Matthew Pennycook
Main Page: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Fifteenth sitting)
Matthew Pennycook ExcerptsThursday 14th July 2022
(2 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 View all Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 14 July 2022 - (14 Jul 2022)
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move amendment 121, in schedule 7, page 227, line 15, at end insert—
“(e) other community organisations representing members of that community”
This amendment would extend the group of determining bodies to include community groups.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Murray. Given that planning has to be about our local communities, I find it astounding how little agency communities, community groups and residents have in the process. As we heard this morning, it seems that their voices will be diminished by the Bill, rather than expanded. Therefore, I believe that my amendment would help give communities some agency within the planning process.
The Opposition really value civil society, and we value individual residents and their different views. We value businesses and our community groups, and I believe that their knowledge and passion for the local area is irreplaceable. They know the challenges, the investment that is needed, and the people. They should be the drivers of development, and they should be seen as central participants in any planning process or development. The amendment is designed to ensure that copies of reports are received by local communities, whose voices seem diminished in the Bill, because Labour wants to amplify the voices of the people most affected by planning.
In my constituency, there are just too many groups to mention. However, if we are looking at the planning process for transport, I think about the York Bus Forum, Walk York and the York Cycle Campaign, which provide the best analysis of the current and future transport needs of our city. York Civic Trust has just undertaken a piece of deliberative democracy to establish a future transport strategy, and it would want to receive a report in order to reflect on the findings and to ensure that it can fully participate in the planning process.
In York, we have a city full of historians and archaeologists who understand the value of place making; we have a university full of housing specialists; and we have York Central Co-Owned, or YoCo, which has been engaging residents in dialogue on future developments. York Disability Rights Forum can highlight issues of access. Our local enterprise partnership, universities and colleges, and business partners are working on York’s future economy. They, too, would want to be engaged in the planning process, yet community groups seem so absent and do not even receive reports of strategies in order to be able to take planning forward and to be part of the consultation on the future of what they spend 24 hours a day working for.
We have resident groups that are actively looking at planning. We all have such groups in our constituencies, and I am sure that all hon. Members will recognise their strength. We are proud of them because of their dedication and attention to detail, and the inclusion of the community is urgently needed in the planning and consultation process. My amendment would build on that expectation and stop communities being locked out of planning, because our planning system is all the poorer without them. I will shortly go on to explain why their prominence must change but, for now, I believe that the first step is to involve communities in consultations by sending over copies of strategies, which is something that the Minister should not block.
If we have such expertise in our communities, let us bring it into the heart of the planning process so that we get the very best housing, economic space and environment, and so that the people who know their area best—the local residents and other stakeholders—have greater agency in planning processes. I have tabled a number of amendments to stimulate the Government into working through how residents can have a greater say over the future of their communities.
York Central is a classic example. Right from the start of the process, the community have been told that they will have a voice in the project at the next stage. As we go through each stage and are told that their time will come, my conclusion is that they may get to choose the colour of the spring bulbs, but nothing significant. At every step of the process there is no opportunity for real community engagement. The promised voice never comes. Residents have organised into community groups with the hope that their collective voice will be heard, yet it is not.
Whether for York Central or the York local plan, the very people who should have the greatest voice have the least. In both scenarios, political expediency of the ruling council parties has placed political self-interest over the interests of the city. In York Central, the partners’ agenda is to secure the opening of the National Railway Museum by 2025—we all understand the importance of that. Network Rail getting a capital receipt has further blocked and locked out local people’s voices. The contempt is staggering.
The Minister would weep at the conduct of his own party, not to mention the Lib Dems and Greens, in the political process of planning in York. I will talk more about the solution in my next set of amendments. I urge Government to think more about the brilliance that will come from more community inclusion in the consultation processes, engaging our community groups by ensuring that they are included in the information and are sent a copy of the strategy. Surely that is the first stage.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for York Central on this sensible amendment, which I am very supportive of. It simply specifies, as she so clearly articulated, that local community groups be included in the list of bodies that are sent a copy of any joint spatial development strategy adopted.
The Government have extolled the virtues of this legislation in part on the basis that it will demonstrably improve local engagement in the planning process. It surely follows that Ministers would welcome the engagement of community organisations when it comes to the new strategies that schedule 7 provides for. Given that all the amendment does is to ensure that a copy of any such strategy created and adopted is sent to the representative community organisations, I cannot for the life of me think of a convincing reason why the Government would not accept it.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Mrs Murray. I am also keen to support the sentiment behind the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for York Central. Confidence in the planning process is at an all-time low. In any of the constituencies of right hon. and hon. Members, confidence in communities in the planning process will not be great. In mine, land is of such enormous value around national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty.
To have an amendment to the Bill that allows us to formalise a greater level of consultation and involvement of local communities seems very wise. If we can get the consent of local communities and have communities shape how they are developed in the years to come, the chance of people having confidence in the decision-making process and local democracy of the planning process is that much higher.
