Localism Bill

Lord True Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord True]

205: Clause 104, page 84, line 9, at end insert—
“( ) Where a local authority has a scheme or process of neighbourhood engagement and localised planning that promotes and enables the involvement of the residents and businesses of its area, within their local neighbourhoods, and that process has been agreed by the Secretary of State to—
(a) meet the objectives set out in section 61F, 5(a)(i) and (ii) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 as amended by Schedule 9 to this Act, and(b) constitute a sufficient process of local engagement to enable the making of neighbourhood development orders and neighbourhood plans on the basis of informed involvement and consent,that local authority may make such orders or plans on behalf of local residents without the establishment of neighbourhood forums or the holding of a referendum.”

[Lord True]

My Lords, in moving this amendment I should remind the House that I lead a London borough council, and one that under successive administrations has been and is a localist council. We are actually slightly unusual in having a regional plan that is going to stay in place, and also an adopted core strategy. We are now very actively involved with local communities in trying to create what we call “village plans”, but for the sake of this argument I will call “neighbourhood plans”. I do not think we need to be told by a government Bill how to go about this. I hope that does not sound too vainglorious.

I am a strong supporter of giving people the opportunity, and where opportunity is not given the right and the power, to directly influence decisions affecting their lives. Nothing in the amendment before the House detracts from that. My noble friend has been an absolutely admirable listener on this Bill. The Government have made major changes, on shadow mayors, EU fines, referendums, the right to challenge and on assets of community value. I do not ask for sweeping change on neighbourhood planning. I support the Government’s wish to have local involvement in the planning system. Most other council leaders also support that and many already practise it. In many of our views, planning led from the bottom up is essential. My amendment does nothing to stop the Government’s objective there.

I also recognise the Government’s wish to have back-stop—as I think it should be—regulation to enable local public engagement with planning where that is not happening. That may be necessary where communities are systematically excluded from having a voice in planning. Of course they should have a voice, and that inspiration behind the Bill is right. My amendment does nothing to stop that. The amendment proposes a system that allows the Secretary of State to permit local variety and discretion—that is, more localism and, I would argue, more trust in the best-performing local authorities.

On neighbourhood planning so far in the Bill, the Government have set down one model in the rather compendious schedules. Surely councils that are engaged in local neighbourhood planning can be approved, indeed encouraged, to go on doing so in their own way. My amendment also seeks to allow that, if other local authorities have a scheme for neighbourhood planning to do the job in ways that do not coincide in every dot and comma with what is in these labyrinthine schedules, they can be given the go-ahead and frankly be spared the constant potential challenge to react to a parallel national regulatory model at the same time. We have to go on from where we are now and from where we started. With a more permissive approach, we might even learn something from the differing approaches of differing councils and communities, with different sizes and places, run by people often with different views. A more permissive approach goes with the spirit of the Bill and in no way against it.

If there is in place a solid, reputable process in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of local people have become engaged, why in principle should that local authority and those local communities be caught up with having to consider or fend off demands to set up a neighbourhood forum from what may be groups of as few as 21 people? As we argued in Committee, these may sometimes even be malcontents who have lost out in community debates, perhaps people who even court rejection by the council as a device to gain publicity. That is not necessary in the ideal world. I fear we may confuse the means of how to do this with the ends, on which I sense there is wide agreement in the House.

I set out in Committee a number of detailed aspects in the Bill’s area planning procedures that I do not understand. In particular, I do not understand why, under new Section 61G(2) that Schedule 9 to the Bill will insert into the 1990 Act, a local authority can designate neighbourhood areas only where a would-be forum asks for one. Why on earth can a council, informed by its knowledge of local events and the surveys it has done with local people, not go ahead and designate its own neighbourhood areas? I do not see why urban neighbourhood planning has to be done through forums that, by definition, are made up of the few rather than the many in any given area. I have argued in various places that the default position should be that everyone in an area is part of a neighbourhood planning process. The best body for facilitating that is the elected authority, of whatever size or nature, if it operates well.

I have not tabled again the amendments that I tabled in Committee that dealt with a number of those issues. I hope that my noble friend the Minister may even now be able to reflect on them and clarify some of those detailed points as we move towards Third Reading. They are embraced within the case for allowing different approaches made in the amendment.

