Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Sixteenth sitting)

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 19th July 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Tim Farron]

Good morning, Mr Paisley; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship on this lovely day. I am grateful for the opportunity to move the amendment and to speak to new clauses 38 and 39.

I volunteered for this Committee for many reasons: to spend time in great company and to be involved with a Bill that gives great opportunities to make a difference for this country, if we get it right. However, my fundamental motivation was to try to address a problem that has afflicted my community in Cumbria, and others, for a number of decades, and which I referenced in my maiden speech more than 17 years ago. That problem has got catastrophically worse in the last two years.

Before the pandemic, the average house price in my constituency was about £250,000, and the average household income was about £26,000. In the lakes and the dales, there is a much greater disparity in scale, where average house prices were already pushing towards £500,000 and average household incomes were no greater than in the rest of the district. There were 5,500 people on a council house waiting list and we have fewer social rented properties than that. Second home ownership was creating massive problems with under-population in villages that were losing their schools, their post offices and their bus services. In many communities, more than 50% of properties were empty.

Even before the pandemic, there was a huge problem. We have pushed the Government to take action for years, but we have seen precious little action. Since the pandemic, the situation has gone from crisis to catastrophe and urgent action is needed. The Government are dragging their feet; the one or two things they have talked about doing to address those issues will not even touch the sides.

Let us look at the situation now. Between June 2020 and June 2021—we are awaiting the figures for this year—in South Lakeland alone there was a 32% rise in the number of holiday lets. That area includes the most populated parts of the Lake district and the Yorkshire dales, and there was a colossal number of holiday lets to start off with, so where does a rise of 32% come from? They were not built for the purpose; they were long-term lets that migrated into short-term lets or Airbnbs.

According to estate agents, up to 80% of all house transactions in the last two years fall into the second homes market—to people who own a property but do not live in that property. From live information—literally, given yesterday—AirDNA says that within our community there are 8,111 short-term available lets. Rightmove sent a snapshot yesterday of 262 long-term lets, which means that there are 35 times more short-term lets in our community than long-term lets. We are seeing lakeland clearances, which have taken place in just a couple of years. People have been evacuated and expelled from the communities where they served and worked, where they may have grown up, where they sought to retire. People of all ages, not just the working-age population, have been evicted under section 21. Typically, those homes then migrate instantly into the Airbnb market.

Let me give you some examples. Debbie in Windermere, a hotel manager, was evicted from her property under section 21 and had to move to Lancaster, 30 miles away. She could find no way of staying in that community. As a consequence, that hotel is still without a manager. I think of a couple in Ambleside: him a chef, her a teaching assistant. They have one child in school and one about to go to school. They have been evicted from their property, which is now worth five times more on Airbnb than they were paying for it. They do not live anywhere in Cumbria now. They both had to give up their jobs and pull their children out of school and nursery, robbing that community of their services and their work.

I also think of Mike, who I spoke to on Saturday. He works in Windermere and lived in Troutbeck Bridge, just two or three miles up the road. He was evicted from his long-term let there, where he had lived for years, and he now has to live in Morecambe. It is a lovely place, but it is 30 miles away. He will soon have to give up his job. Good luck to his employer in finding anyone to replace him.

In the relatively small Yorkshire dales town of Sedbergh, 24 people were evicted during a two-week period in April. Not a single property is available on Rightmove to help those people. There is no doubt whatsoever of the reasons for that. I have some schools in our national parks reporting drops in school rolls of between a fifth and a third of their entire school numbers over the past two years. There are consequences to inaction. We are talking about the death of communities. It is happening as we speak.

We are seeing the annihilation of the workforce. In a study a few weeks ago, 63% of Cumbria Tourism’s members reported that they had to operate below capacity last year because they could not find staff. The workforce is being expelled at a rate of knots. What is the impact of that on our economy? Cumbria Tourism is the biggest employer in Cumbria, contributing £3.5 billion to the Exchequer. Our businesses are underperforming because they are understaffed, because the workforce has been cleared out. In Sedbergh, again, just a few weeks ago—in a snapshot of this one dales town—there were 104 unfilled vacancies. By the way, there are zero spaces available for any long-term let on Rightmove.