I am very lucky to have a constituency where every square inch is parished—there is not a single part of my community without a parish council. We have a default consultee on behalf of the community in every single town, village and valley in Westmorland and Lonsdale, and throughout much of the rest of Cumbria as well. There are community groups that ought to be formally involved in that process, so that the right decisions are made. People feel so frustrated.
In our community, we are the opposite: we want houses to be built. We see the decimation of our local communities—I can talk elsewhere about the evaporation of the housing market to second home owners and holiday lets. We desperately need homes that are affordable and available for local people. We do not get people saying, “Not in my backyard”; they are saying, “In my backyard now.” But we want houses that are useful to us: affordable, social rented and guaranteed for a local working population and those who are retired.
People are frustrated by a lack of adequate provision when it comes to drainage, flood prevention, sewerage, school places—all those sorts of things. If the community were properly involved, it would give its consent and approval to schemes that would otherwise get opposition.
We also see an imbalance in the process—the developer can appeal and the community cannot—which adds to the general sense that planning is a process by which things happen to communities, not by which communities decide what happens to them. The sentiments behind this amendment are good, and I really hope the Government will take it into account.
Rachael Maskell
I appreciate the debate that we have had on amendment 121. The parish system is incredibly good at engaging people because it is so local. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale highlighted its establishment in the rural environment, but it is less prevalent in more urban environments, so we need to look at how to encourage the growth of parish councils across the country. They can be of real value and can get people to engage in their communities. Indeed, they are a first step for many in politics, as they are a less political environment in which to make decisions about their local community. There is some real strength in that. We will talk about neighbourhood plans, and it is important that we look at their inclusion as we work through the Bill.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich for his comments about the importance of putting people at the heart of planning; they often seem very much at the periphery. I looked very carefully at the Bill before drafting the amendment, and there is a bit of a vacuum in it, so it could be strengthened. Later this afternoon I will talk a little more about the importance of agency and voice, because they are absent.
I hear what the Minister says about the other organisations that are included, and his comments are helpful. If community groups feel excluded from the process, the Minister’s words highlighted that the clauses do not exclude them. Therefore, if they are unable to get hold of a copy of a report, I am sure those words will be very valuable in raising a challenge in the planning system to ensure that people get access to data. I am happy to withdraw the amendment, but I will be returning to the scene very shortly. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Matthew Pennycook
I beg to move amendment 88, in schedule 7, page 228, leave out line 5.
This amendment, along with Amendment 89, would explicitly ensure that people would have a right to be heard at an examination in public in relation to the Joint Spatial Development Plan part of the development plan.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 89, in schedule 7, page 228, line 9, at end insert—
“(8) Any person who makes representations in relation to the strategy must (if that person so requests) be invited to appear before and be heard by the examiner.”
See explanatory statement for Amendment 88.
Amendment 90, in schedule 7, page 246, line 29, leave out lines 29 and 30.
This amendment would prevent the general rule for hearings for supplementary plans taking the form of written representations and would instead enable the examiner to determine the form of the examination.
Matthew Pennycook
As I mentioned this morning, this is an incredibly technical schedule. It covers measures as diverse as powers to intervene in local plan making, a duty to prepare local design codes, neighbourhood priority statements and many other things. The three amendments relate to the important issue of public participation in the two new constituent parts of local development plans that the schedule introduces—namely, joint spatial development strategies, which we have already discussed; and supplementary plans.
It depends whether a local planning authority is in Greater London or subject to other devolutions deals, but in the main it is local and neighbourhood plans that presently constitute the development plan for most parts of England. Clause 82(3) expands the list of what can be included in a development plan to include spatial development strategies and supplementary plans, both of which will have the same legal status as a development plan in decision making, ironically taking us back to a situation where development plans are comprised of a suite of documents, not unlike what was introduced in the 2004 reforms and scrapped in 2011 on the basis that it was all too complicated.
Matthew Pennycook
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which is a useful illustration of what local people and local community groups can add to the plan-making process.
Our specific concern is that the denial of the right to be heard on the two new documents means that, in important ways, the process of formulating a local plan could be constrained. Let me illustrate what I mean. It should be remembered that these documents are designed to resolve issues such as the local planning authorities’ approach to the green belt or strategic infrastructure. Once set, local plans will need to be in conformity with these strategies, but it will be impossible to make use of the right to be heard vis-à-vis a local plan on important issues affecting a community, because it will be in effect impossible to challenge a decision that has already been resolved by means of a spatial development strategy, in relation to which no right to be heard will exist.
The Minister will no doubt be briefed to say that rights to be heard do not apply to other strategic plans, such as the London plan or the now abolished regional plans. That is true, but the justification for the abolition of regional plans was that they were not accountable or trusted by communities. If the aim is to increase participation, why not grant these important safeguards?
