New Towns Act 1981 (Local Authority Oversight) Regulations 2018

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my interests in the register. This is an area I work broadly in—much of it is unpaid but some of it is paid. I was also the original mover of this amendment, and I did so with not only the Government’s support but support from across the House. As the Minister said, this measure is not to establish specific new town corporations but to allow that where they are established—and I hope they will be established—they will be locally led. This is an extraordinarily important moment in the delivery of the homes this country needs and of the services and infrastructure to support vibrant communities. I believe that that is what the new garden village and town programme is capable of doing.

I ask the indulgence of the House for a moment as I give some perspective on this. It was Harold Macmillan in the 1950s, in the middle of the baby boom and during the period of post-war reconstruction, who committed to deliver 300,000 homes—the same number that we need to deliver today. Having delivered only half of that for a couple of decades, we have become short of millions of homes. Many of us experienced that shortage through our constituents in the other place, across all incomes and backgrounds and in many parts of the country. I suspect that many in this House have realised that suddenly, their children or grandchildren are unable to afford a home. Those who do not already own a home or have big capital have increasingly found themselves unable to do it.

In the post-war period, as we introduced planning controls, we sought to create three ways to deliver the homes that were needed. One was through the regeneration of the great cities and towns, which had been emptied out post industrialisation and by the Luftwaffe, and which needed a certain amount of emptying out to deal with the slums. Therefore, we needed to rebuild. The second focus was on some growth around historic towns and cities. There was an awareness, however, that that aroused a lot of opposition from the people who lived there and could have detrimental impacts on the quality of historic communities and the services provided within them. The third leg to deliver those 300,000 homes a year—which were delivered by the Government at the time—was through new communities: new towns that built on the pre-war ideas of Ebenezer Howard and others. Those new towns delivered 2.8 million homes and we would not have delivered the homes that people needed in this country without them. They were extraordinarily successful.

Of course, the new towns were designed in an era when we used a particular approach. Material shortages affected the quality of some of the build; the car was seen as a solution and not necessarily a problem; and it was an era of big government, when not just homes and people but businesses, such as steel works and car factories, were moved in the direction of central government. The nature of their design is often criticised, but those new towns successfully provided fantastic homes for many people. Some of the more successful new towns are no longer even thought of as new towns and have just become places where people live.

New towns were, however, no more than products of their era, and it was an era in which central government took the decisions. Naturally, therefore, the New Towns Act gave powers to the Secretary of State effectively to control the corporations delivering homes for local people in a way that simply does not apply now. The amendments that these regulations will put into effect bring the process up to date with the modern era of localism and a belief in communities themselves taking decisions, owning and controlling the assets, and ensuring that they provide exactly the legacy of great places that the Minister referred to. They will have the opportunity in capturing land value to invest in place and community, to create 21st-century towns and villages fit for the needs of those growing up now in a generation that is so badly short of homes. One of those needs is for the people and the communities around them to have that control, not the Secretary of State.

These regulations should not only be uncontroversial to this House but welcomed by it as a step in delivering the quality new homes and, more importantly, the new communities that people need in the 21st century, in which they can afford to live and thrive. It is also a step into the 21st century in terms of localism and local accountability. It is, as I said, an historic moment when we finally return to a place where we deliver homes of the quality that people expect and deserve, with all the facilities that they need to live and thrive.

I look forward to these regulations being used in cases where the best way to deliver the new supplement is through a new town corporation. As the Government have indicated, that would usually be for a larger scale supplement because it is doubtful that such a corporation would need to be established for a smaller one—although it might be established for a multiple of new supplements. The key is flexibility and that it is brought forward by local communities to meet their needs. I look forward to that happening. However, it will be only a part of a range of opportunities because many will be brought forward without the need for new town corporations.

Let us be clear: the very fact that landowners and investors know that this opportunity is there will probably encourage them to raise their game in the quality of what is delivered, because they know that otherwise, these powers will enable communities to step in and deliver what needs to be delivered themselves.

I welcome the regulations. I am obliged to the Ministers and their officials who have collaborated and spoken openly to me about this process. On the one key change that was made from the draft regulations, £100 million is a lot of money but, within the context of creating a new supplement, it is barely a start. For the Government to have required these corporations to keep coming back to the Treasury to ask for money to do what needed to be done when the principle was accepted seemed a nonsense, and I am glad that Ministers have responded to the concern that was widely articulated on that front.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association, and I recognise the contribution of my noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor in getting us to this stage.

As the Minister said, these regulations relate to both the new town development corporation model and to the oversight of them being transferred from the Secretary of State to local government where local government requests it—and, rightly, any designation will be subject to consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. As he also said, it is important that this process is locally led.

Our country has a proud history of the creation of new towns, mostly through the development corporation model. However, local government has a strong history of delivery—Northumberland County Council with Cramlington new town is an excellent example of local government leadership.

My noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor referred to changing the regulations so as not to have an imposed borrowing limit of £100 million. That is the right thing to do. However, it means that strong financial controls will need to be in place and, in that respect, it will be necessary for the boundaries of the local authority oversight powers and the new town development corporation’s powers to be clarified in some detail in guidance as to exactly where the dividing line between the two is.

I am also pleased that the membership will be made up of a majority of independent members, who will have to demonstrate the required expertise and skills to make a success of the development corporation. However, what steps might the Government introduce in guidance to make sure that the appointment of independent members is a full and open process in which it can be demonstrated why they have been appointed?

My noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor talked about the quality of development and the number of homes of quality that are required. He was absolutely right in what he has said. From my perspective, in order for this process to work, we need more highly professional planners who understand how to build communities rather than dormitory developments in the form of new housing estates. In my view, over recent years planning has become more about gatekeeping developers than strategic planning, so I hope that these regulations will be seen as a major opportunity to reverse that trend.

In conclusion, as the Minister said, this is about local ownership. Moreover, as my noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor said, this should not be controversial because it is a major and welcome step forward.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I am happy to support the regulations before the House and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, on securing this change to the legislation when the Bill was going through the House. I am very happy that we will provide local authorities with the option of being able to lead on new town developments. That is a good thing and, as other noble Lords said, will allow a level of independence so that they can go forward. Given that, I am happy to support the regulations as they are.

I was pleased that the Government listened to the responses to the consultation on the financial limits; that is very good news. However, the report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee talks about the length of the consultation. I have mentioned a number of times the question of consultations from the department. This appears to be truncated down to four weeks, whereas ideally it should be six weeks and perhaps even longer. There is also a general point to be made about the consultation itself, in that, whether it produces negative or positive responses, the level of those responses is actually very low. The Government should look at ways of trying to get more people to engage with what they are doing.

I agree strongly with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, about the construction of new towns and bringing the process up to date. Indeed, it is a good intention on the part of the Government to deliver on this. A number of noble Lords observed that new homes must be of sufficient quality, which is extremely important. They must be properly energy efficient, built using the best techniques and set within the right infrastructure. In that way we will have homes in new towns and elsewhere that will be there for many years. If we do not get this right, we will simply create housing problems for future generations. I am conscious that in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, while Governments of all persuasions built a lot of housing, in the end a good deal of it turned out to be of very poor quality. For all the promises, those houses failed the families who had to live in them. Of course, some of the properties are still here today. So it is important that, whatever is built, be it in new towns or elsewhere, quality should underpin it. Hopefully, having a local element in new towns, with local people being fully involved, will help with that. Again, I am happy to support the regulations.