Localism Bill

Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Finsbury]

My Lords, I support the noble Lords, Lord Borrie and Lord Black, in welcoming the Government’s amendment and I agree with them about withdrawing our alternative amendments.

As chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority I believe strongly in the enormous value of responsible advertising. The outdoor advertising industry is, overwhelmingly, hugely responsible. The amendment ensures that that responsibility and the freedom to advertise that goes along with it will remain firmly in place, and sensibly so. I welcome the Government’s amendment. I thank them for listening and for producing a highly acceptable formula in their amendment.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, we obviously support the Government’s amendments on retrospective planning permission, particularly those in relation to unauthorised advertisements. I understand that my noble friend Lord Borrie and his colleagues will not press their amendments. The Government should be congratulated on listening to the arguments from across the House and the discussions that took place outside the Chamber. We have got a good outcome to this issue which we support. We thank the Government for listening.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, I am grateful for those four splendid contributions.

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[Lord Boyd of Duncansby]

My Lords, this is the first time that I have spoken on Report, so I repeat my declaration of interest: I am a solicitor in private practice and registered as a foreign lawyer in England and Wales, and some of my practice involves planning. I recollect that in Committee I stood to support amendments in terms very similar to those before the House this evening. I cannot now recollect in whose names the amendments stood, but I was pleased that the Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, offered to discuss that issue. It may be that I and others took our eyes off the ball, as it were, in following up the matter. I do not want to take the time of the House unnecessarily because both my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, have gone through remarkably succinctly the detail of the amendments in the group.

The central issue is that the development consent order is expected to be an omnibus order that will encompass a range of other consents and will reduce the number of applications that a developer has to make, thereby making the development procedure that much easier.

The amendments address two issues seriously. The first is the range of further consents required beyond the development consent order. My noble friend Lord Berkeley listed the consents that are still needed—another 42 are still required, including 36 in Wales. Of course, there are occasions when you require specialist input that only specialist agencies can give—these are necessary safeguards—but, on the other hand, the policy behind this ought to be to reduce to the minimum the number of other consents that are required. That would be consistent with this Government’s approach to reducing regulation and removing red tape. There are a large number of these further consents that can be effectively removed without reducing the necessary safeguards. At Committee stage, I gave an example of the London Gateway Port Harbour Empowerment Order 2008, which is an order under the Harbours Act which included provisions for the benefit of the Environment Agency, and would be a model for that.

The second strand is the further consents and procedures necessary on top of what the IPC grants in a development consent order—in other words, the further consents from the Secretary of State where, for example, land of statutory undertakers is being compulsorily acquired or the special parliamentary procedure applies. This procedure is not one that is used very often, yet we find, as my noble friend Lord Berkeley said, that the first application to be granted by the IPC requires that further consent.

Some might say that we need to have a proper check and balance. I accept that when the Infrastructure Planning Commission, which the Government told us was an unelected quango, was making its decisions independently of any outside scrutiny, it might then have been appropriate to keep a number of other procedures and safeguards in process—safeguards which were accountable. Now that we have the Secretary of State giving the final decision, you can incorporate within that the necessary safeguards that some noble Lords may wish to see.

There are also, within this group, issues in relation to the discharge of requirements. I do not intend to take up the House’s time on that, but there are important issues in relation to ensuring that the regime that we create works effectively and that the transition from the Infrastructure Planning Commission, which makes the decision at present, to one where the Secretary of State is deciding on the recommendations of the major infrastructure unit of the Planning Inspectorate, is effective too.

I hope that the Minister will look at these issues seriously. They are important and they are designed to reduce the amount of bureaucracy and red tape that there is and make this a streamlined process.