On Second Reading, both the previous Secretary of State and the previous Minister championed this legislation in part because they argued that it would tangibly improve local engagement. Why, then, are the Government content to consciously and deliberately shut down the opportunity for such engagement when it comes to new joint spatial development strategies and supplementary plans?
Amendments 88 to 90 would resolve this glaring contradiction in the legislation. Taken together, amendments 88 and 89 would enshrine in the Bill the right to be heard at an examination in public in relation to a joint spatial development strategy, while amendment 90
“would prevent the general rule for hearings for supplementary plans taking the form of written representations and would instead enable the examiner to determine the form of the examination”
as they saw fit. We believe that these amount to simple but appropriate changes to schedule 7 that would restore the right to be heard and thus enable communities to engage fully at every stage of the development plan formulation process. If the Government are genuinely open to further honing and refining the Bill before it is given Royal Assent, as previous Ministers always maintained, they should accept these amendments, and I hope to hear that this Minister is content to do so.
Tim Farron
It is worth observing that a previous Government ripped up completely the spatial development strategy process, largely because of the sense that the populations of this country felt that it was utterly disconnected from the plans, desires and priorities of their communities.
If we are to go down this route and not enable a formalised process by which communities can have their voices heard when it comes to spatial development plans, we are just setting ourselves up for the same mistake that the previous Government made. If we want people to feel confident in these plans and believe that they are in their interests and right for the future of their communities, children and grandchildren, we need to give them the chance to have their voices heard and to have their say. The amendments seem entirely sensible to me.
Mr Jones
As we discussed in relation to digital reforms of the planning system, we absolutely share the objective of improving community engagement in all parts of the planning system. It is, however, appropriate to allow different procedures for that engagement, based on the role of the plan or strategy in question.
The current procedure for the examination of spatial development strategies is now well established. It is true that, unlike for local plans, there is no formal right to appear in person. However, we are confident that the current arrangements are fair, proportionate and effective. Experience shows that planning inspectors go to great lengths to ensure that a broad range of relevant interests and views are heard at examinations for spatial development strategies. The Committee may like to know that the most recent spatial development strategy examination, for the London plan in 2019, took place over 12 weeks and the list of participants ran to 27 pages.
The fundamental difference between spatial development strategies and local plans is that they do not designate or allocate specific land for development; that remains the role of the local plan. It should also be remembered that written and oral evidence carry equal weight at examination, and there is no limit on the submission of written evidence.
That brings me to amendment 90. We intend supplementary plans to replace supplementary planning documents, and, once they have successfully passed through consultation and independent examination, to be afforded the same weight as a local plan and other parts of the development plan. We are committed to a fair examination process, which is why we have based it on the arrangements for neighbourhood development plans.
The Bill sets out that, as a general rule, the independent examination of a supplementary plan is to take the form of written representations. That is expected to be more appropriate to their role in setting more specific policies for smaller areas than the local plan. The examiner must, however, hold a hearing if they think that is necessary by virtue of the issues raised or to ensure fairness. We expect there to be a need for guidance to support the independent examination of supplementary plans in general. We have been clear that we will work closely with the sector to refine our implementation plans, and we will be keen to hear views on whether further clarification on the matter of public hearings is necessary.
We have also committed to producing new guidance on community engagement in planning, which will describe the different ways in which communities can get involved and will highlight best practice. The guidance will cover supplementary plans. Given that the processes for both joint spatial development strategies and supplementary plans build on proven existing processes that have been designed to reflect their intended role, I hope the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich will feel able to withdraw the amendments.
Matthew Pennycook
As the Minister would expect, I am disappointed by his response. He said that improving community engagement was an objective of the Bill. I do not see how he can reconcile that with the decision to deny the right to be heard when it comes to the two new documents, which have the same legal status as a development plan in decision making, and, as I have argued, will constrain the local plan in many cases because they will effectively filter what local residents can have a say on in that local plan by already setting out the parameters in, for example, a joint spatial development strategy.
I am not minded to push these amendments to a vote at the moment, but we will come back to the issue. I just say to the Minister that anyone watching our proceedings who is interested in planning from a local perspective will see a pattern here of the Government constraining the ability of residents and community groups to engage, and—this is the most damaging aspect—further undermining trust and confidence in a system where trust and confidence are already at rock bottom. I urge him to reconsider over the summer. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Rachael Maskell
I beg to move amendment 122, in schedule 7, page 234, line 27, at end insert—
“(j) the timescale for the deliberative democracy process as set out in section [Deliberative democracy: local planning].”
This amendment along with Amendments 124 and 125 and NC42 will introduce a deliberative democracy process to the local plan timetable.
Matthew Pennycook
I thank my hon. Friend for tabling this group of amendments, which raise an incredibly important issue that the Bill is silent on.
