National Planning Policy Framework

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)]

There was a great deal of consensus in the debate up to the point when the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) said that he was hearing voices. I welcome this opportunity to debate the Government’s proposals. The new national planning policy framework is an important document and we have had a positive and constructive debate on it, covering not just the NPPF but the broader context of the Localism Bill. Debate on this subject has been carried on outside the House as well as inside it not just today but for the last three or four months—and we are all the better for it. The Government are making time available for further discussions in the House of Lords on 27 October.

As of this morning, 13,700 responses have been received to the consultation, of which some 3,700 are substantive individual ones. The debates in the two Houses will be taken into consideration. Indeed, if any hon. Members felt that their contributions were cramped by today’s limitation on time, we will hold that door open for a few more days for them to submit written representations on the document. Quite a number of today’s speakers have already sent in representations, which are also welcome.

We have heard contributions from 35 Back Benchers and interventions from quite a number more. That shows how important this issue is as a fundamental development in the way we approach the creation and safeguarding of communities in this country. This planning system is the way we make communities work. We create places we are proud of and proud to live in; we lay the foundations for businesses to grow; and, as has been a constant theme today, we develop a system that not only protects but enhances our green spaces, our parks and our countryside for our enjoyment, and for generations to come.

[Bob Russell]

On the preservation and retention of green spaces, the Secretary of State made a personal visit, for which I am most grateful, to see the fields of west Mile End in Colchester, which I hope can be saved. My concern is where local authority A decides to dump a large part of its housing right on the border of local authority B, which is what Tendring district council is planning to do on Colchester borough council. Surely the local decision making must be made by the people who are most directly affected and not by the local authority that is doing the dumping.

[Andrew Stunell]

I shall certainly respond to my hon. Friend, because the same point has been raised by others, including the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who asked how the duty to co-operate will work. I think that my hon. Friend is asking the same question. The duty requires—not allows, but requires—ongoing constructive engagement on all the strategic matters arising between councils when they prepare their local plans, and councils will be required to consider whether they enter into agreements on joint approaches and on the preparation of joint policies on cross-boundary issues. They will also have to satisfy the independent examiner of the local plan and to demonstrate compliance with the duty of co-operation when they do so. If they fail to satisfy the independent examiner, the plan will fail. That would be a powerful sanction to encourage council A to bear in mind the importance of taking into account its consultation and co-operation with council B. I hope that my hon. Friend finds that response helpful.

There is a pressing need for reform of our national planning policy. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington seemed to be caught betwixt and between. He accused us, on the one hand, of ripping it up, but, on the other, of arguing that we need a presumption of sustainable development. Perhaps the Labour Front Bench team needs to establish exactly what it believes is its principal criticism of what we are doing.

[Joan Walley]

The argument is not about sustainable development, but about its definition. We do not want a definition under which economic development simply trumps all the other aspects of sustainable well-being.

[Andrew Stunell]

I hope to cover that point more fully in a few minutes. The hon. Lady and I, surprisingly enough, are on the same page. It is not a question of whether to have sustainable development. In fact, the emphasis is on “sustainable” not “development”. I shall come to that in a moment.

The current system is unworkably complex and has been criticised soundly by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber. There are more than 1,000 pages of national planning policy and at least 6,000 pages of guidance. I challenge any Member, even if they have 26 years of professional background, to say, in all honestly, that they have read all 7,000 pages—nobody has. It is a long-running accident. The complexity of the system not only slows down decision making and frustrates the sustainable growth of the country, but alienates and frustrates local people. It does not allow for the rapid creation of the new homes that we desperately need for young families who are already struggling to scrape together a deposit or stuck on an endless waiting list, and it hinders the creation of the new jobs that will breathe fresh life into local economies.

That is bad enough, but on top of that, as all hon. Members have experienced, the planning system too often reduces people, at a local level, to impotent rage and denies them any real engagement in shaping the future of their communities. That cannot be a good system. A streamlined system focusing on key priorities will be more accessible and transparent. In the future, anyone who wants to understand the principles informing how decisions are made will be able to do so. That does not suit many of the professionals, but it should suit our constituents and the House.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I agree completely with my hon. Friend. In constituencies such as mine, where there is pressure for much more affordable housing, it is exactly the sort of thing that my constituents would want to participate in. Does he share my view that, for it to work, the viability of development proposals needs to be open to full scrutiny? Often developers say, “We can only do 10% affordable property, because otherwise the figures do not add up.” In reality, they could do more, but are never forced to reveal their hand and so sometimes get away with doing far too little.

[Andrew Stunell]

My right hon. Friend makes a very interesting point. I hope that he has encapsulated it in the representation that I know he has submitted to the consultation, and that if he has not, he will make a second submission.

The Government are keen to put matters right. The new planning architecture of the national planning policy framework and the local development framework—the core strategies that have been referred to so frequently today—and the neighbourhood and parish plans must be taken together and seen in context.