I make one final point. A European Commission study into the consenting regimes for major infrastructure projects throughout the European Union commended the one-stop shop, which at the moment is encompassed within the Infrastructure Planning Commission, but which, when this Bill goes through, will still be there but with the Secretary of State. My understanding is that the European Commission is likely to make regulations to ensure the acceleration of the deployment of priority energy infrastructure projects by concentrating resources, simplifying and enhancing permission procedures and making use of innovative financial instruments. In order to enhance national permitting and granting processes, each member state will be required to create a competent authority—a one-stop shop—responsible for those tasks. Therefore, it looks as though we will get a seal of approval, if that is required, from the European Commission. We can make things better.

I hope that the Minister will take away these matters and look at them seriously.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, it is unfortunate that a raft of technical amendments have come forward very late in the day, and seemingly in an environment where the promised engagement in Committee was not fully realised. That is not the best way for us to deal with these hugely important matters. It means that we are stacking up yet another issue to deal with at Third Reading. Whether we get through Third Reading in one day remains to be seen.

I hope that we all agree that, in relation to infrastructure, we want an efficient and effective system of dealing with planning. We have heard arguments about a one-stop shop and the extent to which we are some way from that. We have heard about the issues around the extent to which there should be a parliamentary process now that the Secretary of State is the ultimate decision-maker. I say to my noble and learned friend Lord Boyd and to my noble friend Lord Berkeley that I would need a bit of convincing to step aside from a parliamentary procedure just because the Secretary of State is making the final decision. We have debated the Bill in some detail and the issue of the powers of the Secretary of State has been a running sore in our deliberations, but I remain to be convinced on that.

Certainly I agree with and support the importance of having a one-stop shop on the raft of consents that apparently are still needed. However, the clock is ticking on Third Reading. This is an opportunity to sort out some issues, but we do not have much time in which to do it. It may be, as my noble and learned friend Lord Boyd said, that the EU could overtake us on this matter. We have a couple of weeks before Third Reading and there are very serious issues that have been raised tonight by all three noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, also raised new points that we had not touched on before about who can make these qualifying requests, as well as issues around pre-application consultation. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us a full response on these issues. Generally, I find that we are in an unsatisfactory position on a hugely important issue for this country.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. On the point about meetings, I cannot understand what has gone wrong. I would never resist meetings, not least because I find them so valuable. It is my responsibility to call a meeting. On the other hand, if it looks as though the meeting is not going to happen, a reminder would be helpful—and I do enjoy the meetings that I have with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley.

We are very short on time. The amendments in this group seek to change the Planning Act 2008. Although they are technical in nature, they are none the less important, so I shall respond to each in turn. Amendments 223AA and 223AB, in the name of my noble friend Lord Jenkin, seek to limit the circumstances in which a qualifying request for a direction under Section 35 of the Planning Act 2008, as amended by Clause 120 of the Localism Bill, may be made. The amendments would restrict those who can make a qualifying request to the proposed applicant and the authority in question. Amendment 223AB would prevent a qualifying request from being made after an application is made to the relevant authority.

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[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I assure the House that I shall be quicker than the last group of amendments. This is something that has come up quite recently, when we have tried to see how the IPC and the Planning Act 2008 should be applied to railway projects. It appears that there is no minimum size for railway projects to have to go to the IPC under the Planning Act. The example that has been brought to my attention is the electrification of the Great Western main line between Airport Junction, which is near Heathrow, and Cardiff, where Network Rail may have to demolish certain bridges or do other works. It mainly has the permitted development rights for those works but some of them may creep a few yards outside those rights. It has been suggested that any such creep would need permission through the IPC, so the amendment suggests that it would be nice if the Secretary of State were minded to direct that specific and maybe small developments outside the limits of permitted developments could proceed without any other process, on the basis that they were quite small.

It is not just about the electrification of the Great Western main line. The East West Rail project, roughly between Oxford and Milton Keynes, has found two places where the existing railway has never had permission. One little connection between two lines was built in the last war and nobody can find the documentation giving it permission; it may be with the British Rail Property Board but it has not found it. There is another place where the route that got permission went through a farm and the actual railway went round it; clearly the person owning the farm at the time saw somebody all right and there was a gentle deviation, which of course was no problem 150 years ago. Quite rightly, the promoters of this line want to get the legal situation correct before they start building.

