Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Lord True Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I hesitate to take exception to any remark made by my noble friend, who I have admired and worked with for so many years, but local authorities are charged with the responsibility of administering the planning system and have knowledge of so doing. It is hardly surprising—in my view, they would be failing in their professional duty—if they did not respond to a consultation which affected the rights of planning authorities. In declaring my interest as leader of a local authority, I confess that my own authority was probably one among the number that raised a few question marks about the clause as originally drafted, so I hope that the Minister will not dismiss the representations made just because they are made by local authorities.

I strongly agree with my noble friend that the changes she has introduced are positive. I was one of those who expressed concerns at an earlier stage of the Bill about the breadth of Clause 1, as it was then drafted. My noble friend, in her typical way, has listened to those concerns, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, very generously acknowledged. We have come a very long way and I hope that we will be able to do that on later aspects of the Bill. Therefore, I, too, thank my noble friend.

I have some sympathy in spirit with Amendment 10. I am perhaps breaking a habit in this regard: I, too, agree with what Mr Boles said on the matter of design. There is a question of whether that is a matter for the Bill but I agree with the analysis that planning would be so much easier if design were better. I would remark only that, as I said at an earlier stage, we must avoid the risk of any kind of moral hazard in this legislation. In terms of openness and the way in which designation is made, it is still not clear to me—it is certainly not inherent in the Bill—that where a future Secretary of State makes a designation and takes the game away from a local authority with the view of making a judgment on a major planning application, it must be the case that any representations made to the Secretary of State before he makes that designation become matters of public knowledge, in the same way as representations in terms of planning are placed on a website.

I have not tabled anything in this respect, but I hope that in response my noble friend will make it clear that there will be absolute transparency in that respect. There can therefore never be any suspicion that any powerful interest has got at any Government behind the scenes, leading to the designation of a local authority which may have been a little bit awkward to somebody who wanted to get a major planning application through. That is not an obstacle to what my noble friend has put before us, which I welcome, but perhaps she might be able to respond—if not now, in correspondence—on that specific point of transparency.

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[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, we are running slightly out of order so, with the leave of the House, I will speak now and the noble Lord can respond after me.

I am glad that most noble Lords have had an opportunity to see the consultation. I made it clear in Committee that I would try to ensure that the consultation responses, at least, were available to the House, and that is what we have done. It would be fair to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has done, that with any consultation parts are agreed and parts disagreed. If I did not misunderstand my noble friend Lord True, he suggested that we might dismiss anything that had come in from a local authority. I can assure him categorically that that is not the situation.

[Lord True]

I thank my noble friend for giving way. I absolutely did not make that suggestion and certainly not of my noble friend. I was saying to my noble friend Lord Jenkin that I hoped he would not suggest that we should dismiss the comments of the local authorities.

[Baroness Hanham]

I apologise for missing the fact that this was an aside. I will not take it any further, other than to underline the point that we listen very carefully to what local authorities say about legislation and we always will.

I am also grateful for the general support we have had. I understand that there are still concerns about this designation but we are trying to keep it as simple as we possibly can. In that regard, I will briefly address the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and the noble Lord, Lord Best. We will be discussing the criteria in Amendment 10. They may want to intervene again in the next group but I think and hope I can deal with it. It is important to remember the whole purpose of this clause, which is to encourage good and timely decisions from local authorities and to give applicants for major development the choice of a much better service. There is no question here that, where the authority is designated, an applicant cannot still go to them. They are given the choice of being able to go to a local authority or being able to go immediately to the planning inspector. At the moment, they can do that after 13 weeks if an application has not been dealt with, but now they can go right from the outset.

In the context of design, sustainability is hugely important. However, it is not relevant to what we are trying to do here, which is to get the number of appeals against a particular local authority down and the applications dealt with quickly. Local authorities have to take sustainability, design and good development into account. The noble Lord, Lord Best, pointed out very clearly what my honourable friend at the other end, Nick Boles, has said. We believe very strongly in that. The national policy framework deals with that as well and makes it very clear. However, these are not tests that we ought to apply as part of assessing the designation. They are not matters that can easily be assessed on the basis of our considerations and the very limited criteria which we are employing.

Were the amendment to be accepted, there would be a very real risk of having a process that is far from transparent. We do not want that: we want it to be as open as it can be and, perhaps, open to judicial review. We wish to avoid that by employing the criteria that will ensure that the assessment process is as fair and transparent as possible. As I say, we will have a chance to consider those further in the next group.

My noble friend Lord True—I actually understood him this time and did not get it wrong—asked whether there would be clarity where the applications were sent to the Secretary of State. Again, we will deal with this later in the Bill where there are relevant amendments, but I assure him that the intention is that it should be open and transparent, with local people having the right to make representations to planning officials. With that, I hope that the noble Lord will feel free to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, this amendment is entirely consistent with Amendment 13, which I trust I will be able to support after it has been spoken to by its mover. Amendment 5 seeks to ensure that, when an application is made to the Secretary of State under the provisions of the Bill, there must, nevertheless, be adequate consultation with the local community. One of the fears arising from Clause 1 is that it facilitates the bypassing of local planning authorities and, along the way, local communities. It is a rerun of a Committee amendment because we considered that the matter was not fully resolved at that stage.