Debates about whether and how to formalise arrangements for deliberative democracy within the planning system have occupied those engaged in planning policy and practice for some time. I do not intend to try to do justice to those debates or to set out the case for considering amending the Bill to introduce a deliberative democracy process within the local plan timetable—my hon. Friend has admirably made the case for the benefits that deliberative democracy can bring.
All I will say is that we support this group of amendments because we think it is right that we look to do more to encourage public participation in the planning process beyond the existing right to be heard that applies to the examination of a local development plan, if not to the new spatial development strategies and supplementary plans that this schedule gives effect to.
Tim Farron
The hon. Member for York Central will forgive me if I do not get into the internal politics of York city, but all the same I think her proposals have real merit.
It seems that the housing market—in York, in the lakes and dales, elsewhere in Cumbria and in other parts of the country as well—has got into such a ludicrous situation that our planning law is just not able to keep up with it or to provide local communities with any kind of protection or agency when it comes to challenging that spiralling, out-of-control housing market.
Fairness in the planning system is essential. It is utterly frustrating—in fact, it is absolutely heartbreaking, as the hon. Member said—when communities see the desperate need for affordable homes for families who either are local or who will become local and for those working in social care, hospitality and tourism, schools and every other part of our economy, but the planning system permits us to build for demand and not for need. Communities must have that power and that agency.
Structured fairness in the planning system is essential, but it will require resourcing because the better planning decisions are those made with the community fully involved and with the planners getting out of their offices and meeting developers and communities semi-formally on site long before a proposal has been put in, so that we end up with a proposal that is, effectively, agreed on almost in advance.
When communities feel they are having things done to them, and when whole neighbourhoods are evicted and expelled through section 21 evictions, which the Government are yet to do anything about, those communities are bound to be desperate to have control and agency, to make sure that we make the best use of the resources and powers we have. What a slap in the face it would be for communities if we went down the deliberative route and then found at the end that communities do not have any power to enforce 100% affordability on any development or the permanent occupancy of houses that are developed.
We need to give communities that proper engagement and involvement, and we need there need to be enough planners, with enough resources, so that they can get out of the office and help to communicate with the community and indeed with developers in a consensual and pragmatic way. However, if we do not have the powers and the control at local planning level, we will find people who have been consulted but who still feel completely and utterly powerless.
Rachael Maskell
We are not here to talk about politics—well, maybe we are. Before the last election it was a Conservative-led administration with the Lib Dems’ support. The Minister is right that the Lib Dems and the Greens are in charge of the administration. Labour has not had control for a significant time, although there are elections next year, so we will see.
The key point is that when there is poor planning, as there is for the site I am thinking of, and we are in a deadlock situation that will be ruinous for the future of the community, we need a resolution and tools that can be deployed to find a solution. As I have described, the site is not providing the housing that our city needs. It will block off the economic opportunity for something that is so valuable for the levelling-up agenda not just for York and North Yorkshire but for the north. We need to find some solutions and stop the exploitation of land on that site.
I thank the Minister for his comments. I will not press this amendment to a vote, but I will consider how we will come back to the issue because it is important that we get it right. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Matthew Pennycook
I beg to move amendment 99, in schedule 7, page 238, leave out lines 16 and 17.
This amendment removes the requirement in inserted section 15C(7)(b) that a local development plan must be consistent with national policies at the development plan formulation stage.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 100, in schedule 7, page 239, line 19, at end insert—
“(but may not require a local plan to be consistent with any national demand management policy)”
This amendment would provide that regulations made under inserted section 15C could not require local plans to conform with national policies.
Matthew Pennycook
The amendments relate to a matter that we have already considered at length. As such, I do not intend to detain the Committee for long in speaking to them. Their purpose is simply to draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that there are two aspects of the issues that we debated in relation to clause 83, which concerned the Government’s intention to accord primacy to national planning policy in the form of NDMPs and, as a result, to provide for a large measure of central control over local development plans.
In stating that any conflict between local development plans and national development management policies should be resolved in favour of the latter, clause 83 relates specifically to the point in time at which any planning application is determined. Proposed new subsection (5A) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 makes it clear that proposed new subsections (5B) and (5C) are
“for the purposes of any determination to be made under the planning Acts”.
They therefore do not relate to the point at which the local development plan is put together.
In schedule 7, proposed new sections 15C and 15CA of the PCPA 2004 specify that local plans must be formulated in accordance with national development management policies. That matters, because even if we had been successful in convincing the Minister to leave out proposed new subsection (5C) in section 38 of the PCPA, proposed new sections 15C and 15CA would constrain the resulting local flexibility that we would have secured at the point that a planning application is determined, because they provide for a large measure of central control over what can be in a local or neighbourhood plan in the first place.