Look at the care sector. In the census report a couple of weeks ago, we saw a 30% rise in retirement age groups in our communities. Subsequently, there is a massive rise in the demand for care and a massive drop in the number of people available to provide that care. A tragedy is happening on our doorsteps and within our communities, and not just in the lakes and dales, but elsewhere in Cumbria and other parts of rural Britain. What we are seeing is the tragedy not only of divided families, but of lost services—the impact on schools under pressure and on bus services being lost because of a lack of an active, full-time population in our communities.

Those of us who live in or around a national park—I have the honour of representing two—are not trying to hold them tightly and keep them for ourselves. We want to share them with the country. We are stewards of our national parks for the whole country. However, due to Government inaction and the market being broken, we are seeing our communities and national parks being turned into no-go zones for anybody who is not a millionaire.

There is nothing in the Bill that even touches the sides of being able to tackle this crisis. I want the Government to tackle it with the urgency and speed with which the problem itself is developing. Rarely would we find anything like this amendment and these new clauses when looking at legislation, but they are genuinely the silver bullet to give communities the power to take back control and ensure that they breathe life back into those communities.

I will briefly talk the Committee through the amendment and the new clauses. New clause 38 would provide local planning authorities with the power to make a difference. Under current planning criteria, a permanent dwelling, a second home and a holiday let are all the same category of use, technically. Practically, of course they are not the same category of planning use; they are three very distinct categories. All that the new clause would do is allow local council planning authorities in the Lake district and the Yorkshire dales to be able to differentiate between the three. In a community such as Coniston, where more than half of the homes are not lived in all year round, the council will be able to set a cap and say, “No more.” These measures are about simply giving our communities the power to decide their own destiny.

I simply ask the Minister to take this matter seriously and accept the amendment and the new clause. Together, they would allow local communities to decide their own destiny, to prevent the clearance of a local working-age—indeed all-age—population and ensure that our national parks and rural communities, not just in Cumbria but across the country, are available to everyone, not just the wealthy.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I will be relatively brief, both because we have discussed these issues extensively in Committee and because the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale made the case so comprehensively, speaking about the communities in his constituency and the lives and livelihoods of those who make up the communities.

As I have said before, one need only speak to any hon. Member with acute housing pressures of the kind the hon. Gentleman set out to realise that the Government have not got the balance right between the benefits of second homes and short-term holiday lets to local economies and the impact of excessive concentrations of them on local people. It has also become apparent over the course of previous debates that there is a divide between those on the Opposition side and those on the Government side when it comes to how urgently and how boldly we must act to address the problems of excessive second home ownership and its staggering growth. The hon. Gentleman gave truly staggering figures of short-term holiday lets, showing the problems they cause around the country.

The Opposition are clear that we need urgent action in a range of areas to quickly bear down on this serious problem. There is no doubt in my mind that the introduction of new planning use classes could—along with a suite of other measures, because more measures would be needed—go a long way to restoring the balance that we all agree must be struck, giving communities back a measure of control that they do not currently enjoy. For that reason, we wholeheartedly support the amendments and urge the Government to give them serious consideration.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I want to add my support to these amendments. The issue seems to be that holiday destinations in particular have been hit by the Airbnb market. I am sure the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale will be hearing from many of his colleagues about the implications it has, whether they are from Cornwall or Devon, and it is now spreading across the country.

York has been hit, in particular over the pandemic. We have seen a 45% increase in Airbnbs over that period, and it is hitting our communities hard. According to today’s figures, there are 2,068 Airbnbs in my community. We are seeing an extraction economy, where money is being taken out of our local economy predominantly by people from London and the south-east, who can afford to buy these additional properties. They are clearly trying to make a profit, but it comes at the expense of our communities.

We have heard about the impact on public services and the local economy. Hospitality venues are now not able to open full-time for the guest economy, because they cannot recruit the necessary skills. It is skewing the whole economy and our public services, in particular care work, and that is now orientating into our NHS. It is jacking up the house prices in the area, and we are getting this heated housing market because demand is so great. We hear about people coming and buying six, seven or eight of these properties at one go.

The result of this increased demand is that local people are impacted. They are faithfully saving for their mortgage, but when they go to put an offer on a house, someone undercuts them by tens of thousands of pounds, because they know that they will get the return. Renting a property in York costs, on average, £945 a month. An Airbnb stay over a weekend costs £700. That is why we are seeing this massive reorientation. Section 21 notices are being issued to people in the private rented sector to move them on to make way for Airbnbs.