There is a problem here which requires some change to the Planning Act, probably to Section 14. Perhaps the Secretary of State might be minded to bring forward regulations to find a way of getting some smaller railway projects permissions in a process outside of the IPC, which is meant for big projects and takes a long time to do. One can debate whether the problems here are with the Transport and Works Act, an ordinary planning application or something else, but I am sure the Minister will understand them. Maybe he has a better solution. I am grateful to him for the meeting that he arranged some time this summer. I cannot remember when it was now but we had a good discussion about this. What we do not want is for our new Secretary of State for Transport to turn round in six months’ time and say that the electrification is held up for a couple of years because they cannot get permission for a couple of yards’ extension to a bridge and that it has to go to the IPC. On that basis, I beg to move.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, my noble friend has brought forward what seems to be an entirely reasonable proposition. I look forward to the Minister’s reply. I add only that I do not know whether the same issue arises in relation to projects other than railway projects. Perhaps the Minister can cover that as well.

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[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I was thinking, as that speech went on, what it would have been like if we had been discussing, a couple of hundred years ago, the idea of opening up deep-mine coal in northern England. I think we would have been rather more aware of the dangers and that the dangers would have been rather more real. Houses do fall down coal-mines from time to time; the idea that they could fall down a hole made by fracking gas two miles deep is really not tenable. I am very sad to say this, as an ex-member of both Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, but there is a typical, current environmentalist film around called “Gasland”, which, as far as I can establish, peddles nothing but lies, including that tap. If you drill a well through coal-seams you get gas out of it. That is not surprising, and methane is not exactly dangerous anyway. We are talking about a technology that, by and large, chucks household chemicals two miles deep. There is a chance of them coming back to the surface, but I am sure we will be careful about what we allow to be stuck down the wells.

I am someone who, although I do not have the pleasure of living in Lancashire, has lived in the Hampshire oilfields. Noble Lords may remember that in the 1980s there was a nice little mini-boom in wells all over mid-Hampshire, which we suffered happily without any great effect. There was a month when the drills were busy and then you were just left with a hut. That is really what happens with shale gas; you have a well every half kilometre or so and you are left with a garden shed that produces gas. It is not exactly an environmental problem, other than the interference when the drilling is going on. I think this is something that we will deal with extremely well within the boundaries of our ordinary and sensible systems for dealing with potential environmental hazards and for planning.

In fact, the Bill will make things better, because one of the problems with such developments in the past has been that they have benefited the oil company, they have benefited the Government and benefited the landowner who is lucky enough to have the well drilled on his patch, but the local community, which has put up with the noise, the transport during the drilling and the continuing risk of something going on with the well, gets nothing. Under the Bill, of course—under neighbourhood planning—the benefit will be shared and that will be a great step forward.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, if I understand my noble friend’s proposition, it is that the hydraulic fracturing of underground rock will be brought within the national infrastructure projects regime, the planning regime that deals with major projects. I think that is central to what my noble friend is moving. We have had a wider debate about the potential importance of shale gas, what that might mean and the risks associated with it. It seems to me that we need a broader regime that encompasses all those issues: licensing regimes, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, not only to deal with exploration, but with exploitation as well. If there is to be no national infrastructure projects approach to this, then planning, presumably, is a matter for local planning authorities and, indeed, neighbourhood planning. That does not seem to me to fit well with something that is potentially of huge national significance, with potentially huge risks and uncertainties attached to it.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said that this issue is worthy of a further debate. Perhaps when we have debated the NPPF to death we might turn our attention to it. I am a novice on this, but it is a fascinating and hugely important issue. I can remember when North Sea oil first opened up. It was a project on which I worked in my former life and I know some of the debate that went on around that. However, if I understand it correctly, my noble friend’s proposition about the environment within which the planning ought to be considered is a straightforward one, and he makes a good case.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, Amendment 223B seeks to require the Secretary of State, by order, within 12 months of Royal Assent, to add hydraulic fracturing of underground rock, commonly known as “fracking”, to the list of nationally significant infrastructure projects in Section 14(1) of the 2008 Act.