[Mark Pawsey]

The Minister refers to the importance of plans. Does he agree that the essential purpose of the NPPF is to put those plans in place, and that local authorities that fail should be urged do so by both Government and Opposition, so that there is a template against which development proposals can be measured?

[Andrew Stunell]

My hon. Friend is right. I shall deal with some of the specific points that have been raised in a moment, although several of them are quite detailed, and I shall not have time to respond to all 35 Members who have spoken. We will make a serious effort to write to those whom I do not manage to respond to today.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I wonder whether the Minister can answer one point that was raised by a number of Members. Do the Government intend to introduce transitional arrangements, so that local authorities such as mine that were not encouraged to draw up local plans under the old regional spatial strategy system will have time to do so?

[Andrew Stunell]

The hon. Gentleman is a page ahead of me, but I will get there very shortly.

Of all the thousands of comments that have been made about the NPPF so far, very few have challenged the importance of both the simplification and the localisation that we have set out. I would have said that none had done so, but, funnily enough, a former planning Minister, the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), said that he was one of those who considered this to be the best of all possible planning systems. His view was somewhat contradicted by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State’s quotation from Lord Rooker, which demonstrated that that simply was not so.

Quite properly, today’s debate has largely concerned the precise shape, the exact wording and the detailed nuances of what we have proposed in the NPPF and the Localism Bill. Let me now deal with some of the key points made by Members. I will begin by tackling what seem to me to be some of the principal issues. One is our use, or rather non-use, of the word “brownfield” . We have referred instead to land of the “least environmental” quality.

There is a clear reason for that. We think that land of the least environmental quality should be taken first, and we recognise that some brownfield land is of high quality. It may be the quarry that has been left for 40 years and is now the next best thing to a self-managed wildlife sanctuary, or it may be back gardens. There are a number of circumstances in which brownfield land may have become recreational. Indeed, there is an example in my constituency that is sufficiently contentious to be prayed in aid. Using brownfield land as a planning category and turning it into the first priority for development will prove to be a mistake in some instances. At the beginning of the debate, my right hon. Friend said in his emollient way that we were taking careful account of all the representations we have received, and we certainly are in that respect.

[Martin Horwood]

I entirely sympathise with my hon. Friend’s wish to move to a definition of environmental value, but, as I pointed out in my speech, even that reference in the NPPF is heavily qualified by reference, again, to development and growth. That rather undermines the point that is being made.

[Andrew Stunell]

Given that my hon. Friend’s submission to the consultation is longer than the NPPF itself, I am sure that it covers that point.

My right hon. Friend made it clear—not for the first time—that there will be transitional arrangements, but it would be presumptuous to set them out before our friends in the House of Lords have disposed of the Bill or it has returned to us. We therefore must approach this issue in a measured fashion, but we understand the points that have been made, even if the critics appear to be a little confused about whether the result of the proposals will be a slowing down or a speeding up of development. Certainly, uncertainty is unwelcome and needs to be dealt with.

[Jack Dromey]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Stunell]

I am sorry, but I do not have enough time.

On the presumption in favour of sustainable development, the debate has focused on the term “development” rather than the term “sustainable”. Some good points were made, both in our debate and in the representations we received, about alternative ways of approaching this issue and, as my right hon. Friend said, we are bearing them all in mind. However, let me quote from a 1949 planning circular:

“In cases where no serious issue is involved, and where the authority can produce no sufficient reason for refusal, the presumption should be in favour of granting the application.”

Things have moved on since then, and we have a plan-led system, but the presumption in favour of sustainable development that we propose will strengthen that plan-led system, not undermine it.

I have already commented on the duty to co-operate. The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich cannot be in the Chamber now, but he gave some statistics, and I want to put on the record that home ownership fell to its lowest rate since 1990 during the 13 years of the Labour Government, and that they managed to combine that reduction with a 440,000 fall in the number of social and affordable homes. Regardless of what the planning system delivered, the Labour Government certainly did not deliver.

Several Members emphasised the importance of bringing empty homes back into use, and the Government agree. We have set aside £100 million to fund a programme to achieve that, and we are also about to launch a consultation on other measures that can help. I welcome the broad support this will receive in the House.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) said the planning system must be consistent with the Government’s other aims. She referred to the natural resources White Paper and the work of the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but we should also mention the work being done by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Treasury to generate growth. The planning system must reflect both the priorities of the Government and the priorities of local communities. This debate is about how we can get that balance right.

This debate has been a small but significant part of the important process of building a planning system of which we can be proud—a system that supports growth and change where that is needed to create jobs and homes, that creates health and prosperity for all communities, and that enhances and preserves our country’s unique natural and built environment. To respond to another point that was made in our debate, that includes 20th century buildings.

We must establish a planning system that leaves future generations admiring our foresight, not condemning our selfishness. I believe the framework we have produced can do exactly that, and I urge the House to support the motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of the National Planning Policy Framework.

[Mr Speaker]

We come now to the Adjournment debate. I appeal to hon. Members who, inexplicably, are leaving the Chamber to do so quickly and quietly so that the rest of us can hear from Mr Henry Smith.