Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord True Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th February 2017 Grand Committee

The remaining amendments in this group deal with the change proposed in Schedule 3. I am sure I will have one or two questions for the Minister when he responds, but I will leave my remarks there for the moment.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I first declare an interest as leader of a local authority—a London borough council. I must apologise to my noble friend the Minister and to other Members of the Committee. I was unable to take part in Second Reading because we had a full council meeting that day and I could not stay until the end of proceedings. I am also afraid that when the Bill was in Committee last week, I was abroad on an unbreakable work engagement and so was unable to take part in the first two days. However, I have read the debate carefully and rise to speak with due humility. Having read the proceedings, I hope my noble friend Lady Cumberlege will not be disinclined to intervene—I enjoyed reading a large number of her interventions.

I say to the Committee how grateful I am to my noble friend the Minister for his openness and, through him, the willingness of his officials to discuss difficult issues. That needs to be put on record immediately. As my noble friend knows, I am a little concerned about where these proposals are intended to go—we could be bringing out a Dreadnought to deal with problems on the local public pond which, frankly, could be sorted out. I am grateful for the elucidation that my noble friend set out, but we need to understand a good bit more about how these regulations might work. For example, there is a requirement that the applicant must give written consent agreement. How many pages of regulations will there be to say in what terms that will be? Will it have to be legally sanctioned? When will it have to be delivered, et cetera? It says also that the Secretary of State must carry out a public consultation before an order is made. How long will that take? With whom will it be? Will it be in an individual area or across the nation?

We all want to get development going more quickly. But my concern is that, in some circumstances—perhaps the noble Baroness opposite pointed to one when she talked about fear of flooding—pre-commencement conditions actually enable development to happen more quickly and with more consent, rather than, as is assumed, every council necessarily trying all the time to deter. I want to look very carefully at the detail of these proposals.

I am puzzled by the statement in subsection (2)(a) of the new section, to which the noble Lord opposite has referred, that the condition must be,

“necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms”.

Make it acceptable to whom—to the local community, to the neighbourhood, to the people who will be affected or to the planning inspectorate in Bristol?

On the other hand, I cannot follow the noble Lord opposite—even though I understand where he is coming from—in proposing in his Amendment 37 setting up a mediation process. I spoke about this on the previous planning legislation we had before us, in which the Government set up a sort of national arbitration service concept. If one does not define this very closely, there is a risk that everything would automatically go to some sort of statutory arbitrator. That in itself could also clog up the system. With all the good will in the world, it may be that the amendment in the name of the noble Lord opposite is as guilty of causing potential obstacles as overregulation would.

I am not going to support any proposal that this provision be struck out—I see there is an amendment to that effect. I understand the Government’s concern to get development but we have not seen enough evidence. Between now and Report, and perhaps when my noble friend replies, we might get to understand a little better where and when the steel of a Dreadnought will be seen emerging from the department. I am a passionate localist: so much in recent planning legislation is about centralism and making things harder in the guise of getting development. I do not accept the view that local authorities are always against development. I look forward to hearing more from my noble friend, today and between now and Report, on the justification for these proposals.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I have serious concerns about Clause 12, particularly about subsections (2), (5) and (6) in new Section 100ZA on pages 10 and 11. The Government are going to have to rethink this very carefully because, as it stands, Clause 12 will cause more problems than it solves. We have heard many reasons for this, but I will go further. What discussions have been held with the Royal Town Planning Institute? I ask the Minister that because it has sent a briefing on the Bill which states, broadly speaking, that there are advantages to pre-commencement planning conditions:

“These have certain advantages to applicants who may not be in a position to finalise details of a scheme but wish to secure a planning permission as soon as possible. They have advantages to local authorities because councils may have in practice limited legal ability to enforce conditions once a scheme is underway. Conditions are useful to the development industry in general because they enable schemes to be permitted which otherwise might have to be refused”.


If they were refused it would take longer and, as the noble Lord, Lord True, said, you may get faster and better planning decisions as a consequence of having pre-commencement conditions. Refusal of planning permission should, in general, be avoided because of all the complexities which are then introduced.

In telling the Committee what discussions the Government have had with the Royal Town Planning Institute, will the Minister explain what consideration they have given to the 15th report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which was written substantially on the subject of Clause 12? It points out that,

“the national policy framework confirms that planning conditions should only be imposed where they meet six tests. They must be: necessary; relevant to planning; relevant to the development to be permitted; enforceable; precise and reasonable in all other respects”.

