Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I rise to speak to new clause 59, in my name, which considers the impact of our planning system on our creative and cultural industries and infrastructure. These spaces are the foundation of our world-beating creative industries and are also very important for our local communities. They are the engine of an industry which is growing at twice the rate of the rest of the economy. They are the R&D labs of a sector that is bigger than our automotive, aerospace and life sciences industries combined. Yet the creatives industries are under threat, including from our disruptive planning system and onerous licensing regime.

My Culture, Media and Sport Committee has heard that live music venues will be back to shutting at the rate of two a week by the end of the year. That is in addition to electronic music venues and clubs, which have been shutting at the rate of three a week. My amendment seeks to help prevent those closures by putting a duty on planning decision makers to apply the agent of change principles, which have existed since the national planning policy framework in 2018. They require developers to ensure that their developments do not disrupt existing businesses in future, as well as places of worship, schools, transport infrastructure and so on.

First, the new clause would be good for venues. Of the 86 grassroots music venues that closed in 2024, one in four shut for operational reasons, including noise abatement orders, neighbour disputes and interventions by the local councils. In the previous Parliament, the Committee I chair held a roundtable in Manchester at the Night and Day Café, an iconic venue. We were there to meet representatives of live music venues from across the north, yet the operators could not attend their own roundtable because they were instead attending a court hearing with Manchester city council to settle a three-year noise abatement dispute—a costly and pointless legal dispute at that, as it started due to a single complaint by a tenant who had moved out long before the issue was resolved.

Secondly, the new clause would be good for developers and new neighbours. Consistent application of the agent of change principle will de-risk and speed up planning and development. It will ensure that the needs of an existing cultural venue are considered from the start and save developers from late-stage objections and lengthy, expensive legal disputes down the line. It will require developers and decision makers to think about the presence of existing venues and will benefit future tenants and homeowners, who should be less impacted overall.

Finally, the new clause would help local authorities. It is councils that have the duties to detect statutory nuisance and investigate noise complaints; it is councils that serve noise abatement orders; and it is councils that get dragged into expensive and often pointless bun fights with local venues, as the Night and Day Café example illustrates. Encouraging councils to consider at the planning stage how developers and venues can find a nice equilibrium in their interests can only help to save them time and money, which is surely more efficient than settling matters in court.

The new clause has widespread support. It takes forward the recommendation of the CMS Committee in the previous Parliament and is supported by the whole live music sector, from the operators of our smallest clubs, pubs and venues to the biggest arenas and stadiums. It will benefit the breadth of our cultural infrastructure, from our historic theatres to our pulsating nightclubs. It is built on evidence given by LIVE, UK Music Creative UK, the Music Venue Trust, the Night Time Industries Association and the National Arenas Association.

The new clause is not about venues versus developers; instead, it is about ensuring we have the balance right between building enough good homes and making sure the places we are building keep the things that make life worth living. Everyone in Westminster and our constituencies agrees that our high streets have been in decline, so it is vital that we protect the places that are special to us, our constituents and our communities—the places that provide a platform for our creators and our world-beating creative industries, where we can make memories, celebrate and have fun.

I hope the Government will support my new clause and, if not today, commit to making this law as soon as possible. Live music is in crisis. The Government need to listen.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I rise to speak to amendment 87, in my name and the names of most Select Committee Chairs—certainly most of those who cover Departments—including the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), and the Chair of the Transport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury).

The amendment relates to the Government’s new approach to the consultation around national policy statements, and in particular to the parliamentary scrutiny of those statements. There is currently a process by which Select Committees join forces to examine national policy statements and provide recommendations to the Government, but the Government are proposing to introduce what they call a new “reflective amendment” procedure where an amendment to planning policy reflects new legislation, changes to Government policy or a relevant court decision since the policy guidance was put in place. We all know that the Government’s aim is to speed up the planning process, but we need to be clear that reducing parliamentary scrutiny can have long-term consequences. I am therefore seeking reassurances from the Minister as to how this will be managed.

This proposal will remove the requirement to respond to either a resolution of either House of Parliament or recommendations from a Committee of either House of Parliament on the proposed changes; instead, the Government would write to the appropriate Select Committee at the start of the public consultation period, which is typically six to 12 weeks, and the Committee would then have the option of inviting Ministers to discuss the proposed changes during that time. My fellow Chairs and I are concerned about this change reducing the Committees’ influence and enshrining in law that the Government do not need to respond to the scrutiny or recommendations of Select Committees.

[Gideon Amos]

rose—

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who has tabled a similar amendment.

[Gideon Amos]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady and the other Select Committee Chairs for taking up an issue that we took up in Committee, and about which there has been concern across the House. The Government may wish to change NPSs in the light of legal judgments, but does she agree that changes to them for policy reasons, particularly when they affect massive projects like Hinkley Point C and Sizewell, should continue to come before the House?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

If I move on to what will happen, I think the hon. Gentleman will be reassured. There is a bigger point here, which I do not have time to elaborate on in this debate. This change is part of a trend of Government not appreciating the role of thoughtful, thorough scrutiny from outside the Whitehall bubble—this is a disease affecting Governments of all parties—and of scrutiny from MPs with detailed knowledge of the subject matter. The hon. Gentleman, of course, has a strong track record on this issue outside this place, from before he became a Member of this House.