The undercutting of prices is also impacting on the regulated B&B and guesthouse market, and because Airbnb and second homes are not regulated, the health and safety is not there, and there are so many other checks that are not in place. A registration scheme, which I know the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is consulting on, is completely insufficient for addressing the challenge. It is a new challenge, and the Bill provides the Government with the opportunity to right the wrongs of what is happening and at the scale it is happening.

Creating these new classes would bring opportunity, but revenue can also be drawn from them. Many of the properties in question are classified under small business rates, so their owners do not pay council tax, but because they reach the threshold for small business rate relief, local authorities such as York are missing out on millions of pounds in revenue that they could get from such properties. It is therefore really important to categorise the properties and then look at how we use the categories.

I mentioned that in York we have 2,068 properties listed as Airbnbs; two weeks ago there were 1,999, so the number of properties that are going out to this new market is going up week by week. That is having a significant impact on York and York’s communities, so I trust that the Minister will not only support the amendment but engage in a wider discussion about what is happening to our communities, particularly in holiday destinations, so that we can ensure that, through this legislation, there is a suite of policies to ameliorate that market.

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[Tim Farron]

We have just talked about what we do with existing housing stock and about seeking to make sure that it is retained and that we increase the amount that is available for permanent occupancy, for all the reasons I set out earlier. The amendment would tackle extreme situations, using some admittedly extreme measures, to ensure that new build also provides for the needs of local communities.

I want to stop for a moment to make it clear that we are not saying, “Only homes for locals.” We are delighted for anybody to come to Cumbria to become new locals and part of our community, to work and to contribute. We are proud of our diversity and of being a welcoming community, but let us ensure that the houses we build are affordable.

It is a pleasure to represent the Lake district and the Yorkshire dales, as well as the Arnside and Silverdale area of outstanding natural beauty, which has many of the features, including some of the planning powers, of a national park. Any property that goes on the market in those areas will be snapped up within seconds for a premium price. That includes new properties that are potentially built for local occupancy. It is easy to get around the occupancy clauses: people can buy the properties and then turn them into holiday lets quite quickly or move away from the area and use them as second homes, so the occupancy clauses are no protection.

The amendment would give planning authorities in national parks, which face extreme circumstances, radical powers that they can use, in some circumstances, for a period of time. We are not saying that they have to use them, but the powers would be there and available to them. If the Lake district or the Yorkshire dales wished to say, as I am sure they would if they were given these powers, that they would permit only developments that were genuinely affordable, which would normally mean social rented or shared ownership properties, they would be able to enforce that.

The experience in the not-too-distant past, when national park planning authorities had greater powers in practice than they do today, was that such provisions worked. There is a wrong view, which I think is held by some in this place, that the more restrictions there are, the less development we get. That is baloney. Practice proves that that is not true. If authorities are crystal clear to developers, housing associations and others that this is what they will get, and no more, people will either come forward or they will not.

I can call on experience in places such as Grasmere; Ambleside, where the Methodist and Anglican churches worked together to provide new affordable housing with the support of the national park; Windermere, where a similar thing happened; Coniston; and Hawkshead. The communities there were the diametric opposite to nimbys: they actively went out to find land to develop, which people gave up cheaply; they worked and fundraised to make sure things happened; and they left properties in their wills to make sure that collaborations could happen and we could build affordable houses. One reason why that was possible was that people potentially leaving a bequest knew that they could trust the national parks to ensure that their property would end up being redeveloped in an affordable way for a local family, which also meant that developers were clear that that was all that would be on the table. The evidence from 20 years’ experience is that if we are more restrictive, clearer and more directive, we will get the homes that we need for communities such as mine.

The simple fact is that in many parts of the country—not just Cumbria but especially there—if we build it, someone will buy it. By not giving local communities that power, we are simply building for demand, not for need. We can carry on building for demand, but as a result, we will lose our workforce and there will be no one to care for the older people in our community, of whom there are many, in their need. The economy will dissolve because of that lack of workforce, and communities will die.