So that already exists within the National Planning Policy Framework.

Paragraph 12 of the DPRRC report states that,

“the Government want to take this power because ‘there is evidence that some local planning authorities are imposing unnecessary and inappropriate planning conditions which do not meet the tests in national policy, resulting in delays to the delivery of new development’”.

There may well be such examples. If they do not meet the six tests, there is already a legal statutory requirement to demonstrate that the six tests are applied. But in paragraph 26 of the report, the DPRRC asked for,

“specific examples of pre-commencement conditions to help us understand the effect of subsection (5)”—

which my noble friend Lady Parminter talked about—because:

“None appeared to be included in the explanatory material accompanying the Bill”.


The committee had to ask the DCLG to provide a list of,

“details that developers have had to provide to local planning authorities before building works could begin”.

There are nine things on that list. With my long experience in local government, I can see a very good case for all nine of them. I will come back to this, with some practical examples of what goes wrong if you do not have pre-commencement planning conditions. But when I read that,

“installation of superfast broadband infrastructure”,

is not deemed to be required as a pre-commencement condition, I think this is wrong. We ought to have agreement on superfast broadband infrastructure, since within the next few years every part of the country is going to have it.

I will say more about this issue when we debate whether the clause should stand part of the Bill, but it seems to me that if that is the extent of the problem, the things listed are not in themselves significant problems. I am really starting to think that Clause 12 is not a good clause. We will look at this further on Report, but at present I have to say that this clause will cause more problems than it solves.

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For the reasons given, I ask noble Lords and noble Baronesses not to press their amendments. If there are any points that I have not picked up in my response—I am sure there must be some—I will ensure that we cover them in the write-round that follows this Committee session, as we will for the other days of Committee.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I will briefly intervene—it will be brief because I am enormously grateful for the very full answer given by my noble friend. I am grateful for what he said about clarifying “public consultation” and I agree with a number of things he said.

This point was made by others on the first day in Committee, and I will not go over it again, but this is a Neighbourhood Planning Bill. It is about getting things built, but built with consent, which is the trick one has to take. My concern is if a developer says, “I am not agreeing to any conditions of that sort—you can us refuse permission and we will see you in Bristol”. That is not empowering local people in any way. As my noble friend Lady Hodgson said, the risk is that that will happen, because if the developer decides that it does not want to agree, it is almost fast-tracked to the inspector whatever the local authority does, and that is not necessarily building consent into the system.

Perhaps the Government can wrestle with this point over the next few weeks. There really does not have to be any form of incentive in the law for responsible developers not to co-operate. For example, many local authorities have to deal with developers which have not discharged previous planning conditions—they have just ignored them and nothing is done. Someone comes along and says, “I am going to build here”. You see these people and say, “You have not discharged your previous conditions, so let us write something in here to make sure that you are okay this time”. They then say, “We are not agreeing, we are not signing on there”, so it goes through, but does the inspector always take account? I beg my noble friend, as he considers these things further, not to rig the system too far.

The second cautionary thing I would say, having listened very carefully to what my noble friend said about the phrase “acceptable in planning terms”—which does trouble me—is that I understand from my noble friend that the Government cannot rock along and say, “We’ll have a 24-hour casino on that site, thank you very much”, and that it is about restricting the proposed ambit of the planning. This seems eminently justiciable because it does not refer to the national framework at all, as my noble friend pointed out. So if a little local campaign group is armed with a neighbourhood plan or the local development plan, and the Government come in and say, “We are putting forward this regulation to make it acceptable in planning terms and, by the way, by that we mean the NPPF”, the Little Ditchcombe Action Group might say, “It is not acceptable in planning terms, or in accordance with what we have in the neighbourhood plan that we have agreed, or what has been put in the local development plan”, and you could find yourself in the courts—I do not mean my noble friend in particular.

