Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 205 and will speak to the seven other government amendments in this group. In doing so, I thank your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for its scrutiny of the Bill, which has informed these amendments in my noble friend’s name.

Amendments 205 and 206 will replace the Henry VIII power to add to, remove from or amend the list of excluded areas under new Section 61QC with a power to specify or describe additional excluded areas in regulations. Amendments 207 and 208 will replace the Henry VIII power to add to, remove from or amend the list of excluded development under new Section 61QH with a power to specify or describe in regulations additional excluded development. Amendment 211 removes the power to make regulations excluding the application of Schedule 7A to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 in relation to planning permission granted by a street vote development order. This power will permit modification only of the application of statutory biodiversity net gain requirements. These amendments address specific recommendations made in the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

In addition, to address the general points made by the committee, Amendments 209 and 210 will also remove the remaining Henry VIII power in new Section 61QI to add to, amend or remove requirements from the list of requirements that planning conditions requiring a Section 106 obligation must meet, with a power to prescribe additional requirements in regulations. Amendment 213 specifies that the three new regulation-making powers replacing the Henry VIII powers will be subject to the affirmative procedure.

I hope these amendments demonstrate the seriousness with which the Government take the question of appropriate delegation and the recommendations of your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I commend them to the House.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 212 and 214 to 216 in my name. Earlier today, I spoke on what I regard as the most important clause in the Bill, and I will now speak briefly on what I regard as the least important clause, which is perhaps why there was a mass exodus before we reached this group.

We return now to the subject of street votes, on which I expressed my views forcefully in Committee. The ensuing debate on my amendments exhibited little enthusiasm for this policy—indeed, there was a large degree of suspicion and scepticism from those who spoke, all of whom had a background in local government, which would have to operate the policy.

I think it would be fair to say that a number of key questions remained unanswered, as the policy was clearly work in progress. For example, neither in the debate nor in the letter that my noble friend subsequently wrote was he able to say what a “street” was, what the policy might cost or who would pay. It turned out that a short-term tenant in a property would have a vote, but the owner would not. A street vote could overturn a recently adopted neighbourhood plan or district plan, and there would be no requirement for affordable housing. Many questions were answered with the reply that this was a matter for consultation.

My noble friend Lord Howe shipped a fair amount of water when he wound up the debate on 20 April. He wrote to me after the debate on 10 July and, although I would never accuse my noble friend of insincerity, when he ended his letter by saying that he “looked forward” to considering this measure further with me as we moved to the next stage of the Bill, he may have had his tongue in his cheek.

In a nutshell, the policy of allowing street votes to determine planning applications was shoehorned into the Bill at a late stage: on Report in the other place. It was fast-tracked from the bubbling vat of a think tank into primary legislation, with no Green Paper and no consultation with the LGA, the TCPA or the public. On the way, it displaced the placeholder in the Bill for the abolition of the Vagrancy Act, which, by contrast, had been extensively consulted on and had all-party approval.

Not only is the policy heroically unready for legislation, but it sits uneasily with the thrust of the Bill, which is to inject certainty into the planning process. The LGA has opposed it and it was panned by the DPRR committee, which wanted whole sections of the clause removed—which has not happened, although I welcome the changes that my noble friend has announced.

I was confused by the explanatory notes to government Amendments 205 and 206, which seem to contradict each other. Amendment 205

“confers a regulation-making power on the Secretary of State to specify or describe other areas to be excluded from the remit of street vote development orders”.

Amendment 206

“removes the power to add, amend or remove an area which is excluded from the remit of street vote development orders”.

I am sure there is an explanation and I would be happy to get it in a letter, but the amendments, however interpreted, reinforce the original objection of the DPRRC, which said of these clauses:

“A common thread runs through them all: in each case, we consider that the power relates to matters that are too significant in policy terms to be left to be determined by regulations”.


The power in one of the amendments could, in effect, designate the whole of England as excluded from the remit of street vote development orders and at a stroke cancel the policy.