Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I do not want to take up too much time, because much has already been said, but I want to add a couple of points that have perhaps not already been made and expand on one point from the noble Lord, Lord Young. It is really important to acknowledge that the Government have found the means to increase planning fees for major and minor applications to 35% and 25% respectively. That is a positive move in the right direction and it has to be applauded.

As always, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, has nailed Amendment 267 and I want to expand on one of his comments, on devolution. In reality, councils are effectively asked—and in effect taxpayers are asked—to subsidise a whole range of services, not just planning services. Licensing fees are one, and the one that really gets my goat is supplying credit agencies with the electoral register. There is a statutory cap on what can be charged, regardless of the actual cost. Even with land searches, which councils have to do the work on, the Land Registry actually gets the cash. I think it is an area that is ripe for looking at, particularly as we are in cash-strapped times; other agencies and other companies, not just the taxpayer, should pay the bill.

My only caveat about letting each individual council area decide absolutely on its fees is that “To those who have, more shall be given”. In areas where developers want to build—they are usually the areas where it is most lucrative and they will get the most profit—they will be able to get away with charging much higher fees simply because they can. I think the opposite should be true, so Amendment 267, which refers to the actual costs, is the fairest way of dealing with this, especially as salaries and other incidentals also vary depending on the geographical area that a council sits in.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in giving general support to the thrust of the amendments, not only on the grounds advanced by other noble Lords but because they would mitigate something I regard as a positive evil. It has become possible in recent years for major developers proposing major projects to offer to local planning authorities to fund the salary of a planning officer to help deal with their case. When I had responsibility in a London borough for planning policy, I resisted accepting that sort of offer, but perhaps we could afford to do so.

This strikes to some extent at the heart of public confidence in the planning system, which is always a little fragile. Noble Lords who have been involved in it will know that there are always people who suspect that there has been a fix and that something corrupt is going on, but that is not the case in my experience. However, to allow a developer to fund a planning officer only exaggerates that perception and damages public confidence in the planning system. The way out of this, not least in the context of devolution, must be to allow the charges to cover the costs. It also seems appropriate if we want to empower elected officials in local authorities. It is open to the possibility of abuse, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said, and a local authority could seek to deter applications by setting punitively high fees, but my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham’s amendment broadly addresses that possibility. It might need a little refinement, but the principle is none the less clear and acceptable. I encourage support for this amendment because we are not taking sufficient notice of the evil I mentioned, which harms the planning system.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 267 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, was music to my ears; Amendment 287 from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is very similar. I have never understood why the public purse—the hard-pressed local government public purse at that—has to subsidise the development industry even for the very largest and most profitable developments. We have long spoken about a “polluter pays” principle in discussions on the environment; perhaps it is time we had a “profiter pays” principle in planning.

This issue has long been debated in local government. It is the subject of general incredulity that, at this time of financial crisis for local government, it is still allowed to continue. The Local Government Association has lobbied consistently on this point, stating in its recent response:

“We welcome the proposal to increase planning application fees, as it has for a long time been our position that there is a need for a well-resourced planning system. However, the Government should go further by allowing councils to set planning fees locally.”


I do not think it is a surprise to any noble Lords that local authority planning departments are at full stretch already. The noble Lord, Lord Young, referred to how they will respond to the 47 clauses in this Bill, never mind the issue of street votes—they will have plenty of work to do, that is for sure. It is an area of specialism where there are considerable shortages of professionals. In spite of a great deal of work being done to encourage young people to consider planning as a career and increase the number of routes into the profession, there remain difficulties in recruitment and retention. This is even worse in areas surrounding London, where it is almost impossible for local authorities to compete with the packages offered to planning officers in London.

This is exacerbated by the pressure of work; I know that many noble Lords in the Chamber will have sat through contentious planning application hearings, and I do not think any of us would be surprised to learn that our officers subject themselves to considerable stress. Therefore, it is only right that the industry makes a fair contribution to the cost of processing applications where it will reap substantial developer profit. This will enable local authorities to ensure that their planning teams are resourced adequately.