We need to ensure that we build the houses so that they are there and people can afford them, and that affordable means affordable. We need to ensure that the national parks can enforce those criteria for a period of time, so that we can solve this problem through what we do with our new builds, as we should be doing with the properties that already exist.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale for tabling these amendments, the intention behind which we very much sympathise with. We know that excessive rates of second home ownership in rural and coastal areas are having a direct impact on the affordability, and therefore availability, of local homes, particularly for local first-time buyers. Correspondingly, we know that the marked growth in short-term and holiday lets in such areas is having a direct impact on the affordability and availability of homes for local people not just to buy but, as he said in relation to the previous group of amendments, to rent.

Research from CPRE, the countryside charity, makes it clear that our rural housing supply is disappearing and social housing waiting lists in rural areas are lengthening year on year. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is crucial that more is done to ensure that national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty have not just more affordable homes but—I make the distinction—more genuinely affordable homes.

If I am honest, however, I am concerned about the implications of the blanket nature of the restrictions provided for by these proposals. Although there is no doubt in my mind that the provision of genuinely affordable homes to buy and rent must be the priority in such areas, I worry slightly about the potential for unintended consequences, such as ruling out the provision of housing for general demand, which might be needed in some parts of the country to sustain the life of communities.

That said, I appreciate that these proposals are premised on giving communities discretion as to whether they use these powers, and I recognise and support the point that the hon. Gentleman is making with them. I hope the Government respond constructively.

[Rachael Maskell]

I, too, am sympathetic to these proposals, but I want to point out an area of unforeseen consequence. My constituency is not an area of outstanding natural beauty—although I would argue that it is—or a national park, but we sit just beneath the Howardian hills, and the dales and moors are not far away. If these blanket proposals and bans are orientated to those areas, the challenge is that they could heat up the Airbnb market even faster, particularly in somewhere such as York.

On the application process for a world heritage site, it would seem sensible for a world heritage site to be included in the criteria. I would compare the measure with a residential parking scheme: as we know, if we restrict parking on one street, people tend to park on the next street along, and we just build out and out. That may happen if we do not give flexibilities and opportunities to all areas.

Although I am really sympathetic to the sentiment behind these proposals and to the powers they would give, the scope should be broadened to enable all authorities to have the opportunity to control the housing and the lease of housing within their governance.

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[Tim Farron]

I am happy to support this group of amendments and new clauses. Flood resilience is of huge importance. We are dealing with extreme weather—today is an example, but there are other days that are extreme in a different way. In my part of Cumbria, in the past 18 years we have had two storms deemed to be one-in-100-year events, and a third that was deemed to be a one-in-200-year event. That does not add up, does it? It is because our weather and our climate are changing. We need to mitigate, prepare and build to protect homes, families and businesses.

Most recently, in 2015 Storm Desmond devastated the town of Kendal as well as many parts of Burneside, Staveley and other communities. The human and economic consequences are vast, and vastly greater than spending money up front to do the right thing in the first place. It is very wise to build into the Bill powers to ensure that neighbourhood development plans and planning controls can bring on board very powerful bodies that otherwise might seek to shirk their responsibility to ensure people are protected. I am thinking in particular of the water companies, which made nearly £3 billion in profit last year, and the extent to which they are compelled to ensure their drainage and other facilities can cope with new development, not just in that small parcel of land but as regards the impact on the wider community.

There is also the work with farmers, who are desperate to be part of the solution, to make sure we retain water in the uplands so that we slow the flow and minimise the impact on communities. The River Kent is one of the fastest-flowing rivers in the country and only 20 miles or so long from source to sea. When floods come they are dramatic, but the water can be down to quite a reasonable level within 24 or 48 hours. It therefore stands to reason that if we can hold back some of that water in the uplands by investing there and supporting farmers to do that, we can save millions of pounds and thousands of people from the terrible experience of being dramatically flooded.