We need to be very careful about how this phrase is defined—many a lawyer and many a judge would have a high old time and earn a few bob in deciding what that phrase means. It is only the second cautionary thing I would say and I very much welcome the spirit and terms of the clause. I accept the way in which my noble friend said that the Government were coming at it, but they need to be careful. There should not be too many more eggs in the developer’s basket and there should be as much definition as possible—please—before Report. With that, I will stop detaining the Committee.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I agree with almost everything the noble Lord, Lord True, has just said. I thank the Minister for his very full response, which is much appreciated. I agree with him—I do not want any conditions imposed, including those he termed “necessary”, “relevant”, “enforceable”, or “reasonable”. I think everybody in the Committee will be in agreement with that—there is no problem there whatever. He also said that these pre-commencement conditions are not necessary. That is good to hear, but I worry that at the end of the day this will all be either so vague that it will not make any difference or so detailed that it will threaten sustainable development. I am not clear about what I have heard from the Minister. I hope he will respond to us in his letter about where we are going because I certainly want to see development take place that is sustainable, that we learn from the lessons of the past and that we get things built properly.

I may have misheard him, but will these discussions between the planning authority and a developer or an applicant take 10 days—someone else may have said that—and if not, how long should that go on for? He is determined but, as the noble Lord, Lord True, said, the risk is that nothing is agreed and that everything goes straight off to the appeals process. That is not delivering development by consent—certainly not sustainable development and not development that is in accordance with the local neighbourhood plan, or the local development plan. I live in London, as the noble Lord, Lord True, does. Certainly, in my own ward we are developing a neighbourhood plan and we are putting hours and hours of work into that. It seems daft that if we agree something, we could then find it all just pushed to one side. I do not know what the Minister can say now, but I certainly look forward to seeing his letter.

In a moment we will debate whether Clause 12 should stand part of the Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s letter because we have still not had the list of rogue authorities. At the moment, I am convinced that the clause is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. We have had one or two problems with plugs and things but these are not massive. If there were these problems, the noble Lord would have listed them in his contribution; maybe they will be in his letter, which I look forward to.

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[Lord True]

My noble friend makes a strong point but I do not agree with him, I fear. I am not going to repeat the points I made on the previous amendment. The problem with new subsection (5) is that it effectively gives a veto to the developer and therefore a power, which may or may not be a good thing.

However, my noble friend made a good point in relation to, for example, a play area. We all understand that the wonderful civil servants who work for my noble friend are trying to do a reductio ad absurdum of what might happen, so they find a council that has said, “Oh yes, the play area has to have one of those spring things instead of a see-saw”. We all know that that would be ridiculous. Maybe it has happened. But there are things on that list, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, that are actually quite important and germane. Anyone who has been on a planning committee trying to secure development in suburban or rural areas will know that lighting is one of the most fiercely contested things that local residents care about most. It is also one of the most difficult things to control.

No doubt some things on that list are silly. Perhaps my own authority is one of the bad authorities. We have occasionally have had a run-in with the people who want to put in boxes for broadband, not because we are against it but because they come and say, “We want to bang this box right in front of a grade 1 listed building”, instead of agreeing to put it a little further down the road, and they rush off and have dinner with the Chancellor and the Chancellor says, “This is ridiculous. We must have legislation”. This is the way the world works. We all know that.

Somewhere in the middle of all this is a sensible via media. Saying that you cannot develop until you put a Big Ears statue in would be completely ridiculous. But some of these other things are best dealt with at an early stage. Drainage is obviously a good one, as are sustainability and lighting. The problem with this goes back to my analogy right at the start—the old Dreadnought thing. Time and again, we poor local authorities face legislation in the dock—always local authorities, never the statutory undertakings, never the builders with the land banks. Only the local authority is to blame because the local authority is perhaps trying to reflect some of the opinions of its local people by whom it is elected. We are always put in the dock and the Dreadnought is brought out to deal with the silly local authority which says, “I must have a Big Ears statue before I give any permission to 150 homes”. Of course the Government want to deal with that.

I have an open mind on this clause, as I said, although I hear what my noble friend Lady Cumberlege has said and I do care about neighbourhood planning. Surely there must be a way through that is not just nationalising this massive power to deliver for the exceptions that are causing problems. Surely it must be possible between now and Report, with the spirit that my noble friend the Minister has displayed, to find a way to give the Government a power to deal with the authority that wants Big Ears before there can be a development, without actually taking away the ability of local authorities and neighbourhoods to protect what they think is important and have development with consent. That is all I ask for. If Clause 12 can find a way to do that, let us look at it. At the moment, it does need amendment. We will see what happens between now and Report.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for being absent during the discussion of the previous group, and the very beginning of this group. I am afraid I have had to return from a funeral; otherwise, what I am about to say now I would have said in the debate on Amendment 43A, to which I added my name.