The first exploration for shale gas in the UK has begun only recently. Fracturing has so far been used on one shale gas drill site in Lancashire but is currently suspended pending a geomechanical study into seismic activity.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, raised some wider planning issues, but fracking is no more difficult or technical than other mineral extraction methods, and my noble friend Lord Lucas said as much. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, covered some of the regulatory issues, and I shall not go over that ground again. My noble friend Lord Jenkin referred to a small earthquake. Of course he was actually referring to a seismic event, which is slightly different.

The amendment would require hydraulic fracturing to be added to the types of activity that are considered nationally significant. It is not necessary, however, to use this Bill for that purpose; a secondary power exists to achieve this. I am happy to undertake that this issue will be raised with my colleagues in the Department of Energy and Climate Change and, if it appears appropriate to the purposes of the Bill to add this type of activity to the list of nationally significant infrastructure projects, we will use the secondary power. On that basis, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

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This is a sensible and modest amendment and it is one which would significantly improve the operation of the local planning system. I beg to move.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, we are in total agreement with the amendment; indeed we should have added our name to it. I apologise for not having done that. One of the issues that was raised previously was about regulation, and if you have a new regulation then something has got to go. I would urge the Government not only to take on board this proposition but to look and see what might be gained by trying to streamline other notification procedures, particularly in relation to building regulations and notifications in respect of the community infrastructure levy. Why can these not potentially be combined into one notification procedure? So you have got two out, and only one in, on that basis. That notwithstanding, it does seem a very sensible proposition which we support.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, my noble friend’s Amendment 223C is, as he has said, a simpler, more permissive version of the one he tabled in Committee. However, I regret to say that it still does not overcome the Government’s concerns that this would add yet a further element of complexity and box-ticking to the application process for both the applicant and the local planning authorities and yet yield no practical benefit for local planning authorities.

In the March 2011 Plan for Growth, the Government clearly cited the problem of the cumulative additional cost to business of new regulations introduced since 1998. It is essential that reforms continue to reduce costs, delays and bureaucracy in the planning system and support the Government’s collective approach to driving sustainable economic growth. Local planning authorities can, and do, ask for notification of commencement of development when and where they think it necessary. A developer failing to notify the local authority that the works had commenced would not be a good start to the relationship between them.

My noble friend may argue that an administrative scheme has no teeth if the developer does not return the form but the Government’s view is that new Section 106D, to be inserted by the amendment, would have no teeth either. Making the commencement of development without giving notice a breach of planning control implies that enforcement action could be taken. However, the point of enforcement action is to remedy breaches of planning control. Once development has started it will no longer be possible to give prior notice, so the breach could not technically be remedied and enforcement action would be ineffective. If it turns out that the developer has failed to comply with pre-commencement conditions as well as not giving notice, then the local planning authority can take such action as it sees fit, perhaps by serving a breach of condition notice.

The Government’s view is that this amendment will inject additional complexity into the planning process yet provide little practical benefit. I invite my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Best]

My Lords, I think the government amendment does something helpful. Councillors on planning committees have to face the accusation, if they are not careful, that they are selling planning consents, that they are just doing it for the money. There is ambivalence as to whether they can take on board the fact that it is surely important to consider that the local community may benefit financially from what happens if the development goes ahead.