Amendments 99 and 100 seek to address the issue by removing the provisions in proposed new sections 15C and 15CA of the PCPA that local plans should be consistent with NDMPs. In the same way that amendment 86 to clause 83 sought to give precedence to local plans when a planning application is determined, the amendments seek to ensure that local and neighbourhood plans can have a degree of flexibility within a nationally set planning policy framework at the point that they are developed, rather than the content of local and neighbourhood plans being dictated in large part by central Government.
I know the response that the Minister will give me but I again urge him to reconsider according national planning policy in the form of NDMPs precedence over local development plans—in this instance, in relation to the point in time at which local plans are developed, rather than when planning applications are determined.
Mr Jones
I thank the hon. Member for his amendment to the plan preparation provisions in schedule 7 that prevent inconsistency with national development management policies. I feel this is almost like groundhog day on this particular point.
National development management policies would sit alongside those in local plans when certain planning decisions are made, and have clear statutory weight. National development management policies will primarily be nationally important policies used for making decisions, such as green belt protection. At present, local plans take too much time to produce and are too long, and they are often hard to digest. Notably, there can be a lot of overlap with policies in the national planning policy framework of common importance, such as flood protection and the green belt, where the protections are rightly uniform throughout the country.
A critical objective of our proposed changes to the planning system is to reduce the time it takes for local plans to be produced. Reducing the need to repeat common policies on nationally important matters in local plans removes an unnecessary burden on local authorities while underpinning key national policy protections with statutory weight such as policies for controlling development in the green belt, which I have mentioned several times.
Preventing plans from being inconsistent with national development management policies will also allow local plans to focus on the issues that matter to local communities, which will be enabled to focus on crafting local policies that are tailored to local circumstances. We have heard about one set of local circumstances at some length; clearly we want to make sure that local people and their representatives can craft local polices that are tailored to local circumstances.
Matthew Pennycook
As I said, I expected that answer. The Minister said our exchanges feel somewhat like groundhog day; it will start to feel like that, because we will return to this issue. We all know how the film “Groundhog Day” ends: when the main character, Phil Connors, reforms his ways. I hope the Minister can find it in his heart to change and to shift on this issue. I will not press the amendment to a vote but we will return to this issue, at the root of which is the status and scope of local plans, on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Rachael Maskell
I beg to move amendment 126, in schedule 7, page 239, line 14, at end insert—
“(ha) Environmental Outcomes Reports,”.
This amendment would require local planning authority to have regard to Environmental Outcomes Reports in preparing a local plan.
I will be brief because we are going to say more about this issue when we deal with the environmental outcomes reports later in the Bill. If the amendment is not made, too little consideration will be given to the assessment of environmental impact. Nothing can be more important than to look at what is happening with the climate challenge. On Monday, many of us had the privilege to listen to top scientists talk about the climate risk and sketch out the profoundly troubling outcomes. We have struggled to get through this week because of the heat and people we know in our neighbourhoods are dying because of it.
We have to ensure that all outcomes seriously consider how we mitigate the climate catastrophe that we are living through. The planning process has a central role to play in that, whether in respect of transport, home heating, housing design or the industrial impacts that are having a great effect. As we all know, the current situation is not sustainable, and the Government have to focus on that at every turn. We have flooding and droughts side by side. I have tabled amendments for further discussion later in the Bill. Clause 116(2) sets out why this amendment is so important and why we must protect and restore our natural environment.
Matthew Pennycook
I thank my hon. Friend for tabling the amendment which, as she has set out, seeks to ensure that the Bill makes it clear that local planning authorities should have regard to environmental outcomes reports in preparing their local plans. We support any practical revisions to the Bill that are aimed at strengthening and enhancing the delivery of environmental outcomes. If the Government will not accept my hon. Friend’s amendment, I hope to hear from the Minister not only a convincing argument as to why but an explanation of how the Government believe the new EOR regime that is set out part 5 will interact with the preparation of local plans.
Mr Jones
The Government are clear that environmental outcomes reports will form part of the consideration of whether a local plan is adopted. The Bill already includes provisions in clauses 118 and 117 to define which plans will require assessment and how such plans should be taken into account. Although the list of plans that require assessment will be set out in secondary legislation, our commitment to the non-regression of environmental protection makes it clear that the relevant local planning authorities will need to produce an environmental outcomes report as part of their local plan adoption process. The reports will ensure that environmental outcomes are taken into account during the preparation and adoption of local plans.
The regulations will set out which projects and plans will require the preparation of an environmental outcomes report. The exact list of projects and plans that will require assessment will be worked out through consultation with the sector and relevant stakeholders. That will ensure that we can capture and use expert feedback in the design of the system.
In writing the regulations, we will be constrained by our commitment to non-regression on environmental protections. In line with that commitment, local plans will require environmental assessment, as they do in the existing system. Setting out the exact list in regulations, rather than in primary legislation, will allow flexibility, which is key, given the type of changes we see. Flexibility will mean that we can take into account new situations and the emergence of new technologies or development types. With that explanation, I hope that the hon. Member will withdraw her amendment.