It is about making sure we build in those things in the first instance. As we speak, we are building flood resilience networks in Kendal: both what can be seen by the river in the town and what cannot be seen up in the hills, where we are seeking to retain the water by tree planting, bunding and other work to slow the flow. We should be doing that sort of stuff in advance, before communities get devastated, as happened to mine. That is why the amendments are important. They are about making sure we build resiliently for the future so that other families do not have to go through what families in my community did in December 2015, with the devastation of soggy, sodden Christmas presents and wrecked Christmas trees on the sides of streets in the estates and people utterly devastated by what they had experienced, unable to get back into their homes for six months or more. Surely it is possible for us to prevent these things. With the right powers and provisions, we can.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I rise to strongly support this important group of amendments, and I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle and for York Central on proposing them. It is right that my hon. Friends seek to amend the Bill to ensure that planning rules on flood prevention and mitigation are strengthened and that the planning system responds better to the challenges associated with drought. As has been said, the amendments would not only ensure that we enhance the resilience to flooding of communities across England, but reform how the insurance and reinsurance markets operate in terms of data accuracy and how premiums take into account mitigations and defences, as well as beneficially extending reinsurance to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Although I am more than happy to acknowledge the positive steps taken by the Government on flood prevention and mitigation in recent years, such as the publication of the adaptation communication 18 months ago and the investment allocated to improving flood defences up to 2027, it is clear that there has been an absence of cross-departmental working when it comes to addressing the issue explicitly in the Bill. When the adaptation communication was published in 2020, it promised that climate mitigation would be integrated across Government Departments, including, most importantly in this case, infrastructure and the built environment. It is therefore problematic that the Bill lacks any explicit reference to flood mitigation and, indeed, references the term “flood” only once in relation to what charging authorities may spend the proposed infrastructure levy on. It is laudable that mitigating and responding to climate change has been included in the Bill as a new requirement for development plans and spatial development strategies. However, the Bill as a whole does nowhere near enough to address the specific issue of the susceptibility to flooding experienced by so many of our communities.

The risk and frequency of flooding will only increase as global temperatures rise and its effects, as hon. Members will know, can be devastating, not only in terms of its impact on people’s lives but on businesses and the economy. How can we plan, for example, to respond to the increased frequency and potency of flooding events when surface water flood hazard maps for the UK have not been improved upon since 2013? They urgently need updating. Indeed, that issue speaks to a wider concern, which is the dearth of accurate, up-to-date and publicly available data about flood prevention and risk. If accepted, new clause 3 would ensure that data, so that property owners could better plan for surface water flooding in areas at risk and, importantly, insurers could more accurately assess risk and therefore insurance premiums. There is widespread support in the sector for the amendments for that very reason.

When it comes to insurance, the introduction of a certification and accreditation system for flood prevention and mitigation improvements, which new FCA rules would ensure were taken into account in setting rates, is an entirely sensible reform that should help lower premiums. I hope the Government will consider accepting new clauses 4 and 5 on that basis.

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[Rachael Maskell]

I am grateful for the debate. I thank the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale for highlighting the importance of the upper catchment management work, which is so necessary for mapping what will happen across other communities, and the Environment Agency’s commitment and the work it is doing in that arena.

My hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich hit the nail on the head when he talked about the importance of cross-governmental working, which is clearly not at an optimum at the moment when addressing issues around flooding. While the Minister has talked through a number of steps the Government are taking, I refer him back to the 2016 national flood resilience strategy, which highlighted the importance of co-ordination across Government and of ensuring that resilience was built into the system. That is not happening at the moment. As much as policy may aspire to that, it has further to go. The amendments are therefore still relevant as the Bill does not meet the requirements of the communities that currently flood, and those that will flood in the future as we see weather patterns change and risk increase.

I am not planning to press the amendment to a vote, but I hope the Government will reflect on it, and on my amendment about drought, because this is a significant and serious issue. Right now we recognise that as we move forward we need to build in how we have sufficient water supply. That will be increasingly important. I reserve the right to bring the issue back up on Report, and to give the opportunity to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle to table her amendments too. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 110, clause 88, page 95, line 17, at end insert—

“(5) After subsection (4) insert—

‘(4A) A neighbourhood development plan which is in effect on the day on which section 88 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 comes into force may remain in effect contrary to the provisions of that section no longer than until the end of the period of five years beginning on the day on which that section comes into force.’”

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clause stand part.

Clause 89 stand part.

New clause 35—Report about uptake of neighbourhood development plans—

“(1) Section 38A of PCPA 2004 (Meaning of “neighbourhood development plan”) is amended as follows.

(2) After subsection (11C) insert—

‘(11D) The Secretary of State must prepare and publish an annual report on the uptake of neighbourhood development plans. The report must, in particular, set out—

(a) the uptake of neighbourhood development plans in less affluent neighbourhoods,

(b) the uptake of neighbourhood development plans in urban neighbourhoods, and

(c) the steps that Government are taking to increase this uptake.’”