The Minister has clarified the circumstances in which it is entirely legitimate for the planning committee to say, “Yes, we have taken on board the fact that there are financial gains for the locality as a result of this. It is not the only thing we take into account. It has no greater weight than the other material considerations. The fact that local people are going to benefit from this”—as the noble Earl made so clear—“can be taken into account, but don’t let anybody accuse us, the planning committee, of just doing it for the money. We’re doing something that is legitimate”, as this clause makes clear. I think it can be quite helpful.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 223D to leave out Clause 130 and in support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Hamwee, my noble friend Lord Howarth and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. To argue that these amendments are unnecessary and that this clause is necessary because it addresses the issue of confusion seems to be turning the matter on its head. We know there is confusion because the clause exists. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said that it takes something to get the CPRE, the TCPA and the RTPI in the same position and all very concerned about this. They do not arrive at spurious conclusions. They have impressed on us and all noble Lords their real concerns about the impact of these provisions.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, said that the provision helps councillors understand what they can and cannot do. The Government’s basic proposition in this is that the clause does not change the law. If the clause does not change the law, why have it? The proposition that noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred to—that it does no harm—is an extremely spurious basis on which to legislate, particularly in such an important area. I accept that the Minister made some effort to differentiate situations where material considerations—local financial considerations—can legitimately be taken into account from those where they cannot, but that analysis does not depend upon the clause and the amendments before us but upon the law as it currently is. Are we not much better off leaving the law as it currently is rather than introducing something that does not, with great respect, clarify matters but adds to the confusion?

The very existence of the clause, amended or not, has caused great controversy. What changes the existing position? How does the new homes bonus or CIL change, from the Government’s point of view, and to what extent can it be taken into account as a material consideration? As I understand it from the Minister, nothing changes. All it does is describe the law as it is. If that description is the cause of confusion and uncertainty, surely we are better off without it. It seems a very straightforward proposition. It seems to me that the onus should be on those seeking to introduce and sustain the clause as amended to explain why. To say that it does no harm is a totally inadequate justification for a provision that is causing great consternation among many people involved in planning, who are experts and who have been in the field for a very long time. I urge the Government to reconsider this matter. If the only justification for the clause is that it will help to deal with uncertainty, I hope the Minister will accept just from the discussion tonight that in many quarters it clearly does not and that we are better off without it.

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[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, I discussed this amendment to a certain extent at an earlier stage. Therefore, I do not feel I need to say very much, especially so late at night.

The reason for tabling it is that there are little pockets of between two and five acres in between lots of other houses and buildings. I know of some that are described as green belt and are so listed and yet there is a conference centre next to them and huge buildings around them. To my mind, those are infill sites. I do not know the government ruling as to what exactly comprises an infill site, but it seems to me that if you have a small patch of land, whatever its classification, it is not really green belt if it is just a little bit in the middle of places. Yet it might already have all the infrastructure of transport, electricity and the things that are needed for development, and could provide a valuable space for either a children’s home or housing or something of that type. It is for that reason that I move this amendment.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, the issue of green belt is one of those matters which has caused great consternation. Obviously, we will have to await the final version of the NPPF. Of course, it is not for me to defend the NPPF in its current form, but as currently drafted it seems to address what the noble Baroness is in part seeking. The NPPF states that:

“A local planning authority should regard the construction of new buildings as inappropriate in Green Belt. Exceptions to this are: limited infilling in villages, and limited affordable housing for local community needs under policies set out in the Local Plan; or limited infilling or the partial or complete redevelopment of previously developed sites”.

That is envisaged within the NPPF as I understand it.

In terms of the infrastructure, it is not always right that the services and infrastructure exist before, rather than being provided as a consequence or as part of, the development. I understood that it might be implicit in the noble Baroness’s amendment that it needed to be there before, rather than arising as an alternative. Therefore, I struggle to support the amendment in its current form. But the issues around development in the green belt are very important. We need to track what is going to happen and what the final version of the NPPF will be.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, my noble friend’s amendment seeks to allow infilling on green belt land if,

“sufficient infrastructure and services exist as to make the development reasonable”.

This test is not related to green belt policy, which is about preserving openness, preventing the unrestricted sprawl of built-up areas and preventing the merger of towns. You could well have land with sufficient infrastructure, but allowing development on it would put at risk the key principles of the green belt policy. In any case, the law already requires determinations under the Planning Acts to be made in accordance with the development plan,

“unless material considerations indicate otherwise”.