As the Committee will recall, Amendment 43A reflects the recommendation of the Delegated Powers Committee in paragraph 22 of its recently produced report, which came out on 27 January, dealing with the way the Government propose to exercise the delegated powers contained in the Bill, as set out in a document published last December under the intriguing title Further Information on How the Government Intends to Exercise the Bill’s Delegated Powers. Five areas were identified in respect of which the intention is to rely on secondary legislation. For this afternoon’s purposes, we are of course dealing essentially with the planning conditions in Clause 12. However, there are other issues: Clauses 1 to 5 are on neighbourhood planning, Clauses 6 to 11 are on local development documents, Clause 13 is on the planning register and Clauses 14 to 36 are on compulsory purchase. Therefore, although the Delegated Powers Committee drew attention to a series of matters, today we are dealing with the relevant provisions under Clause 12, which I suspect is in any event probably one of the more controversial clauses.

As we have heard, the Bill vests the Secretary of State with powers by regulation to prevent authorities imposing particular types of planning conditions in any circumstances at all or only in particular circumstances, as prescribed by the Government, and to stipulate that no conditions at all are to be imposed on particular types of grants of permission. The Government’s explanation of this was that,

“there is evidence that some local planning authorities”—

number and identity not disclosed—

“are imposing unnecessary and inappropriate planning conditions which do not meet the tests in national policy, resulting in delays to the delivery of new development”.

It is of course interesting that the Government make no mention of the hundreds of thousands of houses for which planning permission has been given but of which not a brick has been laid. They concentrate only on other potential problems.

The Government have admitted that,

“the power to prescribe the circumstances where conditions may or may not be imposed and to set out the descriptions of such conditions is wide”.

They concede that, but conclude that a delegation is appropriate. The committee expressed concern that the power would,

“allow the Secretary of State to prescribe conditions in relation to any type of planning conditions when the key aims of the Bill are to facilitate the building of new homes”,

and expressed surprise that no reason for this was given. Some of us would argue that even in respect of new homes it goes too far, but to make it more general and part of any planning permission seems beyond the scope of what the Bill is supposed to be about.

The committee stated at paragraph 16:

“We consider it inappropriate for the Government to be given a power which could be used to go well beyond the stated aims of the Bill”,


and recommended that it should apply,

“only to planning conditions for housing developments”.

It went on to criticise the proposed replacement of the existing power to provide guidance discouraging the imposition of unreasonable conditions with a power to prohibit such conditions completely, without any opportunity for the relevant planning authority to justify those conditions. Furthermore, the Government have expressed their intention to exercise the Bill’s delegated powers, including draft regulations specifying five types of condition that will be prohibited. The committee points out that there would be,

“nothing to prevent the Secretary of State from using the new power to prohibit many more conditions”,

so we are not necessarily just being confined to five areas. This would give carte blanche to introduce further prohibitions in the future.

Unsurprisingly, and in common with so much legislation, including the Housing and Planning Act, which we spent so much time on last year—the fate of which may be somewhat altered, one hopes, by the housing White Paper that is about to emerge—the committee states that,

“the negative procedure is not an adequate level of Parliamentary scrutiny for the exercise of these new powers, which could substantially restrict the ability of local planning authorities to attach conditions to the grant of any type of planning permission”.

It recommends that the affirmative procedure should apply to proposed new Section 100ZA(1).

The committee goes on to express concerns in relation to proposed new Section 100ZA(5) to (7), which deal with pre-commencement conditions: the controversial provisions which forbid planning permission being subject to such conditions without—extraordinarily —the written consent of the applicant. That is a significant change in the law and a significant move away from the local planning authority to individual developers. But no illustrations of such conditions are included in what passes for the explanatory material provided with the Bill. Although, as I understand it, the committee was provided with some at its request. It is extraordinary that in a matter as controversial as this, the explanatory material completely overlooked the issue. Under the Government’s scheme, in only one case will it be possible to impose such a condition: when the applicant fails to reply within 10 days of receiving notice of a proposed condition. The committee was concerned that there is no duty to consult before making regulations in relation to these provisions and said that,

“the Secretary of State should be required to consult not only developers but also local planning authorities and other interested parties”.

