Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Porter of Spalding and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Thursday 23rd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Porter of Spalding]

Like my noble friend Lord Lansley, I will speak to Amendment 8, not to support it but as an opportunity to highlight the fact that county councils would probably be very unwilling to pick up the planning authority responsibility on the basis that they do not have sufficient funds at the moment to deliver adult social care. Why, therefore, would they try to take on planning, which is already subsidised by council tax payers by about 30%? That would leave county councils with less resources to provide the services they currently need to provide, which are already not given sufficient resources.

I cannot understand the Government’s obsession with getting a local plan in place. When we drafted the National Planning Policy Framework it was a stand-alone document that would give pro-development councils sufficient protection where development took place in their own area. A local plan is needed purely so that councils can reduce the amount of development they will take, not increase it. If the Government’s intention is to try to speed up planning and build more homes—something that everybody supports—that will not necessarily be assisted by having a local plan in place. I do not see the attraction, yet we keep going back to focus on local plans. They are not necessary in a pro-development area. Pro-development councils will get sufficient protection from the NPPF; that is how we drafted it.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who participated in the debate on the amendments in this group. I turn first to Amendment 5. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for raising an issue that is, I acknowledge, of some importance. I checked the NPPF and he is right that social housing does not have a separate section, although it is covered by affordable housing. He is wrong in relation to education; it features in paragraph 72, which covers education facilities in schools and so on. However, let me turn to the substance of the amendment. I thank my noble friend Lord Lansley for his participation. There is a fundamental difference in approach. We believe that these matters are more properly addressed in national planning policy, independently of where the list takes us, whereas I think the noble Lord wants them to be included in the Bill. The Government could not support that. We believe it is best left to local authorities to decide their priorities, and I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

I turn now to Clause 9 and the amendments relating to the provision to ensure that the Secretary of State could, in extremis, ask county councils to step into a void to help prepare a local plan. I stress the word “ask”—this is not an imposition; they would be invited. The Secretary of State currently has the power to intervene in a development plan document, so there is nothing new here. Noble Lords seem to think that this is some radical departure from previous practice, but that is not the case—it could happen now. All the Bill does is provide the Secretary of State with a further, more local option for getting a plan in place.

In February 2016 we consulted on our proposed criteria for making decisions on whether to intervene in plan-making. Those criteria are: where the least progress in plan-making had been made; where policies in plans had not been kept up to date; where there is higher housing pressure; and where intervention would have the greatest impact in accelerating local plan production. We also proposed that decisions on intervention be informed by the wider planning context in each area, specifically the extent to which authorities are working co-operatively to put strategic plans in place and the potential impact that not having a plan has on neighbourhood planning activity. We also made it clear that authorities would have an opportunity to put forward any exceptional circumstances before we took a decision on whether to take intervention action. In other words, there is necessarily a dialogue here: this is not something that just happens out of the blue. The housing White Paper—an important document which has already been mentioned—confirmed that the Government intend to make a decision on intervention on the basis of these criteria. As I have indicated, that consultation closes on 2 May. If noble Lords or others want to influence the process, there is an opportunity to do so.

As I said, this proposal supplements the Secretary of State’s existing intervention powers to provide a more local solution and provides an important backstop to ensure that communities are not disadvantaged because their district council has not put a plan in place. It would happen only in the rarest of circumstances, but we believe that it adds to the range of powers that the Secretary of State has and offers an alternative to the direct power he would have at a more local basis. I stress again that it is only an invitation: a county council is quite open to say no and would be reimbursed for the costs if, in extreme circumstances, we should get to that position. It is for county councils to decide whether they wish to accept the Secretary of State’s invitation. Where they choose not to, the only remaining alternative would be for the Secretary of State to intervene more directly. On that basis, and with the reassurance that this is included in the consultation on the White Paper, I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments and that Clause 9 stand part of the Bill.