Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Robert Neill Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

No, they said it was the lack of clarity from the UK Government.

Thirdly, the reason we have been one of only two G20 countries in a double-dip recession is not the planning system but the Government’s failed economic policies. The Secretary of State is in a very uncomfortable position today as his whole argument, which is that the Bill will give us growth, has been undercut by the Prime Minister. Let me remind the House of what the Prime Minister said in the summer:

“If you could legislate your way to growth, obviously we would. The truth is you can’t.”

That is what the Prime Minister said.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Against that background, will the right hon. Gentleman explain why under the Government of whom he was a member the UK fell from fourth to 89th in the global rankings for the burden of Government regulation? How would he put that right if he were in our place?

[Hilary Benn]

I do not know which survey the hon. Gentleman means, but as he knows, we did a great deal.

[Robert Neill]

I mean the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness report—those reports run from 1997 through to 2012-13. I can show it to him if he would like to see it.

[Hilary Benn]

As the hon. Gentleman has a wee bit more time on his hands these days, I would very gladly read a copy of that report. He knows that the previous Government did a number of things to boost the economy and economic development, and he must acknowledge that when the coalition Government took over, the economy was growing. The Chancellor’s spectacular achievement has been to put that growth into reverse.

This is a flawed and incoherent Bill that shows why the Prime Minister was right to say that it is not possible to legislate for growth. It is no wonder that Sir Merrick Cockell, the Conservative leader of the LGA, described it as a missed opportunity. The only thing that will grow as a result of the Bill will be the power of the Secretary of State, who is mentioned 144 times in just 45 pages—that is going some.

Now, why is that? The truth that the right hon. Gentleman would not utter is that the Bill marks the death of his commitment to localism—the localism that he used to proclaim with such passion and sincerity. It is actually a Bill that says, “You know what? You can’t trust local people to take the right decisions, so we’ll take the decisions.” It was noticeable that clause 1 was the bit of the Bill that he was most reluctant to talk about. It is extraordinary. Ministers have tried to dress it up today—the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who has responsibility for planning, did so when he appeared before the Communities and Local Government Committee—as a minor change that will be used sparingly in a few authorities, apparently, he said, for a maximum of one year. But the Bill says none of those things. Nowhere does it say that. The Government are making this up as they go along. What the Bill does say is that the right hon. Gentleman would take for himself the power to decide on planning applications and cut local communities right out of the process for as long as he likes.

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[Hilary Benn]

I certainly will come on to that point, but those conversations with the LGA will be jolly interesting. The Secretary of State is apparently going to say, “Can we sit down and talk about the criteria? By the way, whatever they are, they have to include Hackney, because I have just told the House of Commons that Hackney is the worst of the lot.” He has fettered his own discretion and will regret that answer.

The argument that this proposal is like the regime for failing schools falls at the first hurdle. We can judge whether a failing school is improving, because it will still be treating the children, but if we take responsibility for planning applications away from local councils and decide them centrally, we will have no way of knowing whether the planning authority is improving because it will not be taking any decisions. That is nonsense. And as for quality, I say to the Secretary of State and the Minister with responsibility for planning that there can be no real measure of it, because it is a matter of opinion and local democratic accountability, which is why we have had local decision making on planning applications for 60 years.

[Robert Neill]

Where was the local democratic accountability in the regional spatial strategies?

[Hilary Benn]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s argument. The regional spatial strategies meant that local authorities had a responsibility to build houses. He has to acknowledge, however, that the regime before us, which I recognise he played an important part in setting up, will produce exactly the same numbers. That is because the same number of people will need to be housed and there will be the same increase in population. They are two different ways of doing it. However, it is the Secretary of State who has made great play of localism but who is now turning it on its head.

If the Secretary of State is thinking of using as his proxy the speed and percentage of planning applications overturned, people should, as I have indicated, go away very quickly and see where their local authorities are in the league table. To add insult to injury, however—this is pretty bad—he is taking the power to require local authorities to do all the work in connection with applications, even though they will not be taking the decisions and even though the Planning Inspectorate will be paid the fees. That is what he is doing in the Bill.

