expect him to answer immediately, but how on earth are we going to finish this Bill in the time allotted? Looking at the time that we will take discussing neighbourhood planning, all the bits on housing and all the other bits, how can we accomplish all that is to come in in effect two and a bit days? It just does not seem possible. It must have consequences for how late the House sits. It may well have consequences for what days the House sits on. Thursday appears to be available if we stretch things a bit. I do not know, but it no longer seems possible to fit it into the time that we are supposed to be fitting it into, and I would like the Government to come clean with us as to how we are going to solve this conundrum. My noble friend might come back after the Statement with a long cape and a top hat and pull the proverbial rabbit out of it. Short of that, a plain answer from him via my noble friend the Chief Whip will be much appreciated.
Lastly, I hope my noble friend will not be troubled by my two amendments. Their purpose is to draw attention to the question of how, under this Bill, you have to pick a particular place to install a facility if you want to establish a network. It does not matter much where. It will affect only one local authority, but there is a choice of several local authorities into which it could go. Two examples come to mind. One is a rail head for the transfer of freight from road to rail and vice versa. You can probably put that in quite a number of places on the network, but how are you going to decide where to put it? For a pure road transport network, given current regulations, you need to develop places where lorry drivers can sleep overnight. Again, you have a wide choice along the motorway network of where these things should be. You have to produce several of them. They are quite big facilities these days. They are not just a field with some tarmac in it. They have to be secure, they have to be lit and they will have other facilities; but how are you going to decide where on the network these areas get put? It is important for the national network that these things exist, but local authorities will have to co-operate in deciding where they should be. I see nothing in the definition of “strategic”, at the bottom of page 72, that allows such matters to be included in this part of the Bill.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we have Amendments 147FKA, 147HZA, 147HCA and 147HF in this group, which I will speak to in a moment. I will start with the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas: how are we going to finish this Bill in time? I am sure the official answer will be that it depends on the usual channels and that it is not up to the Minister. However, given what we have to do, I reiterate the noble Lord’s point, which I know is shared by other noble Lords.
Our amendments are concerned with the duty to co-operate. We acknowledge that government amendments in the other place have improved the provisions, which have benefited from the input of the TCPI in particular. Notwithstanding this, we do not see the end result as providing a proper substitute for effective strategic planning for England. Many planning issues play out on a scale beyond local authority boundaries—the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, and my noble friend Lord Whitty talked about housing, climate, biodiversity and key infrastructure issues, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made a point about networks. I would say, without seeking to bring them back, whatever the difficulties with regional spatial strategies, they did provide a route to resolving these issues strategically. Is not the fundamental difficulty that the duty to co-operate will not deal with the hard issues that local authorities fall out over, particularly housing? My noble friend Lord Beecham instanced such a situation. This is an issue because there is at best a weak incentive for local planning authorities and others to comply with the duty, which is why I support the attempt of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, in Amendment 147P to get a quasi-appeal process embedded in the arrangements.
Compliance with the duty is tested when the Planning Inspectorate takes a view on whether the local development plan is sound. It is therefore judged in retrospect. Will the Minister say more about how it is all to work? Take housing, for example. One local authority may have a need for housing that it cannot accommodate within its boundaries but which it believes could be provided in a neighbouring authority. That is not a unique situation; it is certainly one that we face locally in Luton. There might be genuine engagement around the issue but a difference of view about whether the needs should be met. The local authority with capacity might choose to accommodate the housing need of another adjoining local planning authority, or it might wish to use the capacity for a form of development that would not particularly help the restricted authority.
Is the independent examination required by Section 20 of the 2004 Act going to take a view on whether the outcome of the engagement is fair, reasonable or the most appropriate, or is it simply going to take a view on whether there has been an engagement but no meeting of minds, with the duty nevertheless satisfied? Is it not the case that there will be no mechanism in law that can require one local authority to take housing pressures generated by a neighbour? I accept the point that has been made that in many cases local authorities readily co-operate and these issues will not arise in practice, but that is not the case universally. There are real issues that the Government have to answer regarding the duty to co-operate.
We know that there is no spatial boundary and no clear relationship with LEPs, a point that has been raised by a couple of noble Lords. There is no list of key issues that co-operation should include, no key plan or outcome of the suggested co-operation. Our approach will be to support all the amendments that address these shortcomings wholly or in part, and I believe that that is the thrust of pretty much every amendment in this group, particularly those promulgated by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves.