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I hope with that reassurance, and the undertaking, of course, to talk to him and to other Members of the House who are interested before Third Reading, he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord True]

My Lords, of course I am extremely grateful for what my noble friend has said. As I have said in my opening remarks, she has been an outstanding listener on this Bill and the whole House recognises that and is very grateful. Of course, I accept her assurance as being absolutely something that one can rely on.

I do not wish to trouble the scorers any longer: On this Bill I have troubled them almost as much as my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree. I am grateful for the support of all noble Lords who spoke. There is a principle of concern here. The answer in brief to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, who asked how we would get out of this problem, is “What a pity we got into it”. Localism was going along very happily in many parts of the country until the Government came along, plonked down a Bill and said: “This is how you do localism, boys and girls”. I drafted my amendment to try to give content and relief to the Secretary of State, who seemed to want to designate a system to allow him at least to take a view on whether what was going on was satisfactory.

I would rather have an alternative to a back-stop power. I have always thought that a problem in many sections of the Bill is that a back-stop piece of legislation that should have guaranteed certain rights has become potentially all-embracing. I am not trying to push the Secretary of State into anything: it is a way of trying to find a solution. The Secretary of State has already come into the question.

Without further ado, I again thank my noble friend for what she said, thank other noble Lords who spoke and express the hope that we can find a solution to what other noble Lords have agreed is a real conundrum. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 205 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Eaton]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, which has offered its broad support for the neighbourhood planning reforms. Indeed, a lot of the thinking on the reforms has come from the innovative and creative local planning schemes which councils have introduced over many years. I do not know of a single council that does not want a more flexible and consensual planning system—indeed, the most consensual possible—and common sense tells us that this benefits communities. The Government have made great strides forward, shredding down the national planning policy framework and confirming that residents will be firmly at the heart of local developments. However, within these new parameters we need to ensure that the planning system can move as fluidly and quickly as possible. I hope that this amendment, to which I am happy to attach my name, clarifies that in certain cases referendums on planning issues might be locally appropriate, as we have heard. The noble Lord, Lord Best, said that discussions with the Minister have suggested a mechanism whereby, if there is consensus, this process will go straight ahead without a referendum. I think that would be well received.

The Local Government Association has estimated that the cost of holding a local referendum on a planning issue will be in the region of £5,000. This is a very significant figure when you consider the sheer number of referendums that could take place around neighbourhood planning issues. It would not be a case of a one-off cost of £5,000 as many costs would arise for local authorities. When the public sector, particularly local government, is so tightly squeezed, that hardly seems a wise use of public resources and public money. I share the request of the noble Lord, Lord Best, for clarity. We would all be much happier if this process was made much simpler and referendums were rarely used in neighbourhood planning. Certainly, councils across the country would support that. I support the noble Lord, Lord Best.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I wish to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Best, as he referred to me. It follows from my arguments on my own amendment that I think there are many cases where a referendum is not necessary. Indeed, my amendment suggested that local authorities should be able to proceed without the need for referendums. Therefore, I was interested to hear about the discussions that the noble Lord mentioned. As he knows, I am not axiomatically against all referendums. There is a place for a referendum in some circumstances to empower those who are disempowered or, indeed, to resolve a genuine heated dispute in a community.

However, for the reasons the noble Lord implied, I could not support Amendment 207 because it would give too much potential power to an individual councillor. This may not be the case only as regards councillors from a minority party. In my authority five out of 18 wards are split wards with minority representation. Frankly, there are wards where everybody is nominally of the same party but they cannot stand each other, although that does not apply in my authority, of course. Therefore, there is scope for a lot of potential mischief. The threat of provoking a referendum, which would cost money unless someone does something for someone else behind closed doors, is probably better avoided. In other respects I have a lot of sympathy with the amendment. In the context of the discussions, I encourage the noble Lord to follow the direction in which he has begun to move.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, we have returned somewhat to the discussion that we had on Amendment 205 at the beginning of the evening. I am happy that noble Lords still remember what was said on that amendment. At the outset I confirm what I said when responding to Amendment 205. Where there is agreement on the neighbourhood plan between the neighbourhood forum and the local council under the local development plan, a referendum does not have to take place. As long as they are all in agreement and are all working to the same end, the local authority can accept that the neighbourhood plan conforms with the local development plan and therefore does not require a referendum.