Infrastructure is one of the material considerations routinely taken into account by decision-makers in planning cases.

As observed by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, the draft national planning policy framework contains the Government’s proposed policies on planning, including the green belt. It includes exceptions, set out in a similar way as current green belt policy, for certain categories of development. For example, it allows for the re-use of buildings, and the extension or replacement of dwellings. It also provides for the infilling or redevelopment of previously developed sites. I believe that these policies provide the flexibility to achieve the outcomes which my noble friend is seeking.

Given that current national policy has delivered a strong level of protection, I do not think it appropriate to make changes to green belt policy through legislative means. If changes are required to green belt policy, they should be carefully considered as part of the ongoing consultation and, if appropriate, taken forward through the framework. I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

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[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, because of the time of night, I shall make a couple of statements rather than explain them. This is not the right Bill or the time to do this. It probably does not require any amendment to Section 15 of the Commons Act. It can be dealt with in two ways: first, local authorities can pull their fingers out and not be unnecessarily legalistic and bureaucratic, which in my experience they have been; and, secondly, by tweaking secondary legislation. It is not necessary to do it here. The problem can be solved in a much more efficient way in secondary legislation through Defra.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Best, in what he seeks. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, says that this is not the right Bill. It may be that it is not appropriate to put something in primary legislation but, surely, it is absolutely pertinent that we discuss it in the context of the Bill before us. It cannot be outwith the thrust of this Bill, given the whole range of stuff that is encompassed in it. I think that the noble Lord is simply seeking clarification of what the Government intend, what they propose to do, and when and how they propose to do it. If it is in secondary legislation, that is fine, but clarity is needed.

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Moved by

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

232AA: After Clause 131, insert the following new Clause—
“Report on Part 5
(1) The Secretary of State must—
(a) establish an independent review of the planning provisions introduced by Part 5;(b) publish a report on this review, including any recommendations for change; and(c) lay a copy of the report before both Houses of Parliament within 3 years of section 97 coming into force.(2) The report required under subsection (2) must, in particular—
(a) have regard to and report on the effectiveness of the provisions in producing sustainable development outcomes;(b) report on the extent to which planning permission has been granted in respect of brownfield land;(c) report on the extent to which open spaces and the green belt have been protected;(d) report on the extent to which affordable and sustainable housing targets have been achieved;(e) provide statistical information about the number of planning applications that were approved, approved but not actioned, or appealed before and after the commencement of that Part.”

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 232AA. This calls for an independent review of the provisions of Part 5 of this Act; it calls for a report of this review, and it requires a copy of the report to be presented to both Houses of Parliament.

In particular, it requires the report to cover the effectiveness of sustainable development outcomes; the extent to which brownfield land has been developed; the extent to which green belt has been protected; whether affordable housing targets have been achieved; and data about planning approvals and rejections, et cetera. In short, it requires taking stock of how the new planning landscape is working in practice. It will no doubt be argued that there is going to be post-legislative scrutiny of this legislation in any event, but we consider the ramifications of this part of the Localism Bill to be of particular significance and that it should have this special focus. It requires this report within three years of entry into force, but this timescale is not sacrosanct for us.

If Ministers have confidence in their case, this should not present a difficulty. There can be no doubt that in recent months, since the publication of this Bill, and particularly since the publication of the draft NPPF, the profile of planning—and the purpose of planning—has been raised in our country and our communities. One would not normally expect to see headlines in the Telegraph dominated by planning matters; and we have in a way been startled spectators in unpleasant exchanges between the Planning Minister and no less a body than the National Trust.

