Draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Robertson. I thank the Minister for that explanation of the instrument before us.

We welcome the regulations, which, as we heard, increase the fees payable for major and non-major planning applications for the first time since 2018, add an annual inflation indexation of those fees, and make changes to both fees payable for repeat applications and the planning guarantee period for non-major applications.

Local authorities play an instrumental role in efforts to meet housing need and demand, yet many are struggling to fulfil their responsibilities due to a lack of capacity, capability, skills and resourcing in their planning departments. As a report published last year by the House of Lords Built Environment Committee put it, we face an “evolving crisis”, with local planning authorities under-resourced and consequently unable to undertake a variety of skilled planning functions effectively. The resources dedicated to planning within local authorities, which were never particularly high by international standards even before 2010, have fallen dramatically over the past 13 years, primarily as a result of local authority belt tightening in response to central Government funding cuts.

The “Planning for new homes” report published by the National Audit Office in February 2019 found that between 2010-11 and 2017-18 there was a 37.9% real-terms reduction in net current expenditure on planning functions by local councils. Even when the income that authorities generated from fees, sales and charges or transfers from other public authorities was considered, the report concluded that total spending on planning had fallen by 14.6% in real terms between the dates in question—from £1.125 billion to £961 billion. Given that context, I would be grateful if the Minister could tell the Committee whether the Government are considering any other means, beyond the fee increases provided for by this instrument, to provide local authority planning services with additional funding.

Although the fee increases provided for by the regulations will not compensate fully for the sharp real-terms reductions in funding that authorities have had to cope with over recent years, they do have the potential to help enable local planning authorities to better deliver the service that applicants and the public rightly expect. I use the word “potential” deliberately, because there is a justifiable concern that increased revenue from planning application fees will not necessarily be allocated to planning departments or lead to improved performance. Although there is both a clear expectation and a requirement in primary legislation for planning fees to be used by local authorities to perform the function of determining planning applications, in practice many councils use planning fee income, despite the lack of surplus, to cross-subsidise other services. If they did not, the Government would never have felt the need even to consult on ringfencing in their “Increasing planning fees and performance” technical consultation earlier this year.

As such, what further assurances can the Minister provide today that the Government’s expectations—and ours—and the statutory requirements in respect of revenue generated from planning fees will be adhered to? In addition, can she confirm that the Department plans to begin actively monitoring how planning fees are generated and used, and evaluating whether they are having a beneficial impact on performance?

I would also be grateful if the Minister could provide further clarity on what other steps the Department is taking to ensure that local planning authorities are improving their performance. When the other place considered these regulations last week, Baroness Swinburne, speaking for the Government, referred to “a new framework” that will measure local authority performance across

“a wider set of criteria to ensure that local authorities are delivering on all fronts, for all users of the system.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 October 2023; Vol. 833, c. 141.]

Can the Minister tell us when that new framework is expected to be put in place?

Lastly, increasing fees by the proposed amount or in isolation, even if supplemented by other funding sources, will almost certainly not be enough to address the capacity and capability issues faced by local planning authorities. As the Minister knows, difficulties in recruiting and retaining principal planners, and a shortfall of specialist skills, is another significant challenge. Although the Government have seemingly abandoned the proposals in the 2020 “Planning for the future” White Paper for a comprehensive resources and skills strategy, the policy paper that accompanied the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill committed Ministers to bringing forward a planning skills strategy. Can the Minister tell us whether the Department still intends to publish one, and if so, when?

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point, and the feedback is noted, but what I was talking about regarding planning performance is a policy decision that we are in the process of making. I am sure that further legislation will come forward in due course.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rachel Maclean]

I will, briefly, but then I want to make progress.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I appreciate the Minister’s giving way. She has provided some useful additional clarity on performance and funding. May I press her on greater transparency, and the Department’s monitoring of how the increased planning fees are used? Does it monitor how fees are generated and used by planning authorities across the country? If not, will it start to, and will it actively track whether the increased fees are contributing to the improved performance that we all want?

[Rachel Maclean]

Yes, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that is one of the core activities that I carry out in my role, with the assistance of my civil servants and various teams that feed into this. I have already spoken about our powers to intervene where local authorities are not performing. On top of that, we expect that the additional funding that we are giving through the separate funding pots that I referred to, and this new broader funding, will be spent, and we can track performance. Notwithstanding the challenge put to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, we intend to bring forward details of how we will track performance. I know that every Member in this House is very interested in how their local authority performs on planning applications, because we are often the first to receive complaints when they not performing well.

My hon. Friend has indicated his concerns about the disproportionate impact of the fees. I obviously take that on board, and we have considered that carefully; that is why the fee for householders will rise only from £206 to £258. We consider that to be proportionate, given the need. Planning services do not make a profit from fees; the services are still subsidised through wider funding. It is not a cost-recovery fee. Applicants still benefit from what they pay, even with the increase. He raised the point about people making modifications for disabled residents of a property. They will still be exempt. The current set of exemptions will still apply, so people in that situation will rightly not be charged; he is right to say that.

[Rachel Maclean]

The changes that we are making have removed the “free go”; we debated that in the House in proceedings on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. We made that change because the free go placed a disproportionate burden on planning departments, and added to their overall workload.

It is really important to look at this small increase in the round. We are talking about increasing capacity and providing a better service across the board. I have recent experience of making a planning application to my local authority, so I know how much work is involved. When people pay a fee, they want to get a good service. If we resource the system as a whole to a greater extent—I hope Members will be reassured, both by this instrument and by the other grants that we have mentioned, that we are doing that—small householders building an extension will see a better service overall, and that should minimise the need for repeat applications. The idea is to capture everything up front.

It is also important to note that we are embarking on an ambitious programme to digitise the whole system. Members will know how paper heavy the system is now. That is where mistakes creep in and things need to be repeated. By improving the whole system overall, we will remove the need for repeated applications and, I hope, provide a fairer service.

My hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich asked me about flooding, so I will touch on that before I wind up. We have all seen the recent events, which I know have affected his area greatly. All our sympathies are with the people affected, and I hope that they can be back in their homes soon. He will know that the national planning policy framework—the planning system more broadly—already takes account of flooding. Work has been done on this matter by my colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, particularly in setting up the Flood Re scheme and making sure that planning applications and local plans are made with flooding in mind.

We will be going further. My hon. Friend will know of the work that we have done through the national development management policies; we debated again yesterday on the Floor of the House when considering the Lords message how the planning system responds to climate change, of which flooding is one manifestation. We have been clear that we intend to strengthen our approach, to give planners and the country the reassurance that the planning system can respond adequately to climate change and help us achieve our net zero objectives.

[Matthew Pennycook]

The Minister has missed out one of my questions. Will we see the planning skills strategy that was promised in the policy paper that accompanied the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill?

[Rachel Maclean]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s eagerness to see that, and we will bring it forward in due course. If he will allow me, I will write to him with more details on the timeline.

I thank Members for their interest in this matter. I must reiterate that it is critical that we have well-resourced, effective and efficient local planning services so that development is not delayed. We need to build the right houses for our country, in the right places, and planning is critical to that. The regulations will contribute to that by delivering much-needed additional resources. As I hope I have said multiple times, we are clear that local planning authorities must invest the additional income from the increase in planning application fees in their planning service. Improvements will enable speedier delivery and the economic growth that our country needs. I hope the Committee will welcome these important and necessary regulations.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2023.