We also strongly support Amendment 283 in the name of my noble friend Lady Young, and so ably moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. She is absolutely right that statutory consultees, often hard-pressed themselves, should be able to recover the costs from applicants. I understand that of the £50 million bill for this, cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, 60% was incurred by Natural England and the Environment Agency as the two statutory consultees dealing with the greatest number of planning consultations. It was as far back as 2018 that the top five statutory consultees came together to form a working group to identify potential alternative funding mechanisms to address the increasingly critical and unsustainable position. They made recommendations to DLUHC in March 2019. This work highlighted the need for a change in primary legislation to provide a broad enabling power under which statutory planning consultees could pass on the costs incurred in providing statutory advice to applicants, either as part of the existing planning fees or as an additional separate charge.

We welcome the inclusion of a power in the LURB to enable statutory consultees to recover costs incurred in providing advice on nationally significant infrastructure projects. That alone, though, makes only a modest contribution to addressing the challenge of establishing the sustainable funding model. I believe for Natural England, approximately 70% of the statutory consultation work will continue to be reliant on grant in aid. Will the Government introduce a power that will help us? If not, the Government are, in effect, committing to rely on the Exchequer as the primary means of funding the essential role that statutory consultees play in support of the operation of the planning system.

There is also the danger that we will create an inconsistent funding model between NSIP cases and non-NSIP cases that are of a comparable size or impact, such as large-scale housing developments. That could result in the need to prioritise resources for NSIP work over non-NSIP work, create inconsistency in service levels and potentially disadvantage large housing developments, which would be the exact opposite direction to the way we want to go. I hope that the strength of my noble friend Lady Young’s amendment will be taken into account.

Consideration should also be given to other statutory agencies. We have seen similar pressures on colleagues in the National Health Service, for example, where they have to comment on planning applications. There is also pressure on the resources of county councils to respond to matters relating to highways, flood risk, education and adult and children’s care provision—to name just a few—which is required on almost every major application and some smaller applications. It is simply not right that those costs should fall on public agencies whose funding is limited. If they were adequately recompensed, their ability to respond to applications in a timely manner might be improved.

Government Amendment 285C is similar to that proposed by my noble friend Lady Young—I hope we can at least agree on that—but, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, pointed out, this may not refer to charging for local authorities. We would want to see both local authorities and statutory consultees able to charge something like the recovery of the costs they incur in relation to the planning system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to everyone who has taken part in this debate. There have been a lot of Youngs involved, and I will try to respond on behalf of both of them. Let me say straightaway that I very much welcome the government amendment, and I am sure that, in her absence, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, would also do so.

On the rest of it, I had hoped that, with this group of amendments, we might have found a chink in the Government’s armour that has been deployed throughout our debates. I am disappointed that we have not been able to make progress, and I know that the Local Government Association will also be disappointed.

I am grateful to all those who took part. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, made the valid point that the flat rate prescribed by the Government simply does not reflect the costs to a local authority of a complex planning application that spans a number of years; that point was not adequately dealt with.

I was most concerned to hear what my noble friend Lord Moylan said about developers offering to second to an overstretched planning department a planner who might assist them. That is rather like me saying to Test Valley Borough Council, “I understand your electoral department is under some pressure; I would like to second a returning officer to the forthcoming election”.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

If my noble friend will allow me to say so, I did not suggest that they were offering to second somebody but to fund a planning officer who would be recruited from the pool of available planning officers.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. None the less, the principle that he ended his speech with is still valid: a local authority should not be dependent on the good will of a developer to process that developer’s planning application. That goes against most of the codes of independence for local government.

In response to my amendment, my noble friend the Minister said that she could not accept it because of the uncertainty that might confront developers and the costs might be too high. But the charge under my amendment could only reflect the costs. A local authority could not charge a fee as a deterrent if it was not substantiated by the underlying cost.

As for uncertainty, what developers, housebuilders and any planning applicant want is for their application to be processed promptly and efficiently by a well-resourced planning department. That is their priority. I do not think that uncertainty about future fees comes into it, or it is right down their list of priorities.

Also, I do not see how this central control of planning fees sits with the whole language of the Bill, which is about empowering local authorities and giving them more autonomy to reflect local needs. It appears that, despite all that, we cannot trust them to set planning fees. I think the Government’s stance on this group of amendments sits uneasily with their whole philosophy, but, while I reflect on what to do next, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.