[Matthew Pennycook]

Statutory neighbourhood plans became part of the system in 2011 when they were introduced under the Localism Act 2011 as a formal part of the development framework. The concept of neighbourhood planning is far from problem free, but we support it in principle as an important means of giving communities a greater say in where future development takes place, how it is designed and what infrastructure is provided with it.

To the extent that it enables communities better to shape development in any given area, neighbourhood planning can—although it is by no means always the case—increase public engagement, reduce the number of objections to planning applications and boost housing supply over and above local authority targets. As the Minister noted previously, neighbourhood plans can also provide communities with an important tool to mitigate the impact of acute housing pressures in their localities—for example, on the issue of excessive rates of second-home ownership and the marked growth of short-term and holiday lets that we have considered a number of times.

Clause 88 is a straightforward one in that it merely confirms the statutory role of neighbourhood planning and sets out a list of the policies and requirements that a neighbourhood plan may include. We welcome that confirmation and clarification, as well as the sensible new requirement set out in proposed new subsection (2B) for the qualifying body to design its neighbourhood plan, so far as it considers it appropriate, in such a way that it contributes to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.

I wish to raise two specific issues with the Minister, one that relates directly to the implications of the clause for existing neighbourhood plans and another that relates to the future of neighbourhood planning more widely. The first issue concerns potential conflict between a neighbourhood plan and a national development management policy. As the Minister would expect given the arguments we have set out in previous debates, we take issue with proposed new subsection (2C)(b) under clause 88, which stipulates that a neighbourhood plan cannot be inconsistent with any NDMP. However, given that I have set out the Opposition’s reasoning on that issue in considerable detail in relation to both clause 83 and schedule 7, and proposed new paragraphs 15(c) and 15(ca), I do not intend—the Minister will be relieved to hear—to rehearse our arguments once again in the specific context of neighbourhood plans. I do want to know what will happen in the case of any one of the 1,061 neighbourhood plans, which have already been approved via referendum, that turn out not to be consistent with an NDMP published in the future.

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[The Chair]

Mr Pennycook, are you going to continue to live in hope?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will continue to live in hope—we may get there one day. I am grateful for the Minister’s response; I noted carefully what he said about transitional arrangements, and I think I understood it. However, if he will allow me, I will perhaps at come back to him a later date to seek further clarification on precisely how an existing approved neighbourhood plan could be brought into line with future NDMPs, because there remains a slight concern about the implications.

On take-up, I am disappointed, as the Minister would expect. He will not accept what is, as I said, not a particularly onerous requirement to produce an annual report that sets out progress towards the objective. However, I hear what he said about pilots, and I am very interested to see the work that they produce. The key point, which I think he accepts, is that neighbourhood priority statements for less affluent and complex urban environments cannot be the only means of driving uptake. To drive uptake, we must do much more in a variety of areas. However, he has partly reassured me, and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 88 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 89 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 90

Requirement to assist with certain plan making

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 104, in clause 90, page 96, line 15, leave out “public”.

This amendment, together with Amendments 105 to 108, would enable plan making authorities to require a prescribed private body to assist the authority in relation to the preparation or revision of a relevant plan by the authority.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 105, in clause 90, page 96, line 18, leave out “public”.

See explanatory statement to Amendment 104.

Amendment 106, in clause 90, page 96, line 23, leave out “public”.

See explanatory statement to Amendment 104.

Amendment 107, in clause 90, page 97, line 4, leave out “public”.

See explanatory statement to Amendment 104.

Amendment 108, in clause 90, page 97, line 5, leave out

“and certain of whose functions are of a public nature”.

See explanatory statement to Amendment 104.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Clause 90 inserts new section 39A into the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, setting out a requirement on specific bodies to assist in the plan-making and plan-revising process. The explanatory notes to the Bill make clear that the clause is intended to support the more effective gathering of the information required for local planning authorities that produce local, strategic, supplementary and other forms of plans.

It appears to us that the clause is the Government’s answer to the question of how to sustain engagement and co-operation between plan-making authorities and relevant bodies after the removal of the duty to co-operate, which is an issue that we debated in relation to schedule 7. However, it is not at all clear how the clause interacts with the Government’s stated intention to introduce a “more flexible alignment test” in planning policy. I would be grateful—again, we have touched on the issue—if the Minister could set out in more detail precisely how the clause and that forthcoming alignment test will ensure that there is sufficient engagement and input in the plan-making process on the part of those bodies that are important contributors to the process of delivering infrastructure at local or strategic levels.