The Minister at that time asserted the intention that all current statutory requirements on local authorities would be transferred to the Planning Inspectorate, including requirements around publicity and consultation. Perhaps the noble Baroness will remind us this afternoon of the process and timing for this. Notwithstanding that, the concern lingers about the presumption that applications dealt with by PINS will largely involve engagement by means of written representations, with possibly a short hearing to allow key parties to put their views, and that this would not necessarily be typical of major applications to a local planning authority. In moving the amendment, I seek reassurance from the Minister on that point.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I have an amendment in this group, which the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has effectively summarised in the points made. I do not pretend that the specific wording or format is necessarily correct, but none the less the broad principle enshrined in it, and in what the noble Lord has just said, is important. As this process goes forward there will inevitably be fears that a Government—not this one necessarily—may in time use this process to ensure that it is made easier to secure agreement to major developments against the wishes of the local population. It might be feared that that could be done either by having a process that is conducted through written procedures or by a rather cursory appearance from an inspector for a hearing in the local area. In this process, a great deal also goes on in the pre-planning stage. Good developers are these days very active and are often encouraged by local authorities to meet local populations to discuss and undertake consultation, perhaps in relation to what might be the specific local community benefits that come from the development. All those things are best conducted locally, in the place and community where the development will take place and which will be affected by it.

As I said, I do not intend to try to write law that is prescriptive. My noble friend gave some general reassurances earlier, but in both the pre-planning stage and the period in which a planning application is under consideration, it is absolutely essential that the Government leave no suspicion in the minds of the public about their rights, about which they feel ever stronger. Those of us who have the honour to represent people in local authorities know that the people’s wish to have their voice heard is greater, not less, as time goes by. I hope that we can hear a very strong reaffirmation from my noble friend that if not the specifics of my amendment, certainly the spirit of it will be written into whatever provision the Government might follow up with as they refine secondary legislation, codes of practice and so on, once the legislation becomes law.

The public must not believe, or have any justification to believe, that there is something herein that makes it easier for development to take place in the teeth of what local people believe to be in their interests. That is not nimbyism; there is a balance in these matters. Giving people a chance to have their day in court and to have their voice heard is extremely important in the principle of securing consent to planning developments, which all of us in this House know that this country will need in the decades ahead.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I remind the House that I have declared an interest as someone helping people through a company with sustainable development. It is on that point that I support what has been said. It is not just a question of community not feeling that it is being bypassed, although that is crucial and the gravamen of the whole discussion. We also want to support those developers who do the job properly, as against those who think that there is a short cut.

One of the encouraging things of recent years has been the increasing number of developers who have understood that proper community consultation early on makes their development not only more likely but probably better. Many of them are taking seriously the fact that input from the community can be not an incubus but a considerable advantage. Therefore, I, too, hope that my noble friend will be able to give us an assurance—which I am sure she would wish to give—that this is a mechanism to achieve things which cannot otherwise be achieved, rather than a mechanism to make easier to achieve things that should not be achieved and would otherwise be stopped. That is the distinction that we are trying to draw.

My concern in respect of developers, therefore, is that we do not want the less good to triumph over the good. Moreover, as my noble friend Lord True rightly pointed out, we do not want the public to feel that they are being railroaded about things in which they are increasingly interested. We in this House ought to remind people that this is not some evanescent view that will disappear. People will increasingly want to have control over what happens in their own area; that is why we had the Localism Bill. It is also true that, as the world outside becomes more and more complex and people feel it is more and more difficult to decide on how they will have some control over energy policy, the European Union, the work of the United Nations and all the rest of it, localism—the concept of at least having some real control over the area around you—becomes a greater demand rather than a lesser one. This is a crucial moment in this Bill, and the ability of my noble friend to reassure the House is of great importance.

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[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I endorse my noble friend’s amendment and refer for the third or fourth time to what used to be available to local authorities in the form of planning development grant to improve and sustain the capacity of planning departments, which now, like every other local government department, have come under severe pressure due to increasing financial constraints. Will the Minister turn her mind to capacity and how the Government can assist, possibly by restoring some form of planning development grant? They need to ensure that the necessary staff are available with the necessary skills in order to facilitate the speedy, but thorough, examination of planning applications, which is what she, the Government and the Opposition very much wish to see.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I am certain that my noble friend will not succumb to the blandishments of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. In a way, reluctantly, I have to say that from my feelings at Second Reading, I think that she would be right to resist his temptations. This Bill as it started, as many of us said, was very broadly drafted, and in many areas it threatened to enable a degree of centralism that was unacceptable and went against what this House had recently argued for. I always accepted that there should be some kind of backstop provision on Clause 1. I was not one of those at Second Reading, as I have reminded the House, who opposed it in principle.

The powerful and eloquent arguments of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, among many others made in this House, have contributed to changes in this clause, which he was generous enough to acknowledge earlier. After the way in which the Government have moved, it would be strange if we now seek to excise the clause. However, I say to my noble friend from these Benches that we will want to watch carefully, and with a mild degree of scepticism, the way in which this clause may or may not be used in the future. I certainly welcome what she had to say on the previous amendment about keeping the matter under review. I hope that the House will not follow the tempting voice of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, into suggesting that this clause, as it has been amended, should go, although there is still much yet in this Bill that needs to be dealt with.