Matthew Pennycook
I welcome the amendment, because it probes the Government on an intriguing, if not uncontroversial, issue of whether a formal mechanism should be put in place to ensure that local plans can be revised in line with the local electoral cycle. She made the case that that would give us the flexibility to adjust to new political priorities. Also, one of the potential benefits of allowing for a six-month review period following a local election would be that political parties in a given local authority area would at least have an incentive to raise the issue of the local development plan as part of the democratic process, thereby raising public awareness of and engagement with it.
Given the steps being taken to ensure that every local plan is reviewed at least once every five years—the Minister spoke to that—the electoral cycle as a period of time is not too out of alignment with the time period we are talking about for the review. On that basis, I welcome the amendment as a way of probing the Government on the issue, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the case that my hon. Friend made.
Mr Jones
I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Government’s proposals to get more up-to-date local plans in place. Paragraph 15GA in schedule 7 already enables a local planning authority to revise its plan at any time once it has come into force, irrespective of whether the authority has recently changed political control. My concern, however, is that by explicitly making a link between local elections and planning, the amendment risks turning a local plan into a political football. The hon. Member for York Central has told us all about what she thinks was a political football situation in her area.
For authorities that have elections in thirds, rewriting plans on the basis of election results could lead to updates three times every four years. That could lead to a constant change of direction. It would leave communities and other interested parties in a permanent state of uncertainty about what development should take place and where. Our reforms will provide welcome predictability in the local plan-making process; there will be a requirement for plans to be prepared within 30 months, and updated every five years. We think that is the right balance. I hope I have provided sufficient reassurances for the hon. Member for York Central, and that she will withdraw her amendment.
Rachael Maskell
I have gone into detail on why the Government should consider deliberative democracy. I will not repeat myself, but there is a real opportunity to enable deadlocks to be broken and to move forward with a process of engagement, so that we have a strong voice in setting neighbourhood priorities and can strengthen community voices in the planning process. I will say no more on that now, but I will return to the subject on Report. I welcome the opportunity to raise the issue again.
Matthew Pennycook
Briefly, I have made it clear on previous occasions that we support any measures in the Bill that increase local democratic control over engagement with the planning process, principally as a means of restoring trust and confidence in the planning system. Although the Bill requires a body preparing a neighbourhood priority statement to publish the proposal in draft so that people who live, work or carry on business in the neighbourhood to which it relates can comment on it, I appreciate that the thrust of the amendments is to ensure that a degree of proactive consultation takes place at the point when the proposal is being put together, rather than providing the opportunity to comment on it once it is finalised. On that basis, we are happy to support the amendments, which would ensure that local stakeholders and community groups were treated as statutory consultees in the preparation of those statements.
Mr Jones
It is of course vital that communities are given every opportunity to have their say on draft local plans and supplementary plans. The English planning system already gives communities a key role, so that they can play an active part in shaping their areas and, in doing so, build local pride and belonging. In the Bill, we are not changing that; in fact, we are strengthening it. I have set out elsewhere how that will be achieved.
The powers we are discussing have been used only sparingly in the past. That is expected to remain the case under the reformed plan-making system. However, they act as an important safety net to ensure that all areas can benefit from having up-to-date plans in place. I provide reassurance that were the Secretary of State or a local plan commissioner ever to take over plan preparation using the powers in the Bill, the plan would need to undergo public consultation, like any other plan. Like other procedural requirements, that will continue to be set out in secondary legislation, akin to the existing Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012, using powers set out elsewhere in the Bill. Incorporating the amendment into proposed new section 15HA is therefore unnecessary.
The hon. Member for York Central raises the important issue of engagement with the community on the preparation of neighbourhood priority statements. I hope that I can reassure her that the amendment is not necessary. The purpose of neighbourhood priority statements is to provide communities with a simpler and more accessible way to set out their priorities and preferences for the local area, including in relation to the use and development of land, housing, the economy, the environment, public spaces and local facilities.
Proposed new section 15K(6) under the schedule gives the Secretary of State powers to set out in regulations the procedures that neighbourhood planning groups must follow when preparing their neighbourhood priority statements. The Government’s intention is to use the power to set out the requirements that neighbourhood planning groups must meet in order to ensure that they engage widely. We are testing different approaches to community engagement through our simpler approach to neighbourhood planning pilot, which got under way earlier in the year.
I hope that I have provided sufficient reassurances for the hon. Member to withdraw the amendment.