It recommends in paragraph 30 of its report that,

“the Secretary of State should be required to consult before making regulations under subsection (6)”.

If the suggested amendment is made, the Delegated Powers Committee will be content with the negative procedure. If not, it recommends the affirmative procedure.

I do not know what the Minister’s response was—I take it this issue would not have been raised in the opening debate—but I understand he has indicated that there will be a further response to the Delegated Powers Committee. However, I hope he is able to take back the view—which I think will be widely shared by this Committee, across any political divide—that it is simply not good enough to rely again on the use of a negative procedure on important matters of this kind. It has happened far too often and has been the subject of many reports, Bills and committees in your Lordships’ House, and yet the Government seem to ignore all the doubts and objections and continue to use—or propose to use—the negative procedure for dealing with highly controversial matters. The Minister is not able, alas, to change this with the stroke of his pen, but I hope he will convey what I think will be the view of many in this Committee, across the political divide, that this is not a satisfactory way to proceed, particularly as we are dealing with a significant change in the planning regime.

I hope the Minister will take back the strong views that have been expressed and that by the time we get to Report, we will see some Government amendments. Otherwise, I envisage that there will be amendments on Report from across the House seeking to test the House’s opinion on whether the Government should be allowed to get away with what many of us consider—and clearly what the Delegated Powers Committee considers—to be an abuse of process.

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, Amendment 45, which is in my name and that of the noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord Shipley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, seeks to add a new clause to the Bill. The purpose of the new clause is to make provision for local planning authorities to recover the costs they incur in delivering their development services. This is needed by local government, which very much supports the proposal, and the amendment draws all-party support. Local government already subsidises this process by well over £100 million per annum, which is not right at any time, but particularly at this time of reduced budgets and pressure on local services. The fact that the Government are allowing councils to increase their council tax by up to 5%, particularly to deal with the issue of social care, shows how unsustainable the present situation is.

Amendment 57 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Beecham, seeks to ensure that the costs of the new planning duties are calculated and adequately funded. In opening this debate I will leave my remarks there; there are other amendments in this group, which I am sure will be spoken to, and I may also have a few questions for the Minister when I respond. I beg to move.

[Lord True]

My Lords, before other supporters of the amendment speak, I will briefly signal my view that this matter needs to be addressed. I spoke about it at some length on the previous legislation, and supported the relevant amendments.

As an example, it costs my authority over £1 million a year on a budget of about £150 million, which is a significant amount of money, effectively to subsidise aspirations to development. People want to appropriate an advantage—which is perfectly reasonable in a free society—but impose costs, obligations and sometimes potentially loss on their neighbours. It seems entirely reasonable that this service, which is a good public service and done well, should be paid for by those who by definition can afford it. If you are whacking in a development, whether it is an extension or a major development, you can certainly afford to cover the cost. I ask for no more than the covering of the cost of providing that service. I so much agree with what my noble friend Lord Lansley said earlier. We want good planning officers to enable this thing to happen. Unless we have proper resourcing, it is simply not possible to attract and keep good planning officers.

What is happening here, with all the other pressures on local authorities, is that a sector—those who wish to assert property rights and seek pecuniary or personal advantage by so doing—are being subsidised at the expense of money that is squeezed away from other sectors, whether it is the provision of education, social services, or whatever. I cannot believe that this Government—a Conservative Government—would wish in the longer term to subsidise this small part of the profit-making sector at the expense of broader public social services. Although it is above my pay grade—and although I hope that my noble friend Lord Bourne is immensely influential in the Government, it is probably above his pay grade too—I hope that at some time the cry that this is entirely unreasonable will be heard.

I also have great sympathy with Amendment 57 in this group. Where new burdens are added, please can the costs be considered or covered? Clause 13—to which no amendment is tabled; there would have been one had I been here last week—adds a burden. We had burdens on the housing and planning legislation last year, such as compiling new information and making returns. This means officers being employed—young men and women coming into offices up and down the country, doing time and sending returns to the Government. That is a cost on public funds. I would rather that no additional burdens on local authorities came out of government regulation, but if there are, please can we consider support, particularly in this highly pressed planning sector?

I therefore have sympathy for all the amendments in this group, and I am sure that there will be much give and take about what wording is correct and how it might be done, by whom or when. I beg the Government to allow this service for those who seek to make profit and personal gain and improvement—to which I have no objection in principle at all—to be charged at cost.