These are the same planning officers in whom the Secretary of State, in effect, had no confidence to start with—that is why he chose to designate authorities. It is therefore crystal clear what the clause is about: it is about his saying, in respect of councils whose decisions he does not like or which he thinks are being too tardy, that it is the elected council members whom he does not trust. That makes the purpose of the clause plain. He is saying, “I want this power because I think I’m in a better place to take decisions than the local communities themselves.” That is why the clause is so objectionable.

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[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I always appreciate forays into family history from those on the Opposition Front Benches, and I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) is not in his place. I imagine that democratic centralism was imbued into him at the paternal knee. His references to it were undoubtedly entertaining, although the House might appreciate a modest reality check thereafter. A reality check, it seems to me, is an old advocate, and in my experience a fair one. The weaker one’s opponent’s case, the more rhetoric they feel obliged to use. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench will take on board the reality, which is that the Government inherited a planning system that was seriously failing. We have put in place important measures to improve things through the Localism Act 2011 and the national planning policy framework, and improvements are being seen.

Under the previous Government’s watch, the Killian Pretty review pointed out that only three out of 64 major schemes proceeded without delay and referred to the expense that that brings. This Government have been trying to put that right. A number of measures in the Bill pick up on issues that were flagged up in the consultation on the NPPF, so the suggestion that they are incompatible is nonsense. The NPPF did not require primary legislation because it was a matter of policy. The issues that were flagged up and are dealt with in the Bill do require primary legislation, so it is perfectly logical to legislate to put those measures in place.

Let me deal with clause 1, about which there has been much heat and not much light from Opposition Members. I take on board—I have no doubt the Minister will confirm this—the response by the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) to the Communities and Local Government Committee. In reality, most planning authorities do a good job, but there are issues about the capacity of smaller local planning authorities. Some matters do not require legislation, but are gradually being dealt with by good practice within the local authority sector itself. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) referred to the capacity of planning departments, particularly in some small rural district councils, and, increasingly, shrewd councils in such circumstances are sharing their planning departments. Those of us who have spent many years in local government hope that that will become the norm rather than the exception, and that valuable and comparatively expensive professional services will be shared across a number of planning authorities. That does not alter the position of local councillors, who are accountable to their electors as members of the planning authority, but sharing professional advice makes obvious common sense in the circumstances I mentioned.

That said, although there is good progress, and although the planning guarantee has been an important factor in raising the performance bar, a small number of local authorities consistently do not meet that requirement. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State set out, that is exactly what the Bill intends to deal with. It does not take many planning authorities to hold up important schemes. That stance is echoed by the Home Builders Federation, which does not regard the Bill as sweeping away the majority of planning authority procedures. In my experience as a Minister and shadow Minister, house builders work hard with local authorities. Good volume house builders such as Berkeley Homes and Countryside Properties generally do not end up on appeal, because they “roll the turf” first, using the requirement for pre-engagement and consultation with councillors, council officers and their communities. That works in many cases. The Home Builders Federations has stated that it welcomes

“the option of, in extremis, enabling home builders to apply to the Secretary of State where a local authority has a record of very poor performance.”

That is what clause 1 is about—it is sensible and proportionate.

[Mr Raynsford]

The hon. Gentleman has said twice that a small number of authorities have, in his view, an unacceptably poor standard of performance. Will he please name them?

[Robert Neill]

The right hon. Gentleman tries the same old trick as the shadow Secretary of State. Importantly, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made it clear that there will be criteria, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has said there will be criteria and an objective test. I am not foolish enough to go down the route the right hon. Gentleman suggests, because I am not privy to the work that we did to develop the objective test, but I have complete confidence that the test will be a sensible one. The point he attempts to make is a bogus one, as he well knows. With every respect to him, I ought to be used to that by now.

The second point to remember about clause 1 is that, although it has been suggested there is no right of appeal, the clause shows common sense. If in a rare number of cases a decision is taken by the Secretary of State, he can hardly appeal against it—that would be nonsense. However, the option of judicial review on that decision remains. As all hon. Members know, recent experience indicates that developers and other groups have not been slow to exercise the right of judicial appeal when they think there are grounds. The safeguard that remains is therefore a significant one.