That question aside, we welcome the new duties that the clause places on infrastructure providers to engage with the production of local plans, which is an entirely sensible measure. However, we question why the prescribed bodies referred to in the clause are confined to those that are public. If one considers even for a moment which types of body it might be useful and necessary for a plan-making body to engage in terms of the information required for the production of a plan, it quickly becomes apparent that they would include private infrastructure providers—for example, private utility companies.

Amendments 104 and 105 to 108 would revise clause 90 in a way that would enable plan-making authorities to require prescribed private bodies to assist in the plan-making and plan-revising process. They achieve this simply by clarifying that prescribed bodies need not be public in terms of their ownership or have functions that are entirely of a public nature. The Minister will no doubt surprise me with the ingenuity of his reasoning as to why the amendment is unnecessary, but I cannot imagine what reason the Government have to oppose it. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Tim Farron]

This is a really useful amendment, and I hope that the Minister takes it seriously. Utility companies have been mentioned already. When I think of Openreach, or United Utilities, a water company in my part of the world, I think about the impact that these businesses have on our communities. The infrastructure that they oversee and are responsible for is fundamental to the wellbeing of those communities. For example, we have seen sewage on the streets in places such as Staveley and Burneside, and the answer from United Utilities is, “Put it a bid, and we’ll look at it in our next-but-one funding round.” Surely communities ought to have the ability to say to United Utilities or other water companies, or to broadband providers and other such bodies, that their access to the greater public realm and their almost monopoly position in the market mean they have a responsibility to those communities, which will be overseen by those in local authorities who have the right to make these decisions.

It is right that private bodies should be included; it should be specified in the clause. The amendment would help communities like mine to bring in hugely powerful and very wealthy outfits such as Openreach and United Utilities, so that they perform the role they should perform—to provide for every part of our community—and do not take advantage of their power and strength over the relative weakness of local authorities.

[Mr Jones]

As you have probably gathered during Committee sittings, Mr Paisley, I am not necessarily one for surprises, especially on such a hot and sunny day.

The Government support giving local authorities the full range of powers necessary to prepare robust plans. I can offer reassurance that that is our intention. The power as drafted will apply to those private sector bodies that authorities are likely to need to involve in plan making. Clause 90(6) sets parameters for which bodies can be prescribed. It requires them to have functions “of a public nature.” That might, for example, include utilities companies, which are privately owned but serve an important public function and should be proactively involved in the plan-making process. The clause does not exclude relevant private bodies where they are involved in public provision, but the amendments potentially extend the requirement to private landlords, voluntary groups and unrelated businesses, which would be disproportionate where those bodies do not have public functions that are likely to be relevant to plan making.

On alignment policy, the policy will require local planning authorities to engage with neighbouring authorities and bodies involved in their area. That will be covered in the future national planning policy framework. The power places the obligation on the bodies involved. I hope that with those reassurances the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

[Matthew Pennycook]

To surprise the Minister—it is the other way round—I am entirely reassured by his response. The language in the clause is about allowing for private infrastructure companies to be involved in the plan-making process in terms of the provision of information. That is what I took from what he said. I appreciate what the Minister said about the potential disproportionate impact from drawing in other types of bodies; that was not the intention. On that basis, I am content and beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Rachael Maskell]

I beg to move amendment 135, in clause 90, page 96, line 30, at end insert—

“(3A) Where regulations under this section make requirements of a local authority that is failing to deliver a local plan in a timely way, the plan-making authority must consult the local community on the contents of the relevant plan.”.

This amendment would require, in the event of a local authority failing to deliver a local plan in a timely way, those taking over the process to consult with the community.

I will not labour the point because we have already had extensive discussions about the need to break the deadlock in the planning system. York is a very live example of that need: the local plan is going through a very painful process and we are absolutely determined to see the plan amended rather than being imposed. To break the deadlock and to be able to move forward, it is right that communities get a greater say. I do not plan to push the amendment to a vote today, but I trust that the Minister is hearing the importance of being able to engage with communities in order to get the right outcomes in the planning system, particularly where there is deadlock and we are on the naughty step, or at the special measures stage of the process.