Rachael Maskell
I think that we have to part ways on the issue of the planning process. I am not satisfied that it gives residents their rightful voice. I will not press the Committee to a Division, but giving our communities the opportunity to have a real say will be a major theme on Report. The Government are taking away their voices, but we want to empower them. After all, when people said, “Give us back control”, it was these very issues—their lives, communities and neighbourhoods—that people wanted control over. The Government have not heard that message, whereas we clearly want to respond. Even though my amendment would have enabled us to address why plans run into difficulty and fail to progress, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Matthew Pennycook
I beg to move amendment 109, in schedule 7, page 262, line 7, at end insert—
“(1A) A local planning authority must have regard to the content of any relevant neighbourhood priorities statement in the exercise of its planning functions.”
As we have just discussed, proposed new section 15K introduces a new neighbourhood planning tool, the neighbourhood priorities statement. According to the Bill’s explanatory notes, these statements will allow communities to identify key priorities for their local area, including their preferences in relation to development, with the intention of providing a simpler and more accessible way for communities to participate in neighbourhood planning.
The provision is clearly a response to the fact that the vast majority of the 1,061 neighbourhood plans made to date have emanated from more affluent parts of the country, where people have the time and the resources to prepare and implement them, rather than from less affluent areas and more complex urban environments. We very much welcome the fact that the Government are engaging with this real problem.
Mr Jones
I welcome the Opposition’s support for neighbourhood planning. However, I do not agree that the amendment is necessary to ensure that neighbourhood priorities statements are properly considered in the planning process. The amendments made by schedule 7 set out that local planning authorities must have regard to any neighbourhood priorities statements in their areas when preparing their local plans. That will be tested independently at examination, which I think is an important point. The new local plan will be informed by any neighbourhood priorities statements and, alongside any neighbourhood plans in force, will form the basis for decisions on individual planning applications and enforcement decisions.
To respond to the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, the intent is not for neighbourhood priority statements to replace a community’s ability to engage and form a neighbourhood plan. However, we do not want to create another layer to the formal development plan by turning priorities statements into a form of plan. That would make the planning system more complex and go against what we are trying to achieve with our reforms.
We are clear that the planning process must be more democratic, which is why we are making it easier and simpler for communities to engage. In addition to neighbourhood priorities statements, communities will be also be able to engage through new measures, including mandatory design codes, allowing communities to be directly involved in making rules on how they want developments to look and feel, with a much greater emphasis on environmental sustainability; street votes, allowing residents to propose developments on their street and for a vote to be held on whether planning permission should be given; and measures on street names, removing a local authority’s ability to impose street name changes on a community and instead requiring it to first obtain support from a majority of the local electorate on the street.
We are clear that communities should be at the heart of the local plan-making process, which is why we intend to include a requirement for two rounds of community engagement, for a minimum of eight and six weeks respectively. That is longer than the current statutory minimum.
We will create new guidance on best practice in community engagement, including digital approaches to engagement with sector experts, to provide local authorities and developers with a toolkit to improve local engagement. We will ensure that all members of the community have the opportunity to engage if they wish, supported by digital tools to make engagement easier and more accessible, bringing the current system into the 21st century. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich will withdraw his amendment.
Matthew Pennycook
I welcome the Minister’s response and the clarification he provided. I am largely reassured, although I am still not entirely clear on the weight that those statements will have in development management decisions on individual applications. I will, however, review what he said, so on that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Matthew Pennycook
I beg to move amendment 101, in schedule 7, page 270, line 31, at end insert—
“(4) In this part—
‘mitigation of climate change’ means compliance with the objectives and relevant budgetary provisions of the Climate Change Act 2008;
‘adaptation to climate change’ means the achievement of long-term resilience to climate-related risks, including the mitigation of the risks identified in relation to section 56 of the Climate Change Act 2008, and the achievement of the objectives of the relevant flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy made pursuant to section 7 of the Flood and Coastal Water Management Act 2010.”
This amendment requires references to climate change mitigation and adaptation in the inserted sections on plan making to be interpreted in line with the Climate Change Act 2008.
The debates we have had so far in relation to planning have focused heavily on the detailed procedures for how plans are made. We have spent far less time considering the practical outcomes that we want the planning system to help achieve and its role in enabling us to meet a number of significant challenges that we face as a country. I recognise that we will have time to do so after the summer recess, when we consider any proposed new clauses on the purpose of planning. However, we feel it is important that we also seek to amend those parts of the Bill that touch on some of those challenges but that do not necessarily ensure that we are doing what is necessary to meet them.
Of all the challenges we face, the most pressing is that of runaway global heating. Despite the desire of several Conservative party leadership candidates to abandon it, there is broad public support for bold climate action, and a strong cross-party consensus about the importance of the UK’s net zero target. Yet, in its latest annual progress report, the Committee on Climate Change found that the current Government’s policies
“will not deliver Net Zero”,
that the country is on track for only eight of 50 key indicators of progress, with 11 significantly off track, and that no credible plans exist for 61% of required emissions cuts.