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman is too wise to fall into the Opposition’s trap of naming specific authorities that, in the phrase he used, were guilty of poor performance, but will he define what he means by poor performance?

[Robert Neill]

I do not have all the information that Ministers have to draw a distinction, but the statutory time limits in which decisions must be taken, the planning guarantee and adherence to the mechanism of voluntary local planning agreements would be a starting point in determining performance. I have perfect faith in Ministers to develop sensible and transparent criteria, and that they will assure us on that. Those proportionate and sensible proposals complement existing policy.

The same applies to clause 2 and the question of costs. Some fuss was made about costs, but I hope it was based on a misunderstanding of the proposal. Clause 2 enables the Secretary of State to claim the costs of an appeal proceeding against unreasonable behaviour by any party to the appeal. It does another important thing: at the moment, in the limited circumstances in which costs can be awarded, there is an all-or-nothing situation—a party can get the whole of the costs or none. The position set out in subsections 2(1) to 2(5) is a sensible one. They mean that, where appropriate, a proportion of costs can be awarded, to reflect the fact that more than one party is responsible for delays in the conduct of the appeal. Currently, costs tend to be thrown away only when there is a public inquiry, but clause 2 sensibly says that costs can be awarded, when appropriate, when delays arise from written representations. That system works perfectly normally in virtually every other kind of civil and commercial litigation in this country. To introduce a similar and equally proportionate measure for planning is more than reasonable.

This Government have given local power to local authorities. The previous Government authored the imposed regional strategies and a standards regime that was often regarded as intimidatory by many councillors who spoke out on behalf of their residents, and they gave us 13 years of rate capping, to name but a few of their measures. It is understandable that local authorities felt they had no power in such centralising circumstances. We have returned genuine power in all those matters to local authorities, and it is not unreasonable to say, “With power comes responsibility.” In quasi-judicial matters such as planning, it is not unreasonable for us to say, “You must carry out the decisions entrusted to you in a timely and efficient manner.” In reality, that is what clauses 1 and 2 are about. It is nonsense for the Opposition to suggest otherwise.

I welcome other important measures in the Bill. I was particularly pleased to see the tidying up in clause 6 of loose legislation that this Government inherited from the previous one. The duplication of consents regimes needed to be dealt with.

I also welcome the provisions of clause 8, which deals with minerals planning. The ready supply of minerals and aggregates is important to the economic growth of this country. Generally, the minerals planning industry has shown good social and environmental sense in carrying out what is sometimes sensitive extraction. The extraction can happen only where the minerals exist, so giving more flexibility to local authorities in when they carry out minerals plans reviews is sensible. It is localist, but it also enables investors in minerals planning to have appropriate confidence to make the investment necessary. That is a small but critical step, because minerals and aggregates are critical to the construction industry. It will be worth flagging that up during debates on the Bill.

On business rates, I urge my hon. Friends the Ministers not to be put off by some of the specious arguments from the Opposition. The previous Government have on their track record one of the worst examples of abuse of the business rates system to the detriment of small and medium-sized businesses that I have ever come across. They obdurately refused, in the face of overwhelming evidence, to remove an effectively retrospective tax on businesses in our ports, which put firms out of business and put British workers out of jobs, and caused serious British investors, such as DFDS Seaways and others, to rethink their UK investment plans. The previous Government did nothing about that despite having the clearest evidence in front of them. One of the first legislative acts of this Government reversed that injustice and safeguarded that important British business sector. I therefore hope my hon. Friends the Ministers will take no lectures on that from Labour.

As has been amply demonstrated, there is good evidence to suggest that, because of the interaction of the rental values that are used to calculate business rates and the multiplier, it would be misleading to tell people that revaluation will automatically result in a reduction of the amount of business rate paid. I therefore hope that Ministers will not be put off course on that. It is also worth bearing in mind the other assistance that this Government have given, particularly through small business rate relief, which we extended for an unprecedented period—again, something that Labour did not do. The democratic centralists—[Interruption]—or, lest there be any confusion, what I might call the “cradle” democratic centralists, have been long on rhetoric, but rather short on evidence. I hope the House will see through them and support this sensible and constructive Bill.