Those who scrutinise through Select Committees often understand the system, and how a change in policy or law can have a different effect within policy guidance because of the interactions it will have. The worst-case scenario here would be that a Committee did not have time to examine a proposal, or, if it did have time, that the Government ignored the recommendations. I am grateful to the Minister and his officials for the time they have spent engaging with me and the Clerk of the Liaison Committee, on behalf of the Select Committees, to try to mitigate those worst-case risks. In theory, these changes could sound quite reasonable, but in practice, there is a risk that the Government could lose a useful voice that also reflects the views of other bodies. Select Committees also get the chance to question Ministers in public, which is important for transparency and accountability. Select Committees can also give force to the views and expertise—shared in public, very often orally—of bodies with knowledge of the technical changes that could be introduced and wrapped into new or revised policy guidance.

We have all been there when, at the Dispatch Box, a Minister promises that another Minister will attend a Committee and be questioned, but we are talking about having as little as six weeks to work with. We have all been in a situation in which a Minister’s diary is so busy that it is difficult for them to attend, and that would not be good enough in this case. I hope the Minister will give some reassurance that he will, through the normal channels in Whitehall, ensure that every Department is aware of the requirement for a relevant Minister to attend within a period that allows the Committee to produce a report or respond to the Government, which does not mean at the end of a six or 12-week consultation period.

I hope the Minister can give me those reassurances. I would like him to be very clear on the record. I acknowledge the efforts made in Committee to talk about this, and some of the pledges made then, but it is important that these changes and the Minister’s views and pledges are made clear in this Chamber. In Committee, the Minister said that

“Ministers will make themselves available to speak at the Committee during that period, in so far as that is practical.”

He also said that

“not all select Committees will respond in the relevant period, therefore elongating the process”.––[Official Report, Planning and Infrastructure Public Bill Committee, 29 April 2025; c. 103.]

I can clarify for and reassure the Minister that it is the intention of those on Committee corridor to ensure that these things are dealt with in a proper and timely fashion.

I hope that the Minister will ensure both that Ministers attend in a timely fashion, and that there is a proper approach that ensures that Committees get advance notice of a new planning policy statement or revised statement, so that they have time to plan and get their ducks in a row in order to enhance the work of Government by giving them, if necessary, critical-friend comments. Scrutiny in whatever form is absolutely vital. If, as I hope, the Minister will put that on the record today, I will not push my amendment to a vote. It is vital that parliamentary scrutiny be protected as much as possible.

[Andrew George]

It is clear that we are today debating methodologies, rather than values. Certainly, I do not dispute the Minister’s values at all; we all want to see the growing need met, and the environment protected. The question that we are debating today is the best methodologies for achieving those outcomes. I have submitted a number of amendments covering three areas, which I will rattle through as quickly as I can, all of which support the themes that my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) advanced today, and indeed that he has pursued in Committee in previous weeks.

Amendment 148 relates to housing targets. It proposes allowing local authorities to adopt targets that reduce housing need, rather than simply targets to build homes. House building targets are in many areas part of the problem, rather than the solution to housing need. For example, since the 1960s, Cornwall’s housing stock has been among the fastest growing in the United Kingdom. It has almost trebled, yet housing problems for local people have got significantly worse over that time.

Simply setting house building targets results in massive hope value being attached to every single community around Cornwall. Having worked as a chief executive of a charity that tries to build affordable homes, I can say that establishing house building targets makes it more difficult to address the housing needs of local people. Targets that are about reducing need would change the dynamics of the planning system in places that face these problems.

Unfortunately, the approach to house building targets that has been adopted by parties over the previous decade is built on the delusion that private developers will collude with Governments to drive down the price of their finished product. We can no longer carry on in that delusion. We cannot and should not pursue counterproductive methodologies. Amendment 149 and new clause 108 are consequential on the fundamental change proposed in amendment 148.

My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington has spoken about introducing a new class order to address the prevalence of non-permanent occupancy in some areas. The previous Government were looking at bringing in a new class order for holiday lets, but that should be extended to second homes and all homes of non-permanent occupancy. New clause 92, which is consequential on new clause 91, proposes introducing a sunset clause for planning permission to ensure that there is not a perverse incentive for people to apply to change a property’s use in order to enhance the value of their property when they sell it. This is not about the politics of envy but the politics of social justice. I think those who represent areas or constituencies with large numbers of second homes properly understand how these things operate.

Finally, I tabled a number of amendments relating to affordability, including new clause 89 on affordable development and new clause 90. New clause 89 would prohibit cross-subsidy—or at least open-market development—on rural exception sites. Those sites should not be called rural exception sites; they should be called rural norm sites. That should be the methodology for delivering affordable homes in rural areas. It should be driven by wanting to have affordable homes in such locations.