Whatever the Government intended to be the outcome of these proposed changes to our planning system, there is no doubt that the way they have gone about it has caused chaos and added huge uncertainty in the planning system, of itself creating paralysis and holding back growth, the very thing they were supposedly designed to stimulate. The fears are that the Government were redefining the purpose of the planning system and refocusing on economic growth to the detriment of the broader requirements of sustainable development. There were plenty of signals to this effect: the presumption in favour of sustainable development; the denial hitherto of transitional provisions; the very wording of the NPPF, which contains no recognisable definition of sustainable development; the scrapping of “brownfield first”; and the inevitable uncertainty created by cramming 1,000 pages of regulation and guidance into 50, even accounting for the removal of overlaps and duplication. Alongside this was the introduction of the neighbourhood planning regime, to be supported by local planning authorities at a time of stretched resources; the duty to co-operate as a substitute for regional and sub-regional spatial strategies; and the operation of the new homes bonus as the supposed driver of new dwellings. Uncertainty abounds. We need a process for Parliament to be able to take stock of where this is all taking us. I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas]

I hope we see annual reports. This is such an exciting, interesting and unexplored area that we are going into that we really need to know what is going on rather earlier than three years. However, I would measure things in a much happier vein than the list of grizzles in proposed subsection (2) in this amendment. It is going to make a great change and advance to people’s lives—and I would like to see that documented—as much as create possible pitfalls.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, at this time of night I am going to resist the temptation thrown at me by the Labour Lord opposite to discuss further the sustainable development in the NPPF—great sighs of relief opposite. I will therefore confine myself to the proposal that there should be a report on progress.

We agree that there should be a transparent system for monitoring and reporting. As with decentralising decision-making over housing and planning matters to councils and local communities, we expect them to report progress on all aspects of planning and to make this available to local communities to whom they are accountable. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 already places a duty on councils to undertake a survey of matters affecting the development of their area, including—I promise I will not go back to sustainable development again—its physical, economic, social and environmental characteristics.

The council is already required to produce an annual monitoring report of local planning activity. Our proposals in the Bill and local planning regulations, on which we have recently consulted, will streamline the process for preparing these reports, reducing the burden on councils and strengthening public accountability. Local planning regulations will also require councils to report progress in relation to neighbourhood development plans and demonstrate how they have worked with others under the duty to co-operate.

My department will support councils in this process by continuing to produce official statistics that can contribute to the evidence base used by councils to develop their plans. With these reassurances, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that response but it did not deal with the central point. I accept that there are a range of reporting requirements for local authorities over a range of aspects, but the purpose of this amendment was to say that we have a new system here. A great deal of uncertainty surrounds it. It is right that both Houses of Parliament should be able to take stock of how it has worked out overall. If I understood him, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, was in favour of more frequent reporting than three years. Three years does not seem an unreasonable timeframe. It would be a pity if we could not take the whole of Part 5 and have some report back on how it has all worked out as a package at a macro level. This is not the time of night to pursue this in greater depth, but I ask the Government to reconsider this issue. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 232AA withdrawn.

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[Lord Boyd of Duncansby]

My Lords, briefly, Clause 218 was put in without any debate in Committee. I simply thank the Government for having looked at the issue, bringing forward Clause 218 and then engaging with the Compulsory Purchase Association to discuss the amendments that are now being moved by the Government. I very much welcome this. Part 8 is an important part of the new Bill. I thank noble Lords for their time.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I am grateful that noble Lords have heard the reassurance and thanks of my noble and learned friend Lord Boyd directly. We have relied on him for advice on the appropriateness of this and are happy to support the amendments.

Amendment 232AB agreed.

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[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, this not-quite-final group consists of minor technical and consequential amendments to Part 9 and the schedules to the Bill that have not been picked up in earlier groups. I beg to move.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I thought that we were going to have a short speech from the Minister. The first few amendments here are to do with transfer schemes and tax issues arising from the core cities amendments that we discussed earlier, so I am happy to support them, and indeed the rest of the amendments in this group.

Amendment 232AS agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

241: Clause 221, page 201, line 34, after “7(3),” insert—
“(ba) an order under section (Power to transfer local public functions to permitted authorities) (but see section (Orders under section (Power to transfer local public functions to permitted authorities): procedure),”