On our own amendments, Amendment 147FKA requires an integrated transport authority and marine plan authority to be specifically included as persons to whom the duty to co-operate applies. This is a probing amendment to inquire whether there is any update of the draft list of public bodies that by order will be subject to that duty. ITAs are included on the list, as is the Marine Management Organisation, a point addressed by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I presume, as he outlined, that the latter covers a marine plan authority. What will the position be after the demise of PCTs, which are included in the draft list? Will GP consortia be included in it?
Amendment 147HCA adds to the activities that must be the subject of constructive engagement. They include the local transport plan and the preparation of joint infrastructure planning guidance as well as other activities that support sustainable development. Amendment 147HF expands on the requirements for the preparation of joint infrastructure planning guidance, how it should proceed and what it is to cover. Amendment 147HZA further qualifies that the active engagement should be with the objective of achieving sustainable development, consistent with the ethos that we are seeking to embed within the Bill.
I am conscious that the Minister might argue that a lot of these matters are going to be fleshed out in the NPPF. When we debated this last week, though, there was no enthusiasm for the Government to make this a statutory document. It is therefore just guidance, and anyway the NPPF is not supposed to contain anything like the level of detail necessary to ensure effective strategic co-operation. Generic planning policy does not amount to a spatial plan that shows where things go and how they relate to each other.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
The process of co-operative working actually requires co-operation and a sense of shared purpose in serving the communities that the local authorities represent. There may well be tensions. There may well be situations where there is difficulty in seeking agreement. The law will place on local authorities a duty to seek to resolve these differences. If they show that they have not considered the outcomes of a co-operative process in formulating their local plans, those plans will be rejected. There is, therefore, gentle coercion. However, as with all circumstances where power is being devolved down to local authorities, the public interest is being vested in those democratically elected bodies—namely, the local authorities concerned. That is the purpose of this legislation. I do not need to lecture the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on the virtues of democracy and the accountability that comes with it. What is missing is the sense that Whitehall is looming large over the whole process and is seeking to put pressure to achieve a particular outcome through this process. It is important to emphasise that.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
The noble Lord has been generous in speaking to all the amendments, but I want to be clear on the housing issue that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, described. We have a similar issue in Luton. One authority with a desperate need for affordable housing that cannot be accommodated within the borough may look across the boundary and see opportunities there, but the other authority may take the view, “We don’t want any of this affordable housing encroaching upon our villages”. How is that situation to be resolved? You might have one authority that has genuinely gone through a consultation exercise, has taken a view, and has said, “We don’t want that form of housing here”. Another authority may have a desperate need for that housing. When the soundness of the plan is due to be judged, will the inspector involved just see whether or not the processes and so on have complied with what is required under the co-operation duty, or will there be some value judgment that the inspector can make, and say, “In all the circumstances, this was an outrageous position for you to take, and you have therefore not complied with the duty to co-operate”?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
It may be easier to consider the detail of the point that the noble Lord has raised when we come to discuss the next series of amendments. In general terms, there will be evaluations not just of the outcome of the local plan but of the way in which evidence has been collected together in order to provide that plan. That is perhaps a safeguard that we might have. We will have an opportunity to talk about housing in particular, so I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me if I seek to move on—I have been talking a long time, but there were a lot of amendments.
In winding up, let me deal with Amendment 147HN, which seeks to define planning documents by referring to town and country planning and marine planning legislation. However, the term “planning documents” is not used in the provision. As it stands, the duty covers all local planning authority documents that set out their policies in relation to the development and use of land. It also covers marine plans. This amendment is therefore unnecessary.
Amendment 147LA, which seeks to require the bodies subject to the duty to co-operate to have regard to the activities of prescribed bodies, is also unnecessary as this is already provided for in Clause 95, in new Section 33A(2)(b).
I now come to an exciting point in bold type that says that Amendment 147Q addresses a typographical error in Clause 95. We are happy to accept this amendment when it is moved by the noble Lord. I hope that noble Lords will remind me when that particular amendment is called.
I will close by saying that I am satisfied that the duty to co-operate will ensure that local councils, county councils and other bodies work together in the spirit of constructive and active dialogue. That will maximise effective working in the preparation of local and marine plans in relation to strategic cross-boundary issues and county matters. With these reassurances, I hope that the noble Lords are willing to withdraw the amendments.