When it comes to planning, one can point to a few exemplar development schemes across England, but, in general terms, we have failed to ensure that the planning system is playing its full part in tackling the climate emergency. Indeed, one might go so far as to argue that it is actively hindering our ability to mitigate and adapt to climate change in myriad different ways, whether that be planning decisions enabling the building of new homes in places prone to flooding or unplanned development resulting in new communities that are entirely dependent on cars. More must therefore be done to ensure that the planning system effectively contributes to the delivery of our emission reduction targets and that new development produces resilient and climate-proofed places.
The amendment seeks to achieve that aim by ensuring that the process of plan making is fully aligned with the commitments set out in the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. It would do so by clarifying the meaning of climate change mitigation and adaptation in the Bill in such a way as to tie them directly to those Acts, thereby strengthening the duty placed on plan making via a 2008 amendment to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 that ensured that all plans contribute to the mitigation and adaptation of climate change.
By ensuring that there is genuine coherence between the country’s planning system and its climate commitments, the amendment would also provide the foundation for more detailed national policy on how planning will contribute to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 and mitigating climate change as fully as possible in the forthcoming NPPF review. I hope that, in his response, the Minister will be able to pick that up and provide us with an update on when we might see that issue addressed in that NPPF review.
To conclude, we all know that the planning system must be aligned with net zero if we are to achieve our legally binding interim targets. I can think of no reason whatsoever that proposed new section 15LH, set out in schedule 7, should not be amended to give effect to that objective in relation to changes made to plan making in the Bill. On that basis, I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment.
Tim Farron
I, too, am deeply concerned by the noises from some of those seeking to become leader of the Conservative party, and therefore Prime Minister, on issues to do with climate change and net zero. I think that they are unwise, politically. When all is said and done, the public are convinced of the need to take serious and radical action. They recognise it as the biggest earthly threat that we face. We must face it together, or we will indeed fall together.
This is where local authorities have the opportunity to make a huge difference in the planning process. I am going to pull out two examples to illustrate why it is so important for the planning system to be tied very closely to the need to comply with the terms of the Climate Change Act 2008. The first is, of course, zero-carbon homes. When we are building new buildings, whether they be homes for us to live in or business properties, we should ensure that they are all compliant. We know that planning committees currently want to make new developments zero carbon, to ensure that they are contributing to renewable energy and minimising any wastage of energy whatsoever, and yet in the final analysis they cannot do so, because it is not enforceable. This Committee has the ability to make the law so that they could do that. Why would we not do that? Why would we not give communities the power and agency to actually enforce zero-carbon homes and buildings in our communities?
As I said earlier, at some point in August—after an eight-month delay—we expect the inspector to announce whether the UK will open its first coalmine for 30 years, in west Cumbria. We obviously should not do that. We will wait and see what the inspector says, and then we will wait and see what the Secretary of State says in response. It should be a no-brainer. If we are acting in line with the terms of the Climate Change Act, we are not going to be sanctioning the digging up of more fossil fuels for any purpose at all.
Those powers should be held by local authorities so that planning authorities can put in practice what we as a national community and family have agreed are our priorities. That power is not present. This amendment, I hope, provides the possibility that it could be.
Mr Jones
I am sure we all agree that climate change is one of the central issues of our time. It is therefore critical that the reformed planning system addresses that issue effectively. That is why the Bill sets out that local plans
“must be designed to secure that the development and use of land in”
the local planning authority areas
“contribute to the mitigation of, and adaption to, climate change.”
I think we can all see from the last few days and what is likely to happen early next week that things have changed even since a few short years ago, when you and I first came into this House, Mrs Murray. Also, the national planning policy framework already requires local planning authorities to plan in line with the objective and provisions of the Climate Change Act 2008. But we recognise the need to do more. That is why the Government also made a commitment to update the framework to ensure that it contributes to climate change mitigation and adaptation as fully as possible. I heard what the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich said. I have undertaken previously during this sitting to write to him about the review of the national planning policy framework, and I will include the response to the question that he has just asked.
We will also be consulting on this as part of wider changes needed to deliver on the Bill’s ambitions after Royal Assent, and we will consult shortly on some immediate changes to deliver on commitments in the British energy security strategy, to help lower energy bills and increase our energy security.
Therefore, although I understand the spirit of this amendment, the Government must oppose it to ensure that this important issue can be properly considered and addressed through a review of national policy, which will go out to consultation next year, but I will come back, with further information, to the hon. Gentleman. On that basis, I hope that he will withdraw his amendment.
Matthew Pennycook
I thank the Minister for that detailed response, but what I did not hear was a convincing argument as to why the Government cannot accept this amendment, which would simply alter the definitions of climate change mitigation and adaptation in the Bill so that they aligned with the legislation that we have been talking about. We feel quite strongly on this matter, and I will press the amendment to a Division.
Question